Looking Back to Look Forward

It's been a good year.

This year's holiday card

We're getting ready to head off on our last holiday journey for the year.  Packing (rather, laundering and re-packing), cleaning up after the Christmas and Channukah toy explosions, and cramming in as many last minute important appointments as possible.  Which means that this is the last you'll hear from me for the year.

As I think back on 2011, I have a hard time distinguishing it from pretty much the entire length of time that my children have been here- out of the womb and in the world.  I know that will pass, that eventually time will return to something resembling the progression I knew in my pre-SuperMommy era.  But in order to get a handle on the year, I went back and reviewed everything I wrote here, in this blog, over the course of 2011.

So today, rather than an expose on my incredible OCD tendencies (which I promise I will subject you to as soon as we return from Michigan), I will instead share with you again the eight posts from the year that I think best summed up my 2011, with a little introduction explaining why they mean so much to me.

This year's holiday card- inside

I know, I could have thrown in announcing my pregnancy or my thoughts on the tenth anniversary of September 11th to round it to a nice solid 10 posts, but neither of those meant as much to my year as individual events as the general feeling of the other eight to explain the whole effect of my 2011.  So please excuse the random number, and instead take them for what they're worth- the entirety of a year in the life of Yours Truly.

I hope you enjoy them as much the second time around as I did.







Glaciers and Caterpillars
I don't know how it happens.  They just keep growing up.  Every once in a while M comments that he SWEARS that when he went to work the previous day, they didn't know half the words they did when he came home again.  Some days, he seems to be right.  This post really summed up those feelings for me.

One of our Holiday Pics

Teacher's Helper, or, Childcare Disaster Zone
This post sums up two very important aspects of my life- the first, how incredibly difficult it can be to be a parent AND a college student.  Seriously.  The second aspect of my life it illustrates is how absolutely VITAL it is to keep a sense of humor.  Seriously again.  If you have days like this and you CAN'T laugh it off, you will lose your mind.  And not in a good way.



Aunie Lea's Home for Wayward Orphans
I've spent a lot of the year looking towards the future.  Maybe it's because I'm finally narrowing in on my degree, maybe it's because we decided to have another baby, maybe it's because of some other reason bubbling up from my subconscious.  Whatever the case, this post is very much about what I want from (or for) the future.

The Pitter Patter THUMP of Little Lubricated Feet
This is, quite simply, the funniest thing I think I've ever written.  And I'm proud of that.


It Wasn't My Fault

A wonderful moment, caught by a stranger.

This post is another thing that I've been very proud of this year.  It was hard to write, and it's hard for me to read.  But it helps me, and I really do like to think that it might have helped somebody else.  It became almost immediately my top-read post, and I doubt that any other post will ever take its place.  If this was my five minutes of internet fame, than I can be truly proud of that.  And if not, I can always hope that I'll get noticed for writing something funny instead.


The Whole is Greater Than the Sum of its Parts
One of many posts this year waxing rhapsodic about my father's philosophical approach to parenting.  More than that, this post sums up my beliefs about parenting as activism, and the vital importance of constantly setting an example.  I'm sorry to say that I haven't been able to donate blood again since this post, as when I was next both eligible and available, I was also pregnant.  For some probably extremely good reason, pregnant ladies aren't allowed to donate blood.  But you can bet that I'll be bringing my nursling along to a blood drive sometime late next summer.

Another of our Holiday Pics

SuperMommy and the Potty
This post represents all of my failures.  Yes, there are lots of them.  Many of which I haven't shared with you.  I keep coming up with excuses for why we haven't just gritted our teeth and freakin' potty trained properly.  I've been sick.  I've been pregnant.  We've been traveling.  I am officially out of excuses, and I am determined to have the girls OUT of diapers before Baby X arrives and is IN them.  So, you can bet that this one is back on the resolution list for this year.  And of course, this post is also utterly hilarious.


Pouring My Heart Out
Last but not least, the most important person in my life... M.  I always have a hard time giving friends advice on their own marriages, because I think that mine is fundamentally different.  Not because of some Princess Bride-esque "true love" reason, but simply because we know every day how lucky we are to have each other.  Because M might not have lived for us to have this time together.  That's what this post is about.

I love this man more than anything in the whole world.

Here's to a wonderful 2012, filled with new life, new love, and new adventures.

2011 has been one of the best years of my life.  I've grown, I've changed, and I really like the person I'm becoming.  Perhaps it's because I like all of the changes I've seen in my children, and in my husband.  Perhaps it's that I've reached a point in my life where I'm done with the petty drama that used to be so much of my life before kids (I can already hear my parents laughing at that one).  I don't know.

But whatever it is, I can't imagine that the New Year will bring anything less than the best.  M and I will finish our degrees, Baby X will join our little family, and DD and SI will continue to grow and change and blow my mind continuously.  And hopefully, I'll manage to keep you all more up to date and in the loop than I have this year.

Kisses from SI and DD

All my love, lovely readers.  Thank you for spending the year with me.  :)