Seriously. I dropped $75 on elf things. Why wouldn’t we step up our game from last year and have the reindeer AND the dog, AND an outfit. (ps: we lost our elf from last year too and I couldn’t come up with a story they would believe as to why she’s skipping a year fast enough so inevitably to Amazon we went).

We started our elf today. Day 1. This is how that went.

4:00 am me: omg the elf.

I’m literally half asleep, I took a melatonin (or maybe 2) just 5 hours before this, so I put the elf on the counter with a note. Oh and my daughter lost a tooth yesterday (does God hate me?!) so I’m thinking this is perfect, I left the note and a $1 bill. At this point I’m still half asleep, or all the way asleep who knows, but I’m thinking I nailed it.

Nope.

Immediately my 6 year old is wondering why her tooth is still under her pillow.

sh*t. I knew I wouldn’t be my most productive self at 4 am.

I told her the tooth fairy lets you keep them now, but of course she says at Dad’s house the tooth fairy takes them. (This is when co-parenting is really fun).

Well, see, the tooth fairy and I are friends, and she told me this is a new things she’s trying. At this point my daughter is so confused I think she’s on to me…but for now. I dodged it.

So after that, my 9 year old asks why the elf isn’t ACTUALLY hiding and why it didn’t bring them something.

Wait, what?! The $75 elf investment has now turned into an every.single.day investment of a some kind of “present”. Make it stop.

Ready to put the elf back in the box and take it to the fire station.

——6 hours later.

Sophie (my 6 year old) has gloves on and his playing with the elf…because you can’t actually touch him, and we apparently never clarified with her that the gloves don’t make it right. ..(but it’s kind of funny, and genius.)

Sydnee (my 9 year old) is.pissed.

“Mom! Sophie is touching the elf, look up how to revive her!”

5 minutes later we are on Youtube looking at how much cinnamon to put on the damn thing so it “works” again.

Lord help us.

God bless you if you find joy in the elf on the shelf. I loathe it.

..but we love our kids, and it’s for them right? So I have an alarm for tomorrow, I’m ACTUALLY hiding it…and maybe she’ll bring them each a bowl of fruit loops since that’s most likely on the agenda anyway.

..and I can only hope that the next time my children lose teeth, they are at their dads.

I’ll keep you posted.

Call it a New Years Resolution, call it steps to healing, but I’ve decided it is helpful to me to get some of my thoughts out into the world, and even it touches one other human in a positive way, it’s worth it.

______________

So everyone has one main thing they struggle with, mine is looking back and thinking “I did what?!, omg no.” In almost those exact words. Dramatic maybe. I obviously remember what I did, but it’s grasping the idea that it’s a part of my story. My therapist calls it shame, but that sounds sad, and I don’t like to be sad so I’m calling it a lack of understanding. Sometimes I think we make certain decisions or take certain paths that we aren’t really sure we wanted, so inevitably we “regret” them, but regret is also not my favorite word because I mean, is it really regret if we picked ourselves back up and learned a thing or two. Not really.

Without going into the juicy details, because they really are juicy and I’m not sure I’m ready for all of that…but I have portions of my life that are for sure Lifetime movie worthy. Like get your bag of popcorn, ice cream, crunch bites, whatever, sit back and enjoy the show. After some seriously deep soul searching, it is something that I’ve actually found a way to embrace. On this day, coming to end of 2018, I have 4 healthy, smart, beautiful children and a job I could have never believed I would succeed at.

There are always consequences though, and fair enough, (sometimes feels like hell), but it doesn’t have to mean there’s a giant unmovable roadblock dropped down in front of you. So next time you look back and think “OMG I did what?!”…shake it off, you did that thing you did, went through that thing you went through and it’s ok, because knowledge of life experience (even if it sucks) is priceless.

My kids aren’t going to be perfect, but they will know it’s ok to make mistakes, and it’s even better to learn from them. They’ve watched me make plenty of mistakes, but they’ve also seen me come right back full speed like a Mack truck and kick it’s a$$.

PS. The opinions of others on your life can be really great with good intention, but they can also be harmful. I always try and respect the opinions of others until it affects the peace that I work so hard for.

Know your truth.

“You can’t skip chapters, that’s not how life works.

Stories keep the world revolving. Live yours, don’t miss out.”

xo