I really like the holidays, and I really hate them. Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday, because it represents the stealing of one culture from another. Nah, it represents families coming together and eating way to much food.

A big part of thanksgiving is the weather, if it was held in may or July, the spirit of the day would be different, thanksgiving would be nothing more than Labor day or the 4th. Bbq's and Frisbee instead of Turkey's and brown grass and football. If the weather isn't hovering around 32, and the house isn't steamy with Turkey. then I do not think families would get along as well.
My family is in a sort of period of detente. Although even just mentioning that I have a state of my family is enough to create turmoil. The relationships in my family are like the black specs you get in the corner of your eye, you can watch them floating around but as soon as you try and focus on them they flit away.

We'll be driving to Chicago for Thanksgiving, which is another in the long line of, "I want whatever I do to be special, but there are roughly 2 million other people doing the same thing." Well there are not 2 Million people driving from Roland with a 81/2 week old and a 2 year old. But they are moving from someplace to someplace else with the intention of seeing family and avoiding conflict.

I am tired. Bone weary, as little Leila has not wanted to be set down for the last 48 hours. I hope she doesn't have an ear infection. I do not know how we'll make it through the winter, if we've already had 2 bouts of colds and it is only November.

She might be sniffly, but Leila is still growing up. She smiles not...a lot! And really a lot more than Nyssa ever did. Nyssa--who is a very happy 2 year old--was a fairly miserable infant. Leila is starting to make other noises too, like laughing or giggles. I'll get some video up on here soon. As soon as I take some.

We started in on the Christmas holiday this weekend. Snow on Saturday, which covered the neighborhood and made it look sparkely and inhabitable. Happily it was just enough that I didn't have to shovel or sweep and it would melt by Sunday when the temperature reached the low 50's. Sunday we made spritz cookies and I put up the outdoor Christmas lights. All the lights entailed was a trip to storage, we had enough Christmas junk that it filled up the back of the Ravy. and spilled into the front seat...it was an odyssey of discovery, a trip to Ames and Lowes, and 3 tries at getting the strings to hang properly. a 4 hour deal, and it wasn’t bad.
What was important was that Nyssa came out with me about ½ through hanging the lights, and after playing for a few minutes said, “I want you to be done daddy.”
Which I took as encouragement that she wanted to be done so she could see the beauty I was creating. And then she said, “I want you to be done Daddy. So we can go play cars.”
She didn’t care about my creation, she was just bored!

More power to her.

I tried telling her, I was doing the lights for her, but that was small consolation, and I did not say it with too much verve.

But the lights went up, and they look OK. Not great, but good enough. When we get one of those plug adapters that turn 3 prongs into 2, then we'll have a lit-up Winnie-the-pooh sitting in out garden and that will be pretty great and exciting.

Lest people be confused I love Thanksgiving, and I am looking forwards to being in Chicago and seeing Katy's and My families. I am just not looking forwards to the drive. One thing I am doing to counter act the long drive is to purchase a DVD player for Nyssa for the back seat. I see those things and I hate them, although I woulda wanted one when I was 2, and then now I am buying one. Hopefully it will be the type of thing that comes around for long trips and never any other time. I gotta go to Wall-mart today to price them out.

I'm sorry that I am not showing you more pictures, it is mostly because we spend our days in our living room, watching football or Cailu...He's just a boy whose 4... And is really whiney too. so that one picture looks exactly like another. Hopefully we'll take a lot of photos while in Chicago...but honestly, Katy and I are not great at taking photos. We much prefere to fret in the moment we are in.