Countdown to XMAS

So I did get the lights on the bushes this year. With the help of nanny we put the colored net lights on both sides of the house and it looks great!! Mostly because she is very particular about things being straight and we used tent stakes to keep in place—took some work but they are so cool.

I got into the shopping madness a bit because my girl has asked for a keyboard piano. I’m so surprised at how many stores don’t have them or only carry one option. I went to 5 stores and back to one twice because the first time they wouldn’t price match me yesterday, but found a store they would match today.  I can’t wait I ordered a piano book for little ones that has picture stickers to put on keys (like a dog, Star) and corresponding simple songs. Genius. I really want her to learn to play something versus just bang on it. I actually can play and read music—took years of lessons as a kid but it’s been a long time. I may even have some old sheet music for beginners.
My sons blue scooter arrived and it looks so cool and really good quality. I wanted one he could grow with for a few years.
Our holiday cards arrived and I think they turned out amazing. I really do. I used the recent photos from our family session and put it together at m.pi.x. They have not let me down with their photo products. Very reasonably priced too. I also got a print of my sister and the two kids since she says she doesn’t have a good one. I framed it so she will now. I also got some other items too like Xmas photo ornaments (every year) and magnets. Love them.

Something I’ve been challenged about is Santa. I don’t really play up Santa in our house I mostly focus on holiday music, decorating tree( which we finally got this past Friday for 50%off—my girl and I picked it up after her drs appt in about 15 minutes) and now that she’s getter older (and smarter) she’s asking good questions like—as we were reading a Christmas book tonight she says “how can Santa fit ALL those toys in his sleigh”. And the other day she says, “can reindeers really fly”?
I don’t say much and just want her to take the lead. My son could care less it seems. I just remember being a kid and having the magical excitement thinking about Santa, running downstairs in the morning—it was just a feeling of anticipation and wonder on Xmas eve.
We’ll keep that as long as we can.

On a personal note I’ve learned about how caffeine really negatively affects me because I stopped drinking diet sodas about 2 weeks ago. I’m still wondering if I have some kind of autoimmune issue because I still get random ‘flares’ of things. The ringing in my ears, the eyes blinking issue, tingling in my face, the bad reaction to anesthesia....and most recently my joints in my pointer fingers are very swollen and hurt.
It’s all wierd and could all be nothing, stress-related, or all tied to something. I think I’m just hyper-sensitive to any changes or ‘new’ things since nothing specific has surfaced.
Anyway I was doing research on autoimmune issues and read a lot about  the chemicals/artificial sweeteners used are like poison to your body. For some reason that word stuck with me and I thought why don’t I eliminate it and see how I feel.
I’ve learned a lot. Drinking diet soda makes me:
—Not get the feeling of being full. When I drink the same amount of water I actually feel full with my meals.
—Sleep terribly. It’s a viscious cycle of being tired, drink more, stay up so late because even just small amount in afternoon will disrupt my sleep.
—Drink more diet soda. It’s a bit like pring.les you can’t just have one
—Feel good when I think about drinking one and I look forward to it
—feel so bloated and retain water

Since stopping I have noticed I just seem to feel better over all. My energy seems to be coming back and I’m even thinking about organizing the boxes in my room that have sat there for the last 2 Years, wanting to make the baby books, etc. actually just noticing I’m even thinking about it is good. Part of that could be I’m getting better sleep so it stems from there. Now, I said better...not great sleep. I still wake up throughout the night every 2-3 hours regardless but I’m at least dreaming again and can easily fall back asleep. I did get tested for apnea last year and they said I had a mild case. However the machine experiment they do overnight was probably the worst experience with feeling terrible, massive headache, etc so I’m not really interested in doing that. At least any time soon.

It’s kind of nice though to not feel so exhausted for a change. I’m not sure I realized how much or how often I really felt so tired and just not rested or refreshed.
Not saying all is ‘cured’ and I’m all better but at least it’s a positive change that I want to stick with. When I frame it up in my head and remind myself it’s poison, I really do have an easier time just saying no.

I’m pretty much done shopping which is great because I’m usually scrambling up until Xmas. I think I may even start to wrap so I can actually enjoy our Christmas Eve and not stress about all I still need to do.
We’ve been listening to holiday music during our meals and I think the kids are really enjoying it. We’ve also done a few walks and drives through the neighborhood just to see the lights.

It’s just been kinda fun this year which is pretty cool.

