Christmas Wrapped Up
Our front door is wide open, letting in the sixty degree air. Liam is rolling around on a pile of blankets I put on our cold tile floor. Jack is still sound asleep, nearing the end of his epic afternoon nap. I had a nap today, too, and yesterday as well. The house is a mess, the laundry isn’t quite finished, the beds need made, and I must do some law school work over this holiday (mostly career-related), but I’m letting it all go for a couple of days. The Professor is at his office, hopefully rounding the bend on his dissertation, leaving a little more wiggle room in our new semester, which starts (for me) in just four days. I’m playing stay at home mom, and enjoying it very much. We spent the morning at the park. We may take another walk later today, once Jack wakes up, or we may build a fort in the living room. The world is our oyster this week, and I’m taking advantage of my time off before I dive back into the difficult second half of my difficult second year!
Christmases get better and better each year. This one was pretty stunning. I took few photos – I left that job to my MIL, though I forgot to upload her pics, so I’ll have to remember to get them later. Instead of taking pictures, I tried to hold onto my wriggling children, to help them unwrap their piles of gifts, to explore their new toys, to enjoy their extended family. I also enjoyed the extended family, spent some time with friends, and even took one night off nursing and had three glasses of wine. Just before the holiday I had managed to put my post-baby body back into every pair of pants I own, but it only took a couple of days of Christmas cookie consumption to boot me back out of them again. Sigh.
We were able to get only a few things for our kids, and I was feeling badly about that, but I needn’t have worried – the grandparents, aunts, uncles, great aunts and uncles, great grandparents, cousins, and other family and friends managed to spoil the pants off my children, and each stared down a pile of presents on Christmas morning taller than he was. Jack opened his first couple of gifts, and he was all set – he trotted off to the other room with his dinosaurs, and was not interested in coming back in with us to finish unwrapping his gifts. We finally finished up for him, setting some things aside for him to enjoy later. Didn’t want to blow his toddler mind with so! much! stuff! I was secretly, foolishly proud that he was happy with just a couple of new toys – I like to make it so it takes very little to impress my kids. Set the bar low, folks, that’s my motto.
Jack’s cousin Ella got a play kitchen, and the two of them spent most of the day happily microwaving everything they could get their hands on. Liam enjoyed chewing on the boxes and tissue paper, while I opened stuff for him. I couldn’t even list everything they got, there’s no way I’d remember – I just know it was a great mix of books, toys, clothes, and tasty delicious packaging. The Professor and I were also spoiled – makeup and jewelry, Blu Ray player with accompanying DVDs, gorgeous new clothes, books, bicycle accessories, and dozens of other items weighed down our “sleigh” when we drove home. Our gift to each other was the new “sleigh” – we bought a used Honda Pilot, much bigger than our Dodge, and were able to get it in time to drive it to the family Christmas 10 hours away. Although the third row of seating is a bit cozy, we love having the flexibility to have extra seats or extra storage, and it is so much higher off the (oft-flooded) ground, which lets us breathe a sigh of relief when it rains (and floods) around here. It seems to have arrived just in time, since the Dodge wouldn’t start after we got back home from our trip (The Professor finally coaxed it to life after several tries). Merry Christmas to us!
While we were with family over Christmas, we managed to decorate Christmas cookies, to go on a really gorgeous (albeit somewhat short) hike with the toddlers, take a trip to a park and watch Jack be brave enough to go down a slide for the second time in his life, go out for lunch with friends one day, have drinks with at another friend’s house one night, go to a Children’s Museum, have a couple of lunches out and all of our delicious dinners in, spend hours in front of the fire, watch Toy Story 3, and I, in particular, was given an education in the latest and greatest popular YouTube videos by my pop-culture guru brother in law. Without him, I’d never know the double rainbow song, or the lip-dubbing phenom, or my new favorite song lyric – “F*** land, I’m on a boat!” I’d post the links for you, but my high maintenance six month old is not happy on the floor anymore, so I need to go pick him up. (Aside – we call this kid the drama queen, because he is seriously high-drama all the time. We barely slept over the holiday, though he shaped back up once we were home. He just demanded to be held at all times. Now he’s over there, surrounded by toys and interesting things to chew on, looking at me like I’ve broken his little heart because I put him down for ten lousy minutes.)
New Year’s Eve looks to be the boring old usual – our Christmas credit card bills dictate that we will not be paying for a babysitter on NYE, so we’ll probably fall asleep on the couches at 9:30, wake up briefly at midnight to say Happy New Year, and go to bed. So it goes. After the holiday we just had, I have no complaints about a low key NYE. I’m too fat at this point to wear most of my pants anyway. Maybe if I can get Liam out of my arms for a few minutes tomorrow, I’ll do a Look Back at 2010 post, and a New Years Resolution post. If you’re lucky. 😉