The Children (on Christmas) and updates from blogcation
So there we were on Christmas Eve, and as family arrived and shuffled into the house with armfuls of delicious fattening Christmas food, and pretty wrapped packages with the kids names written on them, the first thing I thought of as I watched it all come into the house was the comment section of a recent post I had written. The one all about keeping the toys to a minimum this year-- where some folks had asked how do we get our family to comply to our wishes and keep the no noisy mindless toys policy enforced? to which I responded: "We have no idea. We just started down this path. I think it is a situation where they look to Cole and I to see what we think is best and follow that lead. There really isn't a ton of resistance. At least we don't think."
Ha! Let's just call it a big strike one at our first attempt to keep Christmas under control. We were really happy that almost all of the choices for LB were beneficial in some way and designed to help him along with aspects of his OT, PT, and SLP. So how can we complain if there was a noisy battery powered hunk of plastic thrown into the mix.
The Littlest Buddies BIG gift this year was from his GG Mama who got him all of series one of Signing Time. And LB was sincerely the most excited about the DVD's when he saw them, he wanted to stop all of the gift exchanging and just start watching.
In the end we were just smashed by the generosity the family pours onto LB and Tessa and were absolutely powerless while we watched The Littlest Buddy participate in unwrapping gifts. What he was opening was trumped by the fact that he was actually opening up all of the boxes. In the past years he hadn't had the power in his hands and flexibility in his fingers to tear open the packages very well, and even just last year would get frustrated and tired after a couple of presents. He had such a focused face this year and just mowed through all of the presents he could get his hands on. He makes the same face when he is concentrating that Cole makes when she cuts hair. Hilarious-- the focus face. We let him open up all of Tessa's presents as well, all but one. My mother wrapped her gift up to Tessa in tissue and tied the end loosely with some yarn and let her go at it for awhile. It kept her busy for a good 15 minutes. All super fun for us to watch.
So I put together a little video of Christmas eve and Christmas morning and set it all to a big epic song-- and Cole and I have been watching it like crazy and realized how much fun we actually had this year. We managed some really nice quiet moments on Christmas day, which didn't happen by design, so when we realized we were in a thick of calm and comfort we really sunk into the time and enjoyed it. Of course before Christmas was over we were already planning on how we can avoid it all next year and go on vacation somewhere. Something we had really hoped for this year and didn't manage to pull off. Despite that, it is on the wish list of things to accomplish for 2010.
As I have written before, Christmas was always a sour time of year for me, and of course it is all sweetened now by these amazing moments with Cole and LB and Tessa. I have this incredible little family now that keeps me calm and smiling. But that little angry ball of fire is still in there somewhere and it had always been burning bright and hot from envy and wishing for picture book moments with my own mom and dad and my sister-- who has been so far away from all of us for as long as I can remember. I am happy to say that this year I have been able to talk to my sister more and it really started to fill in some of these holes in my gut. It felt good to be connected. I think I can admit that I miss my sister. I miss her. And it feels good for us to be talking about growing up and putting the puzzle together some. So for me this was one of the best parts of the holiday and anytime connections and camaraderie start over shadowing gifts then it feels like I must be on the right path.
As far as the big holiday blog break has been going... it has been awesome. I absolutely love it when LB is out of school, he is just such a different little boy and we all have so much fun together. Tessa has been threatening to crawl for weeks and adding on plenty of chunk for padding to prepare herself for all of the falling and face plants as she starts moving around the house. I have been shooting like crazy and excited to share a bunch of these new projects here on this blog after the new year. One of which is a HUGE hair project I have been shooting for Cole for the salon, she really busted her ass and put together a ton of work for me to capture. My buddy and I made 3 music videos for my best friends band Rabbit that has an album launching in January. I started a new maternity series for a friend that I am really excited about. Cole and I can stop wishing for some of our friends to have babies now, because it happened! and we couldn't be more excited for them. I started shooting this new series of her at week 16 and am really happy with how it's turning out. I wanted to make sure that I wasn't just repeating what I had already done with Cole's series and truly take inspiration from what I had done rather than rip myself off, just to end up with the same exact thing. So as the year winds down and we are getting ready for the New Year I am going to keep plugging away at projects and get all of this stuff ready to show off. Cole will also be taking the blog over for some time in January while I am doing a shoot in Vegas. She took the blog over for a week in January last year. So perhaps we have a new tradition.
I truly hope everyone had as much fun as they could squeeze out of the holidays and have plenty of smiles stored up to keep pushing through the winter. I know it has been a real up and down year for a ton of people, and from many of the blogs I follow people are figuring out how to keep their shit together and their families strong. So everyone keep up the spirit of the season, keep pushing for good things to happen, and Happy Holidays to all of you.
All the Love in the Universe ~ Us