Holidays

It's probably a good thing I didn't post yesterday evening as I had planned......it was a craptastic day yesterday. The morning until bedtime was very trying....my son was up at 5:50 am, my girl had a real tantrum in the morning, I had to ask a dozen times to get shoes, dressed, brush hair....she threw a fit because she didn't want a braid....my son didn't nap so that for sure meant a rough afternoon.....they weren't listening one bit all day.  We tried to get a tree but wouldn't you know the one we chose (after it was taken all way up front) had a split stem....by that time I said forget it. We stayed in the rest of the day.


Part of the issue is:--if I back up a few days before our trip to the Midwest for Thanksgiving, I posted that I hope the kids started feeling better......well they didn't. And haven't.  It's been non-stop sickness for about a month. Started with my girl before Thanksgiving, then my son picked it up--just cough/cold, etc.. However when we were on our trip I ended up taking my son to urgent care because he just wasn't breathing well, sounded very seal-barky-coughy-croupy-mess. He ended up having a virus.....and after we flew back from Thanksgiving that Sunday night my girl comes to my room around midnight saying her tummy hurt. Well.....she picked up a bug and was throwing up and pretty sick for two days.  She's been complaining about feeing tired for about a month, not acting herself, low energy, not eating much, tummy hurting off/on...so I took her to pediatrician on Friday and we are going to try a probiotic to see if that helps before running lab work. It could be she's just run down from being sick so much and am hoping that's all it is. And sure enough my son just last night started his cough back up pretty bad again. Big sigh......

He was such a trooper. As sick as he was, he really did amazing for how much we had going on.

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This was Monday night after the Thanksgiving Holiday. One on each end of the sofa. There's something about the worry of two kids at the same time that makes these times exponentially harder.


Halloween--

Our holidays have been a bit tough this year so far.....for Halloween it ended up storming SO bad that the streets were starting to back up w/ water. The community doesn't reschedule so it was basically go out if you want to. Ummm....no. So, we at least put our costumes on and went to the neighbor's house under the umbrella. We collected as much candy as we could around the house and I let them eat as much as they wanted. Not sure that's ever happened in our house....might have been a bit too much because later that night in bed my girl asked, 'why did you let us eat so much'!

 

My son was a P.J gecko and my girl put on her new wings (this has been about her 3rd set). The pic on the left shows her purple bear dressed up as a bumble bee. I'm SO proud we made that from scratch together. She wanted her bear to have a costume so we used construction paper to make a vest and black socks for the arms...pipecleaners for the antennas and wa-lah!

Thanksgiving--

 On the left is from the plane ride out and on the right is on Thanksgiving Day at a store.

I will say this--traveling w/ a 3 and 5 year old is a "bit" easier than a 4 and 2 year old....however, it still is a ton of work. Especially if  you have to rent a car on the other end and lug 2 car seats. With my son being pretty sick, it was tough. No naps the whole time and he didn't sleep well at night most of the time either. My girl also had a few rough mornings because she was lacking sleep too.....both of them had several calm downs and it took us so long to get ready because no one was cooperating. 

The thing that was a bit disappointing this year was that it seemed we didn't spend that much time w/ my cousin w/ the kids. At times it just felt like we were there, but still by ourselves. We stayed w/ my aunt and uncle, so on Thursday day my cousin spent the day cleaning her house so I took the kids to a store, then we had Thanksgiving at her house from 3-8....then Friday my cousin went shopping during the day and I stayed home w/ the kids and took my son to urgent care....then Friday night we went to my other cousins with everyone from 4-7-ish (which my son came up to me and said GO a few times because he had just had it by then), then on Saturday my cousin scheduled a race for a few of her kids so we didn't see them at all, even though we didn't leave until almost 1pm.  The race part is what was a bit frustrating to me--we see them once a year, and it is no small feat to get us all there. Was it really that important? I don't know, maybe it's me....maybe my expectations are too high? Maybe I would just do things differently if I had family come in town that I only see once a year?

What I know for a fact is that they really have no idea what it takes to do these types of things by yourself--they all are married and my aunt/uncle live w/ a short distance to all of their kids. They are constantly running kids around, taking kids to Drs appointments, etc..My aunt actually takes care of my cousins kids in their house and has for the last 14 years....they've had 5 kids. Just a ton of local support and family.

