The Puddles

The pumpkin to the left is Ben’s from his kindergarten class.  The pumpkin to the right is Madie’s entry into the library’s book character contest.  Madie decorated her pumpkin as Molly in the Victory Dance from The American Girl Doll: Molly.  I can’t remember the exact title of the story right now.  But she was so excited.  Madie, Ben and I went to the craft store and she planned what she needed to make her character.  She was so proud of her project until she went to school.  Most of the kids at school were not child created.  I didn’t realize the professionalism that would go into creating these pumpkins.  I thought that this was suppose to be your child’s creation without mom and dad intervening.  Wrong!  I spent the rest of the week consoling Madie that I thought her pumpkin was awesome.  And that no I wouldn’t do her pumpkin for her next year.  I was talking to some of the moms at one of Ben’s class parties and I found out that this contest was pretty competitive and a lot of the parents had a “heavy” hand in what was done.    I had told the kids when we got started that the goal was to have a good time so matter what happened in the contest.  We had an awesome  time doing the whole project.  So our goal was met.