Pendulums

It's four days after Christmas and I feel like the upside-down Christmas tree that has already appeared in our neighbor's green waste barrel.  How did I get here?  To the week AFTER the holiday that blew by like a red and green tornado?

Adam's birthday, Thanksgiving, the sale, and a family crisis all hit in 4 days.  Our house has been upside-down ever since.  Guy and I did our Christmas shopping in two days the week of Christmas, and while we managed to have a quiet Christmas Eve with the kids, and Guy and I tried to let go our attachments to all that we had not been able to get done, I have been, let's call it... re-evaluating.

I didn't get my village up in the window this year; no alligator hunting under the little ceramic bridge for the kids this holiday.  I never got the crimson velvet ribbons onto the tree, and my half of our "sweetie ornaments", the ones Guy and I have made for each other and gifted each Christmas Eve are still in the box marked "Fragile", next to the outdoor lights that never saw the outside of  the tin popcorn can they live in 11 months out of the year.  I skipped creating handmade ornaments for the kids, recycled a half-finished ornament for Guy, and never got around to finishing the advent calendar, or putting The Little's names on their stockings.  Worst of all, perhaps, is that for the third year in a row I have not painted a Christmas card painting, created the card or written a family letter.

There are many times that we have to let go of things; projects, expectations, plans that don't fit or aren't realistic anymore. That can be a good thing when it makes life more simple, helps us to balance our lives, and brings what is most important into focus.  But pendulums can swing, as they tend to do, too far.  This time letting go of so many traditions and plans has been a negative for me.  I'm a bit bummed that I let go of too many things.

I have also let my posting go here for what seems like forever.  There have been really, really good reasons, and I have even considered the possibility that writing here had run its course.  But as I look back at our year as a family, I can't see as far back without this blog.  The events that I don't post about fade for me.  My memory has been so poor since Natalie's birth.  I don't know if it was all the stress or an actual change in my brain, but I do know that if my kids are to have a family history, I need to keep writing it, because I won't remember the stories to tell them.  And I'll admit that I do get a kick out of knowing that some of my dearest friends read it, which certainly makes sharing it a lot more fun (If you are one of my dearest friends, insert your cute name here ____________.)

Our poor, dry tree is dropping needles like Jonah drops toys on the floor, and won't make it to the new year.  It's bound to be trunk up in the trash by the First.  But I'm getting a jump on the New Year, with all it's goal setting and resolutions, starting with this post.  And I think that, just for kicks, I'll work on that advent calendar tonight.

Surprises

My Tessa-loo has been

on the planet for eight years.

I have had eight years to get ready for this, but it still sneaked up on me.  She has been growing so fast, changing so much.  She has been taking her smart-allec-mobile out for many test drives of late.  It is a familiar phase; we went through this with her sis, and they boys have had their own versions as well.  But even with all the stretching limbs and changing vocal pitch, I still wasn't ready for this whole

growing up thing.

I mean, where does she get off?  Honestly.  The nerve.

I was thinking back to her baby days, how I was so surprised on the day she was born to see that she was a little girl.  To her birth and her nursling days (okay, years.  So sue me), and how much she adored to snuggle with me.  She was a serious baby, with an intense gaze and little humor.  She was always a head turner, but didn't ever want the attention she unintentionally attracted.  She still is pretty serious, as her tummy troubles would attest, but she has developed a fun little sense of humor.  She is creative and bright, and so, so dramatic.  She loves music and dancing.  She is sweet to The Littles, and can be very helpful to me.  

We are blessed to have her in our family.

Happy Birthday, Tessa.

***

(Photo of the birthday girl by the amazing Annmarie Hall)

***

I had help with the "surprise cake" Tessa asked for.  It was a surprise in more ways than one.  I did have a plan...at first.  It was to be a green cake with a cute white picket fence around the outside.  On top was to be a little sculpted brown horse with a white patch on his face, and sweet flowers at his feet.  

As the day wore on, my plan dissolved.  Time was fleeting, and as Jonah-boy was trashing rooms, baby was crying and phones and doorbells were ringing.  Well, doorbells weren't, because ours has been broken for years, but you get the idea.  The cute little horsey I sculpted kind of was a flop (It's not important why, but I blame the fondant.  If I could've used clay I would have rocked that colt).  As usual, nothing was going according to my plan.

But Tessa didn't know what my idea had been.  She had no preconceived cake notions because she had handed over the pastry-plotting to me.  She just trusted me.  Trusted that I was going to make her an "awesome surprise cake".  By the end of the afternoon I found myself out of energy and ideas.  What if I just covered the cake with polka-dots?  No, the voice in my head said, you have to do something that is special to Tessa.

Jonah kept pestering me to help, and I finally gave in.  What harm could it do?  We rolled and cut and moistened fondant, and eventually, we had a cake.  Not the cake that had been in my head.  Not the cake with a picket fence.  

But a cake.  A nice cake that she loved.  

It has taken me years to be okay with switching gears; with giving up on an idea or a plan that isn't working because I've become attached to the fantasy, even if reality is telling a different story.  It's getting easier and easier to stop and take inventory, and see that sometimes the best idea isn't the "vision", but the one that you can realistically make happen.

(with polka-dots.  Just a few)

The last surprise was thanks to an inordinate amount of food coloring.  I promise the purple was not muddy-grey in real life, and I swear I don't do this kind of thing on a regular basis.  I make my kids eat broccoli and fruit and drink tons of water.  But once in a while, we eat rainbows.