Day before Thanksgiving

It's the day before Thanksgiving--I feel like I should be doing nothing accept preparing for the feast. Unfortunately, between a house is chaos (orginizationally speaking), a week spent fighting a nasty virus as it rampaged its way through the house, school, swimming, preparing for Christmas (yes, already-it's going to be a big one), and working on the upstairs project, it seems a small trifle like a 15 lb turkey just isn't that high on the list.

That hasn't stopped me from making two grocery trips, menu lists, and 7 quarts of brine--which said bird is now bathing in. We just might not get around to cooking the bugger until Saturday or Sunday ;).

I kid. We have been swamped lately, we are indeed exhausted from said swamping, but we are foraging on and will sit down tomorrow to a delectable feast amid our clutter of everday stuff and Christmas decorations. I will spend all day stirring, mashing, roasting, baking, crushing, blending, a small part of the evening eating, and then I will collapse.

Fortunately we all came through the vicious virus and are happy with the knowledge that never again will we suffer through THAT yucky uckiness. Garrett was so dissappointed to miss school Monday, and it was looking like he would miss today as well, since Morgan had a minor relapse--but then a heroic mom from the program volunteered to take responsibility for him is we wanted to drop him off and pick him up. It was so odd, leaving him alone and coming home without him. Strange to think that most parents of kindergartners do that every day. He had a ball (especially since it was ice cream day), and talked non-stop all the way home about everything he did--but ended with, "I wish Morgan had been at school today. She would have thought it was really really fun." So sweet, especially after she had told me on the way to get him (after we'd talked about the fun things we'd done that morning), "I really want Garrett to be with us." I will remember their sweet words tomorrow when they are screaming at one another.

This week has been a real humsinger for Kiera, too. Not only did she have to ferry her way through rivers of snot during her first virus, she's cutting her second tooth today (her first came in 9 days ago). As I type she is asleep in the cradle in the living room, rather than in her bassinet in our bedroom. This is for two reasons-she has just about outgrown the bassinet (sad!), and she kept waking up with teething pain. Two teething tablets, some snuggling, and a few kisses later she seems to be resting much more comfortabley.

And with that I take myself to bed. With one pie down and the stuffing ready for the bird now resting in brine, I will need all my z's to get through the food prep left for tomorrow's feast. Pumpkin cheescake in a ginger-snap crust, YUM!

Too much to do.

I like being active. I like having things to do. I do NOT so much care for things I HAVE to do, or for being busy. Lately we have been very busy. Very very busy. It seemed to come on all at once, too, which is making it that much more difficult to adjust to. For instance, we used to average going out about two times during the week. Now we go out every day. That means getting dressed (in something other than sweats) every single day. That's a lot of clothes. Which becomes a lot of laundry. Which makes us even busier! But alas, we shall adjust-we are in fact getting used to it, but there will always be a smidge of remorse for the pajama days of new family-hood.

The positives of being busy all the time-the kids are really enjoying all the new activities they get to participate in with school and all the new friends they are making. I am enjoying the village feel of our school and the fact that we now know everyone well enough that I can run down the hall without hauling all three kids, so long as there's a parent in the room where I left them. The kids are comfortable enough that it doesn't bother them for me to pop out for a bit, and Kiera just soaks up all the attention the parents give her.

Garrett is taking swim lessons now, in a saltwater pool here in town. He loves it but is still struggling with fear of sinking. It's sadly funny as he is the tallest kid I've seen there (he surprised his teacher by proving he could indeed touch the bottom), but at the beginning of class he clings to the teacher like a toddler (or a cat trying to avoid a bath). It only takes him a few minutes to warm up and be more confident, so I'm sure that by the end of his session he'll be swimming passably well. Morgan is not as excited as the rest of us as she doesn't get to be in the pool, too. But then Saturday rolls around, and she gets to don her dancing dress and shoes for dancing class. And while she often drifts away from the group and does her own thing seemingly ignoring the teacher, at home she demonstrates what she's learning with grace and enthusiasm (meaning she can skip and wiggle with the best of them).

Kiera is rounding the bend to 5 months old, and reached a milestone last night-she sat up! She did it quite well, too, so now all we need to do is find adequate motivation for her to keep doing it. She doesn't keep doing something unless she sees a need for that particular behavior. Take sleeping through the night, for example-she did it for awhile, tried it out, but as she can sleep whenever the heck she feels like it she has decided it really isn't necessary to do so much of it all at once. Last night she was awake for an hour for seemingly no reason. She wasn't asking to eat, wasn't complaining (unless we tried to get her to sleep), just wasn't asleep. Oh, and why is there a reason to keep sucking on a binky when you can use a thumb? And why keep sucking on your own when you can reach Mommy's? Which is apparently much more satisfying.

Oh, and we were finally able to talk her into taking a bottle! She hasn't had one since she was 6 wks. She really didn't like it then, and there was no need to force the issue, so we didn't. Saturday we kept offering (milk in freezer needed to be drank), trying different temps, positions,and nipples, and were finally able to persuade her--though she wasn't pleased. She had a very annoyed look the whole time, a real "WHY are you making me do this? I'll humor you this once, but really folks, this is ridiculous." It tickled the kids though, as they were able to take turns feeding her.

Oh ya! Halloween has happened since our last post! That was lots of fun, spent again with our friends in town who do up their whole yard and scare kids all night (Troy helps). Morgan made a truly beautiful Cinderella, and Garrett a dashing Indiana Jones. Kiera was a lion for about 5 minutes, but she was a very cute lion!