Our first Christmas
Our first Christmas as a family of three was so awesome that we held it over so we could celebrate two days in a row. Well, maybe we held it over because Oscar awoke on Christmas day with a horrible cold. He had been feeling poorly for a couple days, with a fever running around 103 before Tylenol. With Tylenol, it was dropping down to 100-101, so no big deal. On Christmas morning, though, this is what Oscar looked like at about 8:00 am. I sat him on the kitchen island and he proceeded to assume this position, which he really did not want to change.
I, of course, thought we should power through whatever Oscar was feeling and celebrate Christmas. Etta, after all, was raring to go.
We moved into the living room, where Etta tried to get her brother to go check out the presents left by Santa. When that didn’t get him off the sofa, she decided to take one for the team and feign the holiday spirit and open some presents. Oscar eventually rallied when he saw Etta with a gift he liked (her princess ride on), walking to the playroom to get his similar toy (his birthday gift from Grandma and Papa for his first birthday). Even he couldn’t get excited about it, though, and we decided to call off the unwrapping of the presents when he got off the car and fell asleep on the floor.
Eventually, when Oscar just couldn’t muster any energy at all, I broke down and took him to urgent care. They thought it was either the flu, some random virus or pneumonia, but his chest x-ray was clear. They sent us home with a prescription to force some fluids into him, preferably something like a milkshake (why do I never get these prescriptions for myself?) and we set off to find food. Finding food on Christmas Day is not so easy. I wasn’t able to stop at the store, since I was told not to take Oscar into public areas, since he was highly contagious, so a drive thru was needed. Easier said than found. Long story short, we ended up driving almost an hour to find food. Oscar drank almost none of the required shake, but Etta made up for it, of course. We managed to get home and ended our first Christmas together by falling into bed before 6:00 pm.
I figured there was no way Oscar was recovering from this bug for at least a couple of days, so I was in for a surprise when I got up this morning and found a bright-eyed Oscar asking for food. After eating something, he ran into the living room and found his stocking. Christmas mayhem finally ensued, with Oscar tearing through a few presents and then playing for hours.
Yes, Oscar is wearing the same pyjamas as the day before (he even wore these to the urgent care). You can tell it’s another day, though, by the hair.
Thankfully, Oscar was willing to attend to his personal hygiene and take a shower (with glasses) before we opened more presents.
We got tired of opening presents. Not because there were hundreds, but I’m happy to say that my kids like to open a present and then play with it for a considerable while. No tearing through dozens of presents at a time yet. The only downside is that we have now had three present-opening sessions and will need a fourth tomorrow to get through the presents under the tree. Even I find three days of this to be a bit much.
Anyway, it ended up being a beautiful day today and we ventured outside to play with Oscar’s scooter.
The kids were having a good time, but I noticed Etta wasn’t looking quite like her fun-loving self, so we headed inside.
When we got inside, Etta showed me something awesome. A nose even runnier than her brother’s had been the day before. Super. Then she threw up (which was the first symptom Oscar exhibited). She’s now asleep with a fever, and I suspect that we’ll have to postpone our last day of opening presents and read some of these gifts instead. I’m thinking that little kid who said “pooh” to receiving books for Christmas (see youtube) wouldn’t last long in our house. . .
Hope your holidays were healthier than ours.
Pinkabumps
or, for those of you who don’t speak Oscar, pumpkins.
We’re back at home and adjusting to real life again. Vacation was fantastic, but it’s nice to be home. The kids are thrilled being back with all of their toys and, far more importantly, their beloved Nanny Norma. In between doctors’ appointments, decorating for the holidays (seriously, I’ve gone SAHM in this arena and it’s kind of frightening – there have been multiple trips to craft stores involved) and trying to recover from jetlag, we managed to make a trip to Half Moon Bay to visit a pumpkin farm. Both of the kids loved the train and hay rides. I just wish we could have managed a good picture of the two of them together. I guess I should just be happy that I managed to get a picture of the two of them in the same frame and no one got hurt.
