Top 100 Mom Blogs: As close as I get to feeling like Halle Berry

I am so honored to once again be a part of this list of Top 100 Mom Blogs 2012. 

Sitting among the other writers on this list, I feel like I am in a theater that is echoing with laughter and cries and cleverness, and I am taking it all in. The women around me. The ones I'm closest to and the writers way up in the balcony who I've long admired. The ladies whose stories and voice I know so well it is like we've always been just across the aisle from each other. The writers whose work is new to me and those who I recognize and want to know better. The ones I've just heard about. The people in the audience we all look to or are the most recognized. 

Last year, I was excited to be placed right in the middle at #51. This year, I have moved up a few rows. But what astounds me and makes me feel a little like Halle Berry lip-smacked by surprise on stage is being honored with third among those in the confessional category -- good Lord, what great company to be in.

All these stories poured out and raised up and sent out with eyes closed and fingers crossed --well, this is a lovely recognition of all that. If I could give a speech (and well, since I pay for this space, I guess I can), I'd say a gracious thank you to Babble and to the people who read this crazy thing and to the women around me who inspire me with every single post to be better than I am. And, of course, to the wonderful souls who let me tell their stories, I feel lucky to write your words among my own.

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The problem with the pies

I make the pies in the family. My grandmother never officially appointed me with this duty. My mother never formally stepped down. But since my mom has taken on nearly every other dish, tending to the turkey and carefully planning sides to please each person at the table, I am the one entrusted with the pie tins my grandma smoothed rounds of her own homemade crust into each holiday season.

As Thanksgiving approaches, baking the pies feels like an enormous task. I count them out -- apple for my dad and me, brownie for my boy, pecan for my other grandmother, one more for fun or sharing. Carving out the hours to peel apples and knead dough and slice decorative leaves in the top crust all take time.

I think the tasks of making the pies pull at me because I know it will all be accompanied by the voice of my grandmother in my head, flour-doused memories of her in my heart and hours counted out on my fingers of how much time I will have with my son in the holiday visitation back-and-forth. There's a lot there in the kitchen while the fruit softens, the butter melts and it all bubbles up at the edges of a soft, golden brown top. 

Once I get into my mother's kitchen with my apron on and too many people's hands in the way and too little counter space to roll and slice and cool it all, the daunting part of making pies slips away. I always feel right where I need to be. 

I would love to make an entire Thanksgiving dinner on my own, host each course from salads to pie slices. But I feel like I am contributing something important as soon as I pull back the checked dishtowels protecting the apple, the brownie, the pecan and the wildcard pie. That part matters.

This year, we celebrated Fakesgiving two days early since my boy was off to his dad's for the real holiday. Once upon a time, this was a glitch in the whole weekend and I mourned his absence on the actual day. But this year, I felt happy to stretch the holiday out, to savor time with him and my parents and still have a long weekend with my love.

Taking away E's chair for part of the holiday wasn't at all the biggest shift for us this year. It was adding one in for the Not Boyfriend.

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You never know what turkey will show up to dinner

This is the place card Lil E made for me for Thanksgiving dinner. To mark where I should sit. And also to validate my fancy shoes. 

And crazy-lady eyes.

Who could foresee this classic turkey-bombing maneuver?

That turkey, all felt and crazy-eyed himself, was made by me when I was four or six or something. 

Circle of life. Or at least circle of dead fowl.

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