Countdown to Thanksgiving Thursday – Books, Videos & Toys

Day 5 of The Swine… between caring for my feverish and slightly dizzy son and trying to disinfect every surface in the house, I haven’t made time to even pull out the few Thanksgiving decorations we have or cut out those Thankful Leaves. (But I WILL. I am DETERMINED. Therefore it SHALL HAPPEN! Ahem, hopefully more than one day before Thanksgiving.) I was however able to take five minutes to pull out our Thanksgiving books. And since Zeeb’s watching a lot of TV this week, I actually thought to pull out one of my favorite Thanksgiving videos. And then I thought “Hey, why not blog this stuff?” Because I’m in a Helpful Hints kind of mood, apparently. Just call me Heloise. (except her hints are all about cleaning. And I’m definitely not your go-to girl for cleaning hints. So nevermind the Heloise thing.)

Call me Politically Incorrect, but I really wanted my kids to know the history of Thanksgiving. The Pilgrims, the Indians, all that good stuff. And since they barely teach any of that in school anymore, I’ve made it my mission to find good books on the topic. Here’s what we have in our collection:

The First Thanksgiving by Linda Hayward. This is geared toward younger elementary kids. It’s a good fact book told in story form.

The Story of The Pilgrims by Katharine Ross. Slightly simpler version. Ours has a bite out of one corner. Not sure if the description of the feast made someone hungry? You might say it’s so good the kids just eat it right up. Ha ha.

Don’t Know Much About The Pilgrims by Kenneth C. Davis. We just got this one via book orders last year. I like it because it points out interesting facts and tidbits that don’t usually make it into the basic narrative stories. Like did you know that “among the Mayflower children were Love and Wrastling Brewster, Remember Allerton, Resolved White, Humility Cooper, and Desire Minter.” Hmm… apparently the Pilgrims landed on the wrong coast – clearly they meant to find port in Hollywood.

Three Young Pilgrims by Cheryl Harness. Told from the perspective of three of the Pilgrim’s children. Obviously. It has good illustrations and interesting details at the end.

On The Mayflower. This one has photographs (of a reenactment. Since I’m pretty sure the camera wasn’t invented by the pilgrims.) It has a realistic feel and tells what life was like from the viewpoint of a ship’s apprentice and a passenger girl.

Squanto’s Journey by Joseph Bruchac. I liked the idea of getting the viewpoint of one of the indians – and Squanto has an amazing story to tell. But this book is just okay. It’s kind of trying too hard. Doing that “talk like an indian” thing (“only six winters have passed”). I just ordered another book, Squanto And The Miracle Of Thanksgiving that got very good reviews, hopefully we’ll like that one better.

We also have books that aren’t strictly “Thanksgiving” books but teach about gratitude so I think they are ideal for this season.

My absolute favorite is Counting Blessings by Debby Boone. Yes, that Debby Boone. It’s a fun book about how we can count blessings every day – make a game of it even – and makes the point that if you focus on the good in your life, you’ll be happier. I just think it’s a great message and the kids really liked this one too. (And I’m bummed because it looks like it’s out of print! Ack! Quick order a copy before they disappear!)

Another good one is The Berenstain Bears Count Their Blessings . The premise of this one is that Brother and Sister Bear are getting greedy and materialistic and are reminded to be thankful for what they have… a good reminder just before Christmas, don’t you think?

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Moving on to the audo-visual side of things… There’s a similar “be thankful” theme in The Veggie Tales Madame Blueberry video.

I LOVE this video. I like all the Veggie Tales, they are so good at making a story that appeals to kids while also being entertaining enough for adults to watch a few hundred times. But this one is a favorite of mine – it’s often quoted in our family and the silly song is just awesome.

For more traditional Thanksgiving entertainment, we have William Bradford – The First Thanksgiving. It’s an animated movie, and every year I hope the kids will sit down and watch it (or you know, the younger kids) but they never really get into it. I think it’s good, but apparently not exceedingly watchable.

Somewhere around here (not sure if we own it or I taped it? And yes, I seriously have VHS videos of holiday specials that I taped like 15 years ago, commercials and all) we have the Pooh Thanksgiving special. (it’s combined with some other generic “winter” episodes, I think.) I’ll have to track that one down, Zeeb and R do enjoy a good Pooh holiday special, and are not all that picky about the quality of the plot.

But of course the all time Thanksgiving Classic Award goes to Charlie Brown. It’s just not Thanksgiving until you’ve seen the Peanuts Gang pull out the folding chairs and make a huge pile of toast.

Whew! This is a long list! But wait! Just one more thing. Something for the “Toys” category. Technically my kids are too old for this one, but I’m getting it out again anyway. It’s the Little People Thanksgiving set.

Isn’t this so stinkin’ cute?

