t h a n k s g i v i n g | 2 0 1 6
the thursday after thanksgiving was our last small group meeting for the year. most of our time together involved eating sweet treats and chatting about our holiday plans. again and again, i listened to friends recap their family thanksgivings with a tone of relief, like the thing they were most thankful for was surviving it. as i stood there with a plate of fresh monkey bread, still warm from the oven, it occurred to me how unique my family is, and how so often i forget.
how incredible, that i come back from family holidays thinking, 5/5 – would do it again.
the nice thing about working for a family is that they do things like take full weeks off at holidays, which means i also get the full week off.
this year, mom and T's birthdays fell on the saturday and sunday before thanksgiving, which meant arriving a week early also included birthday celebrations.
this is charlotte, in november.
luca is three years. jack is ten weeks.
the first two days involved a lot of shopping and cake eating. what better way to celebrate a birthday? T also had her bff (+ family) in town for the weekend, which made it all the sweeter.
also, it needs to be mentioned that T spent the morning of her birthday, in that there's-nothing-i'd-rather-be-doing way, sorting out the pink sprinkles from all the rest, because luca had said he wants "sprinkles pink" on his slice of cake. nothing says "i'm a mom" quite like that.
then, as we were going around the room and saying what we love about T, luca – unprompted – said a whole thing about how nice she is for sharing her birthday cake and putting pink sprinkles on it. except, in his three year old way, in his own words that were spoken so fast, they all sort of ran together.
which, i think, tops it all off. because what my mom and i got on our birthdays was mostly "i just love her" and him looking back and forth between us and T like he didn't know what else to say. (and this, don't get me wrong, is sweet in itself. how simple it is, to a three year old. when you love someone, you just do.) (also i did not sort out pink sprinkles to put on his slice of my birthday cake. i didn't even have a cake. so that could be it.)
the next few days involved a lot of down time. luca got sick, the sickest he's been since being vocal. not that it makes it any worse than any time before, but it weighs on your heart a little more when you hear him say "i don't feel good" and "i don't like this" and there isn't anything you can say in return, because there isn't anything you can do to make it stop. you can't, actually, absorb the discomfort.
he sat on the couch for the better part of two days, with a box of tissues nearby and occasionally one in his hand, held up to his nose.
on wednesday, i helped my mom make pies.
we baked seven pies. SEVEN. only four different kinds though, because we like what we like. and we like a lot of it, obviously.
i just realized in that last photo you can only see six pies, but i promise there is a second apple hiding behind me. for someone who prides herself on being able to include everyone (and every pie) in a selfie, i sure slipped up with this one.
anyway, at one point, we heard the dog barking and later realized he only wanted some attention – which my dad promptly gave to him. and the thing is, my dad is constantly rolling his eyes at how high maintenance this dog is. (because he is the most high maintenance.) every time i visit, he tells me i'm the one who made him that way, by catering to him. but now i will just pull up this photo whenever he tries to tell me that again.
the other notable thing is, we managed to make these seven pies while also babysitting jack, when T and lee took luca to the doctor.
can we discuss jack's hand placement in those last two?
and then, thanksgiving.
things of note:
1. we propped jack up on the couch to take a "first thanksgiving" photo. he held that expression the entire time.
2. luca does this thing where you will be playing and he will suddenly look up and ask to snuggle. it's one of my favorite things.
3. ben rector played the macy's thanksgiving day parade. it was on the tv all morning, but this is the only part i happened to watch.
4. we had a 27 pound turkey. one pound for each of the years of my life.
5. the goodin's were thankful for ...christmas, apparently. also, for good measure, having two kids is like
that.
post-thanksgiving, we went shopping, got pedicures, watched gilmore girls, ate monkey bread, played yard yahtzee, laughed, and took a lot of random photos. the usual things.
ps:
