Our own little miracles continued...

One of my favorite miracles this Christmas is all the time with my husband. Scott and I haven’t had 3 whole weeks together without work since he was on disability recovering from a brain tumor in 2002/2003. Since that wasn’t exactly a relaxing time filled with life and love I feel I can safely say this has been a big first. Three whole weeks.

When faced with three whole weeks stretching into the distance one makes all kinds of goals. “We’ll get the closets all cleaned out!” “Well take tons of long walks!” “Go running every day!” “Get lots of sleep and get ourselves in the habit of waking up early…”

Then you realize how much you’ve missed one another. You make love. You stay up late watching movies. You act like cheesy teenagers making mixes of love songs on your iPod. You say lots of things like, “How in the world did it get to be 1:30 am!?!?” And you know why. Because somehow three whole weeks reminds you what you knew way back when: That a lifetime would never hold enough days to spend together. And you relish in the miracle that you’re still together. That you’re still in love. That the other is still the one—the only one—you’d want to stay up until 1:30 am with over and over again.

The key to a man's heart...

It just goes to show that no matter the culture—a man needs the right gear.

Of all of the presents I gave Scott this year I can definitely say the incense burner was the most unexpected. He loved it. A friend of his in Bahrain had given him a beautiful salmon colored jar of incense a couple of months ago. It smelled gorgeous, but there was no way to burn it. Great time of year for such a dilema!

He left it out on the table tonight while he ran to the Off License. When he got home the boys were rarin’ to go—it was something to do with fire after all!

Light the charcoal, sprinkle the incense, let things smell delicious. Seemed simple enough to me. But next thing I knew the boys were dressed in beanies and wellies, standing on the back porch over Scott’s camp stove, absolutely ecstatic about the prospect of lighting the charcoal over the stove in the great outdoors. Scott was giddy—a new toy AND an excuse to use the camp stove? Oustide? In the cold!?!? No matter that it’s not at altitude or used in conjunction with some sub-zero sleeping bags. It was fire. Over a tiny, expensive, titanium stove. And it was clearly deliciously delightful.

They brought the charcoal in and added it to the brass incense burner. Smoke drifted out the little star and moon shaped holes and it did indeed smell gorgeous. The boys (all 3 of them) had a great time carrying it to various rooms to spread the yummy smells. It was cuteness!

Boys need gear. Be it camping stoves or brass incense burners the right gear is the way to any man’s heart.

You know you're a mama when...

You know you’re a mama when...you wake up with your hair crusted with snot because your four year old couldn’t sleep unless his little face was pressed right up against your head.
You know you’re REALLY a mama when...you don’t rush to the shower when you realize you have crusty, booger-hair. Instead you cook some breakfast because said sick child asked for something to eat for the first time in days. You give him a bath. You throw his crusty, booger-y clothes into the wash. You wipe down the entire house with antibacterial wipes and THEN you take a shower.
Oh my sick people at the Anderberg house. I finally tallied it up. Some or all of us have been sick the last 6 weeks. Almost seven weeks. We’ve had low grade fevers that make people fussy and uncomfortable. High fevers that make people hallucinate and convulse--or just sweat so profusely I’ve had to change soaked sheets several mornings in a row. We’ve had pink eye. Impetigo. Rashes. Really bad coughs. Body aches so severe people are sobbing and crying out. Puking, we’ve had that too.
We’re working our way down the forms of treatment. We’ve been to the doctor so many times I think they know me by my first name at our ‘surgery.’ Not super helpful so far. They initially diagnosed the impetigo as ‘dry skin.’ Caid got the sickest he’s been yet at the tail end of a round of antibiotics. And they were so dismissive about the fearful middle of the night phone call regarding a fever that they made me cry. It got so bad that Scott finally said, “Time to call a witch doctor!” So I took them to a homeopath. I can’t tell if it’s working. It’s a philosophy that works ‘with the body’s natural defense mechanisms’--like coughs and fevers. So maybe it is working? Maybe it would be much worse otherwise? I’m not sure what to think. Mostly I just want my little boy to run around and play and be the wild man I know and love. Bridger is better, but Caid...
I remember having mono when I was in high school. I was so sick. For weeks I barely ate anything. One day I said to my mom, “you know what I think I could eat? Some mashed potatoes.” She made this gigantic pot of mashed potatoes and was so thrilled when I ate about a 1/4 of a cup of them. My little Caid told me this evening he could maybe eat some mashed potatoes. I thought of my mom as I stood over my largest stock-pot full of potatoes and watched him eat two bites.
Things aren’t all bad though! After laying in bed much of Saturday just wanting to die, I felt pretty good when I woke up Sunday. So after I washed my nasty, crusty hair, I decided to seize the moment and went into the city to do my Christmas shopping. I had several of these cool moments where I’d look at the hustle and bustle around me and think, “Dude! I live in LONDON! I am Christmas shopping in LONDON! ‘Cause I live here!” It was surreal and very cool!
There were great big snowmen balloons and snowflake garlands in Soho. There were hundreds of Christmas lights on Oxford Street. There was a steel band in front of a huge department store playing their guts out to the tune of ‘Let it Snow.’ Amen, I say! I went to Hamley’s Toy Store. Which was insane but oh so festive. I shopped and ate a pasty in Covent Garden. I walked down Regent Street and could see literally thousands of shoppers in front of me and thousands behind. Like a scene in a movie. Then I got on a train with so many shopping bags I took up two seats. It was a great day! Add that to the list I suppose. You know you’re a mama when...you can go from on-your-death-bed-ill to shopping in 24 hours so your kiddos will have presents under the tree. Oh yeah, and then come home and bake cookies for your other son's Christmas party the next day.
Today I was back at sick duty. Nurse Mama. I decided to set aside my ‘to do’ list yet again and laid curled up with Caid all day. Not such a bad way to spend a Monday! We watched a really sappy Christmas movie. He’d cough and cough, and I’d just reach over and rub his chest or his head or just pause the movie and hold him. He was so content to do that all day. Truthfully, so was I. I wish I knew how to make him feel better. I'm worried about him. At the end of the day though it sure is fun to snuggle that little wild man for as long as he’ll let me!