The Pumpkin King

How better to spend a cool, windy Sunday afternoon than by carving pumpkins? Let me check the date, oh yes, it's the middle of September and only six weeks to go until Halloween. Let's see six weeks multiplied by 'how many days till Halloween" asked by my 5-year old an average of 30 times a day makes.... Seriously, J is nothing if not a passionate creature. It has always been a trait that I have admired in him as I believe in life one should find the things that one loves and pursue them with passion. Whether it is flying an airplane, rock climbing, playing ringuette or reading Tolkien...to name a few.

It is our great fortune to live adjacent to 3 football field sized pumpkin patches and in the last 3 weeks or so since the little gourds have begun to grow, J lives and breathes their progress and the sweet anticipation of Halloween. At least twice a day, we have to go and check if any pumpkins have come 'unattached' from their roots. He then believes they are his property fair and square. At least twice a week we have to go and look for the Great Pumpkin...C2 made the mistake of telling him the Charlie Brown classic, in which J now fervently believes.

We have a Halloween countdown calendar in his room and everyday J contemplates, with the effort I wish he would apply to his early reading, his costume choices - will it be a ghost, Frankenstein, a chevalier, or a dog. J has merrily told me that Halloween is his favorite holiday, more than Christmas, Easter, and his birthday all together. Now that is passion!


Admiring parent though I am, Halloween will have to be a father-son experience this year as as I will be consuming effervescent glasses of bubbly with my pal Mighty Mom while touring the region of Champagne. Ya well remember that passion thing?