Merry Christmas

Last week was filled with vomit. Will's vomit, my vomit, Garrett's vomit, Matthew's vomit, more of Will's vomit. We all just dropped like flies. The older boys and I, however, recovered within a day while Will just went on being sick. He was sick on Monday and on Tuesday and Wednesday. He seemed better on Thursday but started throwing up again on Friday and into Saturday. On Saturday night, I ended up at the children's hospital with a dehydrated Will. While we were able to orally rehydrate him without the need of an IV, it was a little scary for me. I'm just really aware of how fast organs can start shutting down in little people. He ended up being just fine and I'm very grateful that we were home within a few hours. I know that isn't the case for the parents of super sick kiddos.

Still, Christmas kind of sneaked up on us after six days of the swirling puke virus. I stayed home on Sunday morning which was tough for me since it was Christmas Eve. I almost never, ever miss church and being home, instead of with my brothers and sisters always makes me sad. I was so glad to be with Will though, rehydrating him and celebrating every wet diaper.

That night, since he'd been puke free for more than 24 hours, I was able to take him to our candlelight service. This was good because I was singing, the older boys were part of a living nativity and Troy was, of course, busy being the pastor.

I'd post a picture of Garrett as Joseph and Matthew as a wise man but I don't want to put other people's children on my blog. When they weren't busy being dressed as biblical characters, my kids were looking dapper. Will was excited to finally be feeling better.

I'm not a huge fan of the snow. But I am a huge fan of the snow on Christmas. Several years that we've lived here have resulted in brown ground on Christmas day. It almost never snows on the actual holiday which was also true this year but what did happen was magical. The snow began to fall, in giant and beautiful flakes on Christmas Eve. The twinkling lights everywhere were made more beautiful by the white and wintery wonderland as it softly fell. It was so fantastic and, as I watched it drift silently down, I had the thought that I would remember those few moments, with my kids in Christmas jammies and our tree framed in the window, for the rest of my life. Garrett is so close to being a teenager. The age gap between him and his baby brother is big and real. I have only these few seconds where all my boys are children. I want to soak up their relative smallness as much as I possibly can.

Monday was late and lazy like our Christmases always are. We opened our stockings and then had breakfast. The boys played in the snow while I cleaned up and Troy shoveled the driveway. Then we rushed through Will's gifts because he was turning into a nap needing tiny toddler tyrant. After we laid him down, the rest of us quietly and calmly opened our gifts.

Garrett received twenty trillion books this year, much to his delight. He's a history and literature loving bookworm. 

Matthew loves science and math and was truly overjoyed to get a chemistry set from my brother and sister-in-law. He loved all his gifts but I think you can see how happy he was about this one.

And Will loved everything, especially toys that made noise and his Busy Board which Troy made him. It's full of gadgets and gizmos he can flip and twist and zip and turn.

 

Our day was lovely. We're so thankful to our Lord for entering into humanity as a tiny baby in the tiniest of towns, in the lowliest of places. And we're so thankful for our family. Merry Christmas!