O Christmas Tree

Much to my surprise, the decorating of the tree went very very smoothly. The boys were so excited to help, and they did a remarkable job of not touching the breakable ornaments, and just hanging up all the non-breakables. 

They were so adorable, talking about how 'beautiful' all the ornaments were, and getting so excited when they were able to hang them up all by themselves. 

Dante was particularly enamored of one section of the tree, and was very careful to hang most of his ornaments in that section - and many of them on the very same branch - 

I think it looks perfect that way : ) 

I was going to wait until next weekend to get the tree, but then I looked at the calendar and realized that there's only 2 and a half weeks until Christmas, and realized that we should really get it done this week. Besides, I can't very well host a Christmas cookie decorating playdate on Wednesday without having our tree up, can I?!  

We were woken up at 5am again this morning. Both boys were up and ready to start their day. 

Instead of getting annoyed, I decided that I really have to just make my peace with this, and accept that this is how it is right now, and we just have to deal with it. I'm not going to try to do anything to make them sleep later, because when it doesn't work, I just get more and more frustrated. And I'm not going to wake up in a bad mood because I didn't get to sleep until 6 or 7am. 

We are, however, going to start putting them to bed at 7pm again. We had moved their bedtime back to 7:30, and they slept 'til 6am for a while, but if they're gonna wake up before the sun, they're going to have an earlier bedtime - which will be pretty easy now that it gets dark at 4:30. And I'm going to get myself to bed earlier, too, so that I'm not perpetually overtired. 

I feel like a huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders, now that I have a better attitude about this. And it also helps to remember that this phase will not last forever. There have been times where they've slept later, and there have been times where they've woken earlier. It all evens out somehow, at some point, and life is just way too short to wake up crabby every morning.

 

Comments

[Chad in the Arizona Desert]

That's a great picture in front of the tree.

[Julie Sayban]

Very cute pic of the boys in front of the tree... I completely understand about bedtime and sleeping in... we have trained the twins to go quietly into their playroom until either Chris wakes up or we do. That seems to work well, especially on the days that Chris wants to sleep in.

We are typically up by 5:30/6:00 during the week so on the weekend boys are up at least by 6:30 (but Chris likes to sleep later on Sundays).

Juls

[Wes]

Sounds like a good plan to me too. When in Rome :-)