Thanksgiving

Shopping with Maybelle
Originally uploaded by Trey Piepmeier

This Thanksgiving, rather than offer my annual homage to Sarah Josepha Hale, I wanted to reflect on things I'm grateful for. I've gotten so many kind, concerned, reassuring responses to my last post, both on and offline, and I really appreciate them, but I want to let everybody know that anxiety doesn't singlehandedly define my life these days. I'm definitely an anxious person, but I'm also really thankful.

I'm thankful for my family--the little bitty family of Biffle, Maybelle, and I (along with Baxter, Benya, Zooey, Inky, and George Jones)--and the expanding layers of family that surround and support us. I'm getting to experience the importance of our parents and siblings in a whole new way now that we have Maybelle. It's really cool to see my brothers and sisters-in-law become aunts and uncles. And our friends have moved up in importance, too--we're getting the kind of unconditional love and help from them that I associate with family. Although life with an infant can sometimes feel isolated--when you're sitting in the bedroom, trying to get a baby to fall asleep, for instance--but we're certainly not isolated. Maybelle is part of a big, fat community that loves her, and I'm really grateful.

I'm thankful that I have a job I love. It's a job that gave me the fall off, and that's an incredible benefit that I appreciate, but being away from work has shown me just how much I love my job. I'm eager to go back in January. (I'm sure I'll have some posts here about my mixed feelings about leaving Maybelle with someone else during the day, but right now I'm focusing on the positives.)

I'm thankful for my relationship with Biffle. I've always liked him fairly well, but it's such a gift to get to experience him as a father. It makes me love him more. Plus, I can't imagine doing this parenting thing alone.

And I'm thankful for Maybelle, who is expanding my consciousness about as quickly as she herself is expanding (note that today she outgrew the outfit she's wearing in this picture, which was taken three days ago). Biffle and I decided we wanted to be parents because we wanted to have a larger world, richer and more meaningful, and Maybelle has already started us on that path.