The last Thanksgiving in which we get to eat without interruption or mashed potatoes being flung at our faces

I feel that it's only responsible, in the interest of full disclosure, to begin this post on Thanksgiving with the admission that I don't think my jeans are fitting very well. By jeans I mean my overpriced Citizens of Humanity maternity jeans and by "not fitting well" I mean my butt and/or thighs must be growing. Any suggestions for making black yoga pants look chic for the next two months? While we're at it, any suggestions for making anything look chic from this point on?

If my jeans are the casualty of our Thanksgiving day indulgences, so be it. Or, if I want to remain in denial (yes please!), I could go with my friend's suggestion that since I'm still going to the gym and doing squats and what not while carting around 25+ pounds on my belly, maybe I'm just getting quads of steel. That's what friends are for, right? Plausible means of denial.

We took advantage of this year's Thanksgiving as the last quiet one we'll have for... a while. All day we marveled that this time next year, our daughter (our daughter!!) will be eating turkey and mashed potatoes (and Bailey will be licking them off of the floor). Neither of us will have the privilege of sitting through our meal uninterrupted and we may or may not have mashed potatoes on our extremities as casualties of the cupcake's first Thanksgiving.

For this year, with no reason to even change out of pajamas (though we did, for the record, and one of us wore pants with a non-elastic waistband), we reveled in having the day completely to ourselves. Anil cooked a 10 pound turkey, made two kinds of stuffing (one is his mom's recipe which he swears by, and he made another batch for me sans giblets), green bean casserole, and two pumpkin pies. (What? Whole Foods only sells pie crust in sets of two.) We toasted with IPA and sparkling cider. While Anil cooked, I lounged in my giant-bellied glory on the couch, reading books and magazines. We watched movies, first as our feast roasted and then again as it digested. Anil even started the day off right for Bailey (because his days of being an only child are numbered and he deserved a relaxing day too) with a run, then a spa treatment--bath in the tub and nail trimming.

Here are some photos to document the labors of the day, or lack thereof in my case.

I love this photo of Anil starting the day because it shows how small our kitchen is! Notice that one hand is on the counter on one side while the other reaches in a drawer on the other--the kitchen is more narrow than Anil's wingspan.

Anil and Bailey both waited eagerly for the turkey to roast. I swear I didn't stage this.

Anil carving the turkey, mmmm...

Oh, and while all that work was going on in the kitchen? I was busy being a baby vessel... stretched out on the couch propping a magazine on my belly.

Finally, here is our feast. I cleared the table of mounds of baby gear so that we wouldn't have to eat on the coffee table in front of the TV; I did contribute. Dinner was simple and perfect.

I guess technically it was the baby's first Thanksgiving since she did get her share of it, but I'm sure she'll enjoy next year's much more. We'll enjoy next year's too, but in a very different way. So for now, I'm thankful for my amazing husband who literally functioned like an entire restaurant staff all day--doing all of the cooking and cleaning. I'm thankful for leftovers, then thankful for the neighborhood Italian place that we ate at tonight when we needed food that wasn't beige. I'm thankful that Whole Foods sells pie crusts in twosies so that we still have leftovers of orange, even if it threatens my designer maternity jeans. I'm just trying to remember to be thankful for this calm before the crazy baby storm, when even though I can't tie my shoes without my face turing red from lack of oxygen, I can still put my feet up and watch a movie and only have to get up every half hour because I have to pee, not because someone else did. We both relished having such a peaceful day together.