Brayden's Christmas Day

Started at 3:45 a.m. Brayden was wide awake and did not go back to sleep. Jeremy and I tried to but we heard to sounds of two little boys talking. Thinking that it was their excitement for Christmas morning, we stayed in bed and listened. Then Carter appeared saying something about Luke asking him to clean up his mess.

Jeremy and I got out of bed (sometime around 5:30 a.m.), walked in to Luke's room and found a trail of dirty clothes leading into the bathroom. Luke was standing there, upset. He got up to go to the bathroom and as he said, "It tricked me", when he went to the bathroom. Without going into details, there was a mess that required a shower.

Meanwhile, Brayden dosed off for about an hour or so. Carter and Luke looked through their stockings. Jeremy fixed breakfast and I did Brayden's morning suction, changing, meds, etc. By 6:30 a.m. we were all in the family room opening presents.

Brayden was still not quite awake but I was determined for him to be with us on Christmas morning.

After tearing into the presents, we were loading up for the drive to my parents, when we noticed my car had a flat tire. Jeremy drove over the mountain to a gas station to fill it up with air, thinking that these special tubeless tires were not handling the cold well.

We finally made it to my parents house. Brayden's blood blister on his favorite finger had tripled in size over night. It was massive and looked like his skin was going to burst. The finger was incredibly painful and throbbing. As I was putting Brayden into his chair, I saw a stream of blood running down his arm and mine. The blister popped and was oozing everywhere. Brayden handled it pretty well. And then a couple of diaper blow outs that could clear out any room...

As everyone started gathering in the family room, Brayden was getting restless. He seemed tired and overwhelmed with all of the commotion. I popped open a portable bed for him and put him in a nearby bed room. That did not work; he fussed, thrashed his head side to side...he knew this was not where he wanted to sleep. He did settled down for an hour, not sleeping but just resting.

I insisted that Brayden was going to participate in opening his presents. So after his rest time we put him in his chair with the tray and started with the presents. A couple of gifts, he was concentrating on looking at them. He did really well. And wished everyone a Merry Christmas with his switch.

After presents, it was time for dinner. Brayden tried to sit at the kids table but apparently he did not care for their chaos but he started crying and once we moved him to another table, he stopped.

A long day, the boys were showing it...Brayden cried most of the way home. Crashed in bed and probably one of the few children thankful Christmas was over and only comes once a year.

For more Christmas fun, check out the family blog.