Five Highlights From Thanksgiving Vacation

We had Thanksgiving with The Husband's family in Nevada this year. It was a lot of fun. Here are some highlights:

1) The Squeaker Fell into the Swimming Pool. Not a joke. He was intrigued by the pool out back and wanted to stick his hands in it. I went ahead and let him kneel down by the edge to splash his hands in the cold water. Then he got up and walked a few paces along the edge and did it again saying in his cute little toddler voice, "This way! Let's go!" I was standing next to him the whole time. By our third time around the perimeter, the inevitable happened. It was one of those things where you don't freak out until about an hour later. He slipped as he was kneeling down to splash in the water again. I was kind of surprised that he didn't bob back up half a second later and he started sinking. I remember thinking, "Oh, I guess I'd better pull him back out, then." I reached in and pulled him back out by the arm. He had the funniest shocked/ stunned expression on his face; I wish I had taken a picture. He was speechless for a minute then said, "Want go back inside." As I was changing him into dry clothes he said, "Fell! The water!" several times. But an hour or two later he started telling me that it was his friend, Gideon, who fell in, and not him. "Gideon fell the water!" "No, I'm pretty sure that was you, kid," I would reply. That was about the time I started replaying the incident in my mind and thinking, "Oh, MAN, that could have been bad." I'm not sorry I let him near the pool, because he wouldn't have been allowed within five feet of it without a parent anyway.

2) The Husband and other certain male members of the family stayed up til 4 am playing computer games. They were all pretty wiped out for the rest of the weekend after that one. I was kind of sad that they had played my favorite game without me, but they didn't decide to play that one until long after I had gone to bed.

3) The Family Talent Show. For my talent, I used a Karate move to throw The Husband to the ground. I originally tried to recruit a volunteer, but my volunteer was slightly intimidated by the prospect of being trounced by his aunt and tried to fall on purpose rather than let me sweep his legs out from under him. Falling on purpose does not make for an effective demonstration. We also had some stand-up comedy, and some very impressive musical talent as part of our talent show. Everyone had "Low Rider" in their head for at least two days afterward.

4) I successfully used cloth diapers while traveling. The baby (we never call him the Marshmellon any more, but we do call him The Cookie) doesn't need his diapers hosed off because breastfed baby poop is water soluble. The same cannot be said for toddler poop. Usually cloth diapering with a toddler requires a special hose attachment for the toilet, and I knew we weren't going to have one in Nevada, to say nothing of on the road. Disposing of toddler poop without a diaper sprayer is highly unpleasant, but I didn't want to resort back to disposables for the trip (The Squeaker doesn't like them any more). The solution? A peri bottle! You know, one of those squirt bottles they give you at the hospital after you have a baby. It was not quite as convenient as my own diaper sprayer, but it was excellent for the trip. I highly highly recommend it.

5) I cross-nursed my niece. My brother-in-law had to go run an errand quickly, so left his baby with us with the assurance that my sister-in-law would be along shortly. "Shortly" ended up being over an hour, and in the meantime the baby got hungry and fussy. We tried feeding her some expressed breastmilk, but she refused to take the bottle. "How dare you insult me!" she wailed. So I said, "Ordinarily I wouldn't do something like this, but it's kind of an emergency." And you know what? It wasn't really as weird as I thought it would be. My sister-in-law is kind of a reformed hippie like me, so she thought it was awesome.