Happy Holidays

Happy Holidays

Yes a simple title. I know I havent updated in a long time. And Im sure there are a lot of things that I have forgotten to write about. Its been nuts here. Seriously. Nuts. Bonkers. Crazy. I could go on and on but I think I will stop there.

Thanksgiving went through uneventful as always. We ate and lazed around doing pretty much nothing. Although at dinner, we did go through the sales in the paper. Its a tradition. Check out all the things we want but cant afford. Its nice to dream. Its not that I need to know what my child wants. I listen to that every time a toy commercial comes on.

Christmas was a little hairy though. You see, the meds my child is on arent working anymore. Things were getting way out of hand. She was way out of control. We went to her therapist and he was recommending a solution by adding another medication. Take the ones away for the night time and replace it with a new one. We went through this before without luck. The Abilify was a nightmare. Then we tried Intuniv. It worked wonders but she wasnt sleeping at night. Had to pick and choose and we wanted to to sleep. So the Intuniv stopped and we wre back at the beginning again.

Then he wanted us to go back to the first doctor. The one that didnt really treat her in the first place. She was also the one that sent us to the therapist. So I guess you could say that we made a full circle in this. Since we were at the end of the rope, we went back. We talked to her for a while and she saw no need to put her on a mood drug. She increased the dose of what shes on and spread the times out. Take the meds earlier and take the afternoon ones later. We shall see how that works. So far so good but Im not jinxing it for at least another week.

Things were so bad with this that I didnt even bother to put up a Christmas tree. Yeah, can you imagine that? I usually put the tree up on the day after Thanksgiving. Its always been a tradition for as long as I can remember. My mom was the best at keeping a dead tree alive for a little more than a month. I dont know her secret. I wont have a real tree in my house so I guess I will never know.

I was buying little gifts here and there but I was unsure if Christmas was actually going to happen. It was sad and depressing. I couldnt stand it. I love Christmas but all this fighting and anger was getting me down. It was a constant battle and struggle that I was trying to hold on to loose ends.

Then came the battle of finding the things she really wanted. Of course I saw these things but that was only when she was with me and I couldnt buy them at the time. So when the chance came that I was shopping without her, do you think I could find these things? Hell no. Everything was sold out. She specifically wanted a Minty Moose Webkinz. I called every store that I thought would have one and they were all gone. She wanted a Barbie wardrobe for her doll clothes. Do you think I could find one? Nope. She wanted a CD of some new band. Walmart didnt have that either. I cant afford to shop at expensive stores. This was becoming so frustrating.

I still didnt have my tree up. When we moved, everything was shoved into the garage and not organized. We eventually got the tree and some boxes of Christmas stuff out. It sat under the kitchen table for a couple of weeks. The sofa bed was moved to her room so there was a spot for the tree. All the frustrations caused that to change. The sofa bed was moved back to the livingroom and the crap started all over again. Even the decorations werent the right ones. Those boxes were still buried in the garage somewhere. I was near to tears for weeks about this.

A week before Christmas, I called my father and asked him to pick me up a small tree from Walmart. They had a pretty 3 foot white one with lights on sale. He was able to grab the last one. It was the display model and he got it for $10. Not bad. I always wanted a white tree. I think they are so pretty and they show the colors of the decorations really nicely.

That sat for two days in his car and the rest of the time in the trunk of mine. I finally told Cami about it and we went shopping for some decorations for it. She chose red and green. Actually she wanted gold and silver but they didnt have anything in the silver colors that she wanted. So we got a big box of mixed ornaments and some pompom garland. Really cute stuff. I only buy the shatter proof stuff and this was perfect.

Christmas Eve came along and we cleaned up the house and put the little white tree on top of the trunk in the corner of the living room. She decorated it herself and it came out looking really cute. Being that the tree was on the trunk made it appear as if it was almost the regular height of the other tree we have. She wrapped the gifts that she bought and put them under the tree. Everything was starting to fall into place and I was feeling much better.

About three weeks ago, my niece wanted to have a cousins cookie night. The older girls were going to be there and one of my nieces brought her daughter. Cami and Kiya made the sugar cookies and decorated them and the others made various types of other cookies. We had some wine and ordered pizza. It was a great evening with the girls and I enjoyed it very much. We all had a lot of fun and enjoyed the company. These girls always make me happy.

Christmas Eve was a busy time though. I spent about 3 hours wrapping gifts after Cami went to bed. They were all stacked on the trunk, the end table and the floor in front of them. She had a wonderful surprise in the morning. But she wasnt allowed to open them til we had breakfast with Grandpa. It took about two hours to go through everything and she was happy.

I know I complain about this every year, but who the hell puts the dolls in the boxes? You need a degree in engineering science to open the damn things!! Tape, tabs, strings and bands on everything!!! I can deal with the tape and I think some of that booger glue would work great to keep other things in place. What a time I had getting those things apart. At one point, I was pulling a doll off the backing and the head fell off and rolled on the floor. Cami screamed that I killed her. By this point I was laughing so hard. I had revenge!!! But apparently it was supposed to come off so that you can change the wig. Huh? Ive never heard of this before but at least my fun wasnt spoiled.

After all that, it was time to put the ham in the oven and take a little nap. All that Baileys and nog was getting to me. You think I was going to go through all that and not have a little nip of the bottle? Its not Christmas without the nog. And its not nog without the Baileys. Good thing for that half bottle of wine too. That was for after dinner. He he he....

All in all we had a great weekend. Its now Monday and it snowed last night. We didnt have a white Christmas but it was good enough. I prefer that no one has to travel in a storm. Im sure Santa can install wheels on the sleigh. The south got blasted though. The storm dropped about 5 inches of snow here but points south to NYC and Boston got buried.

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday and stay safe and warm for the new year to come.