Christmas 2009

Christmas this year will always be remembered (for me, anyway) as the one best forgotten. In the midst of wrapping presents, reading the Christmas story in Luke 2, making cookies for Santa, and decorating the gingerbread house, there was puking. And more puking. It was both sad and pathetic. And I hope it never happens again. By Dec. 23, everyone (including me, although I mostly got away with awful stomach pain for several hours) had been through it, so we breathed a sigh of relief and thought we could relax and enjoy the holiday. But the virus had something else in mind. For reasons unknown (immature immune systems? delicate stomachs?), the babies decided to do extra rounds of the virus. A2 did three rounds total and N went through two. The last bout for A2 was on Christmas day, which prompted me to send my husband and three older kids on up to his aunt's house anyway for dinner, even though it meant I would be left with two sad babies and leftovers by myself. But since we had all been cooped up in the house for much too long, I knew that getting the bulk of the family out was the best thing for us. I enacted a BRAT diet (bananas, rice, applesauce, and toast) for the babies for the next few days, and the cycle finally broke.

On top of all this fun was a carbon monoxide poisoning scare on Christmas Eve (really a malfunction with our smoke/CO detectors) with a fire truck pulled up to our house and everything. But all was well and a few hours later (plus much vacuuming and changing of batteries), we finally got the detectors to stop beeping every 60 seconds.

It was far too much drama for one week. And now I hope for much calmer days ahead.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas from all of us!

Early Christmas present

We got an early Christmas present over the weekend, but this is one I wish we could have sent back unopened. T woke up in the middle of the night on Friday night and threw up. Actually, I woke up to him whisper yelling from his bathroom because he had puked in the toilet and now needed to pee. Poor boy. He spent the rest of the night lying on my bathroom floor (I know, it's cruel, but I don't care), while he ran back and forth to the toilet.

As with every stomach virus, we hoped and hoped that it was just a fluke thing and that it wouldn't travel to anyone else. Does it ever go that way? No. This morning, A2 puked—all over the lovely basement carpet, no less. Since he and his sister share everything, including their pacifiers, I'm sure that N will follow sooner rather than later.

We were already feeling kind of sorry for ourselves (well, mainly me) because most of A's family is gone and so we were going to have a really quiet Christmas. But, we had planned a few activities to make it special, including a fun day-after-Christmas breakfast with some of my extended family. But now I'm so sad at the thought of being quarantined in our house for the next week.

Oh well. Santa will still come, the sickness will pass, and we'll all survive.

While waiting for me to let him sip some more water, T laid down on the floor and slept for two hours.

Is this not the most pathetic face you've ever seen?

Santa's Getaway

Said by S after the Christmas party (at a rather feverish pace):

"Mom, we saw Santa leave in a car after the party. Maybe he was driving to where he had parked his sled because he didn't want us to see it. Or, maybe he just couldn't bring his sled to the party. I don't care—I still believe in him. I don't care what the kids at school say. I still believe!"

Oh, boy. I don't think this little girl will believe in the big guy in red for much longer...

Weekend, Part II

Since so much family was in town, we opted to have our annual Christmas party the day after Boppa's funeral, complete with a visit from Santa. Santa has visited every year since A was a kid. We also did the Nativity pageant, which was great, as usual.

We spent the rest of the weekend hanging out with family. and even got to do a temple session together, thanks in part to A's sister who watched the kids. It was such a wonderful experience to be there together.

N was less than excited to see Santa.

Santa T-man

I bet you couldn't tell these dudes were the Wise Men.

Three semi-frightening-looking shepherds

Mary, Joseph, and baby Jesus

The kids and A's parents

Weekend, Part I

We're coming off a sad, but also really wonderful weekend with family. Thursday marked the funeral for A's grandpa. His parents were able to fly back from their mission, for which we all were very grateful. It was such a blessing to have them with us.

On Thursday morning, A left early to go to the viewing. I had planned to bring the two older kids later with me, after first dropping off the babies and T at a friend's house. The day before, both babies had woken up with goopy eyes. I hoped whatever it was would quickly find its way out of the house, but when N woke up Thursday morning with both eyes glued shut, I knew I couldn't subject my friend to double eye infections. (I wasn't about to miss the funeral, though, so I just warned everyone in A's family before they went anywhere near the babies. "Hold them at your own risk!")

So, this meant I had to take all five kids to the funeral. Knowing that the twins would be fantastic distractions in the actual funeral, I opted to sit in the Relief Society room the whole time with them. The three older kids went into the funeral with their dad and other family members and did mostly ok by all reports. I felt rather pathetic, all alone in the room with two babies, but all things considered, it was the best scenario possible. I was able to listen to the meeting (including a truly phenomenal talk by my husband and a solo by S), while letting the babies run around, sift things out of the trash, and play the piano.

Two hours earlier, before I ever left for the funeral, I had a really sweet spiritual teaching moment from S. It was a particularly horrendous morning, made worse by the fact that I was so upset about having to take all of them with me (and I'm sure my general emotional state about the events of the day couldn't have helped much.) If you think that getting five children ready by yourself sounds like an exhausting task, it's probably worse than you think. And I didn't handle it well that day. At all.

When I finally got in the car, we were 30 minutes behind schedule (although still in plenty of time for the actual funeral). I heard S saying something under her breath and I caught the word, "frustrated." "Are you upset because I was frustrated?" "No." I paused. "Are you worried about singing your solo?" "Yes. " (Tears ensued.)

