last post of 2008

it's 11:23pm presently. i'm having the most UNremarkable new year's eve of all time. which makes me feel altogether pathetic. i'm having flashbacks to past new year's eves...there hasn't been a great one in several years, but there HAVE been great ones. and the girl who has great new year's eves is still inside me. she's just sleep deprived with dish pan hands at the moment.

anyway.

i'm almost completely opposed to new year's resolutions. i think i've made that clear in the past. but for fun, i thought i'd create some for myself this year, just with my own twist that won't make me a hypocrite.

1. i resolve to create a design that goes to print on http://www.threadless.com/ (have you been to this site? for some reason i'm entirely obsessed with it lately)

2. i resolve to wear earrings at least once per week

3. i resolve to find a politcal podcast to subscribe AND listen to

4. i resolve to get more use out of all my beautiful high heels

5. i resolve to continue my love and pursuit of travel mugs

6. i resolve to stop having feelings over who reads my blog, or how often i blog. as if anyone's thinking to themselves "man, it's been like, FOUR DAYS since breanna posted. i'm really upset about that. why isn't she considering my feelings?"

7. because my husband just suggested that you would laugh at this one, i resolve to do one push up every day for the next year. (i don't personally find that funny, but who knows, you just might)

8. i resolve to refuse to buy any lotion or bodywash until i've exhausted my extensive pre-baby collection beneath my sink.

9. i resolve to not care even a little if i never do a single one of these. because, as you'll recall, i despise new year's resolutions.

10. although, i'm actually quite pleased with this list.

stay tuned. at some point, i'll be sharing some ridiculous stories from the last few weeks with you.

and i'll FINALLY respond to Corine's tagging!

cheers to your years friends. hope you had a great midnight kiss. it's 11:35 now, and i'm going to bed. (told you so. pathetic)

merry christmas!

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

(one of those posts where something was profound to me that sounds cliche to everyone else)

i connected with mary tonight. THE mary. like, mother of jesus mary. no kidding.

i'll set the scene for you: portland is having crazy snow days (see last post), so it's super white and glowy outside. my fella's out playing poker with the dudes tonight (shocking, i know) so i'm here with the little one. i was rocking her to sleep tonight (yes, i still do that. so what. i love it.) the curtains were drawn and i could see snow falling. i always sing to her while we rock, and tonight i decided it made perfect sense to sing a christmas song. the only lullaby-ish one i could think of was silent night.

so i'm singing it, you know the words. "silent night" check. "holy night" sure. "all is calm, all is bright" indeed it is. "round yon virgin." tricky. round, yes. yon....maybe? virgin? hahaha. "mother and child" go on... "holy infant" okay, she may not be HOLY, but she is my miracle. have you heard that story? i'll tell you sometime. so, holy will work. "tender and mild" 3am this morning NOTHING felt tender or mild. but generally speaking, yes. "sleep in heavenly peeeeeeeeeeeeace. sleep in heavenly peace." well, that's what we beg for each and every night.

anyway, at that point, my brain started swirling with thoughts of (the) mary, and how i'd never really considered any of the days between the manger and just before the cross. i imagined mary holding jesus at 2am. i imagined jesus hooked up to a breathing machine (okay, not realistic, but i was making connections) and mary feeling entirely helpless. i imagined all of jesus' diaper blowouts, the times he bit her so hard she bled. the days she felt like hopping on a donkey and getting the heck out of town. jesus was perfect, but mary was A MOTHER.

then i started thinking about the pressure. OH THE PRESSURE of being mom to the SAVIOR of the world. this is bigger than deciding to vaccinate or not, when to start solid foods or what type of diapers to use. this is a tremendous responsibility. imagine how scary it was every time little j got a cold. just imagine. what about the discipline? are you allowed to spank jesus?! at what point do you wonder if he'll say "don't you know who i am?!?!"

wow, mary. tough gig.

