all you need is Bug!

I’ve been feeling…hectic this month. I’m kind of vexed that it’s already December 8th, and my Christmas decorations aren’t all up. My proper 5-week enjoyment period has suffered a serious bite. Maybe if I hadn’t been all *lazy* Thanksgiving weekend, but by lazy I mean powering through several hours of work. There’s a lot available for me right now, and not for J.Lo; hence it’s sort of all on me. And I’m a stickler. If I have to work twice as many hours to make the same amount (which, literally, I do), hell if I’m not going to reach that mark. However, I like my Christmas decor, too, and want to have it up already. The tree, with several hundred ornaments, typically takes me 3 days. J.Lo put it up this weekend, and I (still working, and granted, doing pesky little things like finishing one of my books) didn’t get to the decor. I should also mention that this year, I’m decorating around N.Lo’s sleep schedule. Because, um, he’s 1, and doesn’t know how to walk that well yet, but does very much know how to grab, crush, and eat just about every hand-sized object, as well as pull up and climb. Not a good combination with a Christmas tree. Not unmanageable, just a pain in the ass I’d like to avoid.

Anyway, this whole sense of feeling behind brings me to this afternoon, when I decided to put some decorations on the tree, testing how well K.Lo would do with it. And don’t you know, we decorated the entire tree in one afternoon. I have never, ever decorated my tree so fast. She didn’t really *get* the hanging of the ornaments, but she initiated a sort of assembly line, pulling nearly every single ornament from the box and handing it to me. Total teamwork. She was even super-duper careful with all the glass stuff, which really surprised me.

The best part, though, was that she exclaimed over every ornament: “Look, Mommy! *Gasp.* Look what I found!” like it was the greatest thing ever. I mean, honestly. If that doesn’t put you in the Christmas spirit, what will. I pretty much love each and every one of my 5 million ornaments, even the ugly ones, and it’s usually me exclaiming over them in my mind (aww, this one! I love this one!), but this year, I had the most enthusiastic ornament co-cheerleader I could ever ask for. And I didn’t even have to pay her extra.

The Bug may be *two,* and might throw exasperating tantrums over dumb crap like wanting to watch Rudolph instead of eating two bites of her lunch, but man, that girl can be pretty darn cool, too.