Gobble this up

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.  Our Thanksgiving was rather mellow.  We ordered our "feast" from Marie Callenders, and I would definitely recommend the experience to others.  It's just much easier.  And what I mean by the last statement, is that it seems much easier, because I really have no idea what it would be like to cook on Thanksgiving.  I, like all great American men, like to spend this day giving thanks for football and misogyny.  But I did feel much less repressed shame doing nothing  - knowing that Mindy was doing less.  So that was nice.  And of course I did get up off my ass to swoop in for my 10 minutes of glory dissecting an animal.  And this turkey carving experience was fantastic.  Turns out, we had actually only purchased a turkey breast.  I had no idea this was the case when we brought the food home, because the thing easily weighed five pounds.  Which really got me thinking that it was a shame that I never got to see this turkey intact.  She sounds spectacular.  But carving up a turkey breast with no bones really simplifies the procedure.  I decided to whittle the meet into replicas of the Nina, Pinta, and Santa Maria to everybody's delight.  Ok, that didn't happen.  But I wanted it to.

Mindy's parents brought over a photo album commemorating the life of Mindy. It was really fun to see all the pictures of lil' Mindy.  Do you remember a few posts ago when I mentioned that Cameron and Carter looked almost identical as babies?  Well, I think we figured out where they get that from.  It was uncanny how much baby Mindy looked like Carter.  Whatever baby gene Mindy's family has passed down is really, really strong.  It doesn't know the bounds of gender.  It tramples over whatever weak little Caucasian genes you throw in there.  It just dominates.  Mindy and I have been meaning to introduce a game where we put up pictures of Cam and Carter at around the same age and challenge y'all to pick out the correct Graves' son.  But I think we might need to add one more baby option to this game-show.  Now the only thing left to do is to come up with a catchy title for this segment.  "Name that Asian" feels it possibly may be offensive.  "I know that baby, maybe...?"  has a decent ring to it, but I don't want to settle.  Feel free to post some ideas in the comment section.

During the Thanksgiving meal, Mindy had a fantastic idea.  She asked the table if they would like to share "their biggest regret of the year" along with what they are most thankful for.  Because Mindy didn't have to do much cooking this year, I think she subconsciously decided to create a "recipe" for how to create holiday drama.  Bringing together relatives into forced intimacy and then springing on them deep questions about things they regret seems like a pretty awesome concoction.  It all worked out fine in this situation, because nobody was dumb enough to answer the question with any honesty.  But I recommend you try it at home. 

Speaking of honest feedback, I think it's about time for Cam to experience some more criticism in his life.  He has just gotten way too much praise.  Yesterday morning when we were discussing our plans to hang Christmas lights, he asked me "why am I such a good helper?"  I said, "Because you're good at figuring stuff out and are fun to hang out with."  He said, "And I'm always cute."  Too which I laughed and said, "Yes, and very humble."  But he didn't get my sarcasm, he just noticed my amusement, nodded with a smirk of self-appreciation and added, "Yes, and I'm also funny."  Couple interactions like this with the fact that earlier this week he tried to charge me admission to come cuddle with him at bed time, and I'm thinking we definitely need to knock this little dude down a few pegs.  Time to replace nightly affirmation hour with a little "Daddy is playing for real" time.  That and a verbal sprinkling of reality that cuts to his little core should do the trick.  Don't worry, I learned all of this in graduate school.  I'm a professional.

That's all for today.  Here are some things to look forward to in future blogs.  Carter is in his "strangers aren't sure what gender I am" phase, which has supplied some pretty good moments. Cameron is about to play on his first soccer "team" and it is going to be coached by a good friend.  If this situation doesn't provide bloggable moments and opportunities to terrorize my friend, then I don't know what will.  And Reilly continues to descend deeper into his postpartum depression.  But if he can muster enough energy, he has hinted that he would like to make a return to the blog.  We shall see.

Happy Holidays,
Father