Okay, that’s all I got. I hope this was somewhat useful to someone out there. If nothing else I now have a comprehensive list of our Thanksgiving collection which would come in awful handy if we ever lost it all in a fire or something… which you know is the very first thing I’d worry about. “We lost everything! But wait! I have a list of our Thanksgiving books and videos on my blog! Oh, Thank HEAVENS for that!” Dude, I seriously need help. Also a concluding sentence. Looks like I’m not getting either one. Bummer.

A Few Thoughts Before I Watch NCIS And Go To Bed

* I love election day. Even when I lived in the heart of Liberal America and I knew my vote was getting tossed to the wind (sometimes literally, thank you King County corruptocrats)… I just loved the feeling that I have a voice in America. That each and every citizen really does matter. And today? Well, today I extra love it.

* Yesterday we put Zeeb on the alternating Tylenol/Motrin schedule, because Motrin alone just wasn’t cutting it. At bedtime we realized the only way to keep him dosed up was to give him some in the middle of the night. Hubby said he’d take a turn, because I did the night before. Well imagine my suprise when his alarm went off at 4am, so that he could give the dose at the exact right time. Very impressed with Husband was I.

* This morning when the Motrin wore off, Zeeb didn’t have a fever. I was glad, but also worried. I keep hearing the thing to be alert for is if the fever goes away for a day and then comes back. So I was strangely relieved when his fever returned this afternoon. It’s not as high as yesterday so hopefully this thing really is on the way out.

* I managed to find about half an hour to work on my writing today. Which consisted of making a list of fiction genres and then crossing out the ones I definitely don’t want to write. Here are the kinds of novels you won’t find with my name on the cover:
Horror
Mystery
Crime Thriller
Western
War/Military Fiction

I know, shocking that I’m not going to write a war/military novel isn’t it? I’m so knowledgable about such things and all.

* My 14 year old just called me “self righteous and mean”. Guess that means I’m doing something right, huh? (The aforementioned insults came after I told her she couldn’t have a Tori Amos CD because the lyrics are really inappropriate. Yes, I’m that kind of mom.)

There’s Just Something About A Monday

Zeeb is sick. Like initials and numbers, farm animal disease name sick. Or at least he has all those symptoms.

It started yesterday morning, with a 103.6 fever. That? Is very hot. Kind of amazing how hot a kid can be and still keep going. He also has a cough and a sore throat. (He kept saying his “neck” hurt, but I figured out he meant his throat.) And sometimes he complains his stomach hurts. To which I always reply, “like you’re going to throw up?” and he always answers, “I don’t know.” Which does not instill much confidence. We’ve spent a goodly amount of time sitting in the bathroom together, reading toy catalogs, just for fun. (This training paid off for Hubby today when “my stomach hurts” actually meant “I’m going to toss my cookies” and Zeeb made it to the proper place at the proper time. It is a huge feat when all of your children have reached the age where their being sick no longer equals you having to do major disgusting clean up jobs.)

Last night we dosed Zeeb up with ibuprofen and got him off to bed and I thought we were off the hook for the night. I thought wrong. He was up crying at 11:00pm. Strangely, at nearly six and a half years old, Zeeb still hasn’t figured out he can just come down stairs and find me if he needs me. Instead he cries and cries, in bed, and makes himself hysterical. This is probably partly my fault, because we still use a baby monitor. But that’s because this house is ridiculously big and I can not hear the kids at all from our bedroom. And as I just said, Zeeb won’t come get me. It’s a vicious cycle, I tell ya. So this is what he did last night. He cried for a while, got himself good and worked up, and then sort of wandered in the upstairs hall, crying, until K~ came out of her room to see what was wrong. She walked him downstairs and proceeded to chide me for being a neglectful parent. She, being 14 and all, clearly knows a great deal about good parenting.

So Zeeb slept in our room last night, on the couch. (Our bedroom is monstrously large. It was built to be something between a master suite and a mother-in-law apartment, so the bedroom is really the size of two rooms. I’m explaining this because normally there is no way we could fit a couch in a bedroom, but this bedroom is so humongous that we were able to move our entire sectional into the room and still not feel cramped. Meanwhile, the master bathroom? Is tiny. One sink, door hits the bathtub, TINY. The whole suite is just begging for a redo. But I digress.)

At 5:30 his ibuprofen was wearing off and Zeeb was sort of wimpering in his sleep, very pathetically. So I got up and re-dosed him, and went back to sleep. At 8:00, I heard the sound of a child running up and down the stairs, through the monitor. I assumed it was R~. But no, it was Zeeb. He ran upstairs to see if the tooth fairy came.