Melkam Enkutatash!
Or is it Melkam Addis Amet? Either way, Happy New Year, everyone! Especially to my two favorite Ethiopian Americans.
The most pathetic gingerbread house ever
Yes, I am this far behind. I’m only now getting to post pictures of the saddest gingerbread house ever built. Oscar and I went to the Children’s Museum last month for their gingerbread extravaganza. I was completely psyched about it. Why? I have no idea. I had never built a gingerbread house before, but it seemed like it would be such a fun thing to do with a kid during the holidays. Um, wrong. At least, wrong with respect to my kid.
Turns out that it is possible for a 2 1/2 year old to excel at building gingerbread houses. There were a lot of them right there in front of us (although they all had two parents “helping”). It’s just not possible for mine to do so. I was okay with that possibility going into this gig; I figured he’d sit around eating the decorations and I’d build the house myself. Right . . . apparently Oscar had other plans.
Within seconds of putting our supplies on the table, Oscar had eaten not only a handful of candy, but a decent chunk of the gingerbread itself. I figured that was fine; I’d just work with what was left. Well, what was left after Oscar munched his way through the foundation, part of the roof, the chimney and a couple of the walls ended up being enough to produce this:
Yes, a Gingerbread Shack. I guess you could call it a Gingerbread Lean-to, if you’d prefer. Just needs some tarps for the sides. As you can see, even when it was fully “assembled,” Oscar was still hacking at it. I tried to slap more icing on it so we could at least cover it with all the candy we had lying around, but Oscar took the icing and just started trying to squirt it into his mouth. The ladies at the museum were so appalled by us (or the house – or a combination of both) that they told me that I didn’t have to put our name on our platform for when it went on display. I, of course, took this as some sort of affront to my family’s honor, and grabbed the marker and wrote our last name in big, bold letters. Maybe we’ll have better luck next Christmas. I can only imagine that this will be easier when Oscar is three and I also have Baby Etta in tow.
At least Oscar had fun the rest of the day at the museum . . .
Our Family Tree
Last year I couldn’t bring myself to do a real Christmas tree. I’m one of those people who likes their tree perfectly adorned, and I figured that wasn’t going to happen with an 18 month old running through the house. No big deal, we’d do it this year. So, this year I unpack the ornaments and start putting them on the tree, only to have Oscar “assist” me by systematically taking them off the tree for me. Not an issue until he decided that the vast majority were worthy of permanent destruction, if you know what I mean.
As a result, I salvaged what I could from my ornament collection and I returned to my stand-in from last year, one of those table-top trees that showcase a few ornaments. Not terribly festive, but it’s something. Since we might be going this route for a couple more years, I decided to take Oscar ornament shopping for our “tree,” which we decided to decorate as an homage to our family.
Here are Grandma and Grandpa (an avid fisherman):
Nanny Norma (she’s quite athletic):
Oscar (born in the year of the Fire Pig):
Me (hey, I lost a little weight, thought I’d show it off a bit; I might never look this good in a bikini again):
And, introducing Baby Etta (no, I don’t have a referral, but she’s part of the family nonetheless):
Happy holidays from our family to yours!
Best Thanksgiving Ever
And not a decent photo to document it. Figures, right?
Oscar and I may have just created a holiday tradition. The Monterey Bay Aquarium on Thanksgiving day. It’s never been a favorite holiday of mine, so this year I decided we would ditch the traditional holiday festivities and do something on our own. I had been planning Legoland, but then I found the cheap hotel room in Mexico. So much for San Diego. Instead, Oscar and I piled into the Mini late this morning after watching some Pink Panther cartoons (see, the day even started well). A couple of hours later, we found rock star parking with an amazing view (you know, because it’s Monterey), meandered down to the aquarium, stopping a few times to act as photographer for a bunch of old guys.
