The Hardy Life: seasons

The ground outside is covered in snow and looks much more like Christmas than this December day did:

But even if it weren't a winter wonderland outside, Clara is still talking about Christmas daily, watching the Curious George Christmas special once a week, singing Jingle Bells and naming creatures Rudolph and Donder. It's so hard to let go of Christmas when it all comes screeching to a halt on December 26, isn't it? How do you begin to explain to a 2 year old who you've been hyping up for weeks that it simply disappears?

Well, over here at The Hardy Life I'm behind on blogging, per usual, so we're going to indulge those feelings and just take a couple of posts to remember Christmas (and the time leading up to Christmas.) We were busy as most are this time of year and also had far more sickness than we would have really cared for. Right after Thanksgiving Clara had another ER visit for mysterious, yet oh so violent vomiting. The doctors aren't sure the source of these episodes (this is the second one now), but because her anatomy is a little goofy from her original repair she eventually begins vomiting dark green bile which is a big no no for any one with a history of abdominal surgery. We always worry about reherniation or a bowel obstruction and end up doing a bunch of x-rays and tests in addition to zofran to stop the vomiting and IV fluids to get her hydrated again. Fortunately, this time it was neither and we have a better plan after consulting with a GI specialist in January should this happen again. The working theory at this point is that she may suffer from Cyclic Vomiting Syndrome (CVS) which would be totally unrelated to her CDH, but dealing with both diagnoses means having to always rule out the yucky stuff first. Just a couple of weeks after recovering from that, she came down with a super nasty virus that we eventually determined was RSV. She got vaccinated against it her first two winters, at significant cost to Blue Cross Blue Shield, but was no longer eligible this year. Now we know why we spent so much of those first two winters in quarantine. Boy was it wicked. We narrowly avoided a hospital admission and were thankful when we came out the other side intact.

All that to say, we didn't get to do everything that we had planned for Advent and Christmas. When you get sick, especially as sick as she was with RSV, everything else just comes to a screeching halt. But as I look back over these photos (many from my phone, sorry about the quality there), I realize that we did okay making the most of it! And there's always next year for the live nativity and the Christmas brunches and Gingerbread parties and whatever else we ended up missing this year.

I had made Clara this cool interactive advent calendar (thank you Pinterest) with a special activity for each day inside. They didn't all happen because of the sickness, but we did many and she had fun.

Here she is playing with her nativity scene that stayed out along with the 7-8 others that are for grownup hands only.

Decorating the Christmas tree...

Please, please forgive me for this someday, Clara.

Breakfast with Santa (the highlight for Clara was the "characters" of Rudolph and Frosty. She would NOT STOP HUGGING THEM. It was hilarious and adorable.)

A ride through the Tanglewood Festival of Lights:

Christmas at Old Salem, including a carriage ride around the square:

Christmas party at SciWorks (and another visit with Santa!)

The Children's Christmas party at church:

Clara loved dressing up as a snowman:

And checking on the baby Jesus in the manger

And then... the RSV hit. This is festive, right?

We brought back the elevated bed and NICU bed rolls (toddler style). Some skills you just don't lose.

Whew. I do not care to repeat that again.

She missed her preschool Christmas Party and PJ day and Polar Express, but I did snap some photos of these super cute displays they had on the walls:

And she enjoyed opening her present from her teachers...

And opening Christmas cards from lots of loved ones:

And here she's "playing" nativity with all these stuffed animals. (Baby Jesus is that striped monkey. I can't remember who else is who!) So sweet and dear.