Growing up the holidays definitely meant family to me... All four of them! A typical holiday rush was visiting my mother's parents two days before Christmas or Christmas eve, my fathers family on Christmas eve, exchanging gifts with friends on Christmas Eve, Christmas morning at home, and Christmas day with my step-father's family. Then we would rush home, pack quickly, leave all our neat new things and fly off to spend the week after Christmas with my dad and step-mom in Maryland. We did Christmas the evening we arrived and finally got a few days to sit back and relax before flying home in time to start school.
This year, our first Christmas as a family in our own home, we decided to start some new traditions, one of which is staying put for Christmas. So we invited the family to join us for a day of festivities, and I got cooking. I have to say there is nothing like Holiday entertaining to get you cleaning. Our home was ready for company a good 2 days before Christmas, and it was a darn good thing, since that was when disaster struck! Since we were so ahead of the game I decided to sneak off for 30 minutes of remembering that I'm a woman and not just a mommy time and get my hair cut. The guy who cut my hair was super quick, probably since he was chop happy :), and as I was leaving a mere 30 minutes later, Eric called and told me what no mother or hostess wants to hear. Alex was defiling my clean house, but you can't blame him, the poor kiddo had a stomach bug. For two weeks Alex had been fighting a cold that I told myself would be gone by Christmas, but now 48 hours before family arrived for the day, he was throwing up like crazy. Luckily it only lasted about 12 hours and then he was good to go, but as these things have a habit of doing, the trouble was just beginning. My Mother in law was kind enough to come and help me while Alex was sick and sure enough the next morning she and I both woke up feeling horrible. Fortunately for me, my episode was brief and after liberal use of lysol the entire house I was ready to get in gear for Christmas day. We celebrated Christmas even at my in-laws and my father in law was put to work in the kitchen while Debra rested and entertained.
Christmas day was wonderful and thankfully sickness-free, but as the day wore down and the paper and boxes piled up Eric started feeling bad. I cleaned and tidied, saw our overnight guests settled and grabbed what sleep I could before Alex's cough (his cold never went away and was back in force) woke him up at 5am. Our day got an early start since I could only keep him in his room until 6:30, and we headed out to rouse the troops. We made breakfast and I started on what was left of the Christmas dishes while Eric slept off the bug in our room. At 10 last night he emerged briefly before sleeping a little more, and I am happy to say that today he is feeling much better, but weak from spending a day as a bump on a log.
Like most mom's around the world, I am working on finding a place for all the new toys Alex got and trying to get my house back in order. I have also settled on my two New Year's Resolutions for 2008.
1. I want to get pregnant in 2008. Now this is a little more involved than it sounds :), since I need to lose about 90 lbs before that happens. Eric and I have both agreed that it would not be healthy at all for me to get pregnant now, so over the next 12 months I want to get to the point that we can start trying for #2.
2. I want to blog daily. This is a goal of mine for a couple of reasons. I have always wanted to journal and keep a record of the daily events in our lives, especially since I became pregnant with Alex. However keeping up with a journal and dedicating the time to be consistent with it has never happened. Since I am on the computer daily I have decided to blog my journal. Another great reason for this is that I have always been told, by doctors, friends and more that keeping a journal can really help keep you motivated and losing weight.
It is so lovely to sit here and be able to get these thoughts down on paper, so to speak, instead of being on the run somewhere. I am truly looking forward to a great end of the year vacation starting off 2008 right for our family!
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