2018: Day One Thoughts

2017 was pretty good to us. Besides a few minor bugs, we all stayed healthy.  Nora enjoyed her last semester of preschool and later started kindergarten.  Aside from learning to read, write, and count to 100 (over and over and over again), she spends much of her free time coloring and crafting, drawing and painting pictures for everyone she knows.  If you come to visit, you're likely to leave with at least one Nora original, which you may want to hang onto because she might just be famous one day.  She continues to be our independent little girl who does her thing and marches to the beat of her own drummer - and we're perfectly okay with that because, most of the time, with it comes her sweet generosity and that contagious shoulder-shaking giggle.

Joseph has found his calling as a paleontologist at the Children's Museum and Dolphin Show Expert at the zoo, as well as squeezing in plenty of time to fill the sandbox with water from the hose and perfect his jump shot on the Little Tikes basketball goal in the playroom.  He is a "baby school" dropout, given that Mommy doesn't also attend baby school and, in his mind, this is Unacceptable with a Very Capital U.  Nevertheless, thanks to Nora's teaching, he can tell you an animal for each letter of the alphabet, including "J for JoeJoe AND jellyfish!"  Though he looks more like me, he is Ryan's mini, preferring his routine of waking up, eating two bowls of cereal, playing some basketball, watching his favorite shows, and going to the "big Butler games" at every opportunity.

Ryan and I have become painting extraordinaires, thanks mostly to the go-getter (or just plain dumb, depending how you look at it) attitude we had back in 2015 when we bought a house that needed A LOT of paint less than two months before Joseph was born.  Since we (I) thought it would be a great idea to volunteer to host not one but both families this Christmas, we finally got motivated and finished the paint in the family room and kitchen.

We generally travel a lot at Christmas, and by New Year's, we loathe the idea of ever getting back into a car or packing a suitcase again.  This year, I said HEY! How 'bout your family comes for Christmas Day (weekend), and my family comes later in the week! It'll be great!

It was great.  We had lots of fun; Santa even came with a Hatchimal, a butterfly house, a train table, and a bunch of dinosaurs in tow. I drank a lot of wine, ate (and made) a lot of food, and enjoyed having a house full of family.  But holy moly cow (as Nora says), I'm tired of holidays and ready for a little normal.  In between the two visits, Nora caught a tummy bug or the flu or something and spent one day throwing up and a solid five days barely getting off the couch.  In an unprecedented moment, she PUT HERSELF TO BED at 6:30 one night.  She tried so hard to keep up with her cousins while they were here, but mostly watched from the closest chair.  (She did regain enough energy to open presents. Priorities, people.)   Today, however, she is mostly back to her normal self, and I, after disinfecting the house at least 37 times, am the exhausted one - just in time for Joseph to be starting a germfest of his own, which thankfully does not appear to be as draining as the first.

I'm not really a New Year's Resolution kind of person, preferring instead to reflect and grow continuously and as life allows.  I finally got enough sleep in 2017 (not exactly 8 hours a night, but also not 4 interrupted and half in a rocking chair) to work toward some goals I've had for a long time, and I hope to do more of the same in 2018.  I have found that, if I let things be, I'm given many opportunities to practice my patience, to give generously of my time and money, and find joy in little things, while also quietly trying to turn this crazy house into a home and have a bit of a side business in addition to being Mommy and all that the role entails.  It's no small feat but one toward which I'm always working.

I haven't uploaded the pictures from the actual camera yet, but here's some favorites from my phone:

When Santa asked him what he wanted for Christmas, he said "Toys. Dinosaur toys."

Santa came! Zadie knows one of those stockings is for her.

By the middle of Christmas morning, Joseph was A PRO at opening presents.

She made me a headband :)

Our little scientist, creator, crafter, ready to do an experiment from her new science kit.

All five of the "big" kids followed me upstairs to get Joseph out of his bed after he woke from his nap.  They love their "Baby Joe" and cater to his every wish - which means they played a lot of basketball while they were here.

I lit four candles in the center of six children. LOL.

My people.

Happy New Year to you and yours! May it bring you peace and joy.