2012!

Happy new year! Did you all have a good Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa/Druidic solstice ritual? Anyone burn a Wicker Man? It's okay. I won't judge your insane pagan rituals.

We sure as hell had a good time. We hosted a Christmas brunch for my immediate family, somehow managing to cram the whole clan into our space-challenged living room. (Note to myself: become a millionaire, purchase luxurious townhouse. Maybe a resolution for 2012?) Both my nephews couldn't join us, and they sent me regretful emails and I was all THAT'S FINE OKAY BYE NOW because listen they take up a lot of space.

It wasn't my idea for them both to grow up so tall and musclebound.

Henry had an amazing day despite his cold, but the good news is he managed to transmit the virus to both myself and Scott. I was feeling pretty smug about how healthy I've been since adopting the Paleo lifestyle, so obviously the Lord (working through my Only Son) smote me. He does stuff like that when it's his birthday.

Last week we did nothing and it was pretty much the best thing ever even though my throat hurt and I whined a bunch. I have no problem sleeping until noon and not ever getting out of my pajamas--I mean LOUNGEWEAR. Note to self: become reclusive millionaire.

One of my gifts this year was An Illustrated Life: Drawing Inspiration from the Private Sketchbooks of Artists, Illustrators and Designers. I like to draw and sketch and whatnot, but I haven't made it a priority because it seems to take over my brain. Once I start I have a very hard time wanting to do anything else, like acknowledging my family, or showering. So yes, I avoid it because I love it too much. That makes sense.

But this book, you guys. This book inspired me like no one's business. I got out a sketchbook and my watercolor set and brushes, and I went to town. "Town" being my living room, where I sketched everything around me.

This is pretty much all I did all week. I've missed it SO DAMN MUCH.

I did go outside once, where I sketched my dog peeing. It was a moment crying out to be captured!

I'm now so in love with this daily sketch habit that I decided I was going to start a WHOLE NEW BLOG and POST MY DAILY SKETCHES ON IT and etc etc ALL CAPS BIG IDEAS. But then the coffee wore off and it occurred to me maybe not to make this a big-deal project but instead just enjoy myself. And occasionally share my sketches with you! I like you.

Merry Christmas

We're ready.

Every last gift is wrapped.

Charlie has on his Christmas collar.

Henry is down with a cold. A marathon afternoon of Futurama was the only thing keeping him conscious all afternoon.

Charlie was concerned. Or sleepy. It's hard to tell which.

During dinner we watched Scrooged, which may very well become a holiday tradition around here. Henry was a fan.

I suggested we put a plate out for Santa, and I thought Henry was going to scoff at the idea--he's a BIG KID, you guys. But then he said he'd write a letter, too. It's pretty great.

(Okay, we're ready in every way except for not having an unbroken cookie in the house. We're hoping the chocolate makes up for it.)

We hope you all have a joyous Christmas. I'm so thankful to all of you for reading and commenting. You've changed my life, truly.

Happy New Year

Henry's vacation combined with the fourteen feet of snow dumped on us rendered most of our plans for the week impossible, so we sat around. And around, and around. And oh my, it was glorious. Some days I didn't get out of my pajamas. Some days I ate nothing but Christmas cookies until noon. I went to the gym yesterday, and my yoga pants were noticeably tighter. Surely this is a coincidence.

My Redbook posts for the week were only now put up, due to editors being unavailable (thanks, inclement weather!). So here you are, in the waning light of 2010:

First, a highly biased list of some of the best parenting-related tweets of 2010. Please let me know what I missed--I bet there are some goodies.

And second, a look at New Year's resolutions. In which I name my inner critic Wanda. She TOTALLY deserved it.

Happy new year, everyone. Thank you for reading, and commenting, and being wonderful in general. I get a little choked up when I think of how much this blog, and all of you, have brought me and my family. And I think 2011's going to be amazing for us all. This is our year! TEAM!

Happy, new, year.

To herald the death of the old year and the arrival of the new, we allowed Henry to do the heretofore unthinkable: stay up until midnight. Would he manage it? He is a boy who is usually snoring peacefully by eight p.m. and stays that way for eleven or so hours. When he stays up even an hour after his bedtime, he devolves into a blithering maniac who skitters from room to room on all fours, speaking in tongues. So we had our doubts. Still, though, we were attending a get-together wherein the children would be pajama'd up and free to snooze, if they needed, so the worst that could happen is that he crashed along with some other preschoolers. Also, when had we not been sitting at home being boring, for New Year's Eve, since Henry was born? Never, is when.

By allowing Henry to stay up until midnight, we granted him his heart's desire. Every few days Henry pleads with me to let him stay up late. "But you will be insane," I tell him, but that makes no difference to him. Night time is when all the exciting stuff happens. When we don our smoking jackets and trade witty quips. And then retire to the playroom, to enjoy our Bionicles until the sun comes up.

Anyway, the party actually went well. Although the children were marinated in sugar and hopping up and down on each other's heads, there were no tears, no bloodshed, no broken bones. Henry was cheerful, if drowsy. As the clock struck midnight, he wrapped his flannel-clad body around me and whispered, "Please, can I go to bed, now? "

So all was fine and dandy, until we got home, and he went to sleep. And woke up. And woke up again. There are four reasons why he won't be up until midnight again until he's at least 30.

1. 2:00 am. I wake up to the sound of someone crashing around downstairs. There's a burglar! We're being burgled on the first day of 2008! Also, there's weeping. A highly emotional burglar is lurching around our home. I run to the stairs to restrain him and/or provide emotional succor. But of course it's Henry, who's on his way back up after wrecking the place, and is sobbing. "What's wrong?" I ask him. He lurches back to bed. "Aaaiiiiiigh," he tells me, and I ask him to repeat himself, but he's snoring.

2. 2:30 a.m. A pitiful wailing wakes me up. I make my way to Henry's bed, where he's under the covers, shrieking. "You have to ree my snore!" he screams. "What?" "You have to ream my store!" "WHAT?" "READ ME A STORY." Oh, I am so in the mood to read some Magic Schoolbus. But that must wait. Until I'm CONSCIOUS.

3. 3:00 a.m. Weeping, banging, screaming. I make Scott get up. More weeping, more screaming. Some of it is Scott. I get up. They're in the bathroom. "My eye hurts!" Henry is shrieking. There is much clutching of the eye and tossing his head back and forth, while Scott tries to get a look at what's going on in there. "If your eye is injured, my boy, you should let me look at it," Scott offers. "Quite," I murmur. (What, you don't think we can be that calm and reasonable at 3 am? You calling me a liar?) "NAAAAGH!" Henry wails, and runs back to his bed. Somehow I manage to pin him down and look at his eye. Because Henry's eyelashes are nine feet long, when there's a pain, it's usually an eyelash. In this case, his eye is fine. "There's nothing there, Henry," I tell him. He's asleep.

4. 3:30 a.m. Crying. More crying! I go there. To him. What do you want, what, WHAT? "I NEED TO PEE," he cries. I recommend that he goes to the bathroom. And stop myself from explaining loudly that I DO NOT NEED TO HELP HIM OUT WITH THIS. ALL CAPS.

And there you have it. We started the new year with a bang. And a whimper. And a poorly aimed whiz.