Thanksgiving Weekend in (a Bajillion) Pictures

Thanksgiving weekend started out swimmingly.  

We got all gussied up to go to my mom's for dinner.  (Well, Grayson wore sweats and we were just happy Abby had clothes on) Even had time to try a family photo shoot.  It didn't work but it was worth a shot...or twelve.

 (So cute, a blinking grape!)

 "Darnit Honey, something's wrong w/the timer..."

"Heheheheheheh..." 

Once we got to our destination, we enjoyed family time,

 

 (Mom & me)

 

 (My brother, Matt & me with fewer teeth and my Leno chin)

some living room dancing, 

  

 

a little post eats napping, 

some just catching up,

 

and lastly, some evil spells cast on all by Rapunzel.

Thanksgiving Day was relaxing, fun, and easy.

The day after Thanksgiving we decided to stay clear of shopping malls.  Instead, we decided to go look for a Christmas tree.

 First we met some friends at a nearby orchard.

 

The kids romped and ran their hearts out between Christmas trees.

 

But weren't too busy to make new friends.

The mommies weren't too busy to play too.

 After while, everyone spotted the perfect tree.

Nope, not that one...

This one!

Within minutes, the boys sawed it down like big men.

 Let the angels rejoice, our tree is coming home!

Last night was spent decorating.

 
 

Andy and I helped just a bit before we took leave with tea on the couch like the middle aged people we are quickly becoming.

This year it was a welcome relief to watch the kids do most of the work.  

And as you can see, the kids were just as proud of their finished product.

  

 

Or their toosh, not sure which.

 

And of course, we can't have one day go by undocumented by a pale and very plaid mom.

 

A mom who is proud of her family that tries hard to shove a lifetime into minutes, and love into a shoe box.

(By the way, here's how our Operation Christmas Child shoe boxes turned out.  Kids picked everything out themselves.  Abby only snuck out two presents and hid them in her room for herself.  Baby steps.  Giving is hard work when you're almost four.

 Grayson's box

Abby's box - minus a stuffed cat and a mini skateboard

 G giving the finishing touches.

And lastly, their letters.  I hope the recipients get to write them back some day.  That would be so cool.

Oh, we are also the most inefficient Samaritans as we totally missed the drop off dates.  Never fear, the post office will still deliver if I can get myself there this week.  Odds are bad considering I still have a boxed up Halloween ninja costume, size 10-12, needing to be returned in the trunk of my car.) 

So how did you spend your Thanksgiving holiday?  Did you travel far or stay home?  Did you wear Barney purple like I did all weekend?  How did you spend your Black Friday?

However things went, I sincerely hope it was a wonderful weekend for you all.  

I am grateful to have you stop in here.  Thanks for reading and may you all have cozy socks on because holy winter, it's getting cold outside.  

I Sure Do Blink a Lot

From my family unrest to yours, Happy Thanksgiving! Roll the videotape!
(And here I thought I was going to capture a sweet memory.)

Thankful for Book Club

I have missed books.

Twitter, Facebook, blogs and other quick and dirty substitutes have elbowed their way into the mainstream, leaving books to the devoted few.

In college, I coveted my class books and refused to sell back any literary gems at the end of any semester.  I didn't want to part with the stories that filled up so much of my heart and mind.

This, of course, has resulted in towing along approximately 300 lbs in hardbacks over the years throughout our many moves.  Probably only 3 oz on a disk if I took the time to scan them.  

The surge of connection felt through reading other people's blogs is addictive and so very entertaining but it cannot compare to reading an actual book.

There is a slow introduction of character you pick up with every page, hints and nuances of someone's inner map and desires.  Not an "About" page.

There are chapters where you fall in love, get angry with, and choose sides.  Not an abbreviated status update about forgetting to drink coffee over the weekend (mine).

A good book brings personalities to life, offers up friends with whom you can identify or reject without repercussion, and scenery you can't wait to wake up to in the morning.

When I wrap myself in a blanket and crack open pages of a book, I am setting out to listen and follow, not talk or guide the way.

The one-sidedness of it is a relief.

Today, as I stare at my new novel to finish, I am thankful to Book Club for bringing books back to my life.

This month's book is Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern.

I'm only on page 7 or so but already, I love the little girl with amber curls and scared eyes.  I can't wait to see where she takes me.

The Gimmies

Now that the kids are getting older, we have a small issue regarding Christmas.

The children have The Gimmies.

 

They think Santa will bring them 29 presents. Each. 

