Last post of the decade

The first New Year's Eve I remember I was between 8 and 11. I'm not sure what year it was. What I remember is my exuberant friend, Mary Beth, coming over to spend the night. She said we should go outside on the back porch at midnight and shout HAP-PY NEW YEAR!!! to the neighborhood. Most of them were probably sleeping. But we shouted it. We shouted and laughed and giggled and shouted and then went back inside to enjoy the rest of our sleepover, whispering and giggling loudly until my mom probably made us sleep in separate rooms. It's been known to happen.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A review of the past decade:

2000: I was 15 years old and had my first real boyfriend.

2001: Junior in high school. Thought I wanted to be in the military.

2002: Graduated high school, met my future husband, started college, dropped out of ROTC.

2003: Got engaged.

2004: Married Jordan.

2005: Amazing year of marriage, just hanging out, finishing college with no kids.

2006: Graduated with a BA in psych and got my first job.

2007: Suzi was born, and we bought our first house and first car.

2008: Dreamed of having another baby and quitting work.

2009: Did both of the above.

I learned a lot over this past decade, and most of it was learned outside the classroom. Jordan and I both learned a lot about money (how to not waste it, primarily). Our girls have taught us so much, too. There have been some heartaches (not listed) that we've learned from and it's helped me realize that usually a crappy situation is God shaping us into the most beautiful version of ourselves--the way we should be.

Goals for 2010:

1) Keep breastfeeding for the whole year and then some, as I said in my previous post.

2) Make more things out of clay.

3) Sell more of the things I make and/or figure out something good to do with them.

4) Pay off our van early. (We might not finish this off until 2011, but we'd like to make some major headway.)

Hopes and dreams for the coming decade:

1) Have more children.

2) Homeschool them.

3) Add on a garage and a couple of extra rooms to our house, or (maybe) move to a new one.

4) Grow more, learn more, and make more of a difference in the lives of others.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tonight I am having a slumber party with another exuberant little girl. We tried to put her to bed, but she cried and cried. She wanted Mama, she wanted Daddy, she had to pee, and when she'd tried every trick in the book plus some new ones she started over at the top of her list. Finally we agreed we'd bring her back downstairs so we could all welcome 2010 as a (happy) family. Hopefully she will be asleep by midnight. Right now she is holding onto the back of her daddy's shirttail as he tries to walk Ivey to sleep. Ivey's fat little hand is holding on to Jordan's necklace as if to dare him to try and put her down. I will probably nurse Ivey 10 or 11 more times tonight. Suzi will probably wake her up two or three more times talking too loud saying things like look Mama, a bagel! Look! Look! Look! LOOK! The Christmas tree is still up with the lights on, and our girls are up too. It's definitely not how I ever imagined spending New Year's Eve, especially not ten years ago. But it feels good.

We've got the snot

Everyone here is sleeping right now, but me.

We are all home in our pajamas enjoying the crappiest Christmas gift ever: a feverish cough, cold and congestion. (Unfortunately non-returnable.) It was a surprise gift, hitting us suddenly rather than coming on gradually the way some colds do. Suzi and I even had friends over yesterday and now I feel like a jerk, but I honestly didn't know it would turn into this. Suzi was feeling awful last night with a fever reaching 103 or so, which did thankfully come down, and a barky cough. Ivey hasn't had much of a fever at all, but she's got the cough and snot going on and whenever we put her down she fusses to be held again. Jordan and I don't quite have it yet but we can feel it coming on and figure it can't be long. I am just thankful this is happening now and not during Christmas.

I don't have much experience with sick kids, so I wondered what to do and when to call the doctor (we haven't so far, which is okay according to Dr. Sears). I'd rather leave the doctor out of it if possible to avoid scaring Suzi, taking the girls out in the cold and exposing them to more and possibly worse illness in the waiting room. I called Grandma instead last night and she came over and held Suzi for hours. We've got the cool-mist humidifier going and it seems to have helped. It was such a relief when Suzi woke up smiling this morning and not crying.

So now Suzi is napping on the couch and Jordan and Ivey are napping on the new beanbag on our new rug. I would probably be asleep too, but it isn't the safest cosleeping setup for Ivey so I am keeping an eye on them. Ivey will probably be awakened shortly by some snot and then it will be time to nurse her again. Poor thing. I wish I could still nurse Suzi. It was stupid to let her wean. There's my first New Year's resolution: Keep nursing Ivey. All year and then some and then some.

