Making time to play

Dear Colin,

Your Christmas list is set. You want two things for Christmas:

1. A Leaf Blower. (and I LOVE asking you over and over what you want for x mas because the way you say, "leaf blower" cracks me up and melts my heart every. single. time.)

2. A hammer. (and you always explain that you don't want some silly toy hammer, you want the real deal this christmas. We haven't yet decided how to handle this....)

The older you get, the more you "get" Christmas. You are SO excited this year and it makes Christmas that much more exciting and joyful for us too. 

I find myself dreaming up all sorts of new traditions and committing to incorporating the best of our own family traditions. 

This year, you and your Dad strung lights out front. It's the first time we've ever done this and really it was all for you. It was to get to see the excitement on your face when they were finally plugged in.

Every night when your Dad gets home from work, you sit in the front window and watch as he goes around to turn them on. You're so proud of what you created together.

 

For some reason lately, I just want to slow time and keep you little just a little longer. Last night you fell asleep in our bed because the babies were being too loud in your room. So before I went to bed I carefully lifted you up to carry you back. You fell over my shoulder like a sack of potatoes, still clutching your giraffe lovie. For a moment I was taken a back by just how big you've gotten.

Already.

As I carried you down the hall, a memory from the first night we brought you home with us from the hospital flashed in my head. How I carried you down this same hallway sooooo carefully. You were so light and fragile, I was afraid.

I love watching you grow but some days it just feels like it's happening so fast. And life is so busy. 

When I got back to bed I was sharing all this with your Dad and lamenting about just how busy life feels lately between caring for you and your brothers and doing the laundry and preparing meals and bottles and doctor appointments and sorting clothes, and doing dishes and trying to christmas shop and on and on and on. Sometimes it feels like running just the house alone, is a full time job! 

Exasperated I explained that I just wanted to get an hour to play with you, uninterrupted. 

So do it, Chris said.

 Forget the house, forget the lists, forget all the background stuff. Just play

Duh. Why did I need someone to spell out the obvious?

Just play.

And so that's what we did this morning. Amelie took the lead with the babies and they watched from the other side of the baby gate as we played trucks and trains. I could tell that you loved getting this time with me. But what you probably don't know is how much I loved it too. How much I needed this time with you.

Time to let go of all the background stresses and just play.