Old Year, New Year

With this Christmas, we can at last say that fully half of Duchy Christmases have transpired without anyone present throwing up. That alone is almost enough to make it a good year.

Fortunately time blurs the edges, and even if I write it down we won't really remember that this was the Christmas we went for three weeks without sleep because the babies decided they need to eat all night. (I think it's starting to get better. Maybe. A little.)

I tell them they don't need to grow any more, they're just fine the size they are, in fact they probably should have stayed a little smaller and less mobile, but they refuse to listen. D4 has discovered rolling for transportation and is trying to make it do until he figures out crawling. D3 got started babbling and then decided she should quit working on that and try to figure out how to catch up with D4. Secure gate for the stairway is on order.

It's hard to take a picture of sleep-deprivation, or the fifteenth meal in a row interrupted by an urgent plea for help in the bathroom, and DOB looks pretty much the same even when he's lost his voice. So we'll just rub those things out of the memory book from this year and put in things like this:

D1 and D2 never could figure out the vowel sequence of everyone's favorite Christmas cookie, krumkaka, and finally settled on calling it "Cream-ka-ko."

D1 saved up her own money and bought the purple bear for D2. Then she told him what it was as soon as she got home from the store on Christmas Eve, despite everyone's best efforts to insist on the virtue of surprise. D2 was still surprised.

DOB and I got our first date in almost six months--we went grocery shopping alone together. We were even able to hold hands for a few minutes before the cart got too full. (I guess technically on our anniversary we went out to get pizza, but that was an even shorter trip than grocery shopping.)

The older ducklings were finally old enough to participate in our tradition of making predictions for the New Year by writing various persons, places, and activities on slips of paper and then drawing them at random. D1 still walks around cackling that she's going to be painting in Seattle with Winnie-the-Pooh.

We went to see the zoo lights, rode on the train (riding on a tiny train over sheer drop-offs in the dark with a bunch of little kids is not easy on the nerves) and got a peek at the giraffes in their winter quarters.


I'd like to resolve to eat less and exercise more, but that will have to wait a few months. I'd like to resolve to read some great books, but I think I'd better wait until I have enough sleep for them to make sense. I'd like to tackle some great new projects, but I know they'd just get abandoned midway and then torn to pieces. I'd like to create a calm and peaceful home environment but I need a little more cooperation first.

So I'll just try to do less and enjoy it more, eat and sleep when I have the opportunity, savor any quiet moments that come, and live as happily as possible whether the moment is photographable or not.