I get it. This time of year can be hard on anyone (everyone?). There is so blessed much going on with programs and parties and holiday activities, not to mention self-proscribed traditions and To Do lists and preparations (house, gifts, food, etc.) that can suck up all our time and energy in December.

This year feels especially confusing because I didn’t even realize it really WAS December until we landed at home in the late afternoon of 12/14 and even if you’re like me and not a math-er, you can see by those numerals that we missed half the month of getting our heads, hearts, and house ready for this special time of year. And, quite honestly, I’m pretty pissed at time right now because the three weeks we lost in Omaha are messing with me.

Now, to be clear….when I say “lost” I do not mean wasted. We did exactly what we needed to do for Wilson by being where we were for as long as we were (OK, still would have liked to have been home waaaay sooner, but that’s OK, Baby Girl – you are an excellent bus driver and we were happy to comply since it meant we got to bring you home at all). And in the grand scheme of things, three weeks is a drop in the bucket of time/a year/a life, and I am very much aware of people who stay longer or graduate to other parts of the hospital or live daily with illness and medical complications.

Awareness and heartbreak for those situations do not change, however, the fact that my own postpartum experience with Willa was nothing I ever anticipated, much less prepared for or knew how to navigate, and now that we are through it, I don’t know how to do what I’m doing now, either, which is trying to figure out life back in my house and with my five children and all in the week prior to Christmas during which my husband is teaching full-time because of Finals. It all feels like a bit much, you know?

Enter the Great Expectations. I know my kids don’t really care what they get for Christmas and that if we don’t do All. The. Things. we have done in Christmas’ Past, they will live (and trust me, they all have elephant memories, so they will remember). Even I don’t have huge expectations of what Christmas should be or look like, but the fact that it is suddenly upon us and I’ve had no time to ease into that, much less newborn life, is hard.

And enter the Gray Expectations, which is how I feel about our homecoming and what I think people are maybe expecting of me which is to be gushing with happiness right now. The number one question I am getting, and understandably so, is, “How is it to be home?!” and it is my response to that that feels so loaded. The answer is more complicated than “good” but not everyone wants/needs to hear that and I don’t actually need to start crying every time I talk to someone about it, so what do I do?

A “good/yes” response is true.

A “hard/overwhelmed” one is as well.

And I think it’s just going to be like that for a while as we take time to unpack our bags from the hospital, find all the baby odds and ends around the house that we need, and deal with the see-saw of emotions that come with any newborn adjustment, much less one post-NICU, and yes, prepare for Christmas, too.

I wish there was a more compact way to include that in my answer to the No.1 question these days, but none of this is black and white, and as with any parenting journey, there’s no manual, either, so the best we – I – can do is to keep trying and talking (OK, mostly writing) about the “tossed in the deep end” moments, for how else do we hope to make any progress to our new normal?

Good and Hard. Great and Gray. All of these things, and so much more are a part of this time and this sweet Little One’s story. And so, we carry on.