My Family Refuses to Let Me Put a Weeping Angel on Top of Our Tree

I finally, finally won the battle of the Christmas tree.

I recently wrote a piece for HuffPo about my general apathy for the prolonged Christmas season. The whole Christmas tree thing is slightly anxiety-producing on the best of years but this year, with a curious toddler who likes to climb things and I just was not feeling it.

So we decided to arts and crafts our way to a tree, which is my favorite way to do most things. I don’t know what it says about me that I would rather sit and tear strips of paper for an hour than pull our tree out of the attic.

Tomorrow we get to pull out the glitter. That’s not sarcasm, I love any excuse to coat my floor in a thin layer of sparkles.

My plan to put a Weeping Angel on the top of the tree was collectively shot down.

This is an ongoing project, so I will post more pictures as it is decorated.

Rowan had his preemie eye exam today.

Poor dude is teething two canines (notoriously the most painful teeth), has yet another cold requiring the nebulizer, and then they put dilating drops in his eyes. Friday he has his ear exam, which at least shouldn’t require us to make the world blindingly bright for him. Both the eye and ear exams are fun to watch because they have to use a variety of toys and silliness to get him to cooperate. At one point today, they had the tech in the room holding a spinning light up toy so he would look in a certain directly.

Zach was able to go with me to the appointment, so there is at least one silver lining to him working fewer hours. It’s also lovely to have him pick up Lorelei, which means I don’t have to drag Rowan into the school and have to fight with her to get her to leave.

I’m on week three of no therapist and it’s… weird.

I figure about the time I stop thinking, “Oh, I need to talk to H about XYZ” she’ll be back from maternity leave. I was thinking the other day how much we take our immediate access to everyone’s lives for granted. Usually, I can keep track of the pregnancies of friends and family via Facebook and/or email, so being completely in the dark about someone I am used to seeing every week is weird!

Right now the thing I most want to deal with is Lorelei.

I’m concerned that my attempts to help her deal with anxiety have backfired, as she seems to be using it as a crutch to avoid doing both things that make her anxious and things she just flat-out doesn’t feel like doing. Her teacher agrees and is going to talk to the school counselor. I’ll write a bit more about this but maybe not as in depth as I would have a year or two ago. Lorelei is getting to an age where I am trying to be cautious about how much I write about her.

Squirt is weird.

I think he needs therapy to work out whatever inner demons make him just sit and stare at the refrigerator for minutes at a time.

 

Question for my readers:

What do you put in your kids’ stockings? I’m at a loss, especially for Rowan.