Merry Christmas: Part Deux

On the 27th of December our holiday trek 2012  continued... we woke up bright and early to head from Cincinnati to Columbus to catch a 10am flight to Omaha.  The flight went as planned and Ian was a pretty good boy on the plane. The only hiccup with this leg of the travel was that between all the time changes (hitting 3 different time zones between Denver, Cincy, and Omaha) I had the time an hour off for my mom to pick us up; so she was there an hour early circling the airport and freaking out that something bad had happened to our plane in the air. Whoops.

Anyway, we made it safe and sound and all in one piece. I am actually surprised we made it in the door before my mom suggested opening presents. Anyone who knows my mom knows that she gets so excited about gift giving she cannot usually wait until Christmas to open presents, and here we were 2 full days after Christmas. That being said, my sister had arrived there on Christmas day and they did open gifts with her prior to our arrival, so she had somewhat of a fix.

Don't worry it wasn't long after we got settled in the house that she started with "So, do you want to open a present?" Ian ended up falling asleep in my dad's arms midway through gift opening, so Dede came to the rescue and opened the rest of his presents. A good lesson for first time parents, do not... I repeat  DO NOT go overboard with lots of gifts for your baby, they do not care if you give them a box or heck even just a bow and some wrapping paper off someone else's gift. Save your money for another year.

uhhh...alright, let's do this present opening!

Loves cars!

Not so sure about this...

Back to our time in the big O...the rest of our trip was pretty much just lots of relaxing, hanging out, football watching, wedding planning, and eating/cooking good food...

Dede and her boy

All Ian really wanted for Christmas was his own iPad

All was good, right up until the day before we were supposed to leave. That's when hell broke loose. Ian got sick in the middle of the night with a terrible cold and was burning with a fever. I finally moved him from his pack-and-play into our bed because he just kept crying, which is so untypical so I knew he felt awful. Needless to say, we barely slept a wink. The entire next day we were exhausted and he wouldn't let us put him down. He was so pathetic and miserable.... he would cry with his low and sad eyes and then bury his head into my chest and yelp a little. He'd cough and cough and then whimper because of the pain from coughing. He wouldn't eat anything or take much of his bottle.  Babies are so helpless and sad when they are sick. And the worst part is they really can't take anything. Any normal adult with these symptoms would be loading up on cough meds, putting Vicks on their chest, and OD'ing on Mucinex, but all a baby can take is infant Tylenol. What is that going to do? I mean really... 

So poor little buddy was a complete mess. He pretty much slept in my arms the whole day and wouldn't let me put him down for a second. I felt so bad for him. At this point, we were getting nervous that we were supposed to get on a plane and leave to go home in the morning. So, John suggested we just rent a car and drive back so that we wouldn't subject him to the airport (germ heaven) not to mention he would have been a crying mess on the plane (F- for sure), and  I can't imagine the number it would do on his ears. Brilliant idea! Done! No plane for this baby.

The next day Ian seemed a little better, but we stuck to the plan and got a rental. This go around we got a lovely black SUV, and Ian and mama slept in the backseat together as dad drove us home. About mid-way through the 8 hour trip home we stopped for gas. When John got out to get the gas I woke up and grabbed the baby along with $5 cash to get a coffee, and ran inside to pee real quickly. Once I did my business, and got my hot drink, I headed back out to the car. 

You can imagine my shock when I got out there and the car was gone. My first thought was that John must have run across the street to the McDonalds to get food or something. I thought it was a little strange because my mom had packed us all these sandwiches for the road, but whatever maybe he decided he wanted a burger & fries instead. So I waited in the vestibule of the gas station truck stop in BFE Nebraska pacing back and forth with my sick baby on my hip. After 5 minutes or so I started to wonder if maybe John had pulled the car to the other side of the truck stop and I couldn't see him waiting there. So I walked outside and did a loop around the entire place. 

Hum, still no car. No John. WTF. 

I came back in and sat at this little table in the truck stop, and the owner came over to check on me....I must have had a distressed look on my face. 