We’ve been to the aquarium once before, but very briefly. Oscar seemed not to remember anything, and he was an entirely different boy this trip. You should have heard him yelling when we got to the first exhibit. He burst through the little barricade that is intended to keep people away from the glass and stuck his face right up to a shark, screaming at it. He loved it. The entire time we were there, he was just crazy, running from exhibit to exhibit and periodically stopping to talk to “big” boys. After getting our fill of the fish, and eating something the cafe sold as really expensive turkey (which was really not good), we went for a long walk down the coast. After a quick trip home, with a silent Oscar in the back seat dozing for over half of it, we stopped at the grocery store for white chocolate covered Oreos (I know, but it’s a holiday) and headed to the house to hang with the doggies and Skype the grandparents. What more does a girl need?
Next year I think we’ll head on down there again, with a few minor tweaks. First, I’ll make sure the camera is working so I can share the crazy cute moments like when the penguins swarmed up around Oscar’s face. Second, we’re not eating the nasty *turkey*. And third, I’m hoping we’ll be taking Oscar’s sister.
Happy Thanksgiving!
“Happy” Halloween II
I clearly have not conditioned my child to enjoy Halloween. Two Halloweens, two abject failures. I won’t re-post last year’s photo, as this year’s is just about as pathetic. Hoping for better luck next year.
And in case you were wondering, he was supposed to be a puppy. Specifically a St. Bernard. He was a cute puppy for about three seconds, until he ripped off the hood.
My Mother’s Day Gift
Oscar is such a great shopper – and I just love how he enjoys finding treasures on Etsy. What a clever child. My Mother’s Day gift from him arrived last night, and I really like it (although I don’t love it since the stamp with his name and our G&R date is kind of faint). I do love the design and the copper, though, and when I replace the chain I think I’ll like it much more.
obviously, this is not my necklace, but a photo from the designer’s site. . .
What I do love is this pendant from another designer on Etsy. It’s the Vietnamese word for Mother, and I love the color of the glass (which is far clearer and more vivid than the photo).
Earth Day Adventure
Earth Day isn’t all about the gifts we receive, it’s about what we give back. To celebrate this, I put Oscar to work. Since I signed my fourth deal in 10 days (a new record) last night, I decided to take the day off. I also decided that I wasn’t going to clean up my home office on my own – I was going to make my child do it. He’s almost two, and he’s been slacking since the day I met him. So, off we went to pick up all of the draft merger agreements I had lying around. Oscar helped put them all into the recycling bin, and even tried to up the ante by adding anything else he could find, including opening remotes and trying to dump batteries into the bin. We’ll save that lesson for a future Earth Day.
Following our trip to the recycling bin, we did some gardening, mostly so I would have something to throw into the compost bin. That’s the big green bin the garbage people give you. Apparently you’re supposed to fill these things up every week with compostibles (whatever those are). We chucked in some yard waste and decided to end this phase of the day. I had considered planting a tree or something, but c’mon, let’s save a little for when the kid is a little older.
Now that we had warmed up, we kicked things into high gear. Oscar and I headed to the beach! It was a perfect day, so how better to spend it than hanging out in the sand, exposing our pale skin to the harsh sun, whose rays are even more damaging as a result of this “global warming” thing people say exists. Whatever, we loaded up the Prius and headed out. Wait, you know I’m joking. Who would drive on Earth Day? We got on the bus and headed to the beach. Kidding again, you know I don’t do mass transit (at least not with the kid and not on a bus). How better to celebrate Earth Day than to hop in our gas guzzling SUV? Well, we got to the beach, but I apparently picked the wrong one. Lots of sand erosion so it was one of those kind of dirty beaches. Not what I was looking for, so we went to the zoo. I know you’re getting bored with this, but Oscar is still into it, so we drove down the street to the zoo. We’re really working that membership lately. Oscar had a blast, and afterwards we went to lunch at Louis (a divey diner with a great view and Oscar’s all-time favorite minestrone, which he screeched for when he finished his entire bowl). After that we topped off the day with a trip to T@rget and a drive home eating Ore0s. A perfect day.
He was into this, but annoyed that I interrupted him.
-
Etta’s Hats
Where I’ve Been
