Christmas Break "Crisis Alert" thread

[niq]

This is a thread for trying to survive the holiday break.

We are now snowed in, and the forecast is for sub-freezing temperatures until Friday midday. This is Seattle, we only have enough snow equipment to plow a handful of major roads, nobody knows how to drive in the snow, and I have a rear wheel drive car and no experience with snow driving. We're praying that the climbing gym in our neighborhood stays open.

The real crisis in our house, though, is that we are running out of almost all possible skin tones for fuse beads, and O is on a Disney Princess kick. So ... time to reimagine Ariel as a space alien, I guess?

[waverly]

We are about to have a blizzard on Friday, so we will be where you are soon! Solidarity!

[momin2013]

I’m WFH today (and I’m off after today) and I just got all my wrapping done in case DS ends up with snow day/s towards the end of the week.

I also have all meals planned through early next week and am going to get the remaining groceries I need first thing tomorrow morning.

It’s so strange having Christmas right at the beginning of the break (DS is off after Friday until the 9th). It’s going to be a loooong two weeks!

[hbomdiggity]

Despite being out of DCFSA funds, I’m still sending my elementary kid to camp this week. Even half day is enough to get him exercise and out of the house for a few hours.

[osulori]

Kid #1 has school through tomorrow and both my husband and I work all week so he's going to Camp Mimi and Poppop Thurs/Fri...I'm going to need to have a talk with my dad about NOT spoiling the kid with stuff considering Christmas is Sunday. To them, Dick's is like Target in the sense they like to go and see what Dick's tells them they need I'm off next week but eyeing putting him in some basketball clinics to get him some exercise and burn some energy!

We're supposed to get 2-4 inches of snow between Thursday night and Friday night which isn't a ton for Central Ohio but juuuust enough that people freak out and forget how to drive. Of course, Friday is the one day in the last 3 months I have to drive downtown instead of to my office in a 'burb with good snow removal so bleh.

[dcn]

I have Covid so instead of doing fun stuff with the kids this week I am masked up and trying not to infect them. They spent all day yesterday playing video games and watching tv while H was at work.

We are getting the storm and cold weather Thursday - Friday.

Hopefully I am better and no one else gets sick so we can go visit family next week as planned. I feel ok so am mostly just annoyed at the timing.

[Pilsy]

lol

DD1 recently told me I don't play with her enough, so I hope to spend so much time with her next week that she's begging to get away from me. Careful what you wish for, kid!

[tarajane]

Our blizzard is coming tomorrow night. So tomorrow morning I'm taking groceries and Christmas presents to a refugee family and picking up our groceries. I need to get the house picked up in preparation for all the new things coming this weekend.

[sdlaura]

I have no idea how you all parent young children during long holiday breaks with not great weather. It's going to be warm and sunny here, and it's still going to be way too much time with my kids!

[ssmjlm]

I am working and DH is off.

So I'm taking the avoidance method of parenting. Also I don't want to burn more leave this year and go too far below my carryover.

[aspentosh]

Dec 20, 2022 13:30:19 GMT -5 dcn said:

I have Covid so instead of doing fun stuff with the kids this week I am masked up and trying not to infect them. They spent all day yesterday playing video games and watching tv while H was at work.

We are getting the storm and cold weather Thursday - Friday.

Hopefully I am better and no one else gets sick so we can go visit family next week as planned. I feel ok so am mostly just annoyed at the timing.

I feel ya on this. It finally hit our house but just me (thank goodness) earlier this month. Because of the timing I stayed mostly isolated until I was negative on an antigen test... so I was alone and not doing holiday stuff from Dec 1-15. It was agony. I hope it's a quick illness for you and you're back to fun times soon! 

[aspentosh]

I follow a local hobby meteorologist and he got me really excited that we would have a white Christmas. But we live in a snow hole and it's going west, again, so just freezing rain for us.

Hope all of you in the path of blizzards stay safe!

[dcn]

Dec 20, 2022 16:19:56 GMT -5 aspentosh said:

Dec 20, 2022 13:30:19 GMT -5 dcn said:

I have Covid so instead of doing fun stuff with the kids this week I am masked up and trying not to infect them. They spent all day yesterday playing video games and watching tv while H was at work.

We are getting the storm and cold weather Thursday - Friday.

Hopefully I am better and no one else gets sick so we can go visit family next week as planned. I feel ok so am mostly just annoyed at the timing.

I feel ya on this. It finally hit our house but just me (thank goodness) earlier this month. Because of the timing I stayed mostly isolated until I was negative on an antigen test... so I was alone and not doing holiday stuff from Dec 1-15. It was agony. I hope it's a quick illness for you and you're back to fun times soon! 

