The Life and Times of Bendy Ruggles: ~~Ilyana's First Christmas, 2007~~

Literally the Christmas from hell.

Both Will and Ilyana were sick Christmas morning when they woke up. So sick that Will only made it through half of his stocking before he had to go downstairs and lay down with a barf bucket. He could barely move the whole rest of the day. Ilyana was a trooper trying to make it through, though I could tell by her glassy eyes and pale face that she felt just terrible. She managed to get by through the stockings, but of course once I had all the stocking gifts into a bag, she proceeded to throw up all over and inside of the bag, causing me to spend the next half hour or so cleaning the presents, cleaning her, cleaning her Exersaucer, and finding a new way to (safely) store the gifts.

From then on, she was pretty much a sad little blob that just wanted to snuggle and be held. Being only seven and a half months old, Illy didn't understand what all the hubbub was about, and wasn't really old enough to care about opening presents. I have no pictures at all to show for Christmas day, because I spent the entire day cleaning diarrhea and puke, running back and forth from the upstairs back down to check on Will, and then hastily trying to rip open gifts that I had to catch up on for both me and Illy, because she couldn't do her own... Which made it very boring for everyone else, I'm sure, because being her first Christmas and all, everyone spoiled her, buying her tons! The whole last half hour of the morning was me, trying to catch back up while my whole family watched. One thing I was grateful for, though: at least I didn't get sick, because I was able to care for the both of them... Oh, and the gifts, of course. We're always grateful for those!

It must have been a strong virus, because not only did the two of them get sick, but most of my family caught it (I'm assuming from Ilyana) as well. We felt so awful!! Merry Christmas everyone, your gift from Illy is.... the sickness of death! My cousins Miles and Bobby both caught it, as well as my brother and Mom, and then also my grandfather. We had also gone to visit Will's parents, and made his Stepdad sick too!

I'm lucky that I had taken some "Christmas" type photos prior to the actual day for scrapbook and present purposes, so I do have some cute little pictures of Bendy in her Christmas suits, seen below. Next time anyone feels bad the day or two before Christmas, I think quarantine will be in order. Hopefully next year will be much more enjoyable, and I'll get some awesome pics of the Eve and the day. I can't imagine it could get any worse!