Christmas fun

Look, it's not that I don't like Christmas. It's just that Christmas with kids can be, well, challenging.

On the plus side, we didn't end up in the emergency room, as we did Christmas Eve 2005, when Jack introduced us to his cashew allergy. But we did have our struggles with both boys, with the end result being a Christmas to remember, though not necessarily for all the right reasons.

For starters, we didn't really do much to decorate our house this year. Our artificial tree, which we first assembled in our rental home in Fulton in 2002, was deemed unsafe based on a few factors. One, the thing leans on a good day, as if there were a stiff breeze in the living room (and given the age of the home and bitter wind outside, that may not be a stretch). Two, Jack's favorite hobby last December was repositioning ornaments. Constantly. Three, Max is just enough older (about seven weeks) than Jack was for his first Christmas, which means he's that much better at crawling and that much more focused on pulling himself up to a standing position... which means it wouldn't have been long before one or two children were swallowed by a toppled tannenbaum.

And though it doesn't factor into the safety of the tree, this point warrants mentioning: This is a pre-lit tree, which is supposed to be a convenience. Not so much. There's about four strands of lights and a collection of plugs, all with handy blue stickers on them so you can put plug A into slot A, plug B into slot B and so on. Which would work great, if our dumb cats hadn't chewed off all the stickers in the tree's first year. We've never been able to get the entire thing lit since then.

So we haven't exactly been in the Christmas spirit. We decided not to send out mass mailings of Christmas cards (about 75 cards, letters and photos -- don't forget the stamps). We cut back drastically on our gift budget. And since I have to work a fair amount, we aren't really traveling together.

The weather, as most of you know, was highly unpleasant earlier this week. Kristie's dad came out to get her and the boys in his truck Tuesday, and I drove westward after I got done at the paper Wednesday. Christmas in Savanna with the Cottral side of the family went mostly well (photos to follow), although it did see the debut of Jack's 2008 Christmas glitch: opening a gift, then loudly proclaiming "Oh, I hate this!" and flopping on the floor. Never mind the fact it took him all of five minutes to decide he loved the stuff and it was fun to play with.

On Christmas Eve, a highly congested Max slept very poorly, which means I also slept poorly. I was glad Kristie got some sleep, since earlier on the 24th she stubbed her toe so severely she's still limping and not totally sure it isn't broken. Max and I finally got up around 6 a.m. (he was stirring about every 20 minutes). I changed a diaper, fed him, changed him again, finished feeding him and got him back to sleep about 10 to 7. Jack woke me up around 8:30, and all four of us were downstairs by 9. By 10 a.m. Jack had politely woken everyone else in the house so we could open presents.

However, Jack was under the mistaken impression he was going to open all of his presents first while everyone else watched. There also was an incident where max got a hold of one of Jack's gifts (because the kid loves to tear paper) and, although he didn't get anything open, Jack was sufficiently pissed. I'm not clear on all the details of what happened next, but I distinctly recall Kristie and I double-teaming Jack, her with one appendage (and a bum wheel) and me with another (and Max in my other arm) hauling him upstairs for a holiday timeout.

Eventually he agreed to come back down and not be a total turd, although we did have more of the "I hate it!" business that nearly spurned another showdown.

The rest of the day is kind of a blur to me, less than 24 hours later, a whirlwind of junk food, wrapping paper, spoonfeeding a distracted baby while my mother-in-law vacuumed the remains of a broken light bulb from an Easy Bake Oven... finally around 3:30 p.m. Max and I went back upstairs to catch up on the sleep both of us missed the night before.

I knew dinner was being served at the Workman Christmas around 5 p.m. But I was so tired, and I knew Max was wrecked, so I let us both sleep until he finally woke up. And when he did, just before 6 p.m., I found Kristie downstairs, patiently waiting (and playing a new video game...) for us so she could feed Max and we could head over. She did feed Max, then she took his temperature and found him hovering around 101. Ugh.

So just before 7 p.m. I headed out to look for infant Tylenol. The good news is that I lived in Fulton-Clinton for four and a half years, so I know right where everything is. The bad news is the only thing open was a Kwik Star way out on the west end, and it did not sell infant Tylenol. So I essentially spent 30 minutes driving mostly plowed streets, waiting at stoplights despite being the only car in sight and came home empty-handed.

Finally, about 8 p.m., Kristie told me I should just leave for Ottawa so I wasn't on the road too late. I agreed, and left her at her parents' house with a sick baby, left Jack at Kristie's grandparents' with no idea if he was eating dinner or trotting out the "I hate it" schtick again and hopped in the car. Due to a minor iPod malfunction Wednesday, I was left with just my radio to amuse me... and only two stations not playing bad Christmas music.

So I'm back at the paper today and then back to Fulton over the weekend, where hopefully Max will have gotten better (I'm wondering if the fever isn't related to his first tooth FINALLY coming in) and Jack will be less of a stubborn brat. Then another week of holiday work schedules... let's just say I'll be happy if my brain is somewhat settled by Jan. 5. But I'm not getting my hopes up.

And lest you think it was all bad, I should point out we did get to spend some quality time with many family members, a good deal of whom we don't get to see as often as we did when we lived much closer. It's always fun to see relatives so excited to see our kids, crabby or not, and especially so at holiday time when we can tell they've done more than just buy a gift. Many of Kristie's family members gave presents that show they know what our kids like, or that will help our kids think of the people who gave them. Or both.

We got a lot of great pictures, which I'll share as soon as I'm in the same ZIP code as our camera. We have a very understanding family who welcomes us into their homes and lives, and it's important for us to remember they're happy to be with us no matter the circumstance. Sometimes overstressed parents can feel like they and their kids are ruining everything, but what's important is being together. I felt pretty lonely driving around looking for baby drugs last night, but that's only because I was focusing on me, and not what a wonderful environment we have to bring the boys to for holidays or any day.

And though I'd almost always rather be with family than at work, at least I really like the people I work with, so being at the office isn't such a bad thing.

But I'll be happy when things settle down a bit.