Now that Thanksgiving has passed, it’s time to think about the holidays. Whether I like it or not, I have to pull out all the decorations and deck the halls because we have a four-year-old in residence. And four-year-olds are all about Christmas. I love Christmas too, although I wish somebody else would do the decorating, and more importantly, put it away after the season.
Before Halloween, my four-year-old reminded us that Christmas would soon be here. We had to keep reminding him about Thanksgiving. Now that he knows Thanksgiving is over, it might as well be Christmas today.
Unfortunately, we also have a 15-month-old, which makes putting up dainty ornaments and a tree very dangerous. My almost-toddler puts his hands on anything he can reach, and he’s also a natural when it comes to climbing. Lately I’ve been trying to do some ultra-baby-proofing in my house. I never had to do this with my first child. He was cautious and rarely caused me a problem. This second one is a whole other story.
I’m still not sure what I’m going to do about the Christmas decorations, but I’ve been thinking about making some of them. This will give me some projects to do with the four-year-old, and I can leave the good stuff in the boxes for another year.
Finding time for projects is a problem though. I try to spend one-on-one time with the 4-year-old when his little brother is sleeping, but it’s not easy. There’s always stuff that needs to be done around the house, and though I try to avoid housework, it has a way of rearing its ugly head at me and demanding me to do it.
My four-year-old is getting good at demanding me to do things too. Then I have to rear my ugly head at him, though I hate doing that. He’s been making me wonder, do all four-year-olds have entitlement issues? Probably. They’re four, after all. Not to mention he talks from the time he wakes up in the morning until the time he goes to bed.
So, put a four-year-old boy with an extremely active 15-month-old boy, and you get one tired, cranky mama. Sometimes I wonder if I’m going to survive their childhoods let alone the holiday season.
On the days when my children are bouncing off the walls, so to speak, I tend to jump ahead to the future in my mind. If you’ve been reading my column on a regular basis, you’ll know that we are planning to homeschool. But on these days, I wonder if I can hack it, and I also wonder if it’s best for the boys? Sometimes I think my four-year-old needs to be in some kind of boot camp, just to get all that energy out of him.
I guess it isn’t realistic to imagine my boys swinging from the banisters like monkeys when they’re ten years old, but sometimes I can’t help overreacting to their antics, thinking it’s never to going to end. When you are in the thick of the early years, it seems like a never-ending tunnel with no light in sight.
But just as we had to keep reminding our son that there’s an order to the holidays and that we had to have Thanksgiving first, I keep reminding myself that this time is going fast and it will get easier. And I better be mindful and thankful to be here now. There’s no telling what’s in store for the future. I just hope I don’t find a monkey under my Christmas tree this year.
Shelli Bond Pabis is a Winder resident and columnist for the Barrow Journal. You can send comments about this column to shelli@mamaofletters.com.
Or just enjoy the holiday and not worry about the ornaments. Enjoy how amazed they are at all the sparkle.