the happy homewrecker

The other day Spencer and Ginger were playing quietly in his room. You know how it is: they're being quiet and nice to each other and the very last thing you want to do is go in there and disrupt the peacefulness. I was down the hall in the dining room getting the favor bags together for Spencer's party (photos to come!) when I heard Spencer say, "Put your head under my bum, little missy. Come on, put your head under my bum."

Of course my ears perked up at that, and I was torn between going in to see exactly what was going on, or leaving them be. I chose option B, then later asked Spencer what they'd been doing. He'd been trying to climb up onto his bed, and he wanted Ginger to give him a boost using her head. Which makes complete sense now, but at the time . . .

Now Ginger is sick, too! Plus, I have ringworm. Yay.

(Received from my sister; for all that people think of me as Martha Stewart-like, I imagine that this is what Thanksgiving would be like if it were at my house).

Martha Stewart will not be dining with us this Thanksgiving. I'm telling you in advance, so don't act surprised. Since Ms. Stewart won't be coming, I've made a few small changes: Our sidewalk will not be lined with homemade, paper bag luminaries. After a trial run, it was decided that no matter how cleverly done, rows of flaming lunch sacks do not have the desired welcoming effect.

Once inside, our guests will note that the entry hall is not decorated with the swags of Indian corn and fall foliage I had planned to make. Instead, I've gotten the kids involved in the decorating by having them track in colorful autumn leaves from the front yard. The mud was their idea.  The dining table will not be covered with expensive linens, fancy china, or crystal goblets. If possible, we will use dishes that match and everyone will get a fork.  Since this IS Thanksgiving, we will refrain from using the plastic Peter Rabbit plate and the Santa napkins from last Christmas.

Our centerpiece will not be the tower of fresh fruit and flowers that I promised. Instead we will be displaying a hedgehog-like decoration hand-crafted from the finest construction paper. The artist assures me it is a turkey.  We will be dining fashionably late. The children will entertain you while you wait.  I'm sure they will be happy to share every nice comment I have made regarding Thanksgiving, pilgrims and the turkey hotline. Please remember that most of these comments were made by me at 5:00 a.m. upon discovering that the turkey was still hard enough to cut diamonds.

As accompaniment to the children's recital, I will play a recording of tribal drumming. If the children should mention that I don't own a recording of tribal drumming, or that tribal drumming sounds suspiciously like a frozen turkey in a clothes dryer, ignore them. They are lying.

We toyed with the idea of ringing a dainty silver bell to announce the start of our feast. In the end, we chose to keep our traditional method. We've also decided against a formal seating arrangement. When the smoke alarm sounds, please gather around the table and sit where you like. In the spirit of harmony, we will ask the children to sit at a separate table. In a separate room.  Next door.

Now, I know you have all seen pictures of one person carving a turkey in front of a crowd of appreciative onlookers. This will not be happening at our dinner. For sanity and safety reasons, the turkey will be carved in a private ceremony. I stress "private", meaning: Do not, under any circumstances, enter the kitchen to laugh at me. Do not send small, unsuspecting children to check on my progress. I have an electric knife. The turkey is unarmed. It stands to reason that I will eventually win. When I do, we will eat.

I would like to take this opportunity to remind my young diners (and any males present) that "passing the rolls" is not a football play. Nor is it a request to bean your sister in the head with warm tasty bread. Oh, and one reminder for the adults: For the duration of the meal, and especially while in the presence of young diners, we will refer to the giblet gravy by its lesser-known name:  Cheese Sauce. If a young diner questions you regarding the origins or type of Cheese Sauce, plead ignorance.

Before I forget, there is one last change.  Instead of offering a choice between 12 different scrumptious homemade desserts, we will be serving the traditional Pumpkin pie, garnished with whipped cream, small fingerprints, and broken crust. You will still have a choice; you may take it or leave it.

Martha Stewart will not be dining with us this Thanksgiving. She probably won't come next year either. I am thankful.

New pictures of the kids up over in their photo album. Some of my favorites:

 

And this one, in which it looks like Ginger is knocking Spencer silly with a rake handle (the handle is actually behind his head and the goofy look on his face was . . . well, I can't explain that one).

What we did last Thursday night:

And to make up for the above photo (I'm sure it scared the bejeezus out of some of you):

Ginger's croup is mostly gone (just a cough left), but now Gary and I both have sinusy ick and Spencer has some kind of cough.

In better news, this is my first post on my new laptop. I saved all year and it's finally here and all hooked up (wireless!) thanks to Gary. Yay!

Some new photos of the kids over in their album (link at the left).

Ugh. It's been hard to find time to post lately; Gary's working crazy overtime (more on that later) and I'm getting burnt out on the temporary single parent thing. He's going to be gone all day today and I'm trying desperately to find somewhere, anywhere, to take the kids that will eat up a large chunk of our afternoon. The park is no fun because Ginger's too small for any of the playground stuff; she just wants down so she can crawl away, meaning I can't keep an eye on Spencer. We're going to the zoo later this week, so we don't want to go today. The mall, ew. There's a yarn store I've never been to that's about half an hour away but they're closed on Sundays. Blah.

We live near the high school and so I usually have a pretty good idea of what's going on there. As I was walking through the high school's northern parking lot about a month ago, I noticed a sign explaining that the marching band practiced there starting sometime in August and so please don't park there between such and such hours or your car may be damaged by a wayward tuba or skewered with a color guard flag.

I had an interesting conversation with a friend today, about stay-at-home-moms and money and all that. We were talking about how, because we don't bring home a cash income, we tend to feel guilty spending any money on ourselves even for such basic things as clothes, even though we do work full-time. It reminded me of a study I read a couple of years ago (I can't even remember what university it was from) that calculated the average worth in dollars of the work that a stay-at-home-mom does. If I'm remembering correctly, it was somewhere in the neighborhood of $45,000 annually, but may have been higher, maybe $60,000? There was even some talk about trying to get those numbers figured into the gross national product for the U.S.

I try not to feel guilty. If we had to pay someone to do what I do---housecleaning, cooking, caring for the kids, grocery shopping, all that stuff---it would cost a fortune. But I still feel guilty. It's part of the reason why I do web design, to have my own money to spend on yarn or clothes or whatever, without having to dip into the general fund. I read a financial advice column a couple of months ago in which a man wrote in to say that his wife, who was a full-time SAHM, had started doing some part-time work and wanted to keep her earnings to spend as she liked. He wanted her to put her money into the general fund. The columnist told the guy that the part-time job the woman had picked up was in addition to the full-time job that she already had (as a SAHM), that she should be allowed to keep her own money, and that she should be commended for being able to fit a part-time job into the already hectic schedule of being a SAHM.

Do other SAHMs feel guilty, too?