Today in S@L-land we are examining our own navel, which, as it turns out, is not all that entertaining and thankfully does not involve photos.  For entertainment, I suggest one of the many fine blogs listed on my "Fave blogs" list to the left. 

For reasons I can't explain, I've been in a somewhat of a funk lately since the holidays ended.  Not that I'm sorry to see them go; thought we did have a nice time and all.  I think it's the whole "New Year" thing that's bumming me out. I love the idea of a clean slate, and time to think about your goals for the coming year. But this year I'm feeling hostile toward the idea of setting goals. 

I have high expectations of myself, as if it's not enough that I have a good job, a good marriage, and I'm a good mom and decent housekeeper, but I'm always thinking, "What else should I be doing?  Working out daily?  Playing even more with Zoe?  Going to church?  Writing and reading more often? Cooking healthier meals for my family? Spinning straw into gold? Yes, I need to do all of these things!"

It's self-defeating to wake up every day and, before you even get out of the shower, think of five things you have to do, or should be doing better. Literally, I'm standing in the shower thinking "'I've gotta replace that shower curtain. Oh, and don't forget to start a load of laundry before I leave. Ick, my thighs are fat.  And make sure Zoe has an undershirt on today because it's going to be cold. And I should pack a lunch for myself instead of buying one. And..." I'm not even awake 5 minutes and *already* I'm behind the eight ball! To add New Years resolutions on top of what I'm already just managing to accomplish in a day seems like masochism.

Maybe I should try a super-sized cup of cognitive behavioral therapy and work on stopping these thoughts as they are occurring, or replace them with healthier thoughts, like "Good morning. It's going to be a good day. Aren't you lucky to have such a great family. You have nice thin ankles, and a nice nose and waist. Your home looks fine, and you lead a fortunate life." 

The problem with trying to stop the evil "to-do list" onslaught is that it means letting go of control. How will the laundry get done if I don't remember to put a load in? Will a new shower curtain purchase itself?    

Sigh.

More Later,

S@L

Hi Blog.  Long time, no post.  Perhaps it had something to do with the craziness of the holidays.  Perhaps S@L is simply getting lazy.  In either case, I apologize for keeping you from peeking into the life of Suburbia At Large.

The holidays were happy ones. Not having to travel on Christmas day was both novel and divine. One taste of that experience and I can tell you that  our family's mission statement will include never traveling on Christmas again.  On Christmas morning Zoe came downstairs in her own home, in all of her pink-footie pajama adorable-ness to find that we'd transformed the living room/dining room into what we considered to be a pre-schoolers dream world, except for the fact that it was tidy (at the time).  She walked right over to her little piano and banged on it a little, then headed right for the dolls.  After that, she wanted to wear her sparkle shoes and play with her kitchen set and table and chairs.  And then she spent the rest of the morning playing with her dollhouse, which she had received several weeks before Christmas. She didn't even open all of her presents. In fact, she still hasn't opened all of her presents. Yes, like KTP, we definitely got too much. But we sure had fun preparing.

And yes, I know. The toys I described seem decidedly gender-based, don't they? But guess what? The girl *loves* dolls, she loves sparkly items, and she loves to wear whatever bits of clothing she finds around the house.  Frankly, I was hoping to avoid the whole girly-girl thing, and *especially* the whole princess thing, but I'm reading this book and it says, basically, that your kids are who they are and our job as parents is to listen, respect and nurture whatever they are meant to be in the world, not to try to forge them into someone else (however "successful" we think it will make them as adults) (But oh, Lord, please not an actor. Anything but an actor.  And for the record, we LOVE actors.).  Of course, this parenting message is so "duh" that I don't know why I'm blogging about it; but I guess I hope that I will never forget that message when she wants to be a cobbler (of shiny shoes!) instead of an astronaut.  Anyway, my point is that if it's going to be all about princesses for a while, I think we can do that. There is certainly no lack of props to be had.

We traveled the day after Christmas, and Zoe did well on the trip.  She seemed to thoroughly enjoy having both Fab and I around at the same time, and the cute meter was turned up to eleven. She particularly enjoyed the hotel. When we arrived in NJ at the hotel, we thought she'd be so tired from running around the halls and running around the hotel room (which she did, like a pinball) that she'd fall peacefully asleep in bed between us. But in fact, she enjoyed being in bed with us so much that she did not sleep for several hours. She kept turning to the right, patting me, and saying, delightedly, "Mommy!", then turning to the left, patting Fab, and squealing, "Daddy!", the repeating this with certain variations for 2 hours. She'd climb on top of one of us and pat our cheeks and say "Night-night!". We tried to sing her to sleep, but she'd "La-la-la!" with us so loudly that it was less like a sweet family lullabye and more like we were all attending the Rose Bowl Parade together, in bed.  It was really so cute that it was hard to be annoyed. She finally fell asleep around 10:30, and Fab fell asleep two minutes after that, because he is super-human and can sleep on cue. It took me far longer to fall asleep, and I didn't sleep well. At one point, I woke up during the night and Zoe was completely vertical between us such that if you looked at our bed from the ceiling you would see three people forming a perfect letter "H", signaling Help, or Hell, perhaps HA HA.  And of course, anyone who has a baby or a toddler knows that late-to-bed always means early-to-rise, and so the indomitable spirit that is Miss Z woke up at 5:55AM, sat up like shot, looked to her right and giggled (because MOMMY!) looked to her left and giggled (because DADDY!) then pointed to the door, and said "Go-Go-Go!"

