I just dropped my youngest off at preschool so I am savoring the 2 hours until I have to go pick her up. They gave me the cutest little handprint ornament they made with her. My oldest was at an in home daycare at this age and we didn't get the cute crafts.
The weather is supposed to be in the 40s all week (maybe even 50s one day!) so we are going to try to go do some of the outdoor Christmas light displays while it's not freezing out. The toddler just yells "WHOA WHOA WHOA!" when we see lights, it's adorable.
I can't believe Christmas Eve is 2 weeks from today! Does December feel shorter than usual to anyone else?
I am dragging this morning. One of my girls is clearly watching me closely because she wants to do to sister everything I do to them (brush hair, put in/take out a hair tie, check her diaper 🤣). I have to figure out how to redirect.
BB woke up with a mega cold this AM. I have to travel again this week and so I feel so bad for MH having to do the heavy lifting again.
I am very annoyed about these back to back work trips and really wish I could quit my job. Thankfully I can minimize my time away from home to one overnight, but it still sucks.
Snow day for us today. We didn't get any snow, just rain, but less than 30 minutes from us got about 5 inches, so they went from delay last night to closed today. This is the 6th day closed since they started between pretend hurricanes and now snow. I'm not sure how they're going to make all this up.
Even work had a 2 hour delay, which is only 10 minutes from home.
Thankfully today was my scheduled telework day and my boss is at a leadership training all week, with his 2 bosses, so it should be quiet. My plans today are to work on performance elements. They were basically thrown together a couple years ago and need some serious editing.
Right now I've got E working on a michael's winter penguin craft while I sit next to her and work.
S was sick ALL WEEKEND. Like, fever of 102 at the lowest and 104 at the highest. Just wanted me to hold him. Slept with us every night for a week now. So last night when his fever was gone, we figured we would be tough and do full cry it out and get him back to sleeping in his own bed. He cried for 2 hours at bedtime, woke at 9:45, cried for another 30 minutes, woke at midnight and cried for about 45 minutes. Woke again at 4 and this time I gave in (as we allow him to come into our room after 4 am). Walked in to his room and diarrhea everywhere. And fever back to 102.
H and I both have the sickness, too, but are at work today and I have no voice.
And I accidentally burned my hand yesterday with hot glue and literally pulled off a layer of skin with the hot glue. I am in so much pain.
Post by simpsongal on Dec 10, 2018 11:16:43 GMT -5
2 weeks til the 24th - yikes!!!!
We've been super on top of things, except I just got our Christmas cards and I need to get them addressed and mailed ASAP. Same w/finishing my calendar.....
I'm getting more and more bummed out about Christmas, just like I did for Thanksgiving. Very long vent:
We really don't have any Christmas traditions in my family - no special dinner (and whatever my mom decided to cook is really bad, and she gets huffy if I suggest making it myself), no baking cookies, we haven't decorated the tree together since grade school - because my mom just wanted to sit around and do nothing all day on holidays. And I totally get wanting to take it easy on a holiday but we literally did NOTHING. We'd open gifts together but then everyone would go to a separate room of the house and watch TV or whatever, we'd have something shitty for dinner like every other day, and that'd be our Christmas. The only real "tradition" was to go to church together on Christmas Eve and that was only because my parents were obsessed with church, not because it was a special Christmas tradition. Then we'd go back home and do ... nothing. My faith has lapsed but I liked at least doing something together and having a tradition, and MH joined in once we got married.
In the past 6 years my dad has died, FIL died (MIL died 15 years ago and MH is an only child), we had DD, my brother got engaged to a girl who lives an hour away, and my sister has a local BF. And our mom says she wants to get everyone together but then she just sits around and reads the paper or watches tv or plays on her phone. Or if she's not the organizer/center of attention she makes things difficult and acts distant. So now my brother (who says he doesn't get along with our mom anymore) is gravitating more and more to his new family and so we barely see him, and my sister picks up extra shifts working in a dive bar on holidays because she'd rather earn money than sit around and do nothing all day. So MH and DD and I either do what our mom wants, which is nothing ... or we stay home and figure it out for ourselves. And it'd be completely useless to talk to Mom about it because she won't change or compromise, so that's not an option.
I also asked my mom about when she's going to church, and she said she's going on Christmas Eve starting right at DD's bedtime. "But you don't have to go." So, yeah, I'll just go fuck myself I guess. I have no idea if my sister is going, anyway. My brother initially said he was going but then his fiancee said that's also HER family's traditional church time so I'm sure he'll stick with them, and he already said he's spending Christmas Day with his ILs, so we're not going to see him until the 26th. Again, I really don't care about church itself but it was at least a chance to be together.
We do have very nice extended family members and friends who always say we're welcome on Christmas/Thanksgiving, so it's not like we're totally alone with no options ... but we used to drive all around NY/NJ for the holidays and now - especially now that we have DD - we don't want to do that. And we always visit my aunt and uncle on the 26th, which my siblings gladly attend because they actually DO stuff at their house and there's actual fun and food and conversation, instead of just sitting around watching Law & Order for the millionth time. So that's something we always look forward to at least.
