The Tday Holiday

 P's been having a blast in Kansas.  He's continued his "fire and arson safety" bit, like a good little homeschooler ;)

Enjoyed pizza parties with Grams....

Finessed his nut cracking skills with Gramps... (Which he has been dying to do ever since we saw The Nutcracker a few years back.  I'm not sure why it took us so long to purchase some nuts in their shells and set to cracking...  He cracked a bunch, lovingly filling a bowl, saying they were his contribution on Thanksgiving.)

He's enjoying eating different foods, exploring new tastes and textures.  He finds the double fridge here super fab...

And then, it was the big day.  The child didn't sleep Thanksgiving Eve, he was too excited about the coffee cake we had left to rise and the following day of fun at Aunt Marielle's ....

F.U.N. ;)  (omg we love Bric!)

E's whole family was there.  It was a fabulous treat.  Even Aunt Alicia's family came (which thrilled us to pieces since we so adore them!  P can't get enough of Alicia's baby brother, dubiously dubbed "Rodney" by the Little Man...) And for the first time, there were other Schultz children!  I'd absentmindedly wondered in the past how P would react to losing the limelight at family functions (inevitable with so many relatives;).  I mean,  he really loves getting ALL of the attention, what could one expect when another rugrat hems in on the love?  

But the drama was only in my head.  He played a bit with his peers but mostly bopped around per usual.  When the adorable three year old brought down the house with his singing and entertaining abilities (preciousness!) the Little Man didn't seem to care and was content to climb the brick fireplace and play hide and go seek with his serious favorite, Courtney.  Maybe he wouldn't smother a sibling... 

E's wonderful cousin (a dentist;) missed a lot of the fun, fixing E's tooth and thereby killing the awesome hillbilly thing E had going on...

Phoenix always learns so much from his various Uncles, in this case: Contracts.  (We love Blaine!)

After a full day, (due to my dad's surgery, we skipped my family's turkey time for the first time ever, leaving us to luxuriate in one spot for the entire food filled day), the kid invited himself to a sleepover at Aunt Marielle's.  She sweetly agreed and the date was set for the following evening.  

And then the child worked himself into an over-excited frenzy.  He couldn't go to sleep that night, talking about all of his slumber party plans.  He couldn't sleep in the next morning for all of the ebullience.   And so, before the day even started, he was exhausted :)

Chillin' before the slumber party.

As E and I were NOT invited to the slumber party (I believe the exact words were, um, "buzz off"...) we dropped the child off and left for two hours.  When we returned, he was lolling in an enormous fort with Grandpapa (my phone pics of it didn't turn out - boo!).  I climbed in and caught up on the evening.  Much fun had ensued.  Then people had shown up and... he didn't like them.  Hated them, actually.  I nodded and listened.  Apparently, they had yucky energy...

I was slightly surprised Seth and Alicia were hanging out with hobgoblins, so I just listened and got the exhausted child some cheese.  Then it all came out.  He was having the time of his life - until they showed up.  Then everyone started playing cards and ignoring him!  He was sure it was linked with their arrival, and he didn't want to take it lying down.  He was going to go tell them they were awful.  Maybe he would smother a sibling.... ;)

He was hungry and tired and cranky.  My motherly instincts wanted nothing more than to take care of him.  Bundle him up, take him home and get him to bed.  After he vented his frustration at losing Center of the Earth Status, I offered to take him home and cuddle him, we could try again a different night?

And so the child said to me, "Mama, I'm six now.  I really want to have a slumber party.  I'll be disappointed if I go home.  I need to do this."  

So we stayed ;)

We hung for a couple hours while fabulous family cycled through, very much not ignoring the child ;)  At one point, he was so tired he laid down with me to sleep in the fort.  After a few minutes he told me he thought I should go hang with the adults.  That he needed to be able to fall asleep by himself at his slumber party.  I think this is the part where people write the phrase "chest swells."  He sounded so big.

But before I crawled out, he told me this:  "Mama, I love Courtney.  I hope she sleeps beside me in the fort tonight.  I want to see her when I wake up in the morning."  The little romantic.  (Courtney is Ethan's college age cousin.  Phoenix has talked about her regularly since last Thanksgiving.  He has placed her, in his ever present ranking system, above his girlfriend Rose from across the street.  

E and I left soon after this.  The child was joyfully cackling and sneaking about with Aunt Alicia when we bailed somewhere around midnight....

Ethan retrieved a happy but exhausted child the next morning.  He had done it!  As the fam had big, gamey competitive plans for the day, there was no rest for the weary.  The boys did the rounds with volleyball and bowling, finishing it all off with an overthetop stop at the bowling arcade.  I met up with the child as he played some spinning wheel game that distributes tickets.  He asked me to take a turn and bam, we hit the jackpot.  Tiny red tickets poured out of the flashing machine.  The child watched with awe and happiness.  In my head, I heard chainsaws and falling trees  :)  

The child, feeding his (literally) one thousand and a few hundred tickets into the ticket counter....

Aunt Alicia, taking a turn at the wheel.

After exchanging his tickets for wacky possibilities, the child then went for a visit with Uncle Cash and Aunt Maria.  (This was a seriously long weekend for the child.)  Upon sipping her delicious tea with chamomile, he was practically falling asleep in my arms.  By bedtime, he had a fever.  

And so we've spent the day, recovering.  After feasting on foods his body didn't appreciate, the child repeatedly requested healthful nourishment (and raw honey for this throat;) all day.  To be perfectly honest, the last few days have been hard for me (parentally ;)  Ridiculously enjoyable in all other ways!).  I so love taking care of the kid that watching him eat unfab foods and sleep so little smarts.  Seriously.  Its tough (for me, at least) not to get in the way of his learning!  But not only has he had a blast, he also learned the limits of his body this week.  Something a lot of college kids are still working out ;)  Hopefully, this will give him a leg up on that business, while E and I are still around to make him chicken broth and tea following his "hard partying" days ;)  

All in all, it was a holiday full of thanks and happiness (thanks to such fabulous family) that the Little Man will remember for a long, long time.