Maybe Next Year

2012 is officially on its way out.  I have seen so many Facebook posts lately about how 2012 was such a bad year, and they are ready to bring on 2013.  For us, 2012 really has been one of the best yet.  New house, new job, happy, healthy kids, what more can we ask for?  We enjoyed Christmas so much this year, we didn't have as much stress about the budget, we had happy, excited kids.  We had a beautiful day to get our tree, a beautiful mantel to put our stockings on, and plenty of opportunity to hide presents in plain sight by sticking them in empty moving boxes.  Brilliant!  

Honestly though, after my last post, after that horrible school shooting, I think myself and many others were looking at the holidays differently.  We were blessed to HAVE our kids to spoil.  We were lucky to have our kids even if they were sick, or whiny, or constantly asking for marshmallows.  I couldn't stop watching the coverage and thinking of those houses where Christmas will never be the same.  I really think that one of the only good things to come out of that tragedy is the extra love being spread in so many homes.  

While this year, seemed like one of the best yet, looking back at 2012 also means looking forward to 2013. The good, the bad, the changes, the possibilities.  Ben and Maggie will be 4 in April.  Mia will be 2 in June.  I will be 35, which is halfway to 40 which makes me feel OLD.  

Maybe next year.  

Maybe next year, they will come barreling out of the house into the snow, relishing the first good snowfall to have snowball fights and build snowmen.  Maybe they will listen and remember when Mommy tells them how much I love the snow, and maybe they will give me an extra reason to appreciate it.  There is something joyful about kids playing in the snow.  The hassle of putting on the hats, the gloves, the snowpants, the gear, all disappears when you see their faces tumbling around in the beautiful white snow.  

Maybe next year hot chocolate won't be as special.  Or maybe they will still be lured inside with thoughts of hot cocoa waiting for them.  They will still love the marshmallows, and use the special little cups Baba got them, that seem just right for their little hands.  

Maybe next year decorating the tree will go better.  This year was kind of a mess.  I remember how much I loved it last year, with the twins helping, and talking about each ornament and carefully putting it on the tree.  This year, Mia was really into helping, but no so helpful, Maggie and Ben insisted they could do it themselves but couldn't manage to get many to work, and I barely took any pictures.  There was a lot of scolding.  

No one was really ready for a group picture, but here we are.  That one Andy is holding was my gift to him (us).  Home for the Holidays 2012, couldn't have been more fitting this year.  Maybe next year (I know for SURE on this one) we will get rid of the horrible pink carpet.

Maybe next year Mia will have hair and more teeth.  Maybe she won't be so cuddly, and to ask for "Up" all the time to curl up and snuggle on your shoulder.  Surely she will have more words, with any luck she will have fewer allergies, but I can't picture our happy, smiley girl any different than she is right now.  I don't want to imagine her any different than how she is right now.

Maybe next year we will do a little better with the actual story of Christmas, and what it means.  Maybe they will understand the people behind the story, and not just playing with the Little People Nativity set like they do any other toy.  Maybe we will make it to church, especially on Christmas Eve, my favorite service of the year, to sing the music, and hear the story, and be joyful together.  

Maybe next year, Baby Jesus will be more than the center of some kind of crazy Nativity/Toy Story Mosh Pit.  Maybe they won't believe Daddy next year when he tells them the gorilla is part of the story.    

Maybe next year the Elf will be a little more exciting.  Our elf Geo was pretty tame this year, compared to many of his friends I saw on Facebook and blog posts.  Maybe next year the Christmas magic part will be tougher to sell, but this year, when he got touched, he ended up in the elf hospital with injuries.  Maybe next year, they won't believe.  I hope to not have to have the Santa talk for a VERY long time, but Maggie in particular was already pretty skeptical about the whole Elf idea, I'm not sure how we will field the questions about Santa I am sure are coming.  

Maybe next year, we will get a real pedicure.  Maybe in a few years after that, having Mommy paint your toenails red like hers won't be as exciting and special.  But for this year, I treasured that little Mommy/Daughter time.  A chance to be still and quiet with her.   

Maybe next year Santa will go better.  I don't really think I was too surprised about Mia's reaction this year.  This was at our work event with Santa, and the guy in the beard is my manager.  I absolutely love crying baby photos with Santa, so this is adorable.

Maybe next year Andy and I won't have to be in the picture.

Maybe next year they won't want to dress alike, or maybe Maggie will insist on matching her baby sister.  Maybe Mia will still love and cuddle on them, giving them hugs and kisses and using them for comfort just like us.  Maybe they will still be the best big brother and sister in the world.  I never knew how much they would love each other, how much they would look to each other for good times and bad.  One of my favorite things is when one of them is really interested in something or excited.  Usually the first thing they do is catch my eye to share the excitement, but sometimes I catch them looking at each other for a reaction.  Sweetest things.

