Wordful Wednesday: A Christmas Lilahbility

It's the day after the day after the day after Christmas and the gifts have all been opened.  (Well, not all, actually - we're saving a few of Lilah's for a rainy day.  Oh, who am I kidding?  It's winter in Vancouver, they're all rainy days!  More accurately, we're saving them for a bored and grumpy day.)  The turkey has been devoured, the joy and excitement felt, the giggles shared, and the photos snapped.

 

A little Christmas morning magic

My tongue and teeth hurt from all the crap I have eaten over the past few days, and  yet, as I sit here, I am unwrapping yet another mini Toblerone bar.  Santa put too many in my stocking and I just can't stay away.  Besides, I have only a few more days to indulge before those darned New Year's Resolutions must be abided.

Another Christmas is over, and I have that feeling of satisfaction, fullness, and restlessness that comes in the wake of overindulgence, time with family, and barely-contained chaos.  It was a good one, my friends.

My Christmas spirit had been almost completely quashed by Lilah's illness during the two weeks leading up to the festivities.  I wrote about it here, but little did I know that it wasn't actually over at that point.  Two more days of vomiting and diarrhea had us driving to a drop-in medical clinic at 5pm on Tuesday.  All we got from that was a little reassurance and a requisition for a stool sample.  You'll have to get the Hubs to share that story someday - a whole new high in his parenting experience, I assure you!  But by Wednesday she was starting to seem a bit more like the Lilahbility we know and love, so we decided to proceed with our plans to head to the top of Grouse Mountain for our breakfast with Santa.  Well, this is how that turned out:

It was a little ambitious, perhaps.  No matter, the Hubs and I enjoyed our buffet breakfast, and Lilah was so exhausted by the whole experience that she dozed off during the four minute gondola ride back down to the bottom of the mountain and then fell into a deep sleep on the car ride home.  I think she'll enjoy it a lot more next year, when she is a little older and more Christmas-savvy and (knock on wood) not just getting over an epic tummy bug.

The real magic happened on Christmas day.  It was enough  to make me believe in Christmas miracles again.  Our girl, who has been under the weather and a little sad for quite some time now was happy and smiling - an absolute delight all day long.  And she ate.  Boy, did she eat!  The clinginess and whines for "mama" of the past few weeks were replaced with giggles and cute scrunchy-faced smiles.  And that was the best Christmas gift we could ever have asked for.  My new camera accoutrements, tickets to Cirque du Soleil, and bath products were really just icing on the cake.



Christmas finery provided by Grandma and Grandpa

We arrived at my in-laws' place long before the rest of the family, so there was plenty of time to bond with Grandma and Grandpa (after the requisite warm-up period, of course), admire the tree and decorations, and for Lilah to indulge in a long winter's nap before things got really chaotic: 

It's not a wild and crazy Christmas dinner unless someone takes their clothes off.
(In her defence, her three-year-old cousin did it first.)

If you were wondering how she got the belly in the last photo, this would be it.
Apparently ice cream is now a finger food.  The spoon was purely for show.

I think we are now officially in the "holiday hangover" phase.  There are a few extra Toblerone pounds on my frame.  There are brand new toys strewn across my living room that the Hubs and I have been tripping over a hundred million times a day.  There is a lop-sided gingerbread house with most of the candy decorations picked off, looking a little sad and forlorn on the kitchen counter.  All proof that things are just as they should be at this time of year.