Christmas Day Recap

In the morning when Little One woke up, She came into my room where Miss and I were waiting for Her. 
LO: "OK. Guys. Let's. Get. Ready!"
C: "Good morning sweetie! It's Christmas! Yay! Should we go see if Santa came?!"
LO: "Whoa. Hol' on mom, hol' on! First have to get ready mom! First lets get dressed!" 
C: "O...K.  Ok, well sure.  But you know honey, since it's Christmas, it's ok to stay in our jammies if you want!" 
LO : "Oh mom no TANK you! (looking at Her beloved PJ's as if they were raggedy scraps) not like THIS! Mommy the kids will NOT be 'cited 'bout mine jammies. (heading to Her room and flinging open the dress-up armoire) I NEED be a princess ball-er-een-a.  Christmas, yes, but first need to get mine ball-er-eena clothes on! Case I see some kids, like mine friends, or maybe MOM! Maybe might see SANTA ok!"

She proceeds to choose Her very favorite, sparkly blue tutu, and spends a good couple of minutes in the closet deliberating over just the right top to go with it.  She runs to the bathroom to choose a matching headband (er, crown)  and slips Her pink beads around Her neck.  She sits down hurriedly at Her little vanity table and rakes the play brush through Her tangles. She pats a powder puff all over Her face, takes a quick, close glance in the mirror, then snaps the vanity lid shut and stands at attention before me.

"Oh-Kay! Done.  Let's go!"

I explain to Her that unlike the scene from the Polar Express we saw at Sea World, which I'm guessing She has based Her expectations on, there will not in fact be throngs of children and Santa in his sleigh awaiting Her this morning.  Just us. 

"B-but.  But I thought today I can see Santa?"

"No, sweetie.  We saw Santa before Christmas, remember?  He already came last night.  Right now he's probably back at home resting after delivering all those presents."

"Waita minute. Santa....came?  Lets...go...have...CHRISTMAS!"

We race into the living room where She spies Little Miss's bear from Santa and swoops it up squealing, "Oh mine gosh! It's just what I wanted!"

No, no, the other one! That's Little Miss's present from Santa!  She goes to the giant pink one. 

"Oh mine gosh! It's just what I wanted!!!!  And LOOK Missy! Santa came for you fweetie! Look he brought you for this little cute bear! It's just what we wanted!!!" 

The morning then dissolved into a sea of red and green paper with waves of shiny ribbon.  Little Miss's favorite part, bar none, was the wrapping paper, and trying very hard to eat it.  ALL. 

Little One especially loved the part where She got to bestow upon us the gifts She had chosen for us at Her school shopping day, and the ornament She made for us in class. 

She had a very special present from Her grandparents this year-  BALLET LESSONS! 

We gave Her shoes to go with it, which She wore all day.  She is beyond excited. 
We are excited for Her too.  J and I both love the idea of giving experiences rather than things.  This year I gave him piano lessons and he gave me unlimited yoga at the studio (aah, the gift of sanity). 
After a big breakfast Little One and I started a new tradition. 
We talked about the fact that some kids did not get lots of toys and presents.  I asked Her if She thought that since we had so many new things to play with now, She might want to put some of Her older toys and books into a big box to give to some of those kids.  Little One was all about it.  She was very sweet making sure for instance that the stuffed dogs all went together since they are a family and would miss each other if we split them up.  In the end we had a nice box full of donations and room on the shelves for new gifts to sit neatly. 
Then we got out the new stamp set and markers She got from an aunt and together made thank-you cards for all the generous friends and family that sent us gifts.  We read some new books and the girls got tucked in for a nice long nap.  Tonight we are fixing a big tofurky dinner and might even watch a Christmas movie before bedtime! 


