This Thanksgiving is our first with a five-monthold, and let me tell you, having a baby this age transforms the holiday in ways I never expected. All the things I used to worry about this time of year, making sure the rolls don’t burn, making sure the gravy doesn’t clump, remembering which side of the family likes the cranberry sauce shaped like a can, suddenly feel very small compared to keeping one tiny human alive, content and away from anything he might attempt to eat, grab, fling or scream at.
Before the baby, my parents house seemed like the safest place on earth. Looking at all of the pottery and kachinas brought back so many childhood memories.
Now, I look around the living room with the hyper-vigilance of someone in the witness protection program. Every small object has become a potential choking hazard. Every knickknack looks hostile. Every kachina is apparently whispering, “He will try to eat me.”
And he will. My son is five months old and believes wholeheartedly that God put him on this Earth to taste-test the entire world. His grab range grows by a full inch every morning, and he approaches every new object with the enthusiasm of a food critic arriving at a tasting event. If something crinkles, glitters or rolls, it’s going straight into his mouth if I’m not fast enough.
So before the turkey even comes out of the smoker, I’ll be doing my very first annual “postbaby safety sweep,” which basically means relocating half the decor to the top of the china cabinet like I’m slowly moving my parents out but too sentimental to admit it.
And then there’s the rule I never imagined I’d care about until now: don’t kiss the baby.
I know everyone means well. I know they love him. I know his cheeks look like soft dinner rolls and inspire an uncontrollable, primal urge to smooch. But babies have the immune systems of damp tissue paper, and Thanksgiving is just a giant potluck of everyone’s germs wearing their Sunday best.
If you even think you feel a tickle in your throat, you may admire him from across the room like he’s the world’s smallest monarch greeting his people.
I’ll be handing out hand sanitizer like it’s a door prize. “Welcome in! So glad you made it. Here’s a pump of Purell.”
But despite the constant vigilance, this Thanksgiving also comes with a sweetness I didn’t know holidays could have.
At five months old, my son can barely sit unassisted, he is just starting to eat solids and he definitely can’t help me cook. But he watches everything with these enormous, curious eyes like he’s trying to assign meaning to each moment. The sound of family laughing genuinely surprises him. The sight of a lit-up dining room fascinates him. The rustling of a tablecloth might as well be fireworks.
He’ll sit in his little seat during dinner, aggressively attacking his spoon of pumpkin puree like he’s been starved his whole five months, but observing the entire table like he’s hosting an investigative documentary on adult behavior. Every time someone laughs, he jumps a little, shocked that the world can be so loud, and then breaks into a smile so bright it makes me forget how exhausted I am.
And yes, while I’ll spend half the day gently prying things out of his hands (“That’s not a toy, that’s Aunt Sapphires earring”), the other half will be filled with those quiet, heartstopping moments that only seem to happen during holidays. A warm nap on my chest while everyone else chats in the background. The soft weight of him breathing against me while a football game drones on from the living room. The way his eyes follow the candles flickering on the table, like he’s discovering magic in real time.
Of course, there’s also the chaos. He’ll likely spit up on something important. Possibly me, possibly the tablecloth, possibly the one person who said, “Oh, don’t worry, babies love me.” Someone will try to pick him up right when he’s decided he’s exhausted, and he will scream like we’ve wronged him personally. I’ll forget at least one thing in the diaper bag. And I will absolutely end the day with mashed potatoes somewhere on my clothing.
But if motherhood has taught me anything in these five short months, it’s this: the chaos and the sweetness always arrive together.
They come as a pair.
You don’t get one without the other.
So this Thanksgiving, I’ll take the spilt milk and the relocated decorations and the constant chorus of “please don’t kiss the baby.”
I’ll take the juggling and the rocking and the occasionally frazzled nerves. Because at the end of the day, I’ll also get those little fingers curled around mine. I’ll get those wide-eyed smiles. I’ll get the quiet, perfect moments where he falls asleep on my shoulder and everything else fades into background noise.
If we make it through the holiday without anyone kissing him, without him eating an irreplaceable piece of handcrafted Acoma pottery and without a meltdown right as the turkey is carved… well, that will be wonderful.
But honestly? Even if none of that goes according to plan, I know I’ll go to sleep that night deeply, overwhelmingly thankful. For him, for this season of life and for a Thanksgiving that looks wildly different than it did before, but somehow feels more beautiful than ever.
Be kind to your neighbors Be kind to your pets Be thankful It’s RSV season, so DON’T KISS THE BABY