All familiar characters belong to Janet. Mistakes are solely mine.
Adventure 3 - Pumpkin Play
Ranger's POV
"Okay, Matty, Ty ... are you ready for the pumpkins?" Steph asked our boys.
"Tyze no used knifes," Matty reminded us.
"That's right. And neither do you. Luckily, we don't need knives to make a good pumpkin face. I have a teeny, tiny saw I'm going to use; Daddy has something only he can use safely. But you and Ty are still sticking with doing the fun part, giving them faces. Daddy and I will do the hard stuff."
Our kitchen table has been covered in newspapers on top of the two plastic shower curtains Ella suggested we use to protect the furniture and contain the mess. But I'm still doubtful the protective barriers will survive the next hour.
Matthew needed no further prompting than what Stephanie already said to him. He carefully chose the marker he wanted and then got busy creating his masterpiece. He had his left elbow resting on the table while he leaned forward in concentration, his tongue held in his teeth as he began drawing a pair of eyes onto the side of one good-sized pumpkin.
I slid Tyler's highchair, its tray also covered in plastic, closer to me. I placed the bigger of the small sugar pumpkins in front of him, and with a fair amount of trepidation I handed him a black marker to draw with. Tyler, having his own personality already, held out his left hand so it would also have something to do before he was ready to play. I didn't relax in my chair in case he directed the tip of either marker towards his face, but both boys stayed focused on the task at hand.
Matty was keeping up a steady stream of commentary during his progress … "I made da eye blues." "He got lotta teeth." "I put a tangle nose." Tyler was going with grunts, full-volume squeals when the tip of his marker slid all the way across the surface of the pumpkin, and pausing to use his two writing implements as drumsticks against the table of his chair.
Matty was already working on drawing a second face when I determined Tyler was done with his first. I surveyed the small pumpkin, looking for something … anything … I can work with to cut out. But seeing how Ty fisted the markers in both hands and applied the tip of both to his pumpkin like he was going to carve them using writing instruments alone, even the most experienced artist would be struggling for a direction to go here.
"Nice attempt, little man," I told my youngest son with a purposefully wide smile on my face.
He had been staring at me, I assumed waiting for some type of visible reaction from me. My life was spent learning how not to let anything show on my face. Three kids into my post-combat life … and I still struggle with allowing emotion or reactions to be expressed with my features. I got by for years just slipping Stephanie a grin here and there. But when your child is using your face to gauge their safety, surroundings, or to speed along the development of their own expressions, you suck up the discomfort and do the best you can to give them everything they need.
"Let me see," Steph said, sliding off her chair to come to us so Tyler has equal time with her.
As expected, her face held no emotion back. She smiled, laughed, clapped, and twisted her lips in contemplation while Ty watched her with the same attention a lawyer gives the jury when a verdict's been reached in their case.
"This is great, Ty-guy. Very expressive," she decided, leaning down to press a kiss to the top of his head. "I'm thinking this one should stay whole and just be an artistic contribution, not a carved one."
"I'm not sure they'll accept anything with ink on it," I reminded her. "Even with it being non-toxic."
"Shoot. I should've thought beyond wanting a project the boys can do together. Ohhh, I know. Can you ask Louis if we can borrow his drill? Ty finds the noise it makes weirdly funny. I can scoop out his next pumpkin and you can just make holes in it while Ty-guy laughs uncontrollably. Or I can run down and ask him?"
I left the table briefly to get my cell from the safety of the kitchen counter. "Or we can continue with our project, and I can call and ask him or one of the men to run it up to us."
I'm no longer surprised by solutions like this one. When Julie was little, even when Matthew was a newborn, I was more comfortable doing the errands than engaging in playtime. Now, an emergency is required for me to cut time with my three kids short.
"Do you know what Daddy arranged for us to do with this round of pumpkins?" Steph asked Matty as we waited for Louis' knock.
"We da put em out for da trick treaters," he answered.
"We will do that, but these won't last all the way till the end of October. So … after we enjoy them for a couple days, we're going to give them to some special animals to play with. They needed to see the animal doctor and are looking for things to play with while they get better."
