Merry Whatever You Celebrate

Hey everyone, I hope you had a great Christmas or Hannukah or Ramadan or Solstice or Festivus or Decemberween! (I don't add Kwanzaa because we listened to a talk about it last year and it sounds like most families that celebrate it do so in tandem with Christmas.)

We do Christmas in our house, and it was great. Mom helped me put out cookies and milk for Santa Claus (and some oats for his reindeer) the night before, then we read stories about the Grinch and the Night Before Christmas while I was going to bed. When I got up, the cookies were eaten, the oats were gone, and there was a Mickey Mouse Clubhouse playset under the tree with my name on it. Of course, I got up at 3:30 to change beds, still too tired to really play, but I brought Mickey and Toodles with me into bed with Mom and Dad. I got so many great gifts from so many nice people ... thank you to everyone who thought to give or send me something! (Mom is going to help me write real thank-you notes over the weekend.)

The night before Christmas, we went with Mallory and her parents to go see the ice display at the Gaylord Palms. (It's technically spelled "ICE!", but Dad's eye gets all twitchy when he has to write it like that.) Basically, they took a giant convention hall and filled it with room-size ice carvings of bridges, gingerbread houses, a nativity scene, Santa's lap, and even a huge slide with the reindeer flying over it. It was pretty cool -- both figuratively and literally. Mallory and I were pretty much freezing by the time we finished up in there. Hey, we can't help it; we were both born in the deep South, and anything cold is against our nature.

Oh, if you guys were worried about my sickness, don't be -- I'm feeling a lot better, running around and playing with my new toys and chasing the dogs just like normal. I'm supposed to go for some imaging tests next week, only we don't know exactly when because the people who called Dad about it last week are not, shall we say, exactly on the ball. (It took them three calls to just get to the point where maybe now we might be ready to potentially reserve a time slot with the specialist.) It's not a big deal -- Dr. B says it's standard for any girl under age 2 to have these tests, just in case we're predisposed to infections.

In a couple days we're going to Canada to visit my aunties! They're back home in Duncan, and I've never been to the island before (whatever that is), so I'm looking forward to seeing them where they're supposed to be instead of in that hospital where I couldn't even really touch Auntie Lourdess. I'll write about that sometime after we get back.

You Give Me Fever

Well, the past week certainly hasn't been super fun for me. Last Friday in the middle of the night, I woke up with a fever. Dad gave me some water and some Tylenol, but it didn't help because I was still hot when we woke up properly in the morning. Then when he took my temperature, it was so hot that Mom said we had to go to the emergency room. The doctor there did some tests and determined that I had a urinary tract infection. Yuck! So I've been taking medicine for it all week, with a couple more days to go, and on Monday we're going to have another test to make sure it's gone.

The good news, though, is that once the fever finally broke on Sunday, I felt a lot better. In fact, this week hasn't been much different from others in terms of playing and reading and running around, except that I've had some longer naps. Also, Dad's felt a little sorry for me, so we've been watching a little more TV than in the last few months. I've enjoyed sitting on his lap and watching my shows while we sing along ... my favorites are Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Imagination Movers and Jack's Big Music Show. We've also gone for some long hikes through the woods using the jogging stroller. This week there were cars and motorbikes back there, which was weird, but nobody even gave us a hard time. Even the police officer waved us through.

I just realized I hadn't written about our trip home over Thanksgiving. It was so much fun! We spent the first half of the week in Santa Fe with Nona and Pa-Pa and Uncle Clayton, and I had a great time reading with them and chasing the cats. We also went to the children's museum, which was a total blast. Then on Wednesday we went to Albuquerque and stayed with Grandma and Grandpa. I got to see just about everyone in the family on Thanksgiving, including Great-Great-Grandma. The highlight of the trip, though, was going to Ally's house and playing with her and all her cool toys (especially her doll stroller).

I'd better cut this short now. We're going to Mallory's for dinner. Come back after Christmas, because from the looks of the pile under the tree I'm going to have a lot of thank-yous and shout-outs!