thanksgiving break

turkey day spread

i know it's weird to judge the quality of a road trip on the food, but, well, i'm weird.

we made three visits to the golden arches on our 72-hour sojourn — literally breakfast, lunch (heading south) and dinner (heading north).

part of it was dad hankering for his go-to road breakfast, the egg mcmuffin, and the rest of it is the babies' addiction to happy meal toys. the two are acutely aware of the restaurant chain's logo and can spy the company's spokesclown in the most obscure locations. (luckily, they are both in a good fast food eating phase, having polished off their plain hamburgers with great dispatch.)

in a rare trifecta, all three of my mcdonald's meals were satisfying and tasty: a bacon egg and cheese bagel with a side of hash browns in palm coast, fla., a sublime quarter pounder with cheese via drive-through in jupiter, fla., and a big mac meal — good distribution of sauce and pickles, there — with a disappointingly cold apple pie on the return trip through palm coast.

home of the golden arches

driving all night to arrive a day ahead went a long way to keeping my body clock mostly in-sync. mom's idea to lunch just before hitting west palm paid off ahead of a late-ish thanksgiving eve lasagna supper.

mom's lasagne did not disappoint; coupled with an industrial-sized package of garlic texas toast and a tasty cabernet sauvignon from auntie joy made for a great meal. a couple of stolen kit kats and a macaroon from auntie pamy was a nice way to top things off.

while preparations of turkey day dinner sides was going on, the evening's entertainment was watching "ratatouille" with dad, pj and the baby. the rest of the kids pretty much just camped upstairs with their tablets and games. after we said our goodbyes for the night, the boy passed out at the hotel almost as soon as his head hit the pillow. (he and his sister were so pooped, they overslept the children's "fun run" the next morning as part of the city's annual turkey day 5k trot.)

hammock time (15-minutes' worth)

even the hotel's complimentary breakfast bar was good — sausage patties, scrambled eggs and apples. i returned to the lobby for coffee and fresh belgian waffles.  (the house coffee was really good, btw.) lunch was simple: walmart chicken salad and croissants. snuck in a 20-minute nap before taking the kids out of everyone's hair with a trip to the local park out on the intercoastal waterway.

unlike our usual modus operandi of arriving thanksgiving morning with a messed-up eating schedule wherein our first meal in town is a heavy brunch that makes a late afternoon feast an exercise in unjoyful eating, the normal pace of a discrete breakfast and lunch allowed for a welcome, well-paced, early evening meal. i got to sample everything, including four kinds of pie. if we wouldn't have run out of corn, it would have been a pluperfect meal. (i also had a dinner encore of turkey and mashed potatoes to finish off some leftover green beans and the savory skin. plus a sliver of pie.)

dad, pj and i watched the end of the afternoon football game and "from russia with love." this was followed by the requisite "show" put on by the kids. (for some reason, these lengthy gatherings always leads to some theatrical production by the tween kids and their younger cousins/friends. it's been this way since i was a boy. my kids took part in a haunted house scripted by pj's eldest girl. it even had a ghoulish backstory of an entire family that met their demise in all manner of awful ways. the boy played a ghost named "charles." he couldn't keep a straight face.)

(also, playing "school" remains a popular activity for the older cousins and their younger cohorts. again, even in this digital age, some things never change.)

breakfast the next day was pretty much the same. lunch was an amazing sliced ham sandwich on my sister-in-laws's garlic twist rolls followed up with leftover lasagne. i had gluten-free cherry pie, and slivers of pecan and pumpkin pie for dessert.

(btw, the west virginia children heard their very first bona fide ice cream truck and ran out to the street to meet it. unfortunately, they were too late. the boy spent probably a solid minute staring up the street, hoping to spy it.)

big walker mountain tunnel

a protracted photo session with the children and grandparents preceded the long goodbye. a return visit to palm coast for mickey d's and gas, another fueling in st. george, s.c., and one in fort chiswell, va., as well as a potty break at the north carolina-virginia border were our only stops. the whole trip back took about 13 hours.

this marked the first marathon road trip in which neither the boy nor the girl broke into an extended crying jag in the midst of their sleep from leg pains or the like from sitting so long. and everyone pottied when they were told and no one required any special stops.

i tried my damnedest to not be a total, tired prick to my wife as she dealt with the vagaries of long-distance family road trips. and, really, the fact that she's subjecting herself to concentrated doses of our brand of crazy is reason enough to go into these excursions endeavoring to make them as pleasant for her especially as possible.

but this one was nice. (and i write this knowing there is many and many a poor soul out there — and even among my friends — hungry not only for a decent meal, but for a loving relationship with family and friends.) Lord knows how many more of these gatherings we'll get. in the meantime, i'll just be grateful for the ones we can have. and for this and more, i'll give thanks. amen and amen.

astronomy

moon over georgia

"hey, daddy. remember how the moon followed us to beckley, then to florida? now it's following us back to beckley." — the boy, on i-95, north of jacksonville, friday night

thanks

as ever, the perfect dinner, served with love and care. a houseful of children sreaming and scheming. siblings, parents, spouse gathered around a table. a moment. all was well. for all these things and more, i am most grateful. thank you, Lord.

the road

i let a florida driver's dirtbag maneuvering suck me into dirtbag retaliation. i hate that. and i hate the cultural animus that leads to that kind of behavior. 

these people

monkeys

the boy and the girl are becoming people.

while i'm holding on with all my might to their preschoolhood, they keep growing.

their personalities are emerging. they're entering new phases.

the boy is by turns obnoxious and sweet; the girl is growing out of being my baby to occasionally acting like one. 

he is becoming more and more all-boy, full of imagination and fantasy and conspiracy. and tall. how the hell is he getting so tall?

(also, he already says he doesn't want to be a grownup; he wants to be a kid forever and never leave home. he suspects something is up — and he doesn't think he'll like it.) 

despite our best efforts to not push gender roles on her — inasmuch as we ever exerted effort — the girl is indeed quite fond of pink and frills and pretty things. and twirling. she's trending toward ballet. or figure skating. or both. maybe she'll eat more than once a day.

(after three years of being a sweet confection, she is now a seasoned stew coming to a boil.)

they are both full of drama.

the boy loves halloween

he strives for perfection and is absolutely crushed by correction; she is out to do everything her "big brovvy" can do. they've each got distinctive drawing styles.

they're also picking up some sass and backtalk from exposure to other, less disciplined kids. such is life. we're learning a new stage of admonishment beyond potty training and more toward learning societal norms and niceties. we're trying to teach respectfulness.

this is all moving very, very quickly. these are but snapshots of lives constantly in motion. not sure i'll ever be able to create a whole panoramic picture of their progress. we'll just buckle in and hold on.

shout-out

i have friends who keep blogs. some better than others. i'm just flogging a nice summation on childhood at this stage from my former colleague, rebecca, whose little girl turned 5 today.

i like

character

that i'm still a hero to my boy.

fall back

all saints day. downtown.

so daylight saving time ended last night.

the boy arose twice before 5 a.m. but he also lay quietly in bed the two times i sent him back. he didn't sleep, but i was glad that he didn't raise a ruckus as he did when he was three. hard times then.

it got dark before 6. it was depressing in the same way that the onset of fall and kurt weill's "september song" used to make me mourn the passing of time. i hadn't felt this way in years.

maybe the way that the children are quickly growing is making me more acutely aware of the days growing short for many things. i'd best cherish these days of lap-sized kids while i still can.