Pekin

Welcome to the future! I figured out how to blog on my phone!

We had a completely lovely Thanksgiving. The food was perfect. The kids were reasonably well behaved. My twenty-something cousins opened the 1964 bottle of Crown Royal in my grandpa's den that everyone has been eyeing for years. Why yes I did start sinking whiskey at 1:30 in the afternoon. Why yes, yes I was in bed by 9:45. Why do you ask?

We stayed in a perfect suite--- bedroom for me Ben and Dorothy, a bedroom with bunk beds for Harry and Jack and a pack n play for Cooper, a kitchen where we could stash the gallon of milk we always travel with, and a sitting room with a fold out couch in case one of the kids was sleeping poorly and needed to sleep with one of us. 

We had all the kids in bed by 9 and drank some wine on the couch just like home. Except at home we are not half drunk on old, smooth whiskey and so full of brined turkey and matzah ball soup that we might burst. 

We are on our way to my parents house for the rest of the weekend-- more Hanukkah gifts to exchange, old favorite restaurants to frequent, and friends to visit. 

The most wonderful time of the year indeed. 

Before our 5-hour car ride. I love Dorothy's dress and I love how casual Cooper is compared to everyone else. 

Little maestro

On the way

She was such a sweet baby at dinner last night. We forgot all of her food, but that was fine because she loved mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, matzah balls, and broccoli and celery from the veggie tray

Check Jack out in the background-- so proud of the cranberry bread he made at school

Big fans of their new Charlie Brown dolls 

Started the morning with room service

Which got out of hand quickly

She's a cruiser

And you know these little pasties were up for the hotel pool 

Jack was not scared at all;Harry was a canon baller, and Coop was a little fish

Ben and Dorothy were dry

All 4 kids have been magically asleep for the last 2 hours, but they're stirring now. 

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgoving with people you love. 

Fat Kid in a Little Suit

This post is from 11-26-09, but I liked it so much, here it is again:


Thanksgiving circa 1985-ish

My brothers and me-- I was 7; Ben was 3, and Jon was 2.

Shortly after this picture was taken, I pushed past a houseful of guests to be first in line for the Thanksgiving buffet and heaped my plate high with turkey, chopped liver, stuffing, cranberry orange relish, sweet potatoes, green bean casserole-- you get the idea. I marched into the library where the folding kids' table was set up, delighted that I didn't have to waste time talking to my brothers or any guests, plopped both my plate and my fat little self down on the bench, shot my cuffs, picked up my fork, opened my mouth, and raised a heavy, quivering bite of buttered roll and gravy-drenched meat to my eager lips. And then the table collapsed under the weight of me and my leaning tower of flesh and carbs.

Happy Thanksgiving. May you eat like no one's watching.

Big Moment

Hanukkah, night 1: Dorothy got the first of 5 American Girl Dolls that she will receive this Chrismukkah season (McKenna, Kit, Rebecca, Sage, and a Bitty Baby-- SHUT UP).

It was a moment I have been dreaming of since I got the American Girl catalog when I was 12 and too old to buy dolls even thought I seriously loved them.  Finally!  An American Girl of my own.  I mean of Dorothy's own.

She totes loved it.  Until, you know, a piece of stray wrapping paper caught her eye...

Gah!

I woke up before 5 to record  few lectures for my online class while the house was still quiet.  And since then, everything I have done has been sub-sub standard.  I have been drying the same fucking load of laundry all day only to realize it is on AIR FLUFF.  Took me almost 8 hours to realize that.  So, that's totally awesome.

I usually have the laundry put away by now.

Instead, I am staring down a messy house and 3 baking projects: gluten free sugar cookies in the shape of leaves for Harry's class party tomorrow, a couple dozen tiny pumpkin pies to take to my grandma's, a double batch of my favorite chocolate chip cookies also to take with us this weekend.  And then there's all the rest of the party stuff: 24 little plastic cups to fill with butter cream frosting, 24 more to fill with decorating supplies like mini-chocolate chips, M&Ms, raisins, and sprinkles, the turkey craft to assemble.

Add in the kids' morning drawing mess that's still on the floor, evidence of Cooper's snack all over the living room, two loads of laundry flopping around in the dryer, one resting in a basket on top of the dryer, and one languishing in the washer-- all of which need to be put away before 3 when Ben gets home because if they're not then I lose the right to bitch at him when I have to put the alundry away on his home days, and I like to bitch, obvs. 

And don't forget the huge work project that God is my witness I will be finished with tomorrow so I can enjoy the holiday season with my family or my online adjunct classes which need some interaction like YESTERDAY.

