A Minnesota Christmas Season

Around here, we encourage the kids to shovel snow for fun. This little girl went out in her blanket sleeper, wearing her mom's stylish scarf, just so she could shovel. We now have a big snow pile at the bottom of our back steps which will remain until sometime next May, but if she continues to enjoy shoveling, it's well worth it.
I have reached the point where I no longer need to control every aspect of the decorating. This year, the family adorned the tree without me. For smiles like that, it's totally worth it.
That got Lynae in a festive mood, so she modeled some clothes she received in a package from Grandma Martin.
One day this month, the roads were particularly treacherous. I sent Toby to take pictures of the drama outside our door. I'm not sure why he inserted himself in this picture, but his expression just invites speculation, doesn't it?
Christmas morning. What a thing! The children dug into their stockings long before we started opening gifts. One of the first presents Grace opened contained these beautiful hair clips. She doesn't need a mirror to perfect this style! And just look at that face... wanna guess how much sugar she's had?
When she lost her other front tooth a few days ago, you know what song we taught her...

Toby and Lynae received a joint gift. "Uh... Mom, it's Norton Utilities. Isn't Norton that stuff you'll never put on any of our computers?"
"Oh, whew! It's just the box. Look at these amazingly awesome compasses we got instead!"
Here's our ragtag bunch at the end of the day. This picture tells a dozen stories, not all of them blogworthy. But get a load of that weird patch on Mike aka Camo Boy's head.
That's not Photoshop, folks. It's Curad.

Let me back up, just for a sec. For many years, the unique nature of our family has required that we take a break in the middle of opening Christmas gifts. But we're making progress. This year when things were getting out of hand I mentioned taking a break, but we recovered (snicker) and kept going.

Five minutes later, Lynae brought over a gift for her and me and began to open it. As she did, Michael darted away. A split second later, I heard a thud in the next room. Mike aka The Storyteller came back, holding his head. "Ow, ow. I was just walking along, and I bumped into something." Uh-huh... turns out, in that split second he ran through the dining room, around the corner, through the foyer, and up the stairs, where he slipped and hit his head on the newel.

We then took a 10 minute break while we cleaned up the blood trail, assessed the damage, and ran through the likely scenario if we drove him to the ER, got the 2-3 stitches in his forehead, and returned home to the rest of Christmas. Then I replayed in my mind the portion of the drive where I second guess my decision to make the trip to the ER, stop speeding, and wonder if I should turn around and get out the butterfly bandages instead. (For the locals: It starts at the cemetery on 43 and ends at Two Sons Road, by which time I have cell reception and have gotten necessary assurance from my dear husband that we are, indeed, doing the right thing.)

We've gone in about a half dozen times over the years. Each time, the doctor agrees it's an "iffy" sort of wound, but it's good that we came in for this reason or that (or that or that). Today, we decided that this was one wound that would do just as well with home care as it would with stitches. Sure, stitches might leave a less noticeable scar. But on the forehead of a rough and tumble young man, a scar does not seem inappropriate. So I patched the boy up, and covered it all with a honkin' bandage.

We returned to the living room to continue opening gifts. Lynae finished unwrapping the book we'd received: Natural First Aid. How timely is that?! I quickly checked the Table of Contents for anything glaringly appropriate... ah! The Recovery Position! Turning to page 18, I was able to see that Michael had naturally chosen to lie on the floor in a very similar position. We adjusted him to match the illustration, and then were able to carry on with the rest of the gift opening.

As you can see from the photo above, he is recovering nicely. Well, we don't know about the dreaded scar yet. But I'm sure he'll be fine. Heck, even with that bandage, he looks better than some of us at the end of the day.