Our Christmas

I posted the Friday Update, but I did not share about our Christmas.

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Well, we started off with getting up at 4:30am to have a beautiful 6:00am service at church followed by breakfast at church. We then went to my SIL's house to spend some time there. Charlie read from Luke 2:1-22 to keep us in the right frame of mind as we exchanged gifts. While we normally do three gifts for the children in the spirit of gold, frankincense, and myrrh (desired, personal, and spiritual), we did one gift per child each this year due to financial restrictions. Charlie received a v-tech laptop type educational/game-filled thing that can be hooked up to the computer and more games downloaded. We can also track his progress as he goes along. Bethany received a tiara-princess set complete with four tiaras, clip-on earrings, feathered boas, bracelets, wands, and microphones. She calls them her "beauties." Hannah received a broom, mop, dust mop, cleaning rags, etc set. Each of these, they have been sharing among the three of them and thoroughly enjoying them. They also received other gifts from people including hats, gloves, outfits, games, etc. These children are in no way deprived. And each gift they received has been met with excitement and gratitude. Each of the girls also has a new baby doll that they love. We put the old cradle that we had for Hannah (which was used maybe a handful of times) in their bedroom and the baby dolls share the cradle to go night-night in. They love it.

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From my SIL's house, we went to my best friend's house where we had a ham dinner complete with homemade rolls, twice baked potatoes, and all kinds of other yummy stuff. We got to hang out and talk while the children played. The only downer is her oldest got sick with a 24 hour stomach bug so she spent the day in bed feeling yucky and vomiting.

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We left there and came home. The children played with their toys and burned energy. When they were getting ready for bed, there was a crash. I looked in the kitchen and my husband, who was sitting at the computer in there, was flat on his back with his legs in the air. He was sitting in an old office chair with wheels and he leaned back. The chair went out from under him and he hit his head where the plate is on the chest freezer. It was a struggle, but I got him to sit up. He was disoriented, didn't know what happened despite repeated explanations. I called my SIL and she took the children while I took Husband to the ER in Indy. (The VA.) He was vomiting, had several seizures, and became non-verbal. The ER doctor, I did not like. His vitals were "fine." Yet, his bp was 150/103, O2 was 90%, and pulse rate was 143. The ER doctor classified that as "fine." The c-t scan showed nothing which doesn't surprise me. The c-t scan for my MIL showed nothing and yet there was a brain bleed. The neurologist who came in and did a neurological assessment, I liked. Husband did finally come around and it was very slow and stressful. (For me.) When he did become verbal, he did not know who he was. When I asked him who I was, he said "You are me." He said that that was his impression. He was going on feelings/impressions since he had no concrete knowledge. He did finally figure things out by the time we were being discharged, but he is still fuzzy on things. I am still keeping a close eye on him.

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On the drive home, we were driving in the snow storm. As I was driving, I saw lightening and heard thunder. Thunder Snow! I have not seen or heard that since moving to Indiana! I got all sorts of excited. There was a stretch of the drive where it was white-out conditions. But, we managed to get home safely. By the time we got home, I had been up for close to 23 hours.

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8:00 this morning, Husband is up and getting ready to start the day and talking about having to pick up chickens for friends of ours. I'm looking at the clock and saying "We don't have the children. We had a long day yesterday. I am tired. Let's go back to sleep." Nope. He is all sorts of energetic. So I drag my tired body out of bed, mumble something about life not being fair and listen to him call the chicken people and wake them up.