What have I been doing all day?  Target with 2 babies and the Little Gym.  PRIORITIES.

I am off to triage this list (don't ask me how blogging made it to the top).

A note about the girl baby:

I don;t know if it is the teeth that are about to emerge on from her bottom gum or what, but she is totally over food.  She hates YoBaby yogurt, which is unheard of in this house, and she has turned up her cute little nose at the latest batch of squash I made.  Instead, she is all milk all the time, and I am STARVING 24/7.  I have started eating a snack in the middle of the night which I haven't done for a couple of months.

We are trying to give her other food-- like frozen bagels which help soothe her gums.  She also thought this pepper was funny but did not eat it.  Any suggestions for table food that's appropriate for a toothless 8 month old? 

 Only a fourth baby is allowed to play with the toilet.

GIANTS

Yesterday after hockey (OMG-- Harry was the goalie, and he did such a good job- he only let a few pucks in, and he made some excellent saves. And the pads were HUGE and Ben put them on wrong, so Harry's big strategy was to lie on the ice and use his giant mitts-- it worked well) Harry andI braved the mall crowds to pick up some mini pie molds from Williams Sonoma because I was hell bent on making teeny pumpkin pies to go with our Cornish game hens and broccoli so we could pretend to be giants.

After fighting through the crowd to park, taking a detour to wave at Santa (the mall Santa we have visited for the last 7 years is not there this year!  I hope he didn't die.  When Harry noticed the change, he said, "Oh, I guess our mall doesn't have the real Santa this year."  I LOVE HIM SO MUCH), snagging the pie molds and going to the grocery store for pumpkin, I kind of forgot about my pie project and focused on assorted house chores instead.  At like 3:30, I started to make pies and forgto that the dough needed to chill for a couple hours.

TL;DR:  I made blondies that were okay but did not fit the giant theme.

How cute is Cooper;s tray all fancy?

How cute is a tiny man with a tiny bird?

All the passed dishes dead end at Jack.

He's a giant!!

He had to eat a bagel instead

The body cavity grossed him out

I'M A GIANT! (This does not get old for me, in case you're wondering)

Wish bone!

Magically, his dishes survived the meal

Cooper LOVES helping.  Here he is putting leftover stuffing in a tupperware.  Look at his tippy toes.

Place Holder

We had a fancy dinner tonight, and I took some great pictures.  But THAT BABY will not go back to sleep without me after I fed her at 10:13, so they'll have to wait until tomorrow.  But it was Christmas Spode fancy.  Just saying.

Wrapper

Doesn't she look mischievous? She was definitely contemplating a move.

Cooper fell asleep yesterday at the lunch table waiting for me to assemble his bagel with peanut butter, strawberry Greek yogurt and banana (his favorite lunch).  Note the catalog.

Dorothy was our dinner date last night.  We got a babysitter for the boys and went on a marathon Hanukkah shopping spree.

Which would look WAY AWESOMER if we had a Christmas tree, but that doesn't happen until after Thanksgiving, so the kitchen counter it is.  Cooper is losing his shit every time he looks in that direction, by the way, and Harry and Jack have already inspected their respective piles and decided they are opening the biggest gifts first.  Of course.

I use Harry's iPod as her white noise machine, and bonus!  She likes to dance and hold it.

SO BIG.

Fully accessorized.

She loved the tissue paper from Jack's new snow boots.  Christmas is going to BLOW HER MIND

Ben and mini girl Ben.  The only time I ever want to have more babies is when I realize how much these 4 look like him.  Could there ever be another combination of our genes?  I am starting to think not.

Harry and I are really into Skip Bo.

That baby has already woken up once since I put her to bed-- teeth, I assume, so I have to get back to gift wrapping.

I thought I was done last night. We bought Jack the Build-a-Bear dresser he has been wanting since Cooper's birthday party.  We took it out of the box to assemble and wrap it last night and found out that not only is the inside made of cardboard, but ours was missing a pole and a hook vital to its function.  We figured screw it, the thing sucks, and we swapped it out for another toy we had stashed away for Christmas.  This morning at breakfast, I mentioned that we looked at the Build-a-Bear dresser and found out it was kind of flimsy and cardboardy, so we weren't going to buy it.  Jack immediately started to cry (not for attention, just because he was sad) and said he'd have to ask for it from Santa and didn't care that it was cardboard because he would "take care of it goodly."  NEEDLESS TO SAY, Ben exchanged it today and picked up a sparkly tutu and a police costume to hang inside.  Got to wrap!