Right here, right now

Happy Thanksgiving Eve-eve, dear readers!

Tomorrow I will be on my way into the city with the kids to watch Macy's inflate the Thanksgiving Day Parade balloons.  I hope there aren't any balloon-escape incidents as there were last year, but this year we are stoller-free, so perhaps there will be a Mommy-pulls-out-her-back-carrying-Little-Man-around-the-Upper-West-Side-incident.

I have been giving this year's entry in the Thanksgiving Book some thought.  As I have mentioned before, my entries in the earlier years were pretty easy, since we had major life events to write about, some sad, some happy - miscarriage and unemployment, births, and new homes - but for the last few years, the lives of the Mean Mommy clan have been steadily chugging along with few major events.   Each day is full of school and friends and work and home improvement projects and laughter and tears.  And this year I am not only grateful for that, but for the perspective to enjoy this phase.

Our lives are busy, but with all wonderful things.  Sure, the hectic nature of raising three children can get to me, but I know that I will look back on these times and realize how young and strong and vital H and I were.  How I was the cog that kept the machinery of this family urning on a daily basis. How H busted his ass night and day to provide fuel for our engines. How this well-oiled unit we have created is the center of our children's universe.  How our children were in the nascent stages of becoming who they are and what a miracle it was to take part in that.  Homework, soccer games, giant carts full of groceries, Play-Doh, trips to the playground - these will all , at some point, be just a distant memory. We are in the glorious, messy, vibrant thick of it.

For many of us in this stage of life, our families, both nuclear and extended, are at that delicate tipping point.  Our children are growing up, but not yet grown, we ourselves are still young, and our parents are healthy and active.  We are in a moment of abundance and attention must be paid.  To use some Thanksgiving imagery, I feel like this state of being could be represented by a cornucopia, filled not with things, but with blessings.  It is called the "horn of plenty".  Plenty is defined as "the state or quality of abundance".

Then I have plenty.

Happy Thanksgiving.