This morning Little One asked why Santa didn't bring Teddies for J and I.  He remembered both girls and even the dogs!  I explained to Her that Santa only comes for children.  Some things are just for grown-ups, like using the sharp scissors or lighting the candles.  But some things are just for kids. 
Which is fair, right?  And true. 
But really it's an easier explanation than telling Her the truth. 
Which is, of course, that some gifts are things we can hug or rattle or read; things to use.  Some are things we do; ballet lessons or piano classes.  And some are even less tangible than that.  Seeing my girls sharing toys and giggling, sitting with J's arm around my waist and calling family all over the country so Little One could jump and exclaim over the magic of the morning- it's hard to tie a big red bow around all that.  But, oh mine gosh.  It's exactly what I wanted.

Merry Magic

We're surrounded by sugar, toys, wrapping paper tumbleweeds, and warm-fuzzies.  The girls are napping, recovering a bit from the overwhelming avalanche of packages and love that came piece by piece in the mail. 
Our Christmas morning has been a tangible reminder that we have so much we have too much, that we may not live in an actual castle or anything, but that we do have lives of luxury in the scheme of things. 
I'm grateful for my family and friends, for all we have, for the gift of being able to provide my children with this Day of fairy-tale proportions.  I'm saying prayers for those who need them, prayers of thanks, and prayers that I will never, never forget the look on Little One's face when She walked into the living room this morning. 
Christmas is a holiday I revere in my heart, with some associated traditions that I'm on the fence about.  It's a great big To-Do, isn't it Peanuts, and sometimes all there is To Do can get hectic, even stressful, sometimes I'm not sure that our actions and the lessons Christmas purports to teach us quite jive. 
But at the end of all the shopping and wrapping and addressing envelopes and cringing over shipping fees and putting up decorations to take down later and aaaalllll that trouble we go through...especially with kids??
Like the pot of gold waiting after a steep slide down a rainbow, at the end of it all, there's the Magic.
It's why so many of us all the world over do this holiday the way we do.  Some of us have different reasons for celebrating, we all have our own special ways to go about it, but those many of us who do, keep doing it because it reminds us after a year of real, hard life, that there is Magic out there. 
We don't even have to chase rainbows to get it. 
We craft, we address, we roll dough, we tie bows....we make it with our hands.

 Wishing you a very merry, magic day!

