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And so another Christmas has passed. This time relatively peacefully, with very little fuss and no major meltdowns. I would call it a success, but an expensive one. Not financially, but emotionally.
I wish that Christmas and birthdays could be just another ordinary day. That we could just periodically buy the boys gifts whenever the money is available with no thought to the date on the calendar, but just because they deserve them, want them or we want to give them. But they know about Christmas and birthdays. They know these dates mean balloons, decorations, presents and cake (and sometimes guests) and they would be outraged if these conventions were not adhered to.
We tried really hard this year to get the balance right between making Christmas "Christmassy" enough for our younger son, and trying not to over-stimulate his older brother. I didn't for one minute think that it would be the younger one who would find it more difficult; He was so happy and excited that it was finally here.
It's exhausting trying to stay ahead of all the potential stress points, it's also impossible to deal with them all, but it is so absolutely worth it when things are going well and they're excited, happy and staying just the right side of overwhelmed. The trouble is, even when you prepare them ahead of time, introduce the decorations slowly (keeping them fairly minimal), try to arrange it so that they get a few things they really want rather than lots of unexpected and exciting things and try to spread the excitement out over a few days so it's not quite so overwhelmingly-different then straight-back-to-normal...they struggle.
So anyway, the boys had a good day. We had no conflict, no jealousy over who got what.They did the most wonderful job of sharing and turn-taking right the way through from 6am to dinner time. But then it all caught up with them. The older one retreated into the internal film show that seems to be constantly playing just behind his eyes and the younger one got "cross and disappointed and tired and lonely" and sat on the stairs throwing his Story Cubes around before lining them up along the centre of each of the first nine stairs.
He didn't know how to get himself away from this feeling and couldn't explain why he wasn't happy anymore, so I gathered up the Story Cubes and took him to his bedroom where we shut the door, put his "Keep Out" sign up and told each other silly stories using the cubes as a starting point. I love spending time with him, doing the kind of things we both like, but I always feel guilty that I've so far been unable to find something equally enjoyable I could do with my older, strange, beautiful and unpredictable boy, who I struggle to understand but love just as much.
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