and now we know

Until this year, I really had no idea that carving pumpkins could be the cause of an hour-long tear fest,

but now we know.

I once heard an experienced mother say that five-year old boys have all the same emotions as a thirteen-year-old girl. They get them out of the way early, she said.

Now, I totally believe it.

Nicholas is mostly delightful, singing, humming while he works, saying sweet and funny things to all of us, being helpful and happy.

But sometimes,

he gets emotional, and then the tears just come and come and come.

Always for things that seem silly to us,

but are obviously very important to him.

Things like: the pattern he picked to carve into his pumpkin is too tall for his squatty pumpkin and he needed to either choose a new one or use a different pumpkin.

Oh my.

Thankfully, Daddy was here and helping (a HUGE sacrifice because Kent loathes pumpkin carving) and together they eventually found a new pattern that was sufficiently scary, small, and simple to carve.

Thank goodness for Daddies.

 We listened to the Wicked soundtrack while we carved, then we lit them, turned the lights off, and did silly dances by pumpkin light.

 Ellie's "mouse" face (yes, it's a cat but she said it was a mouse...)

And Nick's spooky goblin-ghost face, just the right size for his rotund pumpkin. And simple enough for the carving-challenged parents.

Then they hung up my paper bats. Anywhere and everywhere within their reach:

And by now we've learned,

there's usually tears at the beginning (or the middle, or the end) of an activity, but if we help work through them,

we can have an awful lot of fun together, our little family.