52:42:Carve

Claire loves pumpkins.  Every day it's a race to get up to the front of the house to hug the pumpkins or say hi to the pumpkins.  I thought for sure it would be really traumatic for her to see them cut open this year, but she was too excited to reach inside and grab the goop.  Until Mommy started dropping the goop from the other pumpkin right on to the newspaper-covered floor.  Then Claire started to scream about how messy this was and had to clean up the mess for us.  What kind of monster have I raised?

Claire and Mommy, getting down to business.

We carved an Elmo pumpkin and a Hello Kitty pumpkin.  Elmo didn't make it a whole three days until Halloween, unfortunately, but Hello Kitty stayed awesome.  My hand, however, suffered some major blisters plus I pulled away the skin around my finger nail with all my intricate carving.  Whoever thought pumpkin carving kits and stupid patterns with little tiny pieces to cut out was a good thing deserves to have a pumpkin thrown at them.  Seriously.  What were they thinking?

Hello Kitty, whose whiskers and broom were almost too much for me to handle.

Elmo--who looks completely sturdy, sure, but somehow still managed to cave in almost immediately.  Ugh.

I'm really a sucker for seeing Claire excited, though.  These pumpkins definitely produced great responses from her.  I'm so glad that she can be excited about things now and recognize things.  Nothing made my heart happier than hearing her yell "Elmo!" as soon as she saw the first pumpkin.  Of course, she called Hello Kitty a witch, and if you've ever heard a toddler say "witch"... well... I'm glad we have exposed her to Hello Kitty enough where she also said "Hello Kitty witch"... so you didn't automatically assume she was calling me another word that sounds an awful lot like it... ;) Happy Halloween!