Elmo, Presents, and a Trip to the ER

Merry Day-After Christmas! If you celebrated, I hope everyone had a great day! We had a really nice holiday.

This week has been super busy! Of course there is always last-minute shopping to do, even when you think you've been done for at least a week. So Saturday morning we headed over to the mall nice and early to buy our last minute gifts. Since that was pretty easy, no lines, we decided to get Justin's picture taken with Santa. I'll try to get a picture up later. He didn't cry, but he didn't love Santa either. He did pull on Santa's beard though (and it was a real one!). After finishing wrapping gifts, Chris and I decided we needed a night out, so we dropped Justin off at Maggie and Pop's and headed out to eat at our favorite restaurant. Afterwards, we met up with KJR, Doug & Celine, and the Birdman for a few drinks at Chili's. It was intersting at first, since the Birdman and I have not spoken in probably 15 years, despite having known each other since 1st grade from CCD. But all of that is now in the past, and we all had a really fun night. Well, at least as fun as it could have been for the Birdman, having to hang around with a few drunks all night. We even found a new bar, right in my town that I never knew about! You learn something new every day. It was one of those nights where I never got tired - could have stayed out all night probably. After the bars closed we ended up back at KJR's place to hang out for a while, where he proceeded to drunk dial Abby J, Corky, and then Mrs. Corky at 2:30am. I'm sure they were very appreciative.

Chris and I probably should have headed home sooner, seeing as how Sunday was Christmas Eve and we had a ton of stuff to do. We got to sleep at 3:30 am and were up by 8am, although I didn't get any sound sleep since Pudge decided to sleep with us as well.

But I had some coffee and some breakfast, Pop dropped off Justin, and we got everything done that we needed to. We headed down to my uncle's house, where we had a really great Christmas Eve with the fam. Justin crawled around and was so great all day! He was always happy - so easy to take care of. He got to see his cousin Evan, too. He even went to sleep there - it took a little longer than usual but once he fell asleep, he was out for the rest of the night.

Christmas morning we woke up here and opened presents. I was so excited for the Tickle-me Elmo doll. He loved the box - when you lift up the front flap, you hear Elmo's voice and laugh, and Justin got a kick out of it. He was very entertained just by opening and closing the flap. Then we took Elmo out, and tickled him. Justin just sat and stared at him. And then around the third time we tickled him, Justin just started screaming. Not crying - just a terrified, high-pitched scream. Later on we put him in his play yard, and stood Elmo up in there. Justin pretty much ignored him, and played with his other toys. But somehow Elmo must have gotten "tickled", because we heard him laughing, and then Justin screaming. Poor kid - he was backed up against the side of the play yard just emitting that same high-pitched yell, terrified by the red furry doll that's just about as big as he is, which is rolling around and shaking on the floor.

We then headed over to my parents and had breakfast, and opened presents well into the afternoon. It was definitely one of the best Christmases ever. I have to say thank you to my husband, parents, brothers, & Ali, and Chris's parents for all being so generous. We all went overboard, but that's what we always seem to do. Justin was having a blast crawling around, and was very entertained by Carter's crate (Tom & Ali's cat). He kept busy by opening and closing the door.

We headed home around 3:30 to get out of our pjs and wait for Chris's parents to arrive. We began exchanging gifts with them... And then disaster stuck. Chris was trying to open one of Justin's new toys. I can not understand why the manufacturers feel the need to twist-tie every possible section of a toy to the cardboard that they are boxed in. It takes 20 minutes to get a stupid 10 dollar toy out of a box. This particular toy had a plastic strip around it, so Chris was trying to cut it off with his pocketknife. He then proceeded to stab himself in the hand, about 3/4 of an inch deep. Luckily when he ran to the kitchen, he dripped blood all over Pudge, and so it didn't get on the carpet. It did splatter on all 4 couch cushions, but my mother-in-law was able to get the stains out with peroxide. Good hint to know. (I know you are all thinking - how could she be worried about the couch and the carpet when her husband just stabbed himself? But I knew he was going to live! Jeez!)

Chris doesn't take to the sight of blood very well. (It apparently only bothers him when it's his own blood, since he was in the delivery room with me when Justin was being born, and watched them pull the baby right out of my belly). He seemed fine until he saw all the blood all over the nice white sink. He said "clean it up" and then proceeded to get light-headed and have to sit (okay, lie) down on the floor. I was hoping it wasn't going to be that bad, but when I looked at it I knew he would need stitches. So we packed up the baby, the seafood (I was supposed to be cooking scampi, but that task fell to my mom, Ali, and Papa) and my in-laws, and dropped everyone off at my parents house. Then Chris and I headed to the hospital. Luckily, we got there at the right time, were put on the "fast-track" (which still took 2 hours), and Chris ended up with 3 stitches. We were back in time for a late dinner, and even got to see Justin one last time on his first Christmas before it was time for him to go to bed.

Never a dull moment in this house! All in all, our Christmas was indeed a merry one!