New Year’s Resolutions

January 3, 2014

I make wishy-washy New Year’s resolutions. To write them down would simply be overwhelming. There’s so much I want do do but mostly, I just want to do better.

But if I were to write them down, “do better with my blog” would top the list. Gosh I was terrible last year. I love to make excuses so here’s one: I get behind, and I don’t know how to catch up. Example: I haven’t posted about Halloween, so how can I post about New Year’s?

As my mom has told me several times, it doesn’t matter.

So here’s my New Year’s post. Halloween will likely be a month from now.

Today:

I restarted (for the fourth time) my Loseit.com goal. I am a cliché. And starving.

Around 10am I convinced Sophie to climb into bed with me while Owen and James ran around the house shooting these Plane toy things at breakable things. It was snowy and windy and cold and we curled up together under my down comforter and my new raw wool blanket (a perfect Christmas present) and Sophie chatted on and on and on about “Garfield and Friends” (yes, the TV show from the late 1980s, she’s obsessed) and I listened and nodded and laughed and slightly dozed and as much as I love Christmas and all its decadence the decadence of just sitting in bed mid-morning doing nothing was, well, decadent.

I made a lunch that no one ate and one that Owen cried most of the way through because it wasn’t cinnamon-sugar toast, which is what he wanted.

We spent 40 minutes getting dressed to spend 20 minutes out in the snow.

It was gorgeous outside.

We built the world’s worst snowman. We were out of carrots (the reindeer ate them). I tried celery for a nose but it was much too big. So I used found vegetation. “It’s a bit lumpy,” Sophie said regarding the snowman’s smile.

We played.

Once inside I made hot chocolate. We were out of milk, so it wasn’t the cocoa-sugar-milk-vanilla-stovetop kind my mom always made us, but the instant powdery kind made with a kettle of hot water, which Sophie told me several times “wasn’t nearly as good.” But I threw in a ton of marshmallows, which helped.

Then I sat outside the half bath for more than an hour with hot tea, waiting. (Details aren’t necessary except to say we’re still potty training.)

I made dinner with hands that smelled like clementines. Dusk fell and the snowflakes fell slower but bigger—they were beautiful. I wished for George Winston in the background but Team Umizoomi won.

Andy was late (traffic) and cold. I fled upstairs to do freelance work for three hours while he played board games and insisted on bedtimes.

I ended the evening by finishing “Les émotifs anonymes,” (a lovely film), eating popcorn and drinking tea.

And now I’m back in bed, under my down comforter and raw wool blanket, listening to icy snow hit our drafty, old windows that rattle in the wind but are so fitting to the house we never want to change.

And even though it’s just a moment, a day, a month, I’m happy for new beginnings—for a chance to restart goals, improve upon one’s self—to try again.

“I made no resolutions for the new year. The habit of making plans, of criticizing, sanctioning and molding my life, is too much of a daily event for me.” —Anaïs Nin

March Snow

March 7, 2013

This winter has not been kind to us in terms of sickness. Early December all five of us had a stomach virus (a nightmare). Early February, despite flu shots, we were all sick with something viral, which my doctor suspected was a mild case of the flu. And which, a week later, turned into pinkeye. Last week, something viral invaded our family again.

Late Tuesday night Sophie’s temperature peaked at 106.5°. We called the doctor on call. Gave her Tylenol and Ibuprofen. Woke her up every hour to check her temperature and make sure she was lucid (which was difficult to determine as she was groggy with sleep). Her temperature dropped and steadied (although it was still high) so we avoided the ER but took her in to see the pediatrician first thing the next morning. Aside from a cough, everything checked out—including a flu test. But later that afternoon, she started complaining about abdominal pain and her fever peaked at 104.5°. Back to the pediatrician again (same day). She was tested for a UTI—nothing. So we continued monitoring her, giving her Tylenol, Ibuprofen and Delsym.

Of course Owen and James also had colds and fevers, with Owen’s temperature peaking at 105° one night. And then I caught it. And then Andy. James started complaining about his ear, so back to the doctor we went—double ear infection and the start of bronchitis.

With sickness comes fussiness. Thursday morning, before I knew James had an ear infection, I tried to pick him up while he was throwing a terrible tantrum on the kitchen floor. He flung his head up and his skull caught my chin. It hurt, the kind of hurt that instantly brings tears to your eyes. I put him down. Walked to the bathroom. Shut the door and cried as a bruise formed on the underside of my chin and blood formed on my lip, where my teeth caught the skin. At that point I had a fever too. I was exhausted from overnight temperature checks. I wanted to rip out my lungs from coughing. I had three screaming children outside my door and all I wanted to do was curl up in bed. My phone rang. It was my mom calling me on her cell. She was on her way. With lunch. I did that awful cry-talk back to her, thanking her.

