Happy Thanksgiving!

I realize I'm a day late, but Thanksgiving was a two-day affair here. So I'm not late, you just don't celebrate long enough. :)

Yesterday, Tom had to work, which was a bummer but not unexpected. Luckily, my sister-in-law Allison invited Ronan and me, along with our other brother and sister-in-law, to come down to their house in Columbus. It was really fun. I was slightly nervous about how Ronan would do during the two hour car ride, but was pleasantly surprised. He didn't even look through the bag of stuff I brought with to entertain him. He slept for about 45 minutes and then spent the rest of the time just looking out the window. Phew! By the time we got there, the food was all ready, so we tucked in. Very delicious and Ronan ate quite a bit (off my plate, instead of his, of course). However, he was much more interested in playing with his cousins. (They were all there - the two six year olds, three three year olds (or almost three, in Ronan's case), and the 11 month old. Hard to imagine next year, there will be another baby!) The kids had a great time entertaining themselves, playing outside and in the basement. Which meant it was a great chance for us parents to just sit back, relax, and watch the Packers continue their undefeated streak!

Tom worked again today, but he ended up coming home early since things were actually pretty slow at the hospital. So I ended up running to the grocery store and bought the remaining stuff I needed for our own Thanksgiving dinner and cooked that tonight. It turned out pretty well. We had turkey breast (I didn't see any reason to make a whole turkey for the three of us), mashed potatoes, stuffing, gravy, green beans, corn, and rolls (of course - could I really have a holiday meal that didn't include rolls?). And in the midst of all of that cooking, I ended up giving Ronan a quick bath. So I feel somewhat accomplished tonight!

Things have been going fairly well here. The one problem is daycare. As you may or may not recall, I recently switched Ronan to a new daycare (after only spending two months at the last one, which we switched to when our old center was closing due to a problem with the building owner). I was pretty happy with this place at first, but after a month, I'm beginning to worry about the amount of movies they watch there. So far, there's been five times that I've come in and they had the kids plopped in front of a TV, watching stuff like Barney or Monsters, Inc. I do let Ronan watch TV at home (and probably more than I should), but I really don't like the idea of him watching at daycare. If I wanted TV to babysit, I could keep him at home for free. I was told the other day that they only do 1/2 an hour of TV in the morning and afternoon on Tuesdays, but the more I think of it, the less sure I am that that's the policy - they've been watching movies when I've picked up before, and I never pick up on Tuesdays (because that's when I teach). This morning, when I dropped him off, they were watching Barney and one teacher told Ronan they were going to watch it till lunchtime (it was just before 10:30 when I dropped him off). The director wasn't there, but I'm going to try to bring this up on Monday. I understand today was the day after Thanksgiving and there were a lot fewer kids. Still, it was a beautiful day today (sunny and fairly warm) and it was pretty clear they weren't going to be going outside. I ended up getting him a few hours earlier than normal. At least when I picked him up, they were playing in the indoor gym and Ronan was having a blast biking around. I took him to the playground/lake and we spent an hour and a half playing there. It turns out that our first daycare center is still open - they were bought by another Montessori childcare center, but a lot of the teachers remained. I'm seriously considering going back there (after checking it out and stuff). It's unfortunate that it's such a long drive (30 minutes or so from our house, vs. the five minutes to the current place), but it'll be so worth it to feel confident about where he is. Daycare issues are such a pain!

Other than that, though, things are good. I'm hoping to buy our Christmas tree this weekend and get that set up. I think it'll be even more fun for Ronan this year. Let's just hope he remembers that ornaments are for looking at, not touching!