It was a pretty successful Christmas. Of course, I managed to get my annual yuletide bug, and spent Christmas Eve Eve and Christmas Eve battling a wicked fever, popping ibuprofen and Tylenol as often as I could without inducing liver failure, but by Christmas morning, the worst of it had passed. Not without Christmas Eve drama though—from midnight to 2 AM, I was curled up under about 15 layers of clothing and blankets, shaking uncontrollably, desperate for the fever to break. And then my stomach finally said “enough is enough” and took over, emptying itself rather vehemently. Lo and behold, I was much better. Then Ava woke up with an ear infection. Ah. The holidays. But when morning arrived, I was ok, Ava was ok, and Carter was his usual self—happy. They both dug into their stockings, and then Ava set to work unwrapping everything, and Carter set to work running around. It took him a while to get into the swing of things, but he finally caught on to the idea that not only was this paper here for him to rip apart, it also had really neat things inside!

We had fun at Nana and Da’s, opening more presents—both kids were marvelous, given the chaos. They both did not really absorb everything that they received, but several things were immediate hits, most notably the 2 grocery carts Michaela and Carlos got them. THANK GOD Carlos volunteered to put them together, because Ava would not let anything else occur in the known universe until she could play with hers. And of course, as soon as Carter saw hers, he had to have it, so we got the other one put together, pronto. And then they spent HOURS going back and forth from one bedroom to the other (which flank the living room on opposite sides, so we watched the back and forth, like a cartoon), packing and unpacking their groceries.

Now that it has been several days, both kids have discovered most of the other things that they received, Carter especially. This has given me time to recover from Christmas, and I have completely managed to integrate the new stuff into our house. We still are brewing viruses, so it has been slow going, but I am going to just take it easy with Ava, and let her stay home an extra week, if she wants to. When they spend their days together, the kids actually play pretty well now, and are pretty creative in their activities—today they played ‘train’ by holding a piece of string between them and running around the house laughing and yelling, and this is great as far as I am concerned. It is good for Ava to go to school, sure, but if she is not feeling well, she sends the distinct message that she is feeling abandoned, and I would rather that she not feel that way. It is just the way she is.

It is finally snowing. Perhaps winter will stay.