Christmas has come and gone, the relatives have all left, it’s back to being just the three of us (plus the fourth one who’s still baking). In a way, it’s a relief – it’s nice to have things back to the normal routine, yadda yadda – but at the same time, it’s kind of a bummer.
Catie isn’t adapting to this change very well at all. It’s probably common for kids this age, but a few times now, she’s said something about Christmas, and when I remind her that Christmas is over until next year, she bursts into tears. I think having everyone leave was particularly hard on her. She loves having people around, and she hates it when they leave.
The day my parents left, I found my mom sitting on the floor with a distraught Catie in her lap. She was wailing, “But I don’t want you to leeeeeave! I miss you when you gooooo!” My mom said that absolutely broke her heart.
It was worse when my mom called to say their plane had landed safely, and I repeated to my sister that they’d gotten home. Catie heard this, and said, “Home? They’re here? Let’s go see them!” And she started to run out to the garage. When I explained no, baby, they were back at their home… oh, the tears.
My sister and her boyfriend left yesterday, the last of our Christmas visitors. I knew that Catie wasn’t going to take it well, so when she started to have a meltdown about them leaving, I suggested that she and I go do something fun on our own. Which is how I ended up spending a good chunk of yesterday afternoon at the Jump Zone.
Of course, then we had to follow that up with a trip to Burger King for a kid’s meal. And she still didn’t want to go home after that, so I let her go to the drop-in daycare near our house for a couple of hours so she could keep on playing while I went home to put my feet up and rest for a while.
It worked pretty well, she totally wore herself out. She slept over 11 hours last night, which never happens. She even took a nap today too, which is increasingly rare for her.
But then, I guess we all need some downtime to recover after the holidays.