My Christmas Present.

We had so much fun last weekend. I keep thinking about it, certain moments, and smiling.
It all started with a snow storm. Not just any snow storm, a significant snow storm, with so much of the slippery, deadly mess falling from the sky the county canceled all after school activities. Right away I started to feel anxiety rising at the thought of not being able to go to Christmas party number one. I had gone tanning for gosh sakes. This was all I asked for for Christmas! And it would be so not fair if we couldn't go due to some dumb snow. Despite putting our lives--including those of my two precious children--in danger, we loaded the truck with all their stuff, a bottle of wine for our host, and our contact cases just in case we couldn't get home due to the weather (or, maybe, not due to the weather) and started out going at top speeds of fifteen miles an hour on the freeway.
Since my accident last January, I basically become a freak case driving in the snow. My palms get all clammy and I see delusional accidents happening right before my very eyes and I can't stop sweating like an absolute pig.
Forty five minutes and a massive headache (due to muscle tension in my neck) later--oh and sweaty palms, don't forget the sweaty palms--we pulled up to my mom's. We made it without an accident or killing the kids and I couldn't wait to get them dropped off and be on our way.
Then we could finally start this long anticipated, dreamy weekend!!

We slowly made it over to the party at a beautiful home in a neighborhood Joey and I only dream about and walked inside. I got a Blue Moon, stuck my booty on the couch, started talking, and the evening finally slowed down. It became relaxed, beautiful, timeless. We ended up up staying the night which was fine because the house had a least one extra master bedroom, so we had our own bathroom and everything.

Which is where things took their first turn for the worst.

I don't remember dropping my contact, but really, after a night like that, who's going to remember? The next morning when I went to put my right contact in, I felt like someone had just taken a piece of jagged glass to my eyeball, which is sorta what happened because at some point my hard contact broke right down the middle and, failing to notice this, I put the dumb thing in my eye.
It took me four years in eyeball hell to get the stupid thing out. At which point I washed it real good and still not noticing it was broken, stuck it back in my eye thinking it probably had a bit of mascara on it.

Well, it definitely was not mascara.
Now, if I could only begin to describe to you the pain of what I was feeling--having a broken contact on top of my now scratched cornea--you'd probably want to shoot yourself.

Anyway, I decided to do the smart thing and leave the contact out, even though I couldn't see worth beans. At this point I looked like a semi truck had run me over and then backed up a couple of times. I mean, with the alcohol factor, the not-taking-off-my-make-up factor, the staying-up-till-wee-hours-of-the-morning factor, no shower, and then the war I just fought with my eye (with globs of day old party mascara on), I looked pretty much like I had been on meth for the last six years or so. At least I had my teeth.

So now, without so much as a q-tip to tidy up my eyes, we had to go say goodbye to our host which I did as sweetly and charmingly as possible, despite looking like a beat up whore. Thankfully I couldn't really see his face to tell if he was making any sort of weird faces at me. I am sure if he thought I was cute last night (and oh! I looked so cute!), this morning he most certainly was thinking it must have been all the alcohol he was drinking and he would be wondering what in the name of all goodness happened to her?

We picked up the boys and drove home, ready for a big nap. I thought maybe resting my eyes for a couple hours would heal whatever damage I had done and the broken contact wouldn't be so bad to wear for just one evening. I had to be able to see at Christmas party number two! There would be all sorts of new people! What if I got people mixed up, or I couldn't see the food or a glass of wine and I dumped a glass right in some poor chap's lap?
These, however, were the least of my worries because in the middle of our nap the day took it's second turn for the worst when Ethan came into our bed moaning and crying and complaining that his ear hurt.

Ethan never complains that his ear hurt, even though he has had countless ear infections. I tried to ignore it, then I tried to act like it really wasn't that big of a deal, and then I just gave up and wallowed in hopelessness. I had to accept the fact that we couldn't go: I couldn't see, Ethan had an ear infection, or worse, he was dying. And all I could think about was going to some dumb Christmas party.

Joey got up to take Ethan to the Urgent Care, and I stayed behind to take care of Noah, who was screaming in his crib. So fun!

I got real sorry for myself. It was nice to dream about a night away, all dressed up with new people and amazing food and drinks with hotel California King bed to fall into at the end of the evening.
I took some deep breaths and at first asked why: why the snow, why this weekend, why my contact, why the ear infection. Whhhyyyyyy???
Then I decided God must be punishing me for drinking too much the night before. Then I had to tell myself God doesn't really work like that (although the contact thing could have been a legitimate consequence or it could have just been really, really old), and accept that in life this sort of thing is going to happen.
Surprisingly, my despair passed quickly as I made the bed and thought about how our evening at home was going to go: dinner, bedtime routines, snuggling on the couch. Wouldn't be that bad. And I'd be with Joey, which is all that really mattered....but the dancing!...and the food!...and our suite!...I said a sweet, desperate little prayer. And it turns out God wasn't really really really mad at me because just then Joey called and even though Ethan's eardrum ruptured, his pain had subsided and he still wanted to go to Grandmas.

Oh hallelujah how the angels were rejoicing!!!

I started getting ready and thankfully my eye felt a lot better after the nap. So I decided to try my contact one more time (why didn't someone just shoot me?).

After wrestling the gnarly thing out one last time, I finally gave up. I'd go blind. Wouldn't be able to see a darn thing but at least I'd be there. And hey, after a drink or two, I wouldn't notice it anyway and neither would anyone else. It would just be that awkward, first-forty-minutes-stone-cold sober phase I'd have to get through.

One more time we loaded up the truck and all the boys stuff and we headed over to Joey's mom's. Got the kids dropped off, and we were off again!

On the way into the hotel it was raining just a bit but after all the mishaps we'd had, I was thankful it wasn't a massive storm. When crappy things happen, it sure makes you appreciate normal life, even if it is boring or not perfect (so what's a little rain flattening my hair? Who cares?! I was there! Blind, and with flat hair, but there!)
Our hotel suit made me feel like Kate, William's finance. It was so majestic and beautiful and there was a hot tub right by our bed! I touched everything because I couldn't see it very well and pretended for a couple of seconds I was Helen Keller. Then we got ready quickly and headed down to the ballroom. This party was quite different than the one the night before because it was so big, more like a wedding reception. The people were all new to me and I tagged along behind Joey as he introduced me to some of them before the party got too big and everyone stopped introducing people all together.
No one seemed to notice the eye problem.

We ate, we danced, and we talked. Then we danced some more, went pee, danced, and went pee again.

It's always so fun to see my husband party. He works hard and he plays just as hard. I love to see that smile that only comes out when he's relaxed and having a really good time. It reminds me of when we were eighteen, with no responsibilities...but I never live in the past (haha).

We danced for a long time, until the huge party had dwindled down to just those of us on the dance floor.
Some of Joey's friends had gone upstairs to dance some more and I could tell Joey really wanted to go, but I was done. We had been sipping on pure Patrone all night and instead of making me happy and wanting to dance it was making me extremely sleepy. Plus, my shoes were rubbing raw hot blisters all over my feet and I was so sick of seeing everything in blurry double vision.
I told Joey my feet hurt, but that didn't do much. Then I tried to be more direct and let him know that I was sleepy and getting cranky and was on the verge of turning into a total bitch, but I think he had drank too much for that to really sink in. So we found ourselves upstairs in a club that reminded me of Brazil: people. lights. music. headache...my feet were on fire. In the middle of all that chaos I told him I was done and was going back to the room. Then I walked away.
Which I realized ten seconds later was a really bad idea seeing as I had never been in the club before and couldn't tell up from down (due to the crazy amount of people jammed in there, the lights, the booze, and my poor, dear eyes) and was totally lost, not to mention I didn't have our hotel key, he did.
I reluctantly turned my body around, thinking, well, if I came from this direction, I will go back in this direction...
And bam! There he was. My night in shinning armor. He was a little pissed, but still he was there and I was so relieved to see him. We left and we went to bed a little upset but too tired to dwell.
I thought the morning would be awkward but it wasn't anything we couldn't work through.
We had a delightful breakfast of greasy sausage and eggs and fruit and coffee that just about made your tummy turn it was so strong. Everything was all so delicious, I can still taste it.
And that's how I remember this weekend. I think about it and smile because it is so not us. And then at the same time it is completely us and I am so glad we got to have it together.