About a Miracle

Every year on December 15th, I especially remember Bernice.
I've talked a lot about Bernice, but I haven't told you yet about the miracle that happened. 
In 2006, I had been looking after Bernice for years.  By then I was her guardian, and I thought I knew all that I could about her.  I had read each page in the two 3-inch binders of her nursing home record.  I had spoken to the staff and the hospice volunteers who had known her in recent years.  I had listened to hours of partially intelligible information from the star herself.  As far as I knew from what I'd observed and been told, she had no living relatives at all.  No possessions whatsoever, aside from a cracked leather purse containing just dusty reading glasses and an ancient lipstick- firebrick red.  There were a few toys and movies, one pair of socks, that the nursing home had doled out to her.  That was it.
Now it's strange I know, to say that a person in her nineties, who had been on and off hospice for years, who could no longer sit up or feed herself, could die suddenly or unexpectedly. But that is what she did.  I honestly thought she had years left. The day she died, I was supposed to be taking her to the eye doctor.  I was supposed to be treating her to a lunch outing.  I was not supposed to be in the linoleum hallway with rumpled hair, everyone staring at me for an answer.
And so I'm a bit ashamed to say that I was completely unprepared.  I was still working hard on how to set things right in her life. I hadn't gotten to the part about preparing for her death.  And after the reality hit me, after my grief had registered, there I was. Fresh out of college, standing there in my flip-flops with a dead body on my hands.  What to do about that?
I had no money. She had no money. Certainly not enough to pay for any kind of service that involved the use of a hearse.  I had no idea what she wanted.  Her chart had a copy of her DNR, but no will or funereal preference of any kind.  The head nurse wanted that body gone now, and what was I supposed to do?  Carry it home until I could figure it all out?  There was a program a hospice worker told me about, where if you donate a body to science, to medical research, they will come and collect it, without charge.  After pacing and deliberating, panicking and weeping, I called them.
I felt cornered. I felt it was my only option. While I was grateful to have any option, I could not shake the feeling that it wasn't right. Bernice had been a fairly religious person from what I'd gathered, and I just didn't think she would have approved. I was so uneasy about the decision, something about it just felt wrong.
Back up. The day before- less than 24 hours before all of this- something amazing had happened.
I showed up to feed Bernice her dinner, and there was a note waiting for me.  I had been told that no one else ever visited Bernice.  But that wasn't quite true, as it turns out.  The note was left by the pastor of the church Bernice used to attend.  Knowing she had no family or living friends, the note read, this pastor had made a point to stop in every year or two and check on her. It had been several years, but he happened to have visited that day while I was out.  The nurses had told him about this girl who had become her guardian and caretaker, and he wanted to leave a note to say thank you.  Thank you for being there for Bernice, it read.  And also, he would like to talk with me. Could I please call sometime?  He left a number.
I called that evening, but no one answered.  I left a message.  Sometime after my message, in the night, Bernice died.
Fast forward to the next morning.  I am at the nurse's station, bent over the grimy phone with the curly cord.  I'm talking to the medical research people, answering questions about Bernice's health history. They are on the way to pick up her body.  I am nearly done, getting ready complete her registration, when my cell phone rings.  It is the pastor.
For some reason, maybe because it is the only other person in the world, it seemed, who ever knew and loved Bernice, it felt very important to take that call.  To hear the voice of this Other Person, and not be as alone in my grief.  I asked the woman on the phone to give me just a minute, and I answered.
The pastor introduced himself.  He told me how surprised he had been to learn about me, and that he had known Bernice for so many years.  How is she today, he asked.
Actually, I was sorry to tell him, she had passed away.  Of course he was shocked.
And then he said, "well then I guess it's more important than ever for you to know- I have her things".
Her Things.
Things?  She has things?
Having no one else, Bernice had left a few of her personal possessions with her church pastor when she entered the nursing home.  No one there had known.
Sometimes miraculous things happen, Peanuts.  Sometimes they just do.  Not only had this person, who hadn't visited in years, happened to have stopped by the day before she died and left me that number, he happened to call just as I was about to give her body away to science, and he happened to have a tupperwear box.  With a piece of masking tape across the front, labeled in her hand, "funeral plans".

