Pumpkins

Some traditions are so much fun that the work involved in keeping up with them fades to insignificance. Pumpkins are not one of them, at least not in my opinion. This year we didn't get pumpkins until October 21st--later than usual. Normally around here there are various sources for discount pumpkins or even free (via friend/grandparent gardens), but by Friday, October 21st, I had not lined up any low-cost pumpkin places, so we drove out to Bill's pumpkin patch for some overpriced pumpkins. A trip, a fall, a bleeding Amber-lip, and $17 later, we were rolling a wheelbarrow laden with five pumpkins back to our van. Selling pumpkins by the pound is either an enormous scam or evidence of marketing genius, depending on which side of the scale you're on. All kids want the BIGGEST pumpkin possible, which turns out to be the heaviest and therefore most expensive pumpkins too. We capped pumpkin picking with a reasonable rule: each person had to be able to lift and carry his or her own pumpkin. Jay and Rose have never lifted such heavy loads as they did in the pumpkin patch! It was a brisk, breezy, damp, cloudy day, so there were no magical sun-glowing-pumpkin pictures to be had. Just gray, chilly pictures of tired windblown kids on the last day of a long week. 

Tuesday, October 25th: carving those pumpkins. Amber's pumpkin was too small to carve, so I got out our goofy plastic eyes and made her a piggy pumpkin. Then she went around admiring everyone else's work and helping us each as needed, saying "Pumpeen! Pumpeen!" Last year Amber was asleep during pumpkin carving, so this was her first time feeling pumpkin guts! She handled them like a pro. This was also the first year that Jay and Rose carved their entire pumpkin faces by themselves. Jeff had to cut off the top and we both helped scrape the last of the stringy guts out, but the designs were their very own. It took forever! Jeff and I were done in a few minutes. I got the smallest pumpkin I could still carve and fit a candle in, and it was perfect. Those big thick pumpkins are a workout to clean and carve! Jay and Rose were feeling pretty tired when they finally finished.

I loved how Rose just let Amber share her pumpkin. Their little blonde heads together, digging out those slimy seeds was pretty cute.

 [After a while, Rose got tired of Amber's invasive help, so I let Amber perform quality control tests on my pumpkin]

Classic Jay--talking so much that he barely got anything done on his pumpkin for the first half hour. We had to remind him to get to work, and everyone still got to bed 45 minutes late that night. 

The traditional family pumpkin picture. I have been doing my best to only subject my family to one or two quick group pictures at a time instead of trying over and over to get one where everyone is smiling/looking/visible. Accepting what we get on the first or second try is hard! But real life pictures are not perfect. As long as most of everyone's faces are visible, I am learning [slowly] to call it good.

The process

On Wednesday I did not manage to read my scriptures. That night while praying, I asked for help not only remembering to read scriptures, but also for help actually getting it done the next day--Thursday. Remembering and doing are two very different things! 

In the same prayer, I also asked for help remembering to spend specific, meaningful time with Amber. Now that it's just me and her home during school hours, it's all too easy to go along doing my daily tasks while she follows me around all day, working mischief for attention. When that happens, we don't have much purposeful/positive/meaningful interaction. While I believe in plenty of independent play, there is a balance and I don't always want to be dashing around the house from one job to the next with Amber trailing in my wake. Actions speak louder than words, and Amber is MUCH more important than all the laundry combined! And the housework and lesson plans, etc. etc. I want to make sure to show her love by making time to be fully present with her each day. 

Thursday morning, these two goals--scripture reading and Amber-time--were perched in the front window of my brain, poised for action.

When I got back from dropping Jay and Rose off at school that morning, I had just enough time to read my scriptures and shovel the crumbs off the kitchen floor before Julia arrived for our weekly homeschool lesson. So I got out the bucket of gears for Amber to play with (she loves the gears and I thought it would be a perfect distraction for her while I read and swept). I sat down nearby with my LDS phone app to read some scriptures, feeling pretty clever and awesome. But Amber came straight over and started demanding my attention in her loud, invasive way. Somehow amidst her noise I managed to say a quick pre-scripture-study prayer. During that short prayer, I had a distinct thought: listen to a conference talk while playing with Amber instead of trying to read while fending her off.

So Amber and I played with the gears together while listening to two wonderful conference talks. I didn't have any deep spiritual thoughts while we played and listened, but I did feel peaceful. If I had tried reading while Amber climbed on me begging for attention, I would not have stayed that peaceful--I would have gotten frustrated. Frustration and scripture reading do not mix. Spending time with Amber while getting scripture time in was just what we both needed.

Thursday's scripture study didn't turn out like I expected, but it was the best way to make it work for that day. Sometimes it's so hard to adapt to daily situations! I'm such a creature of habit, I always want to do my daily routine the same way I have been doing it. For the past few weeks, I have been reading my scriptures sitting in bed, first thing in the morning (so it gets done). But the kids currently want me right when they wake up, and that early morning time that worked so well for so many weeks has not been very quiet or peaceful lately. Kids require adaptation. What works one day may not work the next. What works with one kid may not work with another. Thursday morning was a good reminder.

Even after repeated lessons in this area over the past 8 years since I joined the ranks of motherhood, I often feel that my scripture study does not "count" unless I actually sit down and read quietly for at least 10 minutes. But that's simply not true. The prompting to listen to a conference talk while playing with Amber was so direct and clear that I cannot doubt its source. What a tender experience and a wonderful truth--that Heavenly Father knows me and loves me enough to send me a simple idea to help me do better and be better today than I was yesterday. The best part is that he does this for everyone!

I didn't get any pondering time during or after listening to those conference talks, but writing about it has helped me learn from it--not from the words spoken in the talks, but from the entire experience of asking for help, receiving a prompting, acting on it, and then thinking it all over. The spirit really is an effective teacher.

We are supposed to read scriptures and pray every single day because those actions invite the spirit and keep us on the right path. It's not only the act of reading scriptures that grows faith and builds testimony. Refining, expansive growth also occurs during the process of figuring out how to make scripture study actually happen every day in real life. We follow Jesus Christ through both our actions and our choices. The process behind implementing those actions and choices is refining. 

Just a little Thursday thought.