When I had Evie on Dec. 27, 2011, I remember thinking that I would always try to separate her birthday and Christmas. I told myself that It could be worse…she could be born on Dec. 25..or 26; at least there is ONE day between to detox from presents and sugar.
I woke up at 3 am on Dec. 26 2013 thinking that we were having babies. It turned out only to be shooting pelvic pain caused by an awkward sleeping position…but knowing the way we seem to hit odds, I wouldn’t be surprised if they did come.
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| Christmas Train |
Usually we fly to Chicago for Christmas to see my family. We’ve gone every year except the year I had Evie and this year, of course now that I'm 30 weeks pregnant (a full term for triplets). Oh, how I miss them when we don’t get to see them. Nonetheless, we had a very lovely Christmas here in Portland. It never feels quite like Christmas here though because of the lack of snow, but I really tried to make an effort to embrace the whole season this year, especially because Evie is really aware of everything going on. John and I agree that Christmas now takes on a new sparkle seeing it through the eyes of our daughter. Starting at the beginning of December when people started putting up lights on their houses, nighttime in the car became a magical time. Evie marveled at the lights, the blow up Santas in the front yard and especially the “Frosty snowmen.” We took her to “Peacock Lane”, took night walks around the block, and rode the Christmas train at Bridgeport Village.
I love the magic of Christmas through the eyes of a child. It’s such a very small window when the world is bright and perfect, and I wanted to present her with all the opportunities to dream.
We didn’t do many of the the traditional things however; we didn’t put up a large Christmas tree in our home (mainly because we are in the midst of packing and didn’t want the extra work of pulling out boxes) and we didn’t visit Santa (lines were too long with crying, runny-nosed children…). But we listened to Christmas music, opened a chocolate advent calendar that my mom sent, and talked a lot about Santa, reindeer and baby Jesus.
I do believe that Santa and baby Jesus can work together. Evie recognizes them both. The playful side of Christmas is in the magic of flying reindeer…the joyful, beautiful side is in the birth of Christ. I truly believe that the two can coexist perfectly well. As I’ve said, the world is only a magical place for such a short bit, and John and I have decided we don’t want to prematurely take that away from her.
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| Lights at Peacock Lane |
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| Loves her cousins |
John was officially ordained into true “fatherhood” this year too. My parents sent a very nice kitchen set to Evie, but it landed on our door in a huge box. On Dec. 24 at 9:30 pm, John decided to dump out the contents of the box in order to make this kitchen set a reality on Christmas morning. Approximently six hours later at 3:30 am, he screwed in the last piece, and behold, we all woke up Christmas morning to a kitchen set. Many of my other girlfriends said that their husbands were up until the early hours of the morning putting together various apparatuses in order to delight their children. Welcome to the club. ;)
Despite his lack of sleep, John rolled himself out of bed around 9:00 the next morning and the delight in Evie’s face when she saw the kitchen was worth all the frustrating, exhausting hours of studying instruction manuals and lost screws. John also surprised me with a lovely gift Christmas morning. He had a custom made necklace constructed to represent our growing family and our next chapter together. It has six rings looped together on a chain; each ring has the name of a member of our family etched into it. Yes, if you look closely, you technically could see the names of our boys ;)
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| Suddenly Six! |
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| Just like Mommy |
All in all, Evie went to bed Christmas night dreaming of presents and cookies. I took many of her gifts and put them away, planning on slowly revealing them to her in the next few weeks. Too many gifts at once is overload, and I want her to appreciate each one, each day. It’s difficult though when her birthday is two days later.
I vowed that Dec. 26 would be our “intermezzo” day…no gifts, no sugar, and definitely no out the ordinary fun adventures. We needed a breather day to simply be at home, enjoy the gifts we’ve received and allow our system to recallibrate to normal mode…before tomorrow, Dec. 27 when she celebrates her 2nd birthday, and once again, has cake, presents and fun.
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| Just the 3 of us...next Christmas will look very different |
And cake, presents and fun she had. We decided to take her to Chuckie Cheese. We’d been talking about “the dancing mouse” and “rides” all week to get her excited…and boy was she ready! We got her all dressed in her fancy pink birthday dress and pulled up the palace of lights, noise and screaming children….and the famous mouse we’d been talking about.
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| 2 today! |
And she got this scowl on her face, nuzzled herself into her daddy’s shoulder and stated, “no mouse. Scary.” Oh well. I guess the mouse did look a little intimidating.
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| Nothing scary about Clifford... |
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| or Barney... |
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| More SUGAR! |
All in all, she had a glorious time running around, pushing lighted buttons and eating greasy pizza and overly frosted cake. Oh, and she got the best gift from her Grammie and Grandpa Patton…a triple baby doll stroller complete with triplet boy dolls. ;)
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