It's a New Dawn, a New Day, a New...Year.

So by the way....happy 2012.

Ready to Party

Did you celebrate?  We took the kids to the "kid friendly celebration" downtown, where we had a nice time being creeped out by drunk people and Little One got to jump in a bounce-castle.  Something for everyone!

Downtown

The highlight, for me, was the look on J's face as he viewed the high-school girls "dance show" on the street stage.  J, a man so stoic sometimes it seems like we might find electronics instead of organs if we opened him up, looked like he had been slapped in the face with a live codfish. 
"WHO would choreograph something like THAT for those GIRLS?!" He asked, horrified, as Lady Gagas voice lent a beat to the 15-year-old standing in sideways splits so that another "dancer" could wirthe around her leg like it was a stripper pole. 
"Oh, hunny, don't be silly! I'm quite sure they choreographed it themselves."
For a moment, he looked relieved, "Oh."
...and then a bulb flashed above his head. "OH..." 
I caught him glancing with horror at his own two girls, innocently playing with napkins where we waited for falafel on the greek-food patio.  I think this was the first time he considered That Side of the parenting girls Thing.  Me? I consider that stuff all the time.  I've got a whole post coming atcha about that soon, in fact.  But watching it dawn on J?  Priceless, Peanuts, I tell you.  Priceless. 
At any rate, about that time we headed home to tuck the girls into their last night of 2011.  We had exchanged a few nostalgic words about how some people would be getting fancied up and drinking champagne at fetes, while we played with stacking cups in the tub, brushed little teeth, and stayed in.  So we decided to have our own party; fancy clothes, champagne and all. Why not?
By the time I got the girls in bed and dug the dress out of the back of the closet, J was feeling very ill.  I'm guessing it was effects from the "dancing" he'd seen.  Either way, he didn't get too fancy after all, but we still toasted the new year. 
More new years will come. Sometimes it seems they are coming at us like oncoming locomotive cars, and before we know it our girls will be the the same age as Lady Gaga's minions there, and J might have to be hospitalized.  So this year I think the best resolution I can make is to just savor the time.  To let the silly games and the innocent grins and the grubby, loving hugs really sink all the way in. To marinate in it.  This year I resolve that whatever happens, happens. And whatever we do, we do.
 But that as many times a day as I can possibly manage I will pause my racing thoughts for a few tiny milliseconds to soak up the sweetness into my bones, let it fortify them.  So they will be strong enough, when we hit 2022, to take a good shaking. 
For now, my resolution for me is the same as my wish for you.  
Happy 2012.