Criminy, I was supposed to remember there was a tooth under his pillow? After a night like that? (Hubby went up to try to do the “hide the money while pretending to look for it” move. Not sure if it was convincing, also not sure I care at this point.)

Today was a repeat of yesterday, only Zeeb’s temp spiked a little higher and he was doing this slightly delirious thing. I think he was having a bit of vertigo or something.

Meanwhile, I had to go to the elementary school for teacher conferences. Thankfully it was a MUCH better experience than last year. Zeeb’s teacher went on and on about how wonderful he is. “He lights up the room.” I believe were her exact words. Amazingly, she said Zeeb’s working at grade level in reading and slightly above in writing. R~’s teacher is approximately one kazillion times better than Mr. DingDong from last year. One example – she told me she doesn’t think tests should be designed to “trick” students. So she’s careful to make sure to cover everything that will be on a test, multiple times in multiple ways. And then if a student misses a problem on a test she’ll hand the test back to them and give them a chance to try again. (unless it’s like a true/false or yes/no type question, obviously.) This is in huge contrast to Mr. D. who seemed to take twisted pleasure in marking an entire section wrong when it was perfectly obvious that R~ misunderstood the directions. R~ still has some work to do to get up to grade standards in reading, but her teacher totally emphasized that she can tell R~ is working very hard and that is what really matters.

After the conferences it was off to the orthodontist. K and A both got assessed for braces. Big surprise, they both need them. K~ was relieved to learn she gets to have “adult” braces – the ceramic kind that don’t show as much metal. And she’ll only have to have them for about 18-24 months. Unfortunately for A~, his overbite is worse. So he’s stuck with the old school braces and a term of 2-3 years. But at least he’s younger (7th grade) – all the kids his age have braces so it’s no big deal. K~’s late to the game. Our last dentist kept telling me to wait because he thought K needed to learn better brushing habits before she got braces. And truth be told I was just as happy to put it off. The positive to both of them starting braces at the same time is the orthodontist is giving us a two-kid discount. It’s still crazy expensive, but the word “discount” always makes me feel a little better.

It should be no surprise that by this afternoon I had a whopper of a headache. Two advil couldn’t touch that sucker. It was all I could do to lay on the couch across from Zeeb and pretend to watch a movie with him. Day Two of MamaNano and I couldn’t think a creative thought to save my life. I just need to have a genre and plot figured out by Wednesday… starting from absolutely zilch, that should be no problem, right? Oh what a funny funny girl I am.

One Last Look At Halloween And A Welcome To Thanksgiving In One Post

Whew! I survived another Halloween. This one wasn’t so bad – R and Zeeb both chose to wear costumes that their older siblings wore a few years ago, thus simplifying my life immensely. And wasn’t it great that Halloween fell on a Saturday so we didn’t have to worry about them getting to bed on time and all that and we had the whole day to get ready? Anyway, it’s not my favorite holiday but it is a good one for photos. Sadly, most of my pictures show the kids’ faces and you all know how over-the-top paranoid I am about posting anything identifying and all that. So you’re stuck with the faceless, anonymous-type pictures. Let’s call them “Artsy” – it sounds better that way.

Here’s Zeeb, reaching into his pumpkin to pull out all the goop. He didn’t really like that part much. Tried to be done after the first scoop. But the goop was worth it when he got to the good part – drawing the face and directing Daddy on how to carve the perfect Jack O’ Lantern. He had a lot of fun with that.

R~ had no qualms about sticking her hand in a goopy pumpkin. The more goop, the better!

A~ chose the cover art from his favorite computer game, Portal, for his pumpkin design.

This is K~’s pumpkin, design chosen by her, carved by yours truly. It’s the cover art from one of her Birthday Massacre CD’s. Kind of creepy and yet pretty at the same time, don’t you think?

Zeeb and K~ were playing around with my flip video camera – thus providing me with a semi-anonymous picture of him in his astronaut costume.

And now I happily wave Good-Bye to Halloween. It’s time to pull out the Thanksgiving music (yes, I actually own a CD of Thanksgiving music - and I LOVE it.) and enjoy the coziness of November. I’m learning to love this time of year. Sitting by the fire, or sipping a cup of vanilla tea in my little kitchen cafe, the gray skies reminding me of home… (except when the skies are not gray. Which around here is pretty often. Sunshine in November?! What a concept! Yet another thing to be thankful for!) I admit, I am already thinking about Christmas shopping, but I want to try to savor the pre-Thanksgiving time too. In years past we’ve done “thankful leaves” – where I cut out a whole bunch of construction paper leaves and each night at dinner everyone writes down one thing they are thankful for that day. I put all the leaves up on the windows or whatever and it looks pretty and reminds us we have so much to be thankful for. I might try that again this year, if I can get my stuff in gear and get all the supplies this week. But I’m open to trying something new too. Do you guys have any ideas? Do you do anything to anticipate Thanksgiving? Any special crafts or family traditions for the days leading up to the holiday? Do Share!

Quick Takes: The Cure For Blogger’s Block

1. I swear, if it weren’t for Friday Quick Takes, I’d never get anything up on my blog. It’s so weird, I think of all kinds of things to write about but then I sit down in front of my computer and suddenly my mind is a blank. Which is a rather bad thing to happen especially if you dream of being a writer and your laptop is your primary vehicle for writing.

2. Speaking of writing… I haven’t done any. BUT! I’m reading ABOUT writing. Does that count for points? I took Jennifer’s advice and ordered Writing The Breakout Novel from Amazon. She was right, it’s very good. This coming from someone has had read exactly zero other books about writing. (Because I’m just that committed to my craft.) The author, Donald Maass, besides having a bonus “a” in his name is also a literary agent and knows of that which he speaks. His advice is good, but also very daunting. I’m highlighting and nodding my head as I read, thinking of all the great books I’ve read that fit his requirements for a breakout novel. (And then Self Doubt smacks me on the back of the head and says “And you think *YOU* could write such a book?”) (Luckily Self Doubt looks nothing like Mark Harmon, so I don’t listen to him – much.)

3. The other reason for my bloggity absence this week is that it’s the end of first quarter. Which shouldn’t matter given that I haven’t taken a class in approximately 16 years (EGADS, I AM OLD) … but parenting four kids who are all in school means I get the fun of helping K~ work on her giant quarterly project for history class that she put off until 2 days before it was due and then had a total meltdown when she realized it wasn’t as good as she wanted it to be and there was no time to improve it; and help R~ study for her big test in social studies where she had to memorize answers to questions like “What is a Democracy?” and “What is the Difference Between Rules And Laws?” ; and then I had to help Zeeb find a costume and a corresponding book for “Storybook Character Day” which is this year’s teacher’s way of letting the kids dress up for Halloween without actually calling it that. Ay yi yi, what a week it has been.

4. Also there was my brief stint as a Fundraiser. THANK YOU to my friends who stepped up and made donations to Bykota House on Tuesday as we feebly attempted to win the Daily Prize in the Giving Challenge. We came ever so close. Only about 400 donations behind the first place winner. But! We raised over $600 and that is no chump change when it comes to helping the kids in Cambodia and so I am very very thankful to everyone who donated. If by chance you wish you had donated but didn’t get around to it in time, don’t let that silly Daily Challenge deadline stop you… feel free to contribute right now! No pressure… just felt like it ought to be said.

5. On top of all those things, today is a Significant Day around these parts. It’s exactly three years since we adopted Zeeb. We don’t really celebrate adoption days, for any number of reasons not the least of which is that birthdays stress me out so much I don’t need to add anymore personal holidays to our calendar. But also because it seems odd to make a huge celebration out of the day that Zeeb was taken from everything he’d ever known and the foster family he loved. It’s a special day, it was a big momentous day that I waited insanely long to see and I’ll never forget it. But mostly it’s an important day because of all the non-momentous days that have come after it.

6. I’d say I can’t believe it’s been three years, but that would be a lie. In many ways, that day seems like a lifetime ago. We’ve gone through a lot as a family since then. A lot of hard stuff, much of it not adoption-related, and yet probably greatly influenced by the adoption too, you know? I look back and I’m like “Dang, how did we get through all that?” (Answer? God’s grace alone. Pure and simple.) Not that it was all bad, but it was a pretty rough three years. But things are really good now. Not perfect, but really good. And I am so thankful.

7. I really wanted to make a video for Zeeb of his adoption day and our time in Vietnam. He has a photo book of all that, but he’s been asking to see video too. Unfortunately, I can’t find the videos. They’re on miniDV tapes and I’ve searched all over and I found tapes of Christmas 2004, and R playing soccer in first grade, and all kinds of other things (including very long school band concerts – why do I always feel the need to tape the ENTIRE concert? It’s boring watching it the first time, why would I think I’d want to watch the whole thing again?!)… but I can’t find the tape from Vietnam. I am bummed. And almost to the point of panicking. I’ll save panicked for after Hubby looks. Because I have a feeling he stashed the tape somewhere “safe”. BUT! The good news is, we did take some short videos with our camera. I’ve been getting all misty-eyed watching those. Even better news – I took one from behind, so I can share it with you! Check this out… Hubby and Zeeb reading a children’s Vietnamese-English dictionary book together just a few days after we adopted him:

more about "Zeeb Teaches Hubby Vietnamese on Flic…", posted with vodpod

What an amazing, sweet, adorable kid! And the Husband’s not bad either. LOL. Yep, I am blessed.

More Quick Takes Here.