Stories From A Life Gone Crazy: Crafts, Vomit, and Wolves- that is how we roll

We, I, go through these bursts of energy followed by slumps. I had been in a slump and to get out of it we did some Christmas-y crafts. Luke loves art, coloring, drawing, and etc so I was sure he would be on board with some crafts. He was until I said--' I am going to trace your hand a few times and then cut your hands out.' Nope it was basically over right then. Not too very long ago he had stitches in his finger due to a scissors accident, it was pretty traumatic for him, so when I causally mentioned I was going to cut out his hand he had some intense post traumatic stress. I cut out the hands I had traced and glued them in a circle just so he could see what I meant, but he wanted nothing to do with it. I waited a day or two then moved on to different ideas.

Jack made this countdown chain at school and here is the hand wreath that caused so many problems.

We made toilet paper roll reindeer, glitter hand ornaments, and after seeing a Facebook friend do this- we made ice cream cone candy Christmas trees.

For the past month of so we have been dealing with slight sickness in our house-- nothing full blown-- and that was the problem in my eyes. I just wanted someone in the house to get really sick so that this stupid slight sickness would hit us hard and leave. Well, wish granted. Jack woke up in the middle of the night because his blankie was wet, I told him to go back to sleep. He then came back in our room about 5 minutes later to ask why there was gross stuff on him. I finally woke up and saw the child had thrown up everywhere and on everything. Let me just saw it was gross and the most vomit I have seen as a parent. The next day around lunchtime he seemed fine. It was around this time that Luke started not feeling well. He ended up with a 103 temperature for about 3 days and then he was fine. Hopefully, this is the end of sickness here for awhile.

During this time Thomas managed to skip being sick, but when he would cry in the middle of the night I started checking on him because I didn't want to find out I had let my kid sleep in vomit--which I have done before. One night I go to get him and he demands to be put down so he can find his shoes. He loves his shoes and wants to wear them all the time. Fine, it is actually before midnight why not see what happens. I let him down, he gets his shoes, I put them on him and now he goes downstairs to fetch me a diaper. Yes, he goes to the diaper box, finds me a diaper and some wipes and then lays down to be changed. Hmm... ok, he doesn't need a diaper change but apparently has a plan- I go with it. Then he walks into the kitchen and attempts to open the fridge. I get him some milk and a banana. Once this is done he walks to the front door and looks out the small window on the side. It is very dark out so I am not sure what he did or did not see, but he looks back at me and manages to communicate the rest of his plan-- go get daddy. Pete was studying and had the car, so this wasn't really going to happen and when I tried to tell Thomas this he just stood on his tiptoes reached the doorknob and began turning it. Luckily, there is a bolt and he is about half an inch too short to get a really good grip. Still, he kept demanding we go get daddy. At this point I knew he was going to get upset one way or the other so I took him back upstairs and started our normal going to bed routine from the beginning. He was fine with it, but did demand to see Pete when he woke up that morning.

Once everyone was starting to feel better we thought a trip outside would help rejuvenate our spirits. At Wolf Park they let the community come out and celebrate Christmas with the wolves. You go in and help put food in boxes for the coyotes and bison. Then you go out to one of the wolf enclosures, the wolves aren't there yet in case you were worried, and decorate a Christmas tree with stuff like spray cheese, bologna, twinkies, and hot dogs. Once this is done you sit on the bleachers and they let the wolves out. They narrate what is happening, talk about a wolf pack, tell you about the personalities of the wolves, and my boys love it. Then you get to walk around the park as they take the boxes you filled up earlier and give them to the coyotes and bison. The coyotes are pretty gross with their food-- instead of fighting one another- they just use the bathroom on their food so others won't eat it. Finally, it is back to one of the buildings for hot chocolate, cookies, and to meet Santa. They give the kids gifts, and pretty good ones too, and they let you take a picture with your camera. It was very cold, but Jack didn't mind in the least, he loved it.

Thomas and I walked back to the hot chocolate building before everyone else and on the way this wolf was staring us down

While we were at the Wolf Park there was a lull between feeding the wolves and the coyotes, and during this time Jack started asking Pete some questions about why Ruedi, an underling, had to go run off by the pond after Wotan, the head wolf, growled at him. Pete said it was like at home how Mom is in charge and if you make her mad then to get back in her good graces you better do exactly what she says and lay low. One of the main volunteers was standing nearby and overheard this conversation, told Pete that it was a great explanation. This made Pete's year.

We will be traveling to Kentucky soon and we have gone back and forth on whether or not to celebrate Christmas as a family before we leave or have Santa do all presents once in KY. Luckily, this hasn't really been something our kids have noticed or wondered about so their Santa innocence survives. Last year we did all presents in KY, but this year we thought we could divide them up into Family Christmas and Santa Christmas. This gives us, as a small family, a little memory making time. We did it this weekend so the kids would have a full week to play with gifts before we head out of town. Jack is so much older this year, I can't believe it really, he doesn't get allowance but has been getting some money for behavior at school and from losing teeth :), and he wanted to use it all to buy other people gifts. I absolutely love this. It wasn't prompted at all. One of these gifts was for Pete. At first he was stumped-- what to buy? We then talked about some of the things Pete likes, and then suddenly Jack's eyes lit up and he knew just what he wanted to get Pete. He and Pete spent some alone time together recently and they spent it in a cooking store-they both loved it by the way. Jack knew immediately he wanted to get Pete a knife of some kind-- well that was a bit out of his price range. Then he saw a paring knife with a small cutting board combo. It was still a bit out of his price range so when I asked if he would mind it being a gift from all the boys instead--he agreed because this was the gift for Pete. On the day of our Family Christmas he was so excited but not for the presents he was going to get but because he would finally be able to give Pete his gift. Pete had to open his gift first and as soon as Pete saw it there were tears. Pete knew the idea came from their special time together, he knew Jack really thought about it, and he saw just how excited Jack was to give this gift. It was a really special moment.