Merry Christmas Eve, 2007

Posted December 23rd, 2007 by Mom |

This will be known as the “stomach flu Christmas” for years to come.

On Thursday evening, C came down with the stomach flu. He vomited all evening until finally collapsing into the sleep of the exhausted. He was sick as well all day Friday. B took him to the doctor on Saturday morning. There wasn’t much the doctor could do for the vomiting, but found that C also had a lung infection and an ear infection. Poor fella. Since C couldn’t keep anything down, he got a shot of antibiotics and we will start him on oral antibiotics in the morning. Next in line to get sick was me.

Last night (Saturday) I missed out on decorating cookies with B’s parents, C and J. I surpassed C’s fever by a tenth of a degree. My fever topped out at 101.8 early this morning around 3. I felt too bad to sleep, so I wrapped presents. (B’s mom mentioned that my wrapping talents were slipping as she unwrapped a present this evening…)

I really had been looking forward to watching C and J getting into icing cookies. Knowing that C is 5.5 and J being 3.75, they would both enjoy and understand how to ice the cookies. Fortunately B brought home some of their creatively decorated cookies so I could enjoy their labors.

This afternoon B started to get sick. I am all better. It is amazing how 24 hours earlier, I was miserable! I know that B will feel a lot better tomorrow after a good night’s sleep - if the nausea will let him sleep.

This evening we went over to B’s parent’s home for dinner and Christmas. Ju (B’s mom) prepared a delicious meal of homemade chili. B obviously rested in the living room. (We had the option of postponing Christmas, and I think we would have had B understood how bad he was going to get to feeling as the evening progressed…) C and J love chili and enjoyed eating by candlelight. I tucked J’s napkin into his collar to prevent a mess but J removed it and told me, “I won’t make a mess. I have a spoon.” True to his word, he didn’t get a single drop of chili on his sweater!

C and J had an awesome Christmas with Grandma and Grandpa! Blankets, rollerblades with training wheels, child sized golf game that made B mention that the back gate will now come in handy as we retrieve golf balls from the land behind out home, cars and trucks, coloring felt boards, a battery train, twister and candyland carpet games just to name a portion of their loot. I love my Willie box (named for my beloved cat Willie in heaven), levenger clock fob, ladybug socks and note cube, Hobby Lobby Gift card, perfume bottle, just to name some of my stuff. I’m not sure what B received (he has now told me about the clamps, Lowe’s gift card, Barnes and Noble gift card) since he was at the other end of the room trying to stay very still when he wasn’t taking sick-time breaks to the bathroom. Poor guy. This stomach bug is awful and doesn’t discriminate. He kept telling Toto the not-human to stay off of his belt/stomach.

We gave Grandma a laminator, Hobby Lobby gift card, manicure g/c in additional to other things. Grandma and Grandpa will enjoy going out to the movies as well one evening.

Grandpa’s big gift, in addition to a wood craft g/c, was a DVD where B has been scanning K’s (Grandpa) slides where he use to do a lot of photography. He is excellent with a camera and should keep up this craft in my opinion. Anyway, B has organized the slides into acid-free storage containers and is cataloging them. He hasn’t reached the 1/2 way point yet of the approximately 3000 slides, but is continuing on in his quest of having all the slides scanned and cropped.

Watching K tear up while viewing the DVD was priceless. K said after viewing some of the family pictures that he would have to look at the rest of them later. Ju mentioned that “it’s my life” looking at them. Good idea and excellent job, B!

Tomorrow is Christmas Eve. We have church tomorrow evening and then will celebrate Christmas with my parents. I have a lot of preparing to do for Christmas day as well. I need to make the Happy Birthday Jesus cake and sausage pinwheels so they will be ready to go into the oven first thing on Christmas morning. I need to make sugar cookies and puree the strawberries for the punch. Also a little dusting and vacuuming would be a grand idea as well.

Timing is everything. If I had the stomach flu tonight or tomorrow, Christmas might be a bust! This is one of the bigger Christmases for the boys. As they grow older, I hope the magic of the season will remain in their hearts, and as I grow older, I am getting enjoyment out of them.