Thanksgiving Eve

What? You've never heard of Thanksgiving Eve?

It's a thing in our family, as is evidenced by this post from last year and this post. It's taken me a week or so to get past Thanksgiving, so I could write about this with better perspective.

Since Dave hunts, Thanksgiving consists of me heading to my folks' house with the boys. We used to spend several days there, but it's shortened to just a day or so because the boys are now in school. And it works out to be some sort of stressful event every year.

There was the year that we showed up with a stomach bug and left every single person, which was quite a few given all the company there for deer hunting season, vomiting and miserable. Oops. (In my defense, I did call ahead and ask if they preferred if we stayed away with our sickness.) Then there was the year that Teddy went to bed at 3 a.m. That was a rough year. Last year is chronicled in the link above, but it consists of waking up at roughly 3 a.m.

This year we determined we'd skip school Wednesday, leave bright and early when the boys woke up and spend all day Wednesday at the farm. We'd spend the night and head to my in-laws' house Thursday afternoon.

Well, AJ woke up at 3 a.m. screaming because his ear hurt, which resulted in two things. One, I was up from 3 a.m. Two, we spent until 11 a.m. at the doctor's office and pharmacy to get medication for his ear infection. Bright and early departure ... yeah, right.

The trip over was uneventful, thankfully, and the boys enjoyed their afternoons. I was absolutely shocked at the effort and success my mom had with Teddy-proofing one of the guest rooms. She stripped the room down to two single beds with two crates of books. Considering the room was a bunk bed-style bedroom with a desk that served as her office, I was in awe that she condensed the office into the closet and had removed everything from that room. It truly is a testament to how much she loves Teddy and me to make every effort to help Teddy sleep better at her house.

Unfortunately, her efforts seemed to go unnoticed by Teddy at bedtime. He was bound and determined to leave the room, so we struggled with bed from 7:30 to 10 p.m. In hindsight, it would almost be laughable how stressed I was. At the time, I was beyond frustrated with my inability to get Teddy to settle down and sleep. It didn't help that I had been up since 3 a.m., but I know I would have lost my patience regardless.

Teddy eventually settled to sleep around 10 a.m. and stayed asleep until 6 a.m. when he was ready to conquer the day. I was quite glad, once again, to head to the Turkey Trot to run 5 miles to wash away the last of the stress from the evening prior.

I realized, though, as I drove home with the boys what a terrific example of unconditional love my parents set for me. Despite me losing my patience and ending up in tears that evening, both my mom and my dad did their best to help. As challenging as that evening was, it served as a strong reminder of unconditional love and set the example for me to strive to follow with Teddy ... even when he won't sleep.