Christmas 2012

It's 8:10pm on December 31, 2012.  I really want to get a Christmas post in before 2013 comes, so here it is!

Christmas 2012 was supposed to be pretty busy.  We purposefully skipped a few Christmas parties for various reasons, like the fact that Isaiah is hysterical on car rides, and that certain ones (read: work parties) were just going to be awkward instead of enjoyable.

The plans boiled down to this:

-My immediate family Christmas on December 23

-My MIL's side on December 24

-My brother Matt, his wife Lynsey, sister Giliane, and my Mom on December 25, followed by a couple of hours with my FIL's side on December 25

-Brunch at my inlaw's with their friends on December 26.


The first two days went as planned.  Christmas at my parents house with my siblings was great.  It was a little hairy with naps for Isaiah, since he just recently became less able to nap in a room full of people, even while babywearing, but I didn't stress about it and just went with the flow.  Noah had fun, although he doesn't always enjoy playing with his cousins because they just aren't as nice and gentle as he is.

Noah's present from my parents was a floor mat for cars, the first Cars movie, and 3 cars from the Cars movie.  He really really liked it!  After his cousins realized what he got, they went over and were crawling all over his mat playing with his cars.  Noah said to Josiah in a frustrated voice, "Go somewhere else!!"  So I said to Noah, "Noah, please be nice," and Noah said, in an equally frustrated voice, "Please go somewhere else!!!"  Hahaha.

Christmas Eve was at my inlaws and included the Nonna on that side, and my MIL's sister Mary, her husband Skip, and their son Josh.  This was huge, as they had a huge falling out before Noah was born and the two families never get together for anything anymore.  Justin and I get together with Skip and Mary a few times a year, but never with my inlaws.  It went well.  Again, I wore Isaiah all day so he was happy... except when I let Mary hold him and she started walking around with him facing out into the noisy room.  As soon as she turned him that way he started SCREAMING, and even though both my MIL and me told her to turn him back around because it's not comfortable, it's way too stimulating, and he had nowhere to hide from the stimulation in that position, she ignored us.  He stopped screaming for a couple of minutes and then started wailing again so I just took him back.  Poor little guy.

I should mention, the drives to and from my parents' house and my inlaws house were awful.  I sit in the back with Isaiah and Noah, but Isaiah still gets hysterical.  It frays my nerves.  I usually end up taking him out of the carseat and nursing him.  I know it's unsafe but I just can't let him scream for 25 minutes!

By Christmas Day I was NOT wanting to do any more driving because of all the crying.  I had kind of decided that Isaiah and I would be skipping the rest of the Christmas festivities, but told Justin he could take Noah for a couple of hours.  Keep this fact in mind.

Christmas morning we woke up and stayed home from church (because of the crying).

We opened presents as a family.  Well, Isaiah just watched:

Isaiah got a book and a whole bunch of BabyLegs, the boys got matching handmade hats (not handmade by me, I don't have those skills):

And Noah got a Duplo gas station set and 5 different wooden Thomas trains.

We purposefully kept it lower key this year and just stuck with things we knew he would love (and he did).  I didn't want to bring a bunch of useless plastic crap into the house like we did last Christmas.

Blurry picture of me and my boys, but I have to add it... look how happy Isaiah is!:

Noah fell asleep in the downstairs spare bedroom around 10:15, which was weird.

Then my family started arriving around noon, and he acted very unhappy to see them.  This was weird too.  I gave Isaiah to Justin to hold and brought Noah to him room to ask him what was going on, and when I picked him up he was burning hot.  He had a pretty high fever.  I gave him Advil to bring it down, which it did.  At this point I told Justin that none of us would be going to his family's Christmas that night, as there were two other kids who would be there and I wasn't about to be the family bringing the sick kids into other people's houses.  Justin seemed like he thought I was overreacting, but he agreed.

By the end of the day it was pretty clear Noah was quite sick.  He was burning up again and was very lethargic.  Justin slept in his room with him that night.  At around 5am he brought him into my room because he had been asking for me.  At first I was annoyed, because I'd been lying awake since 12:30am, but as soon as Noah got in my lap I realized he was even sicker.  He was limp like a rag doll and sooooo hot.  We gave him more Advil, I nursed him, and the two of them went back to sleep in Noah's room.

