Cooking with Mama

Happy Thanksgiving!

Here's a recap of this morning:
Me: "Astrid? Do you want to help Mama cook?"
Astrid: "Um... No, you can do it by yourself."

About 5 minutes later:
Me: "Astrid? Are you sure you don't want come down and help Mama cook for Thanksgiving?"
Astrid: "Okay sure!"

She was a great help. As I cut the ends off the vegetables, she would toss them into the trash bag. The same goes for squash and carrot skins that I peeled away. And as soon as I'd chop the squash into 1 inch squares, she would put them into the mixing bowl. She got really excited to do that part.

U. went for a run, but right before he left he said, "If she gets to be too much you can give her TV" and he spelled out TV in German which sounds like "T" "Fow". I think he was worried that she would turn into a whining mess left alone with mom who had her hands full with Thanksgiving food preparation. It made me laugh because TV now is a last resort. We just don't want her watching it if possible.

But he needn't have worried. She was a good little girl helping me, and then reading her books and coloring away as I worked in the kitchen. She would come check in with me every so often to see if I was doing something new and to ask me a bunch of questions (the new stage of a million questions about everything) and then she was content to have me be busy while she kept herself entertained. It was a piece of cake.

Now U. and Astrid went out for some "coffee and bread." U. gets Astrid a warm organic milk and they share a croissant. I feel like I should be doing something rather than just lounging. But it would be nice to take a short cat nap before dinner.

*Yawn*
Life is good.

My Pilgrim & Indian (Happy Thanksgiving 2008!)

U. wearing Astrid's Pilgrim hat, and Astrid wearing her Indian headband with feather.

Her preschool made these on the last day of school before Thanksgiving break. It must have looked so sweet seeing all the kids wearing their hats while eating their special Thanksgiving lunch.

Wishing everyone a wonderful Thanksgiving!

My little Pilgrim

An arts and crafts project in the spirit of Thanksgiving.

Astrid loves band-aids

Astrid had used all the band-aids on "phantom" boo boos. This was a good lesson because sure enough she had a real injury (she pinched her thumb between something and it started bleeding) that required a band-aid and there no band-aids to be found.

We made a stop at a drugstore after work and picked up some Sponge Bob band-aids and she now knows the importance of not wasting them, so she'll have some when she really needs it.

"We only use a band-aid when we're bleeding. Right mama?" she says to me.
"That's right honey; only when we really need a band-aid" I say.

Any excuse to wear a bandaid

Astrid loves band-aids. I got a box of kid band-aids that have various drawings on them - spiders, scorpions, ants, eyeballs, and even one that says "bloody cool." The box is almost empty and not because we've had a lot of scrapes around here - but because Astrid just loves to wear them - and will beg and plead for a band-aid even if it's just a phantom boo boo she claims to have just received. So now I need to stock up on another box just in case we have some real need for them.

Papa is a hero for putting a band-aid on Astrid last night. "He did it all by himself!" Astrid exclaimed. What a multi-talented Papa. =)

I voted for Obama!

I took Astrid with me to the voting booth this morning. She was excited to get an "I voted" sticker.