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December 2, 2003

December 2 ,2003

How to cook a turkey by Kevin:
“Use a cookbook. It’s going to tell me to put some eggs in the turkey. Then put it the oven at 70 degrees for 3 minutes. When it’s done put it on the table and put decorations on the table too. Plates too. Put the turkey on the plates and eat it! Invite the people to Thanksgiving.”

So this is how Kevin thinks you cook a turkey at five years old! They did this same project with the kids last year only this year they made copies of all the kids’ projects and made a little book for everyone. It will be something fun to look back at. I also think it gives you a view of what the child and their family is like.

Speaking of Thanksgiving we had two very nice family dinners. On Thanksgiving Day we went to my parent’s house and we had the traditional turkey, cranberries, mashed potatoes, gravy, rolls, green stuff (pistachio pudding, pineapple and cool whip), sweet potatoes, green bean casserole, and roasted vegetables, or I should say we would have had roasted vegetables if I hadn’t left them in the microwave. Note to self: always check the microwave and oven before sitting down to dinner! For dessert we had pumpkin, mince, and triple chocolate pies. It was just my parents, our family, my brother, his wife and daughter and my youngest brother and his girlfriend. All in all it was very pleasant, at least the way I judge it is by how many times Kevin gets yelled at. This was also the first year my parents have ever cooked a turkey, usually they go to my dad’s step moms, and I have to say it was one of the best turkey’s I ever had.

The Saturday after Thanksgiving we had Tom’s parents and niece (I’ll get to that whole mess) and her boyfriend over. That night we had leg of lamb, roasted new potatoes, gravy, cranberry-orange relish, rolls, roasted vegetables, and green stuff. For dessert we had Tunnel of fudge cake with chocolate sauce. It was so nice just having my in-laws and niece. Nobody was competing with anyone else about anything, my MIL brought a memory game to play with Kevin and then later on while Kevin watched a movie the rest of us played hang-man.

Now on to the whole soap opera-y mess.If you are new to my diary I cover this in more detail in the previous two entries. When I left off last time we thought Tom’s sister had kicked her husband out but I guess he’s back. Tom’s niece spent most of her time last week at a friends house and then with Tom’s parents. Tom’s sister wanted her daughter to go live with her parents. Tom’s parents are willing to take her but Tom’s mom wants it all done legally so that they have legal custody of her and that they are paid child support for her. You really can’t blame them; they don’t want this girl’s life to be constantly up in the air. Tom’s sister doesn’t want anything so formal. We can’t figure out why she wants her daughter to go live with her parents because all of a sudden she’s blaming her parents for this entire situation. She keeps on bringing up incidents that happened when she was growing up and telling her parents they were awful parents and somehow it’s their entire fault that she’s in the situation she’s in now. Tom tried talking to her and gently reminding her of her role in some of the things that happened when she was growing up but right now she’s in total denial. Of course it’s the classic battered woman, victim thing so who knows how long all this will take to get resolved. As it stands now Tom’s niece is back at home and they are going to 5 day week counseling.
Tom is so upset about this entire mess and I’m not sure how to help him though it. He doesn’t want to ruin his relationship with his sister but yet he is also playing the favorite child thing with his parents. This is all so crazy and mixed up! I made the mistake of telling him last week that I was glad that his relationship had cooled with his sister because then she was out of our relationship. I guess I didn’t explain it right because he got all defensive. I just got so tired of him running to her after every little tiff we had; I was glad when we had to learn to work thing out ourselves. It was so bad that even I was starting to think, “Wait until I tell Tom’s sister” about whatever had happened.

I thought I was done with the Christmas shopping for the kids but the day after Thanksgiving Toys R’ us was having some incredible sales. I rolled my big butt out of bed at 5:15 A.M and off to Toys R’ us I went. What an experience that was, they were supposed to open at 6 but when I got there at 5:40 there were people running in and people coming out with shopping carts loaded with toys! I got everything I went there for and then I made stops at Kohl’s, and KB toys. I am now definatly done buying for Kevin and I want to get Maxx a few more things. The problem is Kevin is so EASY to buy for I keep seeing things I know he’ll like. We promised ourselves we wouldn’t go overboard this year but of course “I” have gone way overboard! Now I have a few things I need to take back!

Money has been kind of tight for us the last couple of weeks so when Kevin needed a hair cut last week Tom got out his Flow-bee (he used to use this when I first met him) and tried to give Kevin a hair cut. UUUGGGHHH…. It would have been easier to take him somewhere, Kevin has always been sensitive to noise and it took us an hour to convince him to let us do it to him. In the process Maxx got the front of his hair done too. Maxx loves noise so he didn’t care! Kevin hair looks “okay” but I will defiantly be taking him to the barber next time.

Kevin is still doing okay in school and has been walking in and out with me so I’m happy about that. I guess I’m feeling better on a whole about him now because it’s colder outside and I don’t feel as guilty about him not being able to be out with the other kids. Tom has also had a lot of time off lately so I feel like he’s taken some of the burden off me. Today, however, I was putting Maxx down for a nap and Tom had gone to work Kevin decided to make Santa a snack and got out food coloring, bread, chocolate sprinkles, and nilla wafers. He had food coloring all over his clothes. Thank god he didn’t get it anywhere else. Now the “snack” is in the living room waiting for Santa. I’m still thinking of a creative solution to this, he was so proud of himself for making it.

Maxx is walking all the time now and really getting into everything. He throws tantrums if he doesn’t get his way but on a whole he still listens fairly well. During the last week he has spent most of his time with his sad face because we keep telling him “no”, especially when Tom tells him “no”. Maxx still doesn’t say much, I think he has added “duck” to his vocabulary and maybe “quack”. Still no “mama”. Sigh…

Hopefully I will get a Christmas picture taken for our Christmas cards this week. I want to get that done and out of the way. I also still need to take Maxx for his one year photos and his one year doctor’s visit. I still need to take him for the blood and urine work before we go. Maybe I’ll get to that next week. Kevin also has his Christmas program next week, so until next time…..


Thanks for reading,

Jenni, Kevin and Maxx

I’m still reading the same book as last week and the boys are reading various Christmas books (I forgot to bring them with me to the computer)


P.S What kind of sippy cups do you use. I need some new ones but I need to know what the best are. I want no leaks and easy to clean, is there such a thing???? Thanks