Time to get back to normal

Are the holidays over yet? It’s hard to tell, all I can feel is exhaustion. 

It’s been so great having all the kids here, Mollie from college and LJ and Colin here from New York. I adore my children and love having them home – and I can’t wait for Nick and I to have our empty nest back again! I hope that doesn’t make me a bad mother.

‘Our’ Christmas day, last Wednesday, was really nice. Since we have no little children around there was no need to get up at the crack of dawn. Nick and I slept late for us and the kids finally got up around ten. We fixed a big breakfast and then started on the gifts. We took our time, going around the circle each opening one gift at a time. I love doing it this way – I can see what everyone gets and their reaction when they open it.

We had a relaxing afternoon and then Mollie started making supper, I was making some dessert. We got them both in the oven and then five minutes later all the power went out. It’s nice that everyone had an iPhone with a flashlight because it was pitch black in the house.

We found a few lanterns and sat them, along with a few candles, around and waited… and waited… No power. No supper cooking so finally we ordered pizza, which we ate by candlelight. It was a very interesting evening. The power was off for about three hours and while I shouldn’t complain about the cold down here in the south – it was COLD! Thank goodness for gas logs.

After a while the boys went out to meet with friends and Mollie headed back to her school for a meeting she had the next day. Her school is about an hour away and when she got about ten minutes from home she called back to say that her car had no heat at all. Poor kid, it was a cold ride and the next morning when she headed out to her meeting it was -1 degree.

It got down to 5 degrees here and we had a two-hour delay for school and trust me – I needed it! And I’m still tired.

The boys are heading back this afternoon and I think Mollie is heading back so she can work in the daycare, she doesn’t start her student teaching until the twentieth. But the best news is that Mollie found out that she passed her licensure tests. She had been so worried. Now she only has to do the student teaching and she’ll be a teacher – an unemployed one for the moment, but a teacher nonetheless.

So we’ve had a great Christmas. We’ve enjoyed the children’s visits and we are looking forward to getting back to being just us. I wonder how long it’s going to take for PK to reappear, I hope she’s close by.