This and That, Two Days Before Thanksgiving

I'm nearly recovered from Hurricane Sandy, although I still feel like I was in a coma for the ten days we were without power. I went to work on the mild Friday before Halloween and by the time I returned, all of New York City was decorated for the holidays and the temperature had dropped twenty degrees. Winter doesn't feel far away and it's as if someone pressed the fast forward button on the last few weeks (Thanksgiving in two days? Really?).

I'm not sure if it's because this is my favorite time of year or because I feel like there's so much to do. Holiday cards? I just don't know if it's going to happen this year. I am, however, busily plotting Christmas cookies and ye old annual gingerbread house decorating extravaganza (it's just the big kids and me--not as complicated and fancy as it sounds, trust me!).

Just when I feel like things are starting to get easier with the babies--they sleep well at night (KNOCKING FURIOUSLY ON WOOD AND SPITTING OVER MY SHOULDER), they are less whiney and cry-y and more "plays cute and independently") they go and do something like, oh I don't know, learn to climb the couch and threaten multiple times a day to catapult themselves off headfirst.


Yes, I'm looking at you, Lucy Grace. Trust me. She only looks innocent.

Don't even get me started on the current toddler-centric debate: To get a Christmas tree or not? Do the words Christmas tree and [almost] eighteen month old twins just scream ARE YOU CRAZY? I just...I don't know. The thought that I won't be able to sit with Erin in our darkened living room, under the glow of twinkling Christmas lights (the dubious yet oddly satisfying double feature of "It's a Wonderful Life and "Bad Santa" on the television), a jug tumbler of Bailey's in my hand, gazing at our giant Noble Fir...not having this experience, just feels wrong. This is our little annual Christmas Eve tradition, after the kids go to bed and we've completed the wrapping of all 9,723 presents.

Not to mention, the Leo and Ellie LOVE decorating the tree. Right! It's all about the kids.

Hammy Harry, aka Meatball, safely (briefly) ensconced in his stroller. Always ready to give you a toothy, goofy smile. Speaking of Harry, this guy is full of surprises. I think, because he doesn't have as many words as Lucy (actually, any words--he just babbles a ton and sounds an awful lot like some kind of Dr. Seuss character) I don't credit him with understanding as much as she does. But this morning I asked him to bring me the "pink socks" (Lucy's, which had somehow ended up in the middle of the living room floor). And you know what? He went straight to those socks, scooped them up, and brought them right to me. Good boy.


Taking a break from the dance floor to apply some body art.

I always get a little extra melancholy this time of year. It's not sadness or depression. It's more an appreciation of the wonder of all of this. This weekend I took Ellie (and Lucy) to a birthday party.

Driving along the winding roads of our suburban town, passing stately colonials (some with giant, recently fallen Hurricane Sandy trees in their yard) in the waning sunlight of a quintessential east coast autumn day, I was struck as I often am, of the the brevity of all of this. There would never be another day like that one. There would never be another birthday party on the weekend before Thanksgiving, with a five year old Ellie, decked out in her velvet finery and a seventeen month old Lucy, smitten by the dance floor and all the big kids (and a fascinating shopping bag).

Life is exhausting and sweet.