Picasso in the Pumpkin Patch

I own a Picasso! It came in the mail-exquisitely drawn on a card with smiling pumpkins on the front. I know why my little Picasso chose that particular Grandparent's Day card. It was those pumpkins! You see, this little Picasso and I wander about the gardens out back. They are full of pumpkins of all sizes-some are still green-some a vibrant orange-all still on gnarly vines with picky leaves. They're so picky that she'll pull her dimpled hand back and ask me to move those big, ugly, prickly leaves out of the way so she can squat down and pat each one-big or small. And as she is patting them ever so gently in their beds of soil or grass she quietly talks to them, telling me to be quiet because they are sleeping.

"Shh Gra-Gra! Shhh," she will say to me in a concerned tone with her finger to her lips.

Then whispering in a little voice sounding more like a chorus of angels, she tells each pumpkin she touches how pretty it is-how nice it is as the wind sifts through the plants getting weary as the seasons change and her silky hair twirls in the breeze and butterflies still dance about.

This little artist also loves to tiptoe around in spots where the grass is so high you can't see what is hidden underneath. Lifting one leg up as far as she can and then the other, it's as if she is on a treasure hunt. Actually, she is. She gets giggly excited when squatting back down and pulling that grass out of the way, she finds a pumpkin. If it is a little one she wonders where its mommy and daddy have gone. She tells the little pumpkin how it will be okay-how much she loves him.

"Look Gra-Gra! Another one! Another one!," she declares to me as we sit side-by-side and talk about each one she discovers.

Soon we will gather to celebrate those pumpkins that have inspired a little Picasso, sparking her curiosity even more of the world around her. What in springtime was but a garden, has turned into a memory maker. I wonder how she'll feel when it comes time to pick her little friends off those tired vines. I do believe many of them will be going home with her and her little brother and dog and mommy and daddy. After all, that's what friends are for-especially for this little Picasso who has nurtured the pumpkins along the way-even drawn them as is evident in my original Picasso above. And like any Picasso-this original is priceless.

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