First, if you will, allow me to back up to Thanksgiving dinner: the fiasco that almost was. Emma decided to nap for only 20 minutes on Thursday, even the "leaving her in the crib while she talked to herself so hopefully she would fall back to sleep" trick didn't work. So it was with a heavy heart and unwavering certainty of a disruptive dinner that I left our house that evening. Upon arrival at "Nana's house," Emma decided she was going to be shy and hide from all the unfamiliar, yet friendly faces (even those baring gifts for her.) She quietly thanked them for their gifts and proceeded to bury her head in her father's armpit. Not my choice of hiding places but nevertheless. An hour and a half later (exactly 30 minutes from Emma's normal bedtime) dinner was served. Lesson 1: My kid likes to be seated at the table while eating her meals. This is becoming more and more apparent and was blatantly obvious as she threw her sweet potatoes on the floor while sitting in the high chair only to turn around and eat them while she was sitting on my lap at the table. Next year and until there is a definitive "kiddie" table, Emma will get her own big girl chair at the Thanksgiving table.
The night slowly dragged on as I felt the timer on my toddler grow closer and closer to zero - zero equaling a meltdown of epic proportions. My mother is a sweet and generous soul, however I let her know the longer it took to get to desert, the more likely we would be subject to the wrath of my sleepy child. This hurried her none. By the time desert was set on the table Emma had lost the Thanksgiving spirit. She enjoyed a lovely game of house in the living room while I shoveled what I could into my mouth. Lesson 2: Have some fun distractions near by. - This bought us about 5 minutes of peace. I then got up from the table and proceeded to get her ready to leave. It was an odd scene. It took both my husband and I to hold her down while we put on her socks and coat. There was a ridiculous amount of flailing and screeching and frustrated grunts. I picture it like those old cartoons where two of the characters are fighting and rolling around in a large plume of smoke. All the while a soft candle lite desert was being enjoyed just feet away with rumbling adult laughter accompanied by the clanking of wine glasses. The two worlds are a stark contrast and once again I felt a little lonely being the only mother of a young child in the situation.
Thankfully (see what I just did there?) we made it out of there with only a few tears shed (mine from missing out on a bigger piece of fabulous fruit tart). As we drove off I knew our next great adventure awaited us...getting our Christmas tree. After much less obsessive over-thinking than normal, I decided we should just stick with the simplest plan...getting our tree from Home Depot. If you will recall last year, sickness forced just that and even with Emma more aware and excitable, I just felt like this year wasn't the year to run around the x-mas tree farm in the freezing cold while Emma tried to grab the saw away from her father, plus I was IN LOVE with our tree from last year and I was hoping for a magical repeat. And let me tell you, good old Home Depot did not disappoint! We found a beautiful, full tree. Emma had fun running up and down the trees aisles. She got to look at and touch a bunch of them and ultimately it was a 30 minute endeavor round trip, not a frozen finger in sight. Lesson 3: Everything will still turn out alright if you don't make it to the x-mas tree farm.
So of course I made a rookie parenting mistake in that I planned our tree purchasing at the end of the day. I thought Emma would be able to handle throwing a few ornaments on the tree and seeing the lights go up...um wrong. She held a few lights in her hand and then lost it after I tried to explain to her that the ornaments go on the tree. I was exhausted myself at that point so we put her to bed and finished the decorating ourselves. I set aside a few ornaments for Emma to hang when she woke up the next day and you know what...it was a success! I was very happy she actually got to enjoy decorating and she is at an age where having the tree mostly decorated already was fine. It did not bother her. Lesson 4: Plan all epic holiday festivities (like tree decorating) for the early hours - or whenever your kids best time of day is. Remind me of this when we go see Santa.
Well I think that about sums it up for now. Holidays here we come!
Ugh. Yes. Holiday dinner times suuuuck. We go through this with my family every year. We inevitably end up eating about half and hour or so before Doug's bed time, and let me tell you, he's always had a later than average bed time. They all want the kid to come, but then they don't accommodate the eating schedule for them. After a year ago Thanksgiving dinner being at 7:30 or 8 and then a repeat Christmas Eve, we told my family flat out that we'd leave on Christmas if dinner was not at a reasonable time. It was lovely. I think this year they finally got the idea.
ReplyDeleteYes I should have foreseen the dinner timing problem but I guess I though Emma would realize it was a holiday and behave accordingly...haha! I told my family the same, that we would be leaving if things got out of hand and proceeded to get the stink eye...but then we get the evil stare down when she starts throwing a fit so these no winning. We are deemed bad mannered if we leave early or if our child gets cranky because she is tired. I'm hoping schedules will be flexible next year.
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