You may or may not know that holidays with Stevie have always been really hard for us.  Every holiday felt awful!  They were hard for me, because leading up to whatever holiday lay ahead, I always tried to get in the spirit and Stevie was just not having it.  It was a brutal reminder that he was different and I didn’t know how to deal with that.

Then they were hard for Stevie too, because of the overwhelming-ness of it all.  He was out of his routine and out of sorts and just the worst possible version of himself.  Christmas was  basically my worst nightmare for 5 solid years.

It’s kind of weird the expectations we put on ourselves around the holidays though.  I mean what is that?  I guess we want it to always feel magical and BE MAGICAL, because that’s how it felt to us as kids?  It’s just supposed to be the best ever.  But how often is it really?  And it bothered me so much that Stevie wasn’t into it.  Not sure why, since he didn’t know any different.  Besides, I was let off the hook for several years with stupid crafts and character visits.  So looking back, I really just wasted a lot of time and energy stressing both of us out instead of following his lead and doing what worked.

Or maybe I was just learning what worked.  Learning the hard way.  There is no instruction manual for this, after all.  So I learned slowly.

But I’m happy to say we are definitely turning a corner and starting to see the excitement and joy that you always wish for your kids to experience.  Stevie not only talked about being excited for the Easter Bunny and the Egg Hunt for days leading up to it, but also how fun his little school Easter party was and how he couldn’t wait see all his cousins on Easter Sunday.

In fact, it even became a little annoying how excited he was because he woke up at 6am on Sunday ready to leave.  Haha.

So we went.  And he had a great day.  The highlight for me was probably the Easter egg hunt — he totally killed it!  I was shocked how many eggs he found on his own.  It was really exciting and cute and he loved opening every single one and asking if he could eat what was inside.  He also played with all the cousins so hard that day, he barely even talked to us!  Which means Paul and I got to sit and visit with the family.  Incredible progress.  Followed by a phenomenal night’s sleep.

So while these days I go into the holidays with lower expectations and a much more carefree attitude than I used to, it was still fun to see Stevie’s face light up with joy.  Not because it was supposed to, but just because it did.