Thursday, December 30, 2010

So, I Guess I Should Tell You About Christmas, Huh?

The short version:  It was hectic, tiring, good, and I'm glad it's over.

Now, for the long version.

Remember how Jamie woke up sick the Wednesday before Christmas?  Well, he didn't get better.  We spent the next two days fighting the fever (with limited success) and I powered through cleaning and Christmas prep to get it finished within 40 min of my parents arrival on Thursday.  In the wee hours of Christmas Eve Jamie awoke with a spiking fever and was pretty inconsolable.  We gave him meds for the fever but they just didn't seem to want to work.  At 4 am we woke my parents to tell them we were leaving Liam in their care and heading to the ER with Jamie.

After a fairly short visit (and a doctor who used the word gestalt - remind me to blog about that sometime) we got the diagnosis - ear infection.  This was no surprise to us.  He was running a pretty good fever and had green snot pouring out his nose.  They gave us a dose of amoxicillin in the hospital and sent us home with a prescription for more.

We stumbled home to grab some extra sleep.

Christmas Eve is a bit of a blur for me.  It was Scot's birthday (Happy Birthday, love!) and we were supposed to go out for a nice lunch but that got cancelled because J-man was so sick and Scot didn't want to go out without him and me.  So, we got takeout from the Chinese place for everyone and ate at our house - which was fine.

Jamie continued to be difficult and unhappy most of the day.  I was hoping that after a full day of antibiotics, he'd wake up on Christmas and at least be a little happier.

After we got the kids in bed, we put together one of Jamie's gifts, got the gifts put under the tree, and the stockings stuffed (after I spent a frantic 20 minutes looking for the damn Santa Candy).



(PS - forgive my picture quality.  Most of them suck and I'm seriously considering getting a DSLR)

We got up Christmas morning with the kids and Liam raced to see what Santa had left.  He took one look at the loot, turned around and said, "This is the best Christmas EVER!"  He hadn't even opened a single gift yet.

We set about opening our stockings and I got breakfast prepped and in the oven.


So sinfully delicious.

After breakfast we got down to business with all the stuff under the tree.  Liam was a whirlwind and I missed a lot of what he was opening even though I was sitting next to him.  He seemed genuinely excited by just about every thing he got and the AT-AT was a big hit.


(that's a Trooper Blaster he's holding, I promise.)

Jamie, on the other hand, was difficult.  Nothing pleased him, we couldn't assemble toys fast enough, he was displeased when they didn't meet his standards.  He was all around a complete and utter crankpot that made my Christmas morning very difficult and stressful.  The toy we assembled for him the night before was a play kitchen from his Aunt and Uncle.


When the crying and pissed off toddler finally shattered my nerves entirely, I broke out the kitchen.  He immediately ignored the pile of wrapped gifts, stopped crying and started playing.


A Christmas Miracle!  The play kitchen saved Christmas.  

Eventually it was time for him to nap and us to clean up.  While he was asleep, we unwrapped all his gifts and assembled anything that needed it and got every toy out of its box.  I just couldn't take the shrieking of his unhappy waiting and he didn't care about the unwrapping part so we took care of it.

Then, I discovered that the ice cream cake I made for dessert had melted overnight because apparently leaving it outside in a snowstorm was not adequate to keep it frozen.  This is already going too long so I'll just say that I had extra ingredients in the house, managed to salvage the actual cake layers, and rebuilt the sucker 10 mins before I served it.  It was delicious.

In the afternoon, Scot's parents arrived and we did Round Three on the gifting.  Then I cooked supper with some help from my Mom (great gravy, Mom!) and we all had a lovely meal.  By that point I was so tired and worn out from early mornings, a cranky sick kid, and running non-stop for 2 days that I didn't even finish my meal.  But what I did eat was yummy.

Once the kids were in bed and Scot's parents headed home, I collapsed thankyouverymuch.  As did everyone else.

My parents were with us for 2.5 days and we had a nice visit despite all the craziness.  They got to see Liam do his thing at Tae Kwon-Do on Thursday and enjoyed being able to stuff stockings and get all the gifts out like they haven't done in years.  I could wish that Jamie wasn't feeling so crappy so they could have had more fun with him but it wasn't in the cards.  The antibiotics finally kicked in the day they left. Poo.  At least he's better now, though.  

I've spent the majority of this week taking it easy.  I got to see "Toy Story 3" and "Shrek Forever After" both of which I missed seeing in the theaters over the summer.  I read Anthony Bourdain's "Medium Raw" and a book called "Waiter Rant."  Thanks to Scot being home, I've gotten to sleep in on more than one morning.  It's the closest thing I've had to a vacation in years and I'm reveling in it.  Next week it's back to reality but this week is all about loafing.

I hope everyone's Christmas was wonderful, your Festivus was Merry, and the Airing of Grievances few and trivial!

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