Resolution Time!

New Year’s Day: Now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions. Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual.
~Mark Twain

Happy 2012 everyone!

Any good resolutions made?

I know most of us are sort of cynical about resolutions, but I think New Year and Resolutions are a wonderful thing – but only sometimes.

Resolutions when you are saying something you know needs to change, but if you’re honest, you really have no desire to change? Yeah, those don’t last January, much less the year.

But when you really want to change something, want to start with nice clear lines and let the older crap fall by the wayside, well, that’s when resolutions are perfect.

New Year means you can put a lid and bow on whatever may have been crappy the previous year, metaphorically dust your hands off, and say, “That’s it, no more, thank you Lord it’s over with. Time to move on.” That is very powerful stuff there and if you channel it correctly, it can give you a lot energy into starting those good habits you want to incorporate into your life.

I hope everyone with goals and resolutions that fit into that second category kick butt this coming year. I hope your lives – personally, professionally, and spiritually – grow richer, deeper, and fuller.

 

Why do babies have to grow up?

My nine month old is now standing.

As in, the second she gets near something that she can grab to support her, she is up. No hesitation and steady now – no more wobbly legs, at least as it comes to standing with aid.

Ah yes, I remember it well from my first one. Within a short time, standing becomes walking – wobbly at first, then before you know it they are running the length of the house in the time it takes you to blink.

My husband loves this development. Me, I’m mourning the loss of my baby.

I want my little girls to grow up and I love seeing them at every stage of their development, but I just don’t want to let go of my baby yet. It’s such a short time that this babyness lasts, and I’m seeing the last few remnants of it for my youngest.

Everyone tells me this is a normal feeling, especially if you know you aren’t having any more kids. I’m glad to know that, but it doesn’t make the sad nostalgiac feeling fade.

So, I’ll be especially attentive to my little one for the next little while to absorb the last of these baby days. I’ll applaud her when she stand and when she walks, and I’ll just be depressed at night, letting my husband comfort me through one of these mom things he doesn’t quite get.

Health and Writing

This day had to come sometime.

Recently, I’ve started going back to the gym. I’m not a naturally athletic person, and I sure as heck am not one of those people who can claim they love exercise. Also, the diet part of diet and exercise… oy, smack me now.

But as with every mom out there, I know I want to be healthy, if not for my sake, then for my kid’s. I want them to grow up healthy and see a good role model. I want them – unlike me – to see healthy eating and activity as natural a way of life as taking a shower or brushing their teeth in the morning.

Also, I want to be healthy because I want to be around with my kids for a long time. Beyond just being around, I want to be well and fit enough to enjoy every step of the way. I don’t want to be one of these people who lives with several ailments, can’t get around, and has a grocery list of medications.

So I exercise (and I’m working on the diet thing.)

I have discovered something weird though. Beyond all this health crap, I’m finding the exercise is helping my writing.

It’s hard to imagine that I’m sure. After all, the couple hours I spend in my roundtrip gym excursions are hours I’m not writing (and it’s not like I have unlimited writing time – I wish!) But I have found that cranking on my music and working on the treadmill, my mind naturally starts mulling over the latest in my stories – where I’m at, what problems I’m facing, and how to overcome them.

Since there are no distractions, my mind just can chew at a problem.

It’s been helpful for me, and is one way to get me over the “Ugh, exercise!” I can sometimes have. If you have that as well, try it! Getting healthy while fixing a plot point… well, it doesn’t get any better than that.

Hug your Kids

This post will show up on September 12, but I’m writing it on September 11.

I want to say something poignant, meaningful, full of insight into the mysteries of life. I’ve got nothing like that.

Instead, I will say this. Hug your kids.

As I sit here and rewatch that footage that I had the misfortune to see live a decade ago, as I remember the one and only time I saw in person the devastation of that one moment, all that passes through my mind is how quickly something can change.

It’s trite, isn’t it? Things can change in the blink of an eye. We wave it off, yeah, yeah, I know, I know.

But it can. “Let’s roll.”

So hug your kids. Tell them how special they are to you. Show them that deep spring of love you feel for them. We hate to even give a passing thought to them being taken away from us – or us from them – but it can happen.

Hug your kids, and say thanks that you have this moment together.

Children as Artist

My daughter is becoming quite the singer and dancer. As soon as someone produces a camera, she knows to smile and say “Cheese!” (unless she is upset over something.) And she loves to draw.

In short, her own artistic expressions are starting to come out.

This thrills me. I love this proof my daughter is her own little person with her own mind (much better than the occasional tantrum that tells me the same thing.) She is sweet and talented, and I know I need to start looking into programs that can nurture that side of her.

I wonder if one day she’ll be like me, trying to make a career using her own artistic gifts. I think that will be great – though I will still tell her that she needs to use both sides of her brain, and math and science are important classes no matter what field she ultimately goes in.

One of the great gifts of being a mother is watching your child grow and seeing how they come into their own. I’m blessed to recognize the first instances of it.

Kids in Danger? Not in my books!

One thing that has changed since I became a mom is how I react to kids in entertainment – movies, tv, books, etc.

I’ve never really liked the ‘kids in danger’ trope, but since I became a mom, I can not handle watching/reading where kids are in precarious positions. CAN’T. HANDLE. IT.

I can’t watch it, can’t read it. If I even have an inkling that there is a kid that gets more than a hangnail, I’m so not going to have anything to do with that story.

My reaction is visceral. I get sick, my stomach turns on itself, I might even get a bit shaky.

To all you other parents out there, am I alone in this? Can you handle watching kids in danger in your entertainment, or like me, has having a kid made that a non-possibility?