Who would have guessed?
Not me.  Not hospice.  Certainly not the nursing home staff.  Not even the Pastor himself, who had never opened the box in the many years it had resided in his attic.  But just guess what was in that box?  The deed to a burial plot.  The one sharing a headstone with her husband.  It had been waiting decades for her.  It almost waited forever.
There was a whole plan, outlined and initialed in her curvy script.  Everything was decided. Everything was paid for in advance.
Well, almost everything.  It just so happened that the only thing not covered was the cost of etching the date of her death into the headstone.  $150.  And it just so happened that the exact amount of money in her nursing home account, the exact amount I "inherited" from Bernice, was $150.  And 34 cents. 
When I picked up the phone to cancel the registration and to call the mortuary she had chosen 20 years prior, my hands and voice were shaking.  With gratitude for that miracle.  That miracle of being able to do a final justice, give a final gift to my friend.
I went the next day to meet the pastor.  I sat down and had tea with him and his wife.  It was wonderful to hear them remember her, as she once was before her mind was blanketed in a hazy blanket of dementia, like snow.  By the time I met her I could only make out the vague shapes of what her personality and history really was.  But these people had seen some of those things before the snow fell.  Hearing them describe her was like getting a peek at what had been mostly hidden from me for years.  We talked a long time.  Then he brought out the rag-tag containers of her life's remnants.  Mostly old papers.  Some costume jewelry, mostly broken.  A few nostalgic treasures- her birth certificate, her high school diploma.  A couple of photographs.  All bundled in cracked rubber bands and sealed in yellow tupperwear, dented lock-boxes, and faded 1960's cosmetic cases.
I turned to leave- on my way to the mall.  The funeral home had called and asked for something to bury her in.  All her clothes belonged to the nursing home.  I was dreading this.  How could I pick something she would have liked?  As I began to leave, though, the pastor's wife stopped me.  There was one more thing, she remembered.  One dress.  A fancy blue one.  It had been Bernice's favorite.
She was buried in that dress, with no one but me under the pine tree, watching the casket drop.  Later I stood up in her old church and said a few words, though no one but the pastor himself and J, in the front row, knew well enough to realize how much the world should miss her.
It will always be a spot of rawness for me, like something that rubs and rubs against your skin too long, that I didn't do enough for Bernice.  That I didn't move fast enough, didn't push hard enough. That even after everything, I never did get her out of that awful place in time.  As many long days and late nights as I spent trying my best for her, I will never, never, never feel like I did as much as I should have to make things right for her in her lifetime.  Her death in that place is a constant little nagging reminder to me now, "Don't wait until tomorrow. You can't be sure it will be there". 
But this little miracle that happened, this appearance of the pastor, this materialization of arrangements already made, and being able to visit now and see her name there next to her husband's, just as she surely, unquestionably wanted it to be...it brings me some peace.  Maybe all my efforts were misguided and the whole time I knew Bernice I was just annoying the crap out of her.  I have no idea. But just maybe, if nothing else, I was meant to be in her life just so that things could come together exactly as they did, that things might be set right for her in death.  I find so much comfort in that, in knowing that there was one solid thing I was able to do for my friend that I'm sure made a difference to her.
It reminds me that even if we can't tell when we get started or when we're in the middle of our relationships with those we love, in the end-somehow- we matter.  We all have some purpose to fulfill, something important to give and be given by the people in our lives.  It reminds me that it's truly never to late to be there for each other, never too late to keep trying to make things right or better for someone.  And it reminds me that even, maybe especially, when things are bleak and hearts are breaking, miracles do happen.  They just do. 

Nutcracker

You know how Little One is about dancing. Especially ballet.  She pines guys. Pines over ballet lessons.  Well J surprised us both with tickets to the local production of the Nutcracker, because he is super awesome (and possibly also clever enough to hatch this plan so that he wouldn't get roped into going once I found out it was playing).  So tonight, even though it kept us up past bedtime, we celebrated the last day of Her first ever school semester by going on a "big girl date" to the ballet.
Little One loved it.  She grabbed me tight and cowered when the Rat King danced. She gasped when the Nutcracker dispatched him.  She swooned over the pas de duex, She whispered softly, pointing at the princess, "Sometime I want have a dress like THAT".  
During intermission as people roved about, I let Her dance in the empty isles.  She twirled and curtseyed and sashayed, "I'm gonna be jus' like them mama!"
The only problem I had with Her the whole time was when the music became so rapturous and the dancers so lively during the finale, and She begged to be allowed to dance in the aisles again.

C: "No, no! You have to sit in your chair, love.  It's time for watching. After it's over you can dance some more."
LO: "But mama pleeasse? I want dance WIF them!" 
C: "Sorry, Little One, not now."
LO (crestfallen): "Ok but...but after this dance, then it can be my turn to dance on the stage?"

When it ended after two hours, She immediately asked to see it again.  She had a lot of questions about why the dancers couldn't keep performing all the livelong night and where everyone was going. Didn't they want to see some more dance show?
We danced and spun all 6 blocks back to our car.  Little One declared that ALL the dances were Her favorite, ALL the ballerinas were Her favorite, ALL the tutus, "ALL the WHOLE ballet was mine favorite part!!! I like everything!" We chattered about it all the way home, where She melted into a puddle of way-past-bedtime. We brushed teeth and went straight to bed.
As I tucked Her in I wished Her sweet dreams.
"Oh mommy! Yes! I'm going to dream I'm a BALL-ER-EEN-A!" 
As She fell asleep, I'm pretty sure that visions of sugar-plum fairies actually were dancing in Her head. 

