This past weekend–and the coming weeks–are packed full of stuff. It’s the busiest time of year for us, usually, but it’s also the best.

My dad left on Friday, after having spent the week with us for Thanksgiving. Friday night, as soon as Sona got home, we went to get our Christmas tree. It’s always a challenge to wait until after Thanksgiving–and sometimes we don’t–but we try not to be TOO obnoxiously enthusiastic about Christmas (especially since, technically, I’m a Jew). But getting the Christmas tree is always one of my favorite weekends of the year. It’s the beginning of what I know will be non-stop time with family and friends. There’s cookies! And Christmas movies! And snow! Am I annoying you, yet? If you know me, you know this is not hyperbole. I really get that excited.

So, we bundled Finn up in as may layers as we could get on him, and we headed for the neighborhood garden shop where we always buy our tree. After just a couple of minutes of looking, a sales person came over and kindly said, “We’re closing in 5 minutes.” I panicked! I couldn’t possibly wait another day for our tree. So, I did what any sane person would do: I pointed at the first tree I saw and shouted, “We’ll take that one!”

That’s us, posing in front of the tree that we didn’t yet know would be 6 inches too tall for our apartment.Refusing to be defeated, we chopped the top of the tree off, drug her inside, and crossed our fingers, hoping that the many gaps in the way-too-big tree would fill out by morning.

They did!

Saturday, we got up and headed to brunch downtown with some very good friends who, sadly, no longer live in Chicago. We hadn’t seen them in nearly two years, and they hadn’t met Finn.

We braved a busy restaurant, ate a delicious brunch–complete with mimosas–and spent a couple of hours exploring the area.

Finn kept up with us like a champ. We rewarded him with a nearly 3-hour “family nap” when we got home. (He sleeps really well when we all sleep together.)

That night, we woke up, put on Home Alone, ordered pizza, and started decorating. That’s our thing. It’s my most favorite thing, actually.

Finn watched us decorate for a looooong time. He sat in his MamaRoo, mesmerized by all of the commotion. And the lights.

Despite the fact that it’s kissing the ceiling, this year’s tree may be my favorite yet. Of course, that has everything to do with who was watching us put it up.

Sunday, we woke up, drove to the ‘burbs, and met friends for our annual holiday family photos. They take photos of us; we take photos of them (more of those, later). Really, we were just excited to get Finn together with his bestie, Veen. They were SO excited, too. Can’t ya tell?

After an hour of photos in the cold, and after lunch with our friends, we headed home. Since Finn was a champ through such a busy weekend, not getting cranky on us once, we rewarded him with another family nap. (Okay, okay. Mommas were also just really tired.)

Tomorrow, Finn has his own Christmas photo shoot. Thursday, my bestie flies in from Texas, and we have a weekend full of stuff planned. Next week, we are taking Finn to meet Santa. Then more family comes. Then Sona and I have our holiday date night. Then more family comes. Then we have like 1,438 Chicago Christmas traditions to introduce Finn to.

It’ll be a busy month, for sure, but it’s my favorite time of year–in my favorite year ever–with my favorite little boy.  And I’m SO stoked.

Because I am privileged. Because I have all the things a younger version of myself prayed for. Because I have a fat turkey in the oven and a warm house and two cats curled up in bed. Because, though he drives me batty, my father is here–and he is in recovery. Because I live in a city I love. Because there are so many other cities to fall in love with. Because of cheese and chocolate and anything that is even close to a noodle. Because my wife is my best friend (and because she’ll understand why she came after noodles). Because I meet 60+ students every semester, and so many of them challenge me to be a better person. Because it has already snowed once–and will snow again. Because it will then stop snowing. Because of oceans and wild things and all of the unknown. Because I have choices. Because I have been able to wear mostly pajamas for the past 4 months. Because I am not alone on the holidays and because I am not alone. Because one bestie last month, one bestie next. Because a mother who is now a Mimi. Because a tree, tomorrow. Because Finn has been asleep for 63 minutes, meaning he got through his first sleep transition without waking up.

Because Finn. Because Finn. Mostly, because Finn.

 

A couple of weeks ago, when my mom was visiting, Sona and I had our first date night since Finn was born. We’d gone nearly 2.5 months without having an evening to ourselves–without ever leaving our son.

Needless to say, it was time.

Not only was date night an excuse to spend quality time together, doing something other than changing diapers, but it was also a reason to actually wash our hair, put on a little make-up, and make more than the minimal effort to look, well, approachable and mildly socialized.

Everyone warned that we’d spend the whole night talking–and fretting–about Finn, but we have a dirty little secret: we didn’t. I mean, he came up a couple of times, sure, but we spent most of the dinner talking about non-baby things just like we would have BF (Before Finn). It was the best time I’ve had with Sona in a long, long while. It felt special in a way that our pre-baby date nights hadn’t. Maybe that was because we needed it so badly. Maybe that was because we recognized what a rarity dates nights will be, now. Maybe that was because Sona had her first drink of alcohol in nearly a year.

Either way, we had a fabulous time.

But things haven’t been completely fabulous in the relationship department lately, if we’re being honest. And that’s the whole point of this blog thing, right? Honestly. Or something like it. I know that, when reading other blogs, the ones I feel the most connected to are the ones were the writers–the humans behind the screen–admit their flaws and own up to their imperfections. I’ve thought a lot about this, lately–about resisting the urge to create a perfectly curated life for the internets. About authenticity.

And the other evening, while Sona and I were on date night #2, we had to acknowledge something: the image we craft online–via this blog and our various social media accounts–isn’t always completely truthful. It’s not that we’ve actively tried to lie about our lives, it’s just that the Instagram version of our family isn’t always fully representative of who we are.

