I have been sitting on the fence about which I was happier about…..ushering in 2011 or ushering OUT 2010. Its not that 2010 was bad to us, for the most part it was full of laughter, good times, and happy memories, however, it came to a heartbreaking, eye opening, reality checking end for us leaving us longing to leave the year in our past and move on to brighter skies. A few days before New Years Eve I sat down like every other blinking, breathing human being on the planet and made my resolutions for the New Year, first and foremost my mothering goals for the coming year:
1) Teaching Ella that “comfy” pants are rarely appropriate attire for anything other than lounging around the house and most certainly not church attire!
2) Gently teaching Oli that bathing is a very essential part of life and more importantly an essential part of not only making but keeping friends.
With those important life details seemingly about to be taken care of I moved on to my personal goals and shocker decided on the extremely underused “be a better person” goal. I seemed so satisfied with my originality in choosing such a great resolution. Seriously though, how many thousands of people came up with the same resolution and ditched it mere hours into January 1st.
I daydreamed about my plans to better myself as Brock and I drove home from the Mall, afterall, If I was about to better myself that probably meant not spending a fortune on brand name jeans simply because they bore a 7 on the back pocket so lord knows I had to stock up before the years end. I seen the tiny hand print that kept appearing on the passenger window everytime it froze, the setting sun shone on it making it seem even sweeter then it already was and my resolving to be a “better person” suddenly became very silly, we all know I can’t give up designer jeans no matter how hard I try and not gossiping shouldn’t really be a resolution but more a way of life…much like bathing is an essential part of making and keeping friends as is refraining from the gossip mill. Hmmm looking at the tiny handprint I thought, possibly my resolution should be to take more pictures of my kids, said kids would roll on the floor laughing if they heard me say that as there is rarely a moment I don’t have a camera shoved in their tiny faces but what they don’t know is not one photo is a snap shot, not one photo isn’t taken without me saying “Ella look this way, move over here the light is better, can you fix that piece of hair, I said smile nice I don’t recall asking for a silly picture” ”Oliver look at me, no not that way this way, twist a tiny bit, where’s your cheesey smile, nope that shirts not working for me, Ella get me his blue shirt” and if by chance I do take a photo that isn’t set up I usually end up deleting it because of bad lighting, exposure ect ect ect, I wont ever show them to anyone and friends wait months for pictures of their kids because I can’t fathom the thought of giving them an unedited image. In that moment I was hit my this thought, one day my kids are going to be all grown up, there wont be any cheerios being stepped on, no snotty nosed kisses, no begging for movie night, no play doh creations covering the kitchen table and no frozen handprints on the window. There also wont be any photographs to remember it because the light wasn’t good at that time. Therefore, this year I resolve to not only keep all those not exactly perfect images but take thousands of them.
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