Thanksgiving Week

[dorchadas]

Back at the office now after a week off (and working from home yesterday). It's honestly been very rough, since sashagee hurt her back on Monday and couldn't do much looking after Laila, or really much anything, at all, so she spent most of the week icing and heating her back and taking naps while I did the work of the home, cleaning up after Laila, taking her to the park during the sudden burst of warm weather--it had been below freezing but climbed back up to 12° during the day--until she was feeling better. On Wednesday my parents came over in the morning and we all went to the zoo on probably one of the last good weather days this year to go. Laila was more interested than the last time she went because the weather was warmer and so the animals were active, but she really got into watching the seals. One of them came right up to the glass and they were nose to nose for a bit, but the seal sadly swam away before my father could get a picture.

Thursday we woke up and took the train out for two days at the grandparents' houses, Thursday at sashagee's parents and Friday at mine. I'm used to a standard turkey dinner at my parents' house, so Thanksgiving dinner was exotic--veggie lasagna and...well, that's mostly it. They also made ham (which I don't eat) and scalloped potatoes (which I don't care for), but fortunately lunch was the real star of the day. Whereas dinner was a bit simple, lunch had a vegetable platter, a cheese platter, smoked salmon, olives and an olive tapenade, grapes, and some pork product I don't recognize. A lot of it was left over from lunch, so I took olive tapenade and veggies with my lasagna and filled out my dinner with that. The best part for Laila other than seeing her family, though, was when bubble wrap was taped to the floor:

Friday we went to my parents' house for a more traditional Thanksgiving dinner with turkey, mashed potatoes, pie, stuffing, and all the stuff I've eaten every year for literally forty years. Hey, if it works, why change it?

Saturday after Shabbat ended we met worldbshiny for frozen custard at Lickity Split, since it is the most wonderful time of the year--maple custard season. I got maple custard with crushed waffle cones and butterscotch and held Laila on my lap while worldbshiny and sashagee chatted, and this outing revealed that the time of us being able to just blithely bring Laila along to friends' events is slowly but inexorably marching toward its end--Laila used to be fine just hanging out on our laps, but now that's boring. When I was done with my custard Laila lost all the patience her little baby body could hold and started demanding to be let down, so I didn't really get to participate in most of the conversation because I was holding Laila's hands while she was marching around. I didn't mind because Laila is the cutest baby in the world, but also it would have been nice to talk to worldbshiny more!

Going back to the office this week made me understand why so many parents are happy that the school year starts up again. I loved spending all that time with Laila but by necessity, all my time was time spent with Laila. Later in the week when sashagee was feeling a little better I could redirect Laila if I had to do some dishes or clean a bit, but otherwise if I wanted to even go to the bathroom I had to put Laila in her crib because otherwise she'd wander off and get into things. This is, of course, why modern life for parents is so exhausting and alienating, because there's never a dull moment when there's a curious baby who wants to get into anything. sashagee spent some time volunteering at a hospital in Ghana and told me that the women in the nearby villages had rotating care systems, where all the children would be watched by one person while the others worked or did chores and they'd switch off who looked after the children. The only thing similar we have is that both sets of grandparents live nearby, and they're generously willing to drive into the city to watch Laila when we ask. But it's no substitute for a community, and we have a society that's specifically built around destroying social bonds.

We still had Thanksgiving together with both families, though, so some traditions survive.

Comments

[helvetica]

It's so interesting to me to see different families and their traditions for holidays like thanksgiving! I'm from divorced parents so I had two very different experiences already, and then Aaron's family does everything way different! I always like to know these things ! I'm glad you all had a nice holiday and got to make the rounds to everyone :)

[dorchadas]

Reading this I realize that I know basically nothing about Canadian Thanksgiving! What kind of traditions did/do you do for it?

[helvetica]

Haha I think it's pretty similar to America!

For my dad they are really bad at cooking turkey for some reason? like it's astoundingly dry, so they focus really heavy on hor d'ouvres and stuff like crab dip, devilled eggs, lots of steamed and flavourless vegetables hahaha it was terrible
My mom's family my aunt usually runs the show and hers is more traditional and she's way better at cooking, she usually does a big ham and then the regular sides, gravy, mashed potatoes, pie, etc, sometimes turkey. She also like to make different things every year to mix it up.
Aaron's mom does turkey and ham and every side that is classic thanksgiving. She doesn't like to deviate from the plan. Everything is planned weeks in advance.

[annofowlshire]

"It takes a village to raise a child" is a saying for a reason, but most of us don't have a village anymore, indeed many of us don't even have extended family to lean on! One of the early chats I had with the Mr about having children was the knowledge that we wouldn't have a support network, and that we'd have to be ready to spend the money if we needed help (and we definitely would need help) because there wasn't going to be anyone else. Luckily, we have that money, because not everyone does.

But it makes me a bit sad, honestly. We're trying to form a community here now that Covid is "over", but it's slow going. It's not that I want free childcare, it's that I really do believe in power of the village...

[dorchadas]

We are extremely lucky that both sets of grandparents live very close by and that my parent are so enamored with Laila that they're willing to watch her basically all the time!

We get a bit of a village with our synagogue, who gave us weeks of meals when Laila got home from the epilepsy ward, but I haven't been able to go lately.

[earthspirits]

Sounds like lots of interesting food choices for your two Thanksgiving get-together.

That's an adorable pic of Laila!

[dorchadas]

She had such a good time with the bubblewrap!