Not sure where Abby came up with this number but evidently she and Grayson share the opinion that 5 or 6 six presents from Santa is insultingly meek. His sleigh is magic and bottomless and it's his job to bestow upon good girls and boys an obscene amount of Lalaloopsie dolls and Ninja Turtle figurines.

I can remember circling everything Cabbage Patch Kid in a Sears catalog when I was their age so they come by it naturally.

To extinguish The Gimmies and help them give of themselves to bring joy to others, we've employed a few strategies but none work so well as asking our kids to participate in Operation Christmas Child.  

I learned about this from Anna.http://aninchofgray.blogspot.com/2012/11/if-shoe-box-fits.html

She and her family have been doing this for years and I promise you that once you read any of her posts, you will be scraping the bottom of your closets in search of shoe boxes too.  (But you don't have to, you can use plastic ones, order them online or ask your local church where to pick them up.)

We have been excited to participate this year but I had no idea how psyched the kids would get. All I had to say was that we would be shopping for kids who might not get a visit from Santa this year. 

"No visit?" 

"From Santa?"

A woeful set of eyes stared back at me appalled that such sacrilege existed.

"No visit from Santa," I answered back wondering what kind of pickle I got myself in.  How am I to explain why or how Santa chooses some cities and not others, spoils some continents and neglects the rest.

Thankfully, the kids never asked.  Instead, they got busy making lists of things they want to buy with their birthday money, their allowance money, my Starbuck's money, Andy's Dunkin Donut's money.  

The Gimmies just did a U-Turn and headed back at us but it's ok.

Because today we will be heading out to purchase things for six year old boys and four year old girls who will be opening their shoe boxes this Christmas to find presents and a homemade Christmas ornament, painted especially for them.

Maybe then they will know that Santa has not forgotten them after all.

Maybe now my kids will feel it's just as important to give 29 presents as it is to receive them.

House Rules

Like my brother says, Sparrow makes good on her name flying the coop every chance she gets.

Sparrow's chances increase when my husband is home.

You see, my husband is really great at many, many things but one thing forever eludes him: closing the garage door. He is just a Keep the Garage Door Open kind of guy.

So, in earnest effort to keep our dog (and children, not in that order) safe, I have declared with my mighty broomstick: HOUSE RULE: Garage Door Down. It's a rule. We don't break rules in this house. We eat, drink, and sleep rules around here because it's all I have left. I have no more youthful glow, no more poetic outlook, no more frozen yogurt in the freezer therefore rules are the only captain guiding this ship.

SO, yesterday Husband comes home to change out of uniform and head back out to the library until close. Simple evolution, maybe ten minutes.

At minute five, Husband offers to stay back with kids while I quickly walk the dogs. Agreed! I open the kitchen door to grab the leash to put on the dog who has just bolted ass down the driveway and into the woods across the street.

"What the??? Who left the...? Why in the world would you...? It's a RULE!"

And then I completely lose my sh*t. Or regressed into a four year old, either description works.

Spinning in some kind of puffy jacket circle of hate, me and my many layers begin rant: "It's a RULE, YOU HAVE TO KEEP THE GARAGE DOOR DOWN...I'm not NOT NOT going to get her. YOU have to go get her. I'm NOT going to get her AGAIN after YOU left the garage door down AGAIN. I am NOT, I WILL not, I HAVE not." (Wth? Olde English?) As my tongue picks up speed inside my mouth, I realize I have spun my sorry butt downstairs to yell, pout and stomp my feet in our basement.

After seeing I'm not helping matters, I go peek on Husband to check what kind of progress has been made in Find Lost Sparrow so I can stop spinning once and for all.

Husband has not made visible progress. He is there, one foot hiked up on kitchen bench, untying his four mile long lace Marine boots.

"Aren't you gone yet?" Good one, Einstein. Definitely tough one to figure out on the physical presence of him still in the kitchen. "I cannot go out like this, in uniform. I am trying to get out of uniform to go get the dog." He says rather evenly like a normal human being.

"WHAT?! I could've already ran up the street by now and found her but blah blah bladitity blah blah..." I prattle off un-evenly as I make haste past him, through the garage, and down the street.

Sparrow is gone. I do not even know which way to start.

I stand stone still to listen: Rustling leaves. Dogs barking down the street. Man walking toward his backyard with annoyed expression. All great signs!

I find Sparrow at a nearby house, sniffing the fence of some little cockapoos or yorkapugs or something small breed and aromatic.

She ducks my first attempts and we play a nice round of Hide & Seek before a young boy walks toward her (on his way home from school) which scares the bumblebees out of her enough so I can grab her collar.

On our way home, Grayson catches up with me huffing and puffing about the keys, do I have the keys.

