Sometime last week (I can’t remember exactly what day because I have blocked it out) Caroline came home with a note in her homework folder informing parents about the upcoming literary pumpkin patch. She was beside herself with excitement about the whole thing and insisted that she just had to make a literary pumpkin for the literary pumpkin patch even though the note was quick to explain that the whole thing was totally voluntary. It’s just a fun thing that the librarian does every year because she has a lot of quiet time to sit amongst the books and think of ways to make parents’ lives more difficult.
And I know the librarian plans the literary pumpkin patch every year because we received a note about it last year when Caroline was in first grade. But that was back in the good old days before Caroline learned to read big words like “literary” and “pumpkin” and once I saw the word “voluntary” I threw that piece of paper away so fast it would make your head spin because I have long been aware of the levels of madness to which I descend when any type of craft project is involved. Dang that school for teachin’ my baby all that book learnin’.
A literary pumpkin patch, in case you’re wondering, is an event wherein one decorates a pumpkin to look like a character out of a book. Hence the words “literary” and “pumpkin”. The only conditions are that the pumpkin cannot be carved and must be smaller than a basketball. Also, each parent is limited to only three Xanax throughout the course of “helping” their child make the pumpkin.
When Caroline initially brought home the note last week, she informed me that she would like to make a pumpkin that looks like Junie B. Jones which seemed like a fairly easy choice. We’ll paint on a face, glue some brown yarn on top and call it a day.
However, she soon discovered that two other girls in her class were planning on making Junie B. Jones pumpkins and she wanted something unique. I tried desperately to think of books that feature an orange round ball as the main character, but there appear to be shockingly few that fit that description. Then Gulley suggested a spider because we could just paint it black and glue on some pipe cleaner legs. But, oh no. Caroline was not interested in a spider. A spider pumpkin clearly didn’t have the potential to push me to the brink of sanity.
So, after a weekend of much literary pumpkin debate, I finally told her Monday afternoon that she had to make a final decision so we’d have enough time to get it done. She came home from school, walked in her room to look through her books, and, after a few brief moments, walked into the kitchen triumphantly holding a copy of Black Beauty over her head.
Perfect.
I felt the blood drain from my head as I began to figure out on how earth you make a round pumpkin look like a horse head. Within seconds, I had gone to the Twitter for help and typed out a plea in 140 characters or less. And there were some decent suggestions, but no one actually offered to come to my house and do it for me.
The only thing I knew to do was to get out the black paint. I put Caroline to work painting our orange pumpkin with several coats of black paint and decided to go all Scarlett O’ Hara and think about the rest tomorrow. I also called Gulley to ask for some advice because, ever since she started teaching preschool last year, she has been known to get her craft on. She’ll try to deny it, but she knows way too much about all the aisles at Michael’s to act like she doesn’t enjoy the occasional craft challenge. Ultimately, she called a few of her preschool teacher friends and got back to me with a suggestion of one of those styrofoam cones, black Model Magic, and a wooden dowel to hold the whole thing in place.
After school yesterday, Caroline and I went straight to Michael’s to load up on supplies and then we came home to face our black pumpkin. And we got started. Right after I ate half a bag of Double Chocolate Milano cookies to give me strength.
I’ll be honest. At one point I was really concerned. I thought we were going to have to abort the entire mission and try to come up with a book that features a black bird. But slowly and surely, we actually made something that resembled a horse’s mane. And then I threw down the pipe cleaner gauntlet and figured out how to fashion some ears. My OCD cylinders were kicking in at all levels as I insisted it needed one more coat of black paint and a little touch up on the white diamond on its forehead.
But, ladies and gentlemen, we ended up with Black Beauty.
We turned a pumpkin into a horse just like we were Cinderella’s fairy godmother.
But with more Double Chocolate Milanos. And hot glue gun burns.
And possibly a pill for my nerves.