Happy New Year!
2009 turned out to be an awesome year, but I’m really looking forward to seeing what 2010 turns up.
Best wishes to all of you for a peaceful, enlightening, joyous, and healthy 2010!
Dear Gem – Month 9
As I am writing this letter, we have all the lights in the house turned out except for the Christmas decorations, and Christmas movies playing on the TV. It’s two nights before Christmas, and you’re making your rounds of the living room. You check out the tree, then play with a toy, look at a book, come say hi to me, watch TV for a while, and you are just so excited about all of it. Your exuberance is infectious, we find ourselves getting excited over the mundane when viewing the world through your eyes. Christmas is especially magical.
I’ve always loved Christmas, it’s my favorite holiday. But there were years when I was not filled with the holiday spirit. In fact this is the first time we put up our tree in the past three years. Two years ago, I wasn’t in the mood, in fact I had a rather humbuggy attitude because it was right after your Grandpa (my Daddy) died, and that made me mad.
Last year I was pregnant with you, we were broke, and there was a horrible winter storm that blocked our car in, so we couldn’t go get our tree and decorations out of storage. But your Daddy gave me a wonderful Christmas gift that year. While I was napping on Christmas Eve, he trekked through the snow to the nearest open store and used our last few dollars to buy a pack of Christmas lights, and a couple other little items. I woke up to an improvised Christmas tree, with the lights wrapped around our easel, and decorated with a tiny stocking, a little stuffed animal, and chocolate. It was absolutely beautiful to me.
Sometimes it’s easy to forget the meaning of Christmas when you’re surrounded with decorations, presents, and superficial familial niceties. Sometimes it’s those lean years, when you have so little that the beauty of Christmas reveals itself. In fact, this might sound mean, but I hope you have lean times. It is the lean times that teach you to appreciate what you have. They also teach you management skills that few of us learn otherwise. But mostly, I want you to experience the lean times because they magnify joy and beauty if you let them. These are the moments where you learn to see through the superficial, and appreciate what’s real and meaningful.
I hope you have a wonderful Christmas this year, although I’m quite certain you wont remember much of it. I hope you keep that wide eyed wonder over the years to come. Don’t let yourself become jaded. Choose joy. And as far as that Santa Clause guy is concerned, he’ll grow on you over time. In fact it wont be long till you will look forward to seeing him.
Merry Christmas Baby Girl.
Love,
Mommy
Read more Letters to Gem.
Holiday Tradition
Every year for Christmas, my husband and I pick out a Christmas ornament together. We’ve been doing this since before we got married and it’s become a cherished part of our Christmas tradition.
We try to choose something that is representative of our year together, or at least an occasion during the year. And we try to find something that is not too fragile. There have been years, and this might be another one, where this ornament consumes the entirety of our minuscule Christmas budget. But even when money is tight we still find a way to make the holiday special and memorable.
Last year I was pregnant, and we came home with a pickle ornament. I’m quite sure this years ornament will be appropriately baby oriented. I’m also considering extending the tradition to include and ornament for Gem as well. If we get one every year, she’ll have a couple dozen by the time she gets her Masters Degree. {hope.}
What’s your favorite holiday tradition?
Dear Gem – Month 8
It may be a few days late, but how appropriate that I finally get around to writing this letter to you on Thanksgiving; you are right at the top of my list of things for which I am thankful. You bring so much joy to my life, and recently, music as well. We got out my old keyboard and hooked it up on the shelf below the tv and you just go to town on it – sometimes singing and dancing along too. Maybe it’s mother’s ears, but you sound good – in a frightening way. Actually your music sounds like the music from a horror film that foreshadows the scary part. But somehow it sounds musical too.
At the end of last month you had just started pulling yourself into a standing position. We eventually had to take away your little gym because it wasn’t built to help you stand. You will use just about anything to help stand yourself up. In fact, Daddy got out the pots and pans so you could make noise and you tried to use them to stand up as well, which was fine until you fell and hit your head on a sauce pan.
Since then, you have started making laps around the living room, going from couch, to bookshelf, to crib, to desk, and on, and on… You move fast, and you are becoming quite agile. You are so close to walking. You spend more time standing than sitting or lying down, and when you are sitting, you prefer to be up on Daddy’s shoulders.
You are so full of mischievous energy. You are always up to something, and that little brain of yours does not take a break. You have a strong will, and I’d like to make sure you keep a strong will. But it’s also important that you learn to temper that with knowledge, understanding, and an awareness of appropriate time and place. You can be strong willed AND change your mind when it’s appropriate. Sticking to your guns when they are pointing in the wrong direction leaves your back exposed, and wont do you any good at all. There are some people that disdain anyone who changes their mind, but at any given moment in time you cannot have all of the information. Sometimes the truth comes out after you have made a decision. Reconsidering an issue based on new information is not “flip-flopping on the issues,” it is the right thing to do. New information sheds new light on old problems.
I love your feistiness. I love your snuggles and kisses.
I love all of you.
Mommy
Read more Letters to Gem.
just doesnt seem right
they told me the little ones grow too fast, but…
8 months.
My Little Librarian
This little one loves books
