We had an awesome trip to NY for my big brother's surprise 40th birthday party. My frequent-flyer sister-in-law used her many points to book us a hotel room, and my parents decided it was too late at night and they would rather stay home and watch the kids. We went out with my brother and his friends, did lots of shots, stumbled back to the hotel at 2 a.m. and slumbered peacefully in the dark until 10 a.m. before going to meet the rest of the family for brunch. The last time we did anything like that was well over a decade ago. We laughed the whole way back to the hotel about how glad we were to get away from the kids and be irresponsible for one night. I couldn't believe my brother (who has a newborn) was still out. JW thinks there's something about Manhattan that keeps you in a state of arrested development where it seems normal to live in a tiny apartment with roommates and stumble home drunk even when you're well past your 20s.
We returned to NY for Thanksgiving. For the first time ever, it was a family-only dinner with everyone at one table, including JW's parents. (We are so lucky that our parents get along well!) The family friends who couldn't make it crashed our house for dinner the next day, so the leftovers got eaten. My SIL left at 10:30 for Black Friday shopping and didn't come back until the wee hours. I offered to go with her and was so glad she didn't take me up on it.
I did my Black Friday shopping online. We bought a Christmas tree. (Fake, just like both of us grew up with.) Before, we had this miniature artificial tree that, over the years, had developed a pronounced list and could barely stand up. The weekend after Thanksgiving, we decorated the new tree and the house, with the holiday Music Choice channel playing on the TV. We had a box of ornaments from JW's grandmother, who moved out of her house this year, and we realized that many of them had been gifts from other family members over the years. So now we have a tree full of family-made or gifted ornaments.
X started putting two words together, like "Sit down" and "Pafa go" (where did my pacifier go?)
K has been drawing ever-more elaborate pictures of made-up heroes and bad guys, featuring exploding buildings and word bubbles saying, "GET HIM!" and "DESTROY!" We decided to compile them into "K's Book of Heroes and Villains" as a Christmas present for the grandparents. (X brought home artwork from school yesterday, too: a smiling eggplant with googly eyes, a potato with little brown pieces of construction paper glued to it, and several handprint turkeys.)
The boys and I spent Veteran's Day in the woods, getting eaten by bears. Thank you veterans.
I went part time at work. I'll post about that separately. It's only been a couple of weeks and I'm still figuring it out. I also started going to therapy, which I may post about separately too. So far it's been helpful.
I went on a short business trip (and got to see some friends on the way). When I came back, I found that JW had told K that if he could stay dry for ten nights in a row, he would get Megaman X, a video game K has been coveting for a long time. For a while now, JW has been bothered by the fact that K still wears a diaper at night, and I've been saying that the pediatrician says it's normal and his body just isn't ready because obviously he wouldn't wet his diaper on purpose. Well... K completed his tenth dry night in a row yesterday. It is incredible how much this kid is motivated by external rewards. JW thinks he was just being lazy and using his diaper instead of going to the bathroom in the morning. The new rule is that if he wets the bed, he loses the game and has to stay dry for another ten days until he gets it back.
0 comments:
Post a Comment