Family Traditions

I think it's important to have family traditions. Since I was a little kid one of the traditions in my family was the making of candy cane cookies. My sister and I still get together every year and make them and remember how much we enjoyed eating them as children. We never realized how much work my mom had to put into them until we started making them ourselves. But hard work or not, it's a tradition in our family and we make a commitment to each other to make them every Christmas.

I want Isaac to have memories of traditions we established during his childhood. A few years ago I decided we would make Christmas cookies together and decorate them. After the first year, it was so much work I swore I would never do it again. Then next year, I forgot about my commitment to never do that again and did it again. Isaac and I made 72 roll out cookies, iced them, and sprinkled them. It wasn't nearly as intense as the first year, but I had a hard time letting Isaac be totally hands on. Either he wasn't doing it my way or he was making a huge mess. It was stressful, but we accomplished my goal of establishing a family tradition. I'm either mellowing out in my old age, or this process is getting easier because Isaac and I continued our tradition last Sunday and we made over five dozen roll out cookies, iced them, and sprinkled them. This year I was eager to let Isaac be as hands on as he wanted and didn't care if he got messy or not. I didn't care if the cookies looked perfect or not. I decided before we started that I wasn't going to try and control Isaac and make him do things my way. This is supposed to be fun and we are supposed to be making happy memories, not stressful ones. Isaac LOVES to help so I let him. So maybe he licked the dripping icing off the cookies as he was icing them, who cares? (Well, maybe the people we share them with might care.)So maybe he had flour everywhere including his ears. So what if he stained his jammies with food coloring. He was having fun and we were making memories and establishing traditions. My hope is that when he is grown and has a family of his own, he will make cookies with his family and remember all the times he and I did the same thing together when he was growing up. I will cherish this tradition with Isaac for as long as I live. Man, I love that kid! Here's the evidence of our teamwork.

Where Did I Put My Pepper Spray?

Let me clarify, I would never pepper spray anyone in my family even though sometimes I'd really really like to. I'm being dramatic so all my child welfare friends can relax. The last thing I need is "the welfare" showing up at my house. I spend enough time with you people every day. But is it just me or do all kids get incredibly manic this time of year? It started the day after Thanksgiving at our house and has been non-stop. If I didn't know better, I'd think my five year old was on crack. Do they feed them something crazy at school this time of year? Aren't you getting sleepy yet, Isaac? Can you stop talking to me and asking questions for at least three minutes? Isn't it Daddy's turn to play with you? Do you have to put your hands on everything??? Why are you pretending to cut off all my limbs? Do you need therapy? Geez Louise!!! It's not just my kid either, I read your facebook posts. If it weren't the threat of "Santa" I'm pretty sure my five year old wouldn't make it to 2012 unscathed. (Again, I'm being dramatic.) Don't get me wrong, I have that childlike excitement this time of year too, but can we take it down from a 50 to maybe a 10? That'd be great.