A Fabulous Turkey Day, Indeed

Growing up in Wisconsin, with lots of family from my Mom's side and lots of family from my Dad's side, I have great memories of Thanksgiving (and, to be truthful, all major holidays). Thanksgiving was a day to get up early, dress up, and head into the car for the drive from Milwaukee to Green Bay. Along the way, we'd stop in Port Washington for a bathroom break and some sort of liquid refreshment - usually at the Hardee's where it was coffee or OJ and those little hashbrowns.

And then it was The Hunter Game in earnest - whoever spotted a hunter in blaze orange got the prize - until the next person spotted the hunter and then the prize was passed. And so forth. The rules were simple: the hunter had to be verified by another player and the hunter had to be outside of a car.

Once we reached Green Bay, we headed over to the Midway Motor Lodge, right across from Lambeau Field where thousands (alright, dozens) of Hounsells and extended family would meet up. The kids would swim, the grown-ups would visit, etc. All day. And it was a lot of fun.

Around 3, we'd file into a large banquet room for the full Thanksgiving dinner, visit while eating, etc. And then we'd pack up and head home or, if we were really lucky, we'd be staying in a room poolside and get to swim again that night and again the next morning. And then we'd head home.

Such good memories.

I wonder if now that's why I don't have any desire to have a Thanksgiving like that - I can't possibly compete with those memories, with that experience. We are no less than 1500 miles from all of our family, so a huge crowd is out. No one here likes turkey, so it would be silly to make one. And swimming isn't such a treat for the kids since we've moved here - I throw them in the pool everyday for most of the year.

So our Thanksgiving is sort of the anti-Thanksgiving, but I love it. This morning we cleaned the house for a few hours - the kids would say I'm lying, but we all had fun. Kev and Vinay shredded a ton of paper and Amiya and I cleaned up the kids rooms and got her room ready for Uncle Mikey.

Then we had an easy, simple lunch with Uncle Mikey and headed out for a walk to the neighborhood playground. After that, the kids took naps, Mike and Vinay read/watched TV and I worked on dinner. When Kev woke up, he and Uncle Mikey worked on puzzles on the floor.

Kev has some serious love for Uncle Mikey. He wouldn't hold my hand on the way to the park today, only Uncle Mikey. Mommy couldn't help him with his puzzle, only Uncle Mikey. He even put Buzz Lightyear on Uncle Mikey's bed tonight so Uncle Mikey would have someone to cuddle. (And no one, I mean no one, gets Kev's Buzz.)

After puzzles, we had dinner. We had an Indian feast - chicken makhani (a rich chicken curry), lamb stuffed eggplant, gobi (cauliflower) and chana (chickpeas). Also, gulab jaman (sweet cheese dessert balls) for the kids who love them - there has to be something special for Thanksgiving! So, not the right foods, not even the right type of Indian, but our special meal nonetheless.

After dinner, a cuddle on the couch to watch (take a wild guess) The Jungle Book. Poor Uncle Mikey - Kev can't resist dancing through the musical moments and Amiya can't quit explaining the movie (as if it's that hard!). Anyway, Uncle Mikey was a good sport - and that's all our kids want. It's neat to see how much they care for him after only two little visits.

And then Vinay made my day entirely - I asked him to just get the Christmas stuff down so I could start on it in the next few days. He wanted to go above and beyond that - he got it down and decided we should set the tree up. And then that we should put the lights up. And then the ornaments! So yeah!!!

The kids helped hang the ornaments and then we all got ready for the star on top. It's never as climactic as it is on the TV commercials, but maybe it's because we're just so safety conscious here. Kev did his part when he decided to hold Daddy's heels so he wouldn't fall.

So I guess the moral of the story is that we can never have the sort of Thanksgiving that I had growing up. It couldn't work for us and it wouldn't work for us, so we've done our own thing. And it's pretty fantastic. Tonight I'm feeling grateful for new traditions.

In the spirit of giving thanks, we have once again created our masterpiece Thanksgiving turkey on our fridge. Who needs fancy decorations when you could have this looking back at you everyday? Just sayin'.

Anyway, each day of November sees the Gupta kids thinking about what is good in their lives. Over their oatmeal we fill in a feather - Amiya tells us what she is thankful for and Kev tells us what he loves (thankful is still sort of abstract for him). Then the feather goes up and all month long we see our previously naked turkey become more and more plump with all that is good in our life.

