It’s been more than six weeks since I wrote the last of these letters to you. It feels like it’s been much longer because you have grown and changed so much in that time. At this point, I’m not even sure where to start. The last letter I wrote was before Christmas, so we haven’t even discussed your first Christmas yet.
I really didn’t know what to get you for Christmas, we didn’t have much money to spend and this was likely to be a holiday that Daddy and I would remember more than you. Daddy got you a fuzzy white coat with teddy bear ears on the hood. I thought long and hard, but finally, I bought a baby doll so at least I had something to give you until I found something better.
Opening presents on Christmas morning held your interest for a while, but you were much more interested in the ribbons and bows. That is until we got to the babydoll, which was the last present of the morning.
When we tore away the paper covering the doll’s face you had a very strong reaction. It was like a recognition of your soul mate, or long lost friend, or baby, rather than you seeing the doll for the first time. Your response was more like “that’s my baby. My baby is in a box! Why is my baby in that box? GET MY BABY OUT OF THAT BOX! Don’t worry baby, I’ll save you!”
Of course, not only was the doll covered in wrapping paper, she was fastened to her box in 15 different places with plastic tabs that had to be cut. You held the box and rocked it while I hunted down a knife to cut the her out of the restraints. Then I had to get the baby in the box away from you so that I could safely use the knife to free to baby.
Oh, the drama!
But as soon as you got that baby in your arms, you just covered her with kisses.
You are quite vocal these days, but not big on recognizable words, so Daddy and I took it upon ourselves to name your baby for you. We call her Molly, and she’s your best friend and constant companion.
January was completely chaotic for us. Amongst all the activity, we also had your Great-Grandma McKinley’s 99th birthday party, and Daddy’s Ph.D application, and all our school funding paperwork was due – all of which took a great deal of time and energy to complete. But they would have been much easier if we had not waited till the last minute. I’m going to try to encourage you to get things done ahead of time. We have so much stress in our lives that is not necessary. I hope I can break this habit before you start to copy it. I’m really trying to get organized this year, but it takes time to completely change the way you do everything.
Another life skill I’ve been working on is asking for help when I need it. That is one thing that is very difficult for me to do. Most of the time, I would much rather try to do everything than ever admit that I need help. And the actual asking part is even more difficult than admitting that I need the help. But I did it. I finally asked Grandma to watch you a few days a week so that I can work on my homework and I’m slowly starting to get caught up on all my classes. Grandma has been a big help.
When it comes to asking for help, it’s easy to catastrophize and think of all the things that can go wrong. But really, what’s the worst that can happen? They can say no – possible. They can say yes when they really mean no and end up resenting you – also possible. They can say yes and do a terrible job which you end up having to fix – this is possible too. But none of these things are the end of the world, and the down-side of each can be easily mitigated.
If they say no, they say no, you’re right where you started and you’ve lost nothing. Don’t even worry about this possibility.
If they say yes to something they really don’t want to do, that’s a little more difficult. First, think of asking people to help with things that they enjoy doing. If someone loves to cook and you need help with food preparation, its a good fit. Also, when you make the request build in an easy out. Make it easy for them to say no if they really don’t want to do it. Then you know you didn’t pressure them into doing something they didn’t want to do.
As for the last one, they might mess it up causing you to invest even more time and effort fixing their mess – it’s important to understand that everyone does things their own way. Sometimes you have have to understand that the difference between good enough and catastrophic is really much bigger than it may appear. Just because it’s not they way you would do it, doesn’t mean it’s not good enough. And really, who do you think you are anyways? What is it that is so important that you are the only person on earth who can do it correctly? Ok, if it’s school-work, you can’t outsource it. If you can’t let anyone else do the task, you might have to give away the tasks you really enjoy in order to give yourself time to do the tasks you can’t entrust to anyone else. I had to ask for help with the one thing I enjoy most, spending time with you.
If you haven’t already guessed. Yes, I am using these letters to you to work out these issues myself. If you can learn these lessons as I learn them, you’ll be much wiser at a much younger age than I ever was. Experience really is the best teacher. And you may need experience to understand what I’m talking about. Someday, twenty or thirty years from now, you might come across these letters right when you need to hear what I have to say.
