Today is my mom's birthday. So we're going out to dinner in a few minutes. A. is doing the traditional 'wrangle the boy into nice clothes for grandma's birthday'. N. and I baked a cake (chocolate-lover's angel food cake from The Cake Bible). We had to convince him to write in the birthday card he picked out yesterday (he says 'Mommy, you can ( Read more... )

We just got back from Thanksmas - A's mom's brother hosts a family gathering between Thanksgiving and Christmas every year, usually this first weekend in December. We have the standard turkey dinner and fixings with some xmas standards thrown in, tons of desserts, and a few presents to open at the end. There are several late November and December ( Read more... )

I've come to grips with the fact that the real source of my angst - tomorrow is my mom's birthday.  My mom is, like most mothers, the main source of drama in my life.  But my mom takes it to a new level (a really low level), and since this is one of the milestone birthdays, I'm thinking about her a LOT ( Read more... )