The children woke late from their Christmas slumber. The entire family, well bathed and clothed, gathered round the tree to open up gifts one by one. Cherishing every gift and reflecting on loved ones...............UH...........yeah right..not at our house.
This is how Christmas really went down:
At 6:30 AM I hear Elizabeth's blood curdling scream proclaiming to the world that she is awake. Jed had to spend Christmas eve at the hospital and was not expected home until 8AM. We wanted to keep the girls away from all the Christmas toys until he got home so he could enjoy the moment too. I decided to take Elizabeth upstairs while I took a shower. I gave her a few books to read and she stayed there for a few minutes but while I was finishing my shower she dissappeared. She climbed downstairs, opened the gate, and through the sound of running water I hear squeals of delight "bus!! bus!! open, open". I quickly jump out of the shower and run downstairs to discover dear Lizzy holding a box with a school bus in it up to Noelle's crib.
Noelle, by this time was wide awake and anxious to open the box too. By this point Liz had already seen the presents so I decided to let Noelle have a peek too. Just a peek, right, like they were going to be happy with just looking. We made a compromise and opened up the Noah's arc toy so they could play with something while mommy made breakfast. I went into the kitchen to make some pancakes that Jed had requested. I asked the girls if they want to help and they are moderately interested so I go to get the ingredients out eggs, flour, milk.........MILK! MILK!! MILK PLEASE! I go to pour Noelle a little cup of milk and while I am doing this Lizzy grabs an egg off the counter and throws it on the floor. SPLAT! Okay, I'll clean up the egg. Elizabeth and Noelle go off to fight over the one cup of milk. I look in vain for a sippy cup and decide to give her just a regular cup. I go back to the kitchen to clean up the egg on the floor. I peek my head around the corner and see Noelle and Lizzy pouring their milk on the floor and splashing in it. I go back to finishing the egg clean up and then progress to the milk on the floor in the dining room. Meanwhile, the girls were in their room, I assumed playing queitly. You know what happens when you assume. I finish the milk clean up and go into their room where I discover that both of my little darlings have taken off their Christmas pjs and diapers too. The phone rings, it's Jed he is almost on his way home but there were a lot of sick people last night and he wont be home as soon as he was hoping. "Hurry hurry hurry," I say as I try to chase my 2 naked toddlers around the room.
I finally corner Elizabeth to get her diaper and jammies back on. I could only get the diaper on her before she escaped. I wrestle with Noelle and get her diaper back but she says "shirt, shirt" so I go to get their Christmas sweaters from the laundry basket upstairs. (Sorry grandma, no Christmas pajamas pictures this year.) I come back with the sweaters only to find 2 bare bottoms running around the room again. argh. I wrestle them both again and finish dressing them incorporating onsies into their outfit to secure their diapers in place.
Back to the pancake batter, which was a new recipe which will not become a christmas tradition. The first pancake is a lumpy soupy mess and slops all over when I try to flip it. I try to get some eggs cooking too. I check on the girls. Noelle has just opened one of my Christmas presents under the tree, thanks for the cool necklace Lindsay. I try to redirect the girls to play with their Noah's arc toy in the dining room which they do for a while.
I return to the breakfast preparation. The second pancake looks a little better than the first but not much. I hear Indy's paws shuffling around on the hardwood floor acompanied by chomping sounds. I go to see what my kids are feeding to the dog. The girls have climbed on the table and have discovered Indy's christmas stash. Elizabeth has thrown about 10 dog biscuits on the floor and has one in her mouth. No! Lizzy! She spits out the dog buiscuit with a funny pucker on her face. I get both children off the table and return to the eggs that have burnt. I start another pancake and then......
knock knock.............
DADDY!!
Dada!
Dad's home. The girls rush to greet Jed as he enters the door. I was truly excited to see him as well.
I finish making breakfast and Jed helps me feed the girls malshapened pancakes and burnt eggs. We clean up breakfast and then I go to get our camcorder. I record a few minutes and use up the last of the tape. I go upstairs to find another and return and see Jed and the girls sitting in a pile of wrapping paper and gifts. There is a little dress in front of him. "Oh, that's really cute," I say, "who's it from." "I don't know they just started tearing things open," he replys.
Jed has long been proud of the fact that in his family they open up christmas presents in an orderly manner, not freeforall like with my side of the family. I remind him of that and he says "Well, we've never had a Christmas with 2 two year olds." This is true.
The girls continued to open up all the gifts. I tried to pass out the proper gift to the proper person. They did not seem to really care if the gift had their name or their sisters or mom's or dad's they just opened it. The great thing about 2 year olds is that they genuinely love and are fasinated with all the gifts. There was not anything that they opened that they did not like and they made cute little sounds of exclaimation as the opened up the presents. When we were done opening the paper they had to open up the packaging. I must say that the fisher price little people toys were so secure in the box that you could probably drop it from an airplane and not disturb the display.
All in all it has been a wonderful Christmas, our whole family was blessed and with gifts we all will enjoy. This will definately be a Christmas memory that will stay with me. Despite the chaos, we all had a great time. The only thing that would make our christmas more perfect would be to have all of our family near. Thanks to everyone for the Christmas gifts we love you all.
Merry Christmas.
