Post Christmas Post

Our little family survived Christmas. We accomplished this in a couple of different ways. First, we are humans and therefore remarkably adaptable and resilient creatures that can handle a vast over abundance of rich foods, too much excitement and too little sleep. Second, we set some ground rules with the gift givers in our lives and third, we made a Christmas list for MLO. These things helped us to get through a holiday saturated with travel, people and merriment.

Holiday Sleep
As parents that want to share the excitement and joy of our baby's first Christmas with the people that love him nearly as much as we do, we agreed to split Christmas between both of our families. Since my folks are half-way between my sister and I and since everyone could stay in their house and only a few people could stay in ours, we travelled the 150 miles or so up to my folks. We arrived
 mid-day Christmas Eve Eve and spent a relaxed day with my mom, dad and brother. Late that evening my sister and brother-in-law and their dog/horse Potato arrived. Now when I say relaxed, I mean that MLO was passed from one set of eager arms to another and sung to, played with and fed with the gusto of adoring fans.That is to say that the day was relaxing for Hubby and me, not for MLO. The little guy spent the night in the Pack N' Play and did not sleep peacefully. We were up at 4:00 AM with our dogs then at 5:00 with the baby so we had an early morning. Christmas Eve was full of last minute holiday and grocery shopping and very little napping on the part of the little mister. I kept him at home with either my mom or me, but he refused to sleep more than 45 minutes at a time. He became a grumpy, uncoordinated, squirmy wormy around 5:00 PM and we put him down relatively early. He spent a restless night and got up at 5:00 AM again. We tried to get him to nap that morning but he wasn't having it. He opened presents and was grumpy enough afterward that we laid him down. He had a decent nap (>1hr) then we fed him and took off. We worried that the nap just before the ride home would translate to a restless baby frustrated with his confinement. To our surprise he travelled well until he fell asleep.

We got home in time to take showers and change for Christmas dinner at my in-laws' house. Luckily that was only 20 min away. MLO went down for a nap during dinner and we had to wake him to get him home. He slept relatively well that night and was up around 6:45. We returned to Hubby's folks' place at 7:00 that morning for Christmas breakfast and presents. MLO refused to nap until late morning. If he had been easy to manage we wouldn't have minded the no sleep, but he was squirmy, screamy and difficult to please. He didn't sleep very long and Hubby and I knew that the behavior would only escalate until he got a decent nap. After mid-day we decided to cut our losses and return home. He sleeps infinitely better in his crib than in anything or anywhere else, so we banked on normalcy at home. He went down as soon as we got him in bed and slept for a long time. That night, and for a couple afterward, he slept deeply and late. The poor little mister was exhausted from the myriad intense, novel interactions and sleeping arrangements that he doesn't seem to prefer.

Gifts
MLO has a plethora of loved ones that want only to shower him with their adoration. One of the ways people do this is through copious gift giving. MLO received many toys upon his birth and leading up to Christmas. A few months back Hubby and I discussed placing a moratorium on toys at Christmas. We didn't want a house full of stuff that the baby didn't like any more than a cardboard box and an old pot. On a parenting level, we don't want to infuse MLO with the pervasive unquestioning consumerism that seems to dominate our culture. We want him to grow up with meaningful toys that help him learn and explore his world, without teaching him to over value the types and amount of stuff he has. We talked to both sets of grandparents about this. We didn't follow through on the moratorium, but we communicated our desire to keep the toys to a minimum.

The other way we let our desires and needs known was to submit a Christmas list to all of the family members that would likely bestow gifts upon our little man. While I don't particularly like the idea of Christmas lists, they are useful in educating people about your tastes and needs. We let people know that our priorities were clothes he could grow into and cloth diapers. We listed a few toys that we noticed he had fun with at friends' houses and implored everyone not to go overboard. This worked well.
We were lavished upon by our families and friends and feel incredibly fortunate. I wish I knew a way to help him understand how fortunate he is, but I don't know that he is there yet. From our point of view, this generosity from our loved ones not only represents their love and thoughtfulness, but helps us to save our funds for other necessities. It is an immense relief to not have to spend money on clothes, toys and diapers. I only wish that we were in the same position to give equally to all of those that gave to us.

Happy New Year to you all and thanks for being a part of our lives whether directly or indirectly!