Christmas in Massachusetts

We had a wonderful Christmas with Tim's side of the family in Massachusetts. I flew with Thomas, while Tim and the other kids drove. It was a very easy day for me; I had no trouble making the dash from the B to E concourse in Charlotte, and liked having no wait for boarding the next flight. Thomas was a good little passenger, and the sweet flight attendant on the New Bern to Charlotte flight gave him wings before we got off. Tim and the kids on the other hand... it was a bit of a longer day for them with traffic. I am very spoiled by comparison. One day we will have to suck it up and do the drive all together in the Subaru. Just not ready for it yet. (Not ready by this summer either--already booked a flight for the end of June!)

While we were in line to board the flight to Boston, Tim called to say his mom was on her way to the hospital for a possible stroke. That was scary! She ended up having to spend a few days there for testing and observation, but fortunately it turned out not to have been a stroke. She was released on Christmas Eve if I remember correctly. What a relief to know Grandma would not be spending Christmas in the hospital. That would have been sad.

I don't know if anyone will ever forget any time soon what a COLD Christmas it was. Cold everywhere except for California, I think. I had to try hard not to worry too much about how my open pool was faring in the extreme weather, and focus on enjoying the festivities. We, for sure Thomas and I, didn't venture outside for a few days unless we had to. On Christmas Eve we had to -- we wouldn't have wanted to miss out on that. We went to Mass and then Aunt Jayne's, and got to see a lot of relatives we hadn't seen in a long time.

I'm going to get a little honest and vulnerable here, and tell you about the hiccup that happened as we were getting ready for Mass. I think I feel a need as a mom of five, to prove to myself and others that I can keep it together and manage details for my kids the way I (mostly) always did. I also just really want us to represent large families well, so that maybe a young person sees us and thinks, ok, having a bunch of kids doesn't have to mean your life turns to chaos. But I don't have it all together, and if I ever appear to, you can be assured I've dropped a ball somewhere. So what happened this time was, when I went to lay the outfits out, it turned out I had not packed anything besides sweatpants for Joey. No jeans, no pants, no nothing. Sweatpants. 3 p.m. on Christmas Eve. I could have sworn I'd packed all that, or at least laid it on the bed to be packed. After all the weeks of list-making and organizing for a Christmas away, somehow both khaki pants and even jeans for Joey had slipped through the cracks. I couldn't believe it. My head just about exploded. Tim offered to run to a store for me, but I had to admit that to send him into a store at this point of the day on Christmas Eve was not going to be worth it. So he went to Mass and Aunt Jayne's in sweatpants, and fortunately they were solid black, not anything bright or striped or shiny or whatever. He had a nice sweater at least. Parenthood can be so humbling.

Here's a nicely cropped photo of everyone's top half, so we don't have to worry about what is on the bottom. You can see Timmy's orange shirt that's kind of like the security blanket of collared shirts for him. He is so sad that he's going to outgrow it one day soon, and that Gap has never made another boy's polo shirt in that burnt orange shade since. He has another shirt just like it but with gray and navy blue stripes, but it's like that shirt is dead to him. The orange shirt has holes. Will it make it another year? For months I was like, not the orange shirt again, but it does go nicely under his sweaters. 

Santa found us at Grandma and Grandpa's house. I will never forget Joey's reaction when he opened those Nikes. My parents might remember me with my first Cabbage Patch Kid. That was Joey with those shoes--elated. Over the moon. Going around the room to show them to everybody. Trying them on and posing for pictures. It almost brought a tear to my eye. When he said, "I must have been really good to get these!" it really did bring a tear to my eye. Tim and I kept looking at each other like, 'Aww..' Nikes run a little large, I guess, so they were too big, but we didn't dare discuss an exchange. His feet will have to grow.

Delaney got tickets to see the Bruins play in Raleigh next weekend!

The Brady men made Christmas dinner while everyone else played games or hung out. It's amazing they managed to get anything done with all the arguing😆, but everything was delicious and we were all very appreciative.

Juliana and Alexa are all grown up. Alexa took a trip by herself with just the dog, to Canada recently, and we heard she got a grilling at the border. The agent, a woman, was very concerned about a young woman traveling to Canada alone. "Do your parents know you're here, honey?" "Where are you headed?" "Did you meet someone on the Internet?" 

After dinner we took some more pictures, the kids opened a LOT of presents because Grandma is way too generous, and played another game. It was a great night. There are no pictures from the game that most of us played, but it was something like "Kids vs. Parents," and it was pretty funny. At one point the adults were given the first line of a song, and we had to come up with the title. The lyrics immediately rang a bell in some distant, cobwebbed corner deep in the recesses of my brain. But I was going to go crazy trying to remember. Then Karen sang one line, and I sang the next, and each part of the song got me to remember the next. But we had to go through the entire first verse, bridge and even into the chorus, as everyone else watched our duet in fascination, until Karen blurted out the song title and artist. It was "Wonderwall" by Oasis. (Back in the day my friends and I substituted "Wonderbra" as we drove around in my '87 Volkswagen Jetta 😆). 

First Christmas all together in 10 years

All the grandkids, aged 20 years to 7 months

We went to Karen's the next day for a party with the extended Brady family. Karen tried once again to win the affections of Thomas. Maybe next time.

The day before we left the temperature finally made it over 30, and compared to the last few days, it felt balmy. We got out and did a little shopping. Joey went with his daddy and grandpa to use his Cabela's gift card and get some more fishing stuff for his nice new tackle box. Later, Tim, myself, Carolyn, the girls, and Thomas went to the Blackstone Shoppes to look at clothes. I was happy just to enjoy the fresh air -- cabin fever had been setting in. It was a fun last day.

It might have taken me almost till February, but the Christmas post is done. Going through the pictures and reliving the memories has made me very, very grateful.

