Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Christmas: parts A, B, C, and D

Our Christmas is quite split up this year, into parts A - E.

Part A, as you saw from the slideshow I previously posted, was last Tuesday at home. We had planned to do it Saturday morning, then we were going to do it Friday morning. Then, I thought we'd do it Wednesday since Rodgers would be home all day (he ended up having to cover for one of his coworkers who called in sick). Thursday was out because we were going out of town. Anyway, Tuesday I asked Rodgers how long we had to wait to exchange gifts with each other. We'd been done shopping for weeks. The anticipation was killing me. He told me that we'd do it whenever I wanted, so I said, "Right now!!"

Part B was Thursday. We went down to Bastrop to visit my paternal grandparents. My aunt and uncle, who are missionaries in Asia, happened to be there, as well as my cousin, their daughter, who lives right down the road from us, but we never manage to see each other up here. We figured it would be the only time Rodgers would see my grandparents since he was working all weekend.

Nate has had bouts of separation anxiety over the past few months, none of them very long or intense. But Thursday started another one. Come the weekend, he was a complete mess. He did let Mimi hold him for a few minutes and was content with that, as long as he had a Cheeto in hand (and mouth).


Part C. Nate and I drove down to my sister's house (she wasn't home, it just happened to be a more central location for those involved in Part C) on Friday afternoon. He screamed about half of the trip down.

A couple hours after we got to my sister's house, my parents and maternal grandma arrived. Nate fought bedtime hard, then was up from 1:30-4 am. So, Nate, Grandpa, Gigi, and I got to sit in the floor in my nephew's room and play, while my grandmother slept soundly on the other side of the house. It was a unique Christmas Eve/early Christmas morning. I slept less than 5 hours, in 3 spurts, that night. Felt like I had a newborn again.

Rodgers came Saturday morning and stayed until he had to leave for work. Nate only let Rodgers or me hold him, and he screamed a lot, and he had a hard time going to bed for naps. We were just there a week earlier, and he went down for a nap in my nephew's room with no fuss at all.



Part D involved my parents, maternal grandma, and all of my dad's siblings and their spouses and kids, with the exception of Rodgers and my siblings & co. Again, Nate didn't let anyone hold him but me. One aunt didn't care, and she took him from me while he screamed, and they chased one of the dogs around the house. Nate didn't mind her holding him as long as he was playing with the dog. Nate got to open some fun Christmas presents, and the grown ups had a Yankee swap kind of exchange, which was also fun! Nate slept the whole way home, which was the most peaceful part of the weekend.



Parts A - D of Christmas were fun, but the weekend was hard for me because Nate was so intensely clingy and fussy and screamy. No one else could hold him. I couldn't walk out of the room without him screaming. I couldn't even walk to the other side of the room if someone else would be standing in between us. I was disappointed that he wasn't his usual charming, people-loving self. He is almost 12 months, which seems to be about time for some hardcore separation anxiety. Maybe next time we see family he'll be back to being a people-person. He is also starting to show signs of teething again, which may be the cause of some of this, or may be amplifying it. The next teeth on his to-do list are 1 year molars.

Part E is coming up in less than 2 weeks when we will see my siblings and their families! This is a lot of Christmas! I put the Christmas decorations up way early. I usually take them down around the first of January. However, we'll be having Part E at our apartment in the second week of January. I think I'll be leaving the decorations up longer this year. Yay!

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