Happy Thanksgiving

My kids love the song "Tonight Tonight" by Hot Chelle Ray. This summer when we were in Utah visiting my friend Jen, she cranked it up one day and everyone danced around the house wildly. Except me. Mama don't dance. Anyway. Bo, who started piano lessons a couple of months ago, has been trying to figure out the tune to this song on the piano. He's got the "tonight, tonight" part and Avee had almost nailed the "Whoa, oh-oh, whoa-oh-oh" part. J was helping them and asked me to put the song on so he could prove he was right and they were wrong. Bo heard the line, "it kinda looks just like you, mixed with Zach Galifianakis" and wanted to know what a Zachgalifianakis was. So, I googled his name to show his picture and it took me to his website. Where there was a nice nude sketching of "him".

J laughed out loud at my fumble and I quickly closed the page. Thank you Zach G. Now my 8 year old knows what you and your sketched junk look like.

Today is Thanksgiving morning. This is my favorite holiday of all. I love that it is simply about having gratitude. I love spending it with family and friends. I love how the weather is cold, but not unbearable yet. I love the bare trees and the ground covered in dead, crunchy, leaves, but some still colorful. I like turkey okay, but I love the tradition of having turkey. J learned to brine turkey a few years ago and we'll never go back. It's amazing.

This morning Avee asked where the turkeys were and I pointed out to a Rubbermaid on the back deck, where they were brining, peacefully. She exclaimed, "What!? They are out there in the cold!? Naked...and...dead? Oh never mind, they're dead."

I can remember when Bo was like 3-4 I just really didn't want him to know that the fish we ate at dinner was a close relative of the fish he loved seeing in the aquarium. Or that the nuggets he ate at McDonald's came from some part of the chicken he loved to sing about at O' Macdonohd's Fahm. Now, Avee's connection of the two things, a real turkey and the plucked, dead thing on our counter cracks me up. I've advanced quite a bit in this motherhood gig.

I am thankful for so many things every day. Here are some of them for today:
*My own good health and a healthy, active, baby growing inside me.
*The chance to watch my children learn and grow and experience life with them.
*Family that I can take or leave most days, but always have, so I take--and I love.
*A sister who can say one word or one phrase that can send us both into laughing hysterics. Or a raging vent. Someone who I don't have to explain any background to.
*A husband who does so much to make my life easier and better. Every day.
*The opportunity to be in Graduate School and the difference it is already making in me.
*Our home.
*Good friends who support me, make me feel loved, laugh with me, set me straight, and sing on my answering machine.
*My bed. I love my bed so much.
*Clean, folded, and put away laundry.
* My mom. She's awesome.

Yesterday Bo said to me out of nowhere, "Mom, you always laugh. I always see you laughing, I've never seen you cry. Well, except that one time. But you always laugh." I told him he was my favorite kid for the next 20 minutes so to go make the most of it. It did my heart good to hear him say that. It's okay to cry. I do. I definitely hide it from my kids because they don't need to be burdened with some of that stuff. But I'm glad they are growing up with a mom that laughs a lot. It helps that they give me a lot of reasons to laugh. I hope they grow up and laugh a lot too.

Happy Thanksgiving.