Come, Mommy

Well, let me tell you a little tale about a pair of anxious parents-to-be. They had waited months to see their sweet little baby boy, to count his toes, to count his fingers, and to gaze, enraptured, at the the thought that a tiny, tiny, bit of Mommy and a tiny, tiny, tiny, bit of Daddy had danced together and finally joined. And they had waited to see all these things as the tiny piece of Mommy+Daddy (that shall for our purposes hereonin be called “Liam”) grew and grew and grew and grew. Then one evening , after all those months of waiting, something happened.

With a splash and a shriek and a very confused look on his face, Liam emerged from his Mommy’s tummy, all cute, and shiny, and wet, and angry at having fallen out of his nice cozy dark watery world into this place the rest of us call “The Real World.”

Liam wasn’t angry for long though, because the friendly OB standing by Mommy’s feet caught him with warm strong hands, wrapped him up in a soft warm blanket, helped him expel some particularly bothersome strands of mucus and gunk, and then handed Liam to his Mommy, who promptly nursed him for the first time ever. Judging from the look on his face as the first squirts of warm colostrum slid down his throat, all of a sudden being ejected quite quickly from the only watery world he’d ever known did not seem to be such a bad thing after all.

All that took place on Thanksgiving Day 2003, and so for Liam’s proud parents, Thanksgiving took on a whole new richness since this wonderful little boy had come to live with them on Thanksgiving Day.

In Liam’s first  years, we would celebrate Thanksgiving in NJ with GiGi, sometimes Uncle Bob, and Gran-Gran and Pop-Pop. It was  fun-a typical American Thanksgiving complete with lots of food, hugs, football, chatting and sometimes even a long walk in the evening after the kitchen had been cleaned up.That was a lot of fun, and I will always treasure those memories.

But the times, they do change, and things happen and so sometimes even long-standing traditions have to change along with everything else. Almost three years ago, Gran-Gran and Pop-Pop moved to Texas. Since then, we who stayed behind in the Garden State slowly started doing some things on our own to build a new set of holiday traditions, but were largely unsuccessful, mostly because it’s hard to have a traditional feast with only Mommy, Daddy, and one, and then two, little boys.

This year, however we are doing things differently. Our plan was to have a nice Thanksgiving Dinner here at home, and then a long walk on the canal with friends. Then, over the weekend, we would head for the Poconos, where there is a lodge-style hotel complete with an indoor water park. We would drive up in the morning, play in the water all afternoon, and perhaps for a bit after dinner. Then we would go to our room for some reading or a movie. The next day we would splash away the morning, have a good lunch, and return home in time for bedtime and Liam’s birthday celebration at school on Monday.

Well. well, so the first part didn’t quite go as planned, but we are rallying and continuing on with the  first year of of our new tradition. You see, I woke up Thanksgiving morning with a migraine headache. I haven’t had one in a couple of years. thankfully, but I was completely unprepared for this one to strike. By noon yesterday, Kevin and the boys were driving me to the ER. The helpful people there were able to get me some relief quite quickly, which was welcome, but because of all the H1N1 caution, the boys were not allowed to stay in the ER with me. So Kevin had to take them home. It was not the day I had envisioned where I would be cooking goodies for my family and playing with them. On the other hand, though, I did get some much-needed rest as I spent 4 hours waiting for the radiologist in Australia (certain services are outsourced on holidays, apparently) to read my perfectly normal CT scan. Kevin and the boys bounced back and forth between home and the hospital, and at one point one of the nurses came back to tell me that there were two cute boys sitting on the floor out front amusing the receptionist with knock-knock jokes and eating M&M’s. So apparently the boys had a decent time themselves. Poor Kevin, who had to manage these active little ones, was a bit the worse for wear as the hospital didn’t manage to release me for 6 hours.

However, I am proud to tell you that I was fine yesterday, fully functional, and was able to put together smaller version of Thanksgiving dinner. We did indeed take our walk on the canal and spied many treasures such as rocks, colored leaves, sea gulls, and a heron or two..We were accompanied by Liam’s friend K and her parents. K’s Mom and Dad and I first met singing in a local choir. K was born about a year after Liam, and has grown up with him. They are fast friends, and it was to our great surprise and honor that K was placed in Liam’s Kindergarten class this past September She is now one of Liam’s favorite Kindergarten classmates. We all went out to lunch, and then returned home.

While eating our delayed Thanksgiving dinner last evening, we announced our travel plans to the boys, who were very much in favor of the trip, as you might imagine. They had a bit of trouble getting to sleep last time as they are quite excited about our trip coming up in under two hours now.

I’m on my way to pack now, but I think that our trip today will be nothing less than wonderful. So with that, I bid you all good day and a happy weekend. The lodge does have wi-fi so if I have time I may post a few pictures and tell some funny stories.

Happy Thanksgiving weekend to my readers!