Thursday, December 25, 2008

Merry Christmas / Performance Anxiety

The first joint Christmas between Huffman and Todd families is in full course today and tomorrow, and so far, things seem to be going pretty well. We had a nice spread for tonight's shenanigans and we opened all our gifts from family. Tomorrow morning is Lauren's turn to open some presents and play with the paper and see what Santa brought her - even though she won't remember a lick of it. It should make for some cute pictures.

It's crazy to think that she's almost 1 year old already. I feel like we just brought her home from the hospital and I've just started working again. Learning how to breastfeed, burp the baby, and change diapers - never mind how to give her a bath or deal with broccoli-induced gas...that seems like yesterday, yet at the same time a really really long time ago when we were so much younger and dumber.

That's not to say that we know everything there is to know about raising a baby into a good, intelligent human being. We are well aware that this just means that for everything we think we do know, there's at least 100 other things that we're completely clueless about.

Sitting in church tonight with my mom just made me really think back on the year and how truly blessed we are. Billy has a good job with people he enjoys working with. I have a good job with people I enjoy working with, even if I'm not convinced I'll be there for forever. We have a great kid who every day amazes us with how incredibly sweet-natured she is. Every night I check on her multiple times, just to look at her while she sleeps and know that whatever is going on in her head, I'll be there to make sure the can dream her dreams safely. The idea of not being able to protect her sends me into cold sweats of panic, yet I know that I can't be everywhere with her all hours, and even if I could do that, I still can't control all the people around us. So, I have to pray and hope that something greater than myself lends protection to us.

So, the run-down for 2008:

New baby
New baby grows and is now eating solids and trying to walk and talk
Mandy switches from imports to exports
Billy buys new car
Billy's new car gets wrecked while sitting in a parking lot
Global economy tanks
Billy gets not-so-nice review at work (the day before CHRISTMAS EVE, people) and spends our first Christmas with Lauren racking his brain trying to figure out what he's doing wrong

Anyway, all my personal worries for Billy aside, I certainly hold great hope for the people and parents we will be in the future. We're going to make a ton of mistakes, but hopefully, they won't be super-serious. I have to say our current situation is plenty to be thankful for and reason to be merry this Christmas!

I fully expect that I'll be one of -those- parents and post cutesie pictures of Christmas morning shenanigans on the blog (certainly on Facebook) in a couple of days.