Our Thanksgiving was great as always although a little more "complex" this year with the grandbabies. I always make a menu, a la Mom, to put on the fridge. But this time I had to do it in the form of a work schedule (i.e. 7:30 a.m. put turkey in oven) because this year, we had to eat at exactly noon as Kenny Jr had to leave at 1 to go to work. No prob. But...it didn't take long for me to realize I had failed to enter quite a few tasks on the list.
Every year, all the young guns have their "Turkey Bowl" touch football game at sunrise so Travis asked if we could watch Tanner since Brille had to work. "No prob" I said. So he dropped the baby off at 6:30 a.m. and Emily came over at 7 with Max. No prob. Mom did it with six kids under foot so we could do it with two. Right? I would just have to dig deep into my working past and brush off my dusty multi-tasking skills to manage the menu and babysitting. I borrowed Debbie's roaster this year for the turkey and I had it sitting on the counter. It only took five minutes after Max had arrived to realize that it would have to be moved as his little arms could now easily reach up and touch it. Luckily, it hadn't been plugged in yet...because I was already late on my task list because Tanner's diaper needed to be changed. The top of the washer in the laundry room we decided would be a safer place and as Ed was plugging it in, the fuse blew. I looked at the clock and it was 7:30 and no turkey in the oven. Tanner looked at me and said with his cries that he was hungry for his bottle and ready for a nap. No prob. I did what I used to do at work.... delegated the job to Emily.
While she was feeding Tanner, we thought Max would get into watching the Macy's parade quietly in front of the TV. All those big balloons and pretty floats. Nope. He wanted to play with the cordless answering machine. When the receiver is lost, it can be found by pushing a button and making a very loud BEEP BEEP BEEP to find it. Of course, that was more fun than watching some silly parade on TV...although Tanner didn't like it much because he couldn't go to sleep with all that racket.
So, we sent Max and Ed off to the park to watch the guys play football so we could get a quieter house and get back to the list on the fridge. No prob. The turkey was finally in at 8:05 and I hadn't used this roaster before but I crossed my fingers (and the turkey wings) and hoped that it would be done in time. Rachel was up now as she had worked till midnight the night before. Two and 1/2 cooks in the kitchen (sounds like a TV show) back on task. (The 1/2 was me because Tanner, of course, decided to only take a 30 minute nap today of all days). We had Christmas music on the radio, flour on our faces a baby on my hip and we were rotating items in and out of the oven with precision and grace. Although there was a slight delay in rotation when one of the desserts took longer to cook because we had used a smaller pan than recommended. (my bad.) Emily kept saying "Mom it's still jiggly in the middle". No prob I said We'll just call it the "Jigglin' George" cake named after the new contraption that Mom and Dad have acquired.
In the end, we ate at 12:15 which wasn't too off track. The meal was de-lish. The sweet potatoes were a big hit which was surprising because I had totally not followed the recipe (accidentally on purpose a la Mom). Nothing was burnt....including little fingers. No one was hurt....except Brett who came back from the game gimpy from a tackle (I thought it was touch football???) and we got to relax and enjoy the rest of the day. Ahhhhhh. No prob!
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