Christmas with Boys

What is Christmas morning like in a family full of girls? I picture the mom and dad sipping their coffee, watching the girls read and listen to music and play dolls together.

Here was OUR Christmas morning:

We tried to keep Tug and Kitty calm as the newest member of the family chased them around. His name is Cruncher and he's a baby dinosaur. No joke. He growls at you when you ignore him, attacks people when they walk by, and purrs when you pet him. The real animals are not amused.

We watched our kids move the couches around to capture all of the nano- and hexbugs that had escaped their "habitat."

We ducked as remote controlled helicopters (plural) took flight around the living room, soared over the TV, and crashed into the wall. We learned how to turn the helicopters off, or run them out of batteries so they couldn't fly anymore. The boys learned to turn them back on and charge them up themselves.

We helped the boys into the their new rollerblades, then helped them skate-walk around the driveway (did I mention there is no snow and it was in the 40s?). We soothed Jack through his first skating-related head injury. It wasn't bad, I promise.

We listened to Chuck show Jack how to play his first real electric guitar, and listened to Ryker play his new (hand-me-down from his brother, which was handed down to him from our neighbor Randy) acoustic guitar.

We picked up random shards of paper as Ryker cut up "notes" and Jack sifted through his new I'm Not Bored Anymore Art Jar, the top of which is filled with confetti. (Thanks Baby Oster.)

My mom was up here for the whole thing - and Grandma Bernice and Bob came for Christmas dinner. It was lovely, and we ate on my new Fiestaware plates (thanks Gaga and Papa!) and sat on our new barstools! So exciting!

Then we quickly cleaned up everything, because the cleaning crew was coming the next morning. That's a leftover present from last year (thanks again Grandmommy!). That morning, my mom and the kids hung out in the basement, away from the cleaners, and Chuck and I hung out at Caribou. Each of us had our idilic morning - Grandmommy with the boys, me reading a book and drinking coffee, Chuck entering all of his passwords into a new program and having them digitally encrypted (while drinking coffee). Wait, that makes it sound like Chuck and I don't like hanging with the boys. We do, clearly, but it was nice to take a break.

Then CHUCK suggested that he and I go to the Mall of America. What? He's a maverick - always on search for the best deals, and we came away with $8 jeans and sweaters, so he was right.

All this time we were nursing Ryker through a cough, runny nose and low-grade fever. This morning he complained of an ear ache and a doctor's visit told us he had a pretty bad ear infection. Now happily on meds, he and Jack packed themselves into Grandmommy's car and headed to StL with her. They were a day and a half late in their departure, but are looking forward to hanging out with Gaga and Papa and getting some really good Grandmommy time.

We are now sitting quietly in our clean house, with no dinosaurs or bugs scurrying, no helicopters flying, and no guitars whining. It's very calm, but a little weird. I'll enjoy this gift of quiet, but I do miss my little guys.

By the way, how awesome is my mom? She willingly took both boys with all their crap and instructions on what to do if Ryk's ear drum RUPTURES, and happily drove with them for 9 hours to get to StL. Awesome.