I had this idea that I would write today about all the things I learned and did over the month of November. You know, while I was blogging every day and achieving enlightenment. But then I looked at the calendar and realized that it’s only the 29th. So I’ll be saving that for tomorrow.
Sort of looks like a tie to me. Although with all the leftovers, everybody wins.
I told the kids that I would be more willing to take them places if they learned the art of browsing. We chatted about it and I explained that you look at things, but you don’t ask me to buy them for you. You may not even want to buy the items. Maybe the item just sparks your creativity, etc, etc. It’s going to take to some work. But today I needed to run errands at several places, including Target, and I needed to bring Jack with me.
I said, “Jack. We are going to Target. But we aren’t going to buy any toys. You can look at the toys if you want, but you can’t ask me to buy them.”
Jack said, “We are going to… broooowse?”
We needed to ease into browsing, and we are also working on ideas for Santa, so Jack was allowed to point out what he liked in the toy aisle. Then I thought maybe I would take a few photos of stuff he liked. Long story short, I have 28 new pictures on my phone, and two videos of Jack dancing to music one that one of the toys made.
So… Fortunately, Dave is a calm driver, because we were driving in the mountains today when I saw this and screamed. Apparently, Beard Hat is a real thing. I accidentally stole the idea, so if you want one, you should buy one from burlybeard.com. You know you want one!
It’s funny because I have had that darn December Real Simple for weeks, but I have been saving it because I had this idea that I would be curled up by the fire at some point over Thanksgiving, reading magazines and drinking coffee and savoring the moment. It’s odd that I didn’t have a moment to savor with a magazine until exactly one day after I published my beard hat post.
Speaking of things for which I feel thankful… I have to give thanks for my mother in law, who knitted this awesome hat that I requested, and for my son who is willing to wear it. The back story, is that I was reading my friend Aurora’s blog, and she mentioned pinterest in this post. That led me down the rabbit hole of pinterest and soon I was sending this picture to Laura asking her to teach me to knit. She said she would. Then I realized I was probably never going to knit that awesome beard hat, so I emailed my awesome mother in law with the link. Now, two short months later, Jack is in possession of a beard hat.
Life is perfect.
Family friends food blue skies puppies health bike rides stories games hugs kisses books pie wii presents
Thanks
Chestnuts: Boiled
Cake:baked
French Bread for stuffing: Baked
Hmm – That’s it. When I started this blog post, I really felt like I was ahead of the game. Oh yeah, one more thing.
Pie: Purchased!
No idea why this already posted, but I pulled a technospaz. It’s supposed to be for tomorrow, but it posted today with tomorrow’s date. Oh well!
The point of this post is to say that I make a mean apple pie. That is all.
It’s all the rage in pop culture today to discuss team pie vs. team cake. Or at least it was two years ago. Now it’s probably team cake pop vs. team whoopie pie or something. Regardless, I think it’s pretty obvious that I am on team cake, like any normal, sane person with taste buds, and an appreciation of fine desserts and and aversion to hot fruit. So you can imagine my horror when my beloved son joined team pie. When I found out, my emotions ran the usual spectrum, denial, anger, acceptance. Somewhere along the way I questioned whether I knew before I agreed to marry him, that Dave once requested a birthday watermelon instead of cake.
But here we are. Days before Thanksgiving, with a fully realized menu that does not include pie. In fact, I make pumpkin cake. What to do? I spent a lot of time thinking of future Luke complaining to future friends about how he loved pie, but his mom refused to make it. Or future Luke bragging about how his mom’s pie was the highlight of Thanksgiving. Obviously, I want to come across as the best mom ever in Luke’s future memories. But I don’t actually want to make a pie this week. What to do? What to do?
Then I started wondering why I care so much about future Luke’s memories? He really doesn’t have that good of a memory. It’s possible, that as an adult, his only memory of a childhood Thanksgiving will be the time he narrowly avoided being sprayed by Jack’s vomit, because he had the foresight to prop up a big pillow between the two of them for germ free football watching. In fact, that may currently be his only childhood Thanksgiving memory. I saw myself developing a plan. A compromise of sorts.
People. I bought a pie. Not even a fancy pie from the local organic pie bakery. It’s a frozen pie.
Luke saw it and jumped for joy.
Happy Thanksgiving!
My baby turned four and I was so sad. Then I got rid of a ton of toddler toys, and I bundled up a mound of clothes and I was happy again. Something interesting about the process of giving away toys is that anything that gets anywhere near the giveaway pile is suddenly the most interesting thing in the world. I start off by getting rid of complete sets of things because I hate the straggler pieces. Then I collect the stragglers and miscellaneous toys and get rid of them. This is why Jack was playing with two different baby phones today, and when Luke grabbed a slinky and pretended it was also a phone, Jack screamed, “NO! That is exclusively for scuba diving!!!” Actually, I don’t know why that last part happened.
Jack is experiencing birthday withdrawal, which is compounded by the fact that I bought niece and nephew presents and had them gift wrapped and they are just floating around the car, taunting poor four year old Jack. I said, “Hey, why don’t I make a pile of toys to give away and suddenly, they will be the most interesting things in the world.” To this, Jack said, “Will you make me a pile of toys to give away so they will be interesting?”
MetaMegan 