Thanksgiving

Holidays become a little more...interesting...when you have a child who needs to take naps. Let me start out by saying that I think we had a lovely Thanksgiving and Peter enjoyed it very much.

One of the things that makes holidays a little more difficult at this time is the absolutely irresistible nature of babies and children who are in the napping stage. I mean, little babies and children are so darned cute. Everyone (EVERYONE) wants to see them. That means that you end up going to three places every holiday (since my parents are divorced, we have three sets of grandparents to visit). That leaves very little time down-time with your own family (and your own fledgling traditions) and it often makes it difficult to ensure that your kids get the rest they need (their rest is your sanity).

My Dad was out of town this Thanksgiving, so this year, we only had two sets to visit. I definitely missed seeing my Dad, and we only succeeded in playing phone tag with one another--each leaving the other a message.

Since we are actually living in the basement of my in-laws, I thought it might simplify matters this year. However, it actually created some new situations that wouldn't have been an issue otherwise.

My Mom was very understanding of the nap issue (perhaps because we have talked about it a number of times). She asked me specifically what time would work best for Thanksgiving dinner. I don't know if she'll ever know how much I appreciated that and how much it meant to me.

The Washburns are very spontaneous and plan things very last minute. However, I knew from past years that they tend to have their Thanksgiving dinner during the day. So, I figured that I would keep the day open in case they planned something then. Besides, I thought it would make everything a lot easier since Peter naps from 10 a.m.-12 p.m. and 2-4 p.m. every day. So, I asked my Mom if we could do Thanksgiving at her house at 6 p.m.

About a week before Thanksgiving, we discovered that the Washburns had planned their Thanksgiving dinner for 2 p.m. (right in the middle of almost all of the grandkids naptimes!) We found this out by chance when Jeremiah's sister mentioned that she was bringing an apple pie and rolls...thank goodness for her slip of the tongue! However, because no one formally announce it, the message didn't get out to everyone and Jeremiah's oldest brother and sister-in-law found out too late--after they had already made plans with her family for the exact same time. I missed having them there as a result, but I hope they had a good time too!

The last two years with Jeremiah's family, they have surprised me only a day or two before and asked me to bring a pie. I thought to myself "You're not going to surprise me this year! I'm going to make two pumpkin pies and I'll be ready!" Not so much. True to tradition, two days before, Jeremiah's dad asked if I would bring a pie...but then he mentioned that they had bought two pumpkin pies that day...darn it! Thwarted again!

I help my mom make pies every Wednesday night before Thanksgiving. I make the pie dough and shape it in the pie pans while my mom makes the pie fillings. We did the same this year. I brought Peter with me and my sister babysat. We made 9 pies (pumpkin, banana cream, eggnog, pineapple, mango, 2 raspberries, caramel, and mint chocolate cream). Believe it or not, that is not the largest number of pies we've made for Thanksgiving before. I think we made 16 one year! I usually make the caramel pie (it was in my Anne of Green Gables cookbook that I got when I was about 12!). It has very basic ingredients, so I figured I would just double it to make one for my side of the family and one to take to the Washburn dinner. But you have to melt a bunch of sugar (by itself, with no wet ingredients) to start the pie, so it takes a good deal of time...and it takes even longer when you double the recipe, I discovered. So even though I hurried, it was still a late night. Poor Peter was so tired. He usually goes to sleep at 8:30 p.m., but he didn't get tucked in bed until 9:15 p.m. He was a trooper, but you could tell he was exhausted.

Peter's first tooth finally popped out this week (I noticed it on Tuesday). He hadn't seemed too uncomfortable...until Wednesday night. Wednesday night was a rough night's sleep for Peter. He woke up almost every hour and teething tablets and baby Orajel didn't seem to be helping too much. Finally at about 2 a.m. I decided to just bring him to bed with us so that I wouldn't have to keep getting up every time he woke up. Big mistake! Usually that tactic works fine, but this time, he wasn't a happy camper. I put him in bed and he fell asleep...for a split second and then he started crying (aka screaming at the top of his lungs). It took about 20 minutes to get him quieted down. Then he went to sleep, only to repeat the same situation at 4 a.m. He woke up for good at 7:30 a.m.

