Our second Thanksgiving with Emmett

What I remember about Thanksgiving a year ago: Emmett had definitely gotten the memo that the holiday was all about eating. I remember spending a ridiculous amount of the day nursing. I even had to nurse while eating dinner. Somewhere there's a picture of me sitting on the couch with a plate of food balanced on the Boppy while Emmett is latched on.

This year, Thanksgiving started with something that felt like a miracle: Emmett slept until 7 a.m.! He typically first wakes up sometime around 5, and sometimes even earlier than that, so this was unexpected and delightful. How nice to actually wake up after there's daylight!

I'd gotten a head start on cooking the day before (daycare was open but my workplace was closed), and it's a good thing that I did because as soon as I started cooking again, I found myself wondering, "How on Earth did I think I was going to be able to cook with the boy running around the kitchen, playing with the dog's dishes, knocking things over, etc.?" The answer, of course, was to take him out of the house altogether. The weather has been beautiful this week and Adam and I both spent time with Emmett outside while the other person cooked or straightened things up.

I was interested to see what Emmett would eat since many of the Thanksgiving menu items other than potatoes (sweet and mashed) were ones he hadn't had before. I was a little surprised that he didn't get more into the sweet potatoes since that was one of the first foods that he really loved. Whether he likes regular potatoes or not seems to vary from day to day and this was apparently a bit of an off day. He ate a bit of turkey-shaped marinated baked tofu, and while he didn't like the stuffing when I served it to him, he ate a fair amount of it when he was able to gra it off a plate next to his high chair try. Just on a lark, I gave him a bit of Mama Stamberg's cranberry relish, a recipe involving onions, horseradish, cranberries, sour cream, and sugar served in a slightly frozen state and he really surprised me by wanting more. He ate like four or five big spoonfuls of the stuff. A day later, it looks like the stains on his clothes have mostly come out.