Elisa’s Day

where to even start? i was progressing nicely to a well organized , prepared holiday. i finished all my shopping baking and knitting early. leaving me the week before christmas to clean my house, like really clean it, you know, mop the floors and everything, get ahead on laundry, and just chill with the kids and wait for the big day.

then i got a sore throat. we had been on the go, a late night on the 17th at the annual party at my mom’s school for kids and grandkids of the staff. a christmas party the morning of the 18th at a friends house from play group, she’s an ECE turned SAHM, and clearly insane, because she must have had 25 kids in her house for this party, complete with crafts and games and much chaos while all the moms sat in the kitchen and drank coffee….awesome. then an hour drive on the 20th for dinner with some of ryan’s family. ryan’s staff party the 21st, miss molly was big hit of course. but tired and not willing to sleep at the party, maybe if i hadn’t have left my beco at ryan’s aunts house she would have, but instead we left early and i went to bed early, suspect of my newly sore throat, but hoping some salt water and an early night would see it gone.

quick backround: 5 years ago, when olivia was a baby, i got strep at christmas, only i hadn’t had strep since i was a kid, didn’t even occur to me that might be what i had when my throat got sore and i started running a fever….i figured i had a cold. i let it go a long time before ending up in emerg. i was extremely sick by then, and olivia had it too. it ruined mine, and most everyone else’s christmas. it was truly horrible, and it made me forever paranoid of sore throats, never ever wanting to go through that again.

so luckily, i called doctor the very next day and she was still in the office, and she’s awesome, so she said, with the holidays coming, lets just start some antibiotics and screw the throat swab that takes days to get results. by catching it early with antibiotics and tylenol every four hours for the fever and pain, i was able to celebrate christmas like a mostly normal person. it definitely sidelined my well organized and prepared holiday, but it didn’t ruin it, so i call it a victory.

we had a nice, if not ridiculously hectic christmas. we travel too much. and we do too much on the 25th. it changes next year. but this is this year, so our day went like this. wake up and open gifts. have something to eat and the kids play for a bit until we head over to my mom’s and open gifts there. then she goes nuts trying to get a turkey dinner ready and i go nuts getting us packed up. then we pound a turkey dinner and pack up the kids for the ( hellish ) 4 hour drive to ottawa. we drive at night so the kids will sleep, it’s the only civil way to spend 4 hours in the car with small children believe me. and now we’re home and we still have to drive to my dad’s on the weekend.

we did have some fun while in ottawa this year, instead of just hanging around the house for several days, we took the kids to a museum and then the next day ryan and i took just sidney to the art gallery ( well, and molly of course, where the boobs go molly goes ) but it was nice to do something with just sidney, as the oldest she definitely gets the least one on one time with us. sadly, she found the art gallery to be pretty boring, but had fun getting away from her sisters for sure.

even though everyone did seem to make an effort to par it down this year, it still a huge amount of stuff. there is just no way around it with so many people buying for so many kids i guess. but good stuff. lots of craft stuff, and cool books. puzzles and games. extra cute flannel nightgowns ryan’s mom made ( which makes them even better of course ) and some toys too of course. our bargain of the year was definitely these little radio style mp3 players i found at winners. they are big and plastic and ugly, but they we 20$ and the kids love ‘em. they came with some kids songs and ryan put on some stories and some good old fashioned rock ( like early beatles ) and disney ballads and they are a big hit ( especially with olivia ). and no ear phones, that was imperative for me. speakers, much more annoying for us yes, but much less damaging to kids little ears. i cringe when i see kids with ear buds in, literally cringe.

so many highlights for me, hard to pick any. i cleaned up, ryan and my step dad made me beautiful things, ryan made me a beautiful mirror out of an old window frame. rusty made me a beautiful side table with and old sewing machine base. my mom and mil both gave me nice sweaters i love ( among other great things ). my sister managed to find two old collections of fairytales, grimms and andersons, at a used bookstore after i had said i’d like something like that weeks ago.

molly got a few little things, but the teething necklace i ordered after seeing it on ashley’s page is the cutest. really a baby in a necklace? too frikken funny. so adorable.

and my blurb book was a big hit, coming just in the nick of time, on the 22nd. really wishing i hadn’t finally got of my ass and printed all 500 of those pictures i just did, that are still sitting in the original bag, still out of order ( most annoying part of having pictures printed for sure ) because blurb, so much better. i may just start over from the beginning and switch everything over to books.

all in all a good holiday. if you made it this far you’re a hero. must get through spell check and post because baby is sitting with dad, but getting closer and closer to realizing she’s hungry.