The next morning we skipped Boxing Day brunch because of Noah being sick.  During the course of the day he developed a bad cough and still had a really high fever.  That night Justin brought him to me again at 2am. I think the next night the same thing happened, but since then it hasn't.

Basically, Noah has never been so sick in his life (and he's been sick at least 20 times).  High fever, sore throat, headache, body ache, horrible congestion, horrible cough, major lethargy, spending all day on the couch, choosing to nap for hours even though he stopped napping in August... He even stopped eating for a few days, during which I was so thankful he was still nursing and that I have so much milk.  It's been rough, and right now I'm not seeing any light at the end of the tunnel.  I can't wait until he's healthy again... I know it's only been a week, but it's been so brutal that I'm starting to forget what normal, happy, healthy Noah is like.

Magically, Isaiah hasn't gotten sick, which is amazing since it's been 7 full days of Noah being like this.  I'm a little sick, but nothing like Noah.  Justin is the one who brought this into the house, but he was never sick like Noah is.  It has really been awful to watch, but I'm so thankful it's happened during Justin's Christmas vacation.  I don't know how I would have taken care of both kids by myself.  Plus, Justin has slept in Noah's room every night for the past week, which has really saved me from many sleepless nights.  He's such a good dad!

Incidentally, this illness (and Justin sleeping with Noah) has been the catalyst for Noah sleeping in a big boy bed.  We realized about a month ago that Noah would finally do really well in a big boy bed (as in, not leaving his room when he's not supposed to), but he was perfectly happy to stay in his crib, so we left things that way.  However, with Justin in there over the past week, the sleeping arrangement slowly evolved so that Noah is no longer sleeping in a crib, and he is doing great.  I'm thinking we'll leave it this way after he's well.  Actually, Justin is wanting to continue cosleeping with him after vacation is over, because they both enjoy it so much.  Noah keeps telling me to sleep in there with them too.  He can't seem to accept my explanation that I am a terrible sleeper who doesn't sleep well with people in the same room as me, much less two other people in the same BED as me.  As much as I would love to have my entire family sleeping in one giant bed (and since our master bedroom has two queen beds pushed up against each other, this would be totally feasible), I suck at sleeping too much for this to happen.

Okay, it's 9:00, which means it's past my bedtime.  Goodnight all, have a Happy New Year!

Christmas Day and Boxing Day 2011

To read about our Christmas Eve, go here.


Christmas Day

Christmas Day was not magical.  I am not complaining, I am just being realistic.  Not everyday is a good day, for you or for your child, and Christmas Day wasn't a great day for Noah or for me.

My day started with me waking up an hour earlier than Noah so we can go to church (which we've skipped for the past month to avoid Noah either spreading his germs while he's sick, or getting sick from the nursery when he's healthy). I rushed around all morning, but somehow we were still late for church.

We never put Noah in the church nursery without either me or my mom staying in there with him.  He is doing a lot better with his separation anxiety, but he still needs someone around that he can trust.  I had separation anxiety when I was younger, and it's very very real, and very very scary, so I would never force Noah to just "deal" with it.  He wouldn't be able to.  He would just scream and scream until I appeared again, and then he would likely end up becoming very clingy again because the trust would be broken.  The nursery workers have a hard time believing it, because when I'm in the nursery Noah will sometimes seem to pay no attention to me at all.  But if I leave, it's game over.  He gets really scared and doesn't want anyone to touch him and won't calm down for anyone but me.

So on Christmas Day we brought Noah into church with us, because I wanted to be able to enjoy the Christmas service (we missed all of Advent).  Noah did really well in church, sitting on my lap for almost an hour.  Unfortunately our services always last at least an hour and 15 minutes, sometimes an hour and a half.  So Noah started to get antsy.  I was sitting the furthest in the pew, and Justin was on the outside, so he said "I'll go out with him."  I said thanks, and then settled back to enjoy the rest of the service.

