Oh, my. What a crazy three days.

At least yesterday was humorous though. I went for my second doctor’s appointment and took Elijah and Sarah back with me since I knew they wouldn’t be doing anything “personal” to me. As the nurse is taking my blood pressure, she says to Elijah, “so are you ready for Santa Claus?”

Elijah said, “Yeah, well, my mom says he’s not real.”

The nurse about died laughing and my blood pressure was probably high because I was trying not to laugh, too. She didn’t think his comment was strange, though, she said she never believed in Santa growing up, either. What’s funny is that I don’t know that I’ve used that exact phrase with Elijah in the first place. It’s funny how he puts things together himself.

After that, we went for a late lunch at Taco Bell. As we walked in, we spotted a woman from church who’s a nursery worker and her son who is Elijah’s age. So immediately, he’s pulling up a chair to the table they’re at with three other adults I didn’t know. And then he’s talking to everyone, quite loudly at that.

Someone asked him if he likes school. He looked right at me, from across the restaurant (where I was getting our drinks) before he answered! He always tells people he likes school, though, even if he usually fights me when I say it’s time to sit down for it. I didn’t hear his answer this time, though!

Then someone else asked him if he was ready for Christmas and he said, “Yeah!! It’s in six days!!” And the man at the table started nodding and cracked up because Christmas was, indeed, in six days. That’s another thing, I think the last time I gave him an ETA on Christmas was when we had nine days to go which means he’s been counting down himself in his head.

As they were all leaving, Elijah finally came to our table which was nearby. Then he yelled across the restaurant at his friend: “Hey, D, do you have a sister?!”

The kid kind of shakes his head and Elijah goes, “Mine’s in Mommy’s tummy!”

To which the kid’s mom says, “OH! Are you having a girl!??!” I said back that no, we don’t know yet (I’m 13 weeks), “but he’s insistent!”

And, of course, Elijah just keeps sitting there, insisting that he is getting a sister. A man sitting by himself now at the table E’s friend had been at started laughing and said that Elijah is “too cute.” Of course, then Elijah continued to entertain everyone in the restaurant until I gave him the toy from his kid’s meal which was a lame piece of plastic, a dinosaur body which you then put in these paper pieces for the head, tail, and legs. (I mean, what the heck!?) Then? He immediately shut up and sat down for a few minutes.

Crazy.

Thursday wasn’t as humorous. Elijah and I went down to see my sister-in-law who lives an hour south and not only did he start just eating all her fiance’s snacks while I was setting up her internet and router for her, but when we went shopping later, he turned into a butt. When we went to the mall he decided that he HAD to have a mall stroller. Now, I don’t get what the deal is. If we go to Walmart or Kmart, or the grocery store or whatever, he throws a fit when I put him in the cart, he wants to walk. But if we go to the mall, he insists on a stroller. I didn’t have our stroller, Steve took it out of the Jeep and it never made its way back in.

So when we reach the mall we went to where they have the strollers but as we approached, these three men took the last one. Elijah had a meltdown right then and there. Crying and screaming. My sister-in-law is kinda dragging him along (of course he wanted her and not me) and we kept telling him we weren’t going to be there long anyway and it’s a small mall but he just kept freaking out. So I headed to the bookstore on our way out to get a book for my grandpa and as we entered there Elijah spotted a stroller that appeared to be abandoned.

We didn’t want to take it in case someone was coming back for it and we were leaving after this anyway, so we just went on into the store. And Elijah had another complete meltdown. We did everything we could to shut him up but he kept throwing a fit. Even talks of being a big boy didn’t help. I mean sheesh, the kid is 5. Dang. Finally he started to calm down enough so I could think somewhat straight. My sister-in-law spotted a book that had a title that was along the lines of what I was looking for so I pretty much just grabbed it and bought it, spending more than twice what I’d hoped to spend on the book, of course.

I then dropped her off at her apartment and E freaked out again because we couldn’t go inside but she was preparing to leave again immediately for her soon-to-be in-laws’ house.

What was stupid though, was that he became an immediately different kid when I drove through the nearby park where they have little displays for Christmas with lights and stuff. Suddenly he was happy again. Oh. My. Gosh.

Last night though, was just weird. We went to the big display of lights and things at Our Lady of the Snows in Belleville, IL and had a good time driving through the display then we went back and stopped at the petting zoo on the promise that Elijah would not throw a fit about riding the camel because I’d already told him I didn’t want to spend the money on it this year. But then he wanted to ride the Trolley so we did and it dropped us off at the visitor’s center where we looked at the Christmas tree display then went through the little area of stuff for sale. I purchased two pairs of earrings (a treat for myself now that I’m done Christmas shopping!) and Elijah said we should go back and ride the trolley. I thought he just wanted to ride it again but when we sat down to wait and I touched him (he’d been clinging to Sarah the whole time) I found that he was burning up with a fever. I think the fever is probably from his getting four vaccinations on Tuesday as he had no other symptoms and stuff but still, he was Hot.

Finally the trolley arrived again and we got on but this time had to go through the whole lights display again because it all goes in a certain direction and you gotta loop back around to the petting zoo area which is right near the beginning. It seemed like it took forever! And the three of us had to squeeze into one seat so he was on Sarah’s lap and he actually fell asleep. Finally we got back to the Jeep and he did not protest about leaving the trolley. I had something like 15 miles or so to get back to Missouri and then I located a Walgreen’s and got him some children’s Tylenol. Half an hour later? He’s back to his old self and complaining that we’re just gonna drop Sarah off at her house and not stay a while.

And as if this post isn’t long enough, this morning was even interesting.

I spent all morning finishing up the Christmas cards which I’ve been working on for days now and getting some other things ready to mail. We took those out to the boxes and then went for a late breakfast at Huddle House. Of course, Elijah wasn’t eating much of the food he insisted he was SO HUNGRY for. I was encouraging him to eat some more. I told him one more bite of his fried egg and he took it but was being a little butt and instead of chewing it up he started gagging himself with it. Next thing I know, he’s coughing and I realize he’s got more food in his mouth than just that bite. Apparently eating means saving a lot of the food in your cheek area and not swallowing everything. Why he does that I don’t know. So suddenly he’s puking up more than that bite and what’s in his mouth and it’s coming up full force. Talk about lovely.

Of course I felt really bad even though it wasn’t my fault and I’m sure our waitress thought it was my fault because I know she heard me trying to get him to eat some more. But what I am impressed with, however, is the fact that I didn’t start throwing up, too!

Oy. Interesting times these are.