jaysaint Getting it all down on paper…

The boys are in Kentucky getting a jump on the holiday with the in-laws. I stayed behind for work and will head up in a few days.

I’ve lit the trees and a candle. I’ve got a pot pie in the oven and I’m drinking a beer. This Christmas, so far, has been the best I can remember in a long while. NO JINXES. Last year the kids found their gifts and Alden will still sometimes say, “Remember when we found our presents and you cried?” I call his sweet face going from thrilled to horrified when he took in my reaction. Not this year.

Gratitude is a program that always runs in my background. I could make you a list of the thorns in my side, but I try to be in my right mind by the time I go to bed at night. I’ve found it’s really helpful to literally run away from my problems on a treadmill. My feet race, my mind races, and at the end I feel purged. The beer also helps. When my kids fall asleep at night I indulge myself by petting their heads, kissing little cheeks, often I go in for the full-body snuggle. They’re so used to it that they rarely stir; once in a while I get a slurred, “I love you Mommy” from Elliot. Most evenings of their lives have gone that way. I don’t know what it does for them, but it snaps me into the right frame of mind.

They’re not with me tonight. Instead I think about them, what I might change about them if I could, and it’s really nothing. I think about how fortunate I am to have a husband who sincerely and enthusiastically wanted to be a parent as much as I did, and who approaches the whole thing with the same fierce love. Our mothers are with us, approve of us and support us. That is not something everyone can take for granted.

Some day I hope my kids read this. They’re ultimately my most important audience. They will know about this journal some day, and they’re always in my mind as I write. I want us all to remember this time of great privilege and pleasure and love.