In no particular order, here are Amiya's thoughts:

Having a great family

School supplies

Having a low risk of hurricanes

Having enough books to read

Water

A Daddy who is understanding

Friends

Having enough money

Shelter

Insurance

Having enough food to eat

Being healthy

Giving and getting

A family who loves me

Enough clothes and shoes in good shape

Movies

Principals

Problems

Teachers

Second chances

Mrs. Boatright (her main teacher)

Spirit

Kev

Grown-Ups

Myself (she put herself on there)

Josie (a good friend)

Uncle Mikey

And Kev, a bit more random, but fully representative of who he is:

Mommy and Daddy

Mommy and Daddy (we made his list twice! My ego is assuaged for not making Amiya's at all!)

Puzzles

Marshmallows

Gymnastics

Brody (best friend ever)
Hugs

Having super, super animals

Elephants

Didi (Amiya)

Miss Ashley and Miss Mae (His fantastic preschool teachers)

Miss Ashley (On the list again!)

Miss Mae (And again! Should I be jealous?!?!?)

Miss Erin (Brody's Mommy)

Santa Claus

Giraffes

Hilani (a friend from preschool)

Colonel Haathi (from The Jungle Book)
Gooses (would not let me put geese)

Princesses

Didi's MP3 Player

Going to California (um, what? when? shouldn't I know about this?)

Friends

Library Books

Hugs

Chana

Uncle Mikey

They would have each put Uncle Mikey on every feather if they could have - Uncle Mikey is coming today and they have both asked at least eleventy million times if he's here yet. There's some serious love from these kids to their uncle!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone - I hope today is full of moments of gratitude. The glass is way more than half full, don't you think?

Ah, siblings.

I made a comment on Facebook the other day about how when 'girl' toys and 'boy' toys collide, the pets from Littlest Pet Shop end up in Lego rockets on their way to Mars. Whatever makes the kids happy and keeps them from tearing the house into a million pieces makes me happy.

Somedays they play so, so, so nicely together.

Like this day:
Amiya and Kev were playing on the computer, having a great time. Amiya was working the mouse and whatever she was doing (on sproutonline) was making Kev laugh with huge, huge belly laughs. And while the content of the site was probably not what Amiya was most interested in, she was having such a good time amusing her brother.

Later that night, they had a 'sleepover' in Kev's room. Kev was on his bed, Amiya on the floor on a pallet of blankets next to him. After many more giggles and a few stern warnings from us to go to sleep they finally quieted down. And all that quiet made me wonder what they were into, so I peeked in the door. Here's what I found:
He didn't want to be away from his sister, so he moved his pillow down by her. I'm willing to put money on him trying to tickle her feet, hence the heads down bit. Amiya had had a busy day at school and was really tired, so she probably told him to knock it off. And he did and that's why he's at her feet like a puppy dog.

Anyway, they're like yin and yang. Two parts to a whole.

How much do I love her?

She's almost seven, yet she still sleeps every night with her bear in her arms. It kills me when I walk in her room and see her this way. She's perfect and precious, just like every other child in the world. But we're the only parents lucky enough to have her.

Life is good.

Kev's Thanksgiving Spectacular

Kev had his first ever "show" last week. All of the preschoolers (2 and up) learned songs in their classes and then invited the parents in to see them perform.

This first picture is only remarkable because six months ago Kev would never have sat still for so long to watch the other kids. But he did! And he was one of the calmest of his class. Whoo-to-the-hoo!

Here we see Kev singing some Thanksgiving song. We were, once again, amused that one of our children who is loud, loud, loud couldn't have been doing more than mouthing the words. Not a peep was heard from our little turkey.

And here he is singing "The Turkey Tango." There were supposed to be some crazy arm movements, too, but Kev's were a bit lackluster.

And here he is, with the rest of the choir, for the rousing finale of This Land is Your Land. Once again, Kev did not participate in the hand movements, but we could hear him singing out the line about "from the redwood forests to the gulf stream wa-a-ters."
And finally, because any day that starts with such excitement is your-money-back-guaranteed to end with tears, a picture of that day's travails. I can't remember why he was crying, but I think that had he been singing into a makeshift microphone, he could have been Tom Cruise's double in Risky Business.

Princess Amiya

The second grade at Amiya's school is a year of much excitement - but it would seem that nothing can top the Fairy Tale Bowl and the Fairy Tale Stroll.

