Thanksgiving 2016

Our Thanksgiving weekend was pretty eventful, despite the fact that we were homebodies and never left the house once. We were planning to host Will's family for Thanksgiving this year, and decided to keep those plans even after learning about my last-minute surgery. At the boys' age right now, it's much easier to have people come to our (baby-proofed) house than it is to travel. And since I'd be down for the count, we wanted to have the boys be in familiar territory.

Our plans to have a traditional Thanksgiving went out the window- instead of making a turkey and all the traditional sides, our Thanksgiving this year was sponsored by Honeybaked Ham. We bought a small ham, turkey breast, and all the sides from there in an effort to make the meal as easy as possible to prepare. Admittedly, Will and I were both disappointed by this (he likes to have a traditional turkey, and I enjoy cooking and baking, especially for the holidays) but it was the best decision for this year. In the end, our pre-packaged meal was pretty tasty, but we look forward to a more normal Thanksgiving next year.

The boys enjoyed the extra attention from Will's family, including a visit from their dog cousin Gus, and I did my very best to take it easy while still trying to be helpful with dinner prep.

Parade watchers

Cooper loves Gus!

Rare moment of bravery from Will

Best Thanksgiving family photo we could get this year.

Will insisted on a shot with my drains out- to truly document the celebration.

Cooper was the only one really interested in pumpkin pie

Little Snuggly Bears!

Unfortunately a bout of sickness hit the Mason house over the weekend. Saturday evening was particularly rough- Cooper threw up right before we brought them downstairs for dinner, which was heartbreaking for me. I felt pretty helpless as I was unable to do anything to help Will. I couldn't hold Cooper and console him when he was upset, I couldn't help corral the other two boys away from the mess on the carpet (which of course, they were drawn to...why is that?!), and I couldn't help Will clean up a really disgusting mess of undigested food that was enough to make both of us want to throw up ourselves. I just sat there while Will had to deal with the whole thing. This put dinner later than usual for the boys, which made them irritable. Cooper had to eat separately from his brothers on the island high chair. He was seemingly OK and was asking for food so we gave him some crackers, a fruit pouch, and some pedialyte. This was a poor decision as it ended up all over himself and the floor. At this point both Cooper and I were in tears. I HATE not being able to step in to help when things like this happen. I felt so guilty that Will was already stuck doing everything to take care of the boys and then had to deal with a sick baby on top of it. I felt even worse when Cooper got sick AGAIN in his crib right after Will got him bathed and into his PJ's. Needless to say, Will and I were both exhausted and went to bed as soon as we got the boys down.

Thankfully Cooper slept through the night and woke up more or less back to his usual happy self. Unfortunately, Will woke up feeling terrible- he had a fever and chills overnight and could barely get out of bed on Sunday morning. It took him over 30 minutes to work up enough energy to get the boys changed and downstairs for breakfast. Normally this wouldn't be a big deal- I would have sent Will back to bed and dealt with the boys alone for the day. But since I'm not allowed to lift anything I am not equipped for baby-wrangling on my own for awhile so I called in reinforcements.

First up- YouTube. I'm not proud of the decision, but the boys spent the better part of their morning watching YouTube videos while Will was in bed. We found lots of their favorite books set to music.

Green Frog, Green Frog, what do you see? I see bad parenting looking at me.

Next step- beg Aunt Cari to bail us out. She was here in time to get them up from their first nap and then spent the rest of the day with us- keeping the boys, cleaning the kitchen, and doing laundry. Thankfully Will's dad also came over and brought along his steam cleaner, saving our carpet upstairs.

Aunt Cari to the rescue!

Once again, we were reminded of how fortunate we are to have family nearby. From Sue and the girls coming down early before Thanksgiving to help Will keep the boys company, to Cari and Papa giving up their Sunday to help me so Will could get some much-needed sleep- we are extremely grateful to have family willing to drop everything and help us out! Thankfully Will woke up on Monday feeling more or less back to normal and no other babies (or adults) ended up catching Cooper's stomach bug! Happy Thanksgiving!