Christmas

Christmas. I honestly don’t even know what to say about Christmas at our house this year. It was kind of crazy. Thursday night Nate and I were in the kitchen and I bumped into him. It was just a little bump, but just enough to make him lose his balance and fall flat on his face on our tile floor. Right after his face hit the floor he immediately started screaming. He never screams like that so I knew he was really hurting. There was lots of blood. I don’t handle blood or trauma well. I screamed for Darren not knowing if he had knocked a tooth (or more) out or pushed them up into his gums. I did not in any way keep my cool. My mom instincts did not kick in. I just felt absolutely horrible for him and felt responsible since my bump caused it. Darren came in and started assessing the situation. Thankfully all of his teeth were firmly in the right places. The inside of his upper lip, on the other hand, looked like hamburger meat. The gums above his two front teeth also looked really bad. I will not be surprised if his front teeth start to darken due to the intense hit his gums and mouth took. (I know about injuries to the teeth and gums. My two front teeth are lovely crowns due to a childhood accident.) He was pitiful. He was very cooperative though and allowed us to hold some ice on his extremely swollen lip. His mouth was better the next day (Christmas eve), but it was still sore and he wasn’t real excited about eating.

We always spend Christmas Eve with my family. We celebrate Christmas and my sister’s birthday. This year we had an extra big celebration because my sister turned the big 40! It’s hard to believe that she is 40 and I will be 34 in March.  Before beginning the festivities we took a few pictures.  These pictures were taken on the front porch of the house where I grew up.  It is currently for sale.  My parents have moved next door to the house where my grandmother lived.  I thought I would miss the house since we have so  many memories there, but thankfully it has been a very easy transition. 

The (much improved) boo boo

Why do we have to eat before opening presents? 

 Nate loves to reenact scenes from Toy Story. One of his favorites is “Zurg game.” He didn’t have a Zurg and when I saw this one I had to get it for him (technically my mom gave it to him for Christmas). He was so excited. Darren was not. I knew it was a Lego Zurg, but I didn’t know it would have so many pieces. We finished up Christmas Eve putting Zurg together. (Darren and Nate put him together and I cheered them on.)  It didn’t take as long as Darren anticipated and he said it was actually kind of fun.

Christmas morning Nate woke up with a fever. He felt pretty bad. He didn’t even care about opening presents. After the Motrin kicked in he felt much better. It was still a long day. As soon as his medicine would wear off, his fever would get pretty high again. I only took a couple of pictures Christmas morning. His favorite presents were the marble works game and Candy Land. He is still loving to play those at least once a day. That night we had Christmas with Darren’s family. I actually didn’t even take my camera. Nate wore his pajamas. All of the cousins were very kind to let Nate bring all of his germs to the celebration. They insisted that we come and we really appreciated that.

Nate hurting his mouth and then being sick on Christmas day really helped me keep things in perspective. I hated that he was sick Christmas day. I hate it when he’s sick any day of the week/year. However, there are children who have cancer and other horrible illnesses that will never get better. There are also children who don’t have food to eat, much less presents to open Christmas day. We are very blessed and I hope we can share our blessings in 2011.