A little thought on Tunnel Vision.

It's Christmas time, and that should mean joy and peace but it really means that I am freaking out. Jed is out of town, I have a party every day this weekend and one next weekend, the kids are still in school and have extra curricular activities, the car needs to be taken in for routine maintenance and the house needs to be clean before we leave. Which is soon, so I have to pack. And it is cold. SO COLD.

In the midst of all this, my baby Sam. Who is more toddler than baby and is scary smart and very active. (Translate, gets into everything). Sam is a sphere-loving fellow. Any sphere, anywhere, is a ball. Namely, a basketball. This is fine when most of the balls you see daily are actually sports balls, but enter the Christmas tree and the "basketballs" you hang on that, and well...trouble. Ours are all plastic, but other people have glass ones. He's broken two so far, so watch out if he's at your house. I'm not talking about accidentally dropping them with his clumsy baby hands. I'm talking about THROWING them with his Nolan Ryan pitching arm. I'm lining up college sports recruiters early next year.

So in an effort to get Sam to stop removing ornaments from our tree, we've done a couple things. Lamely saying "No!" and "Oh Sam, don't." Ignoring it. Gently showing him the whole ornament and how it's not really a ball, and making him put them back on the tree himself. Picking up baby and tree after the latter had fallen on the former and caused everyone to scream bloody murder. But today, today I had some inspiration. (I thought.) I would string the ornaments on a thread, and hang them garland style from the tree. That would be useful, right? If he pulled on one, he would find it attached to its mates and the tree and be foiled. My wicked little Darth Mommy brain didn't see this as "oh, it's like beading and I like to bead" or "oh, this will keep my precious little one safe from falling Christmas trees". No. I was viewing it as "HA! I WIN! I foiled you! I'm bigger and smarter! HA!". Because I'm like that.

And so I commenced my project with smugness. Sam was asleep, the boys were doing their homework, Abby was away at MADI. And I strung my ornaments on a thread. Green thread, so as to camouflage. But it was tedious work, and frustrating. It somehow became SO important that I get it done before Sam's nap was over. It somehow became so important that they be evenly spaced and perfectly alternating in color. And it was HARD! The balls were big and awkward. The thread is tiny and snappy and tangly and GAH! My hands were cold and clumsy. If I sat down on the floor, I cramped up. If I stood, I dropped everything repeatedly. I cowboy cursed because my kids were in the next room and I don't want to break my streak of not really cursing (going on 6 years now, if you only count out loud curses). "Fer cryin' out loud!" and "FREAK!" and I'm sure I was scaring my boys. I had to redo and redo the garlands because they kept sliding together or tangling up and being too short. I actually got to the point where I was having a weird kind of tunnel vision. All I could see was the ornaments and thread and the tree and I was getting dizzy.

Mike came in to do his piano practice and his pretty sounds jolted me out of my weird frenzy. I realized that I had made something small and unimportant, something that wasn't even tangential to the things I needed to do today, into the most important thing in my life and it was stupid.

I think it was an important lesson for me. Like people who get hung up on outside points of the gospel instead of clinging to the core doctrines of the Atonement, I tend to get caught up in things that aren't important and that I don't have the answers for. I need to stick with, spiritually and temporally, the things that really matter. My family, keeping order in my house, getting my kids where they need to go and what they need to know, and loving them. Being there for my friends. And not worrying about whether people like my artwork, or if I got an email, or if anyone ever reads my blog. Not getting caught up in whether I got people the best Christmas presents or if I was going to get anything, but instead working on giving the best of myself to those who need me.

Yes, things are busy and there are non-essential things, especially at this time of year, that are still important. But worrying about whether Sam is throwing plastic Christmas balls is not one of them.