I love fresh starts.

(That’s one of the things I miss about not being in school; I loved blank notebooks and teachers who didn’t know me. September used to be my favorite time of year.)

So New Year’s is a time of optimism. For that matter, so is Thanksgiving. Or June 13. Pick a date. I bet I could be optimistic about it.

Bad habits? A chance to get rid of them. Clean the closets, get rid of the cobwebs. 2005 is almost here!

Let’s take stock of our year, shall we?

We managed to turn a high school kid into a college kid (and if you don’t think that’s a goal, you have not been paying attention.)

We pursued a big dream, a scary one, and spent six weeks in New Hampshire proving that we weren’t silly for dreaming this dream.

We lost weight!

We played division one at nationals, and managed to achieve our two primary goals: don’t embarrass ourselves and stay away from cameras.

We found music again. (And thanks, Santa, for the blues studies!)

We survived roller coasters and didn’t throw up or give up.

Merry Christmas, everyone.

The kids are happy and tired and playing with their new gadgets. I’m getting ready to chop up some butternut squash. Curie keeps hiding her new Christmas bone and then forgetting where. I have wacky music on in the background. And I’m full of leftover hot chocolate.

Up-to-the-minute reporting!

Baking with toddlers.

My niece Julianna is a spy. We’ll be sitting around, chatting or having lunch, and she’ll say, out of the blue, very very meaningfully: “the monkey at the playplace is very scary.” And it is clear that she expects a specific response, although none of us know exactly what that response is. “The blue camel is falling down.”

The creche on my coffee table was quite interesting to her. “Look, baby Jesus lives in a castle. With a butterfly!” (The angel, of course.)

Nieces are great. I can let her just eat frosting if that’s what she wants. It’s not my job to worry about nutrition.

Okay, back to digging cookie crumbs out of the upholstery!

Kick it! Roll it! Play with it! It’s a ball!

This was the advertising on a… yeah, on a rubber ball. Were the manufacturers concerned that the buyers wouldn’t know how to use a rubber ball? Were these supposed to be selling points?

I dunno. Maybe plain rubber balls don’t sell well these days.

Once upon a time, there was this baby girl who chased after bees and escaped into the yard more times than I could count, who followed her brothers into trouble and then told on them, who hated the word ‘cute’ and insisted on cutting her own bangs – off. Somewhere along the way, that baby girl turned into this young lady who still escapes when I’m not watching and wears the weirdest getups I have ever seen, who dyes her hair purple (or blue?), just a few streaks, and fiercely defends her opinions and her friends. She’s awesome.

Happy birthday, Em. The world may not be ready for you yet, but it sure needs you.

Time to make a list. Check it. Twice.

Time to make some plans. Make some food. Make some memories.

Time to live our lives/life and be happy.

Check your watch.

Nobody in this house plays with Legos anymore. They have gone the way of American Girl dolls and Chutes and Ladders and soap bubbles. (I’d add Beanie Babies, but some people in this house still like them. And I’m not talking about Curie.)

This would make me sad, but honestly, the kids are turning into such cool human beings with varied and startling interests. Some of them like the same books I like; some of them listen to music that I can’t stand. They know things I don’t know. When did this happen?? They argue about math and politics and religion. So I miss the Legos, but I really love the poetry and philosophy.

It used to be way easier to find Christmas presents for them, though.

There have been suggestions that, despite my protests, I am indeed a grinch. This is actually helpful. I can cross a few names off my gift list.

This would sound sacrilegious if I were, um, religious. I’m sure it will sound sacrilegious to my kids. Okay. Here we go. Christmas is not my favorite holiday. (Thanksgiving is.) Christmas is not even in my top ten favorite holidays.

I’m not a grinch. I enjoy a lot of the season. The food, the look of things. I have a soft spot for glittery soft gold anything. Those people who do blue and silver decorations, though, I have no idea what they’re doing. They are from the other Christmas planet. Anyway. I love candy canes and Handel and snow.

What I don’t love is the pressure. There is so much to do. So many expectations, deadlines, lists. (Some of these could be alleviated by better organization on my part, I admit.) But so much of it is false, too. Many of these gifts are not heartfelt. How could they be? Gifts for the kids’ bus drivers? I can’t (maybe some people can) go down this list of people I don’t know and find just the right thing to show our love and appreciation and whatever else we’re trying to show. I don’t know their interests. I don’t know if they like peanut butter cookies or peppermint. So a whole lot of people get generic candles at this time of year.

Really, I’m not a grinch.

And I unleash yet another 16-year-old on the world! Happy birthday, Chris. I hope you have a great year of philosophizing and inventing and playing and arguing. You are awesome.



(Where'd this kid get his camera shyness, huh? Boy, genetics are weird.)

Some paths we take run parallel to other paths. We don’t have to sell a house to change jobs, necessarily. We don’t have to give up a dog to have a child. We don’t have to throw away one book just because we’re reading another. Other paths we take do narrow our choices. (Some broaden them.) Some paths require burning bridges behind us. Others don’t. (Lots of times the best paths do, though… a resolute commitment to go ahead and not look back.)

My favorite cure for general gloominess:

Cleaning toilets. Most cleaning works fairly well, actually, but there is something about scouring a bathroom that just realigns things in my brain. Maybe it’s the smell of Comet. I’ve tried to pass this cure on to my children, but they just sense some kind of awful trick and turn away. They’ll realize I’m right some day.

Wine and walking work for some types of gloominess. (Gloria and I combined these last week, strolling around my neighborhood with glasses of wine in the afternoon like escapees from the community center 12-step program.)

Being with your best friend cures almost anything.

Happy birthday, Daniel. I became a new person nineteen years ago: a mother. Thanks for turning out so well despite all my mistakes.

I’m back to posting (obviously). Feel free to keep poetizing!