This post is not for you, okay?

It's not that I'm against you reading it, I just don't think you're going to want to.  How do I know?  Because it's about Thanksgiving, and you're, like, so over Thanksgiving.  Thanksgiving is so last week.  I know this.  But the Husband and I went to ATLANTIC CITY, baby, and I didn't have time to post this earlier.  And I can't just not post it, because some day my aging brain is going to ask, "Hey, what year did I drop the eggs?"  And I can just pull this up and say, "2012 - now that was a bad year for the eggs."

So here it is, the post you haven't been waiting for:  The Thanksgiving Highlight Post.  Here's what I might want to remember someday, accompanied by only some of the pictures I wanted to include (Blogger wouldn't let me include the rest or now sub out the food pictures for people pictures--sonofaB!  Whatev.):

Patrick, Cheryl, Mark, and Chas meet their new niece and nephew for the first time and carry them around.  A lot.  (Having my own hands free to do whatever?  Priceless.) 

Unsolicited, 6-year-old Nicholas informs me that I make the best cookies in the world.  “HA!!!!” I yell to my sisters-in-law, who both claim to make The Best Cookies in the World.  This is the best Thanksgiving ever.

That Nicholas is an angel.

Cheryl makes Conor laugh by singing him children's songs.  Chas makes Conor laugh by suggesting that she'll take him to see dancing girls.  Samantha, on the other hand, is not terribly amused by the suggestion of untoward behavior, but smiles politely because that's how she was raised.

Roar accompanied Uncle Patrick, Aunt Cheryl, and Mina on a trip to DC.  It was so windy that Aunt Cheryl worried aloud that Mina might literally get blown away.  Roar scoops up his cousin, and carries her the rest of the time.  Awww.

Zachary, beaming, sits on the couch with Mina and Nicholas, and yells to me, “I’m playing with my cousins!”  Every chance he gets, he tells me that he's doing something with "his cousins."  Having them around is so novel and so much fun for him.  

I royally f-up in the cooking of hard-boiled eggs:  shells will not come off without pulling off a giant chunk of egg white.  Chas spends an hour peeling off the shells, and once she’s done, I drop the eggs on the floor.  I yell at the dog and save them from being eaten.  (He’s hurt, but I make it up to him later by dropping a half a block of cheese on the floor.)  The eggs are washed and salvaged, but nothing can fix that kind of ugly.

Jack is not happy about being told to look happy for pictures.  He gets over it.

The Husband is not happy that the picture of “The White Team” doesn’t contain all members of The White Team and refuses to smile for pictures.  I yell at him.  He yells back.  We get over it.

ScowlyPants, Cheryl, Roar, Megan, Chas

Parti and Cheryl take the kids to the park, leaving the house quiet, and the kitchen empty for some time.  Awe-some.

Standing a safe distance away, we watch with cameras and video cameras at the ready for the turkey to explode or otherwise create a scene that will net us a significant sum of money on America’s Funniest Home videos.  To our dismay, the turkey cooperates. 

Parta reluctantly makes a ceremonial first cut of the turkey, but it was done with great flair.

Nicholas (aka The Informer) tells the Husband, “Your son is downloading how to buy me a Justin Beeber Barbie.  You better do something about it.”

Zachary wants to go outside to play, but his little cousins are busy playing "with technology."  So cousin Megan drops what she's doing and volunteers to take him outside.  She plays with him on his slide, making my son so very happy.  Awww.

Uncle Patrick rotisseries a chicken on the grill.  It tries to escape and has to be tied down.

Mark demands marshmallows in his yams.  I comply, but require him to buy the marshmallows.  He gets the giant kind, and I declare that he has ruined Thanksgiving.

I walked outside to find all of the children, including the two teenagers, drawing on our driveway with sidewalk chalk.

Parti, Parta, Zachary, Mina, Cheryl, Roar, and I play a game of Apples to Apples.  Even though Zachary is playing on his own team, he comes in second place.

The kids spend a good couple of hours in the back yard setting up a series of games for the adults to play.  Mom gets angry that we do not indulge the kids by playing before dinner; Mark gets mad at mom for getting mad.  They get over it.

