Thanksgiving Tidbits

We are getting ready to celebrate our second Thanksgiving in Belgium. Because of the large American population here in Waterloo we are blessed to easily find little sections dedicated to us. Turkeys, cranberries, chestnuts, sweet potatoes...enough stuff to make me smile yesterday as I searched for and found all but one ingredient for a vegetable casserole I'm making on Saturday--the day we will eat our Thanksgiving meal with friends. We are so thankful for and excited about that! (Oh, that one ingredient will have to be substituted for, American cheese is not one of the billions of cheeses in our supermarket. Remember Mr. Mom, when the lady lists the types of cheeses? She would still be listing them if she was living here...though she would be slightly more impatient and probably would have told him it was "not possible" to list all of those cheeses.)

This is one American who should not be bashing Belgians, as I experienced some kindness when I got pulled over yesterday for using my GSM (cell phone) while driving. Oops. Didn't I mention--rather self-righteously-- that I never do that in another post? Didn't I mention that the ticket is 200 Euros? Yeah, that might have been me. Well, the very kind Waterloo policemen took pity on me and gave an "an advice" (most likely they meant a warning, but I was so thankful that they didn't book me for being an American, not speaking French and committing the crime of driving while using my GSM, they can call it whatever they want!) One of them also told me that I should buy a headset for my phone because it is "cheapest than a ticket". Don't worry, it wasn't real sarcasm. He treated me as though I was new to the country (could be that I had such a blank expression during most of the conversation and my hands were shaking as I handed him my carte d'identite) and explained that "normally you can not use your GSM while driving".

"Ca va. D'accord. Je suis desole. Merci beacoup. Au revoir." That is all the French I could handle while shaking, but I am so thankful for the "advice".

Apparently winter has arrived early this year. It is cold! We had snow this weekend, but unfortunately we didn't get out to enjoy it. I went to see the HS production of Godspell on Sunday afternoon while Nathan went on a play date and Daddy spent most of the evening driving our friends home in the snow and collecting our son from their house. (Godspell was amazing!)

I learned something about myself and the future that evening. Let me explain... Nathan had homework this past weekend. Being the firstborn, Type A child he is, he normally does his homework first thing Friday after school with very little encouragement from me. However, last Friday he went to a birthday party after school, had soccer Saturday morning, his sister's birthday party Saturday afternoon and church on Sunday. So when he was asked to go play at a friend's house that afternoon while I went with his friend's mom to see Godspell, I had this nagging feeling he shouldn't be going without doing his homework first. I ignored it. So on Sunday night when he didn't get home until almost 9 PM I was more than a little stressed out as I searched the Internet for pictures of a sea snake as requested by our little guy. We didn't have the actual assignment written down (another big time stressor for me) because my organizational skills are suffering due to complete overcommitment lately, and his school folder was left at home by mistake. We went purely on his memory and he told us he needed to write a riddle (much easier than the limerick I originally thought he said) about a patterned animal and print out pictures of that animal. On Monday morning (after we realized school was not canceled because the temperature had gone up and the snow and ice were mostly gone) I was rushing around like a crazy person reprinting pictures because they needed to be only the pattern so that no one could see what the animal actually was--makes sense, but we DIDN'T have the assignment. I'm stressed just thinking about it! Somehow we managed to pull it together last minute along with the normal morning stuff, but I learned that I will never work well like that. If our children are going to be last minute procrastinators, they are going to have to go to Daddy for help. I mean this is first grade! How am I going to handle real homework. Daddy works well under pressure. How many times did he pull all nighters in college? Well, how many exams and assignments did he have? Not me. I don't work like that. I was the one immediately copying my syllabus to my calendar on the first day of class. Yeah, I'm one of those people.

I digress...So, the party. The very princessy party that contributed to my overcommitment was incredibly successful. Because of the party, celebrating again at school, our Thanksgiving potluck lunch last weekend, a special Thanksgiving snack at school tomorrow and our Thanksgiving dinner coming up on Saturday, my appliances have not seen this much action since, well, never. I had a minor meltdown last Thursday as I baked cookies for the celebration at school and our youngest child threw up all over the floor. Fun stuff. Another minor meltdown came when I went to frost the cake (which is quite yummy) and it just did not look pretty at all. I decided to use my last Pillsbury cake mix and made cupcakes as well. Much prettier. The party decorations were borrowed from the same friend who loaned them out last year. Thanks to her bag o' decor, we had two very festive rooms and one very festive hallway. We rearranged furniture and moved in a special doll house bookshelf given to the girls by the same friend who's daughter has outgrown it. For the time being the doll house bookshelf will be used as a bookshelf in the girls' room. We have to make room for the Christmas tree, you know. We are looking into Christmas decor very soon. Last year we skipped it as we were overwhelmed with plans to go back to the US, but this year it is the cause of much excitement.

After her little stomach issues on Thursday and Friday, Sarah is back to her old self. She insists on calling me "Daddy". When I try to correct her and say, "No, I'm Mommy". I get "No Mommy!" Not sure what to think about that, but it does give me a good reason to let Daddy get up and get her when she calls between 5:30-6:30 each morning. So nice to have him home! (Not just because he does night duty with the kids.)

So this turned out to be more than just tidbits, but that is what is going around here. We hope everyone has a happy Thanksgiving back home. We miss you all and love you all so much!