After the Pumpkin Incident
by Juliana

The pumpkin incident (see the previous blog entry) is still only a few hours old, but it’s already starting to pale in comparison to recent catastrophes.
Call it paranoia—call it inexperience—call it a generalized anxiety disorder (you won’t be the first)—or call it whatever you will. I have always felt very uncomfortable leaving Joseph alone while I shower, do chores, etc. Even for a few minutes, I think he must be causing some great catastrophe. This has always led me to watch him closely at almost every minute.
Josh has told me I’m ridiculous and I should just put him in his crib while I shower. I still shower when Joseph is napping or asleep for the night. People tell me I can do the dishes while Joseph is playing in the kitchen. That just reminds me of the time we were at my Mom’s house, and she was unloading the dishwasher. We all turned our backs for approximately one one-millioneth of a second, and we turned back, Joseph was running across the kitchen blissfully holding up two steak knives. At any rate, I always like to do my chores when Joseph is sleeping so I don’t have any unpleasant surprises to come back to.
Well, today I was thinking, “I shouldn’t be so paranoid. Joseph is fine—he’s just playing happily in the other room.” So I got out the vacuum to clean up the remainders of the pumpkin incident, and ran the vacuum around the family room. One room. That’s all. I didn’t even go down the hall. It must have taken, oh, three minutes? Well, my anxiety disorder (or whatever you want to call it) kicked in and I thought, “I better go check on Joseph.”
I walked down the hall, and heard a loud, “Splooooooooooosh..” I looked into the bathroom at the end of the hall. All I could see was water pouring over the edge of the sink, streaming onto the tile floor below. I ran as fast as I could and looked into the bathroom. Joseph was standing on the toilet, with the water in the sink on full-blast. He had learned a new trick. If you pull up on that thingee behind the faucet, it makes the water stay in the bowl! Oh the joys of childhood!
I looked helplessly at the situation, not knowing what to do first. Instinct kicked in and I simultaneously unstopped the sink and turned off the rushing water. I then picked up Joseph, who was drenched from head to foot, and deposited him in his crib, trying to sound very serious and harsh as I told him what a bad thing he had done. I opened the linen closet and grabbed the only two towels I could find, thinking how this was like stopping Niagara Falls with a paper towel. I did the best I could cleaning up the floor, then noticed a small dripping coming from inside our cabinets.
I opened the bottom drawer, which had half an inch of water swishing back and forth in it. I mopped it out and proceeded to do the same thing with the middle drawer. I then opened the top drawer, which I discovered to be filled to the top with water and soggy toys. It was around this time that I felt my temperature rising a little higher than comfortable. I tried to breathe deeply as I thought through the situation. Eventually I figured out how to take the whole drawer out of the cabinet and dump the water into the bathtub.
Around this time, I started to notice happy, playful sounds coming from Joseph’s crib. I walked into his room, dripping drawer in hand, and saw Joseph jumping happily up and down in his crib. I was in no mood for this. I put the drawer down on the floor, hoping it might drain a bit more, and starting peeling off Joseph’s soggy clothing.
I tried to explain to him what a bad thing he had done, and I think he eventually got the point because I haven’t seen him that cooperative for a diaper change since he was about 12 hours old. I went back into the bathroom to finish up a few things, and with the help of a few more towels, got the situation pretty well under control. I went back into Joseph’s bedroom and found something for him to wear. I felt so angry about the situation, but at the same time I didn’t feel any anger for Joseph at all. I simply wanted him to learn so that this behavior wouldn’t be a problem in the future. I said, “You’re getting the longest time out of your life, kid. Have a good nap.” I kissed him on the forehead and walked out of the room. He started crying.
It’s funny about being a parent. You can feel devastated by a brand-new bathroom dripping water onto unsealed tile grout… but then when you hear your child cry because they’re being punished, that pain is even worse.
But you have to suck it up and try to do the things that are best for everyone involved. Sometimes that means letting your baby cry it out, so they can grow up. And sometimes that means sitting on your hands and knees in an inch of water trying not to blow your top. And sometimes that means getting out the vacuum the next day, and learning to trust your child again.

Now I really don't like Halloween
by Juliana

Learn a lesson from me: Don’t keep Halloween around until Thanksgiving. I don’t particularly like Halloween, so I don’t generally put up any decorations for the holiday. Something about a holiday which celebrates ugliness and fear just doesn’t appeal to me. But every time we would drive to the grocery store, my 20-month-old son’s eyes would grow huge and he would point excitedly at the pumpkins. After a month of this, I finally decided to walk him over to the “pumpkin patch” to choose one of his own.
He immediately fell in love with one and pointed to it excitedly. We purchased it, brought it home, and tried to find a good spot for it. It was somewhat crooked and wouldn’t sit up straight, so we rested it against a wall in our foyer for a couple weeks. After telling my husband the story of how Joseph had chosen it, he remarked, “I always wondered how they sold off all those ugly pumpkins.” But I never thought our pumpkin was ugly. Until yesterday.
The pumpkin had been retired to a spot in our family room, resting against our fireplace. I noticed that it had begun to change shape slightly. It no longer stood quite as erect and proud as it once had. It now seemed stooped with old age, decaying before our eyes. I brought this to my husband’s attention and asked, “What should we do with it now?”
“Throw it in the garbage can,” he said.
I frowned. That wasn’t right. “No,” I said. “You’re supposed to throw in the back yard and watch them rot against the fence.”
My husband shrugged his shoulders. “Okay.”
The pumpkin was quite heavy as I lifted it, but I carried it over to the back door without any trouble. Then I gingerly held it by it’s stem, trying not to touch the soft and rotting part on the bottom. I counted aloud, swinging it up, ready to be tossed it the yard, “One… two…three!” But before I quite got to three, the pumpkin swung back into the house, tearing free of it’s stem. All the force which I hoped would send it a good distance into our frozen yard was turned backwards onto my brand new, white-colored carpet. With a gentle “squash” (fitting, eh?) the pumpkin collapsed onto our family room floor.
A small portion of the inner pumpkin looked familiar and pumpkin-like, but the majority looked like a soft, rotten mess. The seeds were black with apparent mold. I stared in horror at the mess before me, right inside our doorway. The bitter cold wind coming in from the open door brought me back to reality.
I’ll spare you the details of staying up late, trying to make our orange carpet white again. Just believe me when I say: Don’t keep Halloween around until Thanksgiving.
And next time you’re at my house, don’t be surprised to see the remains of a rotting pumpkin just outside my back door, and the fingerprint it left just inside.