The Little Kid In Me

As soon as I woke up the day after Thanksgiving, I was ready for all things Christmas.  The Christmas music was going, and I made my first batch of fudge when I got home from my mom's that weekend.  More than a month ago, I studied the calendar and saw that December 1st fell on a Saturday.  PERFECT!  Dustin has been working like crazy and traveling a lot lately, but I showed him the calendar, explaining verrryyy carefully that there would be no hunting or traveling that weekend, that this was the weekend that we would decorate the house.  I started making plans.  I told Dustin that we would be chopping down our Christmas tree this year (we always have a real tree, but usually we just buy one already cut down), and I had daydreams of the three of us searching for the perfect tree...  Eden would be dressed in a little Christmas sweater and the red booties I bought especially for the occasion.  I would wear this sweatshirt (my new Christmas Decorating Day sweatshirt for all years) that I had ordered a few weeks back with black leggings and my black Uggs.  I would take cute pictures of Eden sitting in front of the chosen tree, Dustin would chop it down, and we would haul it back home where I would spend the day decorating the tree and the inside of the house while Dustin put the lights up on the outside.  Christmas music would be playing, a roast would be cooking... Dustin would come in that evening, put the star on top of the tree for the finishing touch, and we would eat dinner.  After Eden was asleep, we would snuggle up on the couch to watch the first viewing of Christmas Vacation for the year while drinking hot chocolate.  Then I would fall asleep to the warm glowing lights shining in through my window.  Sounds lovely, right?  As December 1st got closer and closer, I was just so darn excited!  I have always loved Christmas (who doesn't?), but having Eden has made ME feel like a little kid again about the whole thing.

FIRST of all, I must have forgotten where I live.  December 1st brought with it 84 degree weather.  I. Was. Pissed.  There would be no Christmas sweatshirt or red booties!  Being the "all or nothing" person that I am, I threw a small fit and decided that if we couldn't wear our cute Christmas-tree-cutting-down clothes, then I didn't even want to go cut down a tree!  Who wants to go cut down a Christmas tree while wearing shorts for crying out loud?!  Dustin decided we would just buy the tree at Lowe's when we went to buy lights.  Fine, whatever.  I got a roast going in the crockpot, dressed Eden in a red onesie and a freakin' pair of shorts, and off we went to buy a tree and lights.  Despite the fact that we would not be cutting down the tree, I was still all happy and excited.

SECOND of all, I didn't realize that by December 1st, most of the Christmas lights are sold out already.  What the heck?  How early are people decorating?  I thought we were on top of it doing this on the the first day in December.  We searched the shelves of Lowe's high and low for the kind of lights we wanted, but no such luck, they were all out.  We got our tree and headed across the street to Wal-Mart to look for lights there.  You see, I wanted CLASSIC lights.  I do not like LED lights (on my house... they look fine on other houses... a house built in the 1800s needs the classic lights).  I wanted the old-fashioned, electricity-sucking lights.  Apparently so did everybody else.  Wal-Mart was sold out too.  And there's nothing like Wal-Mart on a Saturday to really put you in a good mood.  Off we went to Home Depot.  Guess what?  All sold out.  Dustin asked the guy if they would be getting in another shipment.  No, they would not.  What the heck?  Seriously?  It's December 1st!  By now, neither of us was in a very good mood from fighting traffic and crowded stores, and Eden was over being put in and taken out of her car seat over and over.  But hold on!  Dustin had a friend who was coming to town from Huntsville later that day!  Dustin called the Home Depot in Huntsville and found out that they had 32 glorious boxes of the lights that we wanted!  Allelujah!  Dustin called up his friend and asked him to go buy us 15 boxes of Christmas lights from Home Depot.  I kept trying to talk into the phone, explaining which lights he was to buy and stressing about 15 times "NOT LED"!  I made sure he wrote it down.  I can be a little crazy like that.

By the time we got home, it was late afternoon.  Hmmm.... this was not going as planned.  So far I had a naked tree from Lowe's and... that's it.  Dustin got down my boxes of Christmas decorations, and I put a few things out around the house while Dustin got our tree situated in the stand.  And that's all.  It was time for dinner and to put Eden to bed, and that's all we managed to accomplish on December 1st.