The morning after Thanksgiving, 6-year old Mina tells me how tired she was the night before.  I suggest that it’s because she ran around a lot the day before and because she ate turkey.  Did she know that turkey could make you tired, I ask.  “Yes,” she says.  “It’s the tryptophan.” 

The Midwesterners Cometh!

Guess who came to visit?

Those people I grew up with:

Some random people we picked up along the way (a.k.a. "The White Team"):

Cousins,

 cousins,

cousins:

In short, the whole gang.

Despite the shortage of beds and bathrooms, despite the little bit of drama, despite the meltdowns, it was so, so nice to be together again.

Now we're getting somewhere...

For a long time now, there have been things I've wanted to do for myself, but hadn't.  Some were simple things like "read more," or run, or, um, take a shower.  I was too busy, too tired, too pregnant, too poor, too scared, too blah blah blah to do anything but keep them silly little interests that I would think about indulging if I was wealthier, had more time, got skinnier, grew some huevos, and if there wasn't a rerun of How I Met Your Mother on tv that I hadn't seen more than five times.

Then things happened:  I spoke to an old friend -- a father of young, twin girls -- who is living with ALS; my cousin passed away from cancer; two weeks later my husband's uncle passed away from cancer; and I read your blogs, blogs of women who are living their lives and not making excuses.

In the wake of that, how dare I not pick up a book, or pick up my feet (or take a shower, for that matter)? 

It might not sound like much, but here are some of the things I want to do.

(1) Read more.  I used to devour books.  Nothing too cerebral (although, I do love a good book on reaching financial goals), but not young adult lit either.  Bonus points if it makes me laugh.  I picked up Mindy Kaling's book last week and was ripping through it, feeling almost...relief?..to be able to consume words that are not connected to a legal brief.  But now I don't want to finish it because I have nothing lined up to read after it.  So help me!  What have you read lately that you've loved, that you couldn't put down?

(2) Exercise.  Dieting is only getting me so far.  As fascinating as post-partum belly jiggle is -- and trust me, it's fascinating -- I wouldn't be sad if I had to focus on something else.  I ran once, a couple days ago, and my body reminded me that I'm old.  But I'm going to do it again, if for no other reason than because I can.  I've also talked Roar and the Husband into joining me for a Warrior Dash next year.  I know it's not for a while, but I've never been able to run, and I basically have been sitting on my butt for the last year and a half. Now I have an excuse to train.

(3) Improve my photography.  Here's where it's getting really fun (okay, yes, the reading is fun, but this is really, really fun).  I signed up for a photography class.  It's been two weeks, and I've already gotten so much out of it.  My favorite thing so far?  Being able to take indoor shots at night without the flash.  Lookie!

I find Samantha's thumb sucking to be adorable and frightening; frightening because I only quit sucking my thumb recently, like, last year or something.  So sometimes I tell her to stop.  She doesn't listen.

Zachary's absolute love of salads is super awesome, except when he steals mine like he's doing here.

Really, this boy loves him some salad.

"Is there more?"  Seriously, he wanted to know.

Yeah, I don't even know what to say.

So there is some of it.  And there's more!  But I'm taking baby steps.  I don't know exactly where I'm going to go, but I do know that I'm not going to stand still anymore.

A totally cohesive post on sleeping and global warming

To the non-multiple-having guy with the put-your-twins-in-the-same-room-at-night-because-they-don't-wake-each-other-up advice:

You, sir, are a liar.  A big, fat, ass of a liar.

And if any of you moms of multiples gave me the same advice, I can't even look at you right now. 

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Alright, I'm over it.  No, wait, I'm not.  Okay, yes I am.  Let's look at children.

I'm not going to express any views on global warming on this blog, but if you believe it's a real phenomenon, here's the silver lining: It's No-Jacket November!

And if you don't believe in global warming, you can enjoy No-Jacket November guilt free.  Sweet.

They're baaaack!

I bet you didn't even realize they were gone, did you?  

The Husband, Roar, and Zachary went on a whirlwind road trip to Florida this week.  Because the Husband only had a few days off, they had to squeeze a lot into a very short amount of time.  So was I sad that I missed fifteen hours each way in a car with three (flatulent) boys?  Um, no. 

First, they said goodbye to Uncle Horace who passed away from cancer a couple weeks ago.

Uncle Horace (center) in Cuba in 1955.  We will forever miss you.

