Cat-O-Lantern

"We've decided what we want carved on our pumpkins," Naomi announced several weeks ago, "We want a flower on one and a cat on the other." I do not spoil my children, I certainly do not cater to their every whim, but when I've decided to do something special for them, like carving pumpkins, I do hate to let them down. But a flower and a cat? I decided to take a wait-and-see approach, hoping that perhaps they would take an interest in geometric shapes, say a triangle and a rectangle?

Tonight, the night before trick-or-treating, I had delayed all I could, and the girls' desire for a flower and a cat stood firm. So I rolled up my sleeves, picked out the thinnest knife I could find, and gathered the girls around. Toby was also interested in the knives and the guts of the pumpkin, but he lost the privilege of watching after he head-butted the pumpkin I was carving. One-and-a-half hours later three excited little girls stood in awe of the beautiful jack-o-lanterns they had dared to dream up. "I knew you would finally carve these pumpkins and they would look like this," Hannah sighed as if she were reading the last sweet lines of a happy fairy tale, "and now I'm kind of smiling because I'm happy."

Despite my initial qualms, and a freshly flared up sore wrist, I'm pretty proud of myself too.