JINX
Moments after I finished writing the last post....you know, the one where I ended saying everything was perfect? There was a loud crash and much screaming....the fucking Christmas tree had fallen over. What was I thinking saying things were perfect? JINX! Now if you read this you'll know that this isn't the first time we've had this happen. What the fuck? We've had tons of trees and this never, EVER, happened until the last couple of years.
Now we'd spent the first part of the day at my parents' house and I was feeling a little worn out and a little..well, a LOT, stressed about getting everything done at my mom's house for the closing and everything done at our house for the party....well, it's not that I'm THAT stressed out about the party-----just getting everything done for life basically. So I guess I was a tiny bit on edge.... Once I determined that Owen was o.k. after having the tree fall on him (the star thunked him on the head, shouldn't that mean something?) I fell apart. The boys reported that one of my beloved Uncle Mistletoe ornaments was smashed and I just sobbed and sobbed. Way to have a meltdown in front of your children.... The boys huddled around me hugging me and patting my back. Finally Ernie took over and held me as I cried. "Everything is going away," I sobbed. They were the loud, ugly kind of sobs but I just couldn't stop them.
They tried to get the tree back up and it managed to fall again. I just kept crying and the boys kept patting my back. Ernie kept swearing. God, I love them all so much.
As it turns out we've got a couple of things going against us. First, we buy the cheapest trees and the trunks are really pretty soft so the screws in the stand kind of keep going instead of stopping....does that make any sense. Then, our floors aren't very even....you don't notice except for times like this or when the boys were learning to walk and they'd hit a downhill slope.... And then, Leo pointed out the fact that the trunk of our tree is straight coming up out of the stand but then angles off. So....what to do? I don't freaking know. Our other two trees seem perfectly sturdy but this one.....sigh....
The tree is back up but suffice to say it's pretty much UNdecorated now and no new decorating went on.
The cold that has been threatening me off and on for the last week finally hit full force (and I have a whopping case of petechia around my eyes) so I am taking a sick day and trying to recover. Too much to do at home and at work not to just rest and try to get over this asap. Ernie's off getting bloodwork, I'm checking emails, writing this and then might go back to bed and see if sleep will help.
Oh, and I gotta say that I really love my husband because at one point in the midst of all the chaos, when he was trying to lift the tree off the ground and get it back up he suddenly stopped and yelled, "OH MY GOD, WHERE'S MICHAEL?" Owen piped up and reassured him that the Michael Jackson ornament was o.k.
Owen insisted on shoveling a path for me when we got to my mother's house yesterday....