Feburotten? Suckuary?

I am SO ready for March to arrive.  February has been horrible.  Since Feb. 5th this is what I have dealt with:

• Bobby had the stomach flu
  
• I had a horrible cold
  
• Charlie had a horrible cold
  
• Someone rear ended me - I was stopped at a light and she hit me going about 35 - major damage to both cars but everyone was OK
  
• Dealing with insurance/rental cars for said accident
• downstairs toilet broke
• modem broke - no internet!
• oven broke
• husband out of town all last week and for most of the next three weeks
• moron at Sears sells us an oven that upon delivery does not fit
• still have no oven
• Stepfather diagnosed with prostate cancer
• Grandmother has been in hospital since last Thursday with severe anemia
• Charlie woke up last night with a bad cold/croup

Seriously, if anything else goes wrong I am going to lose it.  It really doesn't help that husband is out of town for all of this as well.  I am trying to remain positive but it's getting harder.  Girl Scout cookies are helping somewhat but there is only so much they can do.

My First Award

Thank you to Princess Freckles who gave me my first award!  My husband said he wasn't sure about the Great Attitude - unless sarcastic and snarky counts.   But I am thrilled that anyone besides my mother even looks at this thing.  So thanks again Princess Freckles!

I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year.

Charlie loved Christmas. Especially the lights. The lights on the tree. The lights on the street. Now that they are all gone he really misses them. Every morning when he comes downstairs he says, "Christmas all gone." It broke my heart for about a week but now I'm kind of used to it.

Yesterday in the car Charlie said, "Take shoes off?" I told him no, that it was really cold and he needed to leave them on. When we got home he was completely barefoot. I said, "Charlie, what happened?" He said, "It's a Christmas miracle!"

This is what happens when you listen to your husband.

Sweet Cloggsy left a comment asking what happened to the post about the misunderstanding that occurred while stroking my husbands ear.  

Short story is husband didn't like it.  He thought it didn't make sense if you weren't there to experience the hilarity of it.  I explained that I wasn't really looking to win any major awards and he pointed out that I should at least try to write clearly.  So I deleted it.  

But when Cloggsy left her comment I realized that it probably was funny even if you weren't there (or at least to certain odd minds like ours, eh Cloggsy?).  Unfortunately, I thought I could repost it but I totally deleted it.  I will try to rewrite it and put it back up later.  

Albuterol Man, Where Are You?

I overheard Bobby playing with one of his Bionicles this afternoon. He was attacking it with these little glittery puffballs from the craft drawer and had the Bionicle saying, "Oh no! Somebody help! Get me my inhaler! My inhaler! Help!" Apparently the Bionicle was allergic to the puffballs? Anyway, it cracked me up.

So. Christmas.

In spite of all the Elf craziness, we all had a pretty good Christmas. I wanted to post a few pictures but can't find the camera - so maybe later.

We didn't have to travel at all this year which was wonderful! Last year was the first year that we didn't and it was really nice. The problem is really distance. My mom is a good 7-8 hour car ride away and with the two kids and getting all of, ahem, Santa's workshop there - it's a tight fit. One year we tried shipping all the gifts there so we wouldn't have so much to take but then we had to get it all home. So this year my mom and step dad came on the 26th and my inlaws came on the 29th. It was busy but we all had a great time.

Bobby was sick with anticipation all Christmas Eve. He kept saying, "Why is this day so long?" We finally took the kids to the Festival of Lights just to keep them busy. We got Bobby to bed about 8:30 and then my wrapping frenzy started. We didn't hear a peep out of him until about 11:30 - right as we were taking all the Santa stuff down! He didn't see anything but he was UP. The Husband basically had to stand guard while I took everything down. We finally went to bed but Bobby was getting up about every 20 minutes. At 2:45am(!), I was really worried that no one was going to get any sleep so I told Bobby to get in bed with me. He finally settled down and fell asleep about 3. He woke up at 5 on the dot and begged to go down. I told him it was too early and he started to cry and said he didn't think he could. It was so sad. So I told him to wait 30 more mins. As soon as that clock showed 5:30 he woke me up. The Husband and I let him go down and look at the Santa stuff and then we woke his brother up about 6:30.

It's so funny how different these kids are. Bobby's mission is to get everything unwrapped as fast as humanly possible. We are constantly telling him to wait or slow down. Charlie on the other hand, likes to take it slow. To be fair, he still doesn't really "get" Christmas and Santa, but it took him over a week to get everything open. At one point on Christmas morning, as I was trying to get him to open another present, he said, " No more presents!"

In Case You Care

So you may be wondering, "What happened with that crazy elf box?" Well, we were doing great until Charlie threw Bobby's Nintendo DS across the kitchen floor and smashed it to bits.

Bobby was inconsolable. He loves that thing. Santa brought it to him last year and he plays with it all the time. That night he wrote a letter to Mike the Elf asking him to please fix it and left it with the broken DS on top of the elf box.

If it had been Bobby's fault at all I would have said "Tough crap. Start saving your money". But it wasn't and he didn't even ask for a new one. I told The Husband that we should go buy a new one and just let him think the elf magically fixed it. He said no way. He left a note from Mike saying that Mike was just a candy elf. He didn't know how to fix toys. Bobby was disappointed but every night he continued to leave it on the box.

I felt so bad for him that I finally wore The Husband down. But now it was the 23rd and I couldn't find a black DS (to match the one he had) anywhere. I could only find silver. So, that night "Mike" left a note saying that he would take the DS to the North Pole and let a toy elf look at it. Bobby was thrilled.

Christmas morning, next to the plate of eaten cookies was Bobby's broken DS and a note from Mike. It said, that the toy elf, Hannibal* couldn't fix the DS but had a surprise for him behind the box. Behind that damned elf box was the new silver DS. Bobby was beside himself - it was probably the best part of Christmas.

*The most disturbing part of this story is that my husband seems to have the whole elf world clearly laid out in his mind. I asked him why the toy elf's name was Hannibal and not, say, Paul. He replied way too seriously that candy elves had regular names like Mike and Paul but toy elves had names from the classical era, like Caesar or Octavius.