Ho, Ho, Holy Cow - What a Week!

Let me start by saying that, all in all, it did end up being a very nice holiday. But, it wasn’t without it’s fair share of ups and downs. Just to highlight a few of them….

- Beginning of Christmas week, we keep Alex home because of a cough. Day 3 of the cough, he gets a fever. We go to the doctor – where she tells us that he in fact has pneumonia. Really? Can this kid not catch a break? Here he is with his Opa in the height of his fever (note the red cheeks)

- My parents arrive safely the Tuesday before Christmas, but my mom arrives with a bad cold, which then spreads to my father, me and Avery (although, Alex may have been the root cause of me and Avery…who knows). I just felt badly for her that she doesn’t get a cold all year and then gets one right when she needs to fly.

- Wednesday night (the same day Alex gets diagnosed with pneumonia), our heat goes out in the middle of the night. Avery woke up from a bad dream, so I went into her room only to find out that it was FREEZING in there. So, I look at the thermostat – set at 65, temperature = 57. Not good. Clearly a 6 month old with pneumonia cannot stay in a house with no heat. So, at 2 am, I pack Alex and myself up and head to my in-laws’ house to spend the night. I do this while my father and Josh are up trying to read approx. 5 different manuals to try to figure out what the hell happened. Turns out, the diaphragm in our tank froze. Whatever. The guy was out there at 8 am the following morning to fix it and everyone survived the night (Avery slept through the entire thing and woke up wondering why she had 5 blankets on her. I still can’t believe she slept through all of that).

- Christmas Eve – everything was fine until right after dinner, at which point, the sandwich that I had for lunch decided to revisit. Apparently, the Italian grinder didn’t agree with my stomach and it let me know about it for the next 3-4 hours. Thankfully, it passed in time for Christmas day.

- Christmas morning was great. Avery was more interested in whether Santa ate the cookie that we left out than she was in the presents. In fact, she barely even noticed the presents and we had to point out the easel that he had gotten her. At which point, she looked at it and exclaimed, “It’s a Weasel!!!!!” Too funny. We literally were still opening gifts through Sunday – apparently she could only handle so many on the actual holiday!

- The rest of Christmas day was spent running around like chickens with our heads cut off trying to get ready to host dinner at our house. Overall, it turned out great, but man! I have a whole new appreciation for all of those “adults” who have hosted Christmas all these years.

- Sunday, my parents and I went to the mansions in Newport. We were supposed to have gone on Wednesday while the kids were in daycare, but given how everyone was feeling at the time, it didn’t happen. Which, in hindsight was fine. Josh stayed home with the kids and we did the mansion tours and didn’t have to worry about changing diapers, nursing, burping, etc. Although, I was stupid and neglected to bring my pump with me, so the day was cut a bit short as I felt as though I was about to explode towards the end. Lesson learned there.

- And…to top it all off, Sunday afternoon, I received an email from the woman who took Chili – he’s coming back. Apparently, he hisses at her 4 year old daughter whenever she walks into the room. Go figure. That cat is such a pain in my butt, but I just can’t let them get rid of him and not know what happens to him. I still haven’t broken the news to my husband, as I’m pretty certain this may be grounds for divorce. So, for those of you who are in touch with him between now and this weekend, don’t you dare mention this to him! If you do, I’m sending this damn cat your way!

Like I said, all in all, it was a nice holiday. Avery enjoyed herself, which is what is important. She is still a good year from understanding Santa entirely, but she had fun regardless.

Alex is feeling much better, which is also good. He’s pooping like a goose because of these meds that he is on. Poor thing – he is either pooping once every 10 days or pooping 10 times a day. We can’t win.

Here’s to 2010 bringing full nights of sleep, and no more serious illnesses for any of the Holland family members and normal and consistent poops….

Scary Clause

So, I thought that maybe Avery was old enough this year to really be excited to see Santa Clause and to sit on his lap. We have been talking about Santa Clause a lot lately and I think that she somewhat understands the concept (the concept being that he brings her presents). But, as it turns out? Not so much. We went to a Santa brunch at Josh’s parents’ club this last weekend. Avery was eating her meal when Santa walked into the room. I swear, you would have thought that it was the devil walking into the room by the look on her face. Avery took one look at him and started crying begging me – “Mommy, I want to walk around!!!” So, we left and took a short break from brunch. I explained to her that Santa is very friendly, but that he wouldn’t even come near her. I finally convinced her to go back to the table (considering, at this point, I hadn’t eaten yet and was STARVING) just in time to see Alex being placed on Santa’s lap. I would have thought that would have gotten her to do it, but nope. She stayed just where she was and kept an eye on Santa all morning to make sure he didn’t come near us. Clearly, Alex was totally comfortable on Santa's lap...