Thanks! I will be shocked if they don’t get it, unless they gave it to me? I had what I thought was a cold for 5 days before I got a positive test (after 2 negatives) so didn’t mask or anything in the house. Who knows. Between the two kids we’ve had so much ill was the past 6 weeks, but no positive Covid tests so I figured I finally caught something they had. I first had a sore throat 6 days ago so I’m hoping this moves along quickly.

[loira]

Not so far from you on Vancouver Island and we are also snowed in. I can drive pretty well in snow because I grew up elsewhere in Canada, but our sedan can't handle it, so just waiting for more roads to clear. Maybe tomorrow? In the meantime we've already been out to play in the snow twice! A loves snow because it's such a rarity here.

[scm1011]

DD has a new plague this week and DS has an ear infection. We are supposed to all go to The Nutcracker Thursday afternoon but considering how miz DD is it’s not looking promising. I’ve been looking forward to having this experience with the kids for legit years and I’ll be bummed if we can’t go (plus Boston Ballet tickets ain’t cheap)

I’m so tired of this. I want off this illness rollercoaster.

[macmars45]

I hear you on the kid illness roller coaster scm1011 . DS(6) attended 6/15 days of school (the 3 weeks leading up to Christmas break). Six. Last year it was 7/15 in the lead up to Christmas break. Apparently this is our life every December now. *sigh*

This year H and I got hit with DS' second illness. I am still so befuddled that it isn't covid, the flu or strep. Just a super nasty cold. So we will spend these 2 weeks off slowly healing up and hopefully feeling well enough to celebrate Christmas with my family. The odds of us still being contagious more than 2 weeks after symptoms started are very low (and DS' fever broke last week thankfully).

[estrellita]

I'm so glad we both WFH. They already called tomorrow an early out and Thu e-learning, then break starts. Debating if we should bring A in to daycare or not, assuming they're open. We kept her at the place closer to our work buildings we no longer work in, so it's about 15 miles away on rural-ish highway. If anything, maybe H will go pick her up early. Luckily I don't have a ton of meetings scheduled and my work load isn't terrible, but it all needs to get done since I'm off next week!

[krystee]

My crisis is that I am about to have a mental breakdown over the mental and actual load of Christmas. As one small part of that, I am so sick of the elves. I decided to have them bring me flowers and thank me for helping Santa spread Christmas cheer because they kids need to show some appreciation for the massive amounts of effort spent to make this season magical. H KNEW my plan yet still carried the flowers from the car into the kitchen where both kids were standing. I legit started crying at the idea of having to do one more thing. I think something may be wrong with me.

Tomorrow is my last day before I have 1.5 weeks off work. I have nine meetings and about four hours of work I have to do. HOW.

Thursday was supposed to be my day to do literally everything while the kids were at school. Allll the wrapping, last-minute errands, cleaning, etc. Now the weather will likely result in a snow day, and I am going to completely lose it.

There is not enough of me to go around at home OR work, let alone both. Stick a fork in me, I am DONE.

[scm1011]

krystee, big hugs. There is nothing wrong with you - it is A LOT. I would have cried at the flowers thing too (also, what a brilliant idea!). I hope by some miracle you get your Thursday to get shit done and / or your DH steps up and takes some things off your plate.

[konapoppy]

I just let one kid turn on the tv at 4:30 am after she woke at 3:30 coughing for the 20th day in a row. I just want everyone to feel better. I had my second appointment with urgent care yesterday and they were useless.

[shauni27]

scm1011, one of my fondest memories of my childhood is my parents taking us to Boston to see the Nutcracker. It was this fancy night out for us; we went to an Italian restaurant in the North End with tables so close together our elbows rubbed with the neighboring table. We were all dressed up. We stayed in a fancy hotel and the theater was just so stunning. I will never forget that experience. I hope you can pull it off for the kids; or sell the tickets and go next year!!

I am jealous of everyone getting a blizzard. It is supposed to be nearly 60 and rainy here all day Friday, which means our snow will all be gone

[scm1011]

Dec 21, 2022 8:33:46 GMT -5 shauni27 said:

scm1011 , one of my fondest memories of my childhood is my parents taking us to Boston to see the Nutcracker. It was this fancy night out for us; we went to an Italian restaurant in the North End with tables so close together our elbows rubbed with the neighboring table. We were all dressed up. We stayed in a fancy hotel and the theater was just so stunning. I will never forget that experience. I hope you can pull it off for the kids; or sell the tickets and go next year!!

