christmas with kids

b and i put our christmas tree up this week. we spent monday night decorating it [a beloved fake tree, purchased at target with leftover wedding gift cards three months after we got married & used every year since] and putting out all of our decorations.

the next morning jack woke up and could barely believe his eyes at all the exciting new things in our apartment. he spied the advent calendar first and inspected every number. then he went around the corner and saw the TREE. oh it was hilarious. i wish i had gotten it on tape. he checked out all the ornaments, poked the lights, said "ooooohhhhh" at every new piece. that tree has become his favorite toy and he played with it every day this week.

he especially likes this wooden nativity scene, made of wood blocks & mod-podged stickers. i made it in 2008 at a church activity. i thought it was kinda chintzy but everyone around me kept saying, "oh, but your kids will LOVE it." of course i had no children then, and i was typically pretty bitter toward being surrounded by a zillion babies at all times. and, of course, i had chosen not to have kids for the time being -- b and i wanted a few years to get settled and work and do our own thing before babies came along, a choice that i felt [and still feel!] strongly about. but i knew that i REALLY wanted kids, when the timing was right, and sometimes it just wore me down that i was the only one on the planet without a baby. or at least i felt that way.

fast forward 3 years and here i am, with a little toddler of my own who absolutely adores those silly blocks. especially when he can stack them up. christmas really IS more fun and magical with children in the picture, just like i've always heard, even if that child is only 17 months old and thinks the only purpose of a christmas tree is to provide raggedy andy-shaped teething rings. those few years of waiting for us to be ready for jack were tooootally worth it, because life with him now is awesome.