Parenting 101: Hallowe'en (subsection 1.17.42)

BOO!

Every Hallowe'en, my husband out-does me with pumpkin carving. He out-parents me at every turn - with the backyard rink, fishing vacations, coaching our son's hockey team - and at no time is it as evident as during All Hallows Eve. This year, as our kitchen renovations begin, I am thankful that we'll were forced to forgo pumpkin carving this year.

Pumpkin carving, you see falls under my purview.

That is, early in October, I haul the plastic storage box from beneath the stairs in the basement, dust off the top, and dig in. I spend an evening pulling spiders, witches, candlesticks, cobwebs, and bats from the bin and unwrapping them with delight. It's a precursor to my Christmas-decorating fervour.

Once all the decorations are out, I can focus on the pumpkin. I study the pumpkin-carving templates and flip through magazines to get ideas. I sketch scary faces and ask my son which one he thinks is the most frightening.

Mostly, I fall back on my own design, which is really just a version of the jagged mouth and jagged-edged eyebrows that make our pumpkin appear angry and scary.

Sometimes, a natural bruise, or crack helps make my jack 'o laterns oooo scary.

Last year, after carving two pumpkins, my hands ached so much, I couldn't carve the third one. And just then, dad swooped in and showed me up. Again. He carved the best-looking pumpkin, seemingly in a matter of minutes, without so much as a stencil, or sketch his outdid mine by a ghoul's mile.

There's always next year.