to paint a pumpkin

On Monday, we had a gorgeous, sunny, warm day – one that was much more reminiscent of early spring than of mid-autumn. Add to that the fact that Nana was down for a visit and it seemed like the absolute perfect day to bust out some good ol’ fashioned pumpkin painting fun.

We’ve had a few pumpkins laying around since the day we went to the pumpkin patch, where Evalyn chose and brought home two to call her own. I kept thinking about carving them sometime but, honestly? That idea gave me anxiety. The mess and the gunk and the toddler who would inevitably spend the entire activity reaching out and trying to grab the knife – it just didn’t sound like something I was interested in doing with her quite yet. Maybe next year. Or the next. Or something. I decided that leaving the pumpkin intact, without any sharp objects present, would be a more enjoyable activity for us all.

So, we took advantage of the warm, sunny day and spread a plastic table cloth out on the driveway. I filled a plastic container with finger paints, dressed the tot in clothes that could be made messy and let her go wild.

And go wild, she did. She kept her interest in this activity for almost an hour. That is like, at least 16 days in toddler attention span time. She had so much fun! Talking about the colours, mixing them around, painting our names, different shapes and patterns, and, you know … sitting ON the painted pumpkin. She was happy to get her chubby little fingers all messy and paint covered. She was happy to see Mommy and Nana getting messy with her. She all around had a blast.

Since then she’s been asking for more painting again and again and again. So I guess that means it’s a good thing I left the pumpkins sitting outside on the patio table overnight. When it rained. And totally cleaned our (washable finger paint) painted pumpkins off.

They are good as new. So guess what we’ll be doing again on our next sunny day?