Harlan Place

This Thanksgiving was a bit unusual for us. The elder of my younger sisters, Favor, decided to stay in Florida for the holiday, since her teaching position only allows her a few days of travel time. But not wanting to spend the holiday alone, she convinced my other sister, Dacyl, to join her in good ol’ sunny FL. Fun for them, sad for us!In addition to losing my sisters, my little brother Jordan planned to spend Thanksgiving at school… hoping to avoid another 20 hr (round-trip) car ride home.

I’m a family girl, and I love big family gatherings. A holiday without a swarm of people just doesn’t feel like a holiday. Of course I would enjoy the company of my parents, my mom’s brother, and my elder brother + sister-in-law, … but it still wasn’t going to be the same.

Then I received word that my aunt, uncle, and cousins were going to join the festivities. Yay! The more, the merrier indeed! And as luck would have it, two of my three cousins joining us are Jordan’s age, and helped bolster my argument for him to come home. So in the end Jordan did join us (via airplane, thankfully), and the whole crew totalled about 14. That’s more like it!

Sadly (and I’m really bummed about this), I was so distracted with food preparation, etc, that I neglected to get any pictures. I forgot to take out the camera until half of the crowd had departed. But I’ll share a few of the pics I did snap (once it clicked in my foggy “pregnant” brain to take out the camera).

  

  Favor and Dacyl, we missed you! Can’t wait to see you at Christmas!
And Leisel and Jack, I wish you could have joined the festivities! It was a special treat having your family with us for Thanksgiving - maybe next year we can all do it together!! I am (selfishly) glad that you’ll be home for Christmas, instead of making an escape to Vermont

We haven’t ruled out Gabriel or Caleb (we have ruled out Tobias), but here are a couple more to think about:

1. Isaiah (any ideas on a nickname?)
2. Josiah (does “Josie” for short sound too much like a girl? How does “Sy” sound?)

Thoughts?

There will be no pictures with this posting… believe me, you wouldn’t want a visual on this one!

Joshua and I met up with a few of our Bible Study buddies at McDonald’s last week. The ladies sat around munching on Big Macs (okay… I was eating a Big Mac; they were probably eating salads!), while Joshua played on the playground. I was just remarking to the girls about how great it was to eat out without having to wrangle my little energetic toddler, forcing proper restaurant etiquette on him, when I glanced over at him and saw him standing in front of the play equipment looking uncomfortable and perplexed.

I went over to see what was wrong, and discovered the beginning of my McDonald’s nightmare. There was my little boy, covered head to toe (NOT an exaggeration) in his own feces. There had been a massive diaper explosion… the kind every mother experiences with their infant, but about 100 times more potent. :-O

So I took him by the hand (there would be no picking him up in this situation), greeted the girls as we passed by, giving them a glimpse into their future (they are each expecting their first baby), and proceeded to the bathroom.

We barracaded ourselves in the large handicap stall and went to town. I stripped every piece of clothing from his body (all of which went directly into the trash - there would be no salvaging these war-zone remnants) - only his shoes remained. Thankfully, I had a huge stash of baby wipes with me, so I started with his “sponge” bath. Joshua was narrating the event for me, going “Oh, no! Poop. Icky. Yuck. Icky.” You got it, buddy. Icky is right.

At last he was relatively clean (or as clean as a baby wipe could get him), and I reached into his diaper bag for a diaper, wishing I had packed him an extra set of clothes as was the habit when he was an infant. No such luck. In fact, quite the opposite. Terrible luck. I usually check and recheck his diaper bag 5 times… but not today. And OF COURSE today would be the day where I would have absolutely NO DIAPERS in the diaper bag. Oh, man.

Fortunately I remember that I had taken off his top layer of clothing (just a shirt) when he started playing, so he wouldn’t get too warm. Of course I left that with the girls in the play area. So, I strapped his little shoes to his sockless feet and, taking a deep breath, proceeded out of the bathroom with my stark naked son in my arms. Talk about restaurant etiquette. I think I missed the mark on good behavior on this one, as I passed by patrons trying to eat their meal while my poor boy kept repeating “pee pee, cold. pee pee, cold.” Too cute for words, but still such a nightmare.

I made my way back to the table, quickly put on his extra shirt, and said my goodbyes…. quickly rushing out the door (in cool fall weather!), repeatedly apologizing to Joshua and kissing his precious little head… as if that was going to make his pee pee any warmer.

In the car I discovered my overnight bag that I hadn’t unpacked from my visit to my parents’ the previous night, so at least I was able to put a pair of pants over his naked tush.

We made it the whole ride home without further incident (no urine-soaked carseat for us, thank goodness) and went immediately into the tub for a nice, long, sudsy bath.

There you have it. Our McNightmare. Hopefully not a recurring one!

I have mixed emotions about Halloween, because there are a lot of things surrounding the “holiday” that I really don’t care for. But I decided not to dwell on the darkness, and instead to acknowledge that Jesus is our Lord, and innocent joy is rightfully ours as His children. So we let Joshua indulge in the innocent joy of playing dress-up and visiting neighbors for tasty treats.

This may be his third Halloween, but it was the first time he was old enough to grasp the concept of trick-or-treating and once he caught on to the idea, there was no stopping him! He’s quite the talker now, so he gleefully greeted our neighbors with “Happy Halloween!” and “Trick-or-Treat!” His pronunciation may not have been perfect, but his cheezy grin and outstretched pumpkin pale did wonders to close the language gap, I’m sure.

I absolutely love this age. I say that with every age, but it just seems to get better and better! I love that he can talk to me now. Each new word discovery brings with it so much excitement and sense of pride (for Joshua and for me!). If Halloween was this much fun… just wait until Christmas!!