Yes, a boring post title and I swear that more than half of the blogs in my Google Reader have had that same post title (well, without the belated part) and I swore I was going to be way more creative than that but then here I am, using the boring post title. My whole family is still sleeping right now so I need to quick post while I have peace and quiet.
To make up for the boring post title, I will show you a video of a sweet little girl wishing you a happy holiday:
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We had a nice Thanksgiving with Rick’s family; his sister (aka Aunt Nancy) and her husband (aka Uncle Eddie) drove up from Texas for the holiday and we hadn’t seen them since our visit to Disney in May. One of Mallory’s teachers at school is “Miss Eddie” so she very quickly put Uncle and Eddie together and would NOT stop saying it. “Where Uncle Eddie go, mama?” was a favorite anytime he left her sight. And when he would sneeze, it was “Bess you, Uncle Eddie”. Too stinking cute.
We had brunch at Rick’s mom’s house and then it was back to the hotel for Mallory’s two-hour power nap (and a 1.5 hour power nap for mom! I slept horribly in the hard hotel bed and was tossing & turning all night trying to get comfortable. When you can only sleep on your side, you are limited in your remedies when your hips hurt from the hard bed.)
We had our first Thanksgiving dinner at Rick’s uncle & aunt’s house (on his dad’s side). It was a quick stop but enough time to shovel in some turkey & potatoes & gravy! Rick’s cousin has two boys, ages 5 & 2, so they had lots of fun car toys to play with and were good sharers.
Then it was off to our second turkey dinner at Rick’s uncle & aunt’s house (on his mom’s side). These folks are HUGE HUGE HUGE Buckeye fans and I was prepared for some harassment but I suppose they know where their tickets come from for the Big Game and backed off. Dinner time there was at 7pm, which is Mallory’s normal bedtime now that we have her going to sleep consistently in her big girl bed and staying asleep until we wake her up. We try to be pretty flexible with her schedule but with the new successful bedtimes we stumbled across, I was very anxious about messing with our routine. Plus, we had been out late the night before and a late bedtime usually contributes to her being up a few times in the night (I’m sure the hotel crib didn’t help any though) and a rough next day.
Anyway, she was great all through dinner even though she hardly ate anything and we had a nice time. His cousins pulled out the board games after dinner but we had to head back to the hotel to get Mallory to bed. We had another big day planned for Friday.
Friday was breakfast out with everyone and then a trip through the little downtown of the city Rick’s mom lives in. Mallory loved walking into the shops and letting her grandma show her off to all of her friends. She was polite and friendly, looking people in the eye to say hi – I was so proud of her.
We were on the road north by lunchtime – we had to hurry home and get the dog from my dad’s and get the car unpacked so we could pile back in the car to head to the Blue Jackets-Red Wings hockey game. I was so nervous about sneaking in my two-year old without a ticket but no one even questioned it, thank goodness! But I do realize it was the last time we’ll be able to take her without a seat, especially since she will only sit on my lap (not Rick’s) and my lap is going to be out of room the next two times the Blue Jackets come to Detroit this season. We had the fancy tickets right behind the bench again – we got to see one of the Blue Jacket players get into an exchange with some fans behind us (the fans were hollering at the player before the start of the period, and the player was making motions over his helmet like the guy has a combover, and then the player TOOK HIS HELMET OFF and was running his glove through his hair some more to indicate the combover. I WAS DYING. Forgot to tell Hitch that story after the game.
The Wings won 5-3 – blah – and that always makes our post-game visits shorter than they already are. I miss the olden days where I could waste his brain for hours offering to massage down an injured Mike Modano, or offer to give the pre-game speech. It sucks to grow up and get mature and all that. Blah.
Anyway, Mallory again was great – staying awake for the whole game. OH – I almost forgot – she dropped her pacifier and it fell under our seats (a pitfall of sitting in the very front row, I suppose). She cried for about five minutes and I was freaking OUT about how we would get through the rest of the game. We have a rule that she only gets her “paci-bear” at nap & bedtime but if it’s nap or bedtime and she sits on my lap, that counts. Well, she pulled it out of her mouth to take a drink of water and away it went. Anyway, she calmed down and was telling us that her paci dell down and was all gone at hockey game and we were thinking that maybe we could ditch the paci for good – thank you Joe Louis Arena!
But the second we got in the car (where we had a backup paci) she was still talking about her paci being all gone but had started in on “get new one”. Rick & I held strong for about 10 minutes into the ride home – she wouldn’t stop talking about her paci so we finally caved and gave her the one we had in the car…and she fell asleep in two minutes. I know this is a battle we are going to have to have eventually but I’m not ready to do it yet.
We had a third Thanksgiving dinner with my family on Saturday, and Mallory only had about two bites of turkey. I told her she wasn’t going to get dessert if she didn’t eat dinner and then when I was pre-occupied with something else, my dad gave her a bowl of ice cream. ARGH.
I realized that three turkey dinners in three days is the limit before Arlo gets pissed about me taking up too much of his/her space with food in my tummy. This baby was going crazy last night wriggling and punching. Lesson learned.
Our three nights in a row of messed up bedtime cost us HUGE last night. Like the biggest meltdown EVER. That was pretty fun. Wish us luck that we can get back to normal tonight.
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We took some pictures in the woods yesterday for our Christmas cards. Here are some outtakes:
Everyone is now awake and we are off to run errands. Bye for now!