Let's do this

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. As far as I can recall (I believe there was a pomegranate martini and champagne and wine involved in mine so my recollections are hazy at best), ours was wonderful, but now that I think about it a little harder I do believe we did a fair bit more child-threatening than usual over the four-day weekend. The kids are still getting over colds, and I'm trying to give them as much extra patience as I can possibly squeeze out, but when there have been three separate tantrums within 15 minutes of waking up in the morning, I tend to lose it a little bit. I tend to be irritable. I tend to POSSIBLY have these long, elaborate fantasies about dunking the small people's heads into big, delicious, Costco-sized vats of Benadryl.

This year, my children ate absolutely NOTHING for Thanksgiving dinner. They refused it all, except for dinner rolls. No ham, no turkey. No green beans, no pie, NO MASHED POTATOES. I think they each had a roll and then a chocolate chip cookie after dinner and that's it. I am so done with the picky eating, but I feel like making a big deal out of it gives them all this extra desire to Fight The Power and make it into an even bigger fight, which I will probably lose if we're around company, so I just let them eat or not eat and forget it. I just cannot believe they won't try mashed potatoes. WON'T EVEN TRY THEM. It actually offends me. What is not to like about mashed potatoes? I have explained, in great detail, what they are, and what goes in them, and how we all like all those things when they're NOT in mashed potatoes, like butter, we like butter on toast, don't we, and how it should make sense that we would like butter IN the mashed potatoes and how we really like the insides of French fries, right, and THAT IS WHAT MASHED POTATOES ARE WHERE IS THE BENADRYL ALREADY FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY.

I felt like we really enjoyed Thanksgiving this year without rushing to start on the Christmas stuff and I'm so glad we did. It is becoming more and more obvious that my children are going to be VERY INTO Christmas this year (I would never have predicted this given our Christmas history) and I would have definitely run out of Christmas spirit if I'd started too early. They are really excited about their Advent calendars (of which we have ELEVENTY BILLION) and Asher made sure I knew that he wanted to do his tomorrow BEFORE school, not AFTER school. My mom already decorated her house and put up her trees, and the kids were mesmerized by the ornaments and the decorations and Lucy spends all her time over there wandering from one representation of the baby Jesus to another. She can take you on an entire Baby Jesus Tour of my parents' downstairs, and find exactly where each one is. When you take this tour, you must remember to lean in and pay very close attention and study each baby Jesus carefully, and say something like, “OHHHH, yes, there's baby Jesus!” or you will have to take the tour AGAIN and AGAIN and AGAIN until you get it right. It may also be requested of you to hug and kiss the baby Jesus. GO ALONG WITH THIS IDEA, PLEASE.

I've started mapping out my Advent activities that go in the little envelopes and I am pretty sure I am going to try blogging about it each day. Nothing crazy or spectacular – probably just a photo and a blurb addressing our progress; maybe a link to a website where I got a particular idea or a comment the kids made during the process. And I LOVED Pippi's idea of making it into a little book at the end of the season and looking through it together next year, but I am 79 percent sure I'm going to run out of steam by the end of the month. Anyway, if you're planning on doing this too, please please PLEASE advertise it (and your blog address) in the comments! I would love to follow along and, uh, totally steal your ideas. Wait, no, I meant see your beautiful children for 24 days straight. Yes. Yes. That's it. Crap, I always mess that up.

Comments

[Erica]

The baby jesus thing is totally reminding me of Talledega Nights ...

dear Lord Baby Jesus, I want to thank you for this wonderful meal, my two beautiful son's, Walker and Texas Ranger, and my Red-Hot Smokin' Wife, Carley

[Elizabeth]

I am doing it, you know I am!

[craftyashley]

Ha! My Mom goes overboard with Christmas decorations. It looks like snowmen exploded in her house. The girls always go on the same tour too. They pat every snowman on its head as they go. It's hilarious.
A good bribery tool? Be good in Target or we won't go through and look at the pretty Christmas displays. Works like a charm!

[Stacie]

We used the activity Advent you sent us last year. It was so cute. I will do it again this year. Blogging each activity will increase my blogging by a large amount but the grandparents will probably enjoy it. So I'm in.

[Maggie]

Jack ate half a roll for Thanksgiving. The end. I'm pretty sure my mother gave him a giant bowl of cereal when Phillip and I went to a movie after dinner. I've had it too, but same here, what can you do? I get mad just thinking about it so... YAY ADVENT ACTIVITIES. I will just be sitting here feeling inferior while you post your wonderful activities every day.