Three By The Sea

So I've been asked to share some ideas about projects, parties, and activities.
I actually love getting ideas from other people's blogs (Ellie was my pinata inspiration and now I'm hooked for life) so I thought I'd add a new category for those who are interested.  A good place to start would be Little One's birthday party.
This year Little One really got into the whole birthday thing.  For weeks leading up to it, She asked every day if Her birthday was going to be tomorrow, and repeatedly told us how 'cited She was about it.  We got lucky that She has made some great friends here and many of them came, because She very much missed Her DC buddies and was sad they wouldn't be coming.
So this year I decided to make Little One's party all about Little One.  Which meant two things:
First, I wanted it be the one party all year that She could eat anything She wanted; no worries over Her being safe. So I was determined that ALL the food at the party be food She wasn't allergic to. 
And second, I wanted Her to be as involved with it as possible.  So She helped me pick out the favors and activity items, the plates and cups and napkins, even the color of the signs.
She helped me make the invitations.  Since we're here on the coast, we went with a beach theme. For invitations we made a "message in a bottle".
Doing this on a budget, I skipped the glass bottles and used goo-gone to remove the labels from some mini-water bottles.  Little One poured them all out into pitchers so we could drink it later.
I typed up the simple invites and cut them out.  I rolled them up and tied them with ribbon.  Little One helped me fill each bottle with sand we had collected together at the beach.  She had also worked very hard collecting tons of tiny seashells for this project, and so She helped me put some of those in too.  We added a little glitter to each one, and slid the invite in.  Little One helped stick the names on, and decorate the tray we carried them to school on.

She also chose the pinata.  She wanted a jellyfish.  This is how we started:

So to make a Jellyfish, I taped two large bowls together to get the shape, and blew up a small balloon to hold the goodies.   Little One helped me smear them all over with vaseline.
She helped me mix up the papier mache. 
We dipped strips of newspaper in the papier mache and lay them carefully on the bowls and balloon, smoothing out air bubbles, until we had covered them completely.

Little One was great at this, and thought it was super fun.  Once She got past how messy it was.  At first She asked to wash Her hands after every strip!   We let it dry and them added two more layers the same way.

Once it was dry we slid the papier mache form off the bowls and She helped wash them.  I popped the balloon and pulled it out. 
She helped me fill the balloon-form with treats.  
I punched 4 holes in the top of the jellyfish and in the balloon, and secured the balloon inside the bowl-form.
 
I also very securely tied a looooong doubled-over ribbon to the top, to hang it from later.

 We crunched up paper and stuck it around the balloon, inside the bowl.

Then we used more papier mache strips to cover the gap.  I cut a door in the balloon before covering the whole bottom with another layer, and letting it all dry.

Little One chose the tissue paper, but I had to do the rest myself. First cut the paper into long strips, then fold them in half.  Cut them into fringe just to the crease where they were folded.

Then I glued them onto the papier mache jellyfish and covered the bottom in tissue-paper circles.
I wanted an alternative to the violent bashing pinata, so I had punched a hole in the balloon's trap door and tied ribbon through it.  I used ribbon, crepe paper, and streamers for tentacles and attached them not too securely to the bottom.  The idea being that the kids take turns choosing a tentacle and pulling on it.  The tentacles will just fall off, except for the lucky kid who chooses the one tied to the trapdoor- that one releases all the treats.
  We added a little glitter all over.  And it was a jellyfish!
Hard to see in the intense wind of the party, but I think it turned out pretty well!

For favors Little One helped me put together little plastic pails with a shovel, rake, and sand-scoop inside. They took their pails on a treasure hunt and dug up little treasure boxes that my sister-in-law hid earlier.

