We trimmed a fake tree last night. It’s a beautiful fake tree. The kids don’t at all care about whether or not the tree is real.
Two glass ornaments were broken, and I didn’t even freak out. I just went and got the broom and dustpan. (I did say “don’t move” because bare feet on glass = ow.)
It was a peaceful thing, no chaos, which is weird because there were three kids involved and ADD me.
Maybe we were all too tired, to have the energy for chaos. We’ve had a week of both strep and influenza and I have to tell you….that sucks a lot. But there we were, getting well together. And we took the long way sometimes, especially Elsie, since she’s three. She took a bunch of ornaments off the tree, just to put them back on.
Isn’t that just it though? She’s got it figured out. It’s not about perfecting a thing, or even finishing a thing. It’s about enjoying a thing, and doing it again and again even if it means stripping away work.
After we were done, I tried to get them in bed early but that failed because it always does. Things happen, and the clock suddenly zooms into the hour past bedtime. We do this every night, after leaving our beds a rumpled pile. We pull up and straighten out the blankets and we tuck. It’s beautiful, even though we’re just going to undo it again, leave a mess.
This is where we read books, tell stories, talk about the day. In the lather, rinse, repeat of rituals. Let it go long, let it come undone.
Asher told me he was scared because of something he saw in a movie. He asked me to remind him how to make the bad picture in his mind go away. I said, Whatever is good, whatever you love, think on those things,” and he asked me to remind him what he loves. I said maybe for tonight it would be the Christmas tree, the Juggle Bubbles Nanny got them, and Butterscotch, our guinea pig.
He smiled from under the covers, just his face peeking out from the tucking. He said, I got it…I’m thinking of Butterscotch under the tree blowing bubbles because that’s all three happy things at once, and we laughed so hard.
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