Last night, we finally set aside time to carve pumpkins. We started the tradition two years ago when the Big One was still a tiny (yet, super sassy) one-year old. Now, she’s a super sassy 3-year old and she loves carving pumpkins with her daddy. This year she got to help him draw the face. She could not contain her excitement. Her first two pumpkin carving sessions had landed her on pumpkin innards clean out duty. As she doesn’t really enjoy getting dirty or touching slimy stuff (other than slime), getting to draw a face on the pumpkin was , in her words, so cool. This year was the first year that the Little One got to participate. As a feisty and stubborn 1-year old, she found herself in the rookie position of pumpkin innards clean out duty. And SHE LOVED IT! Seriously. You would think she was born to scrape out the insides of pumpkins. We didn’t even have to show her what to do. She grabbed the green plastic scoop, shaped like a jack-o-lantern, and went after it.
As the girls and their dad worked away on their scary face jack-o-lantern, I continued to carve on my happy, smiling, girly vampire face jack-o-lantern. I was rather proud of my cutie patootie vampire. As I cut into the top of the pumpkin, everything seemed fine. And then I lifted the lid off. Rot! Black disgusting ROT! I tried cutting out the yuck but the yuck kept going. It wasn’t just on the surface. The whole top of the pumpkin was not salvageable. I tried to contain my disappointment (because I love pumpkin carving almost more than my kids.). I bagged up the rotten pumpkin and focused my attention on the awesome job my family was doing.
Everyone was happy. The girls were getting along and enjoying the moment with their daddy. The room was full of laughter and smiles and giggles and the smell of pumpkin (real pumpkin, not pumpkin spice - BIG DIFFERENCE according to the Big One.) I took out my phone and began to video the momentous occasion. I took dozens of pictures of everyone’s smiling faces. We were the Instagram and Facebook-worthy pumpkin carving family! Check us out! Happy, family time winners! Success!
And two seconds later it was all over. Literally - TWO SECONDS. I don’t even know what happened. I have no idea what horrible, atrocious, inhumane, outrageously unfair event occurred that caused everyone to lose their sh*t, but it was definitely lost. All I know is that, suddenly, the Little One was screaming like a banshee, sitting on her sister’s chair, with giant crocodile tears streaming down her face. In between sobs were several unintelligible words that none of us could interpret. Obviously, we had angered her, wronged her, destroyed her happiness. Meanwhile, the Big One was sitting on my chair looking like her world had just been turned upside down. Her sister’s screams and sobs were driving her mad. She shouted at the screaming banshee to “stop being a baby!”
I suppose a good mother would have put her phone down and tried to comfort the Little One or told the Big One to ignore the Little One, or stopped the madness and asked everyone to discuss their feelings and then we would’ve hugged it out. I don’t know. Maybe that’s what a good mother would do. I, however, am me. So, I hit the big red video button and began recording what it is ACTUALLY like to carve pumpkins with a 3-year old and a 1-year old. As I’m recording the madness, my husband and I are laughing at the brutal reality of the situation.
THIS! This is real life! We live in such an unrealistic world these days. We only see the happy, perfect photos of our friends and family on social media. We follow people we’ve never even met and are inspired to reach their level of perfection with our own families. How absurd! There are filters to erase wrinkles and we can even photoshop ourselves to look 10 pounds lighter. We can take dozens and dozens of pictures and then select the one or two images that display our children in their glorious perfection. No one has to know that the other 139 pics of the same moment are horrible and there were tears and screams and more than likely, cussing. We are all guilty of participating in the quest for perfection. I totally admit I do it! The funny thing is - the more I live in the brutal reality with the screaming and crying and temper tantrums and full display of giant, uncontrollable emotions the more I love the imperfect reality of this life. Yes, I still lose my sh*t because the madness drives me mad. But events like last night’s pumpkin carving mayhem remind me that my imperfect family is perfect. Perfectly passionate and fiery. Perfectly opinionated and strong-willed. Perfectly stubborn and sassy. Perfectly loving and kind and caring. Perfectly feisty. Perfectly irritable. Perfectly temperamental. Perfectly imperfect.
Find the beauty in REAL life. Find the beauty in the ACTUAL moment. - not just the picture perfect, social media worthy, manipulated version of life. The true beauty of life is reveling in the giant emotions, good and bad, that occur every single day. That’s hard to remember when you feel like you’re drowning in temper tantrums and piles of laundry and stacks of dirty dishes and endless poopy diapers but the BEAUTY IS ALWAYS THERE.