Thankful My Kid Woke Me Up At 6 A.M. On Thanksgiving Day

My youngest son woke me up shortly after 6 a.m. today.

"Get up! It's Thanksgiving!!"

What in the world???

When you've gone to bed a mere three hours beforehand, and you're having an awesome dream with Orlando Bloom in it, being woken up so early is the last thing you want to happen.

OK, no, that's not quite true. The last thing you want is for an epic earthquake to jolt you out of bed.

Or to wake and find that all those awful Nostradamus prophecies have come true all at once.

Or to discover you've been infected by bubonic plague.

Don't you agree those things would totally suck like ten times worse?

Anyway, sleepy time was definitely over for me because the boy started listing off all the things he was thankful for. "I'm thankful for you, mommy, and my teacher and my Nintendo DS, and..."

He kept adding things to his list for a good five minutes.

I made a "Things I'm Thankful For" list a couple of days ago. It's a good exercise since sometimes life can seem like one tough slog. I admit I feel a little shallow putting stuff like, "I'm thankful Depeche Mode keeps making music," on there, but I'm just keeping it real. I think it would be good for me to review and add to my list more frequently.

Anyway, in the hours since he interrupted my, ahem, "nap", my son's asked me every five minutes, "Is it time to go yet?"

We're going to my awesome, amazing friend's house for Thanksgiving dinner, but my boy could care less about the food.

Mister, "I only eat fried chicken!" hates turkey. He wouldn't touch mashed potatoes with a 10 foot pole. Your tastiest casserole will not pass his lips. Cranberry sauce might as well be poison. He can't stand candied sweet potatoes and he despises pumpkin pie.

I'll be lucky if I can get him to eat some dinner rolls and salad. Last year I think he went over there and ate plain rice with ketchup.

So why is he so excited? Because he knows what we adults sometimes forget: Thanksgiving is about relationships, not food. It's about spending time with your friends and family, even if all you have to eat is peanut butter and jelly. -- Actually, I think he'd prefer PB&J to all the other food.

Too often we adults agonize over the stuff that surrounds holidays like Thanksgiving. We worry about whether the pumpkin pies we baked last night are going to be edible or not. We stress out over the cleaning and cooking and dealing with relatives that sometimes (or all the time) work our nerves.

Maybe this is why holidays are always the best when you're little - because you still have that innocence, that excitement that makes you jump out of bed at 6 a.m. to tell your mom to get up because it's Thanksgiving.

I hope you know how much I'm thankful for you, the folks who take the time to come here and read my blog. Some of you are like family to me and I appreciate you for adding something special to my life!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Comments

Jen said…
Hope it was a happy, happy time, Liz! We had a great, quiet family time with my mom and my FIL. C was around all day and charming, D helped me with cooking and clean-up and all was lovely.

And now... I am soooooo ready for sleep! (As I imagine you are given your "nap" last night!)
Jameil said…
girl good for you being grateful for the 6am wakeup call on a holiday! wow! WOW!! v. cute that it was to list his thanks! lol. did you say ketchup & rice? that's enough to make me never want rice again. what did he end up eating?
nick said…
Hope you had a good Thanksgiving, Liz. The kids are right - these occasions are about having fun with your family and friends, all the other things are secondary. Who really cares if there's a few dustbunnies in the corners?
ValeriesWorld said…
Happy Thanksgiving!
Remnants of U said…
Excited about Thanksgiving & giving reasons that he is thankful, how cute.

Ketchup & rice interesting.

It looks like fun was had by all.
April said…
What a beautiful post!
And I'm sure your Thanksgiving was lovely after that start!
Liz Dwyer said…
Jen,
It was a very happy time. We even had a turkey pinata! I'm so glad you had a wonderful time with your family. It sounds lovely! :)

Jameil,
Yes, girl! Ketchup and rice. Looking at it always makes me feel a lil nauseous, but it works for him. As far as the 6 am, you know that haze you're in when you're sleeping real good and someone tries to wake you up and you positively want a rock to fall on them and knock them out? I was feeling that at first but he is pretty darn cute and sweet with his thankfulness, so I gave him a pass!

Nick,
Thank you! It was really lovely and I had such a good time. I wouldn't have noticed if there were dustbunnies at all!

Valeries World
Thank you! Hope yours was wonderful, too.

Remnants,
He was VERY excited and wow, he had a ball yesterday. :)

April,
Sooo nice. At the end of the day I could only smile over how wonderful it all was! :) Hope you had a great holiday as well!
Anonymous said…
Wow - thank you for this. Thanksgiving was hard for me (as posted on my blog (http://www.brokensaints.wordpress.com) as I am going through a lot of loneliness and envy. But I do, indeed have a lot to be thankful for. It's just so hard to see sometimes.
Liz Dwyer said…
Broken Saints,
I came over and took a peek at your blog - hugs to you. Our society is so focused on what we have and we're trained to always compare ourselves to others - and we'll always come up short in some way. Always will. It's hard to see the things we have to be thankful for but they're there. They really are. :)
Anonymous said…
Thank you so much for the encouragement and for the peek at my blog. It's nice to know I'm not the only one having trouble with the constant comparisons. I know the old saying about not comparing your insides to other people's outsides but I don't know how not to do it. And we're just taught (I think especially women?) to believe that certain things will make us happy - husband, children, home owning, etc. And when I don't have any of those, it feels like there's no possibility for happiness.

Thanks for giving me an(other) outlet for expressing my worries. I'm hoping that my blog also does that for me, as I try to work stuff out in my head!

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