Draft 2021

My oldest son Stephen is 21 now. I can't quite believe how fast all those years flew by. He'll be graduating from Drake University this spring and likely heading off to graduate school in the fall. In his 21 years, Stephen has accomplished more than I have in my 46. He takes what he believes in and turns it into action. In many ways Stephen's life has not been easy, but his struggle with mental illness has not consumed him. Instead, his fight against depression and OCD have made him stronger than anyone I have every known. He takes his empathy for those less fortunate and works hard to make a difference. He has lived in Egypt and South Africa, worked all through college, volunteered as a literacy tutor, assisted at Head Start, worked as a statewide volunteer for Oxfam international, and is an active member of his church. My little boy has grown up to be a man to be admired. He is loving, caring, funny, smart... I am so thankful, Stephen, that I am your mother. What follows

Sixteen years ago, back when I was still a young mother of only three, I came across this idea in a magazine and it has become one of our most cherished holiday traditions. Every year at Thanksgiving we trace the children's hands on the holiday tablecloth. My mom then embroiders the name and date of each child in the handprint. The adults trace their hands the first time they spend Thanksgiving with us, so I even have a my dad's handprint; a vivid reminder of all the Thanksgivings we spent with him before his death in 2004. Stephen and Zachary were 5 and 3 when we started this tradition and they each stopped tracing their hands several years ago. Sarah was a baby, and we have her footprint on the tablecloth, as well as all 16 years of her handprints. This is probably the last year she'll trace her hand. Melissa's footprint and an entire life of handprints are also on the tablecloth, as well as some family and friends who have only been with us a time or two. My m

Whew. Some of us have been working hard. It's amazing how quickly the house can get put together when everybody is home! Laundry's folded and put away, vacuuming is done, dusting and general straightening up mostly done (it's just awaiting my input for final placement of stuff). With everybody else pitching in, I was free to do a flurry of holiday cooking - all pie crusts are made and waiting in the fridge for tomorrow's French apple and pumpkin pies, a Southern Chess pie is ready for tonight, raspberry topping stands ready for the cheesecake, and two loaves of pumpkin bread just came out of the oven. My cinnamon roll dough is rising... should have the rolls made and ready to bake in another hour and a half or so. Mostly I've been reveling in atmosphere of a full house. Yes, indeed, I do have much to be thankful for.

This is our thankful turkey. He has visited our house for nearly 18 years (gasp!) now. When Stephen and Zachary were just little guys, so very long ago, I started the tradition of the thankful turkey. Each day, starting November 1 or thereabouts, we each record something we are thankful for on a feather and add it to the turkey. By the time Thanksgiving rolls around, that turkey is fairly bursting with thankful feathers! This was a great way to show little ones how much we have to be thankful for in our every day lives... and to show them that we could keep on adding thankful feathers seemingly forever and never run out of thankfulness. We still do the turkey, all these many years later. Melissa, 12, has become our tradition keeper, for which I am grateful. We're looking forward to Thanksgiving dinner when we each grab a handful of feathers and take turns reading aloud all our family's thankfulness. This year, we are saddened that my mom won't be able to be here with us fo

Or, maybe it's time for my great "social" experiment to end. Let me explain. Last night we came home from a delightful family dinner in Ames, though we discovered a disturbing lack of decent dessert options at Carlos O'Kelly's. Anyway, we were all off doing our own thing - computer for Michael, reading for Melissa and me, Sarah was cleaning the litter boxes - when multiple loud bangs rang out next door. Now, these weren't "pop-pop" sounds but were real "bang, bangs." I didn't want to believe it was shots ringing out, but what else could it be? 10-15 in a row M-80s? That's what dh thought, until he looked out the window and saw a patrol car several houses down with its lights flashing. We knew then that we needed to call the police, who took our information about where to look. Not long after, the police were in our neighbor's yard with flashlights, trying to find shell casings. Thankfully, no one was injured (as far as we k