Please?

The kids did have a great Christmas despite some minor ... things with their dad that I won't go into. Repeat gifts and such, nothing major. And my bouncy boy had his 4th birthday Friday. Good grief they grow up fast.

But for the moment I really need a grown up friend to call and whine to, and I don't think I have any available right now. I have one, but I'm pretty sure she's traveling, not to mention that right now there is no kid-free mom time anyhoos. Baby is in fact on my lap nursing as I type. Well, actually he's kind of standing on his head because as we all know, booby is so much tastier upside down!

Hubby is gone until after midnight, second night in a row, and I'm thinking of putting some kidlets to bed at 6:30 (NOW!) I'm also thinking that tomorrow and the next night... or whichever most difficult night I can think of... I'm going to conveniently be gone until well after midnight.

Oh the kidlets are sooooooo excited tonight! If you've never experienced it, I highly recommend trying to get five excited kiddoes to sleep at some point before two a.m. on Christmas Eve. Because one or two might wear out and conk out, but when there are FIVE they can keep each other going all night long folks! The 4yo can jump on the bed for a while, and then the teenager can poke his head in and tell them about some show he watched or website he visited, and of course they are all enthralled simply because he's a TEENAGER and therefore cool by default. And if teenager wears out then there's 12yo daughter to rouse everyone with a fun game of "Spot the red light in the sky, it must be Rudolph!" and when that gets old the 7yo boy is quite CERTAIN that he hears footsteps on the roof, which is followed by much giggling and "pretending" to be asleep because we all know that Santa won't come if you're not sleeping!

Meanwhile, hubby and I are about to pass out waiting for the giggles to quiet down, the bed jumping to subside, the teenager to finally GIVE UP already... and somewhere around 2:00 it finally gets quiet and we can begin the tiresome tedious task of filling the stockings and dragging all the gifts out of their carefully selected hiding places. Of course, we have to be very, very quiet as daughter is a VERY light sleeper who wakes up generally if the wind blows in her direction, and one awake child = five awake children if that one realizes that Santa has indeed arrived...

And so, sometime around 3:30 or so we stumble into bed and of course I'll have to wake up at 4:00 or so to feed the baby as he still doesn't sleep ALL night. And then, around 5:00 or 6:00 if we are very, very lucky, these little heathens start JUMPING on the bed causing hubby to jerk with such a start that he falls out of bed onto the hardwood floors because he thinks someone has died. Which of course results in fits of laughter from the invading forces as I wearily sit up and try to keep my eyes open. There is no return now, we're awake and in for the long haul.

We stumble downstairs and grab some caffeine, and I start some breakfast (which is apple turnovers per our Christmas tradition) while the kidlets grab their stockings. No, they're not excited and full of energy enough already, they need some Snickers and a good sugar rush to really get them started. I read somewhere about someone putting oranges or apples or something in their stockings?? What fun is that? No, I want my kids bouncing off the walls on a sugar rush by 7:00 a.m.!

Once we eat some turnovers, the gift opening can begin, and I make them drag it out FOREVER! As in, one gift for one person while the rest of us sit and watch. And sometimes we open the package and get it out too, add batteries, whatever. And then the next person can have a present! Of course it kills them (partly because of the Snickers induced sugar rush I'm sure) but I get a big kick out of it.



I think we'll have a good Christmas this year and I'm looking forward to my sleep-deprived tomorrow. Maybe I should go nap now and I could have a little reserve saved up!

My road trip is not looking good. I'm coming down with another cold it seems. It never stops! I'll be so glad to some day get off this prednisone (I can only hope) and have a normal functioning immune system. I was hoping to leave town Monday, but since it's Thursday and I can just feel it starting... I'm not hopeful anymore. On the bright side, it's only a head cold for now so it's not exaserbating my existing lung condition. Hopefully it stays that way.

If you're looking for a good holiday cause this year or you have some gently used items to give away, I highly recommend Mamas in need. I've sent out I don't know how many packages of outgrown children's clothes that looked like new, books, whatever, and it is nice to be able to give back a little bit to some mamas who really need it. I'm feeling very lucky to even be here this Christmas, and just feel the need to share my joy with someone else I suppose.