Truck stop owner: Miss, is everything alright?
Me: Well, um no... I don't know what happened to my husband. He must have gone to get food. Is there somewhere other than the McDonalds across the street close by?
Owner: No Miss, just the McDonalds. Do you want a free cookie while you wait? 
(tempting, but my nerves weren't making that cookie very appealing)

Fast forward another 10 minutes. I've paced back and forth to the point that other patrons are taking notice. One woman came up and asked me what the car looks like... what is the license plate number... etc. As though I was going to know the plate number of a rental. Then when she could tell it wasn't helping she suggested I called him....

Me: Well, I would but I left my purse with my phone in it in the car. I was thinking I was just running in really quickly so I didn't bring it in.
Lady: Well, you are welcome to use my cell phone to call. 
Me: Oh that's sweet, but I actually don't know his number by heart. 

I know, I know. How in the hell do you not know your husband's number? I don't, it's just that simple. Lesson learned. The only numbers I know by heart are my parents number in Cincinnati from my childhood house (which isn't even valid at this point and hasn't been their number since they moved 2 years ago), and my dad's cell phone number. Honestly, the only reason I know my dad's is because it's been the same for like 10 years and whenever he leaves a message he never says his name or anything he just blurts out his number and generally repeats it like 3x. Needless to say, it's been a running joke in our family. 

So I decided to ask the truck stop owner if I could use their phone to call my dad.  He graciously handed the phone over despite me telling him it would be a long distance call. People are so nice in the sticks. 

{ring, ring}
Dad: Hello?
Me: Dad, hey, it's Sarah
Dad: Sar, where are you calling from?
Me: Well, um, I'm not really sure... a truckstop on the way back to Denver. 
Dad: Huh. Okay, what's up? 
Me: Can you tell me John's number? I need it and don't have it on me. 
Dad: What do you need his number for? Isn't he with you? 
Me: Well, he was. But we stopped to get gas, and I got out with the baby to go to the bathroom and came out and he's gone. He probably just went to get food or something, but I can't find him {insert me trying to come up with something so it does not look like his daughter and grandson were not just ditched in BFE} 
Dad: Oh. Hum...well... {insert him thinking what in the Sam Hell?!?!} yeah, hang on a second let me look it up. 

Thank God! I got his number and promised to call my dad back when we found John. I'm sure he thought this was just the craziest thing ever.

{ring, ring}
>> goes to John's voice mail. 


{ring, ring}
>> goes to John's voice mail. 

Third time's a charm....

{ring, ring}
John: Hello? 
Me: JOHN!??! Where in the hell are you? I'm freaking out. 
John: I'm coming back.
Me: Coming back???....What do you mean? Where did you go? 
John: Well, I left. I thought you were in the car. 
Me: In the car... what do you mean? You've been gone for 30 minutes!!!! 
John: Yeah, the exits are really far apart in the middle of nowhere and it took me an exit to realize that you weren't just sleeping in the back when I asked you to hand me my sandwich. 
Me: {CLICK}

So yes my friends, I was abandoned with my sick baby at a truck stop in the middle of nowhere Nebraska. That is how I ended my holiday. 

Merry Friggin' Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Merry Christmas : Part I

So I'm behind. My Christmas cards were late and this post re-capping Christmas is late. I'm a busy lady...deal with it.



We kept the McG tradition alive and went and chopped down a Christmas tree with Uncle Bacon. Unfortunately we have had such a mild winter (even up at higher elevations) so it wasn't the typical picturesque winter wonderland  for the tree chopping. Another big difference this go around is that I made John's life much easier because I decided to pick a small guy (knowing that we'd be out of town for most of the holiday). I literally put a quarter or less of our ornaments on the tree and maybe 3 strands of lights... we were all about simple this year. I couldn't handle another year of a tree crashing in the middle of the night (in case you need a refresher, read this post).

Mama & Ian look for a tree

No heavy lifting or strenuous saw-cutting required

Our Very Merry Charlie Brown Tree

We also made time to visit Santa so he would know what a good boy Ian has been. There were no tears...just lots of questioning looks.

