Canadian Thanksgiving

Today is Canadian Thanksgiving. Yes, to all you American readers, we also have a Thanksgiving. We follow pretty much the same tradition you do – having either turkey or ham or something like that in celebration of the fall harvest. Since we’re quite a bit further North our harvest season comes some 6 weeks earlier than yours.

We haven’t had a real Thanksgiving dinner together in the past couple of years and I decided I wanted to roast a turkey. We invited some friends over – a couple who have a beautiful 2-year old daughter.

The mother is a good friend of mine I’ve known for over 15 years through an international development organization we both volunteered for at the time. Since then she’d worked in Bolivia for a few years where she met her Cuban husband. They married and returned to live in Canada where their daughter was born. They recently moved to our city but we haven’t seen them much.

Anyhow we had them over for a nice feast – roast turkey with stuffing, home-made cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, maple-roasted Butternut squash and of course gravy. Yum! And over dinner our friend started to tell us about her experiences dealing with her newborn.

Her baby was colicky, not sleeping and crying perpetually. She endured long weeks of being on her own trying to soothe her baby while her husband (by their own admission) was not as engaged as he should have been. She told us how finally one day a friend of hers offered to look after the baby and let them go out driving around for an afternoon of just getting away. When they got back they asked how the baby had been – cried for a bit and then slept the rest of the time. It was only a couple years later that the friend admitted the baby had screamed for the whole time they were away!

The nice part was our friend offering her support and assistance after baby Pêche arrives. She said that if we needed to get away or just someone to commiserate with she’d be there for us.

After they left both Mom-to-Be and I were exhausted – their daughter is well-behaved but just a bundle of energy that neither of use were used to. We looked at each other and agreed that we’re in trouble.

I’m definitely planning on traveling for work for at least the next 3 years.