Advent

All the humans in this house are icky sick right now. I'm on antibiotics for an upper respiratory infection. John sounds like he is on the brink of losing his voice. Tyler...poor Tyler. He woke up last night throwing up; and in the process of coming out into the family room to look for us, he left a trail of throw up all the way down the hall. He was covered. His bed was covered. The floor by his bed. His pillow. As I was following this unsavory trail back with paper towels and carpet cleaner in hand, it suddenly hit me how far I've come in my life in my ability to deal with minor catastrophes like this. When I was younger, just the SOUND of someone being sick would make me gag, never mind the smell.

Gross, I know. But I am now able to clean up both cat and human upchuck and my dinner stays put. Considering how sensitive I used to be, that is a pretty amazing thing. Hopefully we'll all be back to normal soon. Ty has missed a week and a half of school in the last 2 weeks.

Onto a more positive (less disgusting) topic! For a few years now, I've been keeping my eyes open for the perfect kid-friendly Advent (or countdown) calendar for us to mark the days left until Christmas. I had a feeling that Tyler would love revealing daily surprises and sticking and/or hanging them onto ... something. I saw fabric wall hangings with velcro doodads in numbered pouches. Nice, but not exactly what I wanted. I saw poster sized paper calendars with little "doors" to lift open and reveal a picture or piece of chocolate. Not bad, but they were really only good for one year. I wanted something we could use over and over.

Then I spotted these pretty wooden ones, free standing with little drawers for each day of December. One I saw was magnetic. (Getting better!) THEN I saw it. It was a free-standing Christmas tree on a festive painted pedestal. The pedestal/stand was octagonal shaped with little doors all around marked with the days. Each door held a little ornament that would hang from pegs all around the tree and the entire table-top wood sculpture swiveled on its base like a lazy susan. I was in love!

Then I looked at the price. *gasp* $70. Yikes. So I did my usual internet comparison shopping research. I finally found it (and bought it) off Ebay for $40. Yay me! And sure enough, Tyler has been really looking forward each day to opening a new door, unwrapping the little ornament inside (each is wrapped in tissue) and then hanging it from a peg on the tree. The size of it was a nice surprise too. It's much bigger than I expected. It looks fab on my living room coffee table.

I expect we'll enjoy this little Advent Tree for many years to come.