Now traditions and vacations

Happy belated Thanksgiving, everyone:-) As I have covered in the past, Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday, largely because of the complete lack of pretense, pressure and stress. No gifts, no costumes, no need to feel like you need a big outing...just eating and hanging out with loved ones.

We mixed it up a little bit this year, and started some new traditions, I think. The Boy, Munchkin, the girls and I went up to his parents house on Thursday for dinner with most of his family. His older brother was with his in-laws in New York, but older sister, Twin Sister, spouses and children were all there, along with some Aunts and Uncles and cousins. The girls had a constant stream of people to fawn over them and entertain them, which made for a relaxing afternoon for me:-)

While we were up there, Smoking Hot Roommate, Big Sis and their related attachments were off with their respective in-laws, and Papa Bear was at his brother's house, too. That makes the first Thanksgiving since I have moved here that we weren't all together...and SHR and Big Sis say it is the first Thanksgiving ever that they weren't together, even including the time Big Sis spent in London.

However, in an effort to ease the frantic-ness of trying to fit everyone's family's in, we decided that we would have our own Thanksgiving on Saturday, and it was spectacular! The whole crew spent the day at Big Sis's (her neighbor the Senator wasn't home...apparantly he was still in Washington doing nothing...yea, you heard me!) in a quasi-organized, very casual event. Since everyone was a little turkey-ed out, we ate steak and lobsters because...well, why not? And we also made pie, cookies and some other stuff as we went along. It was a little messy:-) But, it just may be my new favorite tradition!

And now...guess who is going to Mexico in two days? One of The Boy's friends is getting married, so a bunch of us are headed down for the wedding. We leave early Thursday and get back Sunday, and it should be a whole lot of fun. Smoking Hot Roommate is on her first ever babysitting duty (and will likely end up even less ready for kids than she is now). She and the Rocket Scientist are staying at our place for the four days, and Munchkin will be around to make sure no one gets hurt;-) Cross your fingers!!!

Gabby Giffords

I have seen a couple of notes across the Interwebs this week about the Gabby Gifford interview with Diane Sawyer the other night...did anyone see it? It was pretty riveting on a number of levels.

It was inspirational in a lot of ways, and remarkable to see her progress from just after her shooting. And the relationship between her and her husband (and astronaut, but not Mike Dexter) is heartwarming. I found myself very much rooting fer her every accomplishment.

But I have an uncomfortable question that I am probably a bitch for asking...why is she still in Congress? And this applies to all sorts of people less capable than her...Strom Thurmond held on long past the point where he was remotely intellectually capable, for example. Robert Byrd was another. Do we think so poorly of the role of our legislators that we want them to continue serving even when they a) can't appear to make a vote, or b) are so mentally incompetent as to not understand even the slightest bit of what they are voting on, or c) absolutely incapable of pro-actively legislating anything in their constituents interests.

I know that is probably not a popular opinion, but someone has to say it...

Blogging to remind you thatI blog

Honestly, if I don't write something soon, I will lose the distinction of being a blogger. I would blame it on having little to write about, but that never stopped me in the early years of blogging!

So let's see, The Boy had a college friend in to visit for the weekend, which was nice. It is not a friend that I know terribly well, but he is really easy company and I have always liked him. They were kind of in and out, and I was largely on baby girl duty...although they did watch the girls for much of Sunday while Munchkin and I did some shopping and had lunch. They took them out for a walk, which sounds an awful lot like a scene out of an unwritten sitcom called "two gay Dads":-)

I desperately want to go someplace warm this winter. I don't want to sound too much like a spoiled Princess, but I really missed that last winter, and the thought of going through this winter without getting away somewhere is not appealing. Seeing as it is 60 degrees outside, I shouldn't be this concerned yet, but I am. So, to Smoking Hot Roommate, Big Sis and The Boy...how are we feeling about March? I suppose we could go in February and leave Munchkin home, but I doubt we would every hear the end of it;-)

Moving on...I can't even bring myself to write about politics because they all disgust me so much. The "Super Committee" will fail next week, and then Congress will go back on their promise to institute mandatory spending cuts and we will be right back where we were three months ago. In other words, our current leaders have once again taken the opportunity to push their own mistakes onto those of us who may one day have to actually pay for them. Thanks, guys.

More and more I am convinced that the President is in completely over his head and is way out of his depth. Everyone kind of assumes that he is brilliant, but I am not entirely sure why we always thought that...he has never done much (beyond get elected, which is at least one sign of intelligence) to actually prove it. Unfortunately, there is a vast array of flotsam and jetsam lobbying to run against him that looks even worse. I think John Huntsman is probably the most interesting of the Republicans, but he has virtually no chance of making a dent... He is much too reasonable to win a primary...

Hard to get excited about an election season with this to look forward to (although you all know I will be excited by the time it comes around;-))

Some baby stuff

I am way behind, but the girls' 18 month doctor's appointment was last week, and I never wrote about it. Overall, it went well...they are perfectly healthy and hitting all of their milestones (someday I will write a lot about the idea of "milestones") and doing all the things that the doctor wants them to do. Or, more specifically the nurse, since they didn't see the doctor at this appointment.

They had a mega-fit when they got examnined and measured, but they handled the shots fine and were overall pretty well-behaved. Also, cleared to eat nuts and shellfish (shellfish? oops...they have been eating that for a while already...my bad.) I am irrationally scared to give them peanut butter at home, and day care won't even let you bring it into the building, so I am not totally sure how we will handle that;-) More Reese's for me, I guess!!!

They are both the exact same height...33.75 inches, which makes them very tall. Clearly, that doesn't come from me;-) It also means that if they stood on each other's heads they would be about 5'7", which is much, much taller than me... MA weighs 26 pounds, 15 ounces, and LK is exactly one pound lighter, which is funny because she seems much, much thinner. That makes them both a little on the slender side, but basically right where they should be (there is a separate height/weight chart that says they are about average weights for their height...LK is a little smaller.)

And then they hightailed it out of there as fast as they could...If you have never seen a baby run, you should, it is hilarious! They were mostly in good spirits, but had lost any interest in being at the doctor's office by the time they were done...hungry, tired and sick of being poked and prodded!

Not sure I have ever mentioned, but they are both night owls, especially LK. They never fall asleep before 8:30 (which could be because they would miss the Pajanimals) and LK is very often up past 9:30. MA gets grumpy when she is tired, but LK is bright and chipper right up until she falls over and goes to sleep... And they are almost never awake before 7:00 am, and if MA doesn't wake her up, LK will usually sleep until 8:00 or so if we let her. And then she becomes a grumpy, waking-up teenager;-)

Next up...big girls beds. Not totally sure when to convert their cribs, but I feel like we are getting pretty close. Anyone have any insight?