Thanksgiving offers lessons for all – even the turkey

We’re inching closer all the time to getting the kids’ table back out for holiday dinners.

And this time, when it comes out, I won’t be sitting out — at least, I hope not. I just have to make sure I stay in the social secretary’s good graces.

We had all three of the grandsons for Thanksgiving dinner this year, and we’re down to only one in a high chair. That means that, as soon as Nolan’s ready to eat in a regular chair, it will be time for the next generation of the kids’ table to make its debut.

We ate early in the afternoon, since Ethan, Sharon, Ty and Nolan had a date with the other side of their family as well, but we didn’t get to the meal before our three grandsons had a chance to turn the living room into their own personal playroom.

Being the oldest, Ty of course took the lead, knowing right where to find all the toys and being able to carry even the biggest of them out into the living room for his cousin and his little brother to play with.

It also meant that Ty got first pick of whatever he wanted to play with and left the lesser toys — at least in his estimation — to Aiden and Nolan.

Actually, it seemed to suit Aiden just fine, as his preferences ran to the toys Ty wasn’t so interested in — maybe it’s the three-and-a-half year age difference, I don’t know.

It left Nolan as the odd kid out as he had to settle for whatever was left after Ty and Aiden made their choices. He didn’t seem to mind, though, and was perfectly content to entertain himself with whatever the two of them disdained.

There may have been a method to Nolan’s equanimity, however. As Ty and Aiden tired of whatever toy they happened to be playing with — quite quickly, to be honest — Nolan could swoop in and take over.

Thanks to his brother’s and his cousin’s still-short attention spans, Nolan was still able to get his share of time with the best of the toys. He may well have discovered a philosophy and an approach to life that could well take him far in life. It’s a lesson a lot of adults have never learned and he seems to have it down already.

Ty, meanwhile, had gone through all of the available toys and moved on to checking out the candy jars and all the usual places where we keep the sweets and treats.

If Nolan is going to grow up to be a diplomat, Ty is going to be an explorer or a discoverer, it appears.

He quickly found, and sampled, every bit of gum and candy we had in the house and didn’t slow down a bit.

On top of everything else, he proved he’s got a good, long memory — at least for some things.

It wasn’t very long before he reminded us that we had a North Pole Express toy train set that he’d helped us christen last Christmas. Terry had picked up just before the holiday and set it aside for under the tree this year, but that was before Ty discovered it sitting in its box in the dining room on Christmas Day and gave us no peace until we got it out of the box and running.

He spent a good part of the time leading up to Thanksgiving dinner asking us where the train set was and when we were going to set it up.

We convinced him it would have to wait until after we finished dinner, which proved to be sufficient motivation to get him to the dinner table and keep him there.

It also gave him sufficient motivation to set what I’m sure is a world record for Thanksgiving dinner speed eating, at least in his age bracket. I couldn’t honestly swear that he actually chewed any of his food or just swallowed it whole so he could get to the train set.

Fortunately, his grandmother was able to remember exactly where she’d stored it, so his grandfather was able to dig out of the attic without too much trouble.

Since it wasn’t quite age-appropriate for the other two grandsons, we had to set it up upstairs in the hallway, which proved to be a little cramped for the full circuit.

Another drawback soon surfaced, as it became evident that 11 months in storage had proven too long for the batteries. Grandmother saved the day by running to the store for fresh batteries, while Ty and I tried to amuse ourselves by pushing the train around the track by hand — which, trust, was not satisfactory for either of us.

When we got the fresh batteries in, however, the train still wouldn’t move on it’s own.

Luckily, we were able to avert a crisis when I discovered that one of the contacts between the locomotive — where the on/off switch was located — and the tender that held the batteries was loose.

We managed to get the train back in self-propelled motion with a few minutes to spare before Ty had to leave with his family for his other grandparents’ home.

We have learned our lesson, though. We’re going to keep the train set handy, and make sure it’s in running order before Christmas rolls around.