[TerraD]

I know; what is it with the mashed potatoes! You are not alone. My kids and some of my friends' kids don't like them either. I don't get it!

[Life of a Doctor's Wife]

Yours and Maggie's posts about the picky eating has me feeling new sympathy and respect for my poor mother.

I love the baby Jesus tour. That sounds adorable. Good luck with Adventing!

[Kayla]

I won't be doing it this year since my little one will only be 4 months. But you can bet we will be doing it next year! I can't wait to see all your ideas and their reactions.

[auntie]

I'm so with you on the mashed potatoes! I also know someone who doesn't like gravy. GRAVY! I just don't get it.

[Shawnna]

Thank God I do not have the ONLY kid who doesn't like mashed potatoes!!!!!!!

[Patti]

I don't like mashed potatoes, so I understand where Asher and Lucy are coming from. I just don't like the consistency and the taste. I am, however, hoping to do some Advent activities and blog about them. My daughter is three this year, so I think she'll "get it" a little more.

[rkmama]

I recently discovered my 2 yr old doesn't like mashed potatoes. I still love him and everything but I don't think we can be friends anymore.

[HereWeGoAJen]

Okay, I was going to do the Christmas thing every day, but it hadn't occurred to me to blog it. Because you know, I blog every day already and I am full of genius ideas and therefore never post pictures because I have nothing to say. I also never use sarcasm.

Elizabeth despises mashed potatoes. If you sneak a small bit into her mouth hidden underneath other food, she automatically detects it, immediately rejects it, and then requires me to wash off her tongue. She's anti all potatoes though, except for french fries and I don't think those technically count as potatoes.

Benadryl makes my kid hyper. Isn't that unfair?

[Michelle]

I hear you on the mashed potatoes. The good news is that they WILL like them...eventually. My son refused to eat them, too, when he was little. Now, he's almost 16 and the first thing his friend's parents say to me is, "Ty is such a good eater! He eats everything when he comes to our house!"

My daughter is 6 and tonight she just ate her very first bite of mashed potatoes withOUT anyone threatening her and she did it without gagging.

So there's hope.

[Jen]

OMG THE PICKY EATING. Maggie had a roll with- not even kidding- an inch-thick slab of UNMELTED BUTTER on it. I nearly gagged watching her eat it. She ate ALL OF IT. That was all she ate, plus a gingerbread cookie. (At my mom's later, she had some mac'ncheese which is basically all she eats.)

I'm with you. I'm over fighting with her. It's exhausting and doesn't work. For someone like me who LOVES TO EAT all kinds of food, her not wanting to eat anything ever makes me so confused.

[Morgan]

I LOVE the idea of posting about Advent activities. I'll definitely be doing it and stealing (I mean, enjoying) your activities, too! :)

[Elsha]

I put up a bunch of nativities the other day and now I have to take Kalena on the "baby Jesus tour" at our house every few hours.

[AJ]

My hubby is a pickey eatter, which then of course our little guy is too. On Thanksgiving hubby ate turkey, mashed potatoes, and rolls. So when Jax ate mashed potatoes and rolls, I was thrilled he was eatting most the things Dad was eatting, LoL. At only 22 months I don't fight it although when we offer him something new we do try hard to get him to taste it because that tends to be the hardest part is getting that first bite in him.

[Wiz]

I couldn't even watch my son eat Thanksgiving dinner. I just didn't want to know what he refused to eat.

[Erin]

Mine would eat any of her dinner either. We got her to try some bites before we actual ate, but once we made her a plate it was like putting a plate covered in crap down in front of her.

I so wanted to do the advent calendar last year and this year I decided to do it. I will be trying to blog about it every day, but we'll see how that goes.

[diana]

you have no idea- my husband is LITERALLY from IRELAND, LAND OF POTATOES and he will not even put one bite of them in his mouth. if you mix it on the fork, he will spit it out. luckily our second son loves them or i think my mother in law would think i had an agenda!

[JENinmich]

My 2 year old ate six bites of meat and a roll. The end.
My family is obsessed with mashed potatoes. My niece and nephew were wolfing down mashed potatoes at 6 months old. My daughter has never tried them. Because she refuses. Sigh.

[Amy]

My son ate 1 egg white for Thanksgiving dinner... that's all. Both of my sons also hate potatoes in all forms. I thought kids liked potatoes!

[Brittany]

Count me in! I love your ideas! And now I'll have something to make me write every day, and deliberately do fun stuff with my kids. Thanks!

[mrs case]

i actually despise mashed potatoes and my entire family, including my husband, think i'm an idiot for it, lol.