Lords of the Gourds

Tonight I watched a documentary on PBS called "Lords of the Gourds." We don't have cable. It was about people who raise giant pumpkins. I really like watching documentaries about regular people who, it turns out, are really good at something: spelling (see "Spellbound"), Scrabble ("Word Wars"), crossword puzzles ("Wordplay"), and, in this case, getting pumpkins to grow really, really big. The world record is 1,460 pounds. The pumpkin you see above weighs in at around 26 pounds. This was taken last week. Harper LOVES pumpkins and is thrilled that they will soon be appearing in big crates outside the grocery stores and on the front porches of houses on our way to the park. She does not, however, call them pumpkins. They are so very special to her that she has a twin language with them and in this language they are called "DOUGH-gi-dize" (rhymes with "go see guys"). Last fall when she started saying it I thought it might be a cute little speech impediment. It's clearly intentional at this point. So, the pumpkin costume was purchased mid-October of last year and, while she would carry it around and hug it for hours at a time, she didn't actually manage to put it on without crying rather hysterically until sometime around Christmas. It now lives inside a tent in her room and some mornings, like this one, she'll pull it out and say, rather carelessly, "I'm going to wear my dough-gi-die now Mommy."