It has been a loooong, wonderful, sickly weekend. Jack picked up a brutal cold at school last week, then it made its way through Alice over Thanksgiving, then Jared, then me. I'm grateful it was just a cold! We can handle that. Thanksgiving was wonderful. We brough stuffing, rolls, cranberry sauce, green bean casserole, and a pie to Jared's parents for a cozy little Thanksgiving with them and with Jared's brother Will. Alice wanted to be held by me and only me the whole time (poor sick baby) which was a bit of a challenge, but I keep telling myself, "This is a season!" She won't want me holding her 24/7 forever.
We also celebrated Jared's birthday over the weekend. He wanted to see the ocean on his birthday, so we drove to a new park overlooking the sound and played for a bit before having Jared's parents over for dinner and opening presents. I sure am grateful for such a wonderful life partner. He's endlessly patient and kind. The funnest Dad. The gentlest doctor. The most selfless spouse. I always love a reason to celebrate Jared.
It's been quite the busy week. The air fryer has officially been broken in. We've made crinkle fries and normal fries (from frozen), fresh hot wings, Brussels sprouts, hashbrown patties, and aidells sausages. The crinkle fries were a slam dunk. Very crispy without adding so much as a drop of oil (they might already have been coated in something oily since they were prepackaged though). The normal fries were a bit limp, but I think we crowded them in there too tightly--you should definitely make sure there's space around each item if you want it to get nice and crispy, just like when roasting things in the oven. Everything else came out great. The real test was hot wings. I made them like I normally would if I was deep frying them, but popping them in the air fryer was lots easier and less messy. They didn't come out quite as crispy as they would from a deep fry, but pretty close. For how much time and mess (and oil) was saved, absolutely worth losing 10% crispiness.
Jack got sick with a bad cold over the weekend. I couldn't even be annoyed because we're already at the end of November and this was his FIRST time being sick enough to have to miss school, and he only had to miss one day (Friday). During his last two years in preschool, he was pretty consistently having to stay home with a cold for a full week out of every month. His immune system is stronger now and the sick policy is more lenient at the public school (as long as he's not fevery, throwing up, or clearly feeling awful I can send him). I'm so happy we've made it to a less sickly winter. (Knock on wood.)
We had our family pictures taken by someone other than myself and my trusty tripod for the first time EVER on Saturday. Jack was looking a little under-the-weather and Alice was lukewarm about the smiling on command thing (of course), but I'm sure we got some good ones. There were a few fall leaves hanging on in the background so I'm glad we were able to squeeze them in. Can't wait to see them next month.
Jared gave Jack and Alice a little hair trim before the pictures and he really did a pretty good job! He's cut Jack's hair for years (he cuts his own hair too and has done lots of his buddies' hair through the years). I was going to attempt Alice's hair myself because Jared cut my hair during Covid and it was, um, not spectacular? But when I was at Target grabbing last-minute pants for Jack's outfit Jared offered to trim Alice's hair and I realized, I'm just as much a beginner as he is. He can watch a youtube video as well as I can. If he does Alice's haircuts from the get-go, he will be more open to doing them in the future and he'll get better and better, just like he has with Jack's hair. It was a practice in letting go of the fear of her hair coming out wonky for the pictures, for the benefit of offloading a parenting task to Jared (that he enjoys) for probably years to come. I think this is something many moms struggle with, but the more I practice the better I get. Jared WANTS to be involved in raising his children and keeping up the house. When I can let go of wanting things to be a certain way and let him take full ownership of a particular duty, everyone wins. (My favorite example of this is when we fell into a pattern of me emptying all the dishes because I don't mind that task and Jared does, and Jared loading the dirty dishes because he doesn't mind that task and I do. It makes me feel so much more excited about cooking because I know I won't be the one cleaning up the mess. We eat better because of this division of labor, and the system runs so much more smoothly and without bitterness. Neither of us nags the other to do their part anymore--we both trust and know that the other will get to it within a reasonable time frame since we have taken full ownership of our own parts of the process. 10/10, would recommend dividing up household tasks in this way when possible.)
I'm off to make a Christmas shopping Black Friday plan. Jared doesn't have work tomorrow so we're going to make a game plan and maybe even do all our Christmas shopping. It seems like most stores have already started running their Black Friday sales a week or more early this year. So different from when I was little and the only Black Friday sales were the ones you'd wait in line for at the actual store at midnight after Thanksgiving, which I never participated in. I love that everything is online now! So much easier and cozier. Give me a cocoa and a Christmas movie, and we'll make a cozy date of it.
What a week! Please bless my children to adjust to daylight savings relatively quickly. I spent all last week trying to push their bedtimes later, hoping this would mean they would eventually start sleeping in later too when we turned our clocks back. Unfortunately going to bed later has had no affect on Alice's wake time so far, so sure enough, she was up for the day at 5:30 this morning. I'm planning to continue the strategy to try and keep them up later in the evening and hooooopefully the wake time will eventually follow. Alice is finally sleeping through the night, and Jack has started sleeping in a little later, so I'm focusing on gratitude.
We had a fun Halloween. Jared's parents came to our house to celebrate. Jared's mom LOVES holiday celebrations and usually hosts a fun Halloween dinner/game night. But with Alice hating the car and Jack wanting to trick-or-treat in our neighborhood, we stayed home and they offered to bring a festive dinner. It was very cute and fun. But with neighbors showing up and trick-or-treating the night was a little hectic. I felt bad after they left when I realized we didn't play any games and Jared's parents never even got to hold Alice before she went to bed. They did get to go trick-or-treating with Jack though, so file the evening under "you win some, you lose some."
Jack had two days of no school this week for parent teacher conferences. He is doing great and is ahead of the curve in reading and math, so the goal his teacher set with him was for him to remember to turn in his reader each day. He tends to forget it in his backpack most of the time so this will be good practice for the next 12+ years of turning in homework.
Alice's allergy bloodwork results became available this week. Nothing her allergist is too concerned about, phew. He recommended we try testing her on beef and soy in his office when we feel ready for that, but tomato he gave us the go-ahead to try at home and see if there's been improvement since the last time she had tomato several months ago. We gave her one of her favorite dinners, tomato bolognese, last night to see how she would tolerate it. No issues! Not a single hive! We'll remain cautious the next few times we try, but for now I'm so happy I could cry. Any of her allergens she grows out of is a big deal. This gives me hope that she'll outgrow more of them in the next few years. Cozy tomato soup, here we come. Here are some pictures from our week:
