What I am Thankful For

This year I am thankful for many things.  One is my wonderful family.  Last weekend before Thanksgiving we all went to see the tree being lit at the local shopping “fashion park.”  My family has been my lifeline.  My parents are the most amazing grandparents to Preston.  They have been my saviors.  I am also thankful for three wonderful siblings.  This year I got a new brother-in-law too! 

I am thankful that I have the world’s most amazing friends.  Not only those I have known all my life and cherish with all my heart, but those of you that are now in my life because of Preston.  I feel so blessed that I can share my life and you all can share your lives with me.  Katie Johnson messaged me on Facebook a few weeks back and said we have 70 mutual friends! Our “family” is truly amazing and I don’t know what I would do without you all.  I am thankful for my health (even though my mother, Mel and Marrah have dealt with my self-diagnosing whatever I find on WebMD).  I am thankful for a fulfilling career with a great firm and wonderful people. 

I am thankful that Preston has such wonderful friends and a great personality and that he has a thirst for knowledge.  I am thankful he loves school and is so loved by everyone.  Here he is at Julia’s birthday party helping to blow up the bounce house:

Mostly I am thankful for this:

The absolute love of my life.

Now on to Thanksgiving.  We planned this year to do Thanksgiving in New York and Christmas in Virginia.  We set out Wednesday in the world’s worst driving weather (fine mist) and 10 1/2 hours later we made it to New York.  I must say Preston was a gem but the traffic was just awful.  As I said on Facebook, northbound on I-95 there were 10 accidents and 23 state troopers for the duration of the trip.  It took an hour just to get through Delaware---all 11 miles of it!  It was worth it because the next day Preston was up at the crack of dawn for the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade:

Ready to go!

Preston the Straphanger.  We cabbed it to 63rd and Central Park West.  The weather was amazing for the first hour until the wind picked up.

This position and then picture both legs upon my right shoulder was how we spent the parade.  Mommy was so sore for two days after but for him to see more than just the big balloons, he needed to be up in the air. Katie and Steve were on the park side of the parade across the street and Steve said he kept seeing Preston go up, a float would go by, Preston would come down, and so on and so forth.  Here is how the parade starts: with the Macy’s stars.  My sister has been going to the parade for about 15 years straight, maybe more and is on a list to march in it.  Her wish is to hold the star.  Hear that Oprah?  Katie wants the stars!

He absolutely LOVED the parade. I will put more pics of the balloons up on Facebook but here were some of his all time faves:

For all you Ghostbusters fans-how cool if this was the Stay Puft Marshmallow man instead of the Pillsbury Dough Boy?

Of course the absolute hands down favorite was the man himself-SANTA!  My son is over the moon about Santa.  Here he is!

And there was one happy boy because we got back to the apartment before Santa had made it to Herald Square!  Here is my handsome boy dressed for Thanksgiving.

That night at about 10:30 he came down with a low grade fever and sore throat.  Because I have a Virginia health plan and it was not accepted at Urgent Care, we had to go to the ER. The nurses were floored that he was so cooperative-even asked when they were going to take his blood pressure.  He was given a throat culture and sent home with antibiotics. He was so feverish and lethargic that we drove home on Friday evening.  I didn’t get to see my friends or spend the night at Marrah’s, but he was just feeling so crummy.  Saturday morning he woke up happy and the fever broke.  His culture, I found out today, was negative so no more amoxicillin (and as I had said he hated amoxicillin which is just plain weird to me.  But nothing beats him telling me that the bottle said, “Kids don’t like this.”). I think that he was run down after all the excitement-at the parade he had his jacket off for a half hour since it was super warm when we first got there and his sleeping was very off.  But back to normal now!

 

Notice my brother with his stupid faces in pics all the time!

Last but not least, how cool is this train he got from Grandma and PaPa for his room?  It plays 20 songs and real smoke billows out of the smokestack! It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas!