Wednesday, Christmas, 12/25/24
7:10am
You wake up, the kids aren’t up yet? You think about getting up and making breakfast or going back to sleep, but then you hear Glenn shout. He runs into your room, “let’s open presents!” But he wants to cuddle first. Wait, first he checks to make sure the snow is still there, then cuddles. He has a fever, poor baby. You tell him he smells like vapo rub. You cuddle for a long while because he’s so cuddleable. He wants to get up, but he also wants to open presents. Owen’s not awake yet, but you decide to go down without him. You carry Glenn and the iPads downstairs.

He’s very excited to see his fire truck and immediately starts opening the big present from Grandpa Harry. He has you open the presents he wrapped for you as well.

You help him open his magnet block track. He demands batteries for the cars. You try, but you don’t have any AA nor a screwdriver small enough. You help him open the fire truck. At least that comes with batteries installed.
You start making French toast. You hear Glenn go up stairs and shout, “it’s Christmas!” Guess Owen is up now. You tell him he needs to put on clothes before. Owen comes down and opens his gifts. He got a game from Santa and books from Grandpa Harry.

They want the dragon show while they eat. Gah, the French toast is stuck to the grill. Glenn says it tastes funny and Owen agrees. Did you forget the vanilla? You taste some of the stuff you scraped off the grill, no. Glenn’s just sick and Owen is easily influenced. You give Glenn some of your oatmeal. He says you’re the goodest mama. You tell him he’s the goodest Glenn. You eat your chocolate oatmeal and drink your matcha green tea. Owen asks for help getting the plastic off his present.
Glenn wants the other magnet blocks to make a bigger track, so you go up and get them. You tell Alexa to turn off the fan, she says, “OK,” but doesn’t, so you ask her again. Owen helps Glenn with the magnet blocks while you see what’s going on on Reddit. Glenn isn’t sharing his track parts nice and Owen is whining about it.
Your wrist vibrates, grandma is calling. She asks what time you want them there. 1? She says they have chicken and pumpkin pie. She asks about the boys and you tell, her Glenn has a cold. Owen says he has a sniffles. He wants you to play his new game with him. Owen wins. It’s not a very hard game. Glenn comes over and makes a mess of the pieces. You ask if he wants to play with you. He doesn’t quite get the point of the game. You tell Owen you think it’s too easy for him.

Glenn wants to race cars on his track. The. He wants to cuddle and watch Paw Patrol. There’s no Paramount+ on the TV either? You watch it on Netflix instead. You tell Glenn you need to go exercise, but he doesn’t want you to go.
You clean up the kitchen a bit and go brush your teeth. You tell Owen he can’t leave his retainer soaking in the denture cleaning. You change into your exercise clothes. You have a message from Krissy wishing you all a Mary Chrysler with a gif of Chevy Chase. You wish her a Merry Cristmas back, er, Christmas.
You have to switch up your workout schedule since you’ll be at work 5 days a week starting in March :-/ you decide to do a legs and cardio workout while you watch Lower Decks. You don’t really like this show, but the last season sounds like it has some good references. You watch blows up with texts from the group chat while you exercise. Guess Natalie got a puppy for her family for Christmas.
You go back upstairs. Aw, Glenn is so warm :( he wants some milk so you heat some cow milk up for him with a little bit of hot chocolate mix. He approves. Seems Rachelle’s kids are sick too :’(
Glenn wants to cuddle. You tell him you need to get changed first. You wash your face too. Bah, still spotting, stupid depo. These stupid tights rip more. You go downstairs and cuddle with Glenn.

Glenn asks if you’re hungry because your tummy is growling. He says he’s hungry, but there’s nothing he wants because he’s sick. He asks if you have soup. Maybe? You find some in the back of the pantry. It expired over two years ago. He asks for cheese instead. You get him some string cheese. Your phone vibrates. Your mom doesn’t want to get to your house too early. You tell her it doesn’t matter if they do. You eat some gingerbread cookie leftover for Santa.

