Pumpkin Carving

As you've seen from my Halloween flashbacks, pumpkins are an important part of our Halloween tradition. My mom informs me that she took Sam and a friend of his from Iowa to Carroll's Pumpkin Farm w/o me one year when he was visiting Iowa and I was working in St. Louis. I do vaguely remember encouraging them to keep up the tradition. She doesn't think she has any pictures of the trip.

I asked my mom if she had pictures of us carving pumpkins on previous Halloweens. She said that while we did carve them (and roast the seeds) nearly every year, she doesn't think we usually took pictures. Apparently, we didn't take pictures as often back then. I am thankful for digital cameras (Thanks, Jim & Liz for our first one.) and the way they let you take pictures of things you might not be willing to use film for or want to pay to develop.

This classic shot is one I am happy to have captured on film. Whether he knows it or not, Sam inspired all of this Halloween reminiscing. On our way to the Petaluma Pumpkin Patch, he asked, "Mom, do you remember that time we got that really big pumpkin? The one that was almost as big as me?" I didn't really know which pumpkin he was thinking of but I was so happy he was having fond memories I answered, "Yeah. Wasn't that great?"

I really wanted to remember. So, I dug out the photos (which I love to do anyway) and started looking at Halloween as a category.

Sam looks like he is straining so hard in that picture. I'm trying to remember if at this early age, I had already enacted the, "If you want it, you have to carry it." rule about pumpkins.

Sam always wants the biggest pumpkin and I would love to get it for him but I also know that I usually end up hollowing-out both his pumpkin and mine. The having to be able to carry it rule seemed like a reasonable compromise.

That first year, Sam and Trevor were most interested in the rotten pumpkins and the bugs on them.



Here is another one of those tiny pictures. It looks as if my child is trying to see if he is strong enough to be able to buy this pumpkin.



I figured this was the pumpkin Sam was thinking of when he asked, "remember when?" It was the one I was thinking of because of the picture. Pictures do so much to preserve memories. I don't know if he carried this pumpkin. It looks pretty big. Maybe I broke down and got a "big" one that year.

And while I usually, like to pick out our pumpkins during our trip to the pumpkin patch, it was dark this year and the place didn't take credit cards and we didn't have much cash on us.

These are the pumpkins we picked up at a nearby greenery this year. Sam's is the big one in the middle. He did carry it.

Unfortunately, we picked these pumpkins up late on a Sunday morning after running errands. Then, we had lunch and went to the school to play with the new balls we'd picked up at Target that morning. That afternoon, we made some phone calls, did some reading and started thinking about dinner. Sam wanted to carve our pumpkins that day. I had wanted to too but we just ran out of steam (and daylight).

I told him he could carve his if he wanted to. He started poking holes into the top, making this intricate pattern around the stem. Then, he tried diligently to use the tiny pumpkin carving saw to get the top off but it was to no avail. We'd told him he'd need to use a real knife to get it off and I meant to help him but was bushed and didn't get around to it. I thought we'd do it the next day but school and dinner/homework kept us busy every weeknight. By the time we were ready to carve pumpkins, last weekend, his original pumpkin was rotten.

Cam took Sam to Safeway to get Pumpkin #2 (seen in the background).

Sam watched Cam get the top off his pumpkin.




Then started with the intricate dot pattern again...








The guys are thoughtfully proceeding.

I didn't have a new idea for a face so I decided to carve something besides a face in mine. I'd carve a star. See Cam's blog for my less than stellar results. Then, I decided to carve a face on the other side. Except that the other side wasn't so pretty. What about on the side? Fine but it left my pumpkin a bit weak.



Cam's was shaping up nicely.










Finally, Sam broke through. Cam and I were done. I was on the phone talking with my friend, Melissa about possibly meeting up around her dad's house in Santa Barbara for Thanksgiving.

Cam ended up helping Sam empty his pumpkin out. Then, Sam decided he was done for the day.















Trixie inspected.
















Cam arranged.











The pumpkins glowed.

Sam's First Halloween - 1997

Since Sam was born on July 16th, he would have been 3 1/2 months old on his first Halloween. I have a wonderful picture of him sitting up at four months but as you can see from these pictures, he wasn't quite there yet. As a result, we went for comfort in his first Halloween costume. It was basically pjs with a little Winnie the Pooh hood.

Patience, however, at 1 year and 3 1/2 months, was able to pull off this remarkable princess look.

See what I mean about Sam & Patience always being close?

Sam's Grandma Bucklin, (Sandy to me) is holding Sam in this picture. She is a kind, loving, involved grandmother. Often, she sends cards to Sam and pictures of the happenings of his cousins in Iowa. Just this Halloween, she has sent two packages. One had a singing card, a singing pumpkin man and a glowing jack-o-lantern along with her traditional homemade popcorn balls and a bag of 100 Grand bars. The second package had a light for the inside of his pumpkin (we're hoping to get them carved today), more popcorn balls and some frosted sugar cookies (his favorite).

