a peek inside the fishbowl

 

We were at an open house this afternoon, sitting shiva, actually. It was a friendly affair, and I’m glad we all went. But a swirly thick fog still hovers over my head. On the way there we stopped at the bagel shop to pick up some fresh bagels and cream cheese to bring with us. I asked Mark to drive us home again.  My stomach was doing flip flops and I quietly debated whether I was going to be sick. At home I popped two Tums and got back in the car. As we drove to Pete’s my mind was stuck on something Mark had said the other day: we get to have this day, but she doesn’t. We get to have this time, and she doesn’t.

It hurts my heart to think about it.

I don’t do it very often, but last week I was reading back in my archives for this time last year. I’d temporarily forgotten we were going through something similar last year too.

*sigh*

Okaaay. I’m going to change of gears and share a funny moment that happened over Christmas dinner.

Dinner was over. Emma brought two stuffed toys to the dinner table and was playing with them on the table in front of her.

Mark’s dad looked over at her little toy bear and toy dog and said:  “I hope your pets aren’t going to shed on the table!”
Mark’s mom: “Gary! POO! The word is POO!”

I’ll let you think about that for a second.

…
…
…

Oh, how we laughed and laughed. The girls looked at us blankly. Then Sarah turned to me and asked me, “What did Nana think Papa said?”

She’s a smart one.

–
I heard the toilet flush on Christmas morning. It was Emma. I groggily turned to look at the time. It was 6:00 a.m. Too early! And then I promptly turned over and fell back asleep.

At exactly 7:03 I was awoken again. It was Emma, leaning over my sleeping corpse.

“MUMMA!” said Emma in a whispershout. “I’ve been watching the clock and waiting for a long time. It’s time to wake up!”

Seems she never went to sleep, and waited a whole hour to come and get us. There’s a trooper!

As per usual, we opened stockings, followed by a quickie breakfast and coffee. Then we moved on the the bigger stuff. Emma and Sarah received some books from us (a gorgeous edition of The Golden Compass and Doodles: A Really Giant Coloring and Doodling Book), as well as two prints I bought via Etsy and framed for them.

Santa brought some really nice stuff too. Including…

For Sarah:

– Melody Harp and carry case
– Big Top Flippity Flops
– Robert Sabuda  Winter Mini Pop-Up book
– Plan City Asian Family
– Whirl-O Magnetic Spinning Top – Mars Patrol
– Klutz How to Build Castles Building Cards
– See Inside Fairyland book

For Emma:

– Model Horse Play Set & Activity Kit
– Colour A Funbrella
– Magic “8” Ball Fortune Teller
– The Sisters Grimm (books one and two)
– The Secret World of Unicorns book
– Bananagrams
– Whirl-O Magnetic Spinning top
– a Barbie horse that eats tiny cubes of hay and sugar

I bought Mark a few books, as well as a Sodabug DIY robot, socks, a dark brown silk cashmere sweater as well as a rusty-coloured one. I had bought myself a very expensive down-filled winter coat about a month ago, and the deal was that it was going to be my (gulp, only) Christmas present… but Mark didn’t let me go without. He bought me some books, some chocolate, socks (I love socks!) and a shiny green iPod shuffle (which I adore).

What a mess we made.

After the unwrapping and some very minimal tidying we trucked over to my inlaws for Operation Wrapping Phase Two. But first, we had breakfast consisting of coffee and some very very decadent Land of Nod cinnamon buns.

Oh, the goodness of it all.

And then phase two began in earnest, although we had to wait until everyone was assembled before we could really launch into it:

 

I can’t begin to list you all the gifts we received. My inlaws are very generous people. The best gift for us was probably a gorgeous set of Oneida flatware – which was great, considering the ones we have for everyday use were hand-me-downs that were many many years old. My other happy gift was a set of six or so (?) Lancome lipglosses (all my colour too!) and a funky pink/wine coloured gym bag that I see myself using on a daily basis.

Here we are, unwrapping.

Here’s Sarah later on the afternoon, playing with Elefun, which she really liked:

 

We spent the rest of the afternoon playing with our toys (inluding a couple new games for the Wii), snacking, and napping.

Dinner consisted of a turkey and all of the fixin’s.

Here’s a shot of the cake Mary baked for us:

 

There are a couple more photos in my December set.  

And now, sitting here, I feel incredibly full, and that’s not because we had a really big dinner on the 24th and an equally big dinner on the 25th.

Christmas 2007 is officially over. I am both happy and sad. Know what I mean?

How was your Christmas?