You start heating up the sweet potatoes. You put together the salad too, mostly because you’re hungry and want some. Mmmmmm, purple cabbage. You heat up some water for tea too. You decide on chestnut. It’s seasonal.
You cant believe Owen is still up here playing his board game instead of video games.
12:30pm
Your mom calls. She wants to know if they’re parked in a real spot. You tell her as long as it’s not a numbered spot. They can’t tell. You don’t know. You think those people are on vacation anyway. You let your dad in. You wash out your salad bowl. Your mom can’t undo her jacket zipper. Your dad tries to help and asks why there’s two zipper things. You manage to unzip it in about 2 seconds.
You ask Glenn if he wants some Tylenol, he does, so you get it. The boys open their gifts and grandma and grandpa open theirs. You attempt to awaken Bryan. Your dad says he couldn’t find your present; the DVC deed.




Lyn arrives and you start heating up food. Bryan comes downstairs. The Tylenol is kicking in and Glenn wants to play the laser tag game. Owen wants lots of Grammy’s lasagna. You eat with Glenn on your lap, he doesn’t eat. He makes a comment about wanting milk again. Bryan gets upset because he’s been weaned a really frickin’ long time and knows he’s not supposed to ask for milk. You tell Bryan he’s been asking for milk a lot today because he misses it most when he’s sick. Glenn wants to cuddle on the couch. He tells you he’s upset Dada is mad, but you tell him he knows there’s no milk and he’s not supposed to talk about it all the time. Glenn wants to do the advent calendar.


Glenn wants to play The Floor is Lava game. So you clean up the magnet blocks and read the directions and set it up. You need three players, so you play with Owen and Glenn does the spinner. Then you’re the spinner and then Owen. Julia messages wishing a Merry Christmas.
Glenn gets angry because Owen’s not moving his stuffy to the squares, so now the game is over. Time for pie. You’re out of little plates, but you fine some tiny dessert plates. You ask Owen if he wants cookies, but he’s downstairs playing. Idea games. You make tea for your mom. She goes through all 30 different teas you have and ends up choosing the matcha. You make just a little because she’s not sure if she’ll like it. Glenn decides he wants heart tea, so you make that for him too.

Your mom wants more tea, so you make her some peach tea. Your dad comments on your mom’s small piece of pie. But she already had the other half. She decided she wanted the second half and some tea. Glenn grabs you iPad and takes some unflattering pictures. Glenn wants to play Minecraft downstairs, but you encourage him to empty his stocking where he finds a color with water book.

Glenn goes downstairs for Minecraft. You held him off as long as you could. Your parents start packing up and you do some refrigerator Tetris. Glenn goes potty and calls to make sure you’ll come when he needs you. He calls again. “Do you need my help?” “I love you!” You hear knocking. Now he needs help. He yells again because there’s no toilet paper, so you get some for him. He’s still in the bathroom. Lyn comments how usually there’s singing involved. He’s singing now.
Everyone says goodbye. Owen even comes up and hugs goodbye to his grandparents. You ask your mom if she needs help with her jacket zipper, she says no, it was just stuck when she got here. Your mom calls right after they leave and asks if you see a pink hat by the coats. No…
Owen wants to play his Genius Square game again. He beats you, twice. You ask if he wants some more lasagna. You encourage him to have some sweet potato too. You have more salad. You realize you forgot to put out the giant bag of walnuts you bought. Oh well.
5:11pm
You eat the rest of Owen’s sauce and cheese since he leaves that. You stop him from eating too many chocolates because he just had two cookies. He wants to play again. Owen makes you a pity board to make it easier for you and he still beats you by half a second. You play several more rounds. Some combinations are easier than others. You don’t beat Owen. Your mom calls again. She found her hat. You’re so relieved.
Owen asks what he’s supposed to do now. You tell him whatever he wants. You asks if he wants to play baby monster after you shower. You asks Glenn if he wants to play. He comes up. After about two minutes of playing, Glenn decides he’s hungry. He wants cheezits, you think he should have leftovers. You negotiate and settle on an almond butter and jelly sandwich. He wants to do the reading app. He says he can’t talk, which makes it very hard to read. You tell him to do one of the games instead. Owen is whining, you tell him Glenn has to eat, maybe you’ll play later. You go to take a shower and practice your band songs in there, including the RTO related lyrics you wrote to Mama Mia. And maybe some Wicked too.

