Yesterday was a wonderful day. We celebrated winter solstice. After the darkest day of the year, the light starts to return to the northern hemisphere.
We began with trimming the tree in the morning. It is an outdoor tree, so it comes indoors for less than a week, beginning on winter solstice. We moved on to decorating the back yard with food for the birds and watched chickadees move from seed-covered cone to seed-covered cone. In the evening, we went on a lantern walk through the forest at a church near the ocean. We threw stones in the ocean to chase the past year of worries away, then we walked up to the church and enjoyed the bonfire and the labyrinth.
It was a beautiful day, but let me tell you the part that was less-than-beautiful as well. To prepare for our trip, I had to go to the mall. The mall the weekend before Christmas is absolutely not a thing of beauty. What’s even less desirable is bringing your small child along, a small child who stops you at the overpriced plastic junk rack and asks for some of that junk, then proceeds to cry and scream in the car when you won’t get it for her, tempting you to bring out the “Santa Claus is watching your behavior” card even when you haven’t taught her to believe in Santa and don’t believe in parenting that way. Deep breath. Sigh.
That’s real life, my friends.
Parenting a preschooler is full of beautiful moments, to be sure. Life is full of beautiful moments. However, when I read the blogs that make me drool and feel inadequate, they seem to be full of the former moments and none of the latter. Me? I like keeping it real. I have a now-neglected blog on living with chronic illness where I kept it so real that it was a wonder that anyone would read it.
Yes, our lives are beautiful. However, they are also mundane and just plain irritating sometimes. While the beauty inspires, I like to think that the irritation inspires as well, or at least amuses.
My vow as a blogger for 2011? Focus on the beauty in life, but focus on its humanity too, in all of the splendid irritation of parenting young children. Here’s the keeping it real in our parenting lives in 2011!