I was definitely tuckered out when we got up for the day. But I put on the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade and Peter seemed amused by it while I fed him in his booster seat. We had a lovely morning together. Meanwhile, Jeremiah slept in because he too hadn't gotten a whole lot of sleep the night before (though he did get a little more than I did, because he can sleep through almost anything!).

When Peter went down for his first nap, I decided to join him. After the nap, I felt refreshed and had the energy I needed. Jeremiah took Peter upstairs to visit his grandparents and I got dressed for the day. I went upstairs at 1 p.m. to help them with the Thanksgiving feast, but they were still playing their board game. It's called Ticket to Ride--they call it the Train Game--and it isn't my cup of tea. I played it once and once was enough for me. It's like Settlers of Cataan (a strategy game). It always takes forever and I just find it boring. :)

Well, they ended up playing the train game until 2 p.m. (the time we were supposed to start eating--and the time Peter goes down for his second nap). Besides the turkey and the pies, nothing had been made, so obviously a 2 p.m. dinner wasn't going to happen. Peter started getting fussy and oh so ready for his nap when I discovered that Jeremiah had loaned our baby monitor to his sister for her baby who was sleeping in his mom's bedroom. I'm not going to lie, that frustrated me quite a bit. I'm all about sharing when I can, but that meant that I couldn't put Peter down in his crib because no one would hear him if he cried. The door to his nursery is so thick that it's hard to hear him crying without the monitor even if you are sitting on the couch that is only 15 feet away. It would be impossible to hear him crying from upstairs. I wondered why she hadn't brought her own monitor to use because she had to know that her baby would need a nap and that her baby would be a whole floor away from her while she was napping. Her kids have a hard time napping away from home, so she ended up using my baby monitor on and off between 11 a.m. and 4 p.m. Arrrrgh.

So, the best solution we could come up with was for Jeremiah to cuddle Peter on our bed during his nap. We can't let Peter nap alone on our bed anymore because he is so mobile. If he's alone, he makes a dash for the edge of the bed as soon as he wakes up. I didn't go upstairs to help with the food preparations because Jeremiah is a heavy sleeper and he often sleeps right through Peter waking up (even when he is crying loudly safely held in Jeremiah's arms!).

It is hard living in a place that isn't really your own. You lose a lot of privacy (and privacy is so precious to me!). It has taken a lot of patience (on both sides, I'm sure. I can only imagine that it is difficult for my in-laws too). One of the things that frustrated me about the baby monitor situation is that if we had our own place, it wouldn't have even been an issue. Our monitor wouldn't have been available for anyone else to use (especially when it was at the expense of my own baby).

So, at about 3 p.m. they called down to us that dinner was ready and I told them to start without us because Peter was still sleeping. Thankfully, by that time, I had read my scriptures a little and cooled down after my anger over the baby monitor kerfuffle.

Peter woke up a little after 3:30 p.m. and at that point, we went upstairs and joined them for dinner. I had gotten over my frustrations and we all had a good time visiting with our wonderful family. All of them understood why we had to wait to join them (except for Jeremiah's brother, Brien, who doesn't have kids and doesn't understand the craziness attached to napping yet).

After we ate and visited, we cleaned up, and then Jeremiah, Peter and I headed off for Thanksgiving dinner at my Mom's house.

We ate, visited and cleaned up there too (even though I had moderate portions at both locations, two Thanksgiving dinners is one too many and I was STUFFED). Then we played Beatles Rock Band (so much fun!) and danced with Peter, who found it very amusing. Then we had pie (and a few Rolaids!) and headed home (where Peter again got a late bedtime of 9 p.m.).

So, all in all, it was a very good Thanksgiving. I love my family--both sides--with all my heart and it is always good to visit them. But in the future, if a festivity coincides with a nap time, I might just veto it in lieu of a later visit at a more convenient time. Besides, I don't think I EVER want to have two Thanksgiving dinners in the same day again.