Merry Everything (and Happy Always!)

Here's this year's holiday letter and picture. Happy Holidays Everyone!
So I’ve fallen asleep on the couch again. My husband is still sleeping on the sectional next to me. His open-mouth breathing/snoring smells of dinner, the first one we’ve had together as a family in probably a couple of weeks. The last thing I remember was sitting down to write the Christmas letter. My husband, good man that he is, no make that great man that he is, has put both children to bed and has come downstairs to stay with me until I wake up. Now it’s quite late in the night, Law & Order is playing on the TV and I’ve found a bowl of ice cream. Just like last year’s letter.
But I can’t help but think about all the things I didn’t know last year when I stayed up to write our Christmas letter. I didn’t know that we were pregnant with our little girl, my mom would be diagnosed with breast cancer or that Chris would be forced to go through months of job transitions. I didn’t know that two children that look so much alike as infants would have completely different poos, that going back to work after maternity leave would ever be such a struggle or that I would ever find anyone I would trust to leave our kids with besides their grandmother down the street. I didn’t know that 38 is the year when you officially become your mother or that an extra can of Diet Dew and coat of mascara could no longer cover up a missed night of sleep. I certainly wouldn’t have thought that I would be the last of my oldest and dearest friends to succumb to Facebook (well, not quite yet) or how horrible I would be at returning email and phone calls to those I care about the most. I didn’t know that two children is so much harder and better than you ever think it will be or how arrogant and naive I was to think I could handle it.
I didn’t know that Cooper would be a songwriter (His two favorites: “No Hold Baby Elia” and “Broken Candy Cane”) or at two (now three) years old he would wake up in the middle of the night to sneak online! I didn’t know that in his mind: Santa, Grammy and Grampy, Jesus and Uncle Jarret are all “too far away” or that he would try to call his Grandpa Cooper on the phone. I didn’t know that watching my children sleep could move me to tears or having “Dance Party” with the neighbor girls would be one of my favorite things to do. I didn’t know how little there is to see from one end of South Dakota to the other nor how much Cooper would enjoy visiting “The Guys” a.k.a. Mt. Rushmore. I didn’t know how much I would rely on my coworkers at school to get me through my pregnancy and how incredibly stupid it would be to try to start the school year, set-up the classroom and do initial parent conferences with a full-term belly. It’s no wonder Elia Jane came a day early during my first week of classes. You should see her smile. Really, it’s life-changing.
So now with the ice cream gone and Law & Order over I know there’s a list on the counter 3 pages long of things I want to over accomplish this holiday season and how really trivial all of it really is. No matter what next year holds I think as long as there are two kids sleeping upstairs, my husband snoring on the couch beside me and a Law & Order playing on the TV, everything will be okay and is just enough just as it is. And a bowl of ice cream wouldn’t hurt either.