Summer afternoon naps in our bed, reading stories before and after, and sometimes instead, in our bed. What a luxury. So lucky not to have to work those first few years, though I was dying for adult conversation back then.

a pull-along rotary phone

And the littles poking at it and wondering "What's this?"

How on earth did anyone come up with baby gifts until 35 years ago? Oy.

Hey, Trudy. It's good to see your pixels.

Trudy!

I watched two movies tonight while I wrapped presents. I'm 80% done. A couple gifts are hiding from me, and I have to do bows tomorrow.

I had lots of leftover ornaments so I used them instead of bows. I should take some pictures because they are pretty.

Instead of being at work I'm currently at CVS waiting for a minute clinic appointment.

I do not know what I did to my left shoulder/neck but I've been in pain for about 4 days and today it's been so bad that ibuprofen and heat pack barely helped .

I have presents to wrap and work to do. But I had trouble sitting up this morning because of the pain and once my other shoulder started hurting I gave up and decided to get help

Connie, I've been a terrible skimmer and want to say that I'm so sorry to hear about your eye.

Positive update on #1 son. I picked him up yesterday morning and had him home for about 12 hours. He had been in bed for a week with a toothache and gastric issues. His roommate had told me he was worried about how skinny he was and that he couldn't get him out of his room. He was a delight all day and night. He was sick and in pain, but he did a variety of house chores and work chores for me without me asking twice on any of the list. Then he went on a long boat ride with us which included us going airborne on a big wave while going too fast and him crashing down and hurting his hand. The part that his dad and I are so excited about was that even though he obviously was sick and in pain he was smiling and happy to be with us and never once had a rage attack. We were both kind of shocked at how casually he handled the fall in the boat. He didn't even argue with me when I gave motherly advice on various topics. Sweet happy son as opposed to the more recent miserable ragey son.

I had given him a non-complex computer project to do for me, which took several hours. After completing that I told him after Christmas I would have him take over another one I was working on that was much more complex, but if I could do it he could too. He just shrugged and said of course, there wasn't anything he couldn't do. First, its true, second, it was nice to hear him say it convincingly.

So ya know, Christmas miracle. I sent him home with drugs and saw he was up in the middle of the night still in pain, but we'll deal with that today. He said he would message me to pick him up again this morning to go for family Christmas gathering.

That's lovely, Laura! Very encouraging. Certainly the best xmas present for you.