Second graders spend a month studying the genre of the fairy tale. I guess I never realized that it is a genre unto itself, but it seems that it is and that it must be studied. So it is.

The children spent their time reading different tales, analyzing them, charting them, becoming one with them. And then they took a quiz - and the four students who got the best scores in the shortest amount of time get to be on the team that represents that class against other classes in the annual Fairy Tale Bowl. (ie. Jeapordy for Fairy Tales)

Amiya got hers in first and scored 100%, so she not only got to be on the team, but she got to be the captain. The exciting thing is that the captain is the person who, after consulting with teammates, gets to answer the questions. Luckily for this team, Amiya has had a great deal of practice talking. It was a good fit.


Here's the team prior to the game. Looking good, looking strong. They probably all carbo-loaded on pancakes and chocolate milk for breakfast. Mmmmmm.

See that buzzer? Oh yeah, this was serious stuff. And the buzzer proved to be a serious problem. This team was a little quick to the buzzer - and it ended up costing them a lot of points.


Not that they cared! They still tied for second place and were very happy about it - as evidenced by Amiya's smile with her medal.

The next day was no less exciting. The children were all supposed to pick a character from a fairy tale and wear a costume representing that character to the Fairy Tale Stroll. The stroll itself was a little confusing for us parents, but once we got it figured out, all was well. The kids "strolled" from class to class to do projects based on a specific fairy tale.

The neat part about this day, for me at least, was that Amiya was adamant, absolutely adamant, that she was going to be a character from a fairy tale that was Indian or at least not blonde-haired. I wanted her to be The Paper Bag Princess because that is the most awesome princess ever, but it was not to be. She scoured her books and her memory for any recollection of a princess that was closer to her heritage. She finally settled on Maha, from The Golden Sandal. The Golden Sandal is a Middle Eastern version of Cinderella and Maha (when dressed for the party) wears a beautiful white gown with a gold sash and golden slippers. So, off we went to JoAnn's for a pattern, fabric and spray paint. And this is what we came up with:

I think she's showing a bit much around the ankles to be a true Maha, but she looked pretty cute!

And a bit closer on the hands because we mehndi'd her right up - Maha went to a mehndi party in the book, although it's not clear if she was actually tatted up. But in Amiya's little mind any excuse to mehndi is a good excuse!


And that's all we've got for the celebration of fairy tales. I hope that our little Princess Amiya will always feel so strong and so proud of her roots and self-confident enough to do her own thing - even if it means being the only girl in her class without pink sparkly wings and a glittery wand.

Halloween Pictures

Before they got all hot and sweaty.

Out trick or treating.


Rarrrrrrrrrring at the camera.

With Kev's best buddy, Brody.

Amiya giving her On the Banks of Plum Creek book report.

Half-Pint in the Bookaween Parade at school.

It's hard work being a tiger.

I love the tail.

The Great Pumpkin comes every year and takes away most of the kids candy, leaving a small toy instead. The Great Pumpkin brought Amiya the movie Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (she's in heaven) and Kev got a Buzz Lightyear doll - he carries it everywhere!

Gettin' Fit

So the kids have seen Mommy doing a lot more exercise than before - swimming, walking, videos, etc. and they want in on the action.

Amiya has been doing really well - she has swimming twice a week and gymnastics once a week - but on the weekends she wants to work out. So, I put in an aerobics video for her and off she goes. This one is the equivalent of walking 4 miles in 50 minutes - and she did the whole thing. Not exactly in rhythm and not always in step, but the chicky surprised me with her endurance.
And then there's Kev. He made it through three minutes of cool down stretches before he gave up and found something more exciting to do. Who can blame him? Cool down stretches stink!

Halloween Has Come Early

Kev is all about the dress up lately - if only because with a big sister, he has no chance of not being made to wear silly, frilly costumes all the time.

Poor kid.

This is like Richard Simmons, without the big hair.

I don't even know where to start.
Kev goes granny?
This is actually his holiday outfit for this year - he wanted to try it on and show Daddy.
He's also very, very excited about Halloween - thanks to an awesome costume made by Grandma. We're working out how to stick whiskers on him - should be fun!

