busy, busy

We're hosting Thanksgiving at our house again this year for Brad's family. We started this tradition a couple years ago.
See, his mom is a severe diabetic. But before this annoying disease hit her hard, she was all about some holiday fun. She loved prepping for Thanksgiving, cooking and baking up a storm. Now that she can't see as well, not to mention the fatigue that gets her, it's just not doable anymore. When I heard they had Thanksgiving at the Golden Corral a few years ago, I decided it was time to step in and take back Thanksgiving for their family. I mean, not that there's necessarily anything wrong with the ol' Golden Corral, but something about it doesn't exactly scream "Eat here for the holidays!" to me. Standing in line at a buffet with a bunch of strangers just kind of kills the cozy, family, holiday atmosphere.

Anyway, Brad loved the idea, so ever since, we've hosted Thanksgiving dinner at our house. Every year, I get excited about it. I love to feed people. It makes me happy. The prep work totally stresses me out. But it's a good stress... the kind where I want everything to be perfect for the people I love. The stress that comes with a fun challenge... in this case, it's the challenge of having the house/food/ourselves ready in time. I'm always amazed it works out and everything is put together about 5 minutes before the doorbell rings. The 5 minutes leading up to that point? My hair is still damp, there are toys everywhere, and Brad is most likely still in his pajamas. I like to call it the annual Thanksgiving miracle.
So this week, I'll be super busy dealing with all of that and praying for the miracle to be granted for the third year in a row. Oh, did I mention I decided to tackle Christmas decorating before everyone comes? I'm keeping the dining room Thanksgiving, because it deserves its moment to shine. But I like Christmas and want to celebrate it longer than 4 weeks, so the rest of the house gets decked out.


***

We met Noah's therapist on Friday. It was mainly a meeting to meet her, the CBRS coordinator, and go over some paperwork. Even though she wasn't technically "on the clock" to work with Noah, she immediately sat down, pulled a toy out of her goodie bag and went to work. Noah loved her. He sat there and played with this same toy for about 15 minutes. He also loved our coordinator (who happens to be our neighbor). They both got their workout for the day too. They made the mistake of saying "jump" and thinking it'd be no problem lifting him high in the air. I think their arms were about to fall off by the time they left. His heft isn't really noticeable as much to me anymore, but I forget that most 2 yr olds don't weigh close to 40 lbs. Actually, the coordinator informed us that her 6 yr old weighs 48 lbs. What can I say? We totally have a future NFL player on our hands. And you've seen the pictures. He's not even chunky. Just solid. However, Noah thought they were just awesome and made for the perfect jungle gyms. He was a total flirt.

He also had his speech evaluation Friday. It was probably a bit much to squeze all that in, in one day, because he really wasn't wanting to cooperate with the lady. She mainly had to go off of what we told her, which of course put him reeeeally behind on their little delay chart. Oh well. At this point, a delay is a delay. We get the gist.
Yesterday afternoon, Noah had his first CBRS session. For now, we're holding off on speech therapy. It's not that we don't think he needs it, but financially, it's just not affordable at the moment. Not if we'd like to keep eating and bathing regularly. I also know my kid, and I'm positive that having two sessions of CBRS + speech + normal holiday events is going to equal one overwhelmed toddler. Every time someone works with him in this way, it completely exhausts him mentally. After Ms P left, he got his blankets and was ready for a nap (a good 45 minutes earlier than normal). So for now, we're going to just give CBRS a try, since they include speech as part of the therapy, as well as cognitive, social, etc... all of which he needs a little help with. After Christmas, we'll see where we'll go from here.
The session went okay. He sorted colors really well, loved doing the action songs, and was generally happy. The only issue is that when he got overwhelmed or bored with whatever she was trying to introduce, he walked off like "okay, if I ignore you, maybe you'll stop".
However, I would like to brag for a second and announce that Noah now can verbally count to two. I know that's not a big deal for most kids his age, but it's big for him. He loves to count and has figured out how to say "uh, two". :) He also said "apple" several times the other night. So we're definitely getting somewhere.

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That's all for now. My bff and her fiance are coming over for dinner tonight. It's more of an excuse for us to talk about wedding stuff, I think. But either way, I'll be busy scrambling around, shoving storage boxes into a closed-off room and pretending that our home always looks this organized and neat. Of course, she knows better, so I don't know who I'm trying to fool.

Happy Tuesday!