Well we’ve emerged at the other end of Thanksgiving weekend. HOWEVER…. the kids were supposed to go back to school Monday, but there was a massive power outage last night and the schools were closed. Apparently a small plane flew into a electrical tower. No one is hurt, and the power has actually been restored to schools, but the schools need to do some damage assessment before they let the kids come back. So that makes day six of no school.
Given that last week consisted only of two half days of school, it certainly feels as if there’s been a lot of time at home and with the kids the past week and a half. I don’t feel like I have to be the children’s cruise director, but I do acknowledge that life is smoother if on days without school we get out of the house for a large chunk of time. With that in mind, one half day, I had the kids accompany me on my HMart grocery run – I bribed them by letting them pick out their own packs of Pocky as a snack- then took them to the park. It was chilly so I packed some hot chocolate in a Thermos.
The other half day the kids and I went to the library and the park next to the library. I love our library and park because it’s a low key one stop kids destination – there is a big open grassy area that the kids can run around in, there is a playground, and then when we get tired of that, we can go to the library and read book, or, more likely, play on the computers. I ran into a colleague that I hadn’t seen in two years but who just moved to the area, which always perks me up. I picked up another thick tome – Juliet Barker’s biography on the Brontës. I think January might be a Jane Eyre redux month – I want to read “My Plain Jane“, having just read the first book in the series, a retelling of the story of Lady Jane Grey, and found it hilarious. This second book in the series is a retelling of Jane Eyre, which is my favorite book.
Wednesday, was a full day off and I was offered tickets to a dress rehearsal of The Nutcracker, so I took the two older kids. I haven’t been to see The Nutcracker since probably high school. This was a nice traditional Nutcracker with all the expected bit – children, mice, Sugar Plum Fairy, a growing tree, lots of snow, and rows of tutus dancing in perfect unison. The kids were more engaged with the first half, which was where the main narrative arc of the story was. The second half, left them a little restless. My favorite part, though, was getting to hear the orchestra play Tchaikovsky’s score.
We did not go anywhere for Thanksgiving – at one point we had contemplated visiting a friend in New Jersey, but the thought of packing and travelling with the kids seemed so daunting and a nice quiet weekend at home much more appealing. We even made plans to clean out the attic, which did not happen. Thanksgiving Day itself was pretty quiet. As is our tradition, we watched the Macy’s Day Parade starting at 9am. I was a little confused at first because all the musical theatre numbers were shown at the beginning of the broadcast, and I was used to them being spaced throughout the parade, so I initially thought that they weren’t going to show the balloons and floats this year, just the musical numbers. But fear not. They balloons and floats started at 10am. My favorite bit was the cast of the Pitch Perfect spin off performing a mashup of 99 Luftbaloons + Take On Me. It was pretty awesome. Also the excerpt from Lion King – once you’ve seen stilt walkers as giraffes all the other performers seem kind of landbound. I had seen the musical years ago and the puppetry is just as brilliant and thrilling twenty years later seen on tv.
After dinner, we watched Planes, Trains, and Automobiles – I hadn’t seen it before, and the Husband has been waiting YEARS for us to watch this as a family. In years past we’ve watched Scent of a Woman, but this year I guess the kids are at that phase where they’re too young for Scent of a Woman and just old enough for Planes, Trains, and Automobiles. Another holiday tradition that shifts.
The rest of the weekend felt pretty full for a quiet holiday at home. I guess when we stay home, adventure comes to us. We ended up having two park play dates – one at our local park and one at a farther away park that I’d never been to, but which was huge and fun and had a carousel. I might have lost the three year old there and might have been that mother whose child was picked up sobbing by another mother on the playground. Ugh.
In addition to that, I went through the kids’ snow gear and made a note of what I needed to stock up on for this year, we watched football (American) and football (soccer), and tidied and cleaned and I went through the fruit bowl and decided to toss some really old apples, but then decided that I shouldn’t waste food like that so I made applesauce. I took the ten year old to buy some clothes and we found a dress for her upcoming piano recital. There was also church, a visit to the Farmer’s Market and the local co-op to stock up on snacks, a new to us coffee shop, and lighting of Advent candles. And we’ve started playing Christmas music at our house and watching Christmas movies.
Oh and before that, on Saturday night my friend called and said that she was sick but she had tickets for Frozen with the Symphony that night and did I want to go and take her kids? It’s one of those shows where they show the movie and the orchestra is onstage playing the music. So I said sure why not and took the ten year old, the three year old and my friend’s two kids. It was kind of an ordeal getting there – three preteens and a three year old in a car is not for the faint of heart, but we made it and mostly enjoyed the movie (I mean who doesn’t like Frozen?!?). And they blew fake snow over the audience during the closing credits – that was kind of magical.
The three year old wore her big sister’s hand me down Anna dress to the concert/movie, and it was interesting to me how many kids came dressed up. But also interesting is that most of the kids came in costumes from Frozen 2 – it made me feel the passage of time that my three year old’s Anna dress was kind of vintage Anna now.