A few minutes later Justin appears.  Alone.  He said Noah just walked right into the nursery and didn't pay any attention to him, and it's not like he was going to hang out in there (oh heaven forbid), so he came back in.  I was shocked, because Justin is usually very sensitive to things like this, but he seemed completely unconcerned.  I told him that of course Noah walked in and paid no attention to him - he thought his Dad was going to stay in there with him.  How could he leave him in a room full of complete strangers??  As soon as he realizes there's no one there he knows, he's going to lose it!  And Justin didn't even sign him in, so they didn't have a number to put up on the screen to page us.  And we were sitting at the very front of the church.

Of course, I hoped I was wrong.  I hoped he'd be okay.  I was going to go out to check on him, but my mom had to go to the bathroom so she said she'd do it.

Five minutes later she came back holding Noah, who had a red, blotchy, tear-stained face, and was shuddering and crying softly.  He saw me and softly sobbed "Mamaaaaa" and lunged for me.  Apparently he was bawling and even Granny staying in the nursery with him wasn't good enough anymore by that point.  He needed his Mom.  He asked to nurse, and obviously I didn't give a crap that I was sitting in the front row of the church and we were all about to stand up to sing.  I nursed him.

So we left church, and Justin was feeling bad, and I was feeling sad for Noah, who seemed exhausted from his cry even though he was still hours from his normal naptime.  He fell asleep in the car at 11:50, which was way too early for him to nap.  We drove around for awhile, and he only napped for half an hour.

Then we went to my aunt and uncle's, where we find out after being there for awhile that that 75% of the people there were exposed to the stomach flu the night before.  So then we had possibly been exposed to the stomach flu.  Wonderful.  We leave pretty much as soon as we found this out, because I am terrified of the stomach flu after getting it three times last winter (and it turned out that 3 of the 6 people in my aunt and uncle's family started throwing up the next day).

Then we went to my inlaws'. Noah acted so strange all day. He wasn't really acting interested in present opening, which was the opposite of the day before.  And as the day goes on he got more congested and his nose got runnier and he started getting a fever. He hardly ate anything, and he generally acted very out of sorts, the way he acts when he's about to get very sick.  He was actually asking to go home, so we left early.

At home he seemed totally fine, and played with his kitchen for an hour. This made me happier, because it seemed like he just wanted to go home, and maybe he actually felt okay. But I was running around like a chicken with my head cut off putting Christmas presents away and having to reorganize and pack away some dishes and toys to fit other things.

Then after bathtime Noah's whole body was hot, but he was shivering like crazy.  Then it seemed like maybe he was about to throw up. I took his temp and it was 98.6, but he felt a lot hotter and I find sometimes the forehead thermometer doesn't work properly, so I took his temp again on the other side and it was 102.  That felt a lot closer to what he actually felt like to the touch. So that made me feel even worse.

Then when I was nursing him to sleep (he was tired enough that he was falling asleep quickly, but 9 nights out of 10 he goes in his crib awake) he conked out right away, but his body kept jerking, which was probably from sleep, but I was terrified the whole time that he was about to throw up.

I couldn't fall asleep that night because I was so scared that we were all going to start barfing in the middle of the night.  For some reason I always wake up with the stomach flu around 2am.

Luckily Noah slept 11.5 hours straight, and the next morning we were all still healthy.

All's well that ends well.


Boxing Day

On Boxing Day we were at my parents' house all day long. All my siblings and their spouses were there.  It was great to see everyone, especially since I hadn't seen Nick and Hilary and their kids since Thanksgiving.  Noah had a great time playing with Elijah (exactly a year older than Noah) and Josiah (14 months).  Elijah was really into Noah.  He even wanted him to stay overnight with him at Granny and Gramper's and sleep in the other single bed in the room (ha, yeah right).  They first started really playing together this past summer.  Before that, Elijah wanted nothing to do with Noah because he seemed too much younger than him.  I was cute to see how much Elijah liked Noah this Christmas.