It was nice to see all the relatives at the Annual Family Gathering, and it was also nice to leave after a while (though I do love them all, and if any of them are reading, I love YOU the BEST).  All comments about relative gatherings will be posted at a later date to a secret blog, which I don't yet have but keep threatening to create because every year the Christmas Gathering gives me more blog fodder than I can bite my blog-tongue about.  But I won't create that blog because I love my family, I love my family, I love my family....  In any case, Zoe loved hanging out with Bammy and Pop Pop; they taught her how to make faces, and they treated her to her first tricycle ride. They treated Mommy to the ability to sleep in one morning, as well, which was so very kind of them. 

My Christmas present to Fab was to send him to this one-day NASA Astronaut Training Experience, which he enjoyed immensely.  I did not belong there, with him and his people, which is clearly evidenced by this photo, taken by him at said experience.

Note that the banner sign behind the professor says FOD PREVENTION: IT'S EVERYONE'S BUSINESS.  Don't you so wish you had gone?  You will receive a small prize if you can guess what FOD stands for, and no asking Google (or Fab) for help.

Fab's Christmas present to me was my girl-weekend and halfathon experience with Meegs at the Bellagio with not a single whimper about its related bill(s). (Though he did make one comment along the lines of having the vet put our debit card to sleep.)   

Every year at about this time we say the same thing: Next year, we're going to cut back on spending and baking and traveling. And then the year goes by, and we love and we laugh and we re-enter the holiday season  wanting to create the perfect Christmas for our loved ones all over again. 

More Later,

S@P  :-)

I did not even kid myself that I would have time to purchase or bake anything for folks at the office, so I did not even bother to sign up for the Office Christmas Yankee Swap. 

Oddly, even though I am, geographically, a Yankee, I had never before heard of a Yankee Swap until last year. I used to think that a Yankee Swap was some kind of baseball term, or perhaps some kind of awkward '70s suburban party activity. It also sounds a lot like Yankee Pot Roast, which is, as far as I can tell from its ingredients, is also just called POT ROAST. Then for a while I thought that a Yankee Swap was the same thing as what we from New Jersey and the rest of the planet refer to as "Secret Santa", (a tradition which, come to think of it, could also sound like an awkward '70s suburban party activity). But Yankee Swap is like Secret Santa with an added dose of low-level math and high-level greediness.

In a Yankee Swap, each participant gets a number and then each person selects an anonymous gift from a pile of gifts, and they do so in the order dictated by their number. That's the math (see, I said "low-level').  The interesting part comes when, if you don't like your gift, you can look around the room and force someone to "swap" their gift (not their spouse) with you.  So in that sense it's a "swap" in the sense that we "swapped" blankets for land with the Native Americans.  It's more like a "Yankee Grab" or even a "Yankee Steal".  The going theory is that it's best to be the last number, because then you can pick from ALL the gifts that have been opened, but the truth of the matter is that an office Yankee Swap usually means picking from a pile of anonymous gifts that include an overabundance of benignly -themed calendars and scented candles. Being last typically means the perk of selecting which candle scent you prefer.

I am aware that it's not about the gift and all, and I am the first to admit that it can be fun to watch people decide, in front of everyone, that they don't want what they've just received and then decide what to take from others and how to take it. Surely this is what Christmas and Hanukkah and Kwanzaa are all about.  My main complaint about Office Yankee Swaps is that they lack a good Director.  People take far too long to open the gift, discuss it, and then make their move. The pacing is all wrong and, if not run well, the Swap can take over an hour, whilst I can take about 15 minutes of it, max.

(Would you just love to be my colleague? Yes, you would.)

Also I think I might be a little offended by the term "Yankee Swap". Why does it have to be a Yankee swap? Did we receive a gift from the southerners, decide we didn't want it, then shake them down for something else?  No. I don't think we ever did that.   I'm going to see if I can sponsor an office "Rebel Swap", where all the rules are the same, so you can bring candles and calendars, but you can also bring weapons. And your empties. Surely that would speed things along.

I know what you're thinking: S@L needs a drink and a massage! You'd be right.

More Later,

S@L