You are so bold, and bright, and curious. I am watching you transform from a baby into a beautiful little girl. Your smile brightens the room, you squeal with delight when we come home, and you dance whenever you hear music. You love books, and spend a big percentage of every day looking at your books. You’ve learned to make connections between what you see in the picture book and what you see in the real world. You can connect the picture of the teddy bear to your teddy bear, the picture of the rubber duck to your duckie, and the other day I handed you an apple when you were looking at an apple in your book, and you took a bite out of it! Yes, you have top teeth now. And when we go for a ride in the stroller, you wave and yell hi to everyone we see, but you still prefer traveling up on Daddy’s shoulders.
There is so much good in you, and good in the world. Don’t let the haters tell you otherwise. I’d love to see the world bring out the best in you, and vice versa. I love every moment we have together now, but I’m so curious and excited to see what you become. You are so full of potential. What I hope for you most is that you choose love and happiness, and find something about which you are really passionate.
I finally got an up-to-date picture of my littlest brother (or should I say youngest), Steve, AKA: Stevie, Tete, Varmint, the Wall, or even Stewie (the Family Guy).
I’ve been thinking about my dad a lot lately. December 30th would have been my parents’ 40th wedding anniversary – if he had lived that long. I remember how much my neices and nephews enjoyed their grandpa – and he them – story time, living room forts, tickle monsters… I know there is little sense in dwelling on what is not possible, but sometimes I imagine what would have been – my daughter with her grandfather.
A friend of mine was going through her photos recently and found a couple I had not seen before. These pictures were taken four years ago at a dear friends wedding, and they landed in my inbox right when I needed to see them (Thanks Sharon).
The first photo: my two favorite men, my husband and my father. This may be the only picture we have of just the two of them.
The second photo: my husband and I with my parents.
So what little blessings have taken your breath away recently?
Over the years, I’ve made resolutions and succeeded, made resolutions and failed miserably, and I’ve even taken the bah-humbug route and refused to make resolutions at all. While there is something appealing about the bah-humbug method, I have come to appreciate the time out each year to stop and think about where I’ve been, where I’m going, and the best next steps to get me where I want to be.
I want to be organized.
Lack of organization costs us so much time and money, and we have none of either to spare. We may be dirt poor college students and every dollar we spend is borrowed right now, but time is the element about which I am most concerned. I have less time than money, and I have no money. How is it that the people around me are constantly trying to figure out things to do with their time? They offer me suggestions on how to pass my time as though they’re doing me a favor. Thanks, I got it covered. They worry I might be bored. Sorry, boredom is a luxury, and I just don’t have time for it.
And that “Sleep when they sleep” piece of (ahem) advice people offer up to new mothers – that’s a cruel joke. If I slept when my daughter slept, I’d never get my bills paid, toilet scrubbed, homework done, or fight the daily battles with our health insurance company – which we pay for out of our student loans so we are also paying interest on the exorbitant sums they extract from us before refusing to cover preapproved expenses.
Where was I? oh, yeah, getting organized.
It’s not like I haven’t tried to get organized before. I have gone down that road many times. I actually enjoy the process of getting organized, especially when I have the time – and money to spend on little organizing toys like pretty file folders and label making machines.
This time, I want to take a different approach. In the past, the road to organization involved adding complication, and invariably, a long list of rigid rules. Not only did I have trouble getting buy-in from my husband on all those rules, it didn’t take me long to rebel either. The cure was worse than the disorganization.
So how do I do this? How do I get organized in a manner that doesn’t turn our lives into a rule ridden hell? How do I combine organization with simplifying?
I don’t have much in the way of answers just yet. We are going to start with downsizing. We are going to get rid of a lot of stuff. Here’s the kicker. Going through stuff (especially when making value judgments on what to keep) takes time, as do other aspects of organizing.
How do I make sure that the act of getting organized does not create processes that take up more time than they save? How do I make sure I don’t get bogged down while going through our stuff? That’s a tough one for me. I’m always finding something fascinating like an old year book, or journal, or photos, that distract me from the task at hand.
Has anyone written a book on organizing for people with ADD? I think that might come in handy. In the meantime, I’ll keep trying to draw my attention back away from the distractions, and focus on a game plan for getting our home, schoolwork, school financing, writing, medical expenses, and everything else organized.
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.
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