It was also so interesting to watch them, because Noah definitely appears to be ahead of Elijah, intellectually.  He talks much more, knows all his shapes, all his colours, all his animals and their sounds, and all of his letters.  Elijah knows a few animals and animal sounds, and a few colours, but those are all recent acquirements.  It's just so interesting to me to see how different kids develop.  

I was a little concerned about the napping situation as Christmas approached.  I hate letting Noah cry it out in a strange place (he doesn't cry much, if at all, before he sleeps at our house), but I never nurse him to sleep for a nap anymore, so I had no idea how he was going to have a nap at my parents' house (because yes, he would certainly cry if I plopped him in the crib and left the room).  Turns out, he didn't.

I tried.  I kept telling him that he was going to nap in the crib, that Mommy would just be downstairs and would come get him after he slept.  But he looked really freaked out, and kept softly crying and saying "Nooooo, noooo."  I nursed him in the rocker to try and calm him down, but then just decided not to put him in the crib.  I just felt too bad doing it when he seemed so scared.  I tried to coax him to fall asleep in my arms, nursing, and he seemed like he did.  But only for 5 minutes.

So he didn't nap, but he was a complete angel, as usual.  I have said it before and I'll say it again - I love being around Elijah and Josiah (my nephews) because they make Noah look so good.  It helps remind me what a good kid I have, and reinforces the parenting decisions I've we've made.  My nephews are constantly crying and freaking out; they are so loud; they need such crazy, high energy stimulation in order to stay happy; it is a battle to get them to eat anything at dinnertime; and Elijah is sometimes full-out defiantly bratty (for example, my Dad had a night shift that night, and the next morning my mom told Elijah not to yell because Gramper was sleeping.  Elijah walked right over to the stairs leading upstairs and screamed at the top of his lungs.  Then he stared at my mom with a "screw you" look on his face!!!!  Noah would never do something like that!)

At the end of the night as we were leaving, my mom was saying thanks to me for my patience (not sure why) and I said "Yeah, my kid only slept 5 minutes the whole day."  My brother Nick (Elijah and Josiah's dad), who is the type of person who always thinks he's right and I can rarely do anything right according to him, said, "Yeah, but he was an ANGEL! Seriously, your kid is PERFECT!"  I said, "Well, he has his moments, but he IS pretty darn good."  I'm so proud of Noah in situations like this.

It was interesting, because on Boxing Day I was asking him at 7:30 if he wanted to go home, and he kept saying No. On Christmas Day, HE was asking to go home. His behaviour was so different on the two days. Apparently he did not enjoy the get together at my inlaws'.

The three cousins on Boxing Day:

Noah (21 months), Josiah (14 months), and Elijah (33 months)

Josiah is screaming, as usual.

Noah doesn't know what to do, because my brother Nick was holding him there, and he is not so sure about Uncle Nick. 

And Elijah bails:

Freakishly similar to last year (when Elijah was Noah's exact age):

Elijah: "I will cut you."

Interestingly, last year Noah was 9 months and barely slept the whole day (maybe half an hour total), and was extremely pleasant that day as well.

And Elijah bails again:

"Get these babies away from me!!"

Those pictures crack me up.

Next year there will be a 7 or 8 month old little boy added to the picture (from Nick and Hilary), and maybe a couple of newborns.  I would love to have a baby by the end of 2012, and my other brother and his wife went off the pill and are going to see what happens, so I guess we'll just have to wait and see!!


(Noah is sick right now (his 17th illness), but nothing major.  He got it from Justin, who has had a chest cold for weeks.  I have somehow managed to avoid it.  I'm telling you, these supplements work magic!)

Christmas Eve 2011 and Presents Recap

It is New Year's Eve, and I haven't posted about Christmas. I would really like this post to be filed in December 2011, and not January 2012, so I better get cracking.

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve was wonderful.  The three of us stayed home all day.  We had a lot of presents for Noah, so we slowly opened them most of them throughout the day, and then decided in the early evening to put all the rest of them under the tree.  We wanted Noah to be able to experience the whole "stack of presents under the tree" thing, since he was enjoying receiving presents so much this year.  

