Happy New Year (and Merry Christmas too)

Happy New Year!! Last night was very low key for us (and I loved every minute of it!). We again streamed LIVE from Edinburgh for the Scottish Hogmany party. Fireworks over the castle, bagpipes, Auld Lang Syne with a brogue, great music and accents in general. The best part? Their midnight is our 7pm ;)


Why yes, we ARE still celebrating Christmas here. Well, sort of. Normally we plan fun stuff all the way through Epiphany, but for the sake of sanity Jim has packed up the tree and most decorations as I type. We still have a few crafts and, ah, cards to finish-- plus we'll do something on Jan 6th, like dinner at the park and a small gift ;)

Our genius packing idea this year? We marked one box "early" to hold the DVDs, candles, music, advent books and nativity toys for kaden... so we can get that one after Turkey day but leave the full decorating for later. Which is what we'd like to do, but have never separated the stuff out before :)

At Kaden's preschool, the Christmas season is synonymous with "send home a craft every single day." Seriously. Some are keepers (like the photo and frame above) and others are very temporary (like the paper angel he insisted on playing with until it was shredded). I think his preK crafts are a lot like childhood in general- meant to be fully played with now, and maybe a few things will carry over as mementos. But the stuff is for the experience now, not a museum later.

Our Christmas celebrations were nice. Also low key. We've been more focused on house and immediate (local) family than journeying out to visit friends or parties. We also skipped the Visit with Santa and other holiday-ish events because Kaden's been battling a cold the last few weeks. Today was his first morning out- gorgeous day too- where we went to Mass and then the playground with some other families. He was totally tuckered out, poor guy. We did visit the doc and are currently in day 4 of the 10 day Medicine War. But that's a whole other post.

so Happy New Year, folks! We'll enjoy the weather, the football, the black bean and pork loin dinner, and our family :) Hope you will too... may your year be filled with many blessings !

Fall Funk

I'm in a funk. Can't be helped: some relatives, near and far, are sick. I can't help much, if any. Kaden isn't sick, exactly, but also isn't sleeping thru the night because a post-nasal-drip cough. Last night, he added throwing up to the mix. Feel very sorry for him. Not for me, because he's only done that about 3 x in his whole little life. But for him, who clearly doesn't like projecting ANYTHING out of his mouth (save for the spitting phase he's entered, which is a whole nother post). Because, picture this: I'm holding him over the sink, he throws up a bit and then wails: "Mama, what's happening?" Oh, baby.

Also, the whole daycare/school thing is better for him, possibly. He's not crying at drop off, and today actually ran over to some friends to say hi and got a big hug in return. But when asked about his day, he tells me he cried when it was time to lay down. "And then I woke up okay." Er? His daily report says he slept "well" and his teach didn't say anything... so?

Also, we have an awesome weekend getaway coming up with the family, but can't focus on the fun because I have a ton of stuff that I need to get done (that pre-vacation scramble at home and work!!) AND there's a remote but still possible audit happening at work, and if you know me at all you know that keeping records is NOT my talent. In fact, today I went through 4 years of stuff and found that one whole year is MIA. So on the cover report, I put "misfiled". Which is what happened, because I KNOW I did this stuff, and made all the parents fill out their forms, but still: not a single form from that year was found.

But-- just to show you it's not all gloom and doom here-- October is right around the corner and it is *by far* my favorite month. At a drugstore the other day, Kaden and I went in to look for some stuff, and he spent most of the time staring at a 8 foot high animated black cat suspended from the ceiling. The rest of the time, he warned the other customers about it : "Kitty cat scary. Right there (pointing over)." Huh, maybe October won't be as fun as I think it will?

How do YOU celebrate Halloween with little ones around? With stuff like this or... ? options, please!

Breathing Easier

Well, mostly anyways.


After multiple visits to various medical establishments... to deal with the resulting fallout from his initial breathing illness... we had a "well baby" check up yesterday. The boy is now down to the THIRD percentile for his weight... but our doc wasn't too concerned as "he's had a rough month." This visit was improvement from earlier- but he's still not well." Which my mind knew- and felt a little assured at my intuition- but my heart still sank a little. I was so hoping to be overreacting and have this be a quick recovery.

So now we're in the odd stage of trying to figure out how much to baby him and how much to let him run or take him out into the cold. And what the heck is this deal with the weather, anyway? It gets warm enough to remind us what it should feel like, then back into the 40s or 50s. Between that and the sickness, it feels like a real winter!