Thanksgiving

My parents met us at the airport, and we went straight to Cracker Barrel. What could be better than that after a long day of traveling? I got chicken and dumplings – comfort food!

My mom had planned so well to make it a great week. She had lots of fun stuff for the kids – like baking cookies!

We celebrated Christmas with my side of the family. Elliot has been talking about a Batman costume ever since we tried to get him one for Halloween. Aunt Chandelle came through with the goods. He was so excited!! (Cousin Dellen had one too. Chandelle has a better camera than I do, so I let her do most of the picture-taking – not thinking that I didn’t have any gadgets with me to transfer the photos. Duh!)

Mom pointed out that we have so much to celebrate this year: Rob has finished his dissertation, we finally moved into a long-term house, and Russ has just accepted a new ministry position, which will begin a new chapter for their family. We’ve had a lot of answered prayers!

All the grandchildren got guitars. How cool is that?

Elliot plays with his left hand. We kept trying to get him to hold it right-sided, but he kept flipping it back over. Did you know Paul McCartney plays left-handed?  

Band practice.

We also spent lots of time at Mom and Dad’s fabulous quilt shop, went to the park, saw Russ and Chandelle’s new house, watched Dinotopia, played lots of games, and went bowling!

A little side note about traveling with small kids: When you travel with kids, you instantly know who likes kids and who most certainly does not. We got so many nasty looks – even when the kids were behaving perfectly. I can’t blame those people. I used to be one of them – groaning at the sight of a child boarding my airplane. I have to give my kids credit – they were fantastic travelers. But Sophie did throw some tantrum whoppers. Halfway through our second flight she decided she was done and bolted for the door of the plane. I chased after her and she was not at all happy when I told her she couldn’t get off the plane. She started flailing around, banging her head against the overhead compartment in front of the entire plane of people. She continued to wail and flail for a very long time, until a little boy ran up to our seat and handed us a DVD player playing Ice Age. Sophie instantly went silent. The boy’s mother was behind him and told me she had four boys, she understood, we’ve all been there. I almost started crying.

On the trip home, we were having lunch during our layover when Sophie decided she was done and ran off. We were in a crowded sandwich shop with several carry-on bags, my purse, and a folded-up stroller in a heap around our table. I dashed after Sophie, grabbed her, and tried to put up the stroller while Sophie screamed and wriggled like crazy, the entire restaurant of people watching. While I was using all my strength to push her into the stroller, a lovely older woman offered to help. She grabbed our carry-ons while I finally got Sophie into the stroller, and she walked with us all the way to our gate. She was probably in her 60s. She said, “I don’t know how you moms do it these days. You all do so much. You’re made of stronger stuff than my generation was.” Well, I don’t know about that, but at that moment I was accepting any sympathy going. Later in the day I saw another woman pushing a stroller with newborn twins. She was carrying bags on her back and her shoulder, AND she had a 3-year-old who was at that moment having a monster tantrum.

Oh, the joys of the holiday season!!