Sweet Beginnings

Cheers, all! After taking a month off to travel up and down I-65 and living like nomads for six consecutive weeks, we're back. And no, the car has not yet been completely unpacked. I swore that we weren't bringing more stuff in until an equal amount of stuff had gone out...and so, two hours tomorrow (and likely the day after that, and the day after that) shall be devoted to theoretically tossing a burning match into my closet. If it's a size 6, says Abercrombie & Fitch, comes up to my belly button (jeans), barely reaches my belly button (shirts), or even mildly resembles a turtleneck, out it goes. Which...is pretty much everything. I am declaring 2011 The Year of Taking Back the House.

I'm also declaring it a year of remembering, and really taking the time to appreciate what I've been given. Most notably, Evan. I just realized that in the few months Evan has been talking--really talking--I've already forgotten so many of those little phrases and funny things he'll say one day, and not the next. I'm right up there with every other mom who opens her child's baby book at age 5, only to realize she never wrote anything past a few firsts. A lot of Evan's firsts came in the usual time (and some not-so-usual; he had 12 teeth by his first birthday), but talking was something we had to wait on, and not always patiently. So now that Evan seems to be making up for lost time, I'm going to try my best to keep up, whether I devote a calendar to scribbling a bit about each day, or keeping a Word document on the computer where I can type a few notes per week. I should have been doing this all along, so I could count my blessings in the frustrating moments and tell myself to appreciate how far he's come.

So to start, a note for tonight: I know I'm biased because he's mine, but I wish everyone could just spend one day with him. The joy he gets out of the littlest things, the funny little scenarios he pretends, the songs he sings, how many times per day he asks to go to a movie or a football game and get popcorn and rootbeer...it just melts my heart. And if you met him, he'd cry if you left without letting him give you a goodbye hug and a kiss. At an age when most kids are starting to let go, he's still holding on, and every time his little hand slips into mine, I feel overwhelmingly blessed, and think, how cool is it that I get to be his mommy? Why am I so lucky that whenever I tell him what good job he did being patient, or how much his daddy and I love him, he says, "Thank you," in that sweet little voice that I am so grateful I finally get to hear? And if I say, "No, Evan, thank you," he'll say, "You're welcome." Really, does life get much better?

Maybe he'll suddenly turn into a stinker who won't hold my hand in 2011. Maybe he'll pick up on new words I don't want him to know. But I'm here to say that now is pretty awesome, and I can't think of a better way to start the new year than by looking at my final image of the last.

Making a "moon" on the ceiling of Nate's new tent, the site of the New Year's Eve daddy-son slumber party