How I Spent my Winter Break

I hope everyone is safe and sound, happy and healthy. And not too hung over.

It has been a nice holiday. My last day of work before vacation was the Friday before Christmas. My husband's parents had come into town just a few days prior. It was so nice having them here. Christmas was nice. The only drawback was a stomach virus that hit all of us the day after Christmas. Actually, my daughter had it the day before Christmas, then my husband, son, and myself had it the day after Christmas, then my in-laws had it the day after that- the day they traveled home. Apparently, the kids and I got it the worst. It was a 24- hour virus, so not too much down time (I have an aversion to downtime). I felt bad for my in-laws, having to travel sick, but they didn't seem to have the same symptoms that the kids and I did -like the wretching and dry heaving. I 'll spare you the further details. We are all recovered now. In fact, we have had a nice couple of days since our recovery.

The 4 of us have had a lot of bonding time together. We have played with the new Christmas toys, including board games, which is a new thing for us, now that both kids are old enough to play. I gave my daughter her first manicure and took her for her first salon haircut (neither my husband nor I are willing to mess with her curls and bangs anymore). We've done lots of arts and crafts, cooking and baking. My husband and son put together a model car. We have watched a lot movies, but also gave the TV a 48 hour break. The weather has been warm and we got to play outside at the playground. We have visited an art museum and a natural history museum. Who knew that we had such great resources here? Well, it has been great. And we were pleasantly surprised how well the kids did. As expected, our son was thrilled to see the dinosaur exhibits, but he did also like the art museum, particularly the armor. Our daughter was a little less interested, but did surprisingly well, walking along with us, Oohing and Ahhing quietly. We walked into the room with the 18th century crystal and China, and our daughter pointed to the teapots and exclaimed, "Look, it's Mrs. Potts!" She got some chuckles from other visitors. It was really cute.

We worked on our newsletter this week. They should be going out sometime this week. Those of you that receive the newsletter and read the blog may find the newsletter less colorful than the blog. I mean, you all know what's been going on with us, already. The newsletter is just a cleaned-up, watered down version of the blog. The newsletter reaches family friends and distance relatives that don't necessarily appreciate our sarcasm and cynicism like you all do :) Last year, we had sent our newsletter in January rather than December. December just got so busy, but we still wanted to drop our friends an annual greeting. Hence, our new tradition of sending New Year's Newsletters in January. We may revert back to a December newsletter next year, but we like extending the greeting card thing into January. I know that when I go to the mailbox to get the mail this time of year, I wishfully scan the pile of envelopes for any Christmas card that may be getting there late.

We also did some stuff around the house this week, like clean out the basement, during which my husband and I discussed some child-rearing issues. While we were re-organizing the basement, the kids were playing with their toys, both old and new. At one point, they had made a big pile out of the toys and started "swimming" in them. That did it. It reminded my husband of people who are so rich that they didn't know what to do with their vats of money, that they would just swim in it. We decided that the kids had too many toys, and we took them away. We made a pile of toys to give away/sell, a trash pile, and a pile that they could keep. It was great. Now, how do we give these toys away/sell them? Most local charities want new toys in their original packaging. There a re some used toy stores that I have sold to before. In the past, my friends and I had garage sales, but I haven't ventured out on my own, yet. Maybe this Spring.

My husband and I have also discussed limiting how many toys the kids receive. This is a tough one because as it is, we don't buy toys for the kids ourselves -they are from friends and family (especially Grandparents). We have a rule that when my husband travels away on business, or when I am on call, we don't come home with gifts for the kids. Anyway, one idea we had was having each of the kids pick one present to keep each birthday and each Christmas, and give the rest to charity. I'm not sure how well that would go over with friends and family, though. I don't want people to go to the trouble of picking out a gift, just to have it given away to a stranger. Well, I'm not sure how we are going to deal with it, but something must be done. I can see how the kids get bored, or take for granted having toys around. It seems to take more and more to get "that Excitement response" from them, and I want to scale it back now so we can still get that response from them- the response that makes them jump up and down and say, "Oh thank you Mommy and Daddy, I LOVE it!" and make them play with the toy everyday until they are 18.

One more day until we go back to work. It really has been a nice 10 days off. I start nights tomorrow; 2 and a half weeks of nights. But for now, I am going to enjoy the rest of my vacation.

Happy New Year to All!