"Now I'm sorry, but who in the hell are you?!" - Ian

"Hmmmppp....I'm not sure about you Santa" 

"Fine, we'll play your games and take a picture"

The holidays this year were a bit of a whirlwind. We decided that this was the year to make everyone happy and try to do it all....which meant we planned on being in both Cincinnati and Omaha over the Christmas holiday. You can hear about Omaha in Post No. 2 on Christmas.

Prior to taking off I let Ian open up a couple of his gifts. Including his "Christmas Jammies. " A long standing tradition in both the McGarry and Hennings households has been that you get a pair of Christmas PJ's every Christmas Eve as your one gift to open before the big day. As John and I have gotten old I'm pretty sure those are the only new pajamas we get all year. So we will be carrying this tradition on in our little family - also nice because you look somewhat put together on Christmas morning pictures.

Excuse his shirtless-ness, we were mid-way through putting on the pj's

Then, on Christmas Eve we flew from Denver to Dayton. Why it is so darn expensive to fly directly into Cincinnati I will never understand. Let's level... I can fly into MUCH more desirable and sought after cities in the US for $100's less...so irritating. Of course our flight was delayed which meant that little man was celebrating his Christmas Eve in the airport in his Christmas jammies.

Hanging at the airport 

We finally made it to Dayton at 12:30am (so really it was Christmas day), and by the time we got our luggage and whatnot it was nearly 1. In-freaking-sane. I think both John and I about lost it in delirious laughter when we started making our way to the rental car and realized that our assigned car was a bright "Grinch green" beaut. The best part was that they told us we were getting an upgrade. Riiiiiiggght.

We finally arrived at Debbie's (John's mom's) house at 2am. Needless to say we all slept in till like 9:30, and then the rest of the family slowly started to come over. Shortly after the family got there it was time for us to leave to visit an old friend (always on the go). John's good friend from childhood who grew up next door, Joe Haverkamp. Joe and his wife Kelly had a baby boy, Andrew, just a month prior to Ian...so this was the only opportunity we would have to get the boys together while were in town because Joe was leaving the following morning to go out of town. The boys were so cute together! The whole meeting was sort of surreal.... I mean John and Joe literally grew up together so for them it was really strange having children (not to mention both boys a few weeks apart).

Ian & Andrew

The boys and their boys

But the BEST part of getting the boys together was discovering that they both have "The Crazy Crawl." Everywhere we go when people see baby Ian "on the go" they comment, "Hum, now that's a new crawl," or "I've never seen that before...is that normal?" We've dubbed it "The Lt. Dan" in the McG house, and have grown quite accustom to Ian, "Lt. Dan-ing" (yes, it can be a verb) his way around the house.

So to answer an earlier question, yes, it's normal for Ian and Andrew it's normal.... 

Now let's cut to the chase. We ate Christmas dinner. We opened gifts. We spent time with family. We saw a couple friends and 48 hours later it was onto stop number 2. Below are some photos to document Christmas in Cincy.... and a picture is worth a thousand words so I will keep it brief.

Hanging with dad and Eva after opening gifts

PRESENTS!

Cousins!! 

Hanging with Nana

We met Mr. Anderson

Thankful & Holy

For Thanksgiving we traveled to Omaha... we opted to fly versus do 7+ hours in the car. The flight out there could have been better; we were off to a good start and then about 20 minutes into the hour flight all hell broke loose and Ian decided he wanted down/off the plane immediately and he was going to let everyone know it. He squirmed, he yelled, he slammed his arms. Refusing to be those parents who just sit there holding their screaming baby without really doing anything to help the situation, we were jumping through hoops... pulling out anything we could find to entertain him in addition to walking up and down the aisle. I was particularly surprised because on our previous flights with Ian he has been an angel, but I should have know better because he's a busy man now and doesn't want to be confined. Well, we made it... and John gave Ian an F- for his performance on the plane....threatening that if the return flight wasn't better that he wouldn't be allow on any future vacations.

