I am a recovering perfectionist. Scratch that, I am a perfectionist. I wish I was in recovery. On good days, my perfectionist tendencies manifest themselves in a hyper focused attention to detail. On bad days, it can be a debilitating impediment keeping me from getting anything done.

Christmas Decorations finally up as of two days ago. No lights this year, as I’m apparently too short even on a six foot later. We went shopping for one of those handy polls to help string lights, but all the local stores are sold out. Next year.

My previous holiday photo idea was a bit of a flop, requiring more equipment than I had, and more patience than can be expected of a toddler and baby. So this morning, rather than go with the perfectly good photo from Alexis’ birthday party, I had one last go at taking a Holiday photo. On December 16th. Two days after the end of Hanukkah, and 9 days before Christmas. It’s a good thing we print our Holiday cards at home, otherwise they’d be Martin Luther King Day cards.

I always over pack the holidays. I can’t help it, I love this time of year. Add a little miss’ birthday, and it’s been a bit overwhelming.

I wanted to do a cake smash, finish Alexis’ baby book with the *perfect* final 12 month photo, then there’s the teddy bear shot I wanted for the teddy bear shelf. All by the first week of December. Oh, and I spent some time on pinterest the other day and now I’m longing for a 3d foot print and hand print for the girls, which reminds me of the handprint craft project I wanted to complete by the 24th. Christmas shopping, Christmas wrapping, Christmas decorating.

I’m exhausted. And I’m burned out. It’s hard to enjoy the holidays when feeling this way.

I’m doing my best to accept things as they come. I don’t love the final baby book photo, but it’s good enough. Mostly. It’s the best I’m going to get. She’s out grown the onesie I was using, so I don’t have much of a chance to redo it. The cake smash was also a bit of a dud. Alexis isn’t really into cakes, and doesn’t like the feel of the frosting. She licked her fingers a couple of times and was then happy to move on to her toys. I wasn’t about to make her eat a cake she didn’t want for the sake of a photo, but I was a little bummed at how they turned out.

I wish I could say that I’m ok with just declaring things done. I am annoyed I couldn’t do a better job with my photography. I told Domingo that I was going to try and take another family Holiday photo as we were printing out our cards. He looked at me a bit bewildered and asked why. Just to have it, of course.

I really should have made a blog tag for “Sarah’s Neuroses.”

Posted in Family Life