House keys? Ummm, no. I barely have my sanity, boy, I for sure did not grab house keys.

Grayson runs back to Husband who is in our garage wearing civilian clothes and holding what looks like a spatula.

"We're locked out of our house, Mommy!" Grayson sings through hops of sheer delight.

"Seriously."

My husband and I do not even speak.

I check the back for open windows. Not a chance, I am like a freaking rockstar Mole Person and never leave anything unlocked when I'm alone at home with the kids. With my garage door down.(!!)

Within minutes (?!?!?!)we are back in. I will not tell you how or give more details other than to say my husband is very resourceful with garage tools (not the spatula) when he needs to be.

Dude cannot close a garage door to save his soul but he can get his family back inside a warm house within minutes.

And really, when you think about it? I'm the one who let her go. House Rule# 2: Always CHECK to make sure garage door is down.

Yoga

As you can tell by the infrequent postings, life has gotten busier than the usual break-neck busy. Between school volunteering (Yay, I'm a real volunteer mom now!), kids' conferences, Marine Corps Ball, Book Club, and all the things a mom has to do to keep her brood healthy, this little blog has been sitting here silent.

Today I'm grateful for a slow morning so we can catch up.

Wanna see USMC Ball pics?

Outtakes:

This year's ball was much different from last year's ball. There was less of a party atmosphere and more of a serious feel with all the attendees being from Command and Staff College. I think when people study together it doesn't exactly build the same camaraderie as when they work and/or save lives together. We still had a great time and I met two beautiful ladies with whom I talked politics (one was a former lobbyist) and the other Special Education while we gawked at all the red carpet gowns before us.

I was even the veteran wife who never once saw her Marine and didn't pout. After bumping into another wife who stood broiling in a corner, madly texting her husband to find him, it all came rushing back. Ah, I remember those days. When you thought that song was about you.

"Just think of it as a big fraternity party." I offered knowing it was pittance. She was exquisite in her royal blue gown. Her hair had been carefully twisted and tucked into place, a small row of sparkling flowers holding it all together like a promise.

"Well, yeah. But this is my first ball and..." She didn't need to finish. I remember.

What I wanted to say is that it's not about your pretty hair or your fancy shoes. It's not even about how fierce your arms look in your strapless gown.(She did bring her guns out, I tried not to envy). This night is about honoring those men and women in the service who have given their time, sweat, tears, and sometimes lives for freedom. This night is to stand honorably before them and give thanks for the job they do when the rest of us sleep on our soft pillows at night. It's what I wanted to say but didn't because I remember. I remember when I thought it was a date night, too.

Thankfully, her husband turned the corner after a few minutes and I excused myself quickly in hopes they could reconcile because Pretty Mama was miffed.

Andy and I found each other an hour or so later and headed down to the bar to say goodbye to his mates and my new former lobbyist friend.

"Come to yoga with me," she sad.

"Yes. I love yoga," I lied. Grayson and Abby taught me cat and cow position from their preschool. That and downward dog are the only things in the world I know about yoga.

"Great. Here's the address, you will love it. Now, what are you drinking? Is that a Sprite?"

And we chatted for the next hour about brothers, Nancy Pelosi, chihuahuas, Schipperkes, and adoption. We bonded over her red wine and my second Sprite (I still managed to say inappropriate things to a group of lovely spouses and shatter a wineglass with my purse).

And now I have a yoga class to attend somewhere in D.C. with a girl who may or may not remember we became besties at the bar.

Maybe I should text her first.

Winter

An ashen tail pipe drips and steams just a few feet from our car.

This is winter.

I am a teenager again, studying images from from the passenger seat of my grandfather's Chrysler.

My grandfather's legs are perfect 90 degree angles, his knees making pleats on powder blue pants. His freckled hand holds the wheel while the other pushes through a surprise of thick gray hair.

He is quiet, deliberate, and relaxed as a train conductor with years of muscle memory.

"Your blinker's still on." I remind him because I don't want us run off the road.

"Thanks, Smartypants." He teases me as if we had an ongoing tit-for-tat.

We drive in the slow lane to school, neither of us needing to fill up serenity with meaningless chatter.

I wish there was an even slower lane.

"Don't miss the bus ride home, it's a long walk." He ribs me some more. I can think of nothing funny so I kiss his cheek in a truce. I'll get him back later after walking home from school.

Nobody's around to see my grandpa drop me off that day and I feel disappointed. I want to show him off. He's my secret weapon that I liked to bring out as if in doing so people would suddenly understand me.