This set of kids, this group of three and the ones I love the most.  I love when they are in each other's space, and still snuggle up and hold the baby.  Just now, looking over my shoulder, Ben is pointing out "I see my Baby Sister".  She is theirs, just as much as she is ours, and nothing makes me happier then thinking of how they will grow together.

Maybe next year this mini-crew will have a little more hair, and a little more running around.

Maybe next year we won't all smile, but this year, we got it.  This family picture in front of that tree on Christmas eve has changed year to year.  Two years, there were babies in the belly in this picture.  Now we are all here, a family of five, and we will all look older next year, different, but still, hopefully, the picture will always show so much love and happiness in our little family.

Maybe next year the group photo will go better.  Maybe next year there will be more babies to add to this show of cousins.

Maybe next year I will bake the cookies for Santa myself, or with my helpers.  This year was not the year.  Maybe we will be leaving the milk and cookies a little earlier, and not staying up so late Christmas Eve.  

Maybe next year Ben won't be as excited as he was about picking out his own gifts for both his sisters and his Mommy.  This year, you could hardly contain his excitement about putting these gifts under the tree.  Cutest thing I have ever seen, and I am so glad we decided to do it this year!

Maybe next year I won't be up at 2 in the morning rolling cinnamon rolls.  I was so happy though to be able to make these completely dairy and soy free, so Mia and I could enjoy them.  Worth every minute of prep, and I will do it every year, no matter what time it is!

Maybe Santa will visit a little earlier next year.  This year, I don't think he finished up until around 5:30.  We were tired elves on Christmas.   

Maybe next year the joy will be bigger, or the excitement even more.  But this year, those grins, and excited eyes?  This is why Santa will live on in our house for a long, long time.

Maybe next year toothpaste won't be as exciting.  Maybe they will want more, or see more commercials to make them want things we don't want them to have.  Or maybe next year, their joy will still be for the simple things.  

 Maybe next year their will be some meat on those bones, and more inches and pounds.

Maybe next year there won't be tears on Christmas.  I honestly don't remember what happened, and I'm actually thinking it was legitimate, but maybe next year they will all smile with the joy of the two littlest among them.  And maybe, just maybe there will be more cousins for us next year.

These three sweet babes of mine are going to grow, and change, and be taller and change their voices, their personalities, and their vocabulary.  But they will be mine, and they will always be exactly right.  Exactly ours.

2012 was Love.

Joy.

Celebration.

2013. . .It's going to be quite a year!  Happy New Year everyone.  May you find joy, peace, and happiness in the coming year.

Into the Woods

It has been a very horrible weekend to be a Mom, and to be a (former-ish) teacher.  On Friday morning, just after the morning announcements, a 20 year old man with reasons unknown and unfathomable at this time walked into an elementary school and killed 26 people.  20 of them were first graders.  The first I saw of it was checking Facebook while trying to get my kids to leave me alone to get work done around the house.  I started checking the news online, looking to Facebook for updates, not wanting to turn the news on in front of the kids.  As the news started coming in that most of the victims were children, that at one point they were reporting that an entire Kindergarten class was unaccounted for, my heart sank.  I felt like I could barely breathe.  It was the saddest thing I have ever heard, and taking it as a mother of small children, and as someone who had practiced the lock down drill with many a classroom, I could imagine too well what the scene might have been.  The media started discussing without the knowledge of schools, the state of the art security where people had to be buzzed in.  They talked about how the announcements were on, and I immediately thought about the kids carrying the attendance down to the office.  I thought of how close it was to Christmas, and how Kindergarteners are not that different from preschoolers.  The day before I had dropped my kids off in their Christmas finest at the door of preschool.  Ben in a sweater vest, Maggie in a dress with Gingerbread people on it and her new red sparkly shoes.  All I could picture was sweet kids, ready for the holidays, talking about Santa or making gingerbread projects at school.

There is more to this tragedy than the obvious victims, the 20 six and seven year olds and the 6 adults who died in that school.  I can't imagine a single child in that school feeling safe ever again.  There is a class of first graders that was hiding in closets and cabinets when their teacher was killed.  Some reports said they were with her body when the police found them.  I can't imagine that scenario, how the kids will process that.  Kids in that school lost friends, lost siblings, lost beloved teachers and their principal.  One of the boys killed was a twin, survived by his sister who was in another class.  I simply cannot comprehend how his mother and sister feel right now.  Or any of their family.  Or anyone in that town.  God bless their little souls.  

