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door and helped unwedge little Liam—crisis averted in less than a minute.

So back to last Sunday— my father’s birthday. Our niece wanted to try it again and get that perfect pumpkin pic. She was determined to get it right. My husband helped her hollow out the giant pumpkin and cut two little leg holes near the base. When Liam woke from his nap, our niece gently removed his Baby Shark pajamas and changed his diaper, all the while cooing “Good morning! Good morning!” to her sleepy baby boy.

We all stepped outside onto the porch, and in one smooth motion, she plunged him into the pumpkin—this one so enormous it practically swallowed him whole. He looked up at us with a most bewildered expression before the waterworks started. That’s when our niece and I began dancing around like lunatics in front of him. Our interpretive dance was so bizarre that Liam became distracted and stopped crying for just a few moments, staring at us like we’d lost our minds while submerged in orange pumpkin flesh. We quickly snapped a dozen photos. Are they Instagram- worthy? Absolutely not. But they’re ours, and they’re freakishly perfect.

And afterward, I held the pumpkin while our niece slid him right out. No panicked neighborhood tour required.

Those photos might not be what our niece had envisioned, but they’re something better—they’re a Goldilocks story we’ll tell Liam for the rest of his life. “One time when you were four months old, your mama put you in a pumpkin. The first pumpkin was too small, and you got stuck. The second pumpkin was too big and swallowed you whole. We didn’t try a third pumpkin, but if we had, I’m sure it would have been just right.”

It was, and is, the stuff of fun family folklore, and I’m sure my father— watching from somewhere beyond this world—got a kick out of the spectacle. Some people carve spooky faces on pumpkins and place glowing candles inside. Not us. We put babies inside our pumpkins. Happy Halloween!

Liam — Pumpkin is too huge.