Growing up with my grandparents meant I started at the end and went in reverse. I already saw what happens in the end. The sweet retired middle, the lonely broken after, and the very bitter harshness of the final end.

While my friends felt giddy for dances, Homecoming games, or their new Sebagos, I felt alien, disconnected, and uninterested. All the cool kid stuff seemed frivolous in my world ripe with discussions of dictatorships, savings bonds, college applications, and Alzheimer's.

I faked it just fine though, did not look like a weirdo and fell in love so hard that love letters gave way to poetry which kept me busy and utterly amused for years. I lived and loved very much inside my own mind. it was safe there.

My best friend (my Otter) was my one link to this strange dramatic teenage world, doing her best to include me in after school events, pep rallies, and student government. None of it stuck but we ate a lot of Doritos and made a bazillion precious memories together.

Now, with both grandparents long gone, my default is to still feel displaced, disconnected, and alien, even when there is no real reason to feel those ways. I belong now to a different sort of club: Motherhood, Preschool, Kindergarten, Writer's Circle, Runner Buddy, and the beat goes on.

Sure, there may not be a grandfather to adore or a grandma to take to the store for cough drops and cottage cheese. But is that any reason to sleep walk through this part, even if it seems foreign to me now? In homage to them, I need to wake the F up.

Suddenly, sitting behind an ashen tail pipe that is steaming and dribbling toward my minivan, I see it's almost winter again. I'm not ready for winter. Even though I may not know how to do this middle of life part (mothering, cultivating egos to sail instead of rest, this tricky balancing act of nurturing others while keeping my own personal joy alive and well) I'm going to figure it out, splinters and all.

My children play around me and I don't care to join in. I want to curl up in my blanket and fleece to write, drink hot drinks, and have conversations about capitalism and nursing school.

But I can't do that. Because if I did, my kids would grow up just like I did, over before I began. They would know realities of what happens in the end. They have a right to a silly youth, frenetic tumbling toward independence, unabashed kid yells of a happy childhood. They will not read their stories from back to front if I can buck up and take off my granny undies.

Their winter has not even started yet.

Body Heat

Sparrow is a warm "U" keeping my backside toasty.

When it comes down to brass tacks, that's what seems to matter most.

Is there warmth? In all the ways.

Socks on feet, heart to hearts, removing ego, taking soup to someone who may give you nothing in return.

Is there warmth here?

Not a question but an echo from hills I'll never reach but show up like open mist in my dreams.

When it's all done, and one day it will be, it is the thing that will have mattered most.

Without warmth, it was all just a show of one: a cold dust mite hidden beneath the sun.

Our Temple of Doom

I'm still here. Been crazy on the east coast and in our little microcosm world too.

Will spend more time explaining when I'm not posting from the carline for kindergarten pickup.

Short version: I ran a 5k with my brother, Matt two weeks ago. Andy ran the Marine Corps marathon the day Hurricane Sandy hit MD, VA & DC. He completed the race in a superhuman time (3 hrs and 36 min, I think.) and did not even require a soak in a tub afterward.

Sandy grounded us for a few days, took electric from many of my family members in MD and NY and tons of friends all up the east coast. Some are still (unfathomably) without power.

Then, as our USMC Curse would have it (will link later) all poop ricocheted from the fan:

Yesterday morning Andy picked up Grayson from a dead lift and felt a ping in his lower back. A few minutes later I was attempting to piggyback my 180lb Marine down the hall and down a stairwell to get him to the doctor because the pain was excruciating for him.

Once we made it to the stairwell, I stared down those ten little carpeted steps like they had man-eating hela monsters lapping up at us. It wasn't happening, I couldn't get my husband out of the house.

An ambulance ride, multiple morphine drips, and an overnight stint in the ER later, he is back home on a heating pad with lots of "special" Tylenol. Thank goodness that's over with. He is hurting but he is home.

I am relieved but I am also completely bushwhacked. SO very glad Andy's back is "just a sprain" but simply pooped from schlepping kids, worrying my ass off, making sure dogs did business NOT on our mattress (Sparrow aimed at my pillows last time as her love note to me.) and finding my van in the new parking lot approximately three states away from the ER. The lady at the info desk literally hands you a map of directions, or a treasure map as I called it, and you then hop elevators, slide down escalators, and jump on hayrides through endless corridors until you find The Temple of Doom. Or your husband, whichever is closest.

Ok, time to go. Grayson and I are about to go drop off a wagon we sold on Craigslist at a local Starbucks because I needed to add one more thing to this already car riddled day.

Tell me your story. I'm getting a bit tired of mine.