Thanksgiving

But in all seriousness, at the risk of being too cliche, this post is all about giving thanks. 

First and foremost, I am writing this on this dreary Thanksgiving Sunday afternoon with a fire warming our home, coffee in hand and with BOTH CHILDREN NAPPING… AT THE SAME TIME. 

Yes, I know. At. The. SAME. TIME. 

Ok. Maybe this won’t be appreciated by all in the crowd, but getting your babies to nap simultaneously is the ultimate parenting goal and in this moment, I am mostly thankful for an hour of peace and quiet. 

Truthfully, I am so fortunate in many ways. I have been lucky enough to not have been born Haitian. Or American for that matter. 

I live in a community that I love, in a beautiful home with supportive and generous friends and neighbours. I have a wonderful family with two delightful kiddos and a pretty amazing partner (despite the never-ending socks on the floor).  

A true example of just how incredible our community is happened just this week while Blake was away in Thunder Bay. I was strapped for childcare for Henry and Alice as I had to go to work for a morning of meetings. Instead of lugging them both to the hospital, a friend of mine generously offered to watch them last minute and took care of three kids under two for an entire morning without batting an eye! Then yesterday, while I was on-call and Blake was out, I had to go into see a patient on the Labour & Delivery floor. I  brought Alice along with me to be ogled by the nurses while Auntie Meghan entertained Henry. It is these gifts of generosity, along with Blake’s willingness to stay at home with the kids that enable me to parent but also continue to have a career in medicine, and for this I am truly grateful.

Along this vein, no matter how stressful my job can be, I cannot say enough about the colleagues with whom I work and the patients and their families that trust in our care. I am so very fortunate to be in the position that I am in where I go to work and bear witness to such significant events in peoples’ lives. I truly, truly love my job. 

Many of my posts have been about living on the lake here in Sioux Lookout and this is something not to be overlooked when acknowledging our blessings. Our children will never know what it is like to go through an entire day with their feet touching nothing but pavement. I was fortunate enough to have grown up in a small town with ample access to the outdoors. I hope that my children will also grow up in this same way and develop a positive relationship with the environment and the outdoors. 

Growing up, Thanksgiving was a bittersweet weekend at the cottage on Lake Joseph in Muskoka. I loved it for the beautiful colours, the pine needles that blanketed the ground, the stillness of the lake after all of the cottagers had gone home and the cool nights weighted down under four Hudson Bay wool blankets. We gorged on pumpkin pie and turkey then ended the weekend by boarding up the cabins and locking the door to the cottage. A definitive end to summer. 

Now that the cottage is sadly long gone, new traditions form here in Sioux Lookout. I miss our family and try not to think about the distance between us as we smile at the familiar faces crowded around the camera. Part of me wishes to be home in Muskoka, gathered in the kitchen by the wood stove but I am also thankful to be the one now to open our doors to friends and family to host a Thanksgiving feast. We are so lucky to have my brother and Meghan here in Sioux Lookout and I am so grateful for their ongoing support, love and care that they give to our family. I also don’t know what I would do without Meghan’s cooking. She is truly talented in the kitchen!

Finally, I have to end off this post of course by giving thanks for my two tiny humans and my partner in this crazy mess. There are have been so many bumps along this journey but the joys of soft, chubby cheeks, ‘big hugs’ and side-splitting, hilarious toddler expressions that make our little family the biggest blessing of all. 

Happy Thanksgiving!!!