the day that the burt bear of christmas found his rightful place

oki doki.  i'm in sooke now.  i arrived on tuesday night after spending most of the day cleaning and packing.  i think i may have packed almost all of the clothes i own because--possibilities. i caught the 5 oclock ferry.  i was one of the last ones.  i drove through dark and rainy windy roads and finally made it to sooke by 8 or 8:30.  there was a cute santa's head hanging from sarah's door.  i opened the door with my bulging suitcase in tow and was almost instantly greeted by an excited and exuberant arlo.  sloan was close  behind.  soon, kyle sloan and adriel were helping me unload sahib the habeeb including the shelves that have been in there for over a month, which was a great relief to me in particular.  

we hung out.

we folded laundry and adriel had brown bummed pants.  there was an alarming lack of underwears in the wash.  you and i know what this means.

we watched survivor.  sarah and kyle are soooo behind.  this is wrong to do. they've done wrong. kyle was dozy and even when threatened with a dead hand slap he was barely conscious.

next day i woke up at 6:45.  i tried to deny wakefulness for a while but there is no going back to sleep at christmas time.  thoughts are too wakeful at christmas time.  so i got up and did my book of mormon reading and blogged some more.  i heard the boys leave for school one by one.  at some point i came upstairs and joined convalescing sarah in her bed.  sarah had gum grafting surgery because her devious dentist tricked her into a special time before christmas.  we did some snaps.  we discussed future meals based on kyle's extensive list of the freezer contents.  there's about 5 or 6 different bags of various fishes and 3 different carcasses, for example.  then i organized kyle's list by type of food.  then i wrote meal ideas and then we did a grocery list for brazilian fish stew.

we got ready.  sarah wore  cute new clothes and so i wanted to wear cute clothes.  i put together an outfit of wacky colourful mixed patterns and was encouraged in doing so by said sarah.  then hux and i hung out in my room taking selfies waiting for sarah.

 when sarah came out with water bottles to be filled and the grocery list and her sassy self, we naturally did some selfies. sarah can showcase her sass even amidst her pain and discomfort.  that's legit.

 documentation of outfits...

we went to the post office and while sarah mailed a secret something to jordinian, huxley and i had an indepth conversation about 'booty snakes'.  a booty snake eats people and people taste like peanut butter.  crunchy or smooth?, i asked.  smooth, says hux.  that's my favourite! i say.  NO! you're MY favourite! grouches huxley inexplicably. after sarah is back in the car we go to the local sooke grocery store, villiage foods and huxley and i left sarah in car with her mouth of pain and chin of despair.  huxley put the money in the cart.  he was telling me all about how he knew how to fill up the water and didn't need help and that help was for babies and he was a big boy.  in the store my strategy for huxley was to keep him occupied with helping to find things as much as possible, even giving him challenges to find things in aisles that we were not buying.  "bet you can't find some soup," i would say, then he would find it.  a couple of times some employees must have thought i was passive aggressively asking for their help without actually asking because i was asking huxley if he knew were the garlic was and and that we need to find the cilantro and the produce guy was like the cilantro is right here and the garlic is over by the potatoes.  thanks, i said, i'm not playing this game with you.  you're an adult, i didn't say.  we filled up the water bottles successfully and  then we ran into problems when huxley saw the chips which were floor level.  we need to get chips!  he called.  we like chips a lot!.  we're not getting chips, i called back over my shoulder, going towards the aisle which housed the coconut milk.  yes we ARE! insisted hux.  i looked behind me and saw him dragging a huge box of chips with him.  put that back huxley, i said.  no. said hux.  what followed was an aunt/nephew show down of wills which involved a dropped box and folded arms, jutted lip and stomped foot.  i won in the end but not before i was dealt a cruel blow.  you are not my aunty, said huxley, you're ...GRAMMA.  well you are grampa, i said back. this mature back and forth continued until we reached the chip shelf.  i put the chips back.  you're a meanie! accuses hux.  if i'm a meanie i guess you don't want a popsicle when we get home... you're not a meanie said a smart huxley.

when we got home we did have popsicles.  coconut ones.  and lounged some more. and a crispy burt bear of christmas was hung from the cupboard with care.  i was working on my blog laying on huxley's mattress beside sarah's bed and in the end had huxley and sloan and arlo laying on me or squished tightly beside me.  it was slow going.  when kyle got home he kicked everyone out of their room but me.  he made a bath for sarah.  he takes such good care of her.  sarah was watching something in the bath and kyle and i discussed what he got her for christmas.

sloan and i coloured with his gel pens.  sloan is super protective of his precious pens and super strict about where they go and how.  however huxley wanted to colour too.  i placated him by getting him to choose which pen i would use and what i would colour. 

sloan adriel and i did picture stories.  weird ones.

we watched more survivors.

we chit chatted.  we went to bed.  thus it was.