Thankful Thanksgiving

HAPPY THANKSGIVING FROM THE ZARTS!

 My kidneys may not work, but do you know another

3 week old who can make a sweet turkey like this?

I'm sorry to steal the blog away from Caleb for a day, especially because I don't write with any updates about Ezekiel. Rather, I write to answer a question many of us pose ourselves on turkey day...what am I thankful for? This year, I'm thankful for a lot of things. I am thankful to have my baby boy here this Thanksgiving. I am thankful to have a husband who makes me laugh all the time (even at inappropriate times). This Thanksgiving, though, I would really like to dedicate my "thank you" to all of you! It is going to sound very clique, but I have been completely overwhelmed by the amount of support Caleb and I have received since Ezekiel was born. During my pregnancy, one of the things we feared was that people would never get to know little Zeke. We feared that, if the worst happened, people would never learn his name and would quickly forget about his existence. I'm happy to say it seems the opposite has happened. Ezekiel is more popular than I've ever been!  He's also more popular than Caleb, but that's not remotely surprising. Caleb is from Fennimore after all. In all seriousness, I know that popularity is trivial and what I really appreciate is your sincere concern for Ezekiel's well-being.

This week I went back to work...reluctantly. It's been hard, very hard. I could go on and on about all the reasons it's hard. Do you kind of want me to? :) Don't worry, I won't. What I will say is that, for every reason it's difficult, there are about 10 reasons I am thankful. Let me list a few:

• I am thankful that, if I were to cry at work on my second day (I'm speaking purely hypothetically, of course), my co-workers would comfort me and continue to check on me all day to make sure I'm ok. 

• I'm thankful that when Caleb and I have come home from the hospital at 10pm and still have to make dinner, we find that our wonderful neighbors snowblowed (snowblew?) our driveway.

• I am thankful that my best friends check on me daily and distract me with pictures of their animals and arguments about what the best candy bar is.

• I am thankful that Caleb and I have a family that drops everything to visit the hospital, watches our dog, cleans our house, makes us food, and on and on and on... 

• I'm thankful that people I've only met once or twice and people I haven't seen in 10 years have reached out to us and supported us. 

• I am thankful that we have received more gifts, messages and kind words than we deserve. 

I am also thankful you are still reading this because it got, like, WAY too sappy. I guess the holidays + post-partum hormones + having a sick baby = one sappy momma. So let's switch gears. The other day, Caleb was changing Zeke's diaper and was farted on... twice.  I know that's probably happened a million times to you parents out there. But I was LOLing, if you will, because it was such a normal baby thing to do and Caleb jumped about 3 feet back in fear.  I've never seen anyone that scared of a little baby fart. Especially a 30 year old man who still thinks farts are funny. I'm thankful that your support rejuvenates me and allows me to find little things like that amazingly funny and special. So this Thanksgiving know that the Zart family is very, very thankful for you. We won't express our gratitude in the cool ways, like with presents and cold, hard cash. Instead, you get a universal blog thank you.  I hope it will suffice because it comes from the bottom of my heart.

I used to go out for drinks the night before Thanksgiving. I'd much rather be rocking my baby to sleep, even if it is in a hospital room.

Thank you,
Ezekiel's Mom