Tinier than a turkey, and cuter, too

Elise's first Thanksgiving has come and gone. I think she enjoyed it (it's hard to tell, though, she actually slept through most of it). Here's the rundown of our family's day:

The day began, as most of our days do, with a night. It was a pretty good one--Elise made it to 4:30 before needing to eat, and with only two briefs wakeups prior to that.

Matt and Elise were both still sleeping when Kalina first started chanting "Mama, Mama" for the day, around 6:15. She often chants it (and never Daddy, Daddy), with more and more vehemence, until one of us opens her door, so I rushed out of bed (no small feat on a cold morning) and to her cribside hoping to keep at least half the family asleep. Of course she didn't want out of her crib, just to have an audience while she played. I didn't mind--I get so little quality time with her nowadays and she's so cute playing with her "friends, the animals" that I soaked it all in.

Soon, I informed the girl that it was, in fact, Thanksgiving Day--a day we'd been looking forward to with much anticipation thanks to several turkey crafts, a flurry of cooking the day before and some rather awkward explanations on my part ("well, the pilgrims and the Native Americans were friends at the time, although that ended eventually, but at this point they still wanted to share a meal together. They ate turkey. Now, what are you thankful for?"). Kalina, by the way, has expressed thankfulness for the fall leaves, which we'd been talking a lot about.

Elise soon woke up and Matt and I divied up the kids. We were out the door to Aunt Nancy's house by 11:00, Elise having taken a giant nap, and Kalina having goodnaturedly looked for parade footage online with me since we don't get a TV signal. We managed to find some of a panda balloon and were both somewhat satisfied.

I think Kalina was starting to wonder what the big deal was about Thanksgiving (after all, she had to get a bit dressed up and didn't like the cinnamon roll as much as if Daddy had put frosting on it for her), but then we arrived at Aunt Nancy's and saw her favorite people, and dog, there. As we finished preparations, Grandpa managed to rock Elise to sleep.

We were thrilled to welcome Angela to our table. She's been a staple at various family holidays for years now--so much so that we demanded she bake some rolls for us. Thank goodness she's goodnatured, but I suppose that's what it takes to put up with some of the more challenging members of our little family.

However, Elise did not make it to dinner, as she was again taking a giant nap. And poor Daddy was only an observer for the first 10 minutes as he was still finalizing pacifier negotiations with Elise regarding the nap (Elise is clearly a pacifist, hahaha). Thank you, Matt, for letting me eat a hot Thanksgiving dinner!

After dinner and dishes, we inducted Kalina into a Hanks family tradition: takeaway bingo. Of course, no one was allowed to take the gift we'd specifically picked out for Kalina away from her: a Play-Doh fun factory that she probably loves more than Elise at this point, and has sent many a Play-Doh critter through (much to Matt's delight). Kalina was done playing the game as soon as she unwrapped it--she now had Play-Doh to smash instead.

Then everyone but Elise had some pie, and we all headed up to Grandpa's house for a change of scenery.

By this time it was dark, and the toddler, who has been skipping lots of naps lately including, of course, Thanksgiving Day's (we didn't even try), needed some downtime. Much to our surprise when we opened the cardoors at Grandpa's, only one of our girls was bright-eyed--and not the one you'd expect! Elise may have dozed during the 25-minute trip, but Kalina definitely slept. She initially did not want to wake up, but fortunately was back to being her happy self once she was safely inside and surrounded by toys.

We enjoyed some leftovers, a quick game and some conversation before turning around and heading back home again so we could get both girls to bed at a decent time. We crossed our fingers that the night wouldn't punish us for a really fun day. It didn't!

The next day, the girls and I made it out for some really low-key, child-friendly 10:00 a.m. Black Friday shopping since Matt was working (yes, I was up in the 4:00 hour and I'm sure I could've scored some great deals, but chose to stay mostly in bed). It was almost a disaster--I didn't exactly run the girls into the ground, but the day before had taken care of that for me. Both girls melted down at once, and I was the talk of the bookstore as strangers either wondered aloud whether Elise was hungry or held doors for me to pave my way out (hint hint?). Kalina was asking for naptime on our way home.

I was glad I went, though--not only did I run into the mom that I've become friends with only by running into each other randomly (true story!), but I managed to find a nice Christmas book that actually told the real story of Christmas in words a toddler can at least follow (with Jesus and everything!). Kalina snapped up a Veggie Tales Christmas DVD that was on a great doorbuster sale. What a little shopper! Even Elise was too wowed to sleep in her stroller. No matter--in a few years they'll be the ones dragging me out the door.

We were all too tired to set up a Christmas tree this weekend, but that's probably for the best. Next week we will start celebrating Christmas in earnest. This weekend, we will content ourselves with being thankful for what we have.

Photos:
1: Elise sleeping!

2: Thanksgiving dinner.

3: Instead of naptime, we had storytime. At least it was downtime.
4: Kalina playing in the leaves a few days ago.