It was really fun.  We only gave Noah one present that he didn't really care for, and I had anticipated that he would react that way to that present.  It was the Rockin' Shapes Elmo that sings.  I bought it when I finally saw it in stock somewhere, because for a couple of months there Noah was beyond obsessed with Elmo.  But I realized shortly after I bought it that there wasn't a lot of play potential there.  And I was right.  Noah doesn't give a hoot about it.  I'm pretty confident I will be returning the Rockin' Elmo and guitar I bought.  We didn't give it to Noah for the same reason.

However, besides that one bomb, everything else was greatly appreciated.  

He LOVED his play kitchen.  We put it together during his nap and then had it sitting out for him when he woke up.  He played with it for an hour and a half straight.  It was amazing.

I honestly don't know why he wasn't wearing pants.  I obviously didn't think ahead and realize I would want to take pictures. 

Another big hit was this present:

It was in the big pile of gifts we put under the tree, and he pulled this one out first.  It made me laugh, because it was the biggest package, and he obviously already had the whole “bigger is better” idea in his head.

The present ended up being this set of musical instruments:

This was by no means the classiest present we bought him.  It was actually only $30.  But I knew he would love it, and he does, so that's what really matters.  Yes, that guitar is freaking loud, but if it gets too annoying I will just hide it. ;)

Another gift was this Melissa and Doug Magnetic Alphabet Puzzle book:

I thought this would be the best thing, but the magnets aren't very strong at all, so I actually don't like it that much.  Plus Noah already knows his entire alphabet, and recently got his Baby Einstein Alphabooks which he loves, so these are kind of superfluous in our house.

A better puzzle was this one, also by Melissa and Doug:

We have a video of Noah right after he got this.  He took every shape out, and then put every shape right back in exactly where it went.  

It took him 1 try.  He felt he had mastered it, and moved on to the next present.  Not that he didn't like it.  He did.  He has played with it everyday since then.  Within 2 or 3 days after Christmas, he could name every shape in the puzzle (square, circle, diamond, rectangle, triangle, heart, star, and oval).  This kid loves to learn.

Next he opened this big box of Duplo:

Noah has had Mega Bloks since he was 7 months old (and started playing with them that young, too). They definitely served their purpose in this house, and were well used (and will be saved for future children). But Mega Bloks are too simple for him now, and don’t have enough potential. So we’ve moved on to Duplo. He got three big sets this Christmas, and has definitely played with them tons ever since.

I think his last present to open was this set of foot that velcros together and comes with a cutting board and play knife:

"Ohh, this looks interesting..."

He really did like this stuff.

You can probably get much better quality play food that can be “cut”, and I’m not convinced that this Velcro will hold up through multiple children. I did get this set on about half price, so I only paid about $10 for it. If it breaks down after awhile I will buy better quality stuff (I think Melissa and Doug might make a similar thing, but in wood).

I honestly can't remember if he got any more present from us on Christmas Eve. We had been slowly giving him presents beforehand, so he got two Little People's farms (the big one and a smaller one), a bunch of small Tonka cars, the Fisher Price Drill and Hammer set (this thing ROCKS!), and some other stuff I can't remember right now.

If you just count the presents that we got him, they replaced everything he had before - everything he was extremely bored with. But he also got some great presents from his grandparents, and a great aunt and uncle, and his Uncle Nick and Aunt Hilary, including more Duplo sets, the Little People's Airport, the Little People's Stand and Play Rampway, some books, a travel sized Etch-a-Sketch, and some huge floor puzzles.

He got very few presents that aren't currently interesting to him. Almost everything was age appropriate (at least for Noah), and it will all keep him engaged for at least a couple of more years (not that I'm saying he won't get any more presents for the next two years!). There is nothing that he will grow out of using very quickly.

Noah had really gotten to the point where he was in desperate need of new toys that were more age appropriate, and allowed him to use his imagination, so all of these presents were very welcome.