This horrible event happened on a Friday.  All around the country, children will go back to school tomorrow.  Many with questions, many with fears.  I imagine there will be many, many schools where the staff is rebriefed on a security plan, that teachers will walk into their classrooms and think again about where they would hide.  Move things around so they have something easy to shove in front of the door, clean out a closet where they could hide their students if need be.  Tonight is a night I am very glad I am not walking into my own classroom tomorrow.  I can't imagine the conversations that will need to happen tomorrow.  The fear that will be in so many classrooms.  I personally know a lot of moms with young kids.  They are scared to send their kids to school.  Not that they fear an immediate rash of more shootings, but just that they don't want to let their kids out of their sight.

When the twins were born, I remember feeling such a strange sense of knowing I was no longer just a person, or part of a couple.  Those kids are part of me, they are in many ways the best and worst parts of me, and to think of those nearly impossible to imagine realities, where you drop them off at school and someone does the unthinkable, it makes you want to gather them up and keep them with you at all times.

This weekend, we ate cookies for lunch, and stayed up late, and hugged and cuddled and smooched.  I grieved the grief of a mother who loves her kids, who can only imagine what it would be like to be a mother in Newtown this weekend.  But of course, when you dealing with preschoolers and a toddler, they don't know.  They don't know why Mommy won't let them get up off her lap, or why suddenly asking for candy canes isn't met with resistance.  We went to see Santa.  I dressed them in those same outfits, pictured again in my head, things you shouldn't ever picture about kids you don't even know, and what their classroom might have looked like.  I contemplated homeschooling.  I hurt, inside, and cried at the news conference where they released the names.  When the president spoke and wiped tears away.  When the first father spoke out talking about his daughter.  When they started releasing pictures of the smiling, missing tooth children.

It was a sad weekend to be a mother.  I can only hope that this event brings some kind of change.  I don't know how I feel about gun control, and right now, I don't care to talk about it.  I know that there is no reason anyone needs a gun like the kind the shooter had, and that if he had been stuck with a bow and arrow, the scenario would be much different.  But thinking about banning guns, but knowing how many are already out there, I have no idea what would be practical.  I wish there was a way to just legislate crazy, to ban people who have that kind of madness inside them.  Because this is the world we are sending our kids into.  This is the world we are stuck with, this is only one of a series of horrible tragedies that have happened in my lifetime.  In this case, in particular they are talking a lot about mental illness.  Because there is clearly nothing sane about a person who could do something like this.  The killer committed suicide, so there is no way to know what really happened, or why he did what he did.  I don't think that anyone can ever know.    

I was editing photos this weekend trying to get our annual calendars ready, and I got to these.  I took them out at the Christmas tree farm when we were getting our tree last weekend and it really struck me about how we really do send our kids out into the woods.  There are bad things, and darkness, and you can get lost or knocked down.  You can not always be there when the bad thing comes.  You can try.

I want my kids to always hold onto each other and to us.  To believe in magic, and Santa, and the good in people.  To never have to know the kind of horror that so many saw Friday morning.  I want them to feel safe, and loved, and warm.

It doesn't feel right posting happy pictures at the end of this post, but this is what brought me a little bit more joy this weekend.  They almost always bring me joy (there are days they bring me headaches as well), but this weekend, in particular, I needed their joy.  We hugged tighter, we listened longer, we thought about how lucky we were to have our children safe in our house, knowing nothing of heartache and tragedy.

My beautiful babies.

This was our impromptu, not very happy, but it was good enough Christmas Card Photo Shoot.  I should have waited a few more days, because as you will see a little farther down, I could have done better.  

Totally unprompted dancing when she put on her pretty Christmas dress.  I can't imagine one without the other.  I hope I never have to, and my heart goes out to a mother in Newton Connecticut who tomorrow has to bury her son while his twin sister has to live life without the other half of her.  

 Cutest photo shoot ever on Santa Claus day.

Two different Santa visits, with slightly different results.  

And this.  My heart, my soul, my life.  These little people that are so precious, precious to me, and precious to everyone who knows them.  I am lucky to be their Mom, and I want to try to do better, and to make their lives as joyful as possible.  Because you never know.  Twenty families woke up Friday morning with no idea that it would be the last pancake breakfast, the last kiss goodbye, the last argument over socks.  They deserve a change in not just laws, but in perspective.  If everyone hugs their kids tighter, and appreciates them more, if as a nation, we do better, then something good can come out of heartache.  

My charming kids.  Merry  Christmas from mine to yours, from us to you.  May they know joy, and love, and feel safe, always.  I will do anything I can to make it that way.