Our Modern Family

A New Father's Views on Adoption, Family & Relationships

Archive for the tag “Christmas”

Viva La France

Many people know that our adventure into parenthood started with an email from a friend asking if we would be interested in hosting an exchange student from France.  We thought it was just about crazy enough to be fun and about two weeks later we instantly became parents to a teenager.

It was an exciting year, and this past summer we were even more fortunate to be able to take our family adventures overseas and visit Axelle and meet her family for an amazing week in France.  It was an amazing trip and they were amazing hosts. Read more…

The Holiday Wrap Up

So the Christmas and New Years festivities are now officially over and we are looking forward to another exciting year in 2012.  Besides being called on to assist the man from the North Pole and save Christmas we had a lot of fun over the break.

We spent Christmas Day at my family’s house.  Nolin came down the stairs and we guided him over to a section of unwrapped gifts for him (don’t worry Ba & Pop* also had plenty of wrapped gifts for him too).  It included several age inappropriate gifts like a new scooter (which Nolin kept calling a bike as he would sit on his knees trying to push himself forward and then exclaim So Fast), but the first toy he went to was a puzzle.

He bypassed everything else and sat down with a wooden puzzle.  He would have been content with this, but we had to get the show on the road, so we began showing Nolin some of his other gifts.  He didn’t tear through anything and move from toy to toy.  Instead he sat down with each one and began exploring them as we would hand them to him.  This meant Christmas morning would last a little bit longer than usual, which wasn’t a bad thing. Read more…

‘Twas The Night I Saved Christmas

To say that Christmas is a big deal in my family is an understatement.  See I never grew up waiting in line at the mall to meet Santa or wondering what it was like when he came to deliver presents because he would personally visit our house and check in on us every Christmas Eve.  This tradition created a Christmas spirit that I would grow to appreciate as I got older.

My Dad has been helping the big man from the North Pole since he was 15.  Each year he visits 15-20 houses with anywhere from 1-20 kids per house all before he reaches his final destination at my parent’s annual Christmas Eve party.  Over the years, he has only missed one trip, and this year marked Santa’s 50th ride. Read more…

The Christmas Card Adventures

Ahhh the holiday season…the perfect chance to spend time with your family, reflect on the year that has past and a new year that is beginning.  It’s also a chance to make sure that everyone you know gets the perfect Christmas card portraying your happy family.

This year, we made a very critical mistake in the world of Christmas Card etiquette…we didn’t order enough, and we didn’t realize that we didn’t order enough (you know we were only short by 40 cards) until we went WWE over the last remaining card. Read more…

Empty Nest

So what do you give a person who watches your son for four days a week at no charge for Christmas?  Well if you are Jenn and I you give them two weeks vacation (unpaid of course) and then as a bonus you allow them to work from home for a week with the strict instructions that when Nolin returns he better be back on a good sleep schedule, or we would have to start looking for someone else to watch him (unpaid of course) for four days a week.  If you ask me it really was very thoughtful and generous of us.

So here we are almost two weeks after Christmas…Jenn returned from Pennsylvania on Sunday and Nolin returns with Teresa on Saturday.  We really aren’t bad parents looking to pawn responsibility off on someone else, it just happened to work out this way due to scheduling conflicts (I feel like that’s the part when someone shouts out, that’s what they all say).

It’s been difficult since I have not seen Nolin since the day after Christmas, luckily Don sends us a few pictures and videos from his cell phone each day to try to tide us over until Saturday.  We have filled our nights by watching cinema classics like Nolin eats a pan lid, Nolin eats Lincoln logs and Nolin eats pretty much everything else.

So while Nolin spends his time up North putting everything in his mouth, Jenn & I are stuck here.  Two empty nesters trying to figure out what to do with our time.  It is kind of difficult since we really have not had a weekend (much less a week) without children in almost 18 months.  To be fair Axelle was pretty independent and did go to NY and Chicago without us, but either way it has been a long time and I was afraid we may be a little off our game.

So seriously what should we do?

After thinking about it long and hard we decided that going to see a British Jihad satire about a group of fumbling, squabbling and inept terrorists who accidentally kill Osama Bin Laden at a terrorist training camp and then decide to wage Jihad during the London marathon dressed up as a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle and a man riding an ostrich among other things sounded like fun.  Needless to say they do more harm to themselves than anyone else.

That’s right it was independent film night at the Enzian Theater.  Last night’s jihadist feature comedy was the critically acclaimed Four Lions.  It was different, but worth checking out.  Going to the Enzian was one of our favorite things to do when we moved here, but we really haven’t found the time to go lately.  So if we were going to be without Nolin, this seemed like a good thing to do.  Not so good was the fact that the movie started at 9 pm on a school night for me.

Tomorrow night is date night part deux (shout out Axelle).  We are going to hit up Park Avenue another one of our favorite things to do when we used to just fly by the seat of our pants and do what ever we wanted.  While I am excited to go out and relax with Jenn tomorrow night, I honestly can’t wait for Nolin’s return on Saturday.  Our house has seemed oddly quite and strange without him here.

I am also happy to report, that it appears Teresa will be able to keep her job as she has indicated that Nolin seems to have gotten back on a solid eleven to twelve-hour sleep schedule.

Post Navigation

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.