A pinata-full is enough candy, so instead Little One and I had filled the boxes with a few markers, stickers, and foam cutouts, plus glue-dots and lots of fun stuff like rhinestones, seashells, silk flowers, and feathers, so the kids could decorate their own treasure boxes.

 

Then we did the pinata and they filled their boxes with treasures!
(Little One loved making these boxes, sorting and counting to make sure each one had the same number of everything, talking about how Her friends would "just love" each thing.)
In keeping with the sea theme and allergy-safety, for lunch we had:
"clam-burgers" and "octo-dogs" with "Mer-stard and kelp-chup". 
The burgers were just sliders. To make the octo-dogs cut the bottom half of a cooked hotdog into eight strips and splay them out to look like an octopus.  If you're really into it you can add eyes with mustard.

We had "sand-dollars" (oyster crackers), pirate's booty, and "sea cucumbers" (pickles) for snacks.
We had a veggie platter arranged to look like a beach ball, with the dip in the middle for the white part (I made an awesome allergy-safe dip using vegan sour cream).
My father-in-law made this AMAZING shrimp-boat out of a watermelon and filled it with fruit.

And for something sweet we made Little One's favorite treat- rice krispie treats.  J's family helped me cut them into rectangles, dip the bottoms in blue icing, and stick a drink umbrella in them, to look like little patches of beach.

I can eat aaalll this stuff?!

Then came the hard part- the cake.  In past years, I've relied on J's aunt who makes these incredible cakes.  Remember last year?  How could I live up to that?!  But now that we've moved, I had to try.  And I had to make it a vegan cake to be safe for Little One to eat.  I made a sandcastle cake using a bundt pan on top of a sheet cake.  The first one I made fell like a chocolatey avalanche when I flipped the pan.  Disaster.  Apparently, the trick is that vegan cakes have to bake a LOT longer- almost twice as long- to hold the shape.  The second one came out ok.  I covered it in frosting by melting the frosting a little and painting it on with a basting brush.  Then before it hardened, I covered it in graham cracker crumbs and turbinado sugar to look like sand (The graham cracker with the chocolate cake was soooo yummy).
I used candy molds and vegan chocolate chips to make little chocolate sea animals and shells, and used those to accent the sandcastle.  In the end, it's nothing like what J's aunt can make, but I think it turned out ok! And it even tasted good.

We had the party at a great little park with a small beach and boardwalk and a big shaded playground.  And bathrooms.  Perfect!

Happy as can be with Grandma!

 The weather looked very ominous when we arrived, and the wind precluded us from hanging decorations and sent paper plates flying around like frisbees a few times.  But the clouds passed and the wind kept the heat and bugs at bay, making it really a perfect day.  Little One's guests were all sweet, adorable, and fun, and Little One had a BLAST.
She loved every bit of it and I have to admit.  I did too.
Even if this was the best family picture we managed:

Well hey, you know what they say.  It's Her party, and She can monkey-face if She wants to!
What better way to irrefutably document the fact that, yep.  She's THREE.

Through The Eyes Of A Child

We went poking around some antique shops awhile ago.  You never know what you might find!
Little One, for instance, happened upon this interesting item:

"OOOoooohhh! Look mommy! I find a really, really BIG lipstick!"

Thanksgiving Turkey Trot Cross-Country

Before our trip to DC- right before- the girls and I took another trip. A road trip.
We drove aaaaalllll the way from Florida to San Antonio.  Stayed the night with my mom.  And then drove aaaaalllll the way to Tucson, AZ to see my sister and stay with J's family for Thanksgiving.
We had a great visit, and then drove aaaallll the way back. 
We are talking about 3000 miles and 56 hours of driving.
How did it go you ask?!?! 
Well.  Great, actually.  It's an awfully long time to be stuck on one's booty in the car, but the trip went extremely smoothly.  We had not one complaint, not one cry, not one "are we there yet".  I never even had to resort to movies or ipad time until the last 2 hours of the journey.
The girls were fantastic.  I've been asked for some traveling tricks, and so here are a few of what worked for us on such a long journey:

1- Bring entertainment.
Little One had a backpack full of coloring books, crayons and those magic markers that color only on the paper, books, magnet-sketch pad, dress-up princesses, and a leapfrog thing that She practiced writing letters on for hours.  We also played classic games like "I spy" and "count the cows".  Don't be jealous of our coolness.
For Little Miss I had a bag full of baby toys handy and when She started getting bored I'd just toss a new one to Her.
Luckily, they were often each other's best entertainment.  Little One was wonderful about playing "peek-a-boo", tickling toes, and retrieving dropped toys when Miss started to lose Her grin.  And Miss was such an appreciative audience, that Little One was very content to while away many minutes singing song after song to Her.

2- Bring FOOD.
I packed a cooler and a big box full of healthy food.  We had costco containers of baby carrots, grape tomatoes, edamame, blueberries, steamed broccoli.  We had craisins and apples and bananas and triscuits.  Hummus and soy-nut butter and wheat bread and oatmeal.  This way, we never had to eat nasty fast-food, and we all felt better for it.  Also, though, it saved a ton of time not having to stop when someone got hungry, and not having to drive around looking for a place to eat, which in Little One's case could be forever.

Little Miss in the Mirror

3- Pit Stops
We only stop at gas stations.  At every stop, we fill up the car, we empty the trash.  We change and feed the baby.  And everyone, I-don't-care-if-I-have-to-reach-under-your-ribs-and-wring-out-your-kidneys-myself, pees.  Restless pre-schoolers do a few jumping jacks and toe-touch stretches, if they must.  Then we are back on the road.  15 minutes or less.

4- Night Drive
For really long stretches- like 12 or more hours to be covered in a day, the key is to drive at night. On my way home I left Tucson in the afternoon and drove through the night, getting to San Antonio about 6am.  But I don't think I'd do it again. Getting sleepy while driving precious babies is no good.  My preferred plan is to get completely packed up and ready the night before, go to bed as early as possible, and then leave around 2am.  That way I get in a solid 5 or more hours of driving while the kiddos are sleeping, but the sun coming up (and a cup of coffee) make sure I'm wide awake for the rest of the drive as well.

With Great-Grandparents!

5- Enjoy It
Yes.  It's possible, and I did!  The scenery was lovely, we were on our way to see people we love.  But also, I appreciated the fact that I was in close quarters with both my girls, where there were no other responsibilities nagging at me and distracting me from them.  We got to talk and sing and play games together with out interruption.  It was nice to have that kind of time with them.  And then, when they fell asleep? We are talking hours at a time of total peace and quiet.  And absolutely NO laundry, dishes, vacuuming, or scrubbing to do of any kind.  It was actually quite lovely.

Making Thanksgiving Dinner and Memories

Providing Moral Support

So there you have it.  We also had the good luck to see Nana and Jaju on the way there, to see them and great-grandparents on the way back, and to stop in both directions in Los Cruces, so I could tank up on enough good, hot, real green chile to last me until the next time I visit New Mexico.
We had a little time with my sister, and lots of good time with my in-laws.
J's mom and sister even went to the trouble of cooking an entire, exquisite Thanksgiving dinner, all with ingredients that were safe for Little One. Right down to a chocolate-avocado torte that was to die for.  J flew out for the day, to share the meal with us.

Little Miss' First Thanksgiving Bite! (pumpkin)

Three Desserts for ME?!

Thanksgiving-ed Out

His mom, aunt, and sister and I went out to my sister's bar for a girl's night out.  Both Littles ate up all the love and attention, and I ate up all my MIL's yummy cooking, and of course, some In-N-Out.
When we finally got home after that long drive, I stopped just a minute before unpacking/repacking for DC.  To be thankful for safe travels, for friends and family we love to travel to, for sweet wonderful daughters to travel with, and a safe, warm, and loving home to return to. 

 We are so blessed.