Lessons learned this Thanksgiving:
– Find a better time to go to Costco. Or maybe there is no good time to go to Costco? I went Tuesday morning before Thanksgiving then I went to Giant to do the grocery shop. It was all so exhausting and crowded. Also- on Wednesday night, I discovered we were out of dish soap and I seriously started contemplating the it wouldn’t be terrible if I didn’t do any dishes for the next few days rather than going to to the store again. Thankfully, the Husband prevailed and went to the store and got dish soap.
– I tried a new fat ratio for pie crust this time and I really liked it. I used to do all butter or half butter/half shortening. This time I did 2/3 butter and 1/3 shortening and it’s not as tasty as a full butter crust, but the texture was perfect. Despite the droopy pie crust, the pies were really tasty.
– Make/ buy the rolls. I decided to skip the rolls this year because it was just us and I didn’t want to have a lot of food, but you know what? I miss having rolls at the table. So next year – don’t skip the rolls.
– Do better at trading off alone time with the Husband. Five days at home with the kids is a lot of togetherness and we all had moments of burnout. We need to be better at making sure there is child-free time for each parent on these stretches.
Grateful For This week: Of course it was Thanksgiving week, so my gratitude list was very long, but some specific things from this week:
– The opportunity to go see live performances. It’s a nice perk of my job that periodically I get tickets to things and get to take my kids. I’m also grateful that I can take my kids and they will usually sit through things, or if they get restless they will sit on my lap and cuddle.
– Neighbors and strangers who help. I had an odd incident on Thanksgiving Day while out on my run; I came across a lady walking up the sidewalk with three suitcases who clearly needed help, but I was so far out of my depths and didn’t know how to help her. I felt so thankful that my neighbor was able to offer some resources and then a random stranger pulled his car over and took the lady to a shelter.
– My kids’ teachers. We had parent teacher conferences last week and I am so grateful to the teachers who help my kids learn – not just book learning, but also learning life skills. I’m especially grateful for the ten year old’s teacher. Our conference was only supposed to be fifteen minutes but she spent over half an hour with us answering questions and talking us through strategies to help the ten year old in areas where she was struggling.
Looking Forward To
– Buckling down and getting the translation slides done for this supertitle gig I have next week. It seems weird to be looking forward to that, but I feel like I’ve spend so much time this past week thinking, and planning, and executing family and children adventures, that being able to do something that is work and not kid related is going to be a nice chance for flow and focus.
– Night out at a comedy show with my friend. I’ve never been to a comedy show, so I’m excited to see what it is like. This one is by a local comedy troupe and is called “Mother of all Comedy Show” and supposed to be about family and the holidays. Hopefully it will be funny.
– The ten year old’s piano recital this week.
One Fun Thing I Read:
I really liked this article about Japanese fans cleaning up after World Cup games. I’ve always been really fascinated by how Japanese children are expected to help tidy their classrooms and the how the expectations are pretty high for independence and stewardship in children. It was really cool to see those traits manifest on an international stage. (Related listening – I loved this episode of 99% Invisible talks about Japanese toddlers going on their first errands and how Japanese cities and culture supports that.)
What We Ate:
Monday: Crispy Chickpeas with homemade Flatbread from Weekday Vegetarian. We had some leftover yogurt sauce from when the husband make chicken schwarma last week, so I thought this would be a good use.
Tuesday: Butternut Squash Curry from Budget Bytes. This was simple and tasty and used up a squash that had been sitting around . We ate it with flatbread rather than rice. Vegan.
Wednesday: Kitchen sink fried rice, recipe loosely based off of Weekday Vegetarian’s Mushroom and Bok Choy fried rice. We had a lot of leftover rice in the fridge so this was a good way to use that up. Because I wanted this to be our second vegan meal this week, I made it with fried tofu rather than eggs. This recipe called for the vegetables to be sautéed then removed from the pan, then the rice cooked in a layer to make it crispy then the veggies added back in – it made for a fried rice that was very veggie heavy, which I liked.
Thursday: THANKSGIVING!!! Duck with orange sauce, roasted potatoes, cranberry sauce, broccoli salad, ribbon jello (which the ten year old made ann which the Midwestern Husband insists on calling “Ribbon Salad”.) Pumpkin and Apple pie for dinner.
Friday: Pizza and the Paw Patrol Movie. My first experience with the Paw Patrol Phenomenon. It was fine… though I was a little annoyed that there was only one female Paw Patrol. Or maybe obviously female. Maybe more of them are females and I just don’t know because I have preconceived gender associations and only the pink dog can be a girl…?
Saturday: Sandwiches at the theatre before Frozen. I think the Husband and the five year old had take out at home.
Sunday: Dumplings and Spirited, a new movie on AppleTV, a Christmas Carol inspired story featuring Will Ferrell and Ryan Reynolds. I mostly enjoyed this movie – it had singing and dancing and was funny and irreverent. And Octavia Butler as the romantic lead – how awesome is that? There was one moment that I found a little cringe-y that almost ruined the movie for me – there are two things things that I personally don’t like being used as plot points and this had one of them.