I was taught many, many things from my mother in law. Without her teaching, I wouldn’t have had the first idea how to cook or even do laundry for that matter.
One of the things she taught me was with boys, you cut up watermelon and take out all the seeds. She had 4 boys herself so I listened. She said if boys ate it the way it was, you’d be picking up the seeds for weeks. Add to that, ants and stickiness everywhere.
I have been accused many times of “spoiling” my boys but I always cut up watermelons. I’d buy them whole and spend however long it took me to cut it up and take out all the seeds. It had nothing to do with spoiling, it had to do with saving work for myself later on.
Can’t you just see little kids spitting them at eat other? Who’s then to clean up that mess? It’s one thing at a picnic if everyone is outside and there will be no sticky mess but what about just normal days when they’re eating it inside? My boys loved watermelon and ate it all summer long. It would not have been in my best interest to give it to them with the seeds in it.
Also, when looking for a pic, I found one right away in a bowl without any seeds. So I must not be the only one who does this.
So, how do you all serve watermelon at your house?
Us Girls..Our Views 
I, like you have learned many things from my mother in law. And this being one. I cut them in small squares and take every seed out. I don’t do it for any other reason other than that’s how my boys like it. As much as Bailey likes it cut up though, he’s so funny, if I don’t get the whole watermelon cut, he’ll just take the other half and grab a spoon and go to town on it. He’ll eat the whole thing, spit the seeds on the plate never making a mess with the seeds just the juice.
Got some chicken and corn bread to go with that watermelon? LOL
I am not a big fan of watermelon for some reason. I don’t think I’ve ever cut one up. But I totally agree about boys and seeds. Girls too – because watermelon is messy if it’s eaten in big pieces. I haven’t tried it with my girls yet – I’m not looking forward to the wet, sticky mess.
We have fruit issues at our house.
We are of two camps… three of us will eat apples, but only when the threat of scurvy is imminent.
The other three are these weird fruity kind of people who like brightly colored juicy sweet stuff. I mean, we love these people and all, but come on. Euw.
I’m with you, Joy. I’d rather take the time to remove the seeds than deal with the mess later on.
The only time I remember having watermelon was at a family cookout and my grandma would slice it for us and send us off. If we spit where we weren’t suppose to we were told what was up, but it was never a beating or anything! Last weekend I had a watermelon and cut it in half and used an ice cream scoop to get it out. A lot less sticky mess than cutting it, but I don’t take the seeds out.
My husband actually takes the time to cut it up and take out the seeds.. If he misses a few I find them on the floor later.. Gotta love how boys spit out seeds!..
Joy i’m fine.. I’m near the gulf coast but i’m in SE Texas.. Up north east of galveston. If a storm heads for our part of the coast I’ll be sure to let you know.. We keep an eye on all storms as we were hit really hard by Rita a few years ago and it caused us damage to our home..
Thanks for letting us know Tosha. Your in my thoughts.
I cut it up but don’t take out all the seeds. I do take out the ones I see though. My two boys (one who is the dad!!!!) love to spit them at each other way to much. I don’t know if they love the watermelon or the spitting the seeds at each other more! LOL!!
Oh my gosh, this is so funny. I bought a watermelon about 3 months ago, cut it up, put it in a big bowl in the refrigerator for easy access for snacks. My husband thought it was the best thing since sliced bread – he had never seen anyone cut it up before!!! I was like what??? That is the only way my mom did it and still does it! LOL I never knew people did NOT cut it up!
For eating watermelon in the house or just as a snack, it would never occur to me to leave it in slices. I always cut it up and always take the seeds out. If I’m already handling it, why not? It will otherwise be me to pick them up later. Even if they don’t spit the seeds, they are slippery and will end up somewhere other than on the plate or bowl or whatnot and they are so sticky.
If I’m taking it to an outdoor event or if we are eating it outdoors, I’ll just slice it up and eat it like that.
I buy seedless, I cut them up in little squares and my kids usually have half it gone by the end of the day. The love watermelon.
I’ve gotten them a few times Candi but they seem so much smaller and so much more money. Less to cut up though.
They are more money, and smaller, but i dont have time on my hands with 3 children to be picking out the seeds, or to be picking them off the ground, after a seed fight, I would like to grow my own next year.
That would be good to try growing your own. I bet your kids would get a kick out of that. Kids like that sort of thing. We grew pumpkins for many years and they loved that.
I’ll even go one step above Candi…I cheat even more…I buy it pre-cubed in the produce section. There’s no way in the universe we’d ever eat a whole watermelon, so I’d rather buy just the amount we need.
We have purchased whole ones for BBQs outside etc and sliced them and let the kids eat outside and get as messy as they wanted. If they were too messy we hosed them off before sending them indoors with a towel. 🙂 I figure I’d rather have a trail of water through the house than watermelon juice.
The cubes are also great with babies if you have one of those little teethers that has the mesh bag that you can put the fruit inside? My kids loved an ice cold piece of watermelon to suck on through the mesh, and I didn’t have to worry about them choking.
When my boys were teens and working during the summers and I’d make their lunch, I couldn’t even do it if they were up. I’d have to wait to do the watermelon until they went to bed. They would walk by and eat it as fast as I could cut it up. Watermelon and rice crispy bars, I never thought there’d be a day when it would end. Those two loved both. Between Jason and Toby, we went through a whole watermelon in two days!