Christmas

Remember the post I wrote where I complained about the fact that I wasn't able to do all the things I wanted to do this Christmas because of one child in particular?

Well, I got put in my place real quick. 

The Saturday before Christmas, my brother's family came to our house to watch the Aggie bowl game, and we noticed that Meili seemed to be a little warm. It turned out that she had a fever of 99 degrees. On Sunday, I hoped for the best, and got myself and Grant ready for church before waking Meili up. Of course, it was the Christmas program, Josh was going to sing in the choir, and I technically was supposed to as well, but I had kind of written that off already. Nonetheless, the Christmas program is one of my favorite meetings all year, and I was excited to go. When I finally went to check on Meili, she had a fever of 102, so of course, we were a no-go. She slept and watched movies all day and the highest her temperature ever got was 103. 

Monday, she just seemed to get better and better, and by Tuesday, I thought she was well enough to go to her preschool Christmas party. On Tuesday night she coughed. all. night. long. But that's the norm for Meili. She gets sick, gets over it, and then has a cough for weeks on end. On Christmas Eve, I was bound and determined to make every minute of our Christmas perfect. I was actually able to get somewhat on top of housework, so our house wouldn't be a disaster when we came back from the holidays, nearly every piece of laundry was clean and put away, the presents were wrapped and in the car... and basically everything else seemed to go wrong that day. Meili was ornery and tired all day. But I figured it was because she hadn't slept well from coughing, and I knew that after a nap, and seeing her cousins, she would snap out of it. Grant decided that a nap was unnecessary for him, even though it was absolutely necessary for me. Without going in to more detail, by some miracle we ended up leaving our house only a half an hour later than we absolutely had to to be on time (an hour and a half later than I would have liked.)

I carried Meili into my mom's house, and pretty much instantly knew she wasn't okay. She wasn't excited to see anyone, she didn't want to do any activities, in fact she didn't even want to watch the tv where everyone else was. So she spent the night in the bedroom upstairs watching movies, with a fever. She didn't want anything to eat, and even when I asked her to open her Christmas Eve presents, she said, "You just open them for me." :(

That night, I still had hope that she would sleep it off again like she did on Monday, but at 4:00 in the morning, she called for me to help her go to the bathroom, and she was still burning up. I went downstairs and told Josh that I wanted to take her to Instacare that day. (Ever since Meili got pneumonia, I stress about fevers that last for days.) I told Josh that it would take a Christmas miracle for us to be able to open presents that morning. Needless to say, between Grant being a little out of sorts sleeping in a different bed, Josh and I and my parents playing games that night, my stress, and Meili waking up coughing through the night; neither Josh, nor I, slept well that night.

I looked up the hours for Instacare, and found that they were closed. So I called the ER and talked Meili's symptoms over with the nurse. She said she felt like there was no reason that it would make any difference to bring Meili in that day versus the next day. Then, I figured the worst case scenario would be that Meili would hang out in the bedroom all day they way she had the night before. (I thought she would be just as comfortable etc. in that room as she would be at our house.)

That morning, I was talking with mom, and heard Josh bring Meili downstairs talking about the presents that Santa brought for her. I guess it was a Christmas miracle, because we were able to celebrate Christmas as we had planned. You can tell in some of the pictures that neither of the kids were 100% throughout the day, but I think they still enjoyed themselves.

By Christmas evening, Meili was doing pretty well, but was very tired when all was said and done, and we felt like her fever may have started to come back. But Grant was short on naps, and started to get a fever himself.

On Friday, Grant's fever was high enough that I decided to take both the kids to the doctor just for peace of mind. By the time we saw the doctor, Meili was back to her usual shenanigans, and the doctor said that she will probably recover the next couple of days, and Grant had the beginnings of an ear infection. Surprise, surprise.

Overall, it will not go down as my favorite Christmas ever, but it sure turned out a lot better than I thought it might.

 I keep saying it, but Grant is such a poser! He's even pointing at the toy that he just got.

 Here Meili is pointing to her new My Little Pony pillow, and it's just not quite the same effect, since she still doesn't feel 100%.

 This is the moment I wished I had recorded. Grant opened his present from Meili (which she picked out totally by herself.) As soon as he saw the puppy, he started laughing. It was a hit, and I think Meili loved that he was visibly excited about the present she got him.

 My mom went all out (as she usually does): reindeer sandwiches, red, white and green jello, Grinch fruit cabobs, along with some other finger foods.

While we were driving to Josh's parents' house I told myself, "Make sure to take lots of pictures." Because it seems like I always start the holiday well and then I just get overwhelmed by the end of the day and space the camera completely. 

Well, here's how that goal went...

At least we got the one phone camera memory! 

As soon as I saw this present from Liz, I knew it had Meili written all over it. (1) It's pink. (2) It's a purse. (3) It's a pony. (4) It's a pink purse with a pony allowing Meili to have a horse with her all the time.

However, when all was said and done, I don't think Meili had one favorite toy. We spent all day Friday just playing. No obligations. No cleaning. No rules. Just playing with toys. And I think after the week we had, we all needed that.

Here's Meili with her line up of ponies and a dog, watching shows all together.

Yesterday, Meili started asking me about when it was going to be Christmas (as if she didn't realize it had already passed.) She was pretty disappointed that we have to wait another year. What can I say? I'm disappointed about that too!