Leftovers

Happy day after Thanksgiving!  If you observe turkey day, I hope it was plentiful, delicious, and satisfying.

Connor's first Thanksgiving was an exhausting one for him.  He could only stay awake for an hour and half at a time, after which he got overstimulated and went down for 2+ hour-long naps.  I can't complain - it worked out well for us.  But during those waking hours I was hogging him, making sure my face was the sun in his sky, and just generally fawning over him to what I hope wasn't an annoying degree.  I felt very mother hen-ish, holding him, cooing to him, and focusing most of my attention on him when he wasn't napping.

When he was napping, I started embodying my mom.  If you've never felt this overlap in generations, it's a really odd feeling.  After pushing their chairs back from the dinner table last night, I found myself up and in the kitchen, cleaning dishes, putting leftovers away, loading the dishwasher, and wiping down the counter tops.  I was enjoying myself, but all I could think was, "If I do this now, I won't have to do it later when the cranberry sauce and gravy are all crusted onto the plates."  I might as well have said, "Let's not eat on the white plates.  If we eat on dark-colored plates you won't be able to see the food stains as well."  Now, my mother has never said that, but she has advised me against ever buying a white car so that the dirt won't show.  I obviously have been thinking about mothers and my mother a lot in general.

I love talking with and reading about strong mothers.  For those that I get to converse with face-to-face, I secretly size them up and try to decide if they are someone I want as my mentor.  It's all very J.D. from Scrubs-ish.  No one knowingly auditions for this role, but if I find the right person I secretly leak my crazy new-mom thoughts to them to gauge whether I'm CRAZY crazy, or just normal crazy.  I usually think of myself in the former category, but after talking with some mothers that I admire I tentatively move myself to the latter category, if only temporarily.  I love talking with my mother and sisters, but they all know I'm crazy.  So, it's a whole new ballgame to let someone who's not blood related into my circle of secrets.

If you've never tried it, I recommend doing the crazy-thought leak test.  It's like a barometer to help you gauge exactly how sane you are, or at least how sane other people think you are, or a game where I keep pushing the limits.  I haven't noticed anyone clearing out of the break room at work when I go down for lunch yet, so I'm hoping that means that I haven't let too much cuckoo out of the bag.  And to be honest, it's not just a game for me, it's just me, clean and simple.  With the holiday season in full swing, it will be hard to hide the crazy, so it's probably a good thing that I'm letting it be known now.  Christmas, here we come!