I realized on Boxing Day that I completely forgot to give him his double-sided easel. I bought it two months ago, and was waiting very impatiently for Christmas so I could give it to him. Then when I was wrapping presents on Christmas Eve morning, I completely forgot about it. It was being stored under the stairs, and all the other presents were in one of the spare rooms, so it got overlooked. I may save it for his birthday, or I will give it to him in the next couple of months when he seems bored.

I was going to post about the rest of our Christmas here, but I will write about them in a separate post. This ended up being long enough!

Christmas Eve Musings

It's 1:30am and I am lying in bed, awake.   It is now Christmas Eve!  We had a visitor until midnight (I enjoyed the visit, but oh my gosh, LEAVE SOONER!  We have a toddler!)  I missed my regular sleep window, so I'm unable to fall asleep.  I thought I'd blog a little about random things.

I live in Canada, and we are having a green Christmas.  It's crazy.  Last year at this time we had several feet of snow on the ground.  Ten days ago was actually the anniversary of Snowmageddon, which I blogged about here.  We had to declare a State of Emergency and call in the military with their helicopters to rescue the 400+ people who were completely stranded in the cars when we got dumped on.

This year, nada.  We've had flurries, but actually haven't had any snow collect on the ground at all.  It's really bizarre.  It's been balmy here, actually.  The temperatures have been as high as 12 degrees (53 degrees Fahrenheit, for my American readers... which is most of you).  And I am not complaining in the slightest.  I have LOVED it.

This week I took Noah to our city's Celebration of Lights, which is a huge Christmas lights display set up every November and December throughout one of our waterfront parks.    We went with my mom and sister.  I wanted to go with Justin, but he is way too busy, and it was impossible to find an evening that he was home and it wasn't raining (balmy weather is welcome, but I'm not happy with the excessive rain we've been getting).

Noah had a blast.  He just ran all around the park, checking out all the lights.  I have been to Celebration of Lights in probably a decade.  It was fun to experience it through Toddler Eyes.  That's one of my favourite parts about having a kid.  Things become more exciting to me.

Today I finally wrapped Noah's Christmas presents.  We're giving them to him later today (I originally wrote tomorrow, but it's already Christmas Eve).  I had a hard time controlling myself this year.  There were a lot of things I'd been waiting to buy him until they went on sale, and then in the past couple of months a LOT of those things went on sale!  We've given him a bunch of his presents early, so he wouldn't get a ton of presents at once and be overwhelmed.  I have wrapped every one of them before giving them to him, though.

Noah is so cute we he gets a present.  When he sees the gift he says "Whoa."  And then immediately goes into "Open it?  Open?  Scissors?"  After we gave him the Little People's Animal Sounds Farm and coordinating stable, he played with it for awhile and then sat down beside me, smiled, and said "Like it!"  His reactions are very gratifying for us:)

I figure this is probably the only year we can really spoil Noah.  He won't remember getting a lot of presents when next Christmas comes around, so he won't be expecting it.  But next year might be a different story. And even though we did buy a lot, it was needed.  I rotate out Noah's toys, but he was getting totally bored with all of them.  He definitely needed some new, more age appropriate toys, so that he can "pretend play," which he loves to do.

So far he has gotten the Little People's farm stuff (he loves playing pretend with the animals), two different doctor kits (he loves playing doctor, and the sets had different components, so  I just bought both), and a Fisher Price drill and hammer set.  The drill actually works, and screws the screws into the holes.  It's cool.

The main events coming up are a play kitchen, play food that velcros together that he can cut in half, Little People's Airport, wooden puzzles, Duplo, a bunch of Elmo stuff, and a set of musical instruments that he LOVED in the store.  I am saving the Little People's Animal Sounds Zoo for his birthday.  Unless I bust it out before then.

Okay I am feeling tired again, so I'm going to try to go to sleep.  It's almost 2am.

Merry Christmas to all!

Merry Christmas Day!

Merry Christmas from our family to yours!

Merry Christmas Eve!

