Saturday, December 29, 2007

Have Yourself a Pukey Little Christmas....

Actually, everything turned out okay, but when Punkin threw up Thursday night and all day Friday before Christmas, I was reminded of the Christmas Bubba turned one and came down with a very bad case of the flu on the 19th of December and I was felled by it only two days later. That year I spent Christmas Eve alternately monitoring his 103 degree fever, on the phone with the pediatric nurse/doctor on call, and sitting on the sofa sobbing "I just love him sooo much" a la Holly Hunter in Raising Arizona. As I did a thousand loads of laundry Thursday and Friday I envisioned us all toppling like dominoes under this insidious virus, but thanks to a gigantic can of Lysol, Clorox wipes, and OCD-like handwashing, I managed to keep it contained to just Punkin.

On Saturday she was back to her old self and Sunday we traveled to South Carolina to visit Mr. Daddy's mother and several of his siblings. We hadn't seen one of his brothers in almost 3 years and so were quite amazed at how much his kids had grown. His daughter has recently started living with him full time (he and her mother have been divorced for years) and she recently moved from Ashland, KY to join him in Huntington, WV. Now if you know anything about Ashland, you know that's where Billy Ray Cyrus is from. And guess what? My niece is dating Miley Cyrus/Hannah Montanna's first cousin. She had a photograph of herself with her boyfriend and Miley backstage at one of Miley's concerts. Too bad Bubba and Punkin are really too young to appreciate the fame by association!

Small digression here -- Miley/Hannah used to really get on my nerves, but the more I see her, the more I read interviews with her, and especially in light of the whole Jamie Lynn debacle (and YES, it is a debacle), I'm starting to like Miley with her wholesome, fully clothed, non-pregnant self.

The kids received several nice gifts, including Punkin's very first tiara -- Disney princess of course.

My MIL gave us some cash, which was great. We used it to buy ourselves a new digital camera so hopefully that means the quality of the pictures on these pages will improve. I won't vouch for the composition of the photographs, but the quality of the pictures themselves should be MUCH better.

We also bought something else -- something I have very mixed feelings about. We bought a DVD player for the car. One one hand I think "WE didn't have DVD players in the car when WE were kids and we got along just fine. WE sang in the car. WE played road games. WE stood on our heads in the backseat" -- okay, maybe that last one was just me. On the other hand it's nice to have some peace and quiet. There comes a time in every trip where the kids just get sick of being in the car. Being able to pop in a DVD could definitely come in handy. So we got one. And it was nice. However, when we got to the mountains we spotted a group (a pride? a gaggle? a what?) of wild turkeys on the side of the road and Bubba missed it because he couldn't tear his eyes away from a DVD that he's seen a gazillion times. So, as soon as it was over we turned it off and made the kids look at nature. And we actually saw just a teeny amount of snow and some icicles hanging off the rocks so we officially declared that we'd had a white Christmas.

I've got many more tales to tell, but don't want to run on an on. Tomorrow's installment....Santa's showing the first signs of Alzheimers.

7 comments:

Tootsie Farklepants said...

My fear about the car DVD players is that some no-good-doer will see them from the car at night, follow us to our destination, and take them and everything else while we sleep.

Mr. Farklepants does have a very funny story about driving home from work one night behind a tricked out, gangsta Escalade with those DVD screens that hang from the ceiling. They were watching...um...nekkid folks doing grown up stuff.

Burgh Baby said...

I'm SOOOOOO glad you're back. I missed you and your jean-wearing hot self!

We succumbed to the DVD craze last Christmas after a very rough 6-hour drive at Thanksgiving. It's only allowed in the car for long trips like that and is pretty much a godsend. But if Miss Thang ever thinks she's taking it out to the car for a trip to the grocery store, she's got another thing coming.

Oh, and Tootsie Farklepants made me laugh at loud.

AndreAnna said...

We have one car with a DVD player in it and one without. Let's suffice it to say that I am thinking about trading in the one WITHOUT the DVD player. I'd never thought I'd be that parent, but I swore the whining was going to cause me to drive into a tree. Listening to an Elmo DVD is far less destructive.

Anonymous said...

I have to admit that we used the portable DVD player during our travels this holiday season. I never thought we'd get one either but we got it free when we signed up for DirectTV. I bought the $14 case to mount it to the headrest at Walmart. Boog's attention span is still pretty limited but he did watch two Baby Signing Time DVDs back to back, which helped with the 3 hour ride home in which he only slept half a freakin' hour.

Karen said...

We graced our children with DVD players for the van last year at the holiday. But like BB's Mom, they're only for long trips, and watching videos in their bedrooms.

Angie McCullagh said...

We're currently shopping for a new car and I'm adamant about not getting one with a mounted DVD player. That said, we have a portable DVD player and it rocks my world. If we get desperate or go on a long trip, we can take it. Otherwise it's not there tempting us with its easy entertainment.

Angie
www.AllAdither.com

Wineplz said...

Tootsie Farklepants made me laugh, too. Actually, her name makes me laugh. :)
We had a portable DVD player--was great for those long trips...until the silly thing broke. Justin swore he was going to try to fix, but instead just threw it away (WHAT?!?!?!?) and if we go on another trip anytime soon, we'll just use a laptop.