Now it's a holly jolly mess

I just haven’t had the opportunity or the inclination lately to spend much time on the computer. I’m just feeling a bit exhausted and over extended after all the holiday hubbub. My house is in a complete shambles, it looks like Christmas threw up on it – with half opened gifts and partially put away decorations everywhere. It’s depressing me just thinking about it. In fact I should be tidying up right now, but somehow the blog got priority today.

So now that the ho-hums and blahs are out of the way – the holidays themself were really fantastic. Noah was in seventh heaven. Santa, Mama and Daddy were modest in their purchases, but he was delighted nonetheless. Among his stocking stuffers was an astronaut Spinbrush which is what he mentions when you ask what Santa brought him. The grandparents however were less modest in their purchases and he got a train table, a train set, and a rocking horse as his primary gifts. Luckily family members also heeded my cries and put money into his education savings accounts and stuck with small gifts like markers and Play-Doh. Noah’s primary play activities now are all sorts of imaginative play where he acts out everything from baking cookies, the Nutcracker/Mouse King battle, a doctor checkup (sometimes with his new doctor kit sometimes with the drill from his tool kit), being a cat locked in the basement all night, appearing in the circus and accidentally breaking a window. Next on the play agenda are all sorts of arts, building, puzzles and trains of all sorts. Oh and of course books. We read all the time.

And have I mentioned that he talks NON-STOP. Seriously. I hadn’t even realized how much chattering he does until I went out for a few hours the other afternoon and when I got back I thought “Holy crap. That boy doesn’t take a breath.” And he knows everything. His vocabulary is insane and his questions are unstoppable. This morning he asked me “What are fireworks?” which seemed an even harder question than last nights query about why his fingers get wrinkly in the bath.

What did the adults get for Christmas? Cash, thankfully. It’s just so nice to pay down that credit card bill. It’s not a fun gift to shop for but sometimes it’s what you really, really need. We also got some clothes, a DVD/VCR, a veggie chopper, some gift cards and a new set of knives. It’s all about necessity here at House of Eggerts. With the never-ending charity and understanding of our family members we are able to scrape by with me at home with Master Noah. And for that no amount of thank yous seem sufficient.

So what else has been up? Last week I took Noah to the Academy of Natural Sciences to see the dinosaurs and the butterflies. He absolutely adored it – especially the live animal show we saw in the auditorium. He keeps reenacting how the woman brought out an animal and then took guesses from the audience on what it eats and where it lives. Last night he was doing the animal show with Mark when he said that our cat Parker lived at home with his Mama. When Mark asked who was Parker’s Mama Noah initially said Spy, our other cat. When Mark laughed Noah corrected himself and said that he was indeed Parker’s Mama. Mark asked him what Mama’s do and Noah said they get lunch. He then insisted on getting Parker new food and water. The only downside of the Academy visit is that I think looking at the life-size dinosaur displays may have triggered Noah’s recent talk about a monster with black feet that is in our house. The fear hasn’t gotten too serious yet, but we have had to search the house twice to make sure he wasn’t here. We also went to meet Mark for lunch at work last Friday and have my “work luncheon.” We went to Lemongrass for fantastic Thai food and discussed my job efficiency and career goals. Not sure if Noah is my boss or my direct report though – I should probably ask for an employee flow chart.

Sadly our plans to see my sister Jessica last week were delayed by her being sick, but I’m happy to report she’ll be joining us this weekend. Noah is counting down the seconds until she gets here. I had hoped her being here last week would alleviate some of the post-Christmas mood crash since it was hard and disappointing to tell Noah that Christmas was indeed over. We even got rid of our tree early because it was hard to keep telling him Christmas was over but yet all the vestiges of it were here.

I’m VERY excited that it seems my sister Elisha and her son Hunter will be visiting us sometime in February. I’m just so excited I could burst. I don’t know how I’m going to let them go back to Florida though. Someone might have to forcibly hold me back.

On New Years Eve we attempted to take Noah to a Baby Disco celebration complete with music and a countdown to noon. I mistakenly thought since the venue was large that we didn’t need advance tickets. After we stood in line for a half hour we were told it was sold out. We were able to placate Noah’s “I want to go to party” by taking him to a delectable lunch at Honey’s, and then to the world series of toddler activities – the pet store and Ikea (where he played in the blueberry basket and was undoubtedly infected with the ick from which we are all now suffering.) After putting him down for a late nap we kept the boy up to midnight to walk over to the river and watch the fireworks. He LOVED them. The noise “(They go bang, bang, boom, boom!”) especially. It was indeed a magical way to welcome the New Year – and a reminder of all the exciting things that 2007 have in store for us – more time together appreciating our lives and each other. For me it really doesn’t get any better than that.

Oh and there are a million funny things and precious moments, but damned if I can remember them right now. Plus I better go put some stuff away. Or at least figure out a new way to post photos.