So, here’s the truth: tending to a marriage after a baby is difficult, and we’ve been struggling a bit.

BF I worried a lot about how the dynamic between Sona and I would change. I’ve written a bit about that, before. I worried that I’d be jealous of how much attention–and love–she gave him. (I’m ashamed to admit that, but it is the truth.) I worried that we’d interact with each other differently after the baby. I worried that our home wouldn’t be the sacred space it’d always been for the two of us.

All of those concerns were for naught. None of that happened, luckily. Finn became a part of our family so easily and so completely.

But here’s what I should have worried about: time. There just isn’t enough of it–not nearly. Most days, it’s everything we can do just to keep up with our professional responsibilities, keep our home in some kind of working order, and take care of Finn. Even then, things fall through the cracks pretty regularly.

In an attempt to balance those things, we’ve forgotten about our relationship. It wasn’t deliberate, but our marriage just hasn’t been a priority. How could it be?! We barely get the dishes done, the emails written, the baby bathed… well, you get the idea.

We’ve focused so much on keeping everything else together; we’ve forgotten that we have to keep ourselves together. It’s a trap a lot of new parents fall into, I’m sure. Our therapist has warned us about how many marriages end within the first two years of having a baby, and it’s not hard to see why.

Time, of course, is the biggest culprit. There just isn’t any of it. Now that Sona has returned to working full-time, getting up at 4:30 every morning, the evenings are a non-stop sprint to get things done. She gets home, exhausted, and immediately has to pump. We have to clean bottles. Make bottles. Make dinner. Clean up from dinner. Take care of random household chores. Oh, and did I mention that there’s a baby that requires a bit of attention? Weekday evenings are tough and, when we’re lucky, Finn goes to sleep about 5 minutes before Sona falls asleep. Alone time? Pfffffffft. What’s that?!

I can’t remember the last time we got a chance to cuddle on the couch–or in bed–without a baby. Or without being so tired that we both had drool pooling on the pillow before the lights were even out.

And exhaustion is another culprit. I’m lucky enough to get a good bit of sleep, as Finn is still sleeping 10-12 hours each night. Sona isn’t so lucky, though. She’s experiencing what we’ll both be experiencing come next semester: you go to work during the day, and then you come home to work at night.

And even if I feel well-rested, I’m usually pretty stressed out. I’m still trying to figure out how to do it all: the teaching career, the photography business, the blog (which is, right now, the only creative outlet that’s just for me), the baby. THE WIFE.

Between the exhaustion and the stress, Sona and I aren’t always giving each other the best side of ourselves. In fact, we’re usually giving each other the worst. We tend to everything around us–neurotically and obsessively–and then we save the leftovers for our marriage.

Lately, there hasn’t been much left over.

There’s other stuff, too. Like the fact that having a baby–and thinking hard about how you want to raise that baby–forces you to put every aspect of your lives under a microscope. I’ve been thinking harder about the things I want for Finn–and the things I don’t want for Finn. And I know Sona has, too.

Sometimes, the things we can tolerate for ourselves, we can’t tolerate for our children. And so, there have been lots of conversations about re-prioritizing. De-cluttering. Re-focusing our lives.

All of this amid the new parent identity crisis that rivals tween-hood.

So, we need to do better. We’re starting by making date night a regular thing. We’ve found a sitter we like, and we’ve already got several dates on the calendar–we’re aiming for twice a month!

But we need to do better in between date nights, too. I’m not sure where we should start, but we’ll get there. We’ll get more used to our new routine. Finn’s bedtime will start to scale back. Maybe (hopefully) we’ll get more comfortable with there being dishes in the sink and laundry piled in baskets.

Finn deserves to have two happy, loving mommies, but he can’t have that unless his mommies are happy, loving wives. We’re going to work on being better at that. We owe it to ourselves–not just to Finn.

(And, of course, I never would have written this without my wife’s permission. “I’m going to blog about our relationship,” is probably the most terrifying thing you can hear.) 😉

It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s a… gumball machine?

As it turns out, my first Pinterest-inspired costume-making adventure went off without much of a hitch. Lucky enough, Finn’s first costume required little more than a hot glue gun to construct. So, I felt up to the challenge.

We looked at tons of pre-made infant costumes, but nothing really spoke to us. There’s just not that much variety for a little squish that can’t even sit up, yet. So, rather than spend $50 for Finn to be a sadly misshapen lump of a zebra, we decided to go with something a little easier–and a little more fun.

As soon as I saw this gumball machine costume online, I was sold! It’s basically just a onesie, some pants, and a hat with pompoms glued on, after all. How could I mess it up? Plus, FOOD.

Of course, Finn is still a little too young to go trick-or-treating (can’t wait for the next year, though). This whole costume thing was really only for one purpose, then: photos. We wanted pictures of our little guy in his little costume, and we wanted to be able to say that–even if it served absolutely no purpose at all–we dressed him up for his first Halloween.

And since the only thing we really good do was take photos, we took A LOT of photos.

Having these photos–and being able to torture/embarass Finn with them when he’s older–is TOTALLY worth a few glue gun burns.

We had a great first Halloween with our little guy. We have a tradition of watching scary movies and binge-eating junk food with a couple of good friends. Finn stayed up with us, this year, and I was a little nervous that we’d have trouble getting through the movies while watching him.

Our little guy was a champ, though! He sat on the couch and hung out with us while we watched movies, and he even went to bed without a peep, all while we were loudly watching Insidious 3 and a party raged upstairs.

All month, I’ve been eyeing our neighborhood’s Facebook page, taking note of all of the Halloween activities offered for kids. Next year, Finn will be able to participate in some of them, and I’m SO excited about it. But I’m not going to wish time away–the trick or treating days will be here soon enough.