And, clearly, Avery was much more comfortable in Mommy's arms....

The rest of the weekend was spent getting the house ready for Christmas. We got our tree on Saturday, which was quite the experience. We went to a new place this year, which was great (yes, that is Alex in the picture doing his typical "pose" in the stroller). Avery had such a good time that, for the first time ever, she fell asleep in the car (which, mind you, was a 5 min. drive) and then stayed asleep while we took her out of the car.

But, when we got the tree home, the trunk was too big for our stand, which meant we needed a saw to cut it down. Of course, being new home owners, we don’t have things like saws (note to self for anyone looking for Xmas gifts for Josh), so we had to call Josh’s dad. As Josh was on his way to his parents house to get the saw, they both showed up at our house with the saw in hand. However, it didn’t really matter, as the chain saw wouldn’t work. So, we made a call to good ol’ Handy Man Earl. Who is Earl, you ask? Well, Earl is the man who Josh’s father has called to help with various household projects since the beginning of time. For example, Earl is the man who put together Avery’s crib. Yes – you read that right. We called Earl to put together a crib. Don’t even ask. Josh is still getting grief for that to this day.

ANYWAY – we FINALLY get the tree up on Saturday and then spent Sunday afternoon decorating it. Avery had fun helping me but was interested for about 1.2 seconds. She did put a few ornaments on the tree and did a very nice job, I have to say.

Yesterday, Avery and I went to high tea with Josh’s mom. A mansion in Bristol (which is a small town near us) had high tea for Christmas. It was great. A table was reserved for each group and each setting had a little cup and saucer (which, I guess would make sense at high tea). Then a bunch of women came around with trays of scones, then finger sandwiches (which included PBJ for the kids, but of course, Avery ate the ham salad), then dessert. And, they offered both tea and hot chocolate for the kids. Santa also made an appearance during this event. Thankfully, Avery didn’t see him….until she had to go to the bathroom and we had to walk right by him to get there. She actually was ok. I told her that she didn’t even need to look at him if she didn’t want to and that she should just look at me as we were walking by (at which point, she just STARED me dead in the face for like 5 minutes straight, which kind of freaked me out – I sometimes forget how literally kids take things at this age). After tea, they had a man dressed as an elf who read a story to the kids and then told all of us that an elf was hiding somewhere in the mansion. So, we spent the next 30 mins looking for the elf,only to find out that he was sitting in the Christmas tree which was in the room where we were in the first place – go figure. Anyway – it was a great night and Avery had a great time.
On a developmental note – Alex sat up on his own the other day! I put the boppy pillow around him, but he didn’t even use it. Of course, at the time, my camera was out of batteries, so I didn’t get the exact moment that this occurred, but I got one later. He isn’t doing quite as well here as he did the first day, but we’re making progress.
We are also working on his sleeping ( or lack thereof). We have started to let him fuss it out a bit longer than we were and now, instead of me going in there, Josh goes in there to give him a pacifier when he wakes up. In the past, this never worked, as he would only be satisfied if he ate. But, for the last week or so, he has accepted the pacifier and gone back to sleep. He is still waking up at 4 am (nearly on the dot) and I feed him at that point, but then he goes back down until anywhere between 730 and 9 am. So, it isn’t horrible.

Oh!!! And, Chili has found a new home for Christmas. A woman, her boyfriend and her child adopted him. They seem to really like him. Although, I did get an email from her yesterday asking me if he “play bites” at all. She also mentioned that he is rather vocal at night and hasn’t really warmed up yet to her 4 year old daughter. All of these do not sound like a recipe for a permanent new home. I’m just hoping they like him so much that they can look past all of these lovely traits because, quite frankly, I’ve gotten pretty used to a house without chili. We’ll see. I’ll keep you posted.

