I Saw the Constellations Reveal Themselves One Star at a Time

2008 was a very happy year for us... we watched LM grow from a tiny baby to a full-fledged human being with a personality. He has brought us a ton of joy. I spent most of the year on maternity leave, which was wonderful, and then restarted work in the fall. That transition has gone pretty well too - still not sure I've found my true calling, but it pays the bills for now and I have a great group of colleagues. The days go quickly and before I know it I'm back with my little man for an evening. We've had some sadness too this year, as my aunt continues to decline and D's grandmother died yesterday.

What will '09 bring? I'm not sure... contemplation of another pregnancy perhaps. Potentially D going back to school. Hopefully being hired on at the firm I'm with... still not sure what department though. And some travel I hope - including a tropical vacation which I am leaving for very soon!

Resolutions? Nothing radical - to save more money, to eat more healthily. I also want to work out more for my overall fitness. Weight loss is not an issue - I realise this complaint doesn't garner much sympathy, but my main problem these days is keeping on the weight. Don't know if it's working too hard/lack of sleep/extended breastfeeding or just some weird hormone thing but I seem to be one of those women who gets thinner after baby. Other resolutions are, to try and be greener by buying less crap I don't need. Also I want to think more about what I want from my career and to make sure that I'm on a path that will eventually take me there - with the occasional course-correction as needed.

And since everyone is doing it, I thought I'd do a little recap of the last 12 months:

January - We do our first travel with baby; I leave LM with a non-family babysitter for the first time; we think about buying a house.

February - We bid on a house and lose it; the fog of the all-consumingness of LM clears a little and I become capable of thinking about a few other things (but rarely do!); his sleep regression and million and ten wake-ups through the night start to wear on me.

March - Lots more posts about sleep...

April - We buy a house! And then sell our condo (oh those wild heady days when you could do that!). LM goes to the beach.

May - We sell our condo again after our first buyer flakes out. LM and I do some travelling and I am reintroduced to the beauty of showering without a baby in the room the whole time...

June - I accost a cyclist and am bemused at my niece's comments about my breasts... oh and I run a half marathon (have barely worked out since then)

July - We move into our HOUSE and I start freaking about the fact that I have no childcare organised for LM. We go to the ER for the first time when LM spikes a 5-day fever of 103+; LM goes mobile and starts crawling.

August - With less than a month before going back to work, I organise daycare. We hire a sleep consultant and LM sleeps through the night for the first time EVAH!

September - I start back at work. My aunt finds out her breast cancer has metastasized to her brain.

October - My articles continue; LM gets various daycare illnesses.

November - A tiny bit of work drama, but nothing major.

December - We adopt a "family in need" for Christmas and buy them loads of presents. My aunt gets sicker; LM starts talking in earnest and says all sorts of English and Spanish words...

And January - I leave this post to go eat chocolate ice cream with D! See ya later...

TMI

I should write some fabulous post about the Christmas we had, and how wonderful it was (and it was.) But tonight's post is about how 15 months after birth, I finally got my period back! I was starting to think it wouldn't happen until LM was fully weaned but it showed up today in all its glory... welcome back old friend. Because we're in the middle of a colossal snow storm, I had to call my Little Brother and ask him to pick up tampons for me on the way here. Yay for new age men. He even asked which brand... and better yet, actually BOUGHT the right brand. I realised I had no idea what stores even carry, because I haven't had to buy tampons in over 2 years.

Don't know whether it's a coincidence or not (probably not), but I've had mad baby fever lately. It's too soon though - must remember that. Need to work a little longer. But oh, wouldn't it be nice to drag all those itty-bitty clothes out of the basement and get them all set up for someone new?

Scattered Leaves

I know there are people out there who say they do no chores after their kids go to bed. I cannot understand how that works! If I didn't do chores after LM went to bed, our house would be disgusting - well, let me qualify that - even more disgusting.

Our usual routine is that one of us gets home at 5:15 with him. When it's D he's really productive and usually makes dinner. When it's me, I usually just get to the defrost something stage. I attribute that to the fact that LM is much more clingy with me, and also that I have a far lower tolerance for just letting him fuss on the floor while I cook. I only get a couple of hours a day with him, so I like to cater to his wants rather than be the mean mummy.

When the other person gets home around 6 or 6:30, we finish up dinner together. After that we eat, hang out for a bit, and then one of us bathes him while the other cleans up from dinner. Bedtime for LM is work time for mum and dad. Just the every day (or every other day) tasks of changing the cat litter, sweeping up under the high chair, doing laundry, paying the odd bill, emptying the dishwasher, emptying the bath and putting away bath toys... they take so much damn time! I leave the major tasks to a cleaning lady who comes every other week but just the maintenance is crazy.

Not sure why I am stressing about this... I am in a bizarre mood because of a disturbing visit I had with my aunt this afternoon; she has metastatic c@ncer and she's in hospital after a bad incident. She wants to go home and we had a little dispute about the level of care she needs to do that. I guess because I am the lawyer-type person in the family, I was charged with helping her make some of these decisions. She wants to pay a friend to stay with her but I think that's unrealistic. Without going into detail, the level of care she needs at this point is a lot more than what a friend can provide. Do you ever want to stomp out of a difficult situation because you're just a kid and you shouldn't have to make these kinds of decisions? I do. And then I look at my driver's license and remember that I'm practically an old lady myself these days. Weird. I hate having to be the grown-up.

Oh, I want to thank you for the Christmas ideas - they were lovely and I will definitely use them. I also like the idea of just staying at home at Christmas, but it's complicated this year for a few reasons. D's parents will be in town, but not staying with us, so we have to go over to where they're staying for Christmas dinner... I wanted to host Christmas Eve, but my aunt cannot come here because she cannot manage the stairs. But we will preserve Christmas morning all to ourselves - definitely want LM's memories to be of waking in his own home and spending the day there.

And finally, I am a Dooce-whore and I totally bought this Christmas album solely because she recommended it. It's good if you're not a Christmas purist. It beats Stompin' Tom anyway - thought my mother was going to lose it when we started playing that at dinner last night.