I think I'll request that Santa's helpers go green next year. Four hours of wrapping -- four minutes max of unwrapping. It's really not worth it. Since my children -- and ALL children --head for their Christmas gifts with the eagerness of huskies bounding across the snow, you would think I could have predicted this. But there were Christmases when this was not the case, when Jason and I waited in agony, looking at ten or more wrapped gifts as one of our sons slowly and gingerly tugged at a sliver of gift wrap as if it were the last square of toilet tissue in a public restroom.
The true gift of Christmas this year was knowing in advance that illness could be a true possibility. On December 14th, Peter was the first in our household to fall to the stomach virus that later worked its way around town but always seems to start in the infant rooms of all local day care providers. Five days later, Jason succumbed to it, and I considered myself fortunate (that's right -- LUCKY) to join Owen and Nicholas in getting a minor strand of it on Christmas Day. Since Owen and Nicholas have both gone to day care since their second year of life, and I have been working in public schools for the past 16 years, I think our germ exposure helped us build up some resistance, but even with all the hand washing, latex glove cleanups and the like, it was bound to happen. Families do this wacky thing called loving each other, which is where viruses really capitalize on opportunities. So if illness strikes on Christmas, it is best that it strikes your two eldest and potty trained sons and that you have a husband who understands that you need to take a two hour nap on Christmas morning and eat saltine crackers most of the day.
Once again, I was bizarrely grateful that my children were accommodating enough to be ill over my vacation. Trips to the pediatrician and pharmacy are so much more convenient. At least I didn't have to scramble to pull together last minute lesson plans or pump them full of probiotics at 6am, crossing my fingers that they'd make it through the day. Though when Peter went through about seven diapers a day (it ultimately took him three weeks to recover fully after getting a sinus infection on top of his stomach virus and going on antibiotics that upset his insides just as they were healing up), I was not quite so grateful... Tough as it was to be at a distance this Christmas, I have to say that I would never knowingly bring a bug into the households of family and friends, so I was also glad that we were not in the position to travel this year. Bringing my kid into day care is one thing -- he GOT it there, for goodness sake. There's not much I can do about the common tribal areas where my children go each day, but I can spare my extended family and friends -- and since we can all be contagious for up to three days after we stop illustrating symptoms, that means that my children could have gotten anyone sick from mid-December through early January. If you ever wonder why I don't do play dates or generally see anyone in the winter months, that would be why.
So the 3-D ultrasound that Jason and I were hoping to attend together the week after Christmas did not pan out the way we had hoped. We wanted the kids to drop in at day care so we could go to the appointment together, but once Peter got kicked out with his fever, Jason stayed home to watch the boys while I went out for the appointment. When I came home with the photos, we agreed that some things are cool in 3D while others are not. "Be honest," Jason said, "Was it kind of gross?" "Oh, yeah," I said, "It was definitely gross. It was good you weren't there, actually." Seeing my child swatting at the umbilical cord is not at all cute. Make it stop. While I have included the most modest of baby boy #4's ultrasound photos, my favorite picture is actually reminiscent of the Will Ferrell SNL commercial for the Xerox Ass Jet copier. The little guy has his nose pressed up so flat it looks like he's copying his face. Many parts of the experience were very cool, like having it confirmed that this child has a full head of hair already. In fact, he has a mullet. This would explain the extensive heartburn I have had, as would the fact that the baby is breech at this point. (So THAT'S why food stays in my esophagus for what feels like days on end...) So it is looking like another external cephalic version will be in my future, since doing handstands in the pool at the Y, seeing a chiropractor more frequently than I go to the bathroom, or paying even more than what a chiropractor would get out of network to an acupuncturist are just not options for my lifestyle right now (plus none of those guarantee that my child will actually turn around in utero).
On another note, we have not seen one snowflake this winter, though there have been days when the temperature got down into the 20's. Owen wants to know when it's going to snow. He has decided that it will snow on Saturday, January 28th and has written it on the calendar. I hope the angels schedule a pillow fight over the Charlotte area accordingly. There's nothing like an ultimatum from a five year-old, after all.
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