My parents hosted the feast, and my Aunt Barb and Uncle Paul also stayed at my parents. My cousins Linda and Paul and their families also attended the festivities. I love when we can get a big group of the family together...seems like the older I get the more I cherish these types of things. It was a great day of family time and overeating. Yum Yum!

The Turkey! 

My little turkey

The"Adult Table"

Auntie B, Mom, and Sister

Ian and BFF "dog" 

A little feast complete with toys

The Saturday following turkey day we had Ian baptized at my parents church. Being honest...we don't belong to a parish here in Denver. And in order to have our child baptized they would require us to join the church, belong for 3+ months, attend some baptism classes, etc. After a combined (between John and I) 20+ years of Catholic schooling, in addition to us both being baptized, having our first communions, confirmations, and being married in the church (also requiring catholic pre-cana classes), it seems beyond ridiculous that they would require us to continue to jump through hoops to baptize our child. You think they would be thrilled that we are looking to bring more people into their church. Don't get me started. However, since my parents are pretty active in their parish the priest there said he'd do it without us having to do a thing other than showing up. Done deal...let's make this easy. We know that having Ian baptized was important to our families, but with us all in different cities it was going to require someone to travel no matter where we had it if our parents wanted to be there. In this case, John's mom came to the big O on Saturday morning for the baptism. She also brought our niece, Eva, along too. We were thrilled Eva could come; especially since this was the first time Eva met Ian.

"Dad, what are they doing?"

"Um... excused me what are you putting on my head?"

"What in the hell?" - Ian 

Nana and her grand babies

g'mom

Great Aunt B, Uncle Paul and Baby I

Pops, Dede, and Holy Ian

Ian was actually a total hoot through the whole baptism... he would hit his head and give questionable looks at the priest throughout...it was actually pretty comical...even Father Val was laughing. I'm telling you, this child is an old soul.  After the baptism we had some time to hang out with our mom's, my dad, sister, Todd, and Eva, which was a nice little bonus to the holiday weekend. On Saturday night my mom, sister, and I had Debbie teach us how to crochet... Debbie made Ian 2 beautiful afghan's that we use all the time, so we thought it would be fun to learn how to make them. Especially since my grandma (my mom's mom) Sadie was always knitting or crocheting and unfortunately never taught any of us before she passed away. The type of crocheting that Debbie taught us is called hairpin lace - while it was bang your head against the wall frustrating at first, once I got the hang of it I became a grandma-like crocheting psychopath and I haven't stopped since. I suppose I take after my namesake, grandma Sadie. John says it is because I have an obsessive compulsive personality, which is probably also true... I'm an all or nothing type of girl...and therefore I will have my first afghan complete before Christmas (and I'm hoping to have more than one by then). And, my mom and sister have not touched it since that Saturday night, yeah, I might have a problem. 

We stayed in town until Monday, and had planned to go to the Omaha Children's Museum with Eva and Ian (don't worry I was able to pry myself away from the crocheting). Unfortunately when we got there it was closed. Fail. So we ended up checking out the Zoo instead (which we had originally ruled out as an option because it was freakin' freezing). However, we were able to hit up a handful of indoor exhibits and made the visit worth-wild. The highlight was the aquarium; both Eva and Ian loved it.

 From there it was onward to the airport. We were stocked with lots of reinforcements to hopefully keep little man from getting another F-. I'm proud to say that he was quiet and super well behaved on the way home....our little secret was blueberries. That's right, blueberries. Ian love, love, LOVES blueberries so we brought a carton with us on the plane and doled them out one by one...it was a huge time suck and kept him happy. So happy, that  he ate the entire carton (imagine that diaper! Oh yea, blueberry blowout the next day). He was on target to get an A- post landing (the minus was due to some slight fussing when the blueberries weren't coming fast enough), but John dropped him down to a B+ when he started to fuss during the taxing in (and the berries were gone). Quite an improvement though! And he will be allow to vacation again, whew, because with Christmas around the corner he is due for more travels.