Somedays motherhood can be wonderful, magical, sweet...there are those days that make you wonder how you possibly existed on this earth so long without being a mother.

And somedays motherhood can be...well, quite honestly...annoying.  Nothing works, every single thing is a mess, and you wonder if you will ever get just a second of peace and quiet.  As we barrel through the three's in our house, I find myself in awe of my son's ability to knock me down to size on a regular basis.  Who knew it could be so hard to get anything to wear pants?  I swear it is probably easier to wrestle a pig in the mud and dress it in a pageant dress than to get my son to wear pants.  And where did all of this sass--and proper vocabulary usage--come from?  There's nothing like being cut down by something that is 37" tall.  Somedays I want to scream!!!!

But on the other hand, when he snuggles up next to me and says, "I'm so happy you are here, Mommy," it is all I need.  And I say to him, "I'm happy I am here, too..."  Seriously, there is no where else I'd rather be in the whole wide world.  Nowhere.  (Even if the stress of chasing his naked bottom all over our apartment building--as in outside of our apartment where other people can see him yelling "Nudey Rudy!"--is causing me to go grey.)  

I don't know about you, but sometimes it is hard to stay filled with the holiday spirit.  I hope that doesn't make me sound like an awful person...it's just all of the pressure that we put on ourselves to have the perfect tree and perfect holiday card and the gifts and blah blah blah...I get put off by the whole thing.  Throw in the monster cold that my family has been passing back and forth for the past couple of weeks, and I'm even less into it.  

The problem is that I want to be filled with the Christmas Spirit!  I want to sing carols with our son and make cookies and have the best time ever!!!!  I want to make happy memories with Mr Nudey Rudy...pants on memories, of course.  But happy memories none the less.

So yesterday, after school, I decided I needed generate a little festive energy.  It was time to say NO to perfection and say YES to fun! (And then I had a coughing attack and had to sit down for ten minutes to catch my breath...)  

We made a totally impromptu visit to Rockefeller Center to see the Christmas Tree and soak in some holiday magic.  In spite of my cold I was really excited to do this with him...what is more festive than a giant sparkling Christmas tree?!?  And this year's tree is a whopper!  

I'm not going to lie...he was only marginally impressed with the tree and really only agreed to go in exchange for a visit to the Lego Store (pronounced "Yego"...still working on our L sounds).  From there we took a quick trip to FAO Schwartz.  He even hopped around on the Big Piano for a minute, ending his performance with a "Tah-Dah!!!"  

{Raising a child in New York can be surreal...especially after growing up in a small town.  I never dreamt as a little girl that one day I would even get to visit, much less, watch my son hop around in the most famous toy store in the world.  It seemed so big and so fancy to expect something like that...and most definitely way out of my league. I don't know if he will even remember these moments when he grows up, but I will never forget them. }   

I tried to get a good picture of the two of us together in front of the tree, but I just ended up with about twenty funny ones...he went from happy to sad to happy again in about thirty seconds.  It's okay though...that is what life is like with a toddler boy...and although it's not perfect, it is exactly what I want.  

{Happy Merry Everything}

xo...

ki