Halloween 2012 - Pumpkin Carving with Carmen

Tonight we did our annual October tradition of pumpkin carving. Unfortunately, the pumpkins we were able to get this year were pretty sad. The shape was okay, but they were small with incredibly thick walls. So small, that the face I carved had to have its features so close together that we had a bit of an accident in which the eye hole broke through to the nose hole. Mistakes happen even to the worst of us pumpkin carvers. Last year we had a great time inviting our three-floors-down neighbor, Carmen up to participate. She and Nora get along splendidly and the quality of her parents is apparent in her excellent behavior. We invited her up this year as well. She had a friend over visiting, so we invited her as well, but she was too shy to come play with us, so she, rather unfortunately, stayed in Carmen's house playing with Carmen's toys while we carved our pumpkin.

Carmen brought some candy with her, "to put in the pumpkin". I found this misunderstanding quite understandable and funny. So many of the jack-o-lanterns that Spanish children see are from American cartoons, and they've all seen the ubiquitous plastic candy basket shaped like a jack-o-lantern that kids carry around to go trick-or-treating. Pretty reasonable that she'd think pumpkins were for holding candy. Very cute.

I have such fond, sepia-tinted memories of the tactile sensation of reaching into a freshly opened gourd. I'm glad I can share it with my child.

The pumpkin was so small that my hand wouldn't fit. Luckily we had child labor available!

Traffic jam!

Real friends help you clean gourd goop off your hands.

Once the pumpkin was emptied and I scraped it out a bit with a spoon, it was time to do the carving. The girls said, "Okay, now what can we do?" I suggested they play with the goop they'd removed from the pumpkin. Oh my, what a mess they made!

Nora complained briefly about her hands itching, and I remembered how last year her face had swollen up a bit during pumpkin carving, but she had no further symptoms this year.

Caught orange-handed. Off to the bathroom for some scrubbing, young ladies!

Scary!!

Long exposure photography with three and four year olds is not easy. How we have any clear daguerreotypes of children is a mystery to me. The room was completely dark for this shot, and the camera picked up the light from the street lamps outside.

Remind anyone of The Shining?

Happy Halloween, everybody!