Post-Christmas Recap

In my second written-in-real-time-but-posted-days-later post, I recap our epic journey from the Gulf of Mexico to (practically) Lake Michigan and back:

Another holiday season winds down, and we are back to a few days of calm before Mardi Gras gears up and spins us off into yet another season of joy.  Christmas brought some happy boys, spoiled to excess on one of the two days each year that shower them with stuff.  We enjoyed some lazy days in my parents’ house, a few outings, and then packed the car up and headed north another 8 hours to spend New Year’s Eve with my husband’s grandfather and aunt and uncle, who live in Northern Indiana.  His parents drove up as well, and although the boys were disappointed by the lack of snow, in every other aspect the two-day excursion was worth the additional pack-and-drive.  Now we’re on our way back down south to pick up the items we left at my parents’ house, and collect my mother, who will join us for a week in Alabama helping with some child care needs and easing the transition back.  I have spent too many nights in the same room as our baby (by the end of the trip it will be 11 total).  We are in our 24^th total hour of driving (spread over 3 days), and we have another 8 hour day to drive the rest of the way home tomorrow.  So giant thumbs down for the driving and packing and interrupted sleep, but thumbs up for everything else.

When we arrived in Nashville on Christmas Eve, my mother looked at my husband and said, a touch sheepishly, “your mother-in-law went a little overboard.”  After the kids went to bed, as Santa’s helpers we pulled about a dozen large boxes of wrapped gifts from their hiding place in her closet, arranging them in a giant pile beneath the tree.  Overboard indeed!  Of course, these stacks on stacks on stacks were for (and from) 14 people, including my siblings, their SOs, my children, and my parents.  Nevertheless, it was quite a dazzling sight for three little boys to wake up to on Christmas morning.

Before bed, the boys did the usual thing – writing the letter, setting out cookies and carrots, reading some Christmas books with the aunts.

We set out three extra special unwrapped presents, one for each boy.

Craig received a pretty cute little push-toy.  He totally digs it.  Liam received just what he asked Santa for – a helicopter with a remote control.  It is giant, and while it doesn’t fly, it does wheel around the house making a loud helicopter noise and spinning the blades in a circle of destruction.  He loves it.  Jack’s big gift from Santa was a Skylanders game, something he’s wanted since he started first grade and all the other kids have it.  Yes, we finally bit the bullet and introduced a video game player into our house.  His uncle upgraded to a new PS4, and kindly gave us his old PS3, and other family members got us a few PS3 games.  I’m going to have to figure out how to limit play somehow, but we are now a “gamer” household (preschool-edition) and we are ok with it.  (Like last year, at the very last minute he switched his “wants” and notified Santa that instead of Skylanders, he wanted a guinea pig, and he firmly believes that one will be waiting for us at our house.  SORRY DUDE.  One thing I don’t need any more of is dependents.)

The boys read their letter from Santa (who is old, and thus has shaky handwriting), then opened gifts.

It took several hours to open everything.  Our favorite gift was to my mother, actually.  Each of her five children sent old t-shirts, baby clothes, and other items to my one crafty sister, who turned it all into a really nice quilt.  Mom loved it – heck, I love it.  I will be commissioning one eventually myself, done with some of the boys’ old unusable clothes (the rest will be handed down to needy babies).

At one point, Liam looked at me and asked if he could go and quietly play with one of his new toys in a different room.  So we picked one out together, and then went and opened up the box and played with it for about half an hour.

Jack and the video game were basically inseparable the rest of the day.  We let him OD on video games on one special day.

He did spend quite a bit of time with his new best friend and hero, my little brother.  Bonus – Uncle Randy plays piano beautifully, and after writing songs and playing them together (and having a handful of “concerts” for assorted family members as well), Jack is now super hooked on practicing.

 

I had put bath items on my list, and the siblings answered the call.  I can’t wait to take a relaxing bath after all this craziness.

We had cinnamon rolls and cooked breakfasts, and one day an attempted hike turned to delicious burgers at Red Robin when rain came and drove us inside.  We watched the boys play Skylanders, and a racing game we bought on clearance at Wal Mart on boxing day once we saw that Skylanders was too hard for Liam.  I only went running on one day – the heinous sleep that comes when you travel with a baby has laid me low, and I just can’t push through that much sleep deprivation.  The boys wrestled, Craig learned to walk pretty solidly, we played card games and board games and dice games nightly.  It was a breath of fresh air, and everything I wanted it to be.

**Stay tuned for the next installment, wherein I detail our journey to the even farther chilly north to visit the Professor’s extended family over NYE.