My guys are all in there sleeping on the couch, and it's approximately 6:00 p.m. Who's going to be up all night? Hmm, not mama! That's who! Dad is sleeping with them, so I assume he can gladly take up night duty as well. They're cute though, all piled up together on the couch snoozing. I was in the kitchen working on dinner and thought they were watching a movie. I peeked around the corner at them, and there they are all sound asleep. Awwwww. I'm going to bed early tonight to hopefully fight off this stupid cold, so they can stay up as late as they want. I thought they were going to the movies to see Golden Compass tonight around 7ish, but it's looking doubtful for that.

Better go finish my dinner at any rate, gotta eat sometime!

I was down and out most all of last week again. I think I'm starting to recover again now, knock on woood. And thankfully I did at least manage to keep myself out of the hospital, so I wasn't as bad as some previous episodes. I think I caught a cold from the kids, and jeez it just knocked me out completely! I'm very glad I got all my shopping finished (pretty much) early and I don't have to worry about much as far as the holidays are concerned. Just making sure I'm breathing well enough to be home with everyone I suppose.

At any rate, I'm doing much better again this week, and I'm supposed to call my pulmonologist today about some allergy shots and we're going to try that and see if it helps. I'm also considering heading to a naturopath/homeopath that is not too terribly far from here - I'm ready to try just about anything!

There is a possibility that I may take a road trip for a few days to visit a very good friend (who I haven't seen FOREVER!), and I'd dearly love to be able to go and not worry about anything! But I'll have to hold out a few more days to make the call as to whether I'll be up for it or not. And she's in Rochester, NY, so I probably need to keep an eye on the weather up there as well. It would be really, really, REALLY nice to get away from here for just a few days; no kids, no hubby, no house cleaning, no cooking... oh my that's so tempting! And then you add my very dear friend into the mix and I just don't know why I'm not in the car already! Merry (early) Christmas to me? Well, if I can get well enough that's probably where I'll be next week.

Yesterday was crazy 70 degree weather! I wish I had known beforehand how warm it was going to be, I would have taken off for the zoo (all lit up with Christmas lights too!) Someone was listening I guess and heard my complaints about winter because it feels more like fall. We went from a couple of inches of snow late last week to 70 yesterday! Crazy! It's cooling down again now, no more 70s, but not cold enough for snow or ice either. I'll take it. I hate winter.

Something is wrong with me, and it finally showed up on one of their stupid tests! I know, what a silly thing to be excited about, right? But then again, with my history this past year I guess it's understandable. At any rate, you may remember me mentioning some allergy testing a week or two back. As it turns out, they all came back negative. Oak, walnut, pollen, mold, dust, cockroach, cat, dog, anything environmental that you can think of, all negative. I'm not allergic to any of them. However, they also tested something else that should have been at zero considering I'm still on the steroid and it was off the charts at like over 200 (where normal is < 35). So, according to my family doc this means that I am in fact allergic to something, but it has to be chemical or food in nature because they pretty much tested everything else. And he's thinking that this breathing problem, then, is kind of like an asthma triggered by an allergy. Now if only I could figure out what I'm allergic to...

I've already eliminated most chemicals from my house. I use Charlie's laundry soap with no fragrance and all natural ingredients. All my cleaning is done with baking soda and vinegar. I have fragrance free shampoo and body wash, as natural as possible. No perfume or anything like that, although hubby does still insist on wearing cologne. Really, there are minimal chemicals in my house. Food sources? Maybe, but where to start? Well, for now they're going to start me on singulair and see if that helps, and they're talking about allergy shots every 2 weeks. Which really sucks (really, who wants a shot every two weeks?) but if it allows me to breathe and function normally then so be it.

The baby had his first birthday on Monday! It doesn't seem right. Really I don't think I've been quite right or healthy since his birth, at least that's the way it seems. I remember the TIAs from last December and spending some time in the hospital then. It was all downhill from there! But I am so much better now than I was then, and I believe getting better every day. I'm looking forward to a good Christmas this year, despite the fact that it will be spread over several days thanks to stupid visitation rules and kids being spread out. That's okay, gives me more individual time for them I suppose. We'll all be together again by New Year's.

I'm anxiously awaiting CT scan results on my former toddler too, which I'll know about on Wed. He's been complaining of headaches for a month or so, so much so that sometimes he wakes up screaming in the night complaining of head pain. His ped ordered a CT of his head, which we had done yesterday so hopefully everything is okay there and he just has headaches. Always something to worry about, I swear!

Well, some little people seem to think I should be feeding them so I guess that's it for today!