Our Thanksgiving

Tanner and I are on our own on Thanksgiving and since Tanner doesn't care what food tastes like, I decided to be a great mom.... Last night at midnight my work served up a free Thanksgiving dinner for it's graveyard employees (cafeteria style). I grabbed dinner, wrapped it up and served it to the boy today. Yep, it's  a "diminished effort" and a "cop-out" move. Yep, I didn't even turn on the stove today. But I DID get to spend uninterrupted time paying attention to Tanner, which is what he wants the most.

He ate everything. With poppyseed salad dressing. He dipped his pumpkin pie in the poppyseed dressing. Yes, that is so gross!


 

 Then I built the first fire of the season and the boy was so excited that he didn't move from the fireplace for at least 7 minutes!

I am so thankful for this boy! He makes me feel like I am good. He makes me feel like I make a difference in this life. He makes me peaceful even though he is a disaster. I am committed to say that the disasters in our lives make us better. Not worse.

Seriously?!

You remember that time when you walked into a situation and things were so "not right" that your mouth dropped open and you became confused? And you questioned whether your life was real or not? And you told yourself, "this sh*t doesn't even happen on TV!"
Well, last night I had a moment. I had just given sweet Tanner his sleepy meds, he was going through his nighty-night ritual of laying down by the vacuum, basking in the heat of the exhaust. He was well on his way to oblivion. So of course this was the perfect time for mom to take a nice, relaxing bath and listen to some nice, relaxing music. So I lounged blissfully for a good 40 minutes.

The house was quiet, the vacuum was turned off and Tanner was asleep. Or was he? I went to check on him while still in my towel, confident that I could just kiss him goodnight and then watch NETFLIX.   As I peered into the living room with my usual expectations I was hit with such a sight as to completely paralyze my senses. The couch was overturned. The table was on it's side. And there was Tanner, stark naked sitting in the middle of a pile of shredded cheese. There was cheese on the carpet, there was cheese in his hair, there was cheese in his lap, there was cheese in his crack and there was probably a pound of cheese in his stomach. All I know is that an empty 2 pound bag of finely shredded, mild cheddar cheese was found in the vicinity. Next to him was a gallon of orange juice in which he had  methodically stuffed bits of cheese into.  As I stood in the doorway in a speechless stupor he looked up at me and smiled sheepishly as if saying, "well, what did you expect?"

Of course it's all my fault. My job is to keep Tanner from getting into stuff and Tanner's job is to find the loopholes (me not locking the fridge). I just wonder why I always loose at this game?


This is a picture of what I expected. I was too flummoxed  to document what I found.

The Box In The Garage

So, Tanner broke the big screen TV again.....got mad, threw the remote control at the screen.. blah, blah, blah. You know, the usual. The TV has a shatter mark, kind of like a bullet hole in a plate glass window. I told him he would have to wait a long time for a new one. Well I got a new one at my convenience, and put the box (with the new TV inside it) in the garage and waited for a sufficient time to pass. I wanted to punish him, to make him yearn for a brand new, undamaged jewel to replace the spider webbed TV that he has been looking at for the last month. Unfortunately, he spied the box sitting in the garage. Then he went out and sat in front of the box for two hours. Two Hours! Just looking at it, pointing at it, admiring it. He has done this several times.
But, I will also add, that Tanner has thrown the remote control at the broken TV again...recently.... several times... So the new TV is still in a safe place: in it's styrofoam packing, boxed up, in the garage, waiting to be installed. Each time he throws something at the existing, sad TV I tell him it will be another week before I set up the new one. It might be around Christmas....

Shaving Tanner

  

 After seven days Tanner's baby face starts to feel rough. There are course, strawberry blond whiskers which accumulate quite densely on his chin. He gets sideburns. He gets cheek hair. It is all very unsettling for me, especially since I have to shave him. I never imagined putting shaving cream on his face, slowly bringing a razor around his pointy chin and down his little neck, feeling the drag of the blades gliding over his tender skin. I don't want to knick him but he is so wiggly. I softly whisper in his ear while the razor rounds the corners of his face just to keep him still. But then he jerks away and I slice a bit of his ear or the underside of his chin. He barely feels it, but I do.

Let The Work Begin

Serve breakfast at 6:30, bus the dishes. Wash the tables then put the dishes back. Sweep up.  Clean 5 bathrooms, wash some windows, empty a bunch of trash cans. Vacuum a hallway. Nap, Nap, Nap

Help grandpa carry in the large quantity of food from the trusty Subaru. Then start wrapping the sandwiches. Drink a Mountain Dew. Cut up a ton of lettuce, fill up a bunch of pitchers with milk.
Maybe crack a hundred eggs for tomorrow. Carry enough food for 65 hungry people through the lobby and into the luxurious dining room/mtg room/work room. Pack it all back. Clean up while eating ice cream.

 learning from the Sandwich Jedi: 140 sandwiches in a half hour

2016 Chateau Apres Lodge "The New Generation"---Hailey   ??? $ per hour

1980 Chateau Apres Lodge " The Middle Generation---Wendy and Jason with paychecks $2.00 per hour!

Passing The Torch

We all did it when we were young. We cleaned the Lodge. Every summer. We fed those damn geology students and cleaned up after them for fifty years straight. Thousands upon thousands of sandwiches. A million bathrooms, years of our lives spent vacuuming. Dishes, when stacked, would reach the moon. Mops and brooms so old and worn that they disintegrated in our little hands. Those were great times!
Now I have passed the tradition on to my own daughter. Except she gets the privilege that I was never offered. She gets to LIVE in the attic! She gets to spend the night in the strangely built, peculiar smelling, dingy and sweltering 4th floor of the Chateau. Alone.

This is the haunted hallway she must walk down in order to get to the toilet..far far away

This is the newly non-updated bathroom with a sink which no longer has the ability to provide water

And this is the little room to which Hailey calls home sweet home

Bubbly

 Tanner rarely gets to drink soda. Recently, while my back was turned, he snuck a big bottle of Pepsi from the fridge and just started chugging away. I think he was startled by the carbonation!