You come out of the shower to this. Well, guess we’re not playing baby monster with Glenn. You use your watch to find you phone. Looks like Glenn quit half way through his sandwich. Owen is bouncing off the walls exploding. You ask him if he wants to play. He does. He hatches into a new baby monster.

Apparently baby monsters are eating cow bacon these days. This baby monster speaks baby monsterese. A Big Mac is cow bacon, a cockroach is a toy, a present is a bee. It’s very silly. Bryan comes up and you inform him Glenn fell asleep on his bed. Owen goes up to check on him. Still asleep. Owen gave him a kiss, you say he shouldn’t do that when he’s sleeping. You remember your mom messaged I love you, so you message back you love her too. You think you hear Glenn and get up to check, but he’s downstairs before you can even get up. He looks very disoriented.
Glenn wants you to read to him. You send Owen to get a book. He comes back with Dogman. You send him to get a different book.
He comes back with Pout Pout Fish Christmas. He wants a barf bucket because he’s coughing so much he’s afraid he’ll throw up. You also read him Frozen II and a book about Chinese New Year because they’re downstairs. He’s not ready to go to bed yet, so you cuddle and sing him songs. You sing the Baby Glenn song and When Somebody Loved Me. Then you carry him upstairs to brush his teeth. He starts coughing like crazy. Poor baby, he’s so miserable. You give him some medicine and vapo rub. You put him to bed and sing to him some more. He says he wants a warmer blanket, so you get him one from your bed.
8:10pm
You give him hugs good night and tell him you love him. He says he loves mama. You go downstairs to put on the Xbox to watch Voyager with Owen, Bryan says Owen’s friend’s parents booked 2:30 for the Rock N Air place tomorrow, so he will too. He reminds Owen he has a doctor appointment tomorrow too.
You go upstairs make your tea and breakfast for tomorrow. You’re hungry and know you should have leftovers, but are afraid of heartburn, so you have cheerios and almond butter.

You go down to the basement and start Voyager. You need 5000 more steps, so you jump on the trampoline while you wait for your tea to cool. You preach almost 7000 steps and then eat your cheerios and drink your tea. Then you go back to jumping. The episode is over. The next one is False Profits. You say, “oh, is that the Ferengi episode? It is. Owen wonders how they survived for two years on their own. You tell him it might have been longer than that, you don’t remember how they got to the Delta Quadrant if it was the caretaker array or what. He says it was wormhole, it says so I; the episode summary. He goes upstairs to jump around and explode. Bryan says he’s going to buy the passes for tomorrow and asks why it’s called Rock N Air. You suggest maybe because they have rock climbing and jumping. You tell him, you guess Glenn’s not going. He says, “oh, that’s right, we won’t know if he’ll be sick.” You can always buy a pass just for him tomorrow. You clean your cup and go brush your teeth.
After getting distracted browsing Reddit for a bit when plugging in your phone and putting on your watch. You check your wellness app for any important insights. The thing is kinda stupid and doesn’t ever work too well, but it’s fun for the steep discount you got. you go downstairs to say goodnight to Owen. He repeats everything you say including the bit about not forgetting his retainer and to be gentle with it.
You go back to the basement to get the last 2000 of your 10000 steps while you watch Black Doves. Bryan wants to know if you know where the socks are for the jumping place. You think so?
10:53pm
Oops, a little on the late side. Time for bed. You say goodnight to Bryan. You take out your contacts, use some mouth wash and then read some of your book while you use the back stretch mat. Oh, that’s right, you’re down a blanket. Well, maybe you’ll just sleep in your robe. You make a mental note to do another one of these early next year, when Glenn isn’t sick. You tell Alexa it’s bedtime and go to sleep.

3:20am
You wake up and go potty. You hear Glenn coughing. You feel so bad for him. You debate whether going in there will make him feel better or worse and decide against it. Poor baby. You stay up until he stops coughing.