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Christmas is over and I survived. To be honest, I barely noticed Christmas personally this year. I worked Christmas Eve until about 7pm, after which I met up with Frank at his Aunt's house where his whole family was gathered. My own family was scattered to the four winds this year. Frank's godson really loved his present from us and we got a few goodies from the fam. The multiple Lowe's gift cards were especially appreciated, as was the cash from the MIL which will be burned at an overpriced maternity wear shop soon enough. We got home around midnight. I wrapped gifts for my charges and then we went to bed.

I was up bright and early Christmas morning to go back to work. I worked until 1:30, then headed to Lora's to enjoy the peace and quiet of her annual Christmas boycott while Frank was at work. I headed home around 5pm to feed the dog and let her out. I built a fire and put A Christmas Carol on the television and was asleep with the dog and cat on top of me by 9pm. Frank got home after 10 and we watched some tv together and then went to sleep. Merry Christmas.

Next Christmas of course will be a completely different story, and we're looking forward to the fun of it. The chicken will only be 8 months old at Christmas and will have no idea what's going on but it'll still be fun. I'll have a different job next year and I'm looking forward to being able to focus on my own family's Christmas. I think that our little family is staying home next holiday season and if folks want to see the boy on Christmas Day, they can come to us.

The big move went extremely well. Those packers and movers were more efficient than I'll ever be in my whole life. Alberta was a phenomenal help on moving day. We had the whole kitchen and downstairs area unpacked that day. It was a lot of fun to realize that we don't live in an apartment anymore and that there's actually storage space for things! I have an attic and a basement and a linen closet for crying out loud! Not everything is unpacked and right now the baby's room is full of unpacked, rifled through boxes. It's all clothes and crap from our old bedroom. There is a box of books from my teaching days that I'm planning to put on the chicken's bookshelf that we don't have yet so that's just there in a corner.

The closet in baby's room has been commandeered by Mama because really, it's a whole adult sized closet which is really wasted on a person who can fit their clothes in a shoebox. We'll get a nice, baby sized armoire for the chicken's clothes and I will have my own closet for the first time in almost 6 years. The baby won't notice for a couple of years at least and that gives me plenty of time to turn the third floor room into a walk in closet.

The unpacking of the clothes has hit an impasse because there's just nowhere to put them. Frank's closet shelves are piled to the ceiling with his tshirts and I'm keeping a few of my most frequently worn things in the baby's dresser. I've made progress packing up summer clothes and storing them (I have an attic people) but there are piles of things that keep getting moved around because there's nowhere for them to go.

Why don't we go buy ourselves some dressers? Oh but we have. Frank went to Ikea weeks ago and purchased two lovely dressers that match our brand new bed. They just need to be put together. Frank does not enjoy assembling Ikea furniture while I get an enormous (and a little weird) sense of satisfaction from the task. I got to work on the dressers the day after Christmas. My plan was to have both of them put together and full of clothes from unpacked boxes that day. Alas, it was not to be. In trying to affix the top of the six drawer, almost as tall as me dresser onto the wobbly base being held together by pressboard beams, I dropped the top piece through the middle of the almost dresser, snapping the beams and ripping the little wooden dowels out of the wood. This development coupled with my current emotional stability of a two year old had me in tears on the phone with Frank, cursing the evil that is Ikea. Then I took a nap because it was all very stressful and upsetting.

Of course, they don't sell or supply replacements for the parts I destroyed. So the dresser parts are just in our hallway, not good for anything but we can't bring ourselves to throw out something brand new that we never even used. The other dresser remains flat packed in its two boxes, one in the foyer, one in our bedroom. I won't go near it because due to my new Ikeaphobia and Frank still hates to do it.


So my clothes keep getting shuffled from box to box and I just keep washing and wearing the same things. Hopefully some time in the next 3 months we'll have the chicken's room looking like a nursery rather than a store room.

I started this post so long ago I don't even remember what my point was. Maybe this is why I'm a nanny instead of a literary genius.