Today was a GREAT day! The visit with Nona Anna was short but sweet.  She loved her gift and loved seeing Noah. The visit at my inlaws' was great as well. I got the lamest gifts (Christmas tea towels and a Christmas sleigh candy dish thing that I'm pretty sure is a hand-me-down), but Noah got totally spoiled. They bought him:

-all 5 Sing-A-Ma-Jigs

-a Mega Blocks fire truck and a box of 40 pieces of Mega Blocks (we already have about 200 other pieces)

-a $70 Columbia snowsuit (18 months, but fits him PERFECTLY)

-a cute Carter's fleece track suit with a onesie (18 months)

-a cool cloth book

-a Christmas ornament and stocking

-a box of Pampers Cruisers (size 3, which is good, because Noah is going to be in size 3 a lot longer than I thought, and I only have a few boxes left).

And a couple of weeks ago they gave him a Fisher Price train that goes on its own.

They totally spoiled him.  It was great:)

They also got us a GPS!  Justin got his own presents from them, which weren't lame like mine (haha). I really think my mother-in-law has NO idea what to get me. She always gets me the worst gifts.  It just makes me laugh.

They LOVED their present.  I bought a collage of picture frames (1-11x14, 1-8x10, 2-5x7s, and 2-4x6s) and framed mostly pictures she had never seen before.  She went nuts over it. It was so fun to watch. She was gasping and ooing and ahhhing. I was happy it made her so happy.
 

Noah only had two 40 minute naps all day, but he did great. I managed to transfer him into the bottom of the pack 'n play at my inlaws' house without waking him up, which was amazing in my books. Dinner was awesomely tasty, and I managed to eat the entire thing before Noah woke up.

After Noah woke up from his nap he nursed for an hour! He wasn't drinking the whole time, he was just comfort suckling and playing with my face. It was kind of ridiculous how long he was on there for (not that I minded). I was just sitting in the living room (thank goodness I wasn't by myself in a bedroom) with him under the nursing cover and he just wanted to cuddle and suckle. For a full hour. I had to take him off the one side and put him on the other side after 40 minutes because he was showing no signs of coming off.  He wasn't even sleeping. It was so weird. And we were all talking, which would normally distract him, but not tonight.

I think my mother-in-law was jealous.  She always makes comments about how she can't wait until he's older and isn't so attached to the boob (you're going to be waiting awhile, woman).  From all the comments she makes I really get the feeling that she's jealous of the bond Noah and I have in general (duuhh, I'm his MOTHER - and a stay-at-home-mother), and the fact that she never nursed Justin so she doesn't know what it's like to have that kind of relationship.  Tonight she made a comment about the nursing and how she just wishes I could get "even a 15 minute break."  Um, hello?  He nurses every 2 hours and is usually done in 10 minutes.  How am I not getting a 15 minute break? 

Besides, I love nursing him.  And he doesn't usually nurse for an hour!  I think he just had such a big day, going to the retirement home and seeing a million old people, opening up tons of presents at a house he's not familiar with (my inlaws just moved), then waking up in a pack 'n play in a bedroom he's not familiar with. Plus he only had the two 40 minute naps all day. I think he just needed to relax and zone out.  I'm glad nursing gives him that option and ability.

Tomorrow is Christmas Day!!  It's going by too quickly!!  I finally wrapped all of Noah's presents this morning.  There are a lot more than I thought there were, and we gave him about 4 presents already.  I guess I kind of ended up going overboard.  Hehehe.

Merry Christmas!!

Tomorrow starts several days of holiday festivities.  But it's not totally the beginning for us.  This past Saturday we went to 'Kennedy Christmas', which is just a group of friends of my husband's parents who get together every year in December (it's called 'Kennedy Christmas' because the Kennedys always host it).  We got there about an hour late because Noah's last nap did not go as planned.  We only got to stay for a couple of hours, because the stupid thing didn't start until 4pm and we had to get home and get Noah to bed (he ended up going down over an hour late).

When we first got there Noah was not impressed.  I supposed walking into a strange house where 20 people are all talking at once would be kind of alarming.  He started wailing.  I took him to a corner of a fairly empty room so I could take him out of the carseat and console him.  My mother in law stuck her face in front of him and said "It's okay Noah, Nana's here!" (as if that would help).  That made him start wailing again.  She kept wanting to hold him, and I eventually told her to just back off until I had him totally calm and adjusted to his surroundings.  She's always wanting to jump the gun (I think she wanted to "show off" to her friends and pretend like her and him are sooo close or something).

