Merry Christmas Eve!
Well, Elena is pretty much back to her old self today. She got up at 4.30 this morning, pounded on her door for about an hour, and then eventually fell asleep next to the door after I turned up our white noise machine, slid food through a crack in her door and handed her milk and went back to bed. When I went to get her from her nap this afternoon, I found her in the dark sitting on her knees on her rug with Stinky Pinky over her head. When she pulled SP off and came out, she proudly informed me that “Eh-nih-nah has bwuud fwom da bike, Mama!” and showed me that she had taken off the bandage covering her cut.
That one has a mind of her own. Yesterday I found her perched on the tall radiator in Liam’s room hiding behind the curtain while she was trying to poop. The girl likes her privacy.
Liam, on the other hand, came down from his room nekkid yesterday with Avery following close behind in just her underwear. I have yet to figure out what happened, but when Jenn went up to check on everyone, they were nearly nude and nude and Elena was in the bathroom with a cup leaning over the toilet and water was everywhere. I did finally get out of Liam that he had to poop and everyone came into the bathroom with him…except Jack. I guess Jack respects other people’s privacy.
Aaron is home for the week now and we went to the grocery store as a family today. That was quite a trip. I’m glad we went though, because AJ got me these super cool ceramic pint glasses for my tea. I’m always stealing his glass pint mugs and they’re never really clean when he wants to use them because I’ve turned British and I drink tea all the time - even if it is herbal (her-bal, not er-bal) and doesn’t count in the eyes of the Brits.
Anyway, the grocery store was crazy, but it’s always crazy here, so I wasn’t sure if it was just crazy or if it was Christmas crazy. I saw a woman getting hounded about whether or not she had shoplifted, though she swore on her baby boy that she hadn’t stolen anything, and there was a fire truck parked outside when I left the store. Liam wondered what was going on, but I knew since I’d seen the fire man guy buying milk in the dairy aisle. I guess they feel like they need to get some use out of the big truck, so off to the grocery store it is. They actually did ask Liam if he wanted to climb in the truck, and in typical Liam fashion, he said, “no” in his quiet voice and got shy. Evidently the fire dude was shocked, obviously.
It really doesn’t feel much like the holidays around here. The weather has been decent (by that I mean grey and not that cold, and no rain) and this morning I didn’t wear a coat when the kids and I went out to walk to Jenn’s. I haven’t seen snow and I do miss that, but I have to admit that even though it’s my first Christmas season outside of Kansas, I do not miss being there. I certainly miss people, but I don’t miss the craziness. It’s really calm here - maybe because we live in a Jewish neighborhood?? We’re planning to get together with friends a couple times during the break and we’re going to take a few day trips to take advantage of the time we have since at this point we don’t know if we’re going to be able to stay a third year (schooling is ridiculously expensive and this subject requires its own post to explain).
At any rate, I’m looking forward to the down time and not having to run from place to place. And while I’m sad that I’m not going to see everyone in January either, I can’t believe the sense of relief I feel at not having any dates set on which I will be responsible for taking two small children on a plane.
Here’s wishing all of you happy holidays, whatever you celebrate, or just a nice day off if you’re not celebrating anything!