I am jealous of everyone getting a blizzard. It is supposed to be nearly 60 and rainy here all day Friday, which means our snow will all be gone

Aww, I love this! That is exactly what I'm hoping for. We've been reading the book and listening to the music (and DD is in ballet this year) so I'm hoping its a fun experience. I'm fully expecting they might not last the whole show, but that's ok. Both kids seem on the mend today so I'm more hopeful we can pull it off!

I'm also jealous of everyone getting snow, even though I know it will cause headaches too. Christmas is just so much more magical with snow (and I was really hoping to go skiing during the holiday week). 

[icedcoffee]

This is a weird year because we've been dealing with covid so it's forced us to make limits on what we can do. Outdoor lights never got hung. We were either too sick, too rainy or too late. I decided gifts for my parents and siblings are chocolate and a lottery ticket. Kids are getting one huge gift and a few little things.

Pics with Santa happened, but it was literally a 5 minute thing. My H never even found a parking spot before we hopped back in. LOL

Cookies were easy no bake ones.

I feel like I was very efficient with my limited resources this year. Ha.

Now I just need all of us to be healthy so we can do our xmas plans as intended.

[nicolewi]

krystee, I get it, and I'm sorry.

[dcn]

krystee, husband elf needs to step in and knock some of the to dos off the list. Surely he can wrap gifts?

I haven’t wrapped anything yet!

[nicolewi]

I haven't wrapped anything yet and we do Christmas big and I'm freaking out. I also have to figure out which gifts can be "from" MIL and get them over to her, and which can be "from" my brother in AL who Venmo-ed me cash.

We had the funeral all day yesterday for DH's dad and dinner late into the night.

This morning, we were supposed to have the burial (just adults) and a quick lunch with MIL and her sisters, and then I had a couple hours to wrap gifts or run errands before our holiday Girl Scout meeting, for which my amazing co-leader has done literally every single thing so far. But now DD3 is home sick AGAIN. She has been sick most of December. She was sick with possible flu with high fevers for almost an entire week from Dec. 6 through 12, and now she has a bad cold and is coughing so much I can't send her even though she has no fever. So I don't know what I'm going to do with her.

She HAS to go tomorrow!!!! I have to run errands and get all the groceries and everything before the snow gets bad tomorrow afternoon and I really wanted to wrap some things.

Friday my kids are home; one is supposed to have school but she will probably end up with a snow day.

Saturday we host Christmas Eve and then SANTA COMES!!!!!!! I sure hope Santa has his @#$@ together b/c I sure don't.

[icedcoffee]

Oh shit. Another gift just showed up I bought for DS1 but he already has more than DS2 so I think I'm just going to shove it in the back of my closet instead of wrapping another gift. LOL

[lessel]

This week has been pure chaos. Working from home with both boys on break. Major issues at work I'm dealing with. On Monday the 4yo ate a candy cane for breakfast and marshmallows for lunch. Very minimal parenting happening here.

Yesterday I had to take him to get an x-ray for adenoids. Drove half hour there. Waited half hour. Only to be told the ENT PA didn't sign the x-ray order form so they couldn't do anything. Tried to get through to the ENT practice from the parking lot, but to no avail. So just drove home. Total waste of time while work is blowing up my phone. Like, wtf did they think I was doing--forging an x-ray order form because I wanted to neck x-ray my 4yo for funsies?

And, we're supposed to leave tomorrow for FL and H's co-worker who he shares an office with just tested positive for COVID.

[icedcoffee]

Dec 21, 2022 9:48:53 GMT -5 lessel said:

Like, wtf did they think I was doing--forging an x-ray order form because I wanted to neck x-ray my 4yo for funsies?

I've had this issue multiple times with our local Children's Hospital.  They are SOOO strict about requiring orders and referrals even though my insurance doesn't require them.  And every time I'm like "I did not just randomly decide my kids testicle needs an ultrasound? Can you just do it please?"

[lessel]

Dec 21, 2022 9:55:12 GMT -5 icedcoffee said:

Dec 21, 2022 9:48:53 GMT -5 lessel said:

Like, wtf did they think I was doing--forging an x-ray order form because I wanted to neck x-ray my 4yo for funsies?

I've had this issue multiple times with our local Children's Hospital.  They are SOOO strict about requiring orders and referrals even though my insurance doesn't require them.  And every time I'm like "I did not just randomly decide my kids testicle needs an ultrasound? Can you just do it please?"

Lol. Exact same situation and feeling. I work in a bureaucracy, so I get it. I really do. But yesterday it was just ONE MORE THING and I was definitely not my best self in the parking lot of the x-ray place in the near-freezing rain.