Thanksgiving 2005

We started Thanksgiving day 2005 at home. Lately Ashton Beau has been into grabbing the phones. Can't imagine why he'd be interested in somthing as boring as a silvery thing that fits in his hand and has buttons that light up when you prerss them.

Then around 11:00 it was over the Fox River, through a bunch of woods, not to mention past the Woodfield mall, to Ashton Beau's maternal grandmother's house. Among the guests were DW's parents, her sisters, their children, and DW's maternal uncle. We enjoyed a traditional Thanksgiving dinner along with traditional Bohemian dumplings with sauerkraut on them. Ashton Beauregard crawled around with his cousins in the living room, climbed up and down the stairs and all-in-all really enjoyed himself. He even started walking a lot on his own over distances of about ten feet woitout any coaxing or special encouragment from DW or me.

Ashton Beau with counsins.

Lately, Ashton Beau has taken to making fish faces, especially right after he lets go of something to walk some where. Don't ask me where he picked this up.

Ashton Beau's "Whatch you talkin' about Willis" face.

Next came Ashton Beau successfully negotiating the very steep staircase at his grandmother's house.

Taking a break from the action with his Mom.

We let DW's parents' house around 4:00, went over the Fox River again and through more woods to Ashton Beau's paternal grandmother's house. We arrived a little after 5:00. The guests included my parents, my own paternal grandmother, cousins, and my best friend from high school who drove down with his wife from Milwaukee.

Here is Ashton Beau entertaining one of my cousins at the table. He's also really into grabbing ears and pulling on the really hard. We usually ask that he be gentle, in English and in Russian - нежный, pronounced: "neyehjnwee".

Ashton Beau really liked my fathers' Soviet Army officer's cover. To steal an old saying, you may can take the kid out of Russia, but you can't take Russia out of the kid. We'd never want to.

After the Soviet Army cover, vershton Beau treated us to some of his most engaging facial expressions, including another rendition of the fish face.

Then between 7:30 and 8:00 we took Ashton Beau up to my old room and put him in the pack 'n play my parents keep at their house so he could go to sleep. Unfortunately for Ashton Beau, he had to get up about an hour later to come doen to the car and get in his car seat. However, he expressed his displeasure for less than two minute and was quietly watching the countryside go by by the time we pulled out of my parents subdivision onto the main road.

Allow me to add that I was very proud of Ashton Beau this Thanksgiving. He went to two novel places with lots of people he does not see frequently, had his routine knocked all out of whack, went to bed in a strange place, got woken-up to go to the car, and woken-up again to go from the car to the house. And his worst disposition the whole day was a brief mid--afternoon whine for about ten minutes. Amazing!