Holiday Break Wrap-Up

Less than twelve hours before all the kiddos are back at school (not that I'm counting). Even though I've been claiming that it's been six weeks since they've all been in school, but the truth is that it's been since December 10th. But since one sick-kid day is the equivalent of three vacation-kid days I've been home with kids for 54 days by my calculations. Since this is my own formula I'm fairly sure this is indisputable. Before they go back to school, I thought I'd look back at some of our post-plague activities so that I'll remember that we did do some fun things over break.

Remember the morning that the Girl woke up, waited an hour, and then told us that she had puked in her bed during the night? Well, that afternoon I had tickets for the Girl, the Baby and me to see the Nutcracker Ballet at the Fox Theatre with Mom and Sister. Stomach virus notwithstanding the Girl was determined to see the production. For the entire drive to the theatre, the Girl sat under a ten gallon garbage bag just in case she had to vomit. But, good news, she made it there and back and through the entire performance without incident. Yay!

In case you are wondering, the Baby is wearing my old dress, a headband from Target, and a pair of tights that are at least a size 8 (she's a size 4T). We fit right in with all the fancy people whose kids looked ready for a Christmas photo with Santa. I really wanted her to wear this:

Minus the deflated, ripped football on her head, of course. She refused and I was too tired to care.

Just as an aside, when I was a second year in law school we had our Barristers' Ball at the Fox Theatre and everyone behaved so badly (read: drunken shenanigans) that Emory Law School was banned from ever having another event at the venue. I was thankful that the Girl made it through and I was not present for another puke-fest at the Fox Theatre. Once in a lifetime is more than enough.

So, two days later we had Christmas:

The Boy is like Bigfoot - blurry in every picture. The Baby loved the Hello Kitty backpack that her BFF Harris (aka Sidekick) gave her.

The Girl is opening up her IOU for circus tickets:

I hope it's not a lint brush!

The day after Christmas we packed up and headed for the Magnolia State to see my mother-in-law, father-in-law, sister-in-law, and brother-in-law. After FIL retired, he and MIL built a house which is incredibly beautiful and full of precious, expensive breakables. They have been very nice to not look concerned when we roll in with our posse of house destruction experts. Probably they aren't concerned because they know that I'm so concerned that I practically place the children in straight jackets when we arrive. Because this:

and this:

can easily turn into this:

if my three perpetual-motion machines are not supervised.

The weather wasn't terrific, so we took the kids to the Ole Miss indoor practice facility, which is (as it sounds) a domed football field and track where the team practices in inclement weather. The kids had a ball (pun intended):

See what I mean about the Boy? Blurry.

The next day we went to an indoor bounce place because the weather was even worse (it poured rain). The bounce place is a fairly new establishment in Oxford and smaller than the ones we've been to around Atlanta, but I was glad to have someplace to go where I didn't have to worry about broken china. Instead, I observed the childhood obesity statistics come to life. I didn't take any pictures because it was a bit depressing. "But," you say, "at least the kids were bouncing and getting exercise." "Oh, but you see," I say, "there was also a small fleet of plasma cars, which one particular group of large children commandeered so that they wouldn't have to actually walk anywhere including to the snack bar to fetch pitchers of Coke and Pixie Sticks." I have nothing more to say because this made me sad.

Something else that made me sad was that when we got home from Mississippi we realized that we'd left the Baby's new and much-loved Hello Kitty backpack, plus her new Doodle Bear, plus the Boy's only lovie, Blue Bear in Mississippi. The Baby has about a gazillion stuffed animals, mostly elephants named Ellie or Ella, that she sleeps with every night so I felt like she would be okay without her toys. But the Boy has only slept without Blue Bear one night (because he was lost under our laundry basket) in his entire life. He freaked out the first night, but then made the best of it by finding a new lovie. It is this:

He calls it Senor Goulash. I don't know why and I don't care. He seems happy.

On New Year's Eve, Sidekick came over and we roasted marshmallows.

Apparently this is the only way to get a clear picture of the Boy: fire, stick, sugar.

I hope you all were able to have some time off during the holidays and made some memories. Now, off to school with everyone so I can go to Costco without company!