Deer Sata

It's taken me a little while to recover from hosting my family for Thanksgiving. It's not all the planning, cleaning, shopping, cooking and entertaining that got to me. It's the depression that hit when when the last car load left, and the house got quiet and still.

One of the highlights of the long weekend was being able to spend time with my six year old nephew. When children are that young, a year is way too long to go without seeing them. You miss so much growing up.

Everyone says they see a lot of me in Noah. JB says it's the look his face gets when he's deep in thought. Sis says it's his huge, pumpkin-shaped "C.S." head. (Where "C.S." can stand either for "Charles Shultz", creator of the round-headed Peanuts characters, or for "C-Section".)

Then there's his colorblindness. Both Noah and I are blessed with the recessive X-chromosome that's been passed down on Mom's side of the family for generations. When Sis told me about Noah's kindergarten crayon confusion, I was tickled pink. (I may not know what pink looks like, but I know how it feels.)

When my family arrived on the day before Thanksgiving, Noah and I played Wii games until way past his bedtime. He wanted to play Wii again on Thursday but I had too much cooking to do. So I tied an apron on him which almost touched the floor, lifted him onto a step stool, and he helped me with some of the simple chores that didn't involve anything sharp or hot.

Since I still have the attention span I had at six years old, I completely understood when he asked if he could be excused from kitchen duty to play Rayman's Raving Rabbids.

It's been a week and a half since they left. Yesterday Sis sent me a copy of Noah's revised letter to Santa. It seems he's added a few new items to his wish-list since returning to Wisconsin: a Wii and his own, Noah-sized kitchen.

Noah wants some sort of football, a kid-sized snow blower, Hot Wheels,
a Wii and a kitchen area. I hope this is for Santa and not Satan.