I wasn't very happy. 

After Eden had been put to bed, and I had even crawled into bed myself to read a book, Dustin's friend showed up with our lights.  A little later, Dustin came to bed and announced, "Um... We have a small problem with the lights... They're white."

Well apparently, I had been so concerned with explaining NOT LED, that I forgot to specify that I wanted colored lights.  I. Was. Pissed.  Not at the friend, it wasn't his fault, and I'm so grateful that he took the time to get us any lights at all.  But at the whole stupid day.  My day did not happen at all like it was supposed to, and so like a spoiled child, I threw a fit.  I started going on and on about the STUPID HOT weather, how it WASN'T hot chocolate drinking weather, we DIDN'T cut down our tree, practically NOTHING was decorated, I WASN'T falling asleep to Christmas lights through my window, and now when I do get lights up, they're going to be WHITE!  (Nothing against white lights, I just prefer pretty, colored, fun ones.)  Dustin, to his credit, tried to console me (when he really should have told me to grow the F up) and offered to put in a Christmas movie.  I flat out refused.  "If I can't have hot chocolate and Christmas lights, I don't even want to watch a stupid Christmas movie.  Eden's first Christmas is RUINED!"  I was being completely ridiculous.  And even while I was being ridiculous, I knew I was being ridiculous, but I couldn't stop.  I went to bed still fuming about the whole dang day.

The next morning, I was ready to admit I was being ridiculous.  We laughed it off, and set about getting the tree decorated.  I had a new attitude.  I decided that instead of moaning about how it wasn't hot chocolate weather, I would just find a Christmas drink more suitable to Texas.  Dustin went off to the store to buy us the ingredients for Grinch Spritzers (lime sherbert, sprite, maybe some vodka).  He came back a little later and informed me that this just really wasn't my year.  The store, of course, was out of lime sherbert.  I handled it much better this day though, and I was perfectly happy eating the Blue Bell's Peppermint ice cream he had brought me instead.

The three of us happily decorated the Christmas tree together.  Just kidding.  I decorated the tree while Dustin pretended to be interested while he really was watching the Texans game, and Eden ate tissue paper.  The (white) lights were eventually  hung (and they look pretty good if I do say so myself) and finally everything came together.  We even watched Christmas Vacation.

I was so worried about making sure this Christmas was absolutely perfect because it's Eden's first, but really, I had it all wrong!  You see, this Christmas doesn't have to be perfect because it's Eden's first.  This Christmas will ALREADY be perfect because it's Eden's first.  I hope our family creates lots of memories cutting down Christmas trees and decorating for Christmas in the years to come, but Eden will of course be taught that Christmas is not about trees and lights and decorations, but Jesus obviously - and also to NOT act like Mommy when you don't get your way.

Ignore the Christmas tree skirt situation going on here... We currently don't have a skirt large enough for the stand, but I'm working on it!

*****

Baby Girl is sick right now.  Besides a stuffy nose and the sniffles back in May, this is the first time she's really been sick.  She has a fever, and her nose is running all over the place.  There's something so incredibly pathetic and sad, yet sweet about a sick baby.  She looks up at me with watery eyes and snot all over her face and grins, and I just want to laugh and cry at the same time.  Last night she clung to me with her warm, feverish body as I rocked her to sleep.  Oh, how I hate that she feels bad, but I take so much pleasure in doing little things to make her feel better - cool washclothes, head rubs and lots of cuddles.

After my post about our Thanksgiving, my mom sent me a message that included these words:

Right now you are that special little baby's entire world. YOU. It will not always be this way. She will grow up. She will make friends. She will go off to school. She will have her own life someday. But for now, YOU are it. And it is an honor that not everyone is awarded. When the nights seem long, when the days seem long .... just think back to when you were pregnant. Those first 15 weeks when you were so sick. Those days seemed forever, but now they are only a faint memory. You were pregnant for 37 (?) weeks ... and at the time, it seemed forever. But now? A quick little lapse of your life. One day, this too, will be a memory. Hold on to it now with everything you have.

I'm learning that motherhood comes with some not-so-easy days.  I could say more, but I think my mom just said it perfectly.