The real New Year's Day

Every mother of school-aged children knows that the new year doesn't begin until school starts again. When Christmas break began I was craving sleeping late and homework-free afternoons...but today, with it's early start, quiet house and regained structure, was like a breath of fresh air.

I decided that although I'd been treated to two delicious holiday meals, I needed to cook one all by myself so we could enjoy the best part- the leftovers. I roasted a turkey, made french bread, mashed potatoes, stuffing, green beans, cranberry sauce, gravy, and pumpkin pie with whipped cream. The boys were at school, Marley was down for a long winter's nap and I had all afternoon to clatter around the kitchen and think deep thoughts.

I thought about our family home evening lesson last night, where I got all organized and creative and introduced our family theme for the year: Take care of each other. I made a banner for the mantle and put everyone's initials on empty coke bottles (take-homes from our trip to Atlanta's own World of Coke last week). We all sat down together and wrote about the highlights, good and bad, of the past year and our hopes and dreams for 2011.

For the month of January, each time you make progress toward a goal, you get a bean in your bottle. If we can all fill our bottles by the end of the month, we get a reward. I told the boys they could choose the reward and little Eric came up with the idea of buying a new DVD and watching it while eating "those dinners you're supposed to eat while you watch TV." How could I say no to that? Oh, and everyone gets their own soda that they pick out. Sounds good to me...I'm going to lobby for Shrek Forever After, since we still haven't seen that.

I thought about my own hopes for the coming year and decided to make half-year resolutions, since the end of May is bringing me another precious little plan-destroyer and I don't want to set my expectations of myself too high. As I thought about the baby and the things I want to work on before he or she gets here and this is what I came up with...


1. Make consistent, healthy dinners. I struggle most with the consistency part of the equation. So I came up with a plan I'm hoping will keep me on track and prevent burnout, which has long been my enemy in the kitchen. Two nights a week will be fun, possibly new, involved recipes- things I've seen online or had at friends' houses and want to try out. Two nights will be simple, easy stuff- like spaghetti, or oatmeal pancakes. Two nights will be leftovers and one night we'll eat out. I gave myself a big handful of beans in my bottle for tonight's dinner!

2. Learn to go to bed by 10:30. This is a modification of one of my resolutions from last year- notice I said learn to. I've come to accept the fact that I'm just not an early-to-bed girl, and it's probably going to take more than simple resolve to get me to sleep earlier. So I'm viewing this goal as a journey- permission to experiment with different ideas of how to lure myself into bed: subscribe to a bunch of magazines so I always have good-but-not-too-good reading material? Buy flannel sheets? Crank down the thermostat at 9:00? And if I fail, come May I'll be a sleep-deprived zombie anyway, so there's not a lot at stake.

3. Kids in bed by 8:00. This one is equally hard for me. Since I like to stay up late, I feel bad making my kids go to bed early, and I just don't start thinking about bedtime until 8:30 or so. Then I pay for it the next morning when I have to drag sleepy kids out of bed, and they pay for it when they drag through the day at school. My downfall here is scouts and basketball, which keep Eric Jr. out until almost 8:30 two nights a week. I already have a plan to lobby for an earlier start-time at scouts (our troop consists of Eric and one other boy), and I'll just have to get creative with my incentives for taking a quick shower on basketball nights.

4. Regular date nights with Eric and the boys. I'm really excited about this one! I worked out a swap with our neighbors wherein we get to go out every other week. On the off weeks, we watch their kids one night, and the next night their 11-year-old will babysit Marley at their place for the low rate of 3$/hour so we can go out and do something fun and toddler-free with the boys. Some weeks we'll split up and each take one and some weeks we'll stick together, depending on how everyone's feeling. (Swapping babysitting was one thing I said I was done with when we took this job, thinking that it would be nice to just hire a babysitter, no strings attached. I was wrong- it's expensive, we wind up going out less, and I stress about getting home since every minute is costing us. I'm excited to get back into swapping and get a regular routine going.)

5. Worry less about the future and past- live in the moment more. This one is my favorite and most-needed change. One of the things I've learned about myself over the past year is how deeply I value stability. But I also learned that change brings its own gifts and that I can handle it better than I thought. The next year is going to be a limbo year for us- a year of uncertainty about the future, but also a year full of opportunities to find joy in the moment.

This New Year's has been one of my best-evers. Our new life in Atlanta finally feels comfortable, and I'm starting to see the strengths and insights that were gained through the painful process of moving. I can tell it's going to be a good year.

Ugh. Is it really 10:28 already!?