Sunday, January 4, 2015

First Christmas

Dear Ellie,



I've been procrastinating about writing a letter about your first Christmas.  The reason?  This Christmas was a little bit tense.  The first problem was that your feeding issues made a resurgence.  It became, once again, exceptionally difficult to get any milk into your stomach.  The only silver lining was that we didn't work quite as much due to the holidays so your mother and I were able to perform the magic shows, dances, and clown acts necessary to slowly--- and painfully--- drip milk into your mouth.  That, and it turns out the Christmas tree worked some Christmas magic on your tummy, too.  You see, a Christmas tree is just dangling with distractions.  We couldn't have asked for a better baby distraction from Santa himself.

If it had just been the feeding issue, it wouldn't have been too much of a holiday dampener.  But while the holiday season is oft referred to as "the most wonderful time of the year," this year it was "the most pestilent time of the year."  A dangerous strain of (reindeer?) flu came sweeping down through Martin County: one which your flu shot would not completely protect you from.  If Santa Claus was coming to town, his sleigh wasn't being drawn by magical reindeer, but instead the Seven Horsemen of the Apocalypse.  Worse yet, just about everyone in the family seemed to get it, so we spent Christmas and New Years pretty much cloistered.  If you were to compare our Christmas to Judea-Christian lore, it was less like Jesus chillin' in the manger and more like Passover, wherein we whimpered indoors while those outside were wracked by the ten plagues of Egypt.  With all of your feeding issues already causing problems, we were terrified by how much worse things might get with a 105 fever.  The events of last Christmas just added to our paranoia.

Last Christmas, your mother came down with the flu on Christmas Eve, and while she spent that Eve writhing in bed, I was shuttling ice filled towels back and forth between the bedroom and refrigerator in an attempt to break her fever.  She was pregnant with you at the time and we were worried sick that it might cause--- well--- exactly the kind of thing that ended up happening anyway.  We had no desire to repeat history.

So we more of less hung out at Grandma Raju's through Christmas and kept it on the down low.  Still, it was nice to relax with your Grandma, Uncle Tom, and Miss Fortune the kitty cat for a few days.


Also, before the outbreak began, we were able to enjoy the weather and even go to see the big man himself, though these two things did not coincide on the same day.  We went to see Santa in an outdoor venue and poor Santa was wilting in his coat beneath the 95 degree heat and infamous Florida humidity.


When I had a chance to ask Santa for something, I just told him to make sure you were crawling by Christmas.  And sure enough, you did!  More on this later...

6 comments:

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    1. I'm afraid we haven't gotten any good videos of her crawling, ha. But yeah, when she wants something that isn't right in front of her--- vrooom! Off she goes.

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  2. Yay for Crawling, boo for the flu! Everything is really going around this year. I hope you guys figure out her eating thing soon, that is so stressful. I wish I could have some of that 95 degree weather! The outdoor thermometer at home this morning read -10.

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    1. Yeah, it looks like we dodged the flu fortunately! It seems like the eating thing is gradually resolving to, so thanks for thinking about her! Right now, we're getting just a taste of that frigid northern weather (it's around 50 degrees over here: brrr!) I hope you guys weather the winter well :-)

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  3. XOXOXO Ellie!! Love Unicorn36 (Karalyn)

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    1. Thanks Unicorn! Ellie sends her regards to your little one ;-)

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