The secret to carving pumpkins can be boiled down to one simple fact that you must remind yourself throughout the entire procedure: avoid all major arteries. That’s all you need to remember. That’s all you need to be aware of. Who cares what the pumpkin looks like when you’re done. So what if it appears to have been hit by a car or attacked by rabid badgers. Don’t worry about that! What matters is if all your limbs are still there. That the majority of your blood is still inside your body. That you haven’t skewered your spleen. Nothing — I repeat, nothing! — will ruin a holiday tradition faster than a major organ turned into a shish kabob. Or having to call in to the other room: “Honey, can you drive me to the hospital? I don’t think the kid can hold this tourniquet much longer.”

Man, the signs are all there that my little kid is growing up. She’s 3 ½ and filling out her first college application. Actually, she’s not 3 ½ anymore. That’s the crazy part. She’s like 3 ¾, and well on her way to 4. FOUR! That’s a big kid number, and eons away from being a baby. I think at 4 they start going to cocktail parties and saying things like, “Yes, I did move my money before the recession hit, but unfortunately I put it all in Lincoln Logs. And you know how that market did.” Clothing sizes that used to fit her don’t anymore, and the other night she actually leaned over her plate as she stuffed a spoonful of couscous into her mouth. Nothing — NOTHING! — fell on the floor. “Oh my God, Amelie,” I shouted, startling everyone. “That’s amazing!” She got excited, too … because she thought Santa Claus was behind her.

The kid in the baby jogger leaned her head back as far as it would go and peered at me through the plastic window in the red sun visor: “Do you want to hear a story?” she asked. “Sure,” I say to my 3 1/2–year-old daughter, knowing I’m about to go on some mesmerizing trip. Oh, the stories she tells while we’re out on these runs. “See the thunder birds and the lightning birds high in the sky? They’re high as the clouds. Do you see them?” I think this is what she says. I really have no idea if I’m hearing this right. I’m struggling to push her and the jogger — a combined 50+ pounds that feel like they’ve attracted double the gravity — and I’m trying not to succumb to heat stroke while bobbing and weaving around cars. Could be I misheard her, or even that I’m hallucinating.

Like a general. That’s how you launch an attack on a theme park, especially if it’s the middle of July. A Florida July. Have you had that kind of an experience? Sweat pouring down your face in salty streams. Shoulders sagging under the weight of a 3 ½–year-old child who is riding you like a pachyderm. Storm clouds turning the sky plum purple. Seventeen million people encroaching on your personal space. Seventeen million people who smell funny and like to stop suddenly in your path, causing the 3 ½-year-old child on your shoulders to catapult into the shark tank. Only a general — a great general, a grand and glorious general — could navigate that and bring the troops back alive. Such a man would grip the land with a steely gaze, jam a fat stogy the size of a salami in his mouth, and bark out commands like: “Men, we must march toward the penguin exhibit with gusto!” or “Mam, your Britney Spears T-shirt is two sizes too small. Now fish my daughter out of that pool.” As I navigated the hordes at Sea World, I became that general. A military tactician. A strategist. Someone who grabbed control of the situation and said strong and forceful things like, “Shamu starts in five. Let’s roll, maggots.”

Are we crazy or sumpthin’? Have our brains taken permanent vacations — grabbed a stimulus check and high-tailed it for the Caribbean? Did we lose sight of sanity, which is two hills back, around the bend and enjoying a guilt-free bologna sandwich. Are we really proposing a 1,000-mile road trip with a three-year-old? All the way to Missouri. Spanning numerous days. Forging rivers. Crossing mountains. Visiting truck stops. Eating in places where they misspell “turkey loaf,” and where the coffee tastes like watered-down motor oil. Actually, it could be fun. It could be a blast. We might all sue each other when it’s over, but think of the stories we could tell. And all the states we’d cross. All the country we’ll see. All the time we’ll have together in the car, which actually brings me back to thinking we’re nuts. If the thesis gods approve, I’ll graduate in May with a masters degree from the University of Missouri’s Journalism School. I need to finish up my research, make sense of it all, figure out what methodology means (“Isn’t that about dragons and dwarves and fairies? What does that have to do with my research?”) and then send it off to see what people far wiser than me think.

Inflating. Screwing. Hammering. Snapping. Twisting. Cursing. Snipping. Re-snapping. Re-re-snapping. Undoing. Taping. Duct-taping. Copious cursing. Bleeding. Band Aid-ing. Measuring. Reading. Misunderstanding. Re-reading. Throwing. Holding. Stretching. Gluing. Pulling. Peeling. Sticking. Injecting. Injecting? Tweezing. Squeezing. Re-sizing. More screwing. Flipping. Turning. Painting. Exhausting. Infuriating. Overwhelming. Brain-mush-erating. Me percolating. Finally (sigh) rest. So went the march of the toys at my house this Christmas. Or should I say the toy assembly. I spent a lot of time assembling, and I mean A LOT. I must admit, it was fun. But also draining.