Christmas Eve, and one creature is stirring

The other one is laid out flat on the couch with a horrible cold.  I've been mentally preparing myself for a few days of insane energy, rambunctiousness, hysteria, etc.  So of course, instead Inesa is completely wiped out.  She keeps kind of wimpering, "I don't want to lay down all day!"  I tell her, "You can get up for a little bit if you feel up to it, honey," and she answers, "But I'm too sick!"  Her nose is red like Rudolph's, with dark circles under her eyes, and she keeps pulling her blanket over her head because the daylight is too strong.  She's used up most of a large box of kleenex, and refused breakfast.  I coaxed a little homemade mac and cheese down her just now, and she was done after five bites.  She doesn't even want to watch a movie or have me read to her.  Sasha just told her, "If you feel this bad tomorrow, and you don't want to open presents, you can open them another day."  It's a sign of how miserable she is that she didn't panic at this thought, but just said sadly, "Tomorrow is supposed to be a fun day."  Poor baby girl. 

The smartest thing we've done lately is NOT put the presents under the tree.  There are a half dozen there, from friends, the kids' gifts to each other and dad, but not the insane number of presents Jon and I got them, nor the ones my family gave us.  There is a fair amount of excitement around those presents, but because they know what half of them are, and there's only so many times you can shake a box, they are able to not obssess about them. 

With one out of comission, the other one has been slightly easier to keep calm.  He finished his project for Papa this morning, and when I got out the art box, consigned me to cut out a felt seal which he then added a face to.  He used the garlic press to "grate" me some cheese for the mac & cheese, and I brilliantly killed a half hour by telling him to take a bath.  Oh, and he got clean doing that too, I guess, though I tend to think of bath time as a non-electronic way for Mama to get a half hour break.  Now he's outside with his skateboard and his remote control car.  This is probably a combination that should be supervised, but instead I'm sitting with my sick kid and writing this.  He re-watched his video from Santa (Portable North Pole sends amazing, personalized videos for free), and we checked out both Reindeer Cam and NORAD's Santa Tracker. 

This is fun.  Well, not so much for Inesa.  But being a parent at Christmas time--definitely a good thing.