We Love…

Big days create big feelings, and big feeling are hard for our little guy to verbalize, and big feelings make him feel out of control, and the big feelings just plain stress him right out.

We have incredible, amazing children, and we try to remember all that they have been through. I try to remember that if I were that stressed out, I might have trouble getting out of bed in the morning, much less pull myself together, and get my emotions under control. Our babies are strong, and resilient, and brave, and I am already so proud of the wonderful people they are.

Is Christmas bad? No! It’s still my very favorite, and it’s the kid’s favorite… but it’s big, and the runway leading up to Christmas is long, and filled with excitement and new.
Our kids love Christmas…

And I love Christmas. And even though we are doing much less this year, and doing it much smaller this year, we are still doing it. We are just doing it a little more thoughtfully.

Baby J has worked himself up into such a state. We have already cut back on many of the parties and visiting with friends and fun outings, because tiny P is newly home, and has a compromised immune system… This will be a year of heart stuff for our tiny P, and we want our family to have special memories with her for her first Christmas. We are doing Christmas, and we are making memories, and we are having the fun…

And we are being sensitive to our kiddos, and their needs. We are talking about the feelings, and expectations. We are pulling them into our laps for a cuddle instead of disciplining them for acting out, and we are constantly, CONSTANTLY assuring them of our love.

In the end, a big day is just a day. If it goes great, then GREAT. If it goes bad, well, there will be many other big days.

So for now, we enjoy our babies…and we love.

Jen Hatmaker, whose wit and wisdom I adore, has a wonderful blog post about why big days are hard for our kids…It’s insightful and funny, and you can read it here.