It’s been a hard couple of weeks around the household here. 
As you may recall we have three teenagers living in our basement. They’re former students of mine from when I taught in Mississippi. They’re good kids, but did I mention that they are teenagers?
The last week or so have not been real great as far as the whole “raising teenagers” dynamic is going. If you have teenagers, or perhaps were one yourself, you may know that getting out of bed on time is not a real priority. This is particularly frustrating if you happen to be an adult trying to coordinate the travel schedules of 8 different family members.
Coming upstairs for dinner when called is also not an easy task for your average teenager. There is apparently a lot of time needed to stand up and walk. Accomplishing chores without being reminded is also a near impossibility. I believe they like the recurring strains of an adult voice too much to miss out on constant reminders. And of course, somehow resisting the temptation to order pay per view movies and engage in 3 way calling is not part of a 19 year old’s genetic makeup. Add in the fact that a couple of college courses were failed after one of them stopped going to class for a few weeks, and it’s time to order some blood pressure supplements.
So, honestly, I’ve been pretty frustrated lately. I’ve been going around gritting my teeth and slamming doors, usually following interchanges like this:
“Are y’all ready to go?”
(Peer down into pitch black basement at 10 a.m. where all movement seems to have ceased)
“uh….nah.”
SLAM! Walk away and search for Tylenol.
Yes, there was a week or so there where I couldn’t quite remember why we were doing this. It seemed rather stupid of us. Luckily we had a couple of friends ready to tell us that, while they hadn’t told us so, they had always thought that.
Thank you. Very helpful.
But in the midst of this, something magical happened. Our family went out on to the porch to carve pumpkins on Sunday and my wife asked whether I thought we should ask the Mississippi teens (or the Delta Squadron as they’ve come to be known) whether they would like to join us.
This seemed unlikely, what with the unfettered access to BET and all.
But I thought I’d give it a try, so I went down and said, “We’re going to carve pumpkins upstairs if any of you want to join us.”
There was a moment of exchanged glances amongst them, a secret Mississippi code of sorts. And then to my pleasant surprise, they all said “ok” and appeared upstairs a few minutes later.
I have to tell you, carving those silly pumpkins was the most fun we’ve had in a very long time.
We all got down on our hands and knees and scooped pumpkin innards out into a bowl, separating the seeds from the chaff. Then everyone took time designing their pumpkin.
None of the Delta Squad (DS) had ever carved pumpkins before and they really got into it. They all looked up inspiration on the web and spent an hour or so meticulously carving their designs. Our kids were excited to see the designs they had drawn on paper come to life on their pumpkins and we were all anticipating the pumpkin seeds roasting in the oven.
Well maybe not all of us, the DS thought that whole “eating pumpkin seeds thing” was pretty crazy, but were pleasantly surprised when I forced them to try them later.
It was one of those Norman Rockwell family moments (if Rockwell had painted a lot of alternative families). The older kids helped the younger kids with their pumpkins. We all oohed and ahhed when each pumpkin was lit with a candle. We laughed at each others designs and marveled at each others talent. It was a crisp fall day and every smell, sensation and perfect picture postcard moment was captured in each of our memories. And on our Sony HDD video camcorder with 12x zoom.
I tell the DS all the time that while they are here, they are part of our family – both the good and the bad of that, but it doesn’t always feel that way. On Sunday it felt like we WERE all a family. A big, crazy, Maryland, Mississippi pumkin carving family.
What could be better than that?