Since I know that some of you "readers" will be asking for the full on play by play with what happened on my Christmas break, I thought I'd put it all together for you and your reading enjoyment. But, just know that this is the good, bad and ugly (ugly being my attitude by the way).First, I survived. I'm not lying when I say that I escaped with only minor injury. If you could see the bruise on my thigh...it's the ugliest I've ever seen. Second this is long, and I don't expect you to stay till the end. I probably wouldn't, I just needed to get it off my chest, er hardrive...whatever.
Part 1 - The Arrival
So, suffice it to say I was in a constant state of irritation the whole time. It started with Christmas Eve service. PO or the Pregnant One, was not there yet as her arrival was to be around midnight the night before Christmas. We were the only ones in the entire section since we were super early. There were seven of us seated and chatting. A family with two children decide to step all over us, quite rudely pointing out that they have to get to "their" seats. We were in the second row with not a soul around. Couldn't they have just gone around walking past the three empty seats and not stepped on all seven of us? Then they feed their children soda and powered sugar donuts. Right in front of my seat was a large box that housed a monitor and sitting on top were the candles I picked up as we walked in for the candlelight service. The little girl comes all the way over to my side, again stepping in everyone's way and walks off my my candles. Seriously, am I on candid camera or something?
M and I didn't wait up and went to bed knowing that PO and her husband would be arriving after midnight and in the morning it would meet with the inevitable. That next day I got up and came down to breakfast fully dressed with make-up on because dang it I was going to look good at least. PO came down looking fabulous wearing skinny jeans and black tight sweater highlighting all 10 weeks of pregnancy in that belly. The funny thing was that their luggage didn't make it. The not funny thing was that they packed the Christmas gifts in the lost luggage, so we had to postpone our gift exchange until the bags arrived.
I decided I'd go ahead and give the PO a gift that I had put together of some things for her during the pregnancy. Peace offering if you will. I bought a Bel.la Band, a gift baggie of Bell.i brand oils and lotions for pregnancy and the Belly Book. My mom also brought up a baby outfit and PO opened the gifts in front of everyone. This was hard. I had shown M the Belly Book a few days earlier and he was looking through it fighting tears in his eyes. He said, "Why did Dec. 1st have to happen? Man, I wish this was us."
Part 2 - Christmas Dinner
Usually whenever we have a holiday dinner we usually go around the table and tell what we're thankful for that year. It's kinda a Thanksgiving thing but we're never all there for Turkey Day anyway and it just stuck. Thank my living stars that I have a wonderful husband that saw this coming and saved me from this. But, what neither one of us could stop was the Baby Name Game. You know this one...I don't even have to explain it. One of the girl name contenders was one that I really liked. Dude! I pinched M's leg under the table to let him know I was having a hard time and he sweetly rubbed my back until it was over. All I could do was stare at the candles on the table.
After dinner and while most went down for naptime, M and I took our bikes out riding. Boy was I thankful we brought our bikes. I was haulin'. M could hardly keep up with me. He said I should ride angry more often because I was bookin' it.
Part 3 - Introducing CHEWY
That night, and frankly all the rest of the nights I cried myself to sleep. But Christmas dinner was the worst. M and I named it affectionately CHEWY. Stands for Crying Highly Emotional Wifey. What set CHEWY off this time was a discussion after dinner about Santa Claus. M and the PO were recalling the fun they had a children when they believed in Santa Claus. It was cute and stories I've heard a hundred times, but still enjoyed. Then the PO said something along the lines of, "Well, I'll make sure my children don't tell your children the truth about Santa. Because we're not going to do Santa at our house." She went on to say that children will believe anything you tell them because they are innocent and you are their parents. She said that she didn't want to lie to them and ruin it for them. If you are reading this and agree with her point that is fine, that's great for you and your family. But, it made me very sad. No Santa? And we all know what's going to happen one year if all of our children are together. "Ha, Ha you believe in Santa and my parents told me there's no such thing." Anyway, CHEWY didn't like this one bit.
The next morning, I came down again fully dressed and ready to go about 8:20am. I was fixing up my coffee and M and his mom were at the table. Mom said, "By the way you and your sister are going to take your childhood stockings back with you. I have enough Christmas decorations I have to store and it's time for you all to start your own family traditions at your own house."
I was breathing deeply trying to stay calm. Christmas is already hard, so much so in fact that I skipped the decorations at my own house this year. And now I have to take home my dear sweet husband's childhood homemade stocking to start my family tradition but sans family? I was fighting back tears. I asked Mom, "Could you do me a big favor and keep it for now?" she responded, "No. WHY???" All I could do was repeat my plea. Same response, "Why???" this time with a finger pointing in my direction. To that I finally walked out of the kitchen shaking my head snapping off, "Ya know, just nevermind." Arrggghh!
Later that morning, I'm putting on my shoes in my room when I hear, "You guys want to see a picture of your grandbaby?" Oh my freakin' goodness! I slammed the door and decided to wait it out until it was over. But, I could still hear everything. So, I made the bed, repacked the suitcases...still not over. I kept thinking, "Sheesh, she's going to be here for something like 7 days without us here...couldn't she have waited till then?" But, then I told myself that wasn't fair either. Since M was not downstairs when this was going on he had no idea. I had to go find him and I barely got the words out coherently,"Downstairs, Can't do it...Downstairs u/s...picture...Can't do it!"
M went downstairs and asked the PO to put the picture away and she very nicely went right to it.
Part 4 - What shall we do today?
Did you catch the part about me getting up at 8:30 every morning fully dressed and ready to go? Yes, I believe you did. Well, some siblings who shall remain nameless arose after 11 and 12pm the first couple of days we were there. I have noooo problem with that. What I do have a problem with is, "So aren't we going to the coast today?" Well, no in order for us to do that we would have had to leave here around 8am. "So we aren't doing anything today? We're just going to sit around and do nothing? My husband can't do that two days in a row and I promised him a vacation."
So sayeth the person who isn't ready to go until after 1pm I thought. Meanwhile, my husband spent a lot of time and energy into trying to plan things for us to do. Just so happened the coast was going to be the next day. But, it's hard to please everybody and try to do things we can all do and doesn't cost a fortune.
The next day we loaded up the car made a plan to leave the house early and pick up sandwiches for a picnic. On this day I caught a moment alone with M and told him, "Uh, I started my cycle today, (three days early...) so guess CHEWY's making another appearance tonight, Sorry." Oh, of all the lousy timing...
We were going to some walk/hike/bird watching trails and try to rent kayaks or bikes at the coast. The thought was to find trails that would be appropriate for everyone so M found a few options. Since there was much damage from the August hurricane some of the trails were closed. However, the "Trail Closed" signs were simply there as a suggestion and to head off lawsuits? Right? We went down a closed trail, and it felt fun to snub out nose to the suggestion. And then when we got to the point where we really couldn't see the trail anymore, I wanted to turn around. But, we kept going. And got lost. It was only 45 minutes but it felt like 3 hours.
I tripped on a thorny vine and had thorns embedded into my leg. Bloody mess. I fell on my knee and somewhere I acquired a large bruise. An ugly one too. Finally we found the road that led to the park and got ourselves back to civilization.
So, that is the story of how I survived the Holiday with only minor scrapes and bruises. But, let's not forget...I still have my birthday to look forward to some more.