After about 15 or 20 minutes of acclimatizing Noah was good to go, and he didn't make another peep the rest of the night, escept for happy sounds.  No fussing.  It was a fun time, even if it was shorter than we would have liked.

Tomorrow is Christmas Eve and we're spending most of the day at my inlaws.  It will be rather boring, because it will be only me, Justin, Noah, and his parents.  Justin is an only child, and both of his parents have only one sibling.  Normally Christmas Eve is spent with my mother-in-law's side of the family, which is only 4 extra people, but still, it's 4 extra people.  However, there's some big, fat, Italian feud going on that has caused a huge rift on that side, and we haven't seen them in months.  Noah is 9 months old and his aunt and uncle have only visited ONCE, even though they live 20 minutes away.  It's ridiculous, and apparently we all just pretend like it's not happening.  Not that we know what's actually happening that we're pretending isn't happening.  Nobody answers questions straight, and even if they did we wouldn't know who to believe because it's always a blame game.

Christmas Day will be at my parents' house with most of my siblings and their spouses (I'm pretty sure Nick, Hilary, Elijah, and Josiah are skipping out since we had our immediate family Christmas on December 5 and they have to drive 2 hours with 2 kids).  My Pake and Beppe (my only living grandparents) and a mess of aunts, uncles, and cousins on my Dad's side will also be there (but not my Dad, because he has to work).  We are also expected to try and make it to Justin's aunt and uncle's on his Dad's side, but there isn't a lot of time in the day when you have a baby and need to leave town at 6pm to get him home and in bed on time.  We spent pretty much all of last Christmas Day with them, so I think we should be able to take a year off.  But whatever.

Boxing Day we're supposed to go to brunch with a different group of my husband's family's friends.  They do a brunch every year on Boxing Day.  I'm not sure how it will go this year, since it starts right during Noah's naptime and we live 25 minutes away.  We'll probably end up seeing people for 20 minutes at the end of brunch, and it won't even be worth the drive.  But apparently we're trying.

Then on the 27th we're supposed to have Justin's aunt, uncle, and cousin out here - the ones who usually are at Christmas Eve.  This just got arranged today by my husband.  We'll see how that goes.

I am actually really loving this holiday season, even though it may sound like I'm not because my husband comes from a family of fools.  But I love Christmas.  It is my absolute favourite time of year. 

It's funny, every year I always say "It doesn't feel like Christmas."  Sometime in the last few years I figured out that it never feels like Christmas because each year feels different, and I always expect it to feel like it did the year before in order for it to feel like Christmas.  So Christmas doesn't feel like Christmas until it's over.

But this year, it feels like Christmas.  I feel like I'm surrounded by the wonderful Christmas spirit.  And it's so weird to me that that's true.  I don't have a single Christmas decoration up in my house (I didn't want to fight Noah and the cats away from a tree for weeks on end - that would tick me off).  We haven't been to a single Advent service (we haven't been to church since October because we live 25 minutes away from our church and Noah always has naptime SMACK in the middle of the church service, and he cannot nap in the nursery... we really miss church).  I haven't done a lick of baking.  I haven't wrapped a single present.  But somehow this year feels more like Christmas than any other year.

I think it's my incredible gratitude.  This is my first Christmas as a real Mommy.  I have a baby boy.  I have a little kid to spoil (and I did end up spoiling him a little... I couldn't resist when I was out shopping a couple of days ago!)  He doesn't know it's Christmas, but I know it's Christmas, and it's a better Christmas because he's here.  He's the light of my life.  He makes everything worth it, and makes every bad thing seem like not such a big deal.  He makes every good thing seem like a WONDERFUL thing.

I'm amazed by my level of thankfulness this Christmas season.  And while Christmas has never been about Santa and presents to me, this year I feel even more like I'm celebrating the true meaning of Christmas.