Christmas Day

Well the Christmas season has come and gone, for the most part anyway. We still have a few friends to get together with and let's not forget my Mom. Dave and Mel get into to town on Wednesday, but Mom's not free until Friday night. So Friday night will be Christmas all over again. Abby of course made out like a bandit.

Christmas Eve we were at my cousin's house for our annual Christmas gathering. We had a lovely time and it both strengthened and weakened my resolve to do something different next year. I love my family I truly do and it was a great time Saturday night. Lots of food, laughs and reminicsing. Abby had a great time too, playing with her second cousin Hailey. Hailey has some very cool gymnastics equipment in her basement that Abby was all over. Not to mention the gigantic doll house, endless Barbies and countless Polly Pockets. Abby was in heaven. They actually get along quite well despite their difference in age Abby is only 3 while Hailey just turned 6. As has become tradition all the adults buy for the kids while the older set, if they choose to participate, purchase either a gift for a lady or a man and then everybody gets to pick a random gift from under the tree. Abby ended up with pretty much a new wardrobe. All of my Aunt's buy clothes for the kids. I was the only odd ball and bought the kids toys. Mike came home with a great roadside safety kit for the van. I got a small leather trunk filled with goodies like hot chocolate and cookies. The trunk is beautiful and just the right size for the new baby's memory box. So as you can imagine all that weakend my resolve to skip next year's festivities. I mean it has been proven that fostering relationships with your extended family, even if you only see them a couple of times a year, is beneficial to your kids. On the flip side though, we didn't get home until nearly 11 pm. Abby, stubbornly, wouldn't fall asleep on the way home like she normally does. Now Abby does have night terrors that can be brought on by a lack of sleep. Also children who have night terrors sometimes have difficulty transitioning from REM sleep to deep sleep, that occurs around the 2 hour mark after they have fallen asleep. So sure enough around that 2 hour mark Abby was whimpering in her sleep. Mike went in first to soothe her through and then a went in a few minutes after he was "finished" since she was still a bit restless. After that it seemed like I had only been to sleep for a second when she was up crying again. This time it was just about 5:30 am and she had to go pee, but she was too tired and disoriented to know what she was doing. Usually in those instances she'll just stand there crying until she pees her pants. To try and physically move her is asking for a major tantrum. It must have been a Christmas gift because some how I managed to convince her to sit on the potty and go, by that point though she was wide awake. So downstairs the two of us went to watch The Land Before Time, twice, and the Land Before Time II that she had received from Grandma Diane the night before. We were nice and let Mike sleep a little later.

Christmas morning we had plans to have breakfast with Grandma Sandi and Mark. Breakfast was yummy, if I do say so myself, but Abby had no real interest in eating it with us. Since she'd been up for hours by then she had been snacking for most of the morning. To say she was spoiled would be an understatement. Grandma Sandi definitley went overboard and we actually sent her home with some of her gifts unopened. Abby was at the point of being overwhelmed as well as being over tired and it didn't seem fair to either one of them. Abby was more than happy with what she did receive. The Dora dollhouse was a big hit. I didn't realize how huge that thing actually is. Abby could just about move in to it. Santa came through in a big way with a Pegasus Pony. It was the only thing Abby had been asking for because "it's not a riding pony it's a flying pony and none of my horses at home have wings." The pegasus pony was also the bane of my exsistance. Who designs the packaging for kid's toys? Why is it so impossible to a) get into the box and b) get the toy out of the box once you're in? Having a degree in engineering I'm sure would have been helpful. Are they afraid the toy will try to escape if it's not anchored down in 35 different locations. It would be nice to if they used one type of restraining device, but that would be too easy. No they're happier using zip ties and twist ties and tape and pieces of plastic sewn together and plastic locking keys and string to name a few. Mike and I were passing toys back and forth as we struggled to release them from their cardboard prisons, each of us working on them until we were completely frusterated. Also what kind of cardboard are they using? Certainly not the kind made of paper because paper usually rips while this stuff you can barely get through with scissors. This process isn't made any easier when you have a hopped-up-on-sugar-sleep-deprived three year old climbing all over you wanting to know if you're finished yet. By about lunch time we had all reached the end of our ropes. Okay maybe it was just Abby and I. Grandma Sandi and Mark headed for home and I think I was asleep on the couch before they pulled out of the driveway. Abby had a little bite of lunch and happily headed up for a nap. Both of us slept for 3 hours while Mike, lovely man that he is, cleaned up the Christmas carnage.

We actually had to wake Abby up from her nap at about 3 pm. We were due at Grandma Linda and Papa Brian's at 3 pm. Good thing they're only a few minutes away. We had actually already warned them that Abby (and Mommy too) was going to have to have a nap so we may be late. Abby was about finished with the present thing. She was content to play with Uncle Garry's toy rubber cars that had been his as a kid. Linda had found them in the house and wrapped them up for him for Christmas. We did manage to get her to open the rest of her gifts with help from Papa Brian. Mike had declared a Play-doh embargo for the holiday season. The reason - it's too messy. I asked if he had Play-doh as a kid and he said yes and he probably made a big mess with it. Well apparently the embargo memo never made it to Uncle Jeff because he bought Abby a rolling suitcase full of Play-doh. It came with 8 tubs of Play-doh and a bunch of accessories like cookie cutters and extruders. Mike, polite and thankful guy that he is, immediately told his brother that Abby would be playing with that at his house. You know what happened though right? Well last night at our very own kitchen table Abby and her Daddy played with her Play-doh for over half and hour. I, of course, have the pictures to prove it. Mike and I also received our Christmas presents from Abby that she picked out all by herself on a secret shopping trip with Grandma Linda. Without any help at all she picked out Simpson tree ornaments for Mike and a scented jar candle for me. She even told Grandma Linda what to write on the tags, mine was addressed to Mommy and Baby. We had a delicious meal, as always. Linda makes the best sausage stuffing ever. We all ran out of steam by about 8 pm so we headed for home and for bed. Well Abby to bed, but Mike and I weren't too far behind her.

Monday Mike had to head back to work, he's off on Thursday and Friday. Which works out better since Dave and Mel are coming on Wednesday. Abby and I spent most of the day in our jammers watching movies or I should say watching a movie. We watched Cinderella about 4 times. I tried to get her to switch to Toy Story to no avail. She's already watched that at Lyn's don't you know. Now Abby's super excited about Dave and Mel coming. She keeps asking me when they'll get here, will Uncle Dave play Play doh with her, will Uncle Dave play Candyland with her, are they bringing Adelaide (the dog), will Aunt Mel watch Cinderella with her, will Aunt Mel play Dora dollhouse with her and on and on. I hope they weren't planning on a relaxing visit here.