Christmas at the Elgin B's

Christmas has come and gone and I’m not sure if I really got to enjoy the holidays. We were so busy and it happened so fast with so many people.

Here’s how it went, according to my opinion: let me remind you that Friday I realized I forgot to finish up a few gifts. As if I wasn’t already stressed enough, I left the office with a massive headache and plans to go to Living Stone then work on the gifts. I got home an hour before LS was to start. Ryan’s folks wanted to order pizza which meant that Ryan didn’t let them know he wanted to go to LS (or he didn’t tell me that he wanted to stay home). Since I had a major headache and I was hungry AND I had gifts to work on, I agreed to stay home too. Thanks to Eunice, I didn’t have a mess to pick up at home – she was great at cleaning and folding laundry for me. It was probably a good thing.

Saturday was Christmas Eve and Ryan had to work till noon. I picked up around the house, finished my gifts, fed my child and CLEANED Scott’s room. I finished his closet cleaning project that I started the weekend before. Soon after I showered, family began arriving. G&G B came up early after all because of the weather. So we had a house full – my folks, Ryan’s folks, Eric and G&G B. Our plans for the day had to change a bit so we did what we could. Ryan and I fixed supper for everyone. We had salmon, salad and acorn squash. Mom brought a dessert salad. It was good and we were stuffed. We rushed to open presents before church. Ryan and I felt like Hitler trying to hurry everyone along so we could get to church in time. Of course, with 9 people opening gifts, it was never going to happen. So we left for church and I enjoyed a good service once we got there. Scott was so good until the benediction at which time he decided to be extremely vocal. We went back to the house and finished opening gifts. We were done at 11pm and I was so tired (my kid still isn’t sleeping well). I visited for a bit and headed to bed.

Christmas morning came too early and we were awake at 515 with our little guy. I was so excited to have Christmas fall on a Sunday but again I think we rushed through the morning. Ryan and I left the house at 730 to walk dogs at the clinic and do some chores there. We met at mom & ralph’s house for breakfast at 8am. She’s so awesome, she made biscuits and gravy for all of us Buitenwerfs. We opened stockings at her house before heading to church. During church, we had Scott dedicated and he behaved wonderfully. He even watched Pastor Lee intently as Pastor spoke to him. He was so cute in his little outfit, the same outfit Ryan wore when he got baptized as an infant. After church we hoped to take some family pictures but the B’s rushed out and so we did our regular “after church” hang out time and visited with friends as Scott got passed from one person to another. Then we headed home for lunch with the family. Ryan smoked a turkey, Eunice made dressing and mom brought crescent rolls and broccoli salad.

That evening I finally relaxed. Absolutely exhausted from the past few days, I was curled up on the couch. Ryan pulled out his new x-box and started playing some racing game. It was quite the fun. Everyone (m&e, eric, ryan and I) was having a good time (finally the stress was gone, momentarily). We even got Eunice to race against Ryan. It was fun and I was the racing queen!!! Scott took a great nap that afternoon but woke up with a nasty head cold. So he was crying, coughing like a goose, crying some more, had a runny nose and cried some more. Poor little guy, every time he coughed, you could tell that his throat hurt as he winced in pain. You could imagine how our night went. No sleep for us or Scott. A crying baby who was stuffed up and couldn’t nurse well and could sleep and cried and cried and cried.

Monday morning Ryan got up with Scott at 730 and went downstairs. He got him to sleep, passed Scott off to m&e and went to the clinic for chores. I went back to sleep and woke up at 1015. I would have gone back to sleep except I knew that it was time for Scott to eat so I got up. Monday was relaxing for the most part even though I wanted to get up and clean my house but opted to visit with m&e instead and tend to my small fry. Went to bed last night; Scott finally calmed down at midnight. Was up several times during the night but not as bad as the nights before.

I over slept this morning and got up in time to booger suck my kid’s nose several times, get dressed, brush my teeth and head for the door. Only Ryan had to leave on a call so I had to take Scott to mom’s (m&e are leaving today). Got to mom’s running a few minutes late and was walking out the door when mom asked about Scott’s feeding schedule. Duh, I wanted to feed him again right before I left, I totally forgot. So I took off my jacket and sat down with my son. Mom went to turn my car off and I called my office to let them know I’d be in late. What a start to the day. Just 2 more days and I’ll be in sunny Califon-i-a.