Happy Birthday Jesus...Let's Have a Poop Fest

C'mon kids, don't you know that Christmas is a sacred day? These things shall be held sacred: you shall sleep until at least 8 am on Christmas morning, you shall eat some sort of baked good for breakfast and you shall not take a disgusting poop that your mother has to clean up! Well, our Christmas morning was one for three. Our kids were up at 6:30 and despite us trying to convice them that Santa just may take their stuff back for getting up that early, they called us on our bluff and were ready to have at it. We did have a delicious baked good for breakfast after the disgusting show of materialism at its best followed by all three of my kids taking utterly disgusting number twos. I mean, seriously, on Christmas? But, what do you do?

If you are wondering where your Brogan family Christmas card is, well, honestly, it isn't even started yet. I am so behind that I had to give Matt's mom an IOU for Christmas because I also haven't even started the calendar we usually give her each year. And, as if to rub my face in my personal failures, I get a beautiful Christmas card from my good friends the Smiths (it was really cute Kerry), and I was like c'mon...even the Smiths got their Xmas card out and I don't even have a decent picture of my three kids together! (Kerry, I hope you know that I write this in love and appreciate the fact that I measure my personal failures against your successes).

We did have a big week if you don't count Christmas with the fact that Zach had his ENT visit, had another raging ear infection and had tubes four days later (he got them this Tuesday). All in all, it went pretty well. He was super peeved when they brought him back from recovery but a bottle, cereal bar and 4 hour nap later he seemed to be back to his old sweet self. He seems to be having some balance issues (or maybe it is the new laminate floor we put in (courtesy of Dennis) but I'm sure he will adjust. Apparently the ENT had to suck a whole bunch of crap out of his ear, and give him two more shots of antibiotics as the regular stuff just doesn't seem to cut it anymore, so hopefully this procedure will take care of all of that.

Ben and Maddie had a great Christmas morning, but Ben is a little confused on the finer points of how Christmas works. We kept asking him if he thought Santa came and he ran right by his presents to go upstairs to see if Santa was outside. So, he was a little disappointed by the fact that he didn't get a personal visit and present delivery from Santa Claus (thank you Polar Express), but did enjoy his spoils. Maddie just does a really good job of following Ben's lead. They were both pretty fascinated by the fact that Santa ate their cookies and drank their milk, more so then the fact that the old fat guy spent way too much on them bringing them all this great stuff that they asked for and then some, so....note to self for next year:)

I hope you and yours all had a great Xmas season and I promise I will get a card out as soon as I get a decent picture of all three of my kids, in other words, 2017. Merry Christmas everyone oh, and Happy Birthday Jesus!

I Don't Even Know Where to Start

It feels like I have been going non stop yet getting nothing done for the last several weeks. I have been CONSUMED with work, which is both good and bad. Our auction ended today and was a huge success, which makes the hard work seem sort of worth it, yet I look back at the last three weeks and it seems like a blur. We have also been having some crazy medical things with Zach. I can't even remember what my last blog was about, if I touched on the hospital trip with a chest xray and blood draws and antibiotic shot (s) for the ear infection that wouldn't go away. So last week we had his nine month check up/ear check up and the infection was gone (finally!) but being the monster he is, his head is abnormally large (and keeps getting bigger). To be on the safe side we had to get a head ultrasound to make sure there was no fluid around the brain. So three hours and much negative musing later, I hear back from the doctor that he is fine...just big headed. We are off to the ENT and tubes will most likely be in our immediate future (and hopefully before the end of the year as we have an already met deductible). Then there was a week or two there when Matt and I were toying with the will we/won't we go to the bowl game with the Hawks. The answer was we would go to Phoenix, we would go to Orlando, but not so much Miami. Now, we are back to deciding where we will head this spring for our five year anniversary (I am happily accepting destination advice). Ben and Madilyn continue to do pretty well at school. Ben is still having a pretty hard time getting dropped off, but is always having fun when we pick him up. He has been incessantly singing Frosty the Snowman as he will be performing this Friday at his preschool holiday party. I'm pretty pumped for our first preschool concert. Poor Zach, I'm sure by the time his first preschool concert comes around I'll be like "really, this Friday?....hmmm....I'll check my calendar." Ben has been trying to discipline me and Matt by saying things like "do you understand?" "is that a deal?" following long diatrides that usually include things like I will eat this pop tart and then wear my pajamas the rest of the day, do you understand? or I am going to play with Thomas trains all day, not go to bed and cry when you drop me off at school, is that a deal? Pretty great. Madilyn is two going on thirty five. She is learning all of Ben's xmas songs by osmosis, and claims that Jingle Bells is her song and is happy to tell you that if you try to sing it around her. She does awesome at school and we are going to try to knock out potty training over Matt's shutdown. That would mean Ben is out of pull ups and Maddie would be out of diapers. Throw a party...two down, one to go! Now, if we can just knock off paying daycare and buying formula, we may just be millionaires! BTW, if you are usually a person on my Xmas card list and I think I have resigned to the fact that I won't be doing Xmas cards this year. I might send out a nice holiday email or something, but seriously, the cards cost us like $50 and then it's another $100 for the postage...that is a nice Xmas present for me:) Or a charity or something. Anyway, I am eating into my precious alone time, so I best scat...I'll try to be a better updater:) And dieter:) and exerciser:)...who am I kidding? It'll probably be another three weeks, I'm having a snack before I go to bed and I may work out one more time this month (to bring my grand total up to twice). Ah, got to love winter.