2006, In my own words

Here are each of the opening sentences from the first blog entries for each month of the year. Hardly as profound as I'd hoped, it's more like an extremely abbreviated glimpse of my life this year - on crack. (Idea stolen from lovley Teri over at Blueberry Pie.)

January
We walked for hours.

February
I'm having a wordless night.

March
It occurred to me today that I might be a more interesting person now that I spend my days at home practicing toddler-talk and cleaning diapers than I was when I dressed nice and worked forty-hours a week in an office.

April
...and then directly to the bath.

May
Sort of.

June
We'll call her Lila.

July
We finally made it home on Sunday - but have still been running around like mad.

August
Without going into a tirade about the local cable company who (still) has yet to connect our new home to the internet, I thought I'd take advantage of my inlaw's internet access to submit a long overdue post.

September
I'm living in revision-hell...working on cleaning/cutting/revising various stories, making them shiny and suitable for my thesis that will be due before I'm ready, I'm sure.

October
Yes, they're big.

November
Happy and Healthy, all.

December
1:30: Set out with toddler and infant to run errands and find perfect Christmas tree.

And to all a Good Night...

Ride to Grandma's, originally uploaded by mellahoney.

Two

At two, you are busy.
You are basket-pushing, block tossing, busy.
You are running - circles in the kitchen, darting through department stores, sprinting to our neighbor's house and back, and there again.
You are drawing and dancing and going - going - going
until at last we tuck you in.
Tight -
because we know,
even the night can not hold you.

At two, you are a charmer.
You are smiles in the morning.
Waves from the window and
hugs, a-plenty.
You are giggling, flirting, talking -always.
Saying more with the flicker of your eyelashes
than most adults say all day.

At two you are a
Spaghetti-faced
pudding-fisted
bedheaded
Mess.

And at two, you are mischief.
You are crackers on the couch
and clothes behind the dresser
Broken ornaments on the tree
and laundry on the floor.

At two, you are my excuse
for homework pastdue
for dinner's not made or dishes not cleaned
for being late...anywhere.

At two
you are my greatest distraction
and my favorite pasttime.
My source of frustrated tears and belly laughs.
You are my trouble, and my triumph.

And I love you.

Happy birthday, Boss.

Ghosts of Christmas Past

It's impossible for me to not be reflective this time of year. Growing up, my sister and I would plop ourselves on the couch and watch homevideo's of previous Christmas mornings - both in anticipation and out of our innate need to look back.

For me, the feeling of the holidays is found in the details - in remembering holding my Christmas stocking, feeling it's soft weight shift in my palm, sliding my fingers in to pull out foil wrapped kisses. The smell and crinkle of paper and tape and the sticky scent of pine. It's in remembering the carpet-grain dots on my knees from kneeling before the tree in my nightgown - and in the smell of cinnamon rolls - and the vision of my bathrobe clad mother sipping coffee in the doorway to the kitchen.

Silly and absurd details, like my father's feet - bare and pale and playfully prodding our catnip drunk kitty's nose. My skinny little brother excitedly waving his presents in the air and yelling for the video camera's attention. Or, the three of us kids parading down the stairs in dramatic fashion - flips and songs, whatever we could think of in our Christmas-Morning enthusiasm.

This year, nothing is so simple - it's all loose threads - gifts to wrap, treats to make for Christmas and birthday parties (I do not recommend having a baby so close to Christmas), cleaning to do, and work to finish. I feel breathless, but not with anticipation.

And oddly, this is the first year I haven't yearned for those childhood video tapes. Rather, the nostalgia was set in motion by the black and white's that I found recently, and so my yearning has been to look back on more recent years. On that tiny tree in our first apartment, sitting on a miniature coffee table, hardly a decoration upon it, and hardly a gift beneath it. Yet, it was perfect.

It's what we make it, I suppose.

Huh. Look at that. I sat down here to babble and procrastinate before attempting to clean - and yet I found a little peace.

Imagine that.

Lazy Tuesday Morning

Just Reflecting

They're black and white with glossy smiles. We found them while sorting through boxes in an effort to reorganize our closet space - pictures from our first months of marriage. Silly, random shots of cats and bananas and us - laughing, lounging on cheap couches in our five hundred square foot apartment.

Aside from serving as instant motivation to lose baby-weight, finding these random pictures was a punch of pure bliss. Nostalgia and warm fuzzies. I loved that short time in my life. Those first few months of living together, feeling our way around the newness of us.

Our apartment? A glorified closet subsidized by the college I worked for - it was love and hate. The galley kitchen had an annoying florescent light, buzzing and flickering overhead. No window. The sink was always overflowed with dishes. The bedroom window overlooked a noisy parking lot. Our furniture was nonexistent or handed down or purchased at WalMart and assembled with Allen wrenches (and aggravation.) Our neighbor blasted tele-evangelists at odd hours of the morning, even when he went out (to "keep the spirit" in his apartment while he was away.)

The apartment was my first real taste of responsibility. My first (official) home away from home. And I loved it - despite it's many (many) flaws, because it was my first home with him. The man in those pictures, laughing with a big orange cat on his lap. The man who wrote me poems and put our picture on bottles of Jone's soda. The same one whose hands shook when I first asked him for a shoulder rub.

We've travelled half way around the world together, and now here we are. The black and white photos neatly tucked away in a bedroom armoire (furniture that wasn't handed down and that didn't arrive with instructions for assembly.) A closet full of ties and button down shirts. A basinette beside our bed. Somehow, we arrived here. Grown-up, together.

Now we're bigger and older and seen in color photos on computer screens with kids on our laps. And I can't get over how happy I am - black and white and present day.

So this is interesting...

Turns out it's possible to hallucinate in reverse. Rather than seeing things that aren't there, I'm not seeing things that are there. Big things. Like, SUV's and Minivans.

After two near-miss accidents, I've come to the realization that I probably should not be driving while in such a state of sleep deprivation.

This is a good plan, with only one flaw. How will I get home?

O Christmas Tree

Saturday
1:30: Set out with toddler and infant to run errands and find perfect Christmas tree.

2:30: While running errands, toddler gets antsy and hungry. We decide to combine errands and purchase perfect Christmas tree from the Home Depot garden center, rather than stop at the cute farm shop down the street from our home.

3:00: Stand in cold windtunnel with underdressed toddler and infant while waiting to pay for perfect Christmas tree.

3:30: Return home with tree, groceries and various supplies purchased at Home Depot.

4:00: Tree is standing in cheap-o tree stand. Sort of. Leans severely, but husband assures me that all is well.



Sunday

5:00: Branches have lowered, tree appears ready to be decked.

5:30: Husband begins to attempt lighting tree.

5:35: While serving toddler dinner, husband can be heard beating tree into submission in living room. Quote: "I hate Christmas"

5:45: Tree is down. Husband is beneath tree.

6:00: Family trip to local mega-mart to purchase more reliable, easier to use tree stand to display our perfect Christmas tree.

7:30: Toddler hangs his special ornament, goes to bed.

9:00: Husband has successfully lit the tree. Huzzah! Decorating can commence!

9:45: Tree is beautiful. Pictures are taken. Finally, all is quiet and lovely.

10:00: Crash. Clink clink clink. Rush to living room to find perplexed husband standing over fallen tree. It fell, unprovoked. Some ornamental casualties, but all sentimental pieces survive.

10:30: Start over.

11:15: Thinking pre-decorated, artificial trees don't sound too bad.