December 23, 2024 - Monday


It's the eve of Christmas Eve!!! Ben woke me up to say goodbye at 7am and I just couldn't fall back asleep. So I decided to get up and start baking cookies! In my mind, I was going to be in the stillness and quiet of my kitchen, drink a cup of tea, and bake some goodies to surprise the kids with when they woke up. What actually happened was that Ollie and Ruby came down within two minutes of me because they "heard something exciting happening". Ollie proceeded to lay on the ground right next to the kitchen and request things of me while I tried to bake. "Can you get me some milk?" "Why can't I have milk right now?" "Are you making me banana muffins?" "Can I have one right now?" "What's for breakfast?" "Can I crack the eggs for you?" Very relaxing. I really got some good time to meditate on the season. *eye roll* An hour later, everyone was awake and working on their chores...which resulted in loud bickering for the next hour, along with me counting people and yelling that everyone needed to stop yelling. Good times! Finally, the baking was done, and I took Ollie and Jonas to Target to get Ben's Christmas presents. As crowded and terrible as the store was, it was soooo relaxing compared to being at home with all the kids fighting! Can I also just add how amazing it is to be able to leave Clem home alone now?? I still felt like I needed to stay close and check in really frequently, but wow. So liberating! 

After Target, I treated the kids to McDonald's and then took Ollie and Jonas BACK out to Round Table, the nerd store. We got some MtG cards for Ben and looked around at games for a while. And then I wrapped presents and relaxed for the rest of the day, after getting home! Not bad. Ben and I went to the grocery store in the evening. I needed lots of stuff for food for the next three days and I just couldn't do it while I was at Target earlier. Too crazy! Sadly, right after we checked out, Ben freaked the f out. I saw on the ring camera that someone stopped by the house and Ben took off like the house was on fire, racing home as fast as he possibly could. I saw on the camera that it was the woman that the kids rake for, but it didn't matter to him. He was in a complete panic that the kids weren't safe. I tried to reason that we literally leave Jonas and Clemi at this woman's house alone a couple of times each year, but it meant nothing to him. She was just dropping off a gift for the kids. *sigh* It was very upsetting to me and then Jonas cried for a really, really long time because Ben's fear looks like anger and Jonas saw it as being directed towards him. It was just a mess. 

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