I Lied

There's a few more pics that I have to put up:


Amiya learned to ride her bike without training wheels this summer. Grandpa and I laid the groundwork with many hours of four inch "rides" and that ended with a lot of tears and a lot of tantrums (on Amiya's part and on my part). And then Grandma stepped in and made the magic happen. That Grandma. All I can say is she's lucky Grandpa and I did all the hard work.

This is Mom and Dad's house - if you've been here, you know how nice it is. If you haven't, you should really rent it from them sometime when they're traipsing around in their big ol' truck. The low stone wall you see meanders through the woods to the fire pit and then down a bit of the (really brutal) hill to the lake.

Have I mentioned lately how much I miss it? The leaves are probably oranges and reds and yellows. The air is brisk. There is most likely an ever present hint of wood smoke in the air and the loons cries are clear on the lake.

Here it's 95 daily and the only cries I hear are my children's. Not nearly as soothing as the cry of the loon.
Do you think this Mama Loon thinks her babies cries are soothing? Or does she, too, know the difference between a real cry and a fake cry and thusly tune 96% of all cries right on out?

The Last of the Bunch

So these are the last of the pics from Up North.

Amiya and Grandma cooking in the kitchen. I love the flour bin Amiya is standing on - we used to stand on that when we were little!

I had to put this one up - it's a live bait vending machine. Only in Wisconsin.

The view from the fire pit - have I said lately how much I miss Wisconsin?

Amiya and Super Grandma in Hayward on our day out. Super Grandma picked McDonald's for lunch and forever earned her status as Coolest Super Grandma Ever in my kids' eyes.

These are a few of his favorite things

Rocks in the driveway and some in the forest,
These are the things that made Kev ignore us.
Give him some granite or chunks of lucite,

Pebbles or boulders will be taking flight.

When the rocks are gone, when the road is clear, when the boy is spent,

he'll simply forego rocks for sticks and start all over again.

Clearly I did not miss my calling by being a Mommy instead of a lyricist, but it just fits. The little man spent practically the whole summer filling five gallon buckets with rocks of all shapes and sizes. I don't think a day went by that I didn't have several "dandy" rocks in my pockets. And if it wasn't rocks, it was sticks. My parents won't need to collect little odds and ends sticks to start a fire for a few years. Gotta love free and abundant entertainment.

Canoeing

Amiya and I went out canoeing one day in the world's oldest, stealthest canoe. I had intended to go many times with her over the summer, but I had forgotten something key to the enjoyment of canoeing: all participants must be capable of silence.

It's essential. Sure the paddle can scrape the side once in a while and sometimes it even thunks. But in general, all participants must be capable of silence.

Let me say it again, all participants must be capable of silence.

Do you get why it was a one time deal?

Upper Michigan, Day Deux

After our day in Stambaugh, we headed to the Western part of the Upper Peninsula. We were going to spend the afternoon at a rock beach on Lake Superior and then meet friends for dinner at their home. It was maybe the most beautiful day we had while we were there. Clear, bright blue skies, great temperature and look, just look, at the water. The picture is deceiving; there is a clear demarcation of sky and water. That day we couldn't tell what was where - it was perfect.



The kids wasted no time getting right in - the water was freezing (almost literally true), but that was no barrier to their fun. Can you see how clear the water is? I think Lake Superior might be a big part of my idea of heaven. So, so pretty.



Really - check it out. Look at how you can see light bouncing off the ripples and the rocks. Beautiful! And the rocks. Kev was in heaven. More rocks than he could ever hope to move - and he moved a lot of them.



And when I say he moved a lot of 'em, I really mean it. He worked off about ten pounds that afternoon and pretty soon he just couldn't keep his shorts up any longer.

Grandpa tried to teach Amiya how to skip rocks. They both tried. Marginally successful.

Later in the day, at our friends' home, Grandma worked with Amiya on the skipping rock thing. Much more successful, but in Grandpa's defense, the rocks here were much, much flatter and thinner.
Kev throwing rocks and sticks at our friends' home just a bit up the shore from Amiya. The entire shoreline is small, flat rocks. After a big storm every single rock might be washed away, only to be piled high after the next storm. What a beautiful place to live - and how incredible to be so close to the strength of nature.

The one calm moment when I could prty their grubby hands from the millions of rocks. I like this picture (could you tell?) - someday when they're screaming at each other I'm going to look at her arm around his shoulder and his happy expression, as well as the ripples in the clear blue water and I am going to get my groove back. Yep, I am. This day was a good day - nothing but great memories.