How do moms do that? She called at the exact moment I needed to hear her. I can only hope I’m able to do the same for my children when they’re grown.

And then today. Sophie’s temperature came back (low grade, 100.5°) and she was still complaining about abdominal pain. So back to the doctor we went. Next thing I know all four of us are downtown at Children’s Hospital so Sophie can have an x-ray done—poor kid has pneumonia, in her lower right lung.

This winter has been filled with over-the-counter medicine distributed in plastic alligator spoons, around-the-clock temperature checks, inhaler treatments, nebulizer treatments (we own our own machine now), bedroom humidifiers, middle-of-the-night-bundled-up-because-of-the-freezing-temperature porch sits for croup, fussiness, wiping noses constantly, reminding to cover coughs constantly, so many missed days at school. And all I will say about the stomach virus is the laundry. My God. The laundry.

Is this normal? Sophie’s in preschool. Even her teacher was noting how another parent, rightfully so, called the classroom a big petri dish. (And they have a strict sick policy, as well as strict hand-washing policies—every child washes their hands first thing when entering the room.) One morning when I called her in sick I discovered I was the sixth parent to do so that day, in a class of 20-something. I take the boys to Child Watch at the Y—when healthy. We go to the museum—when healthy. We go to the library—when healthy. But then, I can’t help but think doing these things leads to more germs and more sickness. They’re building up their immunity, yes, but it’s exhausting.

And now it’s March. Yesterday we got one last big beautiful snowfall. (And please know that if I had known Sophie had pneumonia, I certainly wouldn’t have let her play outside—for what it’s worth, we were only outside for about 20 minutes … despite the good half hour it took to get geared up to romp around in the snow.)

I love snow, I do. Even today my heart did a little flip flop when I saw our cardinals flit about the snow-covered branches. It was beautiful. They were beautiful. The boys squealed with delight, calling them friends. But I felt less giddy than usual as the big flakes fell this time. I sighed heavier as I dressed the kids in layers. I’m ready for Sunday’s time change. I’m ready to play outside daily. I’m ready to open up all our windows and air out our stuffy, germ-filled house. Even the kids ask daily, “When can we go to the big park?” I want to go to the big park. I want to go to the park sans coats. Sans runny noses. Sans cringe-worthy coughs.

I just hope Punxsutawney Phil was right.

“Nature looks dead in winter because her life is gathered into her heart. She withers the plant down to the root that she may grow it up again fairer and stronger. She calls her family together within her inmost home to prepare them for being scattered abroad upon the face of the earth.” —Hugh Macmillan

A Morning Spent Sledding With Friends

February 16, 2013

a snowy, early morning view from our deck

Madeleine, Sophie and Charlie

Angel and Mya

Zoey, Madeleine and Mya working hard to get back up the hill

Andy and Owen

Andy took the boys home, and Sophie and I went down the side of the big hill a couple times—she loved it.

James spent most of the time holding a cold piece of buttered toast begging someone to take him home.

friends

the trouble with sledding

Jack

Owen

Angel and Mya

Angel and Zoey

down, down, down

Madeleine

Sophie and Madeleine

Mya

Sarah and Jack

I like that there’s a local sledding hill. I like that we can wake up and meet our friends there, Sophie’s friends there. I like how, when it snowed again earlier this week, Owen, while looking out the window said, “It makes me happy, Mommy.”

Snow makes me happy too, little man.

“The first fall of snow is not only an event, it is a magical event. You go to bed in one kind of world and wake up in another quite different, and if this is not enchantment then where is it to be found?” —J.B. Priestley

Morning Snow

March 8, 2012

“Winter came down to our home one night
Quietly pirouetting in on silvery-toed slippers of snow,
And we, we were children once again.” —Bill Morgan, Jr.

Finally, Snow

January 26, 2012

It took me a good 30 minutes to get all three kids dressed to go outside for just a small bit of snow. The boys had never worn boots before, and it was a struggle to shove their feet into them. (I was so thankful for the boots though, hand-me-downs—as are many of the things they wear—from our good friends Rebecca and Chris’s son, Evan.) And while I was busy putting something on James, Owen would take off whatever it was I had just put on him—and vice versa. And the entire time Sophie was saying “let’s go! let’s go!”

We finally went. Here Sophie’s wearing the winter hat Nini and Pop Pop found for her in Italy.

The gloves—oh, the gloves. They, too, were a gift from Italy, from Nini and Pop Pop. As I was helping Sophie put them on, I realized she had never worn gloves before—only mittens. So this activity took quite some time, too. She’d put two or three fingers in one finger slot, pull them out to separate and in doing so, put two fingers in another slot. But now, she’s a pro.