I’m not a Grinch: I don’t hate Christmas – normally. This year, however, it made me want to cry. Our fae thrives on routine and has settled into her new school so well that you’d think she’d been there years rather than weeks. Another six months and she’ll probably be running it.
The downside of this is that, when everything stopped for the winter break, all her carefully crafted and maintained schedules just.. stopped. As far as I can tell (because let’s face it, she can’t tell me even if she wanted to) this sudden and (from her perspective) unexpected cessation of normal services left her feeling utterly adrift. Indeed, even the weeklong planner we use to map out her week in advance just.. stopped working: All the usual markers for her school, childminder etc. just suddenly went away for the holiday.
Being 4 years old and neurotic-divergent, she dealt with this the only way she could – with repeated defiance, meltdowns, and disrupted sleep. It was hell. She loved her presents, and played with them all religiously, but they couldn’t make up for the disruption – after all, they were part of it! She also spent the first week on an apparent hunger strike: even on Christmas Day itself, she ate a grand total of a few mouthfuls of porridge and half a slice of toast.
So all the hours I spent making cookies, the roast dinner, and chocolate cake all felt a bit of a waste of time, seeing as she didn’t eat it and her father doesn’t really enjoy it. The looming return of our routine and, frankly, our lives – which felt for the entire holiday season like they were on hold, leaving us in some sort of purgatory – was met with a relief I haven’t felt since Lockdown lifted.
And it was a relief for her, too – she was so overjoyed to be taken back to school she had to jump up and down for a while before she could calm down enough to go in; and she’s not only resumed eating, but has been eating multiple large, nutritious meals every day! Such a contrast!
With her recent return to school, I had time to reflect on the past year and roll my eyes at the optimistic resolutions I made in the previous years (sadly they have always been the same, and never achieved). So, I have thought hard and decided this year I will break with the tradition of wishing to be thinner and healthier. Nor will I take up drinking heavily just so I can give it up next year – no matter how tempting it may be.
So it is with great trepidation that I will share with you some of my new year’s resolutions;
- I am not going to have anxiety attacks over what my fae is eating so long as she IS eating.
- I will spend some time on things that I want to do.
- I will make the fae father do the same.
- I will stop holding myself to an impossible standard.
- I will find some way of achieving 1-4… no, I will, stop laughing.
Raising the Modern Fae 