mother lovin' pumpkin

I was looking absentmindedly at my son's pumpkin tonight.  The one that he got on his class trip to the pumpkin farm.  He loves it wholeheartedly, as only very young children love personally selected autumn gourds.  He wanted to decorate it, but knew he didn't want to carve it.  It's a little, "pie" pumpkin, so I thought he was on the right track with not carving it.  I suggested painting it, but that wasn't what he wanted.  He finally got a permanent marker (with permission) and went to town. After carefully drawing eyes, ears, mouth, nose, chin, hair, and dimples (dimples! ha!), he named it.  "Two Peas".  I don't know the significance of the name, but he explained to me that he meant the kind of peas that come in a pea pod, and two of them.

On the side of his pumpkin I can see in the dim light of my lamp where he wrote the name.  In black ink above and behind the left ear are the words, "Too qes." Two peas. (He wrote the "p" backwards.) It won't be seen on Pinterest- it's a pumpkin that only a mother could love.  And when I see that neat yet misguided writing, it makes my heart swell.  He is so sweet, and creative, and tries so hard.  He badgered me to tell him how to spell "two" and when I told him and he realized he'd done it wrong, he was crushed.  Crying, the whole works.  Didn't have the heart to tell him later about the backwards "p."

Isn't it funny that when I see his effort and his mistakes, it makes me love him more?  At least, (if I'm honest here) when his mistakes aren't costing me extra time, money, or energy.  His goofy, misspelled pumpkin is endearing.  I see who he is, when I look at it.  I know he's trying hard, has come a long ways, and will be a great writer- one day. So... why is it so hard for me to remember that my honest mistakes and imperfections don't make it impossible for God- and others- to love me?

And why can't I keep my heart soft when my boy makes honest mistakes of the other kind- the kind that make me late for church, or make me spend 38.9 seconds wiping up a spill, or cost me 25 cents worth of wasted colored cardstock? Like my harsh impatience is what's gonna teach him the greater life lessons of responsibility and respect? Can I wrench my eyes away from myself long enough to see that in those areas of behavior he's trying hard, has come a long ways, and will get there someday?

So, there are my deep, pumpkin-inspired thoughts. October seems to be a month for deep thinking here!  Lest you think I'm getting too serious, I will tell you that I and my older children have been laughing like hyenas about poop.  C's first explosive, nasty, diaper blow-out diarrhea, to be exact. So there's that.