Sugar Coated

We are still in the throes of Christmas here, with one more big family celebration yet waiting for us.

The toddler woke to many educational presents under the tree. Things she didn't understand what they were or what they did by looking at them. Which meant that the big hit was the $5 Hello Kitty lip gloss.

Now that things are out of the box and have batteries, she's able to play with them and I feel less and less that I ruined her Christmas. She was very gracious about it, but even as she was unwrapping and going "Yay, I got this...um...thing" you could see a 'WTF is this sh*t' look cross her face.

She did like the cardboard castle once we got it out of the box and assembled. She quickly swapped PJs for a princess dress and told Daddy, "You decorate my castle, I'll be the Queen."

The glow sticks in the bath with the wind-up swim toys were also a huge hit once they were in use. We had to pry her out the tub, one pruned finger at a time.

Christmas Eve we went to the zoo, which is a quasi family tradition depending on the weather. We sang carols to the bears and watched the orangutans eat poop. It was fun.

I was exhausted as I managed to mess myself up pretty badly with that work out last Thursday. I 'squatted myself into oblivion', something I haven't done in about a decade. My legs do not tell me when I've crossed the line. I am pretty good about compensating for that, but thought I was in shape enough for the work out when I wasn't. My body let me keep going and never sent a stop signal.

My quads and knees were quite swollen and were unable to support normal movement. So I lurched around the zoo, wincing every time I had to sit or get up.

Deep tissue massage helped. Walking at the zoo helped even though it sucked while I was doing it. Laying with the heating pad on high for hours on end helped. Tylenol, Advil etc....

My Christmas miracle was that I could walk mostly normally on the 25th. We went for a 1.5 mile walk (our gift to the dogs) Christmas Day and I didn't start limping until the end.

I considered steroids, but held off until it was no longer a question. Possibly on Christmas Eve night there was some adrenal weirdness I assume from pushing myself to walk so much with traumatized muscles. I was up most of the night positively ill with GI symptoms, but, aside from being certain I was about to vomit for hours on end, it passed. Just left me limp with fatigue for Christmas morning.

I was so wiped, I made the toddler watch cartoons instead of run down to get her presents. I literally could not wake up.

Once I did get moving things gradually improved. Without steroids. Kinda sorta.

In other news, I am so sick of sugar. Although the hubby made wonderful Nutella and banana crepes. He's a keeper. But I wouldn't mind a gluten free, sugar free version.

I never thought I would say this, but I miss my boring diet of hard boiled eggs alternated with cottage cheese with salad on the side.

The up shot of this never-ending post is Christmas was/is nice, but those adrenals are real buttinskys.