Around the time Sam was born, his dad and I went to see a debt counselor who explained to us that in our current situation, our expenses each month exceeded our income. When I was pregnant with Sam, I'd put him on the waiting list for a daycare near our home in West Des Moines. After he was born, I was eligible for seven weeks of paid time off. During that time, I felt like I almost never put him down. He liked to be held and I loved holding him. I didn't understand how the daycare could have a 4-1 child to staff ratio for babies. When I asked, they said, you can put a baby in his bouncy seat and read a book to him and he will listen. I thought to myself, but he hates his bouncy seat. I didn't want his little heart and spirit broken at eight weeks. What seemed like a good option before he was born, no longer seemed right now that he was here.

Enter my parents. They offered to co-sign a debt consolidation loan so we could slowly start to dig our way out of the hole being young and married during college had for left us. My mom offered to watch Sam while I was at work (talk about close from the start, you should see those two play). And they even offered to let us move into the second story of their home. I didn't want to move in with them. I was a mother now and wanted to feel like an adult who could take care of myself but apparently, at 25, I just wasn't able to make it happen.

Sam had his own room, his dad and I had a room, we had our own bathroom and a tiny area with a desk and couch in a loft above my parent's living room. We didn't have much privacy or autonomy as a new family but we were owning up to the reality of our financial situation. My parent's home was about an hour away from the jobs Sam's dad and I were working in Des Moines which made for a long day, especially since Sam wasn't sleeping through the night yet.

As grateful as we were for this support, it was a strained situation. When Sam was four months old, his dad came home from a football game he'd attended at the University of Iowa and said he wasn't happy. I wasn't sure I'd been happy for a long time but I didn't know what his point was exactly. We had a child now and had to figure out how to make it work, didn't we? We tried for awhile longer.

All of us lived together in this house in Newton, Iowa, home of Maytag, population 15,000 until Sam was 14 months old. Then his dad moved out. The Labor Day weekend after Sam's first birthday, we told my parents we had agreed to separate. We hoped that we'd both be happier apart. My parents were less than thrilled. Again, they likely saw the hard reality I would have ahead of me as a single mom but they didn't see the secret unhappiness I had been harboring for so long. While it was incredibly hard doing things on my own, I know Sam and I are better off and happier than we would have ever been if I had stayed in that relationship.

2003 Pickin' Pumpkins with Patience

According to Sam's "How Tall This Fall" picture, we went back to Carroll's Pumpkin Farm in 2003. The details about this trip are a bit sketchy in my mind. We were in the midst of a life-changing transition and I think much was up in the air and our future was uncertain.

I do know that Sam's cousin, Patience came with us and that they had fun in the corn maze.

At the Haunted Corn Maze in Petaluma, Sam said that he had a nightmare after his last trip to a corn maze which I guess would be this one.

We love Patience. She and Sam have always been close. Even their birthdays are close. I thought he was going to be born on her first birthday. We went to the hospital with what I thought were contractions. After some time in the air conditioning (ours had broken) and drinking a pitcher of water, the contractions stopped. So we left the hospital and went to Patience's 1st birthday party. I was there but was awfully uncomfortable. After a few more days of on-again off-again contractions (and one very cranky day in labor at work) Sam was born. Sam and Patience have had joint birthday celebrations. She came to visit us twice in Chicago and Sam often spends time with her family in Iowa during the summer. We hope she will be able to come visit us in California soon.

My mom came with us as well. My vague memories are of her telling me to stop brooding about not knowing what was going to happen in my life. One of my favorite quotes from my mom is, "Worry is like a rocking chair. It doesn't get you anywhere."

I lost my big Pork Board job around this time. I had wanted to leave the job for something else, something more in-line with my soul. I had nearly quit early that summer to go camping with Sam and the Nortons in Glacier National Park. I didn't want the job. But to be told they were done with me wasn't fun. And I didn't have a better plan lined-up yet.

Reluctantly, Sam and I had accepted that we were staying in Iowa for another school year - even though my brother had left for LA and my folks were retiring to Arkansas - leaving within weeks.

In an attempt to be happier in Des Moines, we'd just signed a lease on a new apartment and moved all of our things. (I will never forget all of the help we were given by Sam's Uncle Chad during this move.) Then, bam. No marketing budget next year. Thanks, but no thanks. I'd wanted out and now out was being thrust upon me but what next? I did not know and I was worried.

I think I'd already been to Chicago, looking into it as an option. (My friend, Melissa let us stay with her for three weeks while we were figuring out what to do next. Again, I will be forever grateful.) Maybe I had already applied for the job that would bring us to a new life in Chicago? I started there before Thanksgiving. All I know is that I didn't have the job offer yet.

So here we are, trying not to think about what may or may not happen and enjoy the kids picking pumpkins.

We rode the wagon back to the play area.







I'm sure we watched the pumpkin catapult chunk pumpkins into the lake.

The kids played.











Doesn't it look like everyone is having fun?








Now, here, they really were. I remember. This whole room is like a giant sand box only it is full of corn. They kept burying each other with it in this tub.

We
hit
the
tire
swings
again.








Wee. The long-roped one.













And while I think we played on it in 2002 too, this year is the only year I have
pictures of the kids
playing on this fun rope swing.

They'd swing out and drop off into the hay (or ride back for another go).






I'm sorry I was distracted by worry this time, you guys.

Thanks for being with me that day and brightening my life always. Little did I know the joy to come.