Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Christmas Time Part 1

I cannot remember how much I have written about Christmas but probably not much, considering all my unplanned blogging breaks!

We had a wonderful Christmas! This year it was time to make the long trek to Kansas to visit my family for the holiday. It was an interesting experience with a 2 yr old, 1 yr old, and a pregnant lady.

Here is some of what happened:

Abigail loved taking pictures of people while we were there, so I have included some of those.

We left at 6 am on Wednesday before Christmas and our plan was to have the girls finish their nights sleep in the car. Well, didn't happen. I'm not sure if it was the empty stomach or the laying back in the car where she couldn't see out but our oldest, Abigail, ended up throwing up twice even before we were out of Ohio. I was sure we were in for a long day of this but once we had breakfast she was fine (praise the Lord!). Seriously!

We managed to drive out to Kansas . . . all 15 hours . . . in one single day. It felt like a week but it was nice not to have to pay for the hotel room and to just get it over with.

Abigail did really great with potty breaks on the trip. She never had an accident and her daddy even made her wait once after she said she had to go. She isn't afraid of strange or loud flushing toilets, etc.

My Dad. A picture by Abigail . . . isn't it cute?!




Tired Elsie in the car.


Abigail borrowing Mommy's sunglasses for part of the trip!


The way home was a bit more eventful, however. The night before we left Abigail started coming down with a cold. Just a croaky throat, sniffles, etc but she was up a lot!! She coughed a lot too. At 1:30 am her coughing woke up her sister. Elsie, finally figuring out we were in the room with her, would not go back to sleep.
I tried everything. In bed with us, letting her cry (which kept us all awake), rocking her to sleep and then laying her down (then she'd wake up). We were at the end of our breastfeeding journey at this point (more in another post) but I gave it one last shot. I just fed her and laid her down even though she was awake. Not another peep. Of course, it was almost 5 am by this time.
Tired!!
So, we leave the next day after lunch and drive until almost to St. Louis. This is a pretty good distance considering we have had little sleep and now have a kiddo with a fever and cold symptoms. She'd really either be sleeping or crying. It was sad!
Well we settled down for another night's sleep in our hotel room. Elsie in a crib, Daddy sleeping with Abigail to help her, and me in my own bed where I could tend to Elsie if needed. Elsie cried for a bit at first but then ended up sleeping all night.
Abigail was up a lot . . . again. This is so unlike her normally. She would tell her daddy that she had to use the bathroom, or she was coughing, or she was shivering from the fever. Terrible night. Finally at about 3:30 am, she tells her daddy that she feels sick. Before he can react there is vomit in the hotel bed (yes, Elsie slept through this!).
Let me tell you, being sick is no fun but being sick away from home is worse. Perhaps we're bad parents, I don't know, but we didn't have much choice. We simply cleaned up the bed with towels as best as we could, pulled up the clean sheet, and put her back to bed. Andrew moved in with me! :)
We finally got a little more sleep and the rest of the trip went fine.
Wow, it was so good to be home in our own beds.
Also, Elsie has slept through the night since we got home. Unbelieveable!
Okay, now that I have recorded that adventure, I'll leave you with a beautiful picture I took of my two loving girls before our trip to Kansas.


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