but also? AWESOME GIG MARY. i mean, you're the woman behind the man! what if jesus had been married and (the) mary was your mother-in-law!! it's hard living up to my MIL's cooking and supreme kindness...but (the) mary??? yikes. you'd really have to be on your game at christmas! being jesus' mom is big time bragging rights! "oh, little johnny just graduated from bethleham university with honors!" "how lovely. JESUS SAVED ALL OF MANKIND." mary would have crazy book deals these days. she'd be bigger than oprah. way-to-go mary!

and i said to myself, kaia is not jesus. she is no one's savior. but, who knows what God will do with her? who knows what tremendous things she may do. considering the phenomenal role models she has in our friends, i wouldn't be shocked by any amount of greatness from her. i'm not sure of the conclusion i came to...maybe that, if (the) mary could do it, so could i? maybe that this particular phase of parenting is really quite small and quick? maybe....maybe that there is a bit, or a lot, of (the) mary in every mother? our job is no less important than hers was...is it?
maybe i was just enjoying seeing jesus in a new way? as a child who pulled mommy's hair, chewed on the cabinets and refused to sleep. something about that makes me feel better about...everything.

maybe there is no conclusion.

snow days abound

say what you will about miserable driving conditions and unprepared towns shutting down. i for one am LOVING these portland snow days. my fella is home, which means (in addition to great quality family time, of course) i get to take some naps and share some house duties. i wish he could be home EVERYDAY!!

he, however, does not feel quite so stoked about the situation. as it turns out, he's going stir crazy...cabin fever they say? he's on the fence between nuts and cuckoo, and cuckoo is winning. it seems that, despite his self proclaimed "homebody-idness" (my word, not his.) he desperately needs to leave the house on a very regular basis. like, at least once per day.


and, if you ask me, he's also realizing with a little more clarity that being a stay at home parent is not quite the luxury it seems to be to some office-going folk. hmph. that's all i have to say about that.

the only downside to the "arctic blast," as they're calling it, is that i'm way behind on getting my christmas cards out and my humble gifts made and delivered. this=frustrating, but oh well.
best part? fun snow pictures!! enjoy!

wordless wednesday-what fun it is to ride and sing a slaying song tonight!

how do you ask a one year old for forgiveness?

it was bound to happen, you'll likely say. even still.

it's been a long day for both of us. needles and exams for the sweet one, and the accompanying agony for mommy. i was low on patience. i tried to right myself with prayer while she napped. then, this afternoon, i was trying to get things done around the house and she got into some glue. gorrilla glue, to be exact. i grabbed her immediately, but she already had it on her hands and had shmeared some on her face. i sped to the bathroom to wash it off with warm soap and water. gorrilla glue, as you can imagine, is really rather....gluey. so it was taking some serious scrub power. this did not make the girl very happy with her mommy.

when kaia gets angry she goes for the glasses first. not that they're any kind of fancy or expensive. but they're the only ones i've got. she also grabs them about a hundred times a day just because she can. this drives me batty because i'm constantly having to clean the smudgy fingerprints off the lenses.

so, there we are, sticky girl and smudgy glasses mommy. as she grabbed my glasses i belted out "NOOOO." this resulted in the most tragic looking face i've ever seen in my life, followed by an awful "i thought you loved meeeee!" cry. i felt awful. and by awful, i mean absolutely evil.

i grew up with intense yelling (among other transgressions) each and every day. one of the things that drew me to my husband was how very peaceful and mellow he is. i have an iron clad commitment to having a peaceful home, and a parenting style that excludes yelling. i know, it's an ideal goal in an un-ideal world. but still.

so, once the glue was dissolved from her skin, and my glasses were relatively clean again, the reality of my response hit me. by this time, she had long moved on from the momentary lapse in my character. I sat down with her and said "kaia, mommy should NOT have yelled at you. that was not a loving or kind thing to do. i'm very sorry." it was heartfelt and sincere as i'll get out. she had absolutely no response. then i said "do you want to watch blue's clues?" at which point she gleefully clapped and smiled. i thought "great job mom. you promised no t.v until she's three, and no yelling, now look at you!"

so, when a one year old can't offer forgiveness except by forgetting the incident altogether, how do you reconcile your wrongdoings?