Yesterday, I was kind of a jerk.
I didn’t start out that way (and I certainly didn’t feel jerkish at the time)…but apparently the recipe for Jerk is: Christmas anxiety, decorating a tree with “help,” and nine months gestation.
Nora really, really wanted to help me. And last year (when she was a babyish 3 as opposed to the completely grown 4 she always purports to be) I allowed her to choose a few non-breakable ornaments and shove them onto a [completely non-essential] branch. But this year, she had ideas. And I can’t blame her; she’s so totally my kid. First she wanted to organize them all by color and type. Then she wanted to space them out on the tree by preference- and that’s where we ran into trouble.
Because it was her preference.
Back up, Mom, I’ve got this.
And I’d like to think that I would’ve been more patient, etc., blah blah blah if not for the fact that half strands of lights kept blinking out and dying (while ON the tree) and for the fact that Susannah Mae was running around like a banshee, wearing ornaments and buckets and upending things to get a reaction out of her sister (and oh- she did), and for the fact that Nora was taking advantage of my dealings with Zuzu to overload bottom branches three deep with ornaments, causing them to snap to the floor.
Which also caused ME to snap to the floor.
And while I didn’t yell (because that’s not the Christmas spirit, dammit), I certainly huffed and sighed and raised my voice and demanded that Nora stop- just stop– and let me “fix” her work.
To her credit, she didn’t get upset at me. She just gave me a few of her world-weary looks and sighed at how poorly I was listening to her. (Because we are the same person.)
Eventually she gave up and moved on to something else. Dinner and bath came and went (with subsequent craziness and chaos and more reasons for me to sigh and eye-roll) and before I knew it, they were in bed for the evening. So I settled into the newly “Christmassed” living room to do some work and got my first peaceful look at the tree.
And you know what?
The tree- the parts that she could reach, anyway- looked really, really good. Sure, some parts were layered kinda heavily with the ornaments she said were the most beautiful (and she was right, they were absolutely the best ones), but she had a good eye for shape and size spacing, color choice, and alternating between breakable ornaments and non. I’m sure she understood that, while her sister would mess with the glass ones, they REALLY SHOULD be spaced out over the entirety of the tree.
“This is just the best Christmas day,” I had heard her whisper as she placed four icicles on a branch. And I’m pretty sure I muttered something less than festive to the room at large.
Because I am a jerk. And she really was having the “best Christmas day.” And sometimes I need to let people- even smallish ones- help with my decorating “vision.”
Especially when they’re so full of the Christmas spirit and I, sadly, am lacking.
So the very first thing I did this morning when Nora woke up was a) apologize for for not being the funnest tree-decorating partner the day before, and b) tell her how wonderful a job she had done. And what did she say?
“I know, Mom.”
Because she’s totally me.
(But sometimes better.)
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