Dear Stacy, and Mom, and every other Mom I talked to today,
Thank you. Thank you a thousand times over.
As you know, today I suffered from a severe case of Irrational Mommy Guilt. It began at approximately 12:07 this morning when my head finally hit the pillow after an evening of rehearsals, church, more rehearsal, cutting pineapple into stars, transforming strawberries into santa hats, assembling snowman heads out of styrofoam cups, and frantically finishing last-minute gift knitting.
At that fateful minute I realized two things, 1) I never finished knitting Peter’s Christmas sweater and 2) my daughter didn’t own a beautiful, sparkly, preschool-program-worthy Christmas dress.
The tears, phone calls, and monopolized conversations you all endured are precious to me. I thank you, because despite the materialist, covetous, prideful nature of my problem, you gently forgave my weakness, shored me up with your words of encouragement and offers to help, and met me with your own parental misgivings.
You are dear women. Models of motherhood. Sisters in Christ.
So with you, I share my joy.
The dress is more beautiful than I ever could have hoped for. Sleeves. It has sleeves.
And I promise, there are sparkles on there. Cele wasn’t going to leave the store without sparkles. Talking her down from the glittery, taffeta, rhinestoned purple number was a chore, though.
I didn’t photoshop this with some “soft” filter. That blur is just powdered sugar residue left over from my Mommy Guilt about holiday candy.
And although the sweater is not technically finished (I’m going to uncharacteristically not point out it’s raw edges to you, though.) (The armholes. I totally haven’t put the ribbing on the armholes yet. I can’t help myself.) he was thrilled to finally be able to wear his “brown.”
And the tie, “like Daddy does,” was the real star on top of the tree.
The best part of the evening wasn’t their clothing, though. And it wasn’t my fleeting sense of Mommy accomplishment. It wasn’t even three-year-old giddiness at new duds. It was hearing my children remind me that the Maker of everything came as an itsy-bitsy baby, held in his own mother’s arms, which probably rocked a little less violently than preschool hand-motions might lead you to believe. And that his coming as a man was for the purpose of forgiving my sins. My sins of worrying about tomorrow and fretting over clothing.
And that’s the Joy I want to share with you, too.
In the Love of His Incarnation,
=Christina=
As soon as I pulled this photo up I realized that I lost one of my earrings. So, if you see it hanging around school . . . but I’m not worried about my clothing. No, not at all.
Tags: Christmas, Christmas dresses, clothing, knitting, parenting, preschool, Twins