Campbell Christmas

Christmas this year had its ups and downs, which is probably why I've been procrastinating on this update. For Christmas on the Campbell side, a series of unfortunate events sapped a lot of our holiday cheer. To name a few of them:

(1) Marcus didn't have much time off this year, so Caleb and I flew to Arkansas alone to spend a week with my family. It would have been hard enough maneuvering through airports and entertaining a toddler for hours on my 7-months-pregnant lap if everything had gone perfectly smoothly, but alas it did not. My flight was delayed for no good reason (one of those they-make-you-sit-in-the-grounded-plane-for-hours things), and I missed my connecting flight. By the time it was all said and done, it definitely would have been faster to drive to Arkansas than to fly American Airlines. I was so tired from traveling 12 hours that Caleb and I crashed shortly after arriving, even though it was only 7 pm there.

(2) My mom came down with a bad cold the day we arrived. By the middle of the week, her cough was so bad and her lungs so painful that she ended up in the hospital for the rest of our visit.

(3) My brother Michael took his car in to have the oil changed and the tires rotated and was informed that his brakes were completely shot. So he had his brakes replaced (it's always fun to have car stuff to pay for around Christmas). When he was pulling out of the garage at the shop to drive home, the shop's garage door broke and fell on the hood of his car, leaving a big dent.

(4) The day before Mom was admitted to the hospital, Caleb came down with her cold. It hit him hard and fast and he was pretty miserable the second half of the week. He's had many colds, but I've never seen him so affected by one...usually his nose runs and he runs a low-grade fever, but he is happy and playing as usual, but not so this time. The third day of the cold was Friday, the day before we were flying home, and I was scrambling to get him in to see a pediatrician. The problem was that no one would take our out-of-state insurance and they wanted us to pay for the visit up front ($130). We ended up getting ahold of Caleb's Aunt Gigi (who is an ENT), and she gave us some tips for relieving the symptoms for travel. Marcus also called in an antibiotic for Caleb. By the time we got home, my stress level was pretty high from dealing with a whiny, miserable, sick toddler by myself for a week.

(5) My one-year-old nephew Bennett (Michael's son) developed a bad diaper rash, probably from so much time in the car seat on the way to town. He had to go through a painful washing, drying and medicating process several times a day until it cleared up. Any of you who have ever dealt with your little one's first bad diaper rash can empathize with how my brother felt as he doctored Bennett's poor little bottom over and over.

(6) We had planned to watch The Nativity Story on Christmas Eve and open presents together in the morning, but Mom went into the hospital on our planned Christmas Eve. So instead Dad and Mom spent hours waiting in the ER to be admitted while Michael and I wore ourselves out dealing with our unhappy kids. After that night, we waited each day to open presents, hoping Mom would be discharged. She never was, so we opened presents on our own the day before I left.

There actually were more things that went wrong, but these are all I can think of right now. Michael and I tried to laugh together about "the worst Christmas ever," and we were truly grateful that nothing really tragic happened. Mom's out of the hospital now, Caleb is over his cold, and we all made it back to our respective homes safely, so all-in-all it wasn't so bad, just lacking in the usual holiday cheer.