This post is a liiiiiittle late, but… Better late than never, I say!
This year was ridiculously busy!
I kept holding out the hope all year that when Maya started kindergarten, I’d be getting things done left and right! I’d be knocking things off my “to do” list every week and then some!
That SO did not happen. If anything, it was the exact opposite.
I often felt like I was running from one thing to the next and failing at SO many things. I think when things are like that, it’s super important to stop and not only give myself some slack (very hard to do in reality!!), but remember how many things are amazing in my life.
I have SO many things to be thankful for!
HER! Above all else. I’m so thankful for this sweet nugget. Every single day she says or does something that makes me SO happy and incredibly blessed that she’s in my life.
That laugh? That joy? It’s so infectious! And this is her on the daily. I am so lucky that I get to bask in it!
Oh, and the fact that my parents are only a few blocks away? Don’t get me started on how thankful I am for that!
Maya is SO lucky to have my parents in her life, and I am too!
So many last minute “Hey…do you want to….” or “Could you help with….” and they are alway up for it!
Weekly Sunday walks, last minute date night baby sitting, taking Maya to every single movie she’s ever been to.
No, I’ve NEVER taken Maya to a movie…EVER. I’m SO thankful that my parents have taken her to ALL of them!!!
Oh, and watching her when we go out of town for a weekend getaway, coming over for pretty much every holiday dinner (that is always planned late minute-sorry!).
And my mom being up for last minute pictures? LOVE THAT! Pretty sure I told her I planned to run outside for a few pictures before our Thanksgiving dinner about an hour ahead of time. Oh, and it was RIDICULOUSLY windy!! DUH. And we thought at the time that we got no good pictures, but…
I will treasure these images forever.
LOVE THEM!!!
And then my sister in law came over unexpectedly and Maya suddenly turned on the charm.
As she does…
And I couldn’t be more thankful!!
Because this is SO HER!!!
Next week I’ll post our family pics we FINALLY took! That in itself is something to be thankful for, but will be talking about even more things I’m thankful for in that post.
On me…
Did I mention it was WINDY??
I often have to wrangle a runaway Maya
dit-elle.org 
Thank you Beez. Needless to say, we are grateful that so much of the spice and flavor of our lives is added by the time we have with you and your family. Our lives would be much more bland and tasteless without it. We are endlessly proud of what you have accomplished even if some of it is despite us rather than because of us.
I am struck by two things:
1. We frequently think things will quickly get better after a stressor is removed. I don’t want to characterize time with Maya negatively, just that child care is a stressor. Most of the time, we have depleted our reserves to effectively manage the stressor and need some time to replenish them. If we keep “going to the whip” to get ourselves to perform at top speed, we risk burning out our enthusiasm for other things in life that can then become burdens rather than blessings. 2. I hope you wrote this list with Houston so that he understands why he is constantly in the running for #1 thing you are thankful for. If he doesn’t feel that and he craves it, as most of us do, it will be corrosive.
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