November 29: Thanksgiving, Being Together, and Mice

I hope you had a happy Thanksgiving. We were grateful for the beautiful weather for our outdoor, safely distanced, masked-except-when-eating meal with Carl’s family. It is odd to write “Carl’s family” when everyone is now my family too, but that tells you the connection of origin. Amy wanted an appropriate outfit so she cut leaves out of construction paper and taped them to herself since real leaves weren’t sticking to the tape. 

We recently watched the movie “Inside Out” and Sarah’s favorite character is, unsurprisingly, Sadness. Amy drew pictures of each character, starting with Sadness. Sarah likes to pretend to be Sadness face down on the floor and then Amy pretends to be Joy dragging Sadness by her foot. If you haven’t yet seen the movie, I highly recommend it. It is a good reminder that all of our feelings are important and we don’t need to force ourselves to be happy if we aren’t.

I had a small perspective shift regarding Sarah’s frequent requests to do “tiny tiny” snuggle time with me. I so often can feel slightly annoyed at the timing of the request, but I realized that I could translate her request to “Mom, I want to spend time with you.” That may seem like an obvious translation, but until I made it that clear I hadn’t quite seen it. What a wonderful request it is now. I may still not always be ready to drop everything to do it, but it feels a bit easier now. 

Given the rising numbers of Covid-19 cases I have closed my business for the remainder of the year. I don’t know if I’ll reopen in January. My protocols within my office space are designed for protecting against transmission from someone who is asymptomatic so in theory I could keep working. But I feel better about reducing the overall risk to my family and clients by canceling what I can. 

Every Saturday morning Sarah and Amy have a zoom session with Mom-Mom and Amy gives drawing lessons. Yesterday Amy drew a Witch Mouse and Wizard Mouse and also helped Sarah draw a Musical Note Mouse.

I hope you are all well and giving yourself room for all of your feelings.