Thursday, January 04, 2007

Missing Christmas....

Ok, so I didn't totally miss Christmas, but that's how it felt at the time when I was sitting on the stairs watching my kids unwrap their gifts from afar. I spent most of the day Christmas Eve and Christmas day in bed fighting the stomach flu. I say fighting, because I hate hate hate the stomach flu so much that I fight it and resist it until the bitter end. I really think I have a phobia to throwing up. Is there an official term for that? I have it. Maybe because I hardly ever do it so just the anticpation of it makes it worse than it is. Who knows...

Anyway - I didn't spend alot of time with the family over the actually day of Christmas. But we drove to my parents house later Christmas afternoon and after a little more rest I started feeling normal. Although it wasn't totally normal because I didn't want to eat alot which is unusual for me. Kind of convenient I guess. That feeling did go away towards the end of the week and I got to enjoy my mom's Christmas cookies and all the other tempting treats.

So I can't share too much about my kids' reaction to their gifts. Ella got a bike with training wheels, Catherine got a sit-n-spin (which she prefers standing on, fun fun...) they both got a little keyboard with a microphone (very funny to watch them "sing" into it- Catherine just does alot of heavy breathing), Ella got a desk from my parents where she can store all her art supplies and do all her art work. At the moment that's one of her favorite gifts.

It was nice having Christmas day at home. We've decided to try and stay home for the actual day of Christmas as much as possible. But we love seeing family so we pack up and head out pretty quickly for a week long Christmas tour. We headed to Clearfield for Christmas with the Koerber family, which was an event since we pretty much just celebrate Christmas and Christmas Eve all over again. After a few days there we head to Ellicott City for Christmas with the deMontaigne's. After about a week straight of presents I've had to keep reminding Ella that Christmas is over - until next year.

Ella really enjoyed playing with her cousins. Her and her cousin Isaac would head downstairs to the playroom at my parents and just play pretty peacefully until Ella decided she wanted Isaac's Thomas the Train all to herself. Yep, that's right. All the toys that she got from my parents and she wanted to play with Isaac's most prized gift. He was very sweet with her and quite generous but by the end of the visit he was starting to get frustrated. Ella understands sharing but she is only quick to apply it when she wants to play with other people's toys. When I would caution her about not giving a toy back to Isaac, she would respond "Mom, I'm just sharing it". Same thing when she would want to use Catherine's new shopping cart. But if Catherine tried to play with Ella's new toys that "kind" spirit of sharing totally disappeared and it became "That's MINE!". Anyway Catherine had fun trying to keep up with Ella and Isaac and got her first kiss from Isaac one night while they watched TV. I might try to post it because the look on her face is so funny.

While at Matt's parents house Ella got to spend an entire day with Hayden and Sophia -without mom and dad! It was nice for me to see that she was so comfortable with us leaving her with Matt's sister because we don't get to see them that often. Poor Catherine got stuck doing some after Christmas shopping with us!

We were gone for a week and we were all anxious to get home and actually enjoy our presents. Now I have to start going through their old toys and deciding what can be put away. I'm not sure which is a more daunting task, that or taking down the Christmas decorations.

My little bout with the flu aside, it was a really nice Christmas. Each year the kids understand more and more about what is going on and it makes it more exciting for me. One of my favorite things was watching home movies from Christmas' past. Waaaayyyyy past - some from when I was 12 years old! We got so many laughs out of it and a few tears as we got to see loved ones who have passed away (and even my old dog Broozer). It's made me realize how important and special it is to record those events - as annoying as it may be at the time (believe me, it was apparent that there were many times we were annoyed with video camera) it is definitely something I treasure having now.

I can't think of a graceful way to end this post other than....on to the New Year !! Hopefully I'll get some thoughts up about that soon!

5 comments:

Erin said...

Mego,
Sorry to hear about your sickness during Christmas! How terrible. I'm glad it turned out okay.
Gosh, I'm so not looking forward to that 3 year old age! Nadia is just starting to steal toys of kids she's big enough to bully. She's younger then a lot of the other daycare kids, but bigger. i can see those days looming!!
erin

Renee said...

what a yucky feeling....i hate throwing up as well. so sorry you were sick... i'm so glad you felt better to enjoy the rest of the week with your family though!
i have to get working on my christmas update (almost finished). it was fun having the kids play with each other's toys! and hopefully next time the kids play on the air mattress, there will be no bleeding knuckles (meaning jon's!) they are still scabbed... love you!

chrissie k said...

Ella was so good to that Isaac cousin of hers. Man, I loved sharing that time with ya'll! Isaac woke up this morning asking if Aunt Megan was coming to the house ;) Isn't that funny? Out of everyone in his life, he wanted YOU to come over. "Aunt Megan come to Isaac house?" I love you, sister in law. Please post the picture of my forward son kissing your sweet daughter! What fun!

BTW I can't believe Ella stole Terrance ;) You can keep him for as long as you like. Please don't take the time to send him!!! He really isn't that important to my son.

LOOOOOOOOOOVE you.
ck

Tasha Antonia Hoover said...

We were just looking at pictures of when Ella was a wee one at our Engagement party. Aww.. I can't believe she is old enough to be playing with other kids now!
Christmas sickness is no fun at all... especially that kind.
I love you Megs. Thanks for the post. We are still waiting on internet and our phone (Well it came but it didn't work when we hooked it up.. arghh :))

Kate said...

I'm starting to wonder about the winter trend of stomach bug in your house...Thinking back to when you all had it when Ella was only a month or two old, then last year, and now AGAIN! Awwww man. I am soooo sorry. You know how I hate being sick and we've sure had our share of conversations about resisting the whole throwing up ordeal, so I won't even go there. But, I do feel awful that you missed out on Christmas morning. Thankfully there will be many more to come! Can't wait to see you next month~yahoo! Love you!

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