Mostly good Christmas

I had a mostly good Christmas. A few rocky spots, but the kids romped through with minimal crying.

They did stay up until 11pm on Christmas Day and then Little T fell out of bed at 4am with a loud thump and woke up crying. This symbolizes my Christmas for me. Mostly peaceful with occasional and unexpected thumps.

I'm still figuring out where the thumps come from. Part of it is that we visit my parents' house very infrequently except during the holidays. Mostly it's all managing the kids so that stress is minimized. Little T in particular has a certain routine and when that routine is disrupted, he cries. For a typical kid, this would be just part of the holidays. With Little T, I get into this space where I feel he's wasting calories. A bad space. We're a few months away to removing the g-tube forever. A feat we've accomplished by not stressing about calories and just working on feeding him.

Little T ate and ate and ate at my parents. I've never seen the boy eat so much. Honestly this was the highlight of my Christmas. I say this not to minimize the other joys of Christmas, but just that seeing him eating with such gusto after months and months of struggling with bags and bags of messy formula and vomiting and reflux filled me with such joy and pride.

Another joy was to see my little niece so healthy and active and curious and to watch Little T's utter adoration of her. He seems to regard her as his younger sister. In Burmese, there is no word for cousin, your cousins are your brothers and sisters. That's clearly how he feels. He loves babies in general. But he greets my niece as if she was the best baby on earth. She of course responds with a joyful smile. My niece doesn't bestow her smiles on everyone. She's a serious intense little girl who has things to grab, people to look at. It's funny how even at 6 months, personality is clear. Even as a newborn, she gazed at you with great intensity.

I had other joys and other rocky spots, a personal rocky spot -- my wrists and hands just gave out at about 7pm last night and started just aching a lot. A wrist soak and stretches and a good night's sleep got them to tentative okayness. But they are on the edge. Typing is one of the least stressful things I can do with them. Even so, I will rest them and end this post.