Sunday, January 15, 2012

Straight Into the New Year--With a Wimper

Well, there went six weeks--boom!--and not just any six weeks. Winter vacation. Christmas Eve. Christmas day. Craig's birthday. Silas's second birthday. New Year's Eve. New Year's day. The dreaded/beloved return to school. (Dreaded by children, beloved by parents.)

Winter break involved a lot of fighting between Luke and Henry. Between a few viruses, we didn't get out enough, and everyone was crabby. We tried to go to an open gym and it had been cancelled. We tried to go bounce at a trampoline place and it was sold out. We went to the art museum on New Year's Eve afternoon for our big celebratory outing, and it had closed early for a wedding. Silas was super sick on his birthday, and ended up insisting on sitting beside his turtle birthday cake on the couch while watching Barney, screaming at anyone who asked nicely for a slice of chocolate with buttercream.

I wanted to have a few pictures as a consolation prize at the very least, but our camera battery charger is nowhere to be found. The only pictures from the past six weeks are in my mind.

But you know what? It was enough. There were enough good moments during all of that. I remember how sweetly Luke and Henry thanked us for all of their gifts. I remember our sunny family walk on Christmas day. I remember that we drove back to the art museum right when they opened on New Year's day, stopping for breakfast first, and enjoyed ourselves at a nearly empty museum.

This is parenting for me. And come to think of it, life. There is a lot to slog through, I'm not gonna lie, but those good moments? They really do make it better. And those bad moments? They always seem a lot funnier when I write about them on the blog.