The Nutcracker
In the mornings, while I get ready for work, Daddy plays with the baby. Sometimes they practice escaping tummy time by rolling over. Other days they do fingerhold walking. Last week they pulled the mattress out of the crib, draped it with a green blanket and did the holiday photo shoot.
The pics were pretty spectacular. We picked the best one and made a custom card, including his tiny handprint in the message. After putting together 90 cards, we were running out of time to do return addresses and custom printing of addresses, so I went with labels for both and stuffed the envelopes. At one time it was important to me to have every detail be perfect for a project like this. It is baby’s first Christmas card after all, but I am finding that the only way to do it all is to really choose what is important to you. I choose to spend more time playing with my son and label shortcuts are a small price to pay for extra minutes in a busy day.
But somehow all the assembly took so long that the post office was closed, and the stamp machines in three locations only had the regular flag and bell variety. So the weekend passed and the cards sat.
Tonight on the way home I was ready to stop and get plain stamps. But I had no cash and felt sure the machines couldn’t take a card. By great good fortune we were by a drugstore that stocked stamps and so I took my sleeping baby out of the carseat again and trundled us inside. It is so tempting to leave little sleeper in the car when running in for just a second. I whispered to his drowsy head as I unbuckled him “I never would leave you in the car alone, even for a minute.”
And my reward was four packs of holiday stamps. The design this year is an array of Nutcrackers, which I really like. Rebuckle the baby, drive home and put the final touch on the cards while the baby sleeps on my lap in front of our twinkly tree. They will go out in the mail tomorrow. I am perfectly content.