It just bothers me because we've always said "We're such a close family" and I really did feel like we WERE close ... up until the past couple of years. It's like pulling teeth to get everyone in the same place at the same time nowadays, and then my brother and FSIL only stay a short while because they have to get back to her family; my sister is constantly rolling her eyes at our mom and then she's off with her friends or going to work in a bar with dirty old men; and our mom just says/does weird stuff or focuses more on her friends if they're there too, or if it's not at her house she's already talking about how she has to get home so she can sit there and do nothing. She invited us and my sister to a Christmas party yesterday thrown by a club she's a member of, where Santa showed up and gave gifts to the kids in attendance. And as soon as Santa arrived she decided she just HAD to go get something out of her car and then HAD to go get a drink at the bar downstairs, so she completely missed DD's turn to see Santa. And came back in the room and asked us how it went. So WTF did you even want us there for?
tl;dr: I really don't object to a quiet Christmas in our own home where we can make our own choices, but I thought that DD's arrival would bring us all much closer. So now I'm focusing on establishing our own traditions so that DD can have that.
mbcdefg - I totally understand where you are coming from. I hate these holidays as they are really just another day and not special. I would plan your own thing and invite everyone over. You could do open house style apps all day or plan a time for brunch, dinner etc and stick to it. If someone says, I can't make 1 pm say -- we will miss you! You can only do so much. Maybe everyone won't be there at the same time - that's ok. I get the disappointment, but sometimes you just have to do your own thing. Plan an activity for your family too -- like build a gingerbread house, pick a meal to make every year like cinnamon rolls, do a puzzle together.
mbcdefg, that sounds hard. I agree with pp and I would offer to maybe host everyone for just apps during the afternoon or maybe even something early on the 24th.
We spent several years catering to my IL's schedule of multiple families/marriages/baby daddy or baby momma drama and when we had a kid, we were just done.
We host and give people a time. If they show, they show. This year I'm over brunch b/c it makes the morning too crazy so I'm doing heavy apps at 1pm. This way the ILs should be gone by 3 and then we'll do dinner with my parents that night.
Thanks orval and ssmjlm - I actually did that for Thanksgiving (hosted everyone for apps) and as soon as they all walked in the door they were basically saying "I have to leave at Xtime." So while it was nice they came over, I'm not even sure I want to bother, since I was just pissy and tired once everyone left. I'm only a 25-minute drive from my mom and sister but you'd swear I lived in Siberia.
I'm not sure if we'll leave the house on Christmas Eve, because if late church is the only plan then that won't work for us. Christmas Day we'll probably go to my mom's in the late morning, once we do our own thing at home together ... then once my sister leaves for work maybe we'll head home as well and figure something out. I was saying maybe we'll make cookies, I'll get something fancy for dinner, we'll watch Christmas movies, play with DD and her new toys, etc.
I texted MH that I was feeling bummed, and he said we'll just make an extra effort to start our own traditions and make nice memories for DD. So we'll figure it out. And at least my aunt's on the 26th is always fun.
Yeah Xmas is in two weeks and movers come to our house on the 26th to start packing. H and I both have massive amounts of work to wrap up before we leave. And I have to do like 20 hours of continuing Ed before 12/31. Also apparently my boss is only communicating with me via email. Not sure why, but she’s kind of ruining the last few days I have here.
I’d love to just skip to February. At least we have a house so we won’t be homeless when we move?
Post by cricketwife on Dec 10, 2018 13:03:46 GMT -5
Snow day here, just a bit of melting slush. I’ve been stuck (mostly at home) with the boys all weekend and I’m over it. H is leaving tonight for 8 days and I’m really not looking forward to more solo parenting.
I don’t feel like December is going quickly because we keep getting crap weather that’s ruining all the fun Christmasy things we had planned. The crap weather keeps falling on the weekend.
I’m just in a general whiny and crappy mood.
Andplusalso I’ve not been wowed at the sales this year. And is amazon going to do the amazing book deals again this year???
mbcdefg I'm sorry, that is so hard! I think making your own traditions is the best way forward. We have forged our own since having kids and now we really look forward to Christmas just our little family. We do Christmas Eve with my family (usually an early Christmas Eve service and dinner at a restaurant) and then Christmas Day is just us. We make a really nice breakfast and stay in our PJs and watch Christmas movies after opening gifts. This year we are having good friends over for dinner on Christmas so we are making something kinda fancy but other years we've just done a bunch of apps from Costco/TJs and played games. We travel every other year to my in laws but refuse to leave home til the 26th so our Christmas Eve/Day traditions can stay the same year to year.
It is different than Christmas as I experienced before but we love it.
Ok it's 3pm and I'm about out of ideas to entertain this kid. And she wants to be all.up.in.my.space even though I'm like "mommy really needs to actually work."
We've made a craft kit, I had her write and sign the gift card holders for her teachers, and now we're doing a target dollar spot activity book. Guess I should be thankful she's the one that turned off the tv and said she was done watching? This is why taking away screen time doesn't work, she gives no fucks about it.