The Christmas of Two Trees

*Disclaimer: This post was started three days ago and I'm just now getting around to finishing it...maybe.

It's been kind of crazy around the Labunski abode lately. Ok, when it is not? I know. But I feel like I haven't really stopped since before Thanksgiving.

The good news is that I have almost all Christmas presents made and wrapped, as of about 2 am last night. I've made about half of all presents this year, which has been fun and tiring at the same time. My sewing machine has gotten quite the workout, let me tell ya.

On top of all that, the boys each got double ear infections at the beginning of the month. Of course, we first took Asher in to the doctor alone, being concerned about his chronic coughing. Their doctor diagnosed the ear infection and put Asher on amoxicillin; this was after I had informed her that the boys had been given a different antibiotic because their previous doctor thought they might be building up a resistance to amoxicillin. The next day, Levi was showing signs of an ear infection, so we got him into the doctor and received the same diagnosis and prescription.

Fast forward 13 or so days. The boys have finished their round of antibiotics and yet are still coughing and fussy. So we made another appointment for them and sure enough, the ear infections weren't gone. This time, their doctor prescribed a different antibiotic, so we'll keep our fingers crossed that this one will work.

On top of the ear infection, Asher also had some wheezing when he breaths, so the doctor had us do a 5 minute round with the nebulizer (like an inhaler for asthma, but bigger); Asher was understandably thrilled. After the treatment, the wheezing had lessened, meaning that Asher has a mild form of asthma. So now we the proud owners of an at-home nebulizer, and poor Asher has to go through treatments once every 4 hours for about a week (or until his cough goes away).

Needless to say, Mommy is a bit stressed.

Add the boys' health problems to the following list:

• We've been scraping by on less-than-healthy food for the past week or so due to low funds (man, Christmas time is rough on the pocketbook).
• Once I finally got paid, I was unable to access our bank account online in order to update my register book and plan out the monthly budget, effectively keeping us from going shopping for the things we so desperately need. The boys' health problems and my funky work schedule made it difficult to get to the bank to fix this problem.
• Our house is a mess. Not so much tidy-wise, but more cleanliness-wise. It's driving me insane. We're out of toilet bowl cleaner. 'Nuff said.
• Our Christmas tree died as a result of a lack of water in the tree stand. As in, turned-brown-needles-falling-off-major-fire-hazard dead. Muy no bueno. We haven't been able to turn on the tree lights for a good week or so, effectively diminishing the oh-tannenbaum effect. Due to the above-listed reasons, we haven't been able to replace the dead as a doornail tree.
• I need to do laundry. Badly. Yet worrying about all the above-listed things makes me just want to sleep. A lot.
• Because of our less than healthy eating habits for the past week, there is NO WAY the scale will be dropping when I weigh in on Saturday. So I've been debating not going to weigh in, using the excuse that my mom won't be there anyway. Yet I know that's the cowardly way out. I haven't missed a single weigh in since I started 17 weeks ago, and I just hate to break that track record.
• I'm sure there's more that has been weighing on my mind, but that's all I could come up with at the moment.

And yet despite all these stressful things going on, there are a lot of positive things that have made my life seem a bit brighter (this is going to be a long post, so sorry):

• We had a great dinner with our friends/neighbors across the street on Saturday. We just love spending time with them, and the opportunity doesn't come around very often.
• I got to go to our church's Moms & Tots group on Tuesday morning, which was a wonderful time with some great ladies from our church. It was fun to see how all the kids at different ages interact, especially since I don't have much experience with young kiddos. And it was SO nice to just chit chat with other moms for a bit.
• I finally called our bank and had them resolve our online account issue for us. I was afraid they wouldn't do it over the phone, but Nathan reassured me the would. Because of that, I was able to balance my checkbook and figure out our budget for the month. YAY! HUGE weight off my shoulders.
• Nathan is going grocery shopping at this very moment. I love having groceries.
• I really really enjoy my current trainer at work. She and I have a very similar sense of humor, and she keeps me from being too hard on myself and stressing myself out more than necessary, which definitely helps keep work fun.
• Between making Christmas presents, I found time to make myself an absolutely adorable purse. I figured that I should make myself at least one thing, and it was a ton of fun to do...thankfully it didn't take too long.
• We borrowed the first season of Monk from the library to watch tonight. We needs some humor up in this place.
• Nathan got a new Christmas tree today. My house smells like Christmas again. Mmmm. I think I feel hot chocolate with peppermint schnapps in my very near future.
• Despite the frustration that goes along with the boys' health problems, we are blessed to have the financial ability to take care of them, the insurance to help us with the costs, and access to amazing health care. They'll be better in no time.

Moral of the story:

It's ok to take stock of the things that are stressing you out, because then you can eliminate those things one by one. But don't forget to list your blessing as well.

And don't forget to water your Christmas tree.