Merry Auld Aquaintence

The lights of my life

Hello, lovely readers! It's been a long time.

You may think I've been sitting around licking my Blogger Idol wounds. I'm happy to say, you'd be wrong.

The last few weeks have seen my little family travel up to Minnesota, spend a week with Grandma and Grandpa, come back again, and watch "My Neighbor Totoro" five thousand times as we recover from a cold virus that might actually be a terrorist chemical agent. I'm not sure. So far no casualties, so I'll assume it was actually just a bout of run-of-the-mill Black Death.

Something magical happened over Christmas. (Never thought you'd hear this Jewish girl say that, didja?) I was too ill to take pictures.

I don't have pictures of my children playing with our friends' kids. That amazing thing that happens- despite never seeing these people you love, YOUR children and THEIR children... they play together. And it's incredible.

I don't have pictures of SI begging Aunt Engineer to take her down the water slide over and over and over again. (Yes, there were water slides this Christmas.) And I don't have video of my humiliatingly public screaming as *I* went down the big water slide.

Reading "Rosie Revere, Engineer"

I don't have pictures of RH at church, laying on the floor with her feet against mine, giggling happily, oblivious to the full congregation or the organist three feet from her head.

I don't have pictures of my children hugging their great-grandmother and telling her thank you for their presents. I don't have pictures of RH hamming it up in the middle of the room with an old toy train and a Care Bear.

I don't have pictures of her sitting like a perfect angel in a tiny chair at the coffee table on Christmas Eve, eating her broccoli off her plate without a care in the world, or a picture of my big girls sitting with their big kid cousins at the big table, participating in their games like children do.

I don't have pictures of them playing Uncle Engineer's drums, riding his tractor tricycle, or trimming Aunt Engineer's Christmas tree. I don't have pictures of them coloring at brunch. I don't have pictures of them making their first Gingerbread Houses.

I do have pictures of the finished products
Aunt Engineer, SI, DD, and me

I only took a few dozen pictures of my children all week. And partially, I'm embarrassed. And I'm sorry. I would have treasured those pictures.

And partly I'm glad, because part of me is tired of always being behind the lens. Of observing and not participating. I feel I do it too much. I'm doing it now.

I did manage to take a few pictures. Of DD and SI playing their new harmonicas (SI is a natural). Of M and Grandpa putting the angel on the tree. Of my children continuing the only Christmas tradition I've ever started- actually eating the apples in their stockings on Christmas morning.

This year is was DD and RH. I'm very proud.

2013 was a long, exciting year. It was a year when I didn't get pregnant or have a baby, it was a year when we assured that I never would again. My children grew, and grew, and grew, and now here we are. Still a family. Still growing.

I've had a lot of chaotic, terrifying, or simply bad years in my life. More than my share, that is for certain. But 2013 was not one of them. For all its frustrations and irritations, this year has done more for me than many. It has done more than most. It has offered me a promise- the next year will only be better.

I wish that promise to all of you. For every year.

Tonight I'm going to mash some potatoes, drink some champagne, and hug my children tightly when I say goodnight.

Tonight I'm going to welcome the new year with old friends, with favorite pastimes, with laughter and promise.

And of course with more Batman stuff than you can shake a stick at.

Thank you for everything, 2013. I will not miss you, I have no doubt 2014 will keep me too busy for that. But I am grateful. And I will always look back to 2013 as a good year, when everyone was happy, and everyone was loved, and the world was full of magic and joy.

Happy New Year.