Type A settling for good enough for all

I've had to let a lot of things slide this Advent season. We have four children ages eight and under, I'm expecting baby number five in May, and a few of us are under the weather with (ugh) seasonal coughs and colds. It's been hard in some ways trying not to get grumpy when things aren't going as I planned or the way I had hoped. For example, I could not for the life of me find candles the right shade of purple for the Advent wreath this year. I looked until well into the second week of Advent and then realized that, really, does it matter if they're plum??!! Plum candles are surely better and more meaningful than no candles after all.

Similarly it's been really nice to accept limitations in other ways and move on. Things that come to mind here are the old and raggedy artificial tree we've had since we married 16 years ago (it's actually a blessing because our new puppy has happily attacked the lower portion of the tree in teething frenzies) and making gingerbread from a kit rather than scratch (I'm too tired, they were on sale, and now that I'm sick and two of the four are sick it's been nice not to stress but still have fun). I don't have to have things perfect for the children to be nice or memorable or fun. Often, all too often really, I get hung up on the small details and really the children don't care or notice that things aren't adult-expectation-great. That's the wonderful thing about children, really: They are so forgiving, so happy to experience new things, and so easily excited and pleased with family time and laughter.

And so I take a deep breath, try to overlook the less than perfectly tidy house, forget that I haven't really done many Christmas cards, and accept that when several of us are germy that baking is probably not something we want to linger over till we're better.

We are still making memories and sharing a lot of laughter, mixed in of course with a whole lot of crazy sibling nuttiness. Not everything is as I planned, but I'm okay with that. It's what we need and I'm thankful.