It's the Most - Busiest Time - of the Year!

Despite the magic of the season, the holidays are always fraught with busyness and stress for most moms, and I am not the exception. The entire month of December tends to go by in one big - "oh my God did I forgot to do that again!!" - blur for me every year. Since my daughter was born almost *gasp!* 6 years ago, Christmas has lost a little bit of it's luster. Don't get me wrong, I still love the holidays... spending quality time with family, eating great food, and savoring every moment of the kids unwrapping their presents on Christmas morning. What stresses me out the most during this time of the year are all of the events that tend to be crammed into just a few weeks. December is a hellaciously busy month for my family. Along with the usual gift-buying and food-making craziness comes my brother in law and grandpa's birthdays (Christmas Eve) and my daughter's birthday (Jan. 4th.) This year add to the list that my husband and I are hosting a New Year's Eve get together - which is something I've always wanted to do (which is great, but you know what I mean about "adding this to the pile"... and ... oh great - now I'm rambling...) :)

At any rate, even though Marissa's birthday is in January, it sneaks up on me EVERY YEAR! It usually hits me two or three days after Christmas, when I start thinking about New Year's and all that entails... and I think - "Oh crap!!! Marissa's birthday!!!" Then the craziness ensues.... I try to find the time to go shopping (didn't I just get DONE doing this??), once I'm finally at a store I stare in bewilderment at the empty shelves (did I really think they were going to restock Dec. 26th?) and then send the party invites out about two days before the actually party is to take place (if the guests are lucky, anyway.) So this year, in order to try and prevent all of this mayhem from happening for the sixth year in a row, I've been trying to plan ahead. And where has this gotten me? Well, let's see.... the two birthday gifts that I had already bought ahead have turned into Christmas gifts because Jake's pile of gifts looked to be about three times the size of Marissa's.... and when I asked Marissa what she would like her party theme to be this year she has gone from Jasmine, to Pocahantas, to Strawberry Shortcake, to American Girl (you get the picture)... so needless to say, invites have not been started and party supplies have not been purchased. Ugh.

To save my sanity, I am actually thinking of only getting Marissa two gifts for her party this year and then taking her to our annual birthday Build-A-Bear store trip a couple weekends after her birthday. This would give me a HUGE chance to just b-r-e-a-t-h-e after the holidays. It's not like she needs to get ten presents for her birthday right after Christmas or anything. I guess the goal for my holiday season this year is to try and stress-less, and then hope that my family can pick up on that and I may not turn into the almost gray-haried monster I usually am by New Year's Day. I want to be able to take the time to stop and smell the pine -- to be able to enjoy Christmas this year without have to think of a million birthday-related things in the process. However, now that I think about it, I guess the invitations aren't going to do themselves...and Marissa has yet to pick a party theme. Oh, poop. :P

Fitting In

I had my first run-in recently with the dreaded "public school social scene" and it wasn't pretty.

Something happened yesterday that I never thought would happen.... well, at least not until my daughter was in middle school... or high school.... Anyway, Marissa came home from school yesterday very upset. It took almost two hours for her to finally talk to me about what was bothering her - and an argument with her brother over who could tickle whom was the catalyst for her opening up... this is how our conversation went -

(Jake not wanting to be tickled) - "No, sissy, no! Owwwwwweeee."
(Marissa) - Jakey doesn't want to play with me either, I'm having such a bad day."
(Me) - "Why do you feel you are having a bad day sweetpea?"
(Marissa) - "Nobody would play with me at recess today AGAIN and now my baby brother won't even play with me either. I'm having the worst day ever!"
(Me) - "Ummm...... why didn't you play with anyone at recess?"
(Marissa) - "I asked everybody and nobody wanted to play with me! I had to just sit by myself on the ground."
(Me) - Speechless from having ugly flashbacks of instances when I was picked on in school.... and by the fact that I cannot think of anything to say to help her feel better. :(

I never thought this would happen to Marissa so soon and I'm really perplexed as to how a little girl who has always been a social butterfly can feel like she doesn't fit in with her classmates. One of my theories is the "big fish, little pond / little fish, big pond" theory - she went from being the "leader" of her preschool class to feeling like she can't find her place amongst her new classmates. But how in the world do I explain this to her? And what can I say to her to help her cope with all of the instances this may happen in the future..... because I know very well that this will be something that happens again... whether it's tomorrow or ten years from now when she ends up in one of those oh-so-great (not) high school girlfriend spats. :( I think the key is for Marissa to feel confident to be herself, but I'm not sure how easy it will be to teach this life skill to a kindergartener.....

I did have an inkling that something was up one day when I was home with Jake (he had a fever) and we went for a little walk in the afternoon when he felt better. Marissa's class was actually outside for recess when we went past the school. She didn't see us, but I spotted her right away and my eyes followed her as she skipped all over the blacktop in-between the equipment. I expected her to be playing or talking to any of the kids at any moment... but just kept on skipping around all by herself. She would stop here and there to look around or to sit down, but she never once went over to socialize with her classmates. This really concerned me because I had never seen her do this before; but I tried to convince myself that I was overreacting and that she would be fine. But when she became so upset yesterday, it made me realize that this just might become a real issue that we will have to deal with fairly soon.

Maybe I am overreacting... maybe I am just a concerned mommy who's heart aches when her daughter is upset over friends and school.... I'm just like any mommy. I know what makes my daughter unique and wonderful and wonder why on earth others can't see these things for themselves. No matter what, I need to do some research on this to find some strategies to help her cope. I honestly never saw this coming so soon and feel like such an incompetent mom for not knowing what to do to help her through it.

They're Heeeeeere....

The Terrible-Twos have made and early, and unwelcome appearance in our household in the form of a Jakey-Monster. Our cute, angelic, easy-going little boy has turned into a frustrated, tantrum-throwing monster overnight. I've written a post on this ugly topic on EverythingMom I'm not sure what it is about this stage of development that exhausts and stresses me so much! You can give me a screaming infant that stays up all night and I'll be as happy as a peach.... but a toddler yelling "NOOOO!" or "MOMMAAAA!" a hundred times a day makes me feel the need to check my blood pressure!

You can click here to check out the post. Keep us in your thoughts as we push our way through this tough phase! :)