Unsinkable

Dillon and I had a nice conversation this morning at breakfast.  I told him today was the last day of this year, 12.31.06 and tomorrow was the first day of the new year 1.1.07.  He told me "there's a funny joke with that, you can say 'See you next year' to people when you leave school".  (I had told him that on the last day of school.)

I asked him if he had a New Year's Resolution, and I explained that a resolution might be something you want to do or do differently in the New Year, like my resolution might be to not yell at the dogs as much.

Dillon agreed with my resolution, than he said that he had a different one of his own.  "I want to be CALM.  We had a very exciting and fun year this year, so now we need to take a break and be calm.  Pheew." (wipes his hand across forehead) 

I guess I can concur with that.   Happy New Year! 

Charles is one of the most germ-phobic folks I know when there are folks around coughing or sneezing or whatnot.  He's constantly walking around squirting antibacterial junk on his hands, and Dillon is one of the only five-year-old-kids I know who is able to converse pretty expertly about the many reasons you should cover your mouth when you cough or use the bathroom. 

So it kind of throws Charles off his game when people in the family are sick.  And Rose and I are, so today was a bit of a challenge.  He gets very, "don't touch that, don't breathe on me, go lie down."  And I tend to get offended and think that if he REALLY loved me, he would read my mind, and bring me breakfast in bed, and take wonderful care of me.  Of course, in that scenario the kids are playing quietly in the other room for twelve hours, which is most likely not going to happen in the real world.  Especially when Rose is sick too, and therefore, a bit grumpier and bossier than usual.   

My mom saved the day when she called out of the blue and asked if Dillon wanted to go with her to Betty Brinn Children's Museum (did he ever!), which allowed Rose and I to nap and Charles to presumably do some stuff and relax.  Somehow I felt worse when I woke up, but Rose felt better, and the family was playing a very loud game (that may have, in fact, led to my waking up when I did). 

The house looks like something exploded and blew papers, toys, mail, cds, etc. everywhere, which sort of stinks since we're having folks over for New Year's Eve (if you're in town and without plans, give a call).  Somehow it always happens when I am sick that everything gets ridiculously messy.  I am not sure  that Charles even sees it, it's one of those weird guy-vision things where he can see germs flying out of my mouth when I cough but he can't see the piles of junk you have to wade through to walk through the room.  He did go get me a chocolate-chocolate-chip muffin though, so I guess all is forgiven.

We had a wonderful time celebrating Christmas this year.  We started Christmas Eve-Eve, on the 23rd, jetting around a bit and going to Charles' mom's family party.  Charles, Dillon, Rose, the Dogs and I opened presents on the morning of the 24th, then went to Nana Joyce & Grandpa Charles' house for a wonderful family celebration which included three kinds of macaroni and cheese (I ate way too much of all three!) and a gift-giving frenzy.  Somehow D & Rose were simultaneously opening mountains of presents, so I missed a lot of who-gave-what, which may lead to some vague thank you notes…  But Rose received a very cute 'My Little Pony' tea set from her grandparents, and a beauty shop set, complete with plastic lipsticks and other makeup, clip-on earrings, etc.  She knew exactly what to do with that, and impressed everyone by putting the 'chap-stit' on right away.  Dillon was super-excited about all his presents, especially one of those scary-looking bionicle lego-robot things from Cheri & TJ.  It shoots little glow-in-the-dark balls, has a light up skull, and I am pretty sure it breathes fire or something else.

Today the kids spent the day taking it sort of easy because Rose has a terrible cold (which I am coming down with now as well) and she's doing this incredibly gross sneezing thing that I really don't even want to share.  So Charles and I took the opportunity to add shelves into the playroom and rearrange a bit to accomodate the new mountain of toys.  And we finally let Rose open the tea set, which has three hundred pieces and so I didn't want it open until we had a place to put it.  So the kids played tea party and D wore beautiful clip-on earrings and drank lemon tea with the rest of us.  When Rose was napping he assembled his new bionicle, we located the old one, and he played with those for two hours.  Then Rose woke up and of course was interested in what D was up to, and he very nicely shared one of his bionicles with her.  She gave it a ride in the baby carraige and some tea.   

 We had a lovely day, though, despite the illnesses, and it was sort of our first day home on our vacation.  On Christmas morning, we woke up, checked out what Santa left in the stockings, then packed up a bunch of stuff and the dogs, and headed to my parents house.  The tradition has always been that my siblings and I wake at the crack of dawn, make breakfast, get my parents out of bed, and then open presents.  Anna called me at 7am to ask where I was (I hadn't even woken the kids up yet).  

We wound up getting to my parents' house around 8:30am, Anna and Kate had nicely begun breakfast…  Anna had an interesting interpretation on pancakes that Charles and Luke gave her a hard time about.  It took us a while to open presents.  I am not sure who was more eager: Anna or Dillon.  (Most likely Anna, who knew she was getting a letter jacket and just couldn't wait to see it.)  More presents were opened, more fun was had…  Kate gave Charles a stack of board games along the theme of pirate, ninja, and bible.  (Long story.)  Charles and I had given each other Carrcassone (a super-fun game) and brought it over, so we started teaching everyone how to play it.  Eventually, I had to take a break from the game marathon and help my mom,  Charles, Nana, and MaryAnn make manicotti, which we make from scratch every year and it is totally fabulous.  Charles borrowed the pasta-making attachment for my mixmaster from a friend, and that made the rolling out the pasta a bit easier, but it's still pretty labor-intensive.  We ate, played more games, opened more presents, and just generally had a wonderful time.  We decided to spend the night so we could hang longer, so we put the kids to bed in Anna's room, and stayed up playing games until after 1am.  It was really fun, and so somehow, we also spent the next day and night there.  We came home last night, and boy, it was nice to sleep in my bed after being on an air mattress for two nights. 

It's kind of weird to sleep over at my parents' house as they only live like, ten minutes away, but we mostly just wanted to stay up late, and it was easier than waking up the kids to bring them home, and we weren't sure about leaving Rose there overnight.  It felt like we were visiting from out of town, but it was much easier when my mom found a grocery bag full of stuff we'd left behind and brought it over on her way home from the gym last night.

Overall we've had a really nice Christmas celebration so far!  I hope Rose gets over her illness soon, though!  We're starting to gear up for the new years eve party at our house… 

Nancy, my friend that watches Rose during the day, brought Rose to D's school, and we went on from the school to a playdate.  When we get to our friends' house, I take off Rose's coat to discover she is wearing:

1) A flannel 'Dora the Explorer' nightgown

2) Embroidered jeans

3) Patent leather mary janes, which when they are removed, reveal

4)  Neon green socks with a hole in the toe so large I can see three of her toes.

If you haven't guessed, her dad dressed her…