Thanks - Giving.

Some people live for the infamous Thanksgiving meal. My oldest brother will devour it (and boy, does his BMI show it), but I seem to be missing that craving. Sure, the turkey is not bad -especially with ketsup - and the mashed potatoes can be tolerated as long as pools of butter accompany them. But the cranberry jiggly stuff, the peas, the casseroles and pumpkin-y desserts. Lord, get me to my Christmas night spaghetti and meatballs (I’m sure that’s what most people have on Christmas Day, right?).

However, there are several Thanksgiving traditions I do love, some timeless, and some new.  The actual preparing of the turkey. Football. Sheaff’s inevitable nap during football. Flannel shirts. That apple craft with toothpicks, marshmallows and raisins. Sheaff’s side of baked beans. Family. Friends who are really family. The bonfire at Cacophony Farm.  Gathering. Squeezing our child into a broiler pan to pretend she’s a turkey (yes, see pictures below). The anticipation of Christmas’s chaos and complete overboard celebration starting the next day.  And most importantly, exactly what the day states. A day to give thanks. Is it cliche to stop and consider the many things and people we are thankful for? Absolutely. Do I still love the practice and realization of “Life is Good” that it inevitably brings? Absolutely. 

So what are we thankful for this year? 

-that extra hour of sleep we got when Daylight Savings ended. 

-pinterest recipes, and a husband who cooks them 

-library story times and Amazement Square memberships 

-Jon Stewart, Jimmy Fallon, and our weekly array of shows that keeps us laughing

-the LC Big Dig site, and grandparents who drop their work to cheer on bulldozers and big diggers with their grand baby

-chocolate 

-Adalyn’s growing ability to communicate what she wants, for example, when she sees Mama sneaking chocolate. ("Addie! Eats! Two? Three?")

-our house. It’s not level; it sure isn’t square; and it ain’t exactly Southern-Living-clean, but it’s home. 

-Winnie the Pooh, that silly old bear. 

-visits from grandparents

-a hose-toilet-diaper contraption that has made cloth diapering So Much Less Gross.

-trash trucks, recycling trucks, leaf-sucker trucks, repair trucks school buses, and any other large, loud vehicles that rumble by our house 

-episode 107 of Outlander. Am I right? 

-the view from the top of Cold Mountain and our bear safety guide

-salt water, and the memories made in the sand castles, the waves, the kayak cutting through the sound, the laps around the farmhouse, the crammed-around-the-table meals doused in Old Bay and butter 

-aunts and uncles who love our child like she is their own 

-books, and that Adalyn loves to read them, over and over and over. 

-forts! 

-the 4 minute clip of Elsa's "Let It Go" on youtube 

-two amazing weddings this summer, two brothers with $#%^-eating grins, two new sisters, and no videographer to catch our dance moves on film

-friends: other parents who give us company on this journey; non-parents who give us sanity on this journey; all of whom guide and walk with us on this journey

-dogs, those small and wild and those fat and snoring 

-Honey.   Not the food (though Adalyn would probably put that and peanut butter on her top 5 Things for Which She Is Thankful list). Honey is what Adalyn has named her new little brother or sister-to-be. There is quite the bundle of gratitude for that little tiny teddy graham already bouncing around in my belly, and that we get to start another chapter of our family adventure in May! 

-That being said….  elastic pants and early bedtimes. 

May your November days be as filled with gratitude as ours! And as Adalyn would say, “Gobble, gobble!”