Thanksgiving "Vacation"

You would think that vacation = relaxing. Yeah – not so much with 2 kids. I don’t mean to make it sound like we didn’t have a good week, because we did. It was just a bit more challenging from a logistics perspective and included much less sleep than Thanksgiving pre-kids. It started with a visit from my college girlfriends and their babies on Saturday night. It has kind of become a tradition for us all to get together when I get into Houston. It is great being able to see them and their kids, but I will say, I think that we collectively each said about 5 words to each other all night. Most of the night was spent with Amy walking Olivia around (as she is at that, "I'm learning to walk and want to walk everywhere" stage), Jessica following Owen around (as he is at that, "I'm 18 months and this is a new house, so I want to explore" stage) and me getting Alex down and then avoiding to get Avery down thinking it would be a long process in a new place, which led to her hanging out all night and talking and interrupting our conversation (because she is in that, "I know how to talk and I want people to pay attention to me and only me" phase). I will say that there was about 10 mins while we ate when all kids were occupied, which led to us actually being able to eat and drink some wine sans kids. This moment is captured below.But, overall, it was really nice being able to catch up a bit and to see everyone's kids. Hopefully, in the future, we can try to plan an adult only party after the kids go down. The next morning, Lexi, the kids and I left for Aransas Pass to go to Mom and Dad's. Note, Josh and Will weren't included in this car load. Even with Lexi’s SUV, which has 3 rows, we still couldn’t fit the kids and the luggage in one car, so we were forced to rent an economy going one way from Houston to Aransas Pass. This car literally only carried the luggage and Josh (Will had to work and came down later). Everything was great for the 1st 2 hours. However, just as we started on hour #3 in the car, Alex decided that he needed to eat and he needed to eat right then and there. So, we pulled over at some sort of gas station, which turned out to be the one where a van full of dead people from Mexico were found trying to be smuggled across the border a few years ago (we should have known at that point that this would not turn out well). So, we stop and proceed to wake Avery up by stopping (seen sleeping here with her headphones on). At which point, she decides to let us know just how unhappy she is that she was woken up by screaming loudly – very loudly. So, to appease her, Lexi offers to get her out of the car to walk around. They were out there for no more than 5 mins when Lexi starts screaming, “Fire ants! Fire Ants! Get back in the car!” Poor Lexi ended up getting some bites, but thankfully, Avery escaped and went back into her seat surprisingly easily. So, I’m done feeding Alex on one side and try to change his diaper in my lap. I couldn’t figure out why it wasn’t working, and then realized (as he was screaming in my lap because his head was inadvertently being pushed against the center console) that I was trying to put a size FIVE diaper on him (which I had with me in order to avoid an accidental potty break by Avery as she was sleeping in Aunt Lexi’s brand new car seat). So, once I get that figured out, I finish feeding him and then Miss Annabel decides that she now needs to eat. So, we feed her. Finally, we’re off. Everything was ok for the next 30 mins. But, then both babies and Avery all decided that it was time to get out of the car, so they literally all screamed and cried for the last 30 mins of the ride. At this point, all we could do was laugh.

Once we got there, everything was fine. Sleeping arrangements were a bit tough for no other reason than Alex not wanting to sleep AT ALL. Why you ask? Because he didn’t poop for TEN days!!! I mean, seriously????? What child just doesn’t poop for TEN days? So, as you can imagine, he was rather uncomfortable and as a result, was pretty fussy during the day and VERY uncomfortable at night. In order to avoid waking Avery up, I slept in a different room so that I could hear Alex (who was in my father’s office surrounded by multiple African animals…come to think of it, maybe the fact that a baboon was staring at him all night and probably scaring the crap out of him had something to do with him not sleeping??) and get him before he woke Avery up. Avery slept in a big girl bed (aka, a blow up mattress on the floor next to our bed) for the first time. Everything was fine and she was very excited to not be surrounded by wooden bars. However, the first night, Josh said he woke up to Avery screaming. Turns out, her upper body had fallen off of the mattress and ended up UNDER the bed. Can you imagine waking up to a bed on top of you??? Josh had to literally lift up the bed to get her out. Poor thing. Good thing she had no recollection of this the next day.

Other than the sleeping issues, things were good. We took Avery to the aquarium, which she loved.
She had her first real Thanksgiving dinner (she was in bed by the time we ate last year) and seemed to really enjoy it. She was introduced to gravy and proceeded to dip everything, including her grapes, into it. She also got to do one of her favorite things - help Grandma bake. Alex spent most of his time with his cousin Annabel laying on the ground, sitting in the bouncy seats and chewing on his favorite toy, Sohpie (or, Sophinator, as I like to call him to make it a bit more manly).
The flight back was relatively good. There was one minor issue at the beginning when we got to the airport at 6:45 am only to be told that our flight at 8 am had been cancelled now for months and that it now leaves at 6:50 AM. Clearly, we missed the memo on that one. It was fine – they re-routed us through Atlanta and we only got home an hour and a half later than we would have. There was one time when both of them decided to have a melt down at the same time on the plane. Again, all we could do was laugh at that point.
All in all, it was a nice holiday, but I’ll be honest – I’m looking forward to next year when Alex is a bit older and a bit less constipated (hopefully!).