Pumpkin time

This is about how I've been feeling lately.  Just exhausted, drained (or draining, as the case may be), a bit googly-eyed, and hoping that all three of the boys will be able to make it through one night without one of them waking from a bad dream that involves being eaten by some animal - wild or domestic - sometime soon.  It's been a while since that's happened.

Then I remembered that trick-or-treating is tomorrow night, and that I haven't carved our pumpkins yet.  The thought of doing that tonight made me feel, well...

I mean, don't get me wrong.  I love carving a pumpkin.  I love thinking about a design and carrying it out.  I love putting the candle in and watching it glow in a darkened room and then outside at night. I don't even mind gutting a pumpkin, because then I can roast the yummy seeds and munch on them over the next day or two. Anyone who knows me can attest to this.

But it's the combination of multiple pumpkins and multiple little ones that I don't like.  Because we all know what happens when we sit down with three little kids to carve pumpkins.  They start out excited and interested, and then you give them a spoon and ask them to start scraping out the insides and soon they're throwing pumpkin guts everywhere and then they're off and playing with something else (and covering it with pumpkin guts) because that got boring really fast.  And while they love to tell you what face to make on theirs and to watch it glow once it's done, we all know who's doing all the work.  We are.

And I'm pooped.

So riddle me this:  

Who has two thumbs, speaks limited French, and totally cheated on the pumpkins this year?

This moi!

A few years ago, I'd have thought this was sacrilege.  

Who doesn't take the time to actually carve their pumpkins? 

What'd that take, like two minutes?
Come on, where is the challenge in that?  Where's the skill?

This year, I'd like to find the person - probably a mom - who invented these
and give her a big hug.