Turkeys, Tummys and Toddlers

In almost 9 years of marriage I have never cooked a Thanksgiving meal. Thank goodness both families contain good cooks and we are with one or the other every year. This year the plan was to experience my grandmothers amazing cooking and eat ourselves into comas. The day before we planned to leave, my unborn youngest decided that he did not want to miss out on Grandma Troyer's cooking and has been doing his best to break out of his little cocoon. To discourage his early arrival, I am supposed to be taking it easy and not straying far from our hospital. I even have a prescription ordering Kevin to change all diapers. That part almost makes the contractions worth it!

After panicking at the thought of cooking a turkey, and deciding that I didn't want my water breaking at a restaurant, I sat down with my Sunday paper and clipped every Thanksgiving looking coupon I had before loading my kids into the car and heading out at what I thought would be a fairly slow shopping time of the day. Not two days before Thanksgiving.

I parked in the last spot at the back of the parking lot and hiked my way into the grocery store. I found my potatoes after standing in line for the potato bin. That was my first clue that this was not going to be a fast in and out trip.

Next stop was the turkeys. Seriously it was like black Friday for turkeys. Every time I found one small enough for me to lift and less than $50.00 someone snatched the thing out from under me. My oldest asked me why they put the dead turkeys in a net. I told him so they wouldn't run away.

Next I, along with the 50 people pressed in around me, heard the stocking guy mention that their shipment of oven bags never came in. Well I had a coupon for one of those so I scrambled to the bin and grabbed one of the last ones. I didn't even feel bad when a lady looked at me in shock since it was the one she was going for. After all she had my first pick of a turkey.

I had a coupon for broth. My mother-in-law always has broth on the counter when she cooks Thanksgiving dinner. I bought two just in case. No clue what she uses it for, but I got it and I got it on sale with a coupon. What does it go in???

I also had a coupon for sparkling cider. The aisles were lined with sparkling cider, just not the brand of my coupon. I walked up and down the same aisle 3 times before finding 3 of them...on the top shelf...at the very back. I thought about dropping the coupon on the floor and walking away, but I had already come so far. I made a spot on the bottom shelf for me to step up. Unfortunately I forgot about the middle shelf and my bulging belly and when I stepped up on the shelf, grapefruit juice went flying! About this time my youngest's shoe hit its perfectly aimed mark; his brothers head. Do I pick up the rolling juice first or stop the unnatural screams coming from my cart. If I ignore the screams, will people know its my cart? Whats more embarrassing, screaming kids or bulging belly's sending an avalanche of juice down the aisle?

I bought green beans, because the picture of the Thanksgiving dinner in the paper showed green bean casserole. Not a single person in my family will touch green beans!

So this is just the shopping trip! How will I ever pull off the meal?

Memory Lane

This time of year always seems to lead me down memory lane. As a teenager I didn't date a whole lot. Once a guy gave me flowers and I didn't leave my house for 3 days for fear I would run into him! I loved romantic movies and looked forward to getting married one day, but I just wasn't sure about the "boy" part of it.

So in October of 2001, a friend loaded me into her car and drove me to meet a guy who she felt would be a good fun guy to hang out with. I didn't say 2 words the whole ten minutes we interacted. I went home and did my biology homework and later went to Homecoming with a group of girlfriends, had a blast, and was perfectly content with it.

A month later that guy called me. He asked if my sister and I wanted to see a movie with him and his friend. No I did not. But my sister did and being under 16 it was the rule that she could only group date.

So this guy wasn't really into the whole set-up thing either. He had driven around outside his house waiting for us to leave when he found out I was coming to meet him. A month later he was bored, so he asked a girl out on a date. She was busy, and having just moved back to the state, he didn't have very many options in girls at that point, so he figured he'd go with plan B and call up the quiet girl from a month before. It was better than sitting at home for another weekend playing that video game he had beaten twice already.

Now my mom really liked that questions like who turns their head which way when you kiss, kept me just paranoid enough to never try it, so she smiled and waved goodbye when we headed out the door confident that I would be changing my phone number the next day.

Well I didn't change my number and the day before Thanksgiving I decided to be ok with finding out who turned their head which way, and my mom was rather dismayed when flowers from a guy didn't make me hide in my closet, and my dad told the poor kid no the first time he asked to marry me, but somehow we found ourselves married, fighting over toothpaste brands, and parents to almost 4 boys just 10 years after that plan B date.

What doesn't kill ya can still come close!

I have discovered something this last week. Husbands are invaluable things to have around. Despite their annoying habits of leaving closet doors open, or mail on the clean counter, or mood swings during Sunday afternoon football, or insensitive comments about it being that time AGAIN, they really do contribute, even if only at times as another adult voice.

My husband is smack dab in the middle of a two week business trip; overseas; with no phone contact and very unreliable internet connection; with a young, long legged, blonde co-worker along for the ride. Combine this with an almost 8 month pregnant mommy of all boys experiencing minor stomach bugs, a snow day or two, Halloween with its mounds of sugar, a time change, and little irritants such as flipped breakers and lost keys, and you have half a neighborhood putting their houses up for sale.

The morning Kevin left, I got up with enough determination to take on the world; and then my kids got up and I am still trying to find what happened to all of that determination and good intent. I found myself saying so many times, "lets just not talk for the next 5 minutes". I threatened to tie everyone up if they kept fighting, and I let a kid in bed with me when he felt that 5am was a great time to get up. I even let M&M's be supper one night.

When Kevin skyped with us and in between broken connections said he had picked up a parasite and was really sick, I did feel bad for him. I wouldn't ever admit that the thought crossed my mind that at least he was miserable too! But when he told us about the chicken he had had for supper one evening that was crawling with bugs, I did genuinely feel a little bad sitting down to my bug free pizza.

The stories of cool places, and exotic food, and interesting people however have made me think that a girls day at the spa when he gets home should be in my future! One particularly difficult day, my oldest needed flowers for his teachers birthday, so I bought myself some as well!

Last week my oldest's piano teacher smiled in sympathy (because I refused to admit it might have been pity) when I forgot the check, the teacher sweetly kept her mouth shut when one kid showed up in a light jacket in the middle of a snow storm, the pizza guy didn't say anything about how many times he had been to our house in only a few days, and the Sunday school teacher reminded me that at least I got an hour of childcare while I was in church and was therefore worth wrestling everyone out the door by myself.

So far everyone is still alive! SCORE!