Thanksgiving was enjoyable. Our dinner was relaxing, and I didn't overeat. Dexter decided to scream few times and it quieted the whole restaurant a few times. We ended up giving him a pacifier for a little bit to get calmed down. I saw a pacifier at a store recently that said "Mute Button". While I don't give Dex a pacifier very often outside of sleeping, this made me laugh because we have indeed used it to get some peace and quiet at times.
We made it through dinner and we all shared a piece of pumpkin pie. Dexter loved the pumpkin pie. He hasn't had many desserts, so it was really funny to see him go crazy over it. He got really excited and kept saying "pum pie! pum pie!" We sat outside by the firepits, snuggled in the blankets, listening to the ocean waves for as long as Dex could handle sitting still (about 5 minutes). It was really peaceful even with wiggle worm trying his best to touch the flames a couple feet away.
On Friday, we got up super early. It was so early, that we decided to brave the crowds downtown and fully experience "Black Friday". We didn't have gifts to buy and no real purpose to shop other than to just get swept up in the moment. There were a lot of people out at 8:30am! We went to Macy's because they were one of the only stores open that early. It was a madhouse with checkout lines of 8-10 people and even lines to the fitting rooms. I decided to look at some shirts because I have barely begun replacing my oversized wardrobe. I found a shirt. It was 50% off, so a pretty good deal. We did buy a few things. Mostly clothes to replace the ones we've shrunk out of. We didn't leave downtown until after 2pm, so it was a full day of crowds and shopping. I've had my fill of that for the year.
I got my hair straightened. I'm pretty happy with it — it's so long now! It's a 3 hour process. I read 2 magazines and chatted with the stylist. I hate going to the hair stylist, especially for long stretches of time. I'm not that great at small talk and it makes me uncomfortable to be forced to have a conversation with someone I usually have nothing in common with and probably will never see again. I prefer to read trashy magazines I don't normally read and enjoy the quiet time. I wouldn't feel so awkward about it except that Mr. Cobra and I have gotten our hair cut at the same time and he talks up a storm. It's funny to see him be so chatty. He barely made a peep to anyone in high school. It's like we've switched places in that respect. I wonder if Dexter will be painfully shy or gregarious with a big personality. So far it is the latter, but I used to be that way too. I'm not sure why that changed, but it did.
It was nice to have some time off. We made it a point to not work, so we could focus on having family time. Dexter can be overwhelming at times, but he's pretty good most of the time. It's not that often we get to have big chunks of time together., four whole days seems like a week. He just wears us out. I'm not sure how, but he does. He's less than 25 lbs, but I feel like I've TKO'd a 100 lb monkey after chasing Dexter for a day. I don't see how stay-at-home moms do it. I don't see how we could possibly have another one anytime soon. That's crazy talk.
He's been so obsessed with bikes for the past few weeks. I resorted to YouTube this morning. I kept clicking various bike videos for him to watch to make him happy. I hope this phase passes soon. We live right by 2 bike stores, so we can't go anywhere without seeing a bike. "BIKE!" "BIKE!" Anything with wheels is a bike. He does know the difference between cars and bikes, but everything from wheelchairs to strollers have now been labeled a bike. I wonder what he's going to do when he gets his very own bike.
