We get them this week then they go back to their mother next week until school starts up again in the new year. I love having them here but trying to do accounting work while they are in and out of my office/bedroom to tell me about the latest video they just watched or how they are doing at their newest game is challenging to say the least.
I think my problem is that I'm a pretty quiet and solitary person and when I'm working I don't really like to be disturbed so working with them in the house is difficult at best. Some days aren't so bad and some days I end up with a raging headache and a desire to yell...but I don't.
That wasn't really what I'd planned on talking about - I wanted to talk about getting ready for Christmas. We've been out and about getting excited about the upcoming holiday. We have around 15 inflatable blowups in our yard, although I don't have any pictures of them, and our tree is up although it doesn't have any ornaments yet.
Chris and I finished our Christmas shopping this past weekend and he wrapped all the presents while I wrote out the names. He muttered a few times about how he didn't like wrapping presents until I finally muttered that I don't like doing laundry, folding clothes or washing dishes but I do it several times a week. He was quiet after that and just kept wrapping.
I think we're going to wait until Christmas Eve to put the presents under the tree because we have a cat that would probably love to unwrap everything just out of curiosity. We call him Satan or Demon Child and he's the only one of Willow's kittens that we kept. He, ingeniously, kept his true personality under wraps until he knew he was staying and then he unleashed his inner wild child. Our other 2 cats could care less about the tree or presents and Charlie is always good but Satan is...well, Satan.
We didn't have a lot of extra money for Christmas this year so we did most of our shopping at Five Below (everything in the store is $5) and Dollar Tree (everything in the store is $1.25) and I hope the kids aren't too disappointed. I think we got some nice stuff but it's not the things they are always pointing out when we're in Walmart. Last year I still had savings and we let the kids loose in Walmart so that they could point out what they wanted and we went back to buy some of it. This year we didn't even want to raise expectations so we haven't asked what they wanted. They are getting what they get and they'd better be happy with it.
One thing we are going to do this Christmas is let them be Santa for other kids and go pick out presents for 2 very small children we know who won't have much of a Christmas if they don't get some help. I think buying things for other children will do my children some good. I spoke to them about all of this a few minutes ago and they seemed excited about the idea of being Santa.
I hope being Santa will help me a little too. I have felt a little taken advantage of for the past couple of years - people took advantage of me while living in my house, I've loaned money to family who apparently have no intention of paying it back or even being grateful and seem to think we exist only to help them out of the problems that they keep creating for themselves, other people ask for a little help and when that is willingly given they ask for more and more help without trying to do anything for themselves. I want to be a generous, giving person but I don't like it when my generally helpful nature is abused and then I just don't feel like helping at all. So playing Santa to two toddlers should help give me balance.
I think BALANCE will be my word for 2023. I need to find balance between my new life as a stepmom and doing some of the things that bring me joy. I feel like I've lost a little bit of myself over the past few years. First I was just figuring out how to survive after loss and then I became part of a new family with more responsibility than ever and I'm still just trying to survive. More on this another day but basically I really don't do all the things I used to - the things that I love, the things that make me ME and I miss it. I feel like all I do is take care of kids, cook, laundry and dishes along with trying to fit a full-time job around all of that. Oh yeah, and basketball which is devouring our lives. All the little things that I like to do like travel, vintage fairs, flea markets, Christmas festivals and singing just seem to fall by the wayside because there's no time left after doing all the other stuff. I need to find balance between everybody else and me before it becomes more of a problem than it already is.
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