Three Thanksgivings in one long weekend

We took a long Thanksgiving weekend home to the Berkshires and packed in quite a bit of action.

On Thursday we had dinner at my dad's place with a bunch of his roommate's girlfriend's relatives, including her baby Charlie who's a month or so younger than Bob.

Bob was perfectly happy feeling mature sitting on the island wearing his paper headdress and playing with my lens cap...

... and then another little munchkin has to come along and touch him...

Charles Bliss was anything but as far as Bob was concerned.  (That was a line from my dad, "Pepere.")

After that drama we headed over to Big Gram's to spend time with my Uncle Lee and his girlfriend and her daughter and my brother David and Crystal and their two kids, Bob's beloved cousins Chloe and Mason.  Chloe handed me a hand-made babysitting flyer advertising her services for a quite reasonable $2 per hour: "Read books, play games, and I'm safe!"  Hint received.

Chloe set up all her Littlest Pet Shop animals for Bobby to play with.  Bob was shy in the beginning, but then all of a sudden the miniature animals caught his eye from across the room and called him from what he was doing; he crawled his fastest toward his dream come true and dove into the pile.

He ooohed and aaahed, kicked his new friends around with his feet and scrambled them with his hands, and he climbed up and down, up and down from his little shelf, over and over again.

I brought some crafts for the kids... I had planned to make a "Thankful tree" but it turned out that Mason needed a "family tree" for school so we made that instead.

There also happened to be some clay in my craft box, so we did some "modeling" as well.  (Chloe: "Oh, I love you, Angie!"  Mason: "What's a craft?")

Chloe and Mason adore Bob (in case you couldn't tell.)

We spent the day Friday just hanging around at Gram's (that's Bob's great-great-grandmother)...

On Sunday we had the traditional Thanksgiving celebration at Gram's.  I didn't capture the faces of every person in attendance, but I did at least get most of the outdoor crew:

A few more of my favorites...

(Oh, isn't Mason a doll?)

(And isn't Ben?)

My niece Bailey will be two on the 7th, so we gave her a gift a little early.  The middle-left picture captures my favorite moment, when she had finally gotten all the paper off but was still thinking, "now what the heck is this?"

And you know, I guess I did get a shot of everyone...

(By the way, in case it looks to you like there's a dog lying on my mom -- it's just her coat.)

At Gram's we don't do anything fancy for Thanksgiving (except for breaking out the gold utensils); we just get together, which is what matters I think.

I just want to remember...

I want to remember forever how perfectly sweet Bobby has been for the past two days.

I just finished putting him down to bed, and he was so cute and lovey and sweet that I felt I could have traded my whole life for those few short moments.  Oh, how my heart longs to bottle him up -- his smile, his giggle, his scent, the squish of his cheeks, his angelic little personality...

Last night was the same.  I was nursing him and naming some of the fun things he did that day; I said, "you did your dive," and he leaned his head back, grinned at me and sighed -- "ahh, what a great time that was when I was doing my dive earlier."  Again tonight he kept leaning back and smiling at me.  He touched my face and laughed when my eyelashes tickled his fingertips.  I gave him eskimo kisses and kissed his lips and he giggled and giggled.  He smushed his face against mine and breathed me in.  When I put him in his crib after rocking and snuggling a bit, he didn't make a single whimper although he wasn't asleep.  He must be very relieved to be back home and sleeping in his own room after a crazy long weekend at Gram's (I'll get to that next), because he's gone down without a fight for every single nap and bedtime since we returned.  He slept through the night last night, too (he's been having trouble since our move) -- man, things are looking up!

Being a mom involves a lot of poop and whining and food on the floor, but nights like tonight, when my little one makes it abundantly clear that he's just as much in love with me as I am with him, completely wash the poo from the cup and cause it to flow ten times over.

Spending time with my two favorite Apples and one little appletooth

This post is beating out Thanksgiving because that's just how happy I am to have seen these three faces on Saturday.

It's funny how life goes in stages -- different phases filled with different faces.  I've never been very good at "keeping in touch" I guess, but nowadays with our cell phones and facebook and this blog we can stay somewhat connected without keeping in touch at all.  Pity or blessing?  Whatever -- that's not my point anyway.

There are some people you can go without seeing for ages, yet you think of them fondly and when you dream of reuniting, you imagine yourself wrapping your arms around their necks and giving them awkwardly long hugs, and then when the reunion finally occurs, that's exactly what you do.  And now we're finding my point: these two apples (Mallory on the left, Bailey on the right) fit snugly in that category for me.  It was awesome to spend a little time with these two great friends of mine from the Pittsfield region of life and to meet Cohen, Mal's little offspring.

Cohen was all about having his photo taken.  Or, staring into my camera lens...

... then he chose this pose by the window:

How flippin cute is he?  Bob got a little jealous, I suppose.

Puzzle time!  Full disclosure: these photos of the boys playing nicely side by side are not all that indicative of how their socialization actually went.  More often, Cohen was taking his toys away and Bob was being a cry baby.  Sorry, guys, but I can't lie.

I think they had some good times, though.  Like during their drink break for instance.

We smiled, we laughed, some of us cried...  So so fun.  I vow to see these three again sooner rather than later.

And can I just say: this picture makes my heart really happy.