Thomas: 8 months

I couldn't get him to lie still for this picture for longer than a second or two, so this is the best I've got. It's amazing I've managed to do as well as I have for the last few months since he started rolling.

8 months old! It's been a great month for Thomas. He took another airplane trip, this time for us to spend his first Christmas with Tim's side of the family in Massachusetts; and he got his two first little bottom teeth, as if his smile weren't cute enough.

He still won't eat any solid foods I offer him; he just kind of worries them around his mouth a little before letting them fall out. So silly.

He's wrapping up his second week (of six) of ISR lessons, which teach him to self-rescue in the water. He's a stubborn little man and he wants nothing to do with it, but he's coming along in spite of himself. For several days the instructor was not able to get him to settle into a back float, so she decided to move to the next phase of training anyway, which was submerging his head for a couple seconds. He kicked his way to a back float and then for the first time, kind of rested there, as it must have felt like a relief after having his head underwater! The instructor explained that some babies need to see the "bigger picture."

He has two naps a day -- we dropped the third nap at some point I'm not sure when -- but he still acts like he could use it a lot. He's typically going downhill pretty quickly from about dinnertime to bedtime (around 8).

Sometimes I can snap him out of a bad mood by reading him a book. He has a lot of books. He gets one every time we go to the pediatrician, and we are also signed up for the Dolly Parton Imagination Library. I love those surprise books in the mail every month, and they are very good quality, both in terms of their content and their construction. I have ones I read to Joey over and over again, and they're still in good condition. 

I have NO idea what was going on here!

What else...? He's babbling a mile a minute, getting into things he shouldn't, and judging from the way he looks at me and smiles, he knows he shouldn't. He loves baths and hates being changed, especially when it's his clothes. He still protests being buckled into his car seat, but fortunately doesn't cry for entire car rides usually. He signs milk now, but never to me (i.e., the one person who can help him there) -- to Tim and Joey so far. We all just love this little man and can't get enough of him.

Thomas: 7 months

I remember how in the first moments after birth, Thomas had a lopsided conehead from the way his skull had been molded on his way out. Now because of his cowlick and wavy hair that's still only growing on top of his head for now, he kind of has that same look! But he's handsome regardless.

It has been so much fun doing all the Christmas-y things with Thomas along for the ride. A couple weeks ago we took a hayride through some Christmas lights. I loosened the straps of my carrier so he could move around a bit, and he laid all the way back on my lap and just stared up the lights, completely mesmerized, like 'Am I dreaming this?' He was making everybody laugh and go "awww...." We went to a Christmas parade a couple weekends ago; and as the kids excitedly grabbed up the candy (and Timmy tossed some TO the people in the vehicles, because he likes to do the unexpected, lol) Thomas lost the battle of trying to stay asleep in the carrier against my chest. I thought to myself, does it get any better?

We couldn't all cooperate for this photo.

This year's Christmas card... can you guess whose smiling face was cut and pasted from another photo? Nope? Neither can I. Delaney's good!

He had his six-month checkup a couple weeks ago (I think? Things are a blur lately), and he weighed in at 18 pounds, and I believe he was 27 inches long. Super healthy. Still uninterested in solids, nursing quite a bit. Crawling, pulling up to stand, and babbling like crazy. The doctor playfully scolded Thomas, saying, "You're as high maintenance as a newborn. You need to be nursing less frequently, eating solid food, and sleeping at least six hour stretches at night." Then she turned to me on a serious note and said, "And how are you doing, Mom? Any anxiety, depression?" I was caught a little off guard. I know I probably looked like hell -- even after the best night of sleep, I could be cast as an extra on The Walking Dead before I put on concealer, and I was fresh out of it that day -- but it hadn't occurred to me I was supposed to be miserable. My heart is so full. But of course, some more sleep would be nice, and it's good of the doctor to be looking out for moms' postpartum mental health.

We are headed up to Massachusetts tomorrow to spend Christmas with Tim's side of the family. Thomas and I will be flying into Boston again while the rest of the family drives. Second plane trip for Tooty in his first year! I hope and pray it goes smoothly, and we make our connection in Charlotte. I'll have less than an hour to spare, so I'm going to be hoofing it across that airport.😬

I had a belly picture in front of the tree that came up in my Facebook memories a couple days ago, so I had Tim take an updated photo of us for a before and after. This year has been a dream. This shot really sums things up: I just don't have time to be old and gray and tired when I'm looking into that face and he's looking back at me.

December at home

I don't want to brag, but I am just obsessed with the way our house looks inside and out this December. I can't seem to stop taking pictures because there's always another kind of light that makes it even better, and I think I've probably captured every kind of light possible. I'll see if I can take a few minutes to share a few here before Thomas wakes up from his nap.

I love that there's this much color in the yard in December. All the new plants that were new a couple years ago have had a chance to mature a little. The camellias are dazzling me right now. 

I've never seen this holly look prettier. I think it has more and brighter berries this year. I've been incorporating some of these branches in my decorating inside.

I had fun decorating the front door. We hosted the office Christmas party a few days ago, and knowing all these people who've never seen our house before were coming, really lit a fire under me. Nothing motivates me quite as much as knowing I'll be having guests.

One of the many outtakes from this year's Christmas card pictures.😆

Our house is south-facing, so we get a lot of natural light through the front of the house in the fall and winter, while the backyard is much more shadowy. Then in the warm months the pool is in full sun, but there's less sun coming in our house, which helps keep it cool. Such a perfect tradeoff!

Because I spend way too much time on Instagram, I decided to try out dried orange slices, and I love how they turned out.

It is still such a pleasure, after all the years of living in base housing and other rentals, to have a home to call our own and make our own. And it's always good for me to take a minute and remember, at this most exhausting time of the year, that I am really living my dream.