Matty's eyes got wide. "The anibals got six?"
"Sometimes they do get sick. That's why we make sure Pup-Pup, Migo, Buttercup, and Rex see our pet doctor even when they aren't sick just to try to keep them super healthy all the time. Animals that live in the woods don't have people-parents to do that for them, so some really nice volunteers take care of them inside a big zoo-hospital until they feel better and can go back to their wild homes."
"We made em feel not six?"
"You remember back when you had a cold and Daddy or I would give you medicine from the doctor, rub your back, and read to you to make you feel less bad?" Our son nodded. "That's what these pumpkins will do for the animals. They'll probably sniff them, chew on them, maybe even roll them around a little like you'd play with a ball."
"They may be too curious or excited to feel bad," I added.
"I'll made dem a biiiig smile face so they be habby."
Steph rested her head against Matthew's temple and just tried to absorb some of his goodness it looked like. "You are the best, Matty. You, Ty, and Julie are going to make the world happy I'm willing to bet."
"Let's wait until at least lunch to get into gambling, Babe."
Her blue eyes sparkled more than sparked at me. "It's not a gamble when you know it's a sure thing."
She really is too adorable for words sometimes. Since I like my nuts where they are and continuing to function normally, that's a thought that will remain an unvoiced one.
Ella came with Louis and stayed until all eight pumpkins were de-seeded and carved into something that pleased the boys. The Guzmans smiled along with us as Tyler laughed whenever the drill bit disappeared into the orange pumpkin skin and added encouragement to Matthew's chosen designs.
Ella doesn't sit still for long, so while we were still drawing and creating squash/gourd carnage, she was cleaning all the seeds and flavoring and roasting them to have a snack on hand for everyone except Tyler can enjoy, on top of giving our mutts more treats than they need given they had breakfast at the same time we did.
The finished pumpkins stayed on display outside the lobby doors of our building and throughout the backyard so the boys could see and play with them until we made another trip to the nearby farm and bought a second round to replace them.
Hal and Junior dropped off a monetary donation from Rangeman along with the pumpkin haul to the rehabilitation center not far outside Trenton, and my family arrived hours later at the prearranged time to watch Matthew and Tyler's contribution be distributed among the animals.
The weather has turned colder but it's still warm for the beginning of Fall, so both boys are dressed similarly in jeans, long-sleeved plaid shirts, and work boots with jackets that can be taken off and stored if the day turns warmer than expected.
I wouldn't say I made a donation large enough to ensure we'd be the only people - outside of the staff - who were allowed to walk the length of the property at will, but it does feel like we can do everything at our own pace, stopping whenever something caught Matty or Ty's attention.
Matthew wanted to see every second of the action when we were informed the pumpkins were about to be rolled out, so I lifted him up to sit on my shoulders. My wife did her best to hold onto Tyler. He was out of his stroller, and she had one arm under his diapered-butt and the other around his little tummy so he could also watch the animals' reactions to the pumpkins they supplied.
"Mama! Dat big cat took my smile face!" Matthew exclaimed, pointing to the enclosure temporarily housing a wounded Mountain Lion who is well enough now to bite Matthew's pumpkin and make it a to-go snack. "It goed up dat tree!"
"I see that," my wife said, tracking the Puma's path with her finger in hopes Tyler could see the activity too.
His little legs kicked out as excitedly as Matthew's hands moved, so whether or not he's experiencing this the way we are, he's clearly happy.
"Ooooh!" Ty shouted, followed by an excited "Eeeee!" with some more leg kicks when we got a more up-close view of a porcupine nibbling on the edge of one of his drill-bit sugar pumpkins.
"See," I told both boys, "even animals know that vegetables are good to eat if you want to feel good."
"Really?" My wife asked. "You're going to use a day as fun as this one to push vegetable-eating?"
I tightened my hold on Matty's legs so he wouldn't slide as I bent my head to kiss his Mama. "Yes. Anything that can get us more time like this together, I'm going to back one hundred percent, one hundred percent of the time." I looked down and read the text response I'd just received for the picture I sent moments before. "And Julie agrees with me."