Mom Achievement Unlocked: letting go of my Christmas expectations (almost)
aka, the six sighs of christmas 2018
having a NTH means most of your time is spent feeding, coaxing it to sleep, changing diapers, and doing laundry. this "sleep when they sleep" garbage is nonsense, at least during daylight hours...but that's a whole other blog post. that being said, when we get to Christmas, a time when we tend to have more social events, more food to cook, treats to bake, and decorating to do adding a NTH to the mix is a little bit stressful. you can plan to bake 3 types of sweets in one day, but your NTH might have other plans...and guess what? their schedule usually wins. *sigh*
i had a plan to get family photos done with Santa. should be a relatively simple goal to achieve, right? there was even a lovely Santa at a local Saturday market; it was the perfect opportunity. i dressed NTH in a sweet little outfit which he did not spit up on (!) got me and hubby and our dog out the door in photo attire, i even had makeup on! but in the 30 minutes it took to leave our house and get to Santa i came down with a cold. i kid you not. drippy, red, watery eyes and constant sneezing, i was basically falling apart before my husband's eyes. we got to Santa, had to wait a bit for our turn and by that time i was a hot mess. we got 2 shots of NTH with Santa and booked it back home where i went to bed and slept all afternoon. so, no family pics, no santa family pics, just 2 slightly poorly framed shots of NTH with Santa. *sigh*
and you know what? fine. i can't control when a cold kicks my butt. we take pics to remember our lives and that was our life that day. i was disappointed but what could i do but embrace the pics we did have? we could still make cute Christmas cards with an image of just him.
our Christmas tree is a charlie brown tree that hubby & i cut down ourselves (a yearly tradition) but this year there weren't enough branches to put all the ornaments on! our lights didn't work so i had to take down a string of lights i put up elsewhere so the tree would be lit. oh, and we never did make it in to the spare room to dig through boxes to find the tree topper. and, i'm like 98% ok with that. it bugs me, but it doesn't consume me every time i see the tree. *sigh*
Christmas eve i dressed NTH in his little Christmas outfit for church and he spit up all over it. I put him in outfit #2 and he spit up on that! then he slept in his car seat the whole service anyway so it didn't even matter what he wore. *sigh*
Christmas day i wanted a nice family pic with my whole family while they were down. mum & dad, sis, bro-in-law, nephew, and me, hubby & NTH. but by the time the photo op came around my cold reared its head again & our photographer went mia so hubby took the pic, meaning he wasn't in it, and then when i saw it i almost cried because i looked giant. (angles, men just don't consider angles *sigh*) but, i posted it on facebook anyway. that was us on Christmas, perfectly imperfect.
all this to say, it's easy to get expectations that simply don't fit the way your life is right now. even when they aren't crazy high expectations. i think the low key expectations are even harder to let go of because it seems like they should be attainable. but, it's ok. i've realized i can let things go and my reality is still wonderful. the messy, sick, untopped tree reality is exactly what it should be. i had my family around me, ate a yummy meal, and felt loved. what more could i really want?
aka, the six sighs of christmas 2018
having a NTH means most of your time is spent feeding, coaxing it to sleep, changing diapers, and doing laundry. this "sleep when they sleep" garbage is nonsense, at least during daylight hours...but that's a whole other blog post. that being said, when we get to Christmas, a time when we tend to have more social events, more food to cook, treats to bake, and decorating to do adding a NTH to the mix is a little bit stressful. you can plan to bake 3 types of sweets in one day, but your NTH might have other plans...and guess what? their schedule usually wins. *sigh*
i had a plan to get family photos done with Santa. should be a relatively simple goal to achieve, right? there was even a lovely Santa at a local Saturday market; it was the perfect opportunity. i dressed NTH in a sweet little outfit which he did not spit up on (!) got me and hubby and our dog out the door in photo attire, i even had makeup on! but in the 30 minutes it took to leave our house and get to Santa i came down with a cold. i kid you not. drippy, red, watery eyes and constant sneezing, i was basically falling apart before my husband's eyes. we got to Santa, had to wait a bit for our turn and by that time i was a hot mess. we got 2 shots of NTH with Santa and booked it back home where i went to bed and slept all afternoon. so, no family pics, no santa family pics, just 2 slightly poorly framed shots of NTH with Santa. *sigh*
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| the little pompom <3 |
and you know what? fine. i can't control when a cold kicks my butt. we take pics to remember our lives and that was our life that day. i was disappointed but what could i do but embrace the pics we did have? we could still make cute Christmas cards with an image of just him.
our Christmas tree is a charlie brown tree that hubby & i cut down ourselves (a yearly tradition) but this year there weren't enough branches to put all the ornaments on! our lights didn't work so i had to take down a string of lights i put up elsewhere so the tree would be lit. oh, and we never did make it in to the spare room to dig through boxes to find the tree topper. and, i'm like 98% ok with that. it bugs me, but it doesn't consume me every time i see the tree. *sigh*
Christmas eve i dressed NTH in his little Christmas outfit for church and he spit up all over it. I put him in outfit #2 and he spit up on that! then he slept in his car seat the whole service anyway so it didn't even matter what he wore. *sigh*
Christmas day i wanted a nice family pic with my whole family while they were down. mum & dad, sis, bro-in-law, nephew, and me, hubby & NTH. but by the time the photo op came around my cold reared its head again & our photographer went mia so hubby took the pic, meaning he wasn't in it, and then when i saw it i almost cried because i looked giant. (angles, men just don't consider angles *sigh*) but, i posted it on facebook anyway. that was us on Christmas, perfectly imperfect.
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| i'm in the black tshirt. would it have killed him to tell me to change my position or get my mum to scoot up to cover my giant limb? *sigh* let it goooooooo.................. |
all this to say, it's easy to get expectations that simply don't fit the way your life is right now. even when they aren't crazy high expectations. i think the low key expectations are even harder to let go of because it seems like they should be attainable. but, it's ok. i've realized i can let things go and my reality is still wonderful. the messy, sick, untopped tree reality is exactly what it should be. i had my family around me, ate a yummy meal, and felt loved. what more could i really want?
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