A simple joy of summertime…

Watermelon!

Yesterday our neighbor, Kris, brought over watermelon slices for the kids. When Collin and Oliver came out, after the failed attempt at a nap, Collin found Ethan’s slice on the kid’s picnic table (of which Ethan only had one or two bites from – playing was too important to him yesterday). Collin picked it up, smiled and took a big bite, stretching his mouth as far as he could. As he continued to eat, watermelon was dripping all over him and his face was reddish from shoving it into the watermelon so as not to miss one single bite. He ate it down to the rind at which time I took it from him, which caused a HUGE melt down. I am talking he protested in a major way that caused heads to turn and eyes to stare. It was the last piece of watermelon and the banana I gave him didn’t appease him one bit. It took flight actually.

Since I certainly could not deny this simple joy, I went at lunch today and picked up a watermelon. He loved it all over again… and I got some great photos this time.

Oliver, my camera loving child who says "cheese" whenever he sees the camera and smiles huge. He wasn't as smitten as Collin with the watermelon but ate some.

Ethan "Mr. Face" Moore... on a side note, I almost cried when I saw these photos... he looks so grown up! When did that happen?!!

And drum roll please... the watermelon loving kid of the Moore family... Collin...

As I was handing it to him he was smiling HUGE, wiggling his fingers and making his happy sound. When he had it in his possession, he promptly stuck it in his mouth and then just sat there like that for a long while... as if to savor the taste as he is below...

And one of his huge bites...

Down to the rind...

It looks like he is thinking: "Watermelon my love, where have you been all my life?" (notice the watermelon beard)

The second piece, while still [insisting upon] clinging onto the first...

I remember as a kid eating slices of watermelon at family picnics. At that time, the prehistoric ages, we didn’t have these fancy virtually seedless watermelons. We had to spit out the black hard seeds – which as a kid was a lot of fun actually – or so we made it that way. I guess some summertime joys never change… just, in this case, get easier to eat.

For Steve and I, the real joy of this summertime treat was the show... ahhh how these kids make us laugh.