Surviving the Holidays with a 2 year old

Good Lord the holidays are rough for little ones. Two days later and I still feel like we’re suffering the aftershocks from an almost week long sleep schedule fuckery celebration. While Potamus has been remarkably flexible with the over abundance of shiny wrapped things and sugary snacks, everyone has a limit. At 6:30 pm on Christmas night he was just DONE. Throwing things around my in-laws’s house, screaming, stomping, and just generally melting into a toddler sized puddle.

Thankfully, I have some quiet memories to savor when I look back on our time. There was the sweet Christmas morning, when, for the first time since Boof and I have been married, we woke up in our own home, and did our own Christmas routine. Boof made chocolate chip pancakes, and I wrapped a few small gifts that I bought for less than $20 at Value Village. It was maybe an hour of sweetness, but those moments are things I’ll treasure. It felt right and good for me to advocate for OUR family, rather than taking everyone else’s schedule into account. Sure he tore through the gifts in aproximately 45 seconds, and the dog had half chewed the toys by 10am, but the sweetness, of snuggling on the couch with our pancakes and seeing the twinkly tree in the corner, was totally worth it.

We’ve all survived. Potamus is still weaned, which feels freaking amazing. We’ve somehow managed to create a sweet little bedtime routine and he’s falling asleep on his own. Sure he still wakes up and comes into our bed to snuggle for the rest of the night, but one thing at a time, right? We have one more holiday party, on Sunday, to gear up for, and I’m hoping that after that things will go back to relative normalcy around here. He’ll be back in school, and with the exception of New Years, there won’t be any real changes to the schedule. I have so much compassion for families with more than 1 little person around, as it’s hard, on the kids, the parents, everyone. It’s both magical and so hard for all involved. I wish somehow there was a way to get off the crazy train and make it like that calm morning pancake memory.

How was your holiday season? Did your kids behave or get totally wound up? How do you deal with all the craziness?

 

Christmas Spirit

I really love the Christmas season, though, for me, I really just consider it the Winter Magical Wonderland season, because with my birthday on December 13, and our anniversary (and now Potamus’ birthday) on December 20th, the whole month of December is much more than just Christmas Day. But, as much as I love the magic of white Christmas lights, and have such nostalgia about Christmas memories from childhood, I’ve actually felt pretty grinchy about Christmas for the past few years.

And it wasn’t until reading Am I a Grinch or Will I Find the Christmas Spirit Someday? over on Offbeat Home, that I really started to articulate it to myself. Sure, in therapy, a few weeks ago I made the connection that Christmas has been stressful because we have managed to be everywhere for everyone for the past 5 years, and it’s exhausting (not to mention we’ve felt like we’ve half-assed a lot of it).

But as I was reflecting over on that post, I think what has contributed to my grinchyness feeling, as far as not really wanting to decorate my own house much, or get too into too many traditions, is that Boof’s family felt very solidified in terms of THEIR TRADITIONS. And whereas, my family had spent many years celebrating Christmas Eve, and then it switched to more Christmas Day, it felt more low-key. Of the people in my family, I was the one that usually felt most tied to a particular tradition, but that’s mostly around food than about the actual day or what we do. So, I liked Christmas Eve because we could open presents and then sleep instead of waking up early to open presents. Seemed much less stressful. But Boof’s family had a set specific ritual of driving across the state on-Christmas-day to make it to Eastern WA by dinner, having dinner in the woods with their grandparents, and then spending the next 5 hours systematically opening presents one by one and finally playing a game of Trivial Pursuit.

The thing is, I am just now realizing, that I expected that traditions would change when we got married. Not that I want the world to revolve around me, but I guess I just assumed that Boof and I would form a few more traditions of our own, and try less to fit into the traditions of either of our families. And I don’t think we did that. I think we actually tried to really hold on to the traditions of his family, and have me fit into them, which did work, and was fun, but then when I was pregnant and everything had to change it felt like I was the reason for change…like I was the bad guy…and not that things change when people get married and have kids. I felt responsible for throwing a wrench in the traditions, like the extra 10lbs of fat keeping you from fitting nicely into the jeans. And that wasn’t a good feeling. 

Before I had the mentality that my  house didn’t need to be Christmassy, because we wouldn’t be here for Christmas. We always traveled…even if just down the road to my in-laws or across the state to my parent’s, or across the state to Boof’s grandparent’s. But then, I was thrift shopping (mostly taking pictures of ridiculous things that people donate to thrift shops), and found the sweetest little Charlie Brown Christmas tree, with pre-lit lights, for only $20. And it’s put up, in the corner of our living room, by my bookshelf..and I love it. I don’t know why this 4 foot cheesy tree, with a giant hole of missing branches in the back, makes me teary eyed. I know it isn’t gonna be a tree we have for years and years, but it just feels right. Like we can sit around the Christmas tree on Christmas morning, before we head over to my in-law’s, and drink coffee and watch Jake & the Neverland Pirates, or not, and our house has a little Christmas cheer to it. It feels like I have come to a place where I realize that we can’t do everything, and we get to decide and explore what things we like and want. Like changing from Trivial Pursuit to Carcassone, because that’s a WAY BETTER game 😉

How have your holiday traditions changed over the years? Are you a Grinch or totally into the whole Christmas season?

Fall=Fair Tradition with Bio family!!

**I was going to write a lovely post about how much I freaking love the Fall, and that while I’m somewhat sad that I’m not going to be a stay-at-home mom anymore (okay, who am I kidding, I’m thrilled I get to use my adult brain again), but I read Karen’s post on the subject (see link earlier in post) and resonated so much with it that I thought writing my own would be redundant. So go read her post, imagine it’s me, and then come back and read this post about how Fall brings about a fair tradition! 🙂

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Mama and Potamus

Five years ago I went to the Puyallup Fair for the first time with my biological dad and little sisters. It was a tradition in their family and I was so excited to get to be a part of it. My little sisters were 4 and 9 at the time, and like my bio dad says “she’ll never know a time without you,” as we pulled the littlest in the wagon behind us. It was there, at the Puyallup Fair, that I taught my little sister to tie her shoes. And she fell asleep in the wagon after a long, hard, day of riding rides and seeing animals, and miles of walking. Miles. Seriously. My legs hurt so bad the next morning that I had to crawl to the bathroom.

So, this year, with Potamus approaching 2 and our schedules magically coinciding, we headed on down to the Washington State Fair (previously named the Puyallup Fair, don’t get me started on the politics of this name change. SO ANNOYING!) and Potamus was ushered into the fair family tradition. It’s things like this that make me step back and see how adoption has really colored my life…I am forming family traditions for my son, with a family I didn’t know until I was 25. My heart feels both bursting with love at the traditions and memories to come and sad about the time we missed. And yet, I also temper that with the strange soul knowledge that the time we missed would have been different, possibly harder?, or just different had he been taking me to the fair since I was a child.

Potamus loved it. Rather than bore you with the details, here are a few pictures to highlight the revelry:

petting zoo fun

MOM LOOK AT THAT GOAT!

milk cows

I learned that my bio-grandad, at age 13, drove a team of horses like this to dig the basement of a fish hatchery in Eastern Washington!!!

mama’s little rebel

grandpa telling Potamus about the horses

Grandpa. Grandson. Love.

My son will always know my bio-dad as grandpa. This makes me happy.

What Fall traditions does your family have? Do you enjoy going county or state fairs?