I took a deep breath and announced that I would say a prayer to help us all. It did. I think that small moment of clarity on my part helped both of us calm down. I know it helped me realize that although taking five children to a funeral (including two goopy-eyed babies) was not ideal, it would be ok. And it turned out to be a wonderfully spiritual day.

More on the weekend later...

Dear Disney,

Oh, how you continue to cause problems for this English graduate. If your grammar snafus weren't enough, now your movies are causing my children to get all mixed up.

The Santa Clause series of movies, albeit delightful, have confused my children into thinking that the name of the man in red is actually "Santa Clause." H drew a lovely picture the other day and entitled it, "Santa Clause is coming to town." S began her Christmas wish list with,"Dear Santa Clause." And while I know the words sound the same, and that I should just let this one go, I have a need to correct the mistake. But then I pictured myself trying to explain to my children the meaning of the word, "clause."

"Well, kids, a clause is a type of legal document, treaty, or provision. In the case of the movies, there were special clauses written into the Santa contract that became the premise for the movies. The folks over at Disney did a fun little word play, changing Santa Claus to Santa Clause. Does that make sense, guys?"

Please, Disney, no more. I don't think I can take it.

Tooth fairy

It's sad that the tooth fairy was so exhausted last night that she forgot to exchange H's first lost tooth for money (especially when you consider that we have a special tooth fairy pillow that my mom made and that I put this pillow on the window sill in H's room so that the tooth fairy wouldn't forget.) Even sadder was H's face when he came into my bathroom this morning to tell me that his tooth was still there. I told him that maybe the tooth fairy was still out looking for our new house. He seemed to think this was a plausible explanation. Luckily, the tooth fairy found our house while H was getting ready for school, and did her job. He was pleased with the two gold dollars he got. (I think the tooth fairy felt guilty.)

I hate it when fairy tale creatures forget things.

The tooth he lost was on the bottom front row. It's tough to tell because the big tooth has already come in behind it.

Rest in peace, Boppa

Yesterday afternoon, a very special, very loved, very wonderful man passed away. A's grandpa. Boppa. He was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer barely a month ago. He was told he had about six months to a year to live. But that was not meant to be. The time we had left with him went by so very quickly, but it was so precious. Boppa wasn't my grandpa by birth, but I felt like I adopted him when I married my husband. He was so full of kindness and love.

One of Boppa's favorite things to do was read with my kids. He used to pretend that he didn't know the letters and make the kids tell him what they were. He loved reading Shel Silverstein with them. He gave S a beautiful pop-up edition of Alice in Wonderland.

In recent weeks, we've spent many wonderful evenings at Boppa and Nana's house, laughing together as a family, bearing our testimonies of the gospel, and making precious memories that will bear us up in the days and weeks ahead. Probably the most precious memories will be of my kids reading to him. Almost every time we visited him in those last weeks, both H and S read to Boppa. We told them over and over again how much Boppa loved it—and how much he loved them. And they gladly read to him, over and over again. Books they had loved together and new books that my kids wanted to share with him.

The sweetest thing to me as a mother was to watch H with Boppa. H is a shy person by nature. There are times when he is painfully shy. But something really special happened to H over the past month. He began asking to read to Boppa, and later talking about how much he enjoyed it. I'm not sure what changed in H's little heart. I like to think that the Spirit whispered to him that Boppa wouldn't be around for much longer. And it even extended to other relatives. On Thanksgiving day, he read to both my grandmas, and an aunt and uncle. Volunteering to do so.

Only a few days before Boppa died, we had made plans to go and visit, but Nana said he wasn't doing well and that we could come the next night. A's sister called to tell me that all Boppa had wanted that night was for H to read to him. So, the kids picked out special books to read to Boppa and we all went down together the next night and had a really wonderful time.

I'm so very thankful that we all have these sweet memories. I'm grateful for the growth my kids have experienced over the past few months, and the way A's family has surrounded each other and cared for one another. In the face of so much sadness and grief, there is still much to celebrate.

Rest in peace, Boppa.

Ding dong, the gopher's dead!

It's kind of sad how excited I am about this, but I don't care. The gopher that has been a plague on our lives (yes, a plague) is DEAD.

About a week after we moved in, we saw a hole in the grass and a mound of dirt next to it. Well, my neighbor noticed it first and pointed it out to me as evidence that we had a gopher. This was about three days after the plumbing incident so I did not feel particularly kindly toward the house or the grass around it. And I certainly didn't think it was very nice that some gopher picked our lawn to mess with.

My husband began dutifully trying to get rid of the gopher. He tried poison, smoke bombs, a piece of chewing gum (apparently, it's supposed to choke them), and even shoving the water hose down the tunnel to try and flood him out.

Nothing—and I mean nothing—worked. I saw the gopher poke his little head out at one point during the poison phase. I ran inside, grabbed the poison, and tossed some down the tunnel. If I had only known how long this unwelcome creature would be with us, I think I would have bashed him over the head with a shovel right then and there. And I am not kidding about that. I'm generally not against animals at all. I'm not a lover of animals, but I don't really harbor any ill will toward them. But an animal that will dig up our brand-new sod and make holes all over our backyard for THREE MONTHS deserves no good will from me.

A few weeks ago, my husband bought a trap. We started to think even that wasn't working when one or two new holes appeared. But then, this morning, my husband knocked excitedly on my office window, motioning for me to come out.

Ding dong, the gopher's dead!

And now, we hope and pray that his girlfriend isn't still out there somewhere...