I hesitated even writing the part above because it makes is seem like it was a bad trip....and it wasn't! I think it was just hard w/ the sickness, traveling alone w/ 2 small kids,  and ironically even though we were around family, I still felt disconnected a bit because we didn't see them as much as I thought we would. The flight back and getting home was the toughest because everyone was just exhausted--lots of tears.

What was great??:  It was exciting to be on the plane w/ the kids and see through their eyes. My son's excited giggle when we were taking off.... my girl's exclamations of 'WOW'! All of that was so worth it. And on another positive note, it was GREAT for the kids to play with their cousins....they both had a good time this year, last year one of the cousins wasn't so nice to my son....but this year they all seemed to play well together. Make no mistake I was on high alert for awhile, though. 

Another really cool part of the trip was my mom's very dearest friend from her nursing school days was able to drive over to my uncles house with her son and visit me and meet my kids. We got to talk about my mom, some fun times they had over the years....some tears were shed for sure, but just hugging her was sort of connecting w/ my mom and it felt really good.

I forgot to mention it wouldn't be a Thanksgiving w/out calling poison control--my son decided to turn a bucket into a stool and get his hands on the motrin and drink it! I must not have had the cap all the way on, or something......the good thing is that he only drank less than a 1/4 of the bottle. When I talked to them they said that due to his weight, he would have had to have drank almost the whole thing.  Whew......

I am thinking through whether I talk to my cousin but she's hard to crack.....what I mean is, she's one that always says everything is 'fine'. Even if her son's had a concussion from football (which he had and I only found that out from my aunt and uncle), even if she'd had horrendous headaches (which I found out from my aunt and uncle). It's just odd because I talk to her at least once a month and she doesn't mention any of these things....so it kind of feels like she doesn't let me 'In'....even after all these years. Oh well, I really do have other things I need to focus on.

Some fun things we did lately. AND WE HAD SNOW!!! First time my girl probably remembers and first time EVER for my son. It was so amazing....that pic was taken at 7 something in the am.

Christmas---

I tried 2 weekends in a row now to get a tree. Last weekend my girl said she was too tired and just didn't want to go. I was SO not going to force the issue because it would have not been fun.  However, since we are getting much closer to xmas I really wanted to get one this weekend. I should have just let it be yesterday too as the way the day started I knew it was going to be rough.

I may end up just getting an artificial one, but I can't seem to find one I love.

At LEAST I got all of the yard decorated today w/ our lights, snowman, santa on the doorstep, xmas flag, etc.. The kids did pretty well keeping themselves occupied so I could finish it. And I do love it. I want to add more lights!! I want some maybe on the bushes and around the doorway. I think I've almost decided it will be next year to get lights on the house.....but hey, if we add one thing every year I think will be great.

Leave it to a five year old: We were looking at old Santa pictures from when she was a baby and she wanted to look. Then she quickly exclaims, "Mom, you're really young!".

My son continues to sniff me and says, "Toothpaste". apparently I smell like toothpaste!

I am working on getting xmas gifts and feel pretty good about what I will get the kids--that't not to say I have it all yet. I found her some face paint and am so excited about it. She made a sign the other day that we have face painting at our house and put it on the front door. She very into making signs....here's another one.

This was put on the bathroom door. It means to say, "No. That means You". With a picture of her brother in the middle.


My son says he wants a blue scooter. I think I can handle that one. He's not been into presents, so maybe that will be different this year. I am SO excited about something I found today--you can put balls/sticks together and make forts/a spaceship, etc.. I think he will Love it because he is constantly asking for 'car wash' and crawling through anything he can find.

We will get there.....It's been a tough month, I would say, with all that was going on and the kids just not feeling great. I worry so much when they get sick and hardly sleep myself....although I don't sleep that well anyway. Even with all that I am still excited for the holidays and have somewhat re-found the joy in finding the perfect gift. So much so that I want to actually shop in stores instead of pushing buttons and getting things online. I wanted to get my sister a set of sheets just like mine and was so excited to not only find them, but they were on sale, AND I had a coupon!  Now, if I don't find what I'm looking for that's fine, but it's just kind of fun to actually shop in stores this year.

My sister decided to book a flight and come visit right before xmas and will leave the Wednesday after. I will hope for the best there.  A bit of a bummer our old nanny isn't going to come until after xmas this year and its been an adjustment. She's been part of our 'getting ready for xmas' for the last 3 years. It's been one of the few times when she said she just couldn't come. I understand, but of course am disappointed. 

Well.....onto thinking about what new xmas 'thing' we want in the yard and finally getting a tree!

Happy Holidays!