Peter Peter Pumpkin Eater

This past weekend was Halloween weekend. Lots of candy, lots of little trick-or-treaters in their little costumes, and lots of gore and freight. Another thing that comes to mind during the halloween, and harvest seasons would be PUMPKINS! Whether you are carving the pumpkin and making a scary face, painting or coloring the pumpkin, or making a pumpkin pie, bread or cake, pumpkins are seen all over the neighborhood this time of the year. It was so much fun to take my son to the pumpkin patch so he could choose his very own pumpkin to carve.

After we helped him carve his little pumpkin we took out the pumpkin seeds. Call me stupid but I honestly didn't know that you could just take the seeds out of the pumpkin, soak them, salt them up and cook em. I guess I never put two and two together. I didn't even think that pumpkin pie came from the actual pumpkin. All I ever seen was pumpkin pies at Perkins, or maybe a tin-can of pumpkin pie filling at the store. This was interesting to find out.

So my son and I cleaned up the seeds and baked them. I never tried pumpkin seeds before. I didn't know what to expect. Would they be crunchy on the outside and soft in the middle? Would there be a kernel in the middle like sunflower seeds have? I just hoped they were a tasty alternative to the potato chip. After they came out of the oven, my husband said to let them cool off for a while. I didn't really know what to think of it all. An hour later, I took my first attempt at the seeds. I thought in my mind while they crunched in between my teeth, "mmm, this is pretty good!"

After eating the pumpkin seeds, this ran my mind wild. You know how you start doing one thing, or think about one thing, and it leads to another? Like a revolving door? I'm sitting there thinking about the pumpkin seeds, and excited about carving pumpkins, and I ask myself. Why didn't my parents ever do anything like this with me? They never carved a pumpkin with me, cooked pumpkin seeds, or any sort of Halloween fun and festivities. It's not like they are religious or anything, they were just more lazy parents. And being as I was the first born child, I think I was the "practice," the one who you don't know what to expect or how to parent so you just "do your best."

Looking back now, I can't do anything about my past and how I missed out on fun activities on the holidays. I just have to make sure that I do all the fun stuff with my son, and make sure that he does things that I missed out on. It's hard to clean up spilled milk, but there's potential to turn any bad situation into good. :)