What a whirlwind the last few weeks have been. As the weather turns cooler and the holidays spring up, things with kids seem crazy. This holiday season has been like no other I’ve ever had.

We’ve dealt with some virus in our house, traveled with two little kids, Thanksgiving, and a three-year-old’s birthday party. While it didn’t feel like a movie, it did provide some drama.

So here’s how our November went.

Memories of Family Growing up

I can’t tell the whole story of our Thanksgiving 2023 without providing some backstory for those who don’t know me.

My mother was the fourth out of eleven children. As a rarity these days, all eleven have been tight all my life. I’m sure they’ve fought, but family get-togethers have always been a great time.

Growing up, I spent every weekend at my cousin’s house, or he came to mine. During holidays like Thanksgiving or Christmas, all my family from all over the country would come in. All the cousins had a fantastic time playing. We made some memories that I think about every holiday.

I want that for my kids.

We have a great group of friends in the area, with most having kids around my sons’ ages, so I feel blessed. But there is something about having family-best friends that I want them to experience. My nephews live on the other side of the country, so weekend plans don’t happen much.

When my mom said my aunt wanted everyone to come for Thanksgiving, we wanted to go, but there were too many roadblocks.

1. Attempting a three-and-a-half-hour road trip with a near three-year-old and a six-month-old sounded terrible.
2. Lodging would be problematic for us. My aunt lives on a lake outside of a small city, so we would be commuting to all the festivities every time, which didn’t sound great with kids.
3. My oldest’s birthday party would happen the Sunday after, so that we wouldn’t have much time.

My aunt found us a house on the lake, just a few places down. So we agreed to go, even though problems 1 and 2 still lingered.

I hadn’t seen them much since my parents moved to a different state. Our big family events turned into smaller, separate ones as we grew older.

Sick Again From Daycare

Before I had kids, I knew they always got sick. I knew daycares were virus factories. But I didn’t understand it until we put my oldest in a twice-a-week program. I also didn’t understand how long someone could stay sick.

You can read about our stomach bug issues from a few weeks ago. Well, as we headed into November, I felt a little off. My throat felt swollen, and I had some congestion. I felt more drained than usual at the end of the day, but most of the day, I didn’t feel sick.

Then, a few days later, my son started coughing. He never complained about his throat, but a day after the coughing began, he got pink eye in his left eye. We made a doctor’s appointment for the next day to get some treatment, but we knew that we’d have to let it run its course.

The day after we saw the doctor, his other eye turned pink and oozed. We missed the entire week of daycare. My toddler didn’t want to rest much, so I ran out of things to do quickly since we couldn’t leave the house.

As my toddler started to heal and show signs of recovery, mama started to cough and have a sore throat. Then, as we expected, our baby developed pink eye, eventually spreading into both eyes.

This all covered about three weeks, leading into the Santa pictures we had planned with the kids, my son’s school’s Thanksgiving celebration, and our travel plans.

We debated whether we could even go up until the day we left. We didn’t want to travel with the sick kids. We didn’t want to infect anyone at Thanksgiving, either. Plus, we were all tired from the virus.

Luckily, we all recovered in time, and our family told us to come on anyway. They wanted to see us after five, eight, or ten years, depending on the family member.

Traveling with Two Kids

So, the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, we decided we would still go. My wife worked a half-day while I watched the kids and did what I could to prepare.

Once she got home, we were only minutes away from the baby needing his next nap. We worked as quickly as we could to load up the car. Since we didn’t know when we were leaving, I had to break down all the baby’s sleeping equipment, like the pack-n-play and sound machine.

I loaded the car in record time. It felt like that scene in Home Alone where everyone ran around the house. All packed up, we took off.

Or attempted to.

First, we had to drop the dog off at a friend’s and get food. And because of the cold front, my tires were registering low. Once we got all that taken care of, we hit the road only thirty minutes late for the baby’s nap.

Both kids played it cool. The older one watched videos on his tablet while the younger one looked out the window. Eventually, he fell asleep.

As we got on the highway and up to speed, we started to worry about the oldest needing the bathroom. I had thrown in one of the smaller training potties in case we needed to stop in the middle of nowhere. I worried more about having to stop while the baby slept. Luckily, no one needed a sudden stop, and we had no accidents the entire way.

For better or worse, the older one stayed on his tablet for most of the three-hour drive. I’m unsure how a tablet compares to when I was younger on road trips. I would keep my nose in a book or Game Boy most of the trip. For now, he’s doing a good job controlling it, but I’m worried about tablet addiction.

But we made it with one stop while everyone was awake.

Thanksgiving with the Family

Once we arrived, we got right into celebrating with family. My mom and dad came to greet us at the car and help carry things. My aunt, who organized and hosted it all, met my oldest once before, but he took to her like he’d known her forever. I had a few cousins there helping to prepare for the feast the next day, so my son got to meet them and their kids.

But the fun started the next day with everyone there. We had nearly thirty family members there of all different ages. My two were the youngest, but some cousins were around the same age. I loved watching them run around and play.

It’s interesting that while they start shy meeting each other, it only takes a few minutes to get them acting like old pals. Watching them was the entire reason we traveled, and it felt amazing to watch it unfold.

The next few days, we did things with family in smaller numbers. Seeing this part of my life again felt so special to me. I had missed it since my parents moved away, but I hadn’t realized how much.

But we didn’t get to linger long. We had a mission to get back. So we loaded up the car the Saturday after Thanksgiving and traveled back home.

Birthday

We had to rush home because we needed to get set up for our son’s 3rd birthday party. Since we have an infant in our care now, we didn’t want to try to plan a party somewhere around his naps, so we hosted the party at our house.

We got home and went straight to work setting up. My wife did a fantastic job planning. The decorations and food were a hit. Our son loves his superheroes and never goes anywhere without his cape, so we even got capes for everyone to wear during the party.

We planned on having a superhero-themed inflatable jump house, too. My wife found a company that would bring it and tables and chairs, but they stopped communicating with us until Thanksgiving week. While we started to panic, we chalked it up to the holidays. Saturday night before the party, they called us to confirm everything. They told us they would be there around 10 AM.

By noon, they hadn’t shown up and weren’t answering any communication again.

Luckily, we found another company that could bring a bounce house for the kids to play with, but we wouldn’t have any tables. This company showed up just in time, and the kids had a blast.

The party went off without a hitch. My son loved it and asked for his party days after.

Family is Everything

We crammed in so much in that week. Doing a road trip with two young kids isn’t for the faint of heart.

But I’m so thankful that we did it.

Seeing my family and introducing my kids to these people who played such a massive part in my upbringing felt amazing. I’m so thankful that my kids met their cousins and played so hard. I’m happy my son had a great party, and I thank my wife for all of it.

These are memories that none of us will forget.

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