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First Snow Fall

Today was one of the hardest ones yet, mostly because it was a beautiful, event-filled day, and my husband couldn't be a part of it.

We woke up to the start of the first snow of the season, which is always magic, especially if you have young children. Santa came to the preschool, then the three year old went to be a party where she met Elsa - and the six year old went to a friend's house and ate lunch out. There was a snowball fight, Christmas tree decorating, more snow play, and, at the very end of the night, we heard a fire engine wailing as it slowly crawled down our street in the snow. Running to the door, we saw Santa standing proudly on top, snow swirling around his head as he waved reverently to my awestruck girls.

It was a pretty much magical December Saturday.

Except that my husband had chemo on Thursday and was feeling it today, on top of a low-grade fever, which has me ridiculously nervous.

There were moments of today that I was proud of myself for - when I let go of trying to keep the house in order, and stayed present with the girls instead of trying to make everything perfect. I'm usually not a perfectionist, but lately, every little thing out of place has been eating away at me. Today, I was able to let that go, and sink into the small moments.

But overall, everything was just numb. I usually find so much joy in decorating our tree. I love taking out each ornament and talking about it's history. We've collected ornaments from all of our travels all over the world, and I love pulling out our souvenirs and labeling "This is Spain, this is Ireland, this is Peru, this is Switzerland". Even my collection of White House ornaments, my Peruvian nativity scene, or my grandmother's angels didn't fill me with the peace I usually find when I decorate the tree.

Today was hard. There isn't much more to say. There was so much beauty in today, which is what made it so bittersweet.

When we first put the tree up, the three year old hugged it and gently put each ornament up on it. By the end of the night she wanted to punch the tree, and break the ornaments. She wanted cuddles and books from her daddy, but he's too sick right now. So she lashed out at our silly symbol of family happiness.

At bedtime, the six year old slowly went up the stairs, and paused before she was out of sight of her daddy. "I missed playing in the snow with you today" she almost whispered. My heart broke. The snow was their thing together. I'd been too busy with the tree and all our other events to go out and play with her.

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