Perfection

Before this season started I had lots of visions about how everything would go. We would linger over the Christmas tree, carefully selecting our favorite ornaments and sipping hot cocoa. We would laugh and chat while rolling out sugar cookies. It was going to be a little Norman Rockwell, a little Currier and Ives and a dash of Martha. Obviously these dreams were not very carefully thought out because I entirely failed to factor in that three year old.

We've started making cookies and each batch requires triple the usual amount of clean up because Aiden likes to tear or roll or smash each little crumb. He has to have a hand in the mixing and rolling and cutting of each cookie. I let him help as much as he'd like, but sometimes, okay a lot of the time, it drives me nuts even though he looks so cute and has so much fun.




We decorated our tree on Monday night and it was an exercise in self control. I had pulled out all the boxes of ornaments and lo and behold, I found all of the ornaments we'd used as decorations at our wedding! Suddenly I decided that this tree was going to be a vision of jewel toned glass balls with sparkling gold accents here and there.

Aiden decided he'd like his Elmo ornament to go front and center, along with all the other Disney themed ornaments.

I decided we should all have hot cocoa. Aiden downed his in two minutes flat and spent the night nearly spilling everyone else's.

I carefully located hooks for each ornament, which Aiden would promptly lose as he shook each one to see if they did anything cool.

The whole night I kept having to remind myself that this is his show now. These are his childhood memories and they shouldn't be filled with me groaning and gnashing my teeth over the details when what he should be remembering is how sweet the cocoa tasted, how perfect his Elmo ornament was, and how amazing the tree looked all lit up in the front window.