The Adventures of Grayson, Carter, and their moms

Merry Christmas from us to you!

As usual, the Page-Wells household can’t just have a non-eventful, regular holiday. Nope, we have to put a twist. Or a kink. Or a knot in it. This year it came in the form of sickness.

Let’s go back to Wednesday – Christmas Eve. I had to work half a day and Leanne was home with the kids. The plan was for her to take them to childcare at the gym so she could work out and the kids could play. But Carter’s nose was running non-stop (though he acted fine) so that was a no-go. I got home as Leanne was attempting to put the kids down for a nap – but they were having none of it. After 45 minutes we decided to cut our losses and hope for an early bedtime. We took them for ice cream that Leanne had promised them on their earlier errand running (but the ice cream shop wasn’t open yet) and then to get Leanne some late lunch/early dinner. Carter was starting to go downhill (we didn’t realize this at the time) and fell asleep en route – and slept in my arms through out dinner. When we got home, the kids played with their new trucks (that are bigger than they are!), helped make cookies and hot chocolate for Santa, and while they were put in bed at 7pm, they didn’t fall asleep till 8.

Side note: We had bought cute Christmas pjs, but they had buttons. And unbeknown to us at the time, buttons are a big ‘no-no’ for our two kids. While in bed, they stripped their pjs off exclaiming, “NO BUTTONS!” Alrighty. I put them in their old regular pjs and they were happy as clams and fell asleep not long thereafter. And while we had the best intentions of trying to put on the cute Christmas pjs in the morning, we just didn’t. Oh well. Next year we’ll shop for non-button Christmas pajamas.

After hours with an Allen wrench, Leanne and I were done. It was 11:30 and we were both bleary eyed and ready for bed. I don’t think we’d been in our bed 10 minutes when I heard a kid cough (Carter had been hacking all night) and then a gag. It was Grayson. He’d thrown up all over his bed, the wall, the carpet….everywhere. Leanne cleaned him as I attempted to clean his room without waking Carter. Grayson got into bed with us and we finally turned out the night a little before 1am. At 1:30am, Carter woke coughing/crying, “MAMA’S BED!!!!” I tried taking him into the guest room since we weren’t sure if Grayson’s episode was a one time thing or the beginning of the flu – but Carter wasn’t hip to that. He kept screaming, “No! No! No! Mommy’s bed!!!!” I couldn’t convince him that this was mommy’s bed (I mean, it IS in mommy’s house, it IS a bed….) No dice. I took him to our real bed and hoped for the best. Everyone was restless and Carter was awake and not going back to sleep at 6:30. Merry Christmas. The best thing I can say about the night, was that Gray didn’t get sick again and it wasn’t seeming like the stomach flu.

Christmas. Even though the kids were awake, neither were eager to get up and get moving. We had to remind them that Santa was supposed to come during the night. That got them moving – albeit still slowly. We went downstairs and enjoyed gifts from Santa (workbench, ball pit, drum, and piano) and stockings. After breakfast we went downstairs to check out the gifts from Nana and Granddaddy (easel with art supplies and a docking station for the iPod so they can have music in the playroom) and Papa Page and Grammy (train table and the trucks they got Christmas Eve.) They were so excited! However, the excitement was tempered by Carter’s runny nose and hacking cough and fevers for both of them. They would play for awhile and then Carter would announce, “I wanna watch movie with my blanket.” He would curl up on the couch and watch a bit of tv and then go draw a picture on the easel or destroy the train set up (which annoyed Grayson to no end – “NO NO NO Carter.”) They had us laughing when Grayson was playing in the ball pit and Carter came busting in. Grayson yelled, “STOP CARTER! You’re ruining my trick!” Huh? Where did he learn that?

By 7pm we’d fed them dinner, given them a bath and put on clean pajamas (without buttons), had them medicated for fevers and coughs, and tucked into our bed watching Caillou (yes, it still reigns supreme in our house.) By 8, they were in their own beds where Carter fell asleep immediately and Grayson cried for 30 minutes because he wanted “the other mommy” (Leanne) to sit in the hall while he fell asleep (Leanne was eating a bowl of cereal for dinner and cleaning up the kitchen.) At 11:30, Carter woke himself up coughing and crying to come to our bed – I was too tired to argue and brought him to bed, where he all but pushed me off the bed while hacking and calling for water every 45 minutes or so. Grayson joined us at 1:30 and by 4am was so hot that Leanne got up and gave him more Motrin.

This morning, Carter seems to be somewhat better. His nose is really runny but he doesn’t seem to be running a fever. Gray on the other hand, must have hit his peak. Leanne called around 10 (I am at work) and said that he’d fallen back asleep this morning (so unusal) and looked horrible. He had a fever of 103 and was listless. I had to work today – and Leanne was planning on staying home with the kiddos and going to the gym in the morning and then having a play date with Suzanne and Rhyder after nap. But it looks like that isn’t happening. Poor Leanne is stuck at home with 2 sick, whiny kids. It sucks enough for the 2 of us to be home with them – but being home solo, can be miserable.

We are hoping that things look better this weekend – that people are feeling better, that we can open the few remaining gifts under the tree (they still have some things from us that haven’t been opened) and that we don’t get sick. Oh, and that we get a full nights sleep. Cross your fingers and knock on wood, please.

Here are a few pictures from our Christmas.

The kids helping make the hot chocolate for Santa - putting in marshmallows. Notice their cute pajamas. This is before they went to bed and deemed them unsleepable. :)

Santa's leftovers and the note

Don't they look thrilled? I doubt Christmas morning will look like this next year!

One of the new trucks (it is taller than Grayson!)

The next Partridge Family.

The toolbench - please ignore out kids' bedhead. In addition to not putting their Christmas pjs on them - we didn't fix their hair. Oh well. Maybe next year we'll be more presentable.