We love you, Aunt Lil.

Then, Zachary experienced the beach for the first time.  He chased birds, saw a submarine, built sandcastles, froze in the ocean water, and loved every second of it (okay, the birds, not so much).

 Zachary also experienced a pool for the first time and played miniature golf with Nonna.

Me thinks the water must have been cold.  (You will notice that the Husband's beard is back, but to answer what I'm sure you're wondering: No, mocking has no effect on either the Husband or the beard.)

Nonna apparently did not know how to golf.  Luckily, Zachary was there to show her how.  Here he is, clearly exasperated that despite his instruction, she still is not using proper form.

Finally, they went to Disney World, and I'm so glad they went so that I didn't have to.  I hate it so much.  So, so much.

Here are my boys, learning Disney's lesson that they are just not strong enough.

The Husband, Zachary, Roar, Nonna, Pop, and Aunt Helen -- all putting on brave faces and pretending that they're not in hell.

Welcome back, boys!

The day after

So the election results are in, and out of respect for the Husband, I will only say, "Bravo" and give a demure little clap (you know, the kind that barely makes any noise). 

That said, I have to say that I'm envious of a lot of you, like Tanika, Laura, and Anandi, whose political discussions with their loved ones seem almost cozy and fun, not acrimonious and condescending.  Although the Husband doesn't try to engage me very often anymore (thanks, honey), occasionally I am still the recipient of the rantings of a man drunk off of Fox News.  If we really tried to discuss, it would most certainly end with a food fight -- not the good-natured kind, but an angry "I-will-grind-this-spaghetti-into-your-hair-in-such-a-way-that-you-will-be-washing-it-out-for-days-bwahaha" kind of fight.  Okay, I lie, we're not a food-fight type of couple, and the thought of wasting pasta makes me want to cry (but there is the random wet willy -- speaking of which, oh man, there was some serious saliva-based retaliation for writing this post).  It would be much more likely that one of us would end up being hospitalized for getting our eyeballs stuck in the back of our head from excessive, dramatic eye rolling.

Yet, despite our polar-opposite political views, strangely enough, I love this man.  There is absolutely no one that I'd rather be with.  Somehow, we make this work.

So maybe there's hope for our executive branch that still contains a divided Congress.  Maybe they'll be able to get past the bitterness and get to working together to get things done.  Maybe these next four years will be better than the last.  Surely, if the Husband and I can do it, they can too.  Right? 

Election Day

Throughout the last week, I have started and stopped writing this post several times.  I wanted to rant about how ugly election season had become, about how I hate the negative ads, about how I am annoyed that some people have stopped being respectful of people who have viewpoints that do not comport with their own.

I wanted to express my disgust that the sign on my brother's fence that used to look like this:

now looks like this:

And honestly, I'm still a little annoyed and a lot disgusted (that's the fence of an Iraq-War vet who fights for your freedom to wield that can of spray paint, you arse).

But this morning at my polling station, while standing in line behind a hundred people waiting to vote, I realized why I never got around to publishing that post:  This is cool.  Yes, this election season has brought out the worst in some people, but it has again highlighted one of the best things about this country:  Our freedom to engage in political discourse and take part in the election process.  Our opinions matter.  Our votes matter.  And our actions make a difference. 

Whether it's going to be "Mitt Ryan" (as Zachary calls him) or Barack Obama (Zachary says this perfectly), I don't know.  But I'm proud that we live in a country where we get to choose.

Halloween 2012

This year, in preparation for Halloween, we visited a pumpkin patch, picked out the perfect pumpkins, and carved them.  Actually, although Zachary picked out his pumpkin, he refused to help carve it because he did not want to get pumpkin goo on his hands (pictures and video to come as soon as I figure out where I put the little camera...).

Come Halloween, we had a Tampa Bay Buccaneer,

a funky pink kitty,

 
a silly puppy,

and a good big brother.

Zachary had good intentions with regard to trick-or-treating -- he said he was going to ask neighbors for candies for Parti, Daddy, Roar, and Mama -- but when it came to executing this plan, he was reluctant.  I figured that our shy guy just needed some practice, so we had him trick-or-treat at our house.

In the end, he was happy with the two packs of M&Ms that he picked out, and was more than willing to call it a night.  What are the chances that next year will be this easy?