Merry Christmas! I'm sitting down at the end of a long day and felt like documenting it. Mostly for my own sake, but you can hear about it too if you'd like. A little pathetic, a little funny . . . maybe mostly pathetic. Pathetically funny. But we survived. And, I think the kids still had a fairly fun day!
4:30 AM -- Adam wakes up. The norovirus has struck. Ava and I had it over the weekend, so it was just a matter of time . . . if you live around here, you know about this plague, and you know that this means that at 4:30 AM I was aware that I was on my own this Christmas. Adam was done for at least the next 24 hours. Although, at the time, he said something funny like, "I feel a lot better! Maybe that was just it!" Ha.
5:00ish or so -- We head downstairs. Adam gets sick about 27 more times and watches a weird space movie I don't understand, so I fall back to sleep in an amazingly uncomfortable position on the couch.
Later, I wake up with my neck stuck at a 45 degree angle, Adam drifts in and out of consciousness, and then the kids wake up and have suddenly developed a green goopy cold. The plot thickens -- goopily and oozily.
Present time! Really, I truly was trying to keep my spirits up, and was doing pretty well. We had a fun time opening presents -- I think even Adam was okay for a little bit as he groaned and sighed pathetically on the couch. Maybe not that okay.
Notice Sam's nose? I bet you're glad I pointed that out.
Ava got a Cinderella dress from Grandma Debbie and Grandpa Lee, and then wore it all day long! :) There's something so almost cheesy and yet so fun and sweet about little girls and Disney princess dresses. She loved it.
Tough guy. They also gave Sam a Strider bike. While he did have fun with his other gifts, this was by far his favorite. He would play with something else for a bit and then suddenly stop and say, "Bii-ii!" (bike -- a two syllable word), as if he realized -- why am I doing this when I could be riding my BIKE! He rode it up and down the hallway about 287 times today. :)
More awesome presents from Grandma and Grandpa Lockwood! Sam's gift theme ended up being things that go! Trucks, trains, cars -- he made a lot of really great vrooming noises today.
After all the fun of gifts and playtime, it was time for lunch. Because Ava and I were so sick this weekend, I did absolutely no Christmas baking or goodie-making. Maybe it's not a big deal, but it did seem a little sad. We also didn't go out and get groceries for a Christmas meal until yesterday, and even then, we kept it very simple. Adam was planning on doing the cooking since I hadn't been feeling well. But then he was sick and there was no point in anyone making any sort of big meal. Anyway . . . all this to say . . . I fed my children hot dogs, pretzels, and canned pineapple for Christmas lunch. Pitiful. And then I cried a little. Really, I did. Pitiful.
After lunch and a little more playtime, it was time for nap time! Sam went to bed, but I let Ava stay up so that we could play with all of her "big girl" presents. It was so very fun and lifted my spirits right up again.
She got the sweetest stamp set from G&G Lockwood AND an Ed Emberly Thumbprint Drawing Book. Did you have those books when you were a kid? They are just brilliant. Cute and fun and just delightful for young kids. Emberly also has some great regular drawing books -- we'll be getting one eventually.
Simply make a thumb or finger print and then make it into something. Animals, people, all sorts of fun! Here, she made a spider, a bunny, and a princess with long curly hair. The books are fun because they give really simple step-by-step instructions for each little figure. She was so excited to be able to figure all of these out on her own. She made tons of little prints, and eventually wanted to use my prints because she figured out that they would be bigger and a little easier to draw in. :)
After that, little Cinderella wanted to play her new games from Gma Debbie & Gpa Lee. Hi-Ho Cherrio and Pretty Pretty Princess. Doesn't she just look too grown up with those clip-on earrings on? I love my Ava girl.
Next? Disaster. Sam started waking up from his nap, but I had just made a cup of my new tea and wanted to sit and enjoy it for a few minutes. It was a gift from Adam -- an old favorite I hadn't been able to find anywhere for years that Adam ordered for me!
Sooo . . . I let Sam hang out and talk to himself in his crib for about 5-10 minutes. When I put him down for his nap, he was still in his pajamas. It was just one of those days where getting him dressed wasn't important, you know?
Anyway -- Sam and footie jammies. It's complicated. Sam must be in footie jammies at night. AND those footie jammies must be safety-pinned through the zipper at the top. Can you guess why? Oddly, during the day, when he is napping in his clothes, we don't have this problem, even though it should technically be just as easy to strip out of those clothes as it is to unzip a zipper.
So here's what happened.
Sam wakes up. Realizes he's still in footie jammies. Immediately checks the zipper. "Mwahahaha!! NO saftey pin!" Removes footie jammies. Removes poopy diaper.
I enjoy my 10 minutes of tea. Silly.
When I opened the door to his room, I could smell the disaster before I saw it. And there was my stark naked boy, looking guilty, and there was his poo-slimed crib. Crib slats, crib rails, crib sheet, and his poor beloved Mr. Bear . . . ick.
It gets worse.
I carried him at arm's length to the bathroom and started the shower to rinse him off before giving him a bath. In my rush, I grabbed my own shampoo to start washing the poo off his hands. I got them all lathered up, and then he rubbed both soapy hands into his eyes.
Baby torture.
He stood there screaming, "Eye!! Eye!! Eye!! Eeeeye!!", while I tried desperately to pour water over his face to wash out the soap. He hates having water on his face. He coughed and spluttered and looked at me with soapy, terror-filled eyes. The screams intensified. "Eye!! Eye!! Nooooo!!!"
Eventually, it washed out. And he might need therapy.
After all that fun, I got to go work on the poo-encased crib. yippee . . .
The rest of the day is kind of a blur now. They played some more. I made a dinner equally as dismal as our lunch. Adam slept a little, hung out a little, groaned a bit, slept some more, and is sleeping still.
Merry Christmas!
It is almost funny now, isn't it? :)
P.S. Here's the one small and somewhat uninteresting video I took today. But still cute because kids are always cute, right?
