We had a lovely holiday. Although, to be honest, somehow it just all went by in a blur. The insanity began with planning for Michael's birthday in November and continued through Thanksgiving, packing for and going on a cruise with extended family, last minute Christmas preparation, and then Christmas. At least three weeks of that time I spent pitifully ill. (Now, to shine an accurate light on the situation, I pretty much only do "pitifully" ill. Either I'm slightly under the weather and muddle through ignoring minor symptoms, or things are serious enough that I get whiny. My husband tends to power through even major illnesses gracefully with some over the counter meds. I, on the other hand, figure that if I'm going to be miserable, I want some well-deserved sympathy. I do admire that man.)
Now that things are settling a bit, I'm glad to be back. Due to the aforementioned "blur" quality of the holidays, I'm left with memories that take the quality of photo snapshots rather than full-featured movies. _____
Ava's godfather got the children one of those cardboard playhouses for the holidays. One morning (while I slept in) my husband assembled the castle and let the children at it with paint. In the proper spirit of things, Ava put on her halloween costume. I came downstairs to this:
_____
Ava, nearing her fourth birthday, is amazing. She's snuggly, generous, kind and sweet, curious, verbal, and helpful. She also is reluctant to move much further away from me than a 2-3 foot radius. As much as I adore her, as much as she's actually acting like a little angel, she's driving me bonkers. We've all been together nonstop now for days and days and at least 80% of all her waking hours she's glued to my side.
I'll admit it. It was not my shining moment. Ava has a history of sensory issues. We benefited greatly from six months of OT to address those issues. She doesn't like noisy environments. Historically, every time I pull out the vacuum cleaner she disappears until the cleaning is finished. Although cleaning is not my first (second, third, tenth, fiftieth...) activity of choice I made a strategic decision. Vacuuming would get me 20 minutes to myself. Terrible, I know, but I was desperate.
Because karma wasn't in my favor, it didn't work this time. Ava gave me that pitiful "How could you mama?" look and sidled up to my side. I paused and looked down at her. She tentatively reached out her hand and grabbed the vacuum's handle - her hand next to mine. Then she mirrored every single step I took and "helped" me vacuum for the next 30 minutes. It took me twice as long to vacuum that room. And every second of it was spent with Ava glued to my side.
When we were done I let her try it by herself. I took a picture to commemorate the moment.
_____
We had snow. The children rushed into coats and ran outside as quickly as possible. After approximately 60 seconds of catching snowflakes on their tongues they were back inside stripping off coats and boots complaining of the cold.
_____
Michael has a significant Minecraft addiction. He's beginning to get a bit surly when asked to leave his computer and we've instituted a screen time limit. (Such a sad day for two geeky parents who -totally- get it.) Not five minutes after I had told Michael he had to stop playing for the day we got a delivery with a belated gift from his godfather. It was little tiled Minecraft magnets. Too funny. He instantly jumped at the opportunity to play minecraft with no screens involved.
_____
Here's one last good one... I was joking that I should just wear the pajamas I was still wearing at 11am to McDonalds for lunch. Ava helpfully agreed with me. At that point I began to explain that we didn't really wear our jammies out. Besides, I told her, I was missing certain parts of my wardrobe all together (socks, shoes, decently-brushed hair...) Michael was paying at least a little attention to our conversation. He chimed in with, "Mama, why don't you have your breast-holder-upper on?" --Lovely.
(No picture to accompany this one - for reasons, I hope, that are obvious.)
I hope you all had wonderful holidays and are having just the right amount of family time yourselves.
