Cherish the Moments

If I have crossed your path the pass few days, you know from my obvious behavior that I've been a little Negative Nancy. I've had nothing but complaints streaming from my mouth...how sad!! Especially at this most wonderful and magical time of year. Today I realized that if I were the person talking to me (or I should admit, listening to me) I would not want to be around me . I really don't enjoy downer people and am sure I'm not alone on that one.

From today forward (sounds like a resolution for 2010, that will begin a week early) I will be "the glass is always full" type of gal. I promise that I will constantly force myself to see only the blessings in my life (which are so abundant). However, I will admit that sometimes I do like to write down my struggles and those nasty thoughts that are in my head...maybe so that when others feel them they won't feel alone. I know when I struggle I do appreciate learning that other people go through the same things and that I CAN survive it all.

This post will be honest and parts a bit depressing for me...however I will point out the good things that come from the bad.

Christmas is truly a magical time of year (I can't even start writing this without tears filling my eyes). I remember as a child all the wonderful excitement and energy this season brings. Christ was born, his life started here. We read of the Christmas story and learn and reflect on the life Christ led for each one of us. We sing the songs that also remind us of our purpose in this life and recognize our role model. Santa rewards us on Christmas morning for good deeds and actions that we've done.

As we grow older we look forward to creating similar memories with our children. We want to teach them the true meaning of Christmas and enjoy their sweet spirits and enthusiasm as Christmas draws near. Many of us have traditions that we expect to be able to carry on to our own little families or ones that we'd like to start.

This year, Little Princess's family from Mexico came into town to celebrate with all their grandchildren and family. How very fortunate for Little Princess to be able to celebrate with them and be part of the love that emulates from their family at this time of year. I knew it would be so special for her to spend as much time as possible with them so I suggested that she spend the entire week with them until Christmas, however once she was gone from my home and the reality of all my "dreams of Christmas with children" would not be what I had hoped for, I held a major pity party for myself in her absence. I felt like I was being jipped for "my Christmas". I had no sweet 4 year old asking "is there only 3 days left?" "Mommy what time is Santa coming?" or staying up hardly able to sleep Christmas Eve. And I chose to only focus on what I was missing! How terribly sad I now realize that I was so self absorbed and didn't just delight in the fact that she was having a truly wonderful Christmas and that I could be too with Little Man and Lover Boy.

I have thought and cried and cried some more and finally did a little more thinking and realized that our dreams are never the way real life works. Even if her daddy and I stayed married and we wouldn't have to send away our Little Princess for Christmas there'd be something else that would'nt have been in my dreams. My dreams just need to be altered. I need to cherish each moment that I am with my children so that the days they are gone I can know and feel confident that the last time I saw her was the best day. (I know this is so much easier said than done, right?!) I fully understand that there will be many bad days in the mix, those are unavoidable, but that for every bad minute we need to make sure to have 10 good ones.

Lover Boy and I have set goals with each other to spend more quality time together, we spend about every minute of every day together but it adds up to only be a number of hours spent together at the end of the day and we decided that we want to change that and make it memories not hours. Last night we played a few of the games we'd gotten for Christmas with Little Princess and had so much fun, as she crawled in her bed she gave me a big hug and said "Mom, I love you so much, that was so much fun tonight. I love playing games with our family." I came out and mentioned this to Lover Boy and he agreed that we needed to not only make more quality time with he and I but with our children too.

It was at that moment that I realized just because my dreams of "Christmas" didn't come true, that didn't mean that we couldn't still make the most of the little holiday time that we had.

It was a perfect Christmas!