Somehow, we made it through this last week. I had a big entry ready to post before heading out to John’s parents’, but gotta love a kid’s ability to chose the wrong time to attack the keyboard. It’s probably better that happened, as I was furious with John at the time and wanted to throw up, so my mood wasn’t exactly positive.

The trip to the mountains for Christmas was tiring. Granted, it’s pretty pathetic I had to move to California to have a white Christmas, but it was a treat to see the snow. The rain we’d received at home which created the lake in our playground, gave Frazier Park around four inches, and the higher mountains even more. I kept telling myself to take a picture of the snow, but I was so stressed and tired (will explain) I never got around to it.

Ashleigh chose the most inopportune time (as children always do) to experience her first case of separation anxiety. Not only did she HAVE to be in the same room with Mommy, she HAD to be within arms reach. This meant either grabbing my butt by the pants, clinging to my ankles, or, most frequently, behind held. Ugh. The first night we had a total of three hours sleep. Ash cried in the play pen, had a hissyfit in the bed with us, and only fell asleep with John in the recliner as I caught three hours myself.

The hardest part was her inability to take a nap without us holding her. Not just to fall asleep, but for the entire nap. Definitely not like my usual Ash Plus, my little girl, aka, Belly, probably only ate a day’s worth of food during the entire trip. This was courtesy of her sudden change in attitude regarding feeding with determination to push all spoons away, and throw anything on the floor.

Add to all of this, the wonderful what-I-thought-was-a-24-hour-bug-turned-into-a-three-day-crappola-thing. Sunday, the day before we left, I was in bed almost all day, unable to even lift Ashleigh, unable to keep anything down. The next two days I had maybe two full meals, some Gatorade, and a lot of dizzy spells. I just wanted to go back home. The only reason I stayed up there was the fact Ash was experiencing her first Christmas (last year she was sleeping in a stocking), and well, I didn’t want to be rude to John’s parents. Oh, I almost forgot - because I was so sick and dehydrated, I didn’t take my Lithium(would dehydrate me even more), so Momma was just a wee bit snappy with everybody.

All of the above mentioned, and I’m still alive. Ashleigh was much more enthused about her presents and unwrapping them than at the previous family party. She eventually separated herself from my lap the day before we left, and blessed us by finally sleeping in the play pen that night. Thankfully, Ash was back to normal as soon as we arrived home, running around the apartment as if checking to make sure it was all still there. All the crap of the week was worth it, though, to see my daughter digging into the presents, and running towards me with a huge grin and fistfuls of wrapping paper. She rocks.