Christmas Eve with the Crud

Christmas is here, and it’s so different this year because Jenson understands Christmas so much more as a 3 year old.  He “gets” Santa, is starting to understand certain traditions, and knows tons of Christmas songs.  He’s been excited for Christmas Day and has enjoyed all of the pre-Christmas events and prep.  We saw Santa at a few different events, saw Christmas lights, went to a Christmas parade, cut down and decorated the Christmas tree, Jenson had his preschool Christmas program, made a gingerbread house with friends, baked cookies at Nana’s and at home, and read lots of Christmas books.

We have a ton of Christmas books (which I put away after the season), so I decided we’d wrap all of the Christmas books and put one under the tree each night for him to open and read.  I thought it would be a fun tradition and keep the books special, and he seemed to love it.  Some books he only cared to read once, while others we’ve read over and over.  His favorites have been Dream Snow, Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer, Christmas Pop Up Peekaboo, Little Blue Truck Christmas, The Red Sled, and Nighty-Night Northpole (which is a really cool light-up book).  There are so many more I want to get for future years!  Are there any Christmas books you recommend?

While Marlowe doesn’t “get” Christmas yet, of course, she enjoys the stuff that goes along with it.  Everyday when I bring her downstairs, she points to the Christmas tree and says “tree”.  She also points to the snowman that Jenson and I made for the door and mumbles something.  She can say “reindeer” and looks for our little Rudolph sings and dances – she LOVES that thing.  She’ll repeat “ho ho ho”, but it’s more like “ha ha ha”, and when we sing “then one foggy Christmas Eve, Santa came to say” she’ll fill in “ha ha ha” during “Rudolph”.  She’s been great about leaving the tree alone.  I’m sure she figured out pretty early on that the needles are sharp, so she doesn’t even try to get to the ornaments.  Her first Santa experience wasn’t great..it was past her bedtime (we were driving through the light show in a park near my hometown) and she was tired!  The second time was much better…or maybe she just likes Mrs. Claus better.

Unfortunately, this week has been dominated by the crud and both of the kids are slightly sick.  Marlowe has had a low fever since Monday – typically just 99-100, and with no other obvious symptoms, though today she is snotty.  Jenson started having a barky cough on Tuesday and waking at night as he does when he is sick.  I took him to the Dr. on Wednesday and he said it was probably croup and gave us a short rx for liquid prednisone.  His cough stopped sounding barky by the next day and just sounded congested, and he occasionally ran a fever, but he was definitely “off” for most of the week.  He kind of alternated being tired, being weepy, playing normally, acting out, etc.  The coughing woke him several times most nights and would really upset him – he’d cry “I’m still coughing” and “make it stop”.  We ended up taking them to Urgent Care on Christmas Eve morning because they both had fevers and Jenson was coughing non-stop.  Of course neither had fevers while we were there.  Their lungs, ears, and throats were clear, so we were just told it’s a standard 10 day virus and to keep them comfortable.

Their crud has put a damper on some of our holiday fun, but we still managed to enjoy the season.  We did a lot more tv and movie watching than normal this week because Jenson would start coughing and get worn out when he tried to play much.  I couldn’t let him help me with a lot of baking this week because he’s terrible about covering his mouth when he coughs.  So I saved a small batch of dough for him to make that we could keep separate from cookies we’ll share with others.  He enjoyed cutting out the cookies last night, but when we went to decorate his today, he only got through 3 before having a meltdown.  He kept licking the plastic knife that he was using to spread the frosting, and I yelled at him to stop (mostly because I didn’t want him to get cut), and he said “stop yelling at me” and started crying.  I felt bad, but I know he just couldn’t handle it because he really wasn’t feeling well tonight.  It was still a good reminder to me that he’s sensitive and that I need to correct him more calmly and be more patient with him.

The stockings are hung laying on the stairs because they are too heavy, and presents are piled high under the tree that is constantly dropping needles because it had been dying for about 2 weeks now. We’ve just been begging it to hold on and not die before Christmas, but we are going to have to take it down ASAP after Christmas.  Luckily it still looks green and full (though a bit crooked), so as long as we don’t touch it, it only loses about 300 needles per hour.  We can hear them dropping on the gifts below while we sit here in the evenings and we weren’t even sure it would make it until Christmas.  Before Jenson went to bed, we sprinkled reindeer food in the yard and put out milk and cookies for Santa.  As I reflect on the week, things aren’t as perfect as I want…we didn’t do crafts or ornaments (yet), I was more stressed about getting things done, the house isn’t very clean, I didn’t take the perfect (or that many) pictures…I could go on and on, but it doesn’t matter.  We have a baby and a toddler who have been sick for a week, so I should cut myself some slack.  I’m just happy they aren’t too sick to enjoy the holiday.  To them, it’s still magical…and that makes it magical for us.

Merry Christmas…make lots of memories with your families during this wonderful time of the year.

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