The Christmas haze is slowly lifting, that months-long frenzy of preparation and anticipation now being replaced with a scrambled mass of happy memories, gifts, and the familiar scrum of family dynamics.
We headed up to spend Christmas with Adam’s family last Saturday (it seems like so much longer! It’s gone by so fast!) and despite arriving with all three of us (Adam, my mom and I) being covered head to toe in all manner of dog hair, baby spit-up and even baby pee, it was a fantastic trip.
Christmas day was incredible. It was Olive’s first Christmas and although she will never remember it, everyone went out of their way to make it a special one for her. She’s a little too young to be writing thank-you notes, so she instead repaid this kindness with nightly 6-8 hour sleeps in the playpen that Adam’s parents set up in our room.
Do you know how awesome that feels? To sleep 6-8 hours in a row? It’s pretty much the best thing ever, like waking up to find a 2lb log of goat cheese in your fridge, or your husband cleaning your floors without being asked.
BLISS!
Also bliss is the fact that Adam’s sister has temporarily adopted Gus during our stay – keeping him at her house so he can play with their gorgeous chocolate lab, Finnegan. This means a temporary respite from drool and dog hair and his passive-aggressive sighs.
I love that dog, (I mean I reallylove that dog) but lately that love has been swallowed whole by the sheer breadth of the mess he leaves in his wake. This little break has given me a bit of breathing room before returning to my routine of sweeping up dustpans full of dog hair twice a day, waiting like a butler for him to finish drinking (“Would sir desire a napkin for his drooly mouth?”)
He’s been having a ball playing with his energetic cousin, and Olive is reveling in the adoration of her extended family (behold the paparazzi below!)
I don’t think her feet have touched the ground this whole week, she’s been passed around amongst a happy passel of Aunties and grandmas, even having some cuddles with her cousins on occasion.
I have felt absolutely no desire to blog over the past week or so, so I haven’t. Regular posting will resume when we return home January 3, and until I unpack all of our stories, here’s a sort of photo trip down our Christmas holidays so far.
It was my birthday on the 27th, my first as a mother. Olive wore a ridiculous pink dress covered in little fabric rosettes, I was feted with cake and a dinner of all of my favorite salads. All I could think about while laying in bed later that night was what an elderly woman said to me a few weeks ago when I was on my way home from visiting my mom in Victoria.
She passed by me while getting off of the bus and, looking at me bouncing Olive on my knee trying to soothe her, stopped and said, “Well, aren’t you just the luckiest girl in the world?”.
As 2012 comes to a close, I have to admit that it sure feels that way.
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