We always get our Christmas tree put up the day after Thanksgiving. We take the kids out to a place nearby to pick out a tree. Yes, a real tree. Unless you’re allergic, I have no idea why you would do anything else.

The first one Princess picked out was 12 ft tall. We let her know that was a bit too tall and kept moving. After that, every tree was too tall… ‘Do you like this one?’ She would respond, ‘No, too tall’. We did eventually get one with her stamp of approval. We got it in the house and started decorating. This is the first year that Princess has been old enough to really ‘help’. She had a great time and four hot glued back together ornaments later, we were done. She has also collected several other decorations and placed them around the house where she sees fit.

As we decorated the tree I hung up an ornament from Monkey’s second Christmas. This was before Princess was born and before he started having seizures. It is one of those with his hand print on one side and a picture of him on the other. He is sitting in a Radio Flyer push cart that friends of ours gave us and has the biggest, cheesiest, amazing, giggling grin on his face.

I had to stop. I showed it to Morgan and we both remembered a time when our son had words, moved and had the energy of a typical two year old. We can’t stay there too long. We would never be able to look ahead. But we are always so grateful to look back and see the prize.

I don’t know what it will take or how long, but we will find that boy again. We are getting glimpses of him every now and again. While eating his breakfast last week he held his momma’s hand for the entire meal. This is a big deal. He usually protests his momma feeding him and it takes a while. He does much better when I feed him. He’ll grab my arm and pull it to him. Just to make sure I don’t forget to keep the food coming.

These are the moments we live for.

After we completed the decorating of our tree, Princess found two sets of reindeer antlers and put one on and ran around the house. Then she took the other pair to her brother who had been laying on the floor watching the lights on the tree. She sat him up the best she could and put them on his head. Then laid down next to him.

These are the moments that keep us alive and keep us moving forward.