Baby's crying. Might do a review of the past decade/year post or something like that a little later. I hope everyone else is having a good New Year's Eve.

What should I put on my iPod?

My sweet mom got me just what I wanted for Christmas: this pretty little green iPod. When these things originally came out, what, six or seven years ago? I scoffed at them. No way would I ever buy something so expensive and frivolous. I was totally cool with my portable CD player. But over the years I warmed up to the idea of having an iPod, and their prices cooled down, and now I have one. I'd never actually held one, so when I got it and removed it from the packaging, it scared me how small it was. So thin! It was like holding a new baby. I carefully placed it back in the box and Jordan said oh, don't worry, you won't hurt it. (He has an iPod Touch for work, which he uses for email and stuff.) He kept trying to get me to put it in my pocket but I wouldn't until I had a case for it. Even now I don't like doing that for fear I'll forget it's in there and wash it.

I got an FM tuner for it so I can listen to it in the car, and also speakers (pictured) so I can listen to it in the kitchen without it waking any children who might be napping in the living room. There was also an armband with the case.

But now I'm stumped, because I can't think of any more music I want to download. What do you suggest? What I really need is some fast-paced music to organize by. Other stuff too, but mostly that, because I most often listen to music when I'm cleaning/working. So, please, even if you are normally just a lurker, de-lurk and tell me what to put on my iPod. Thanks!

Jordan has an in with Santa

So he called the North Pole to see if he would go ahead and bring Suzi and Ivey's presents a night early.

Normally we wake up at the crack of dawn (before 6:00) to open Santa gifts and let Suzi play a little while. We have to be at Jordan's parents' house, two hours away, by 10 am, which means we have to eat, pack the van, whisk Suzi away from her toys, and be on the road by 8:00. Jordan and I do not exchange gifts, so at least that's one less thing to worry about. This year, Christmas with my side of the family is sort of up in the air due to several people not knowing exactly when they'll be able to get there. We normally do Christmas Eve starting in the afternoon, but that probably isn't going to work for everyone. We wanted to be sure we got to enjoy Christmas with our girls and not just rush through it on our way to another event.

We'll be able to eat breakfast and drink coffee leisurely in our own kitchen. We can bake some last-minute goodies to share while the girls break in their new toys, and then we can take our time getting ready to go to my parents' house and finally church. Suzi won't be sick of opening gifts already by the time Santa has come, and she also won't be worn out by the time we get to Jordan's parents' house with it spaced this way. It's our way of taking back just a little of this maddeningly hectic holiday to focus on our family. Not the extended family, but just our little family of four.

Santa's already been here and in the morning we'll get to do the fun part.

But now it's bedtime for us. Have a Merry Christmas Eve!

Mini-Mary

I can respect that it's not like this everywhere, but at our little church, the children's Christmas pageant is not meant to be a professional affair. We have the cantata in which the choir sings, and they do an amazing job. Then, at a totally separate service (this year the week after the cantata), we have the children's nativity. This year Jordan got a call from Pegie, our pastor's wife, asking if Suzi (our two-year-old) would be Mary and if Jordan would be Joseph. Pegie is one of Suzi's Sunday School teachers and when she asked Suzi what part she wanted to play, Suzi told her she wanted to be Mary and her daddy to be Joseph.

Pegie thought it would be a good idea to make this a parent-child nativity, which was smart because the only way Suzi ever would've walked down the aisle all costumed and in front of everyone like that is with her dad. I threw together a quick costume for her: simple long dress we already had, blue piece of fabric for her head, baby doll wrapped in a neutral piece of fabric. Jordan already had a costume because we were Mary and Joseph and Suzi was Jesus this time two years ago.

We didn't know exactly what would happen, but we were pretty sure it would be a mess. Luckily, that is what most everyone expects when you have a two-year-old in a Christmas pageant. We were happy, once the moment came, that she consented to be in it at all. We didn't want Mary to take off running up the aisle and jump into Grandma's lap, leaving Joseph sitting uncomfortably in the micro-stable. In the end, though, it went okay. Suzi had to be carried, refused to wear anything on her head, and unswaddled the Baby Jesus, but everyone enjoyed it and Suzi is so happy and proud that she got to be Mary. I made a little Holy Family out of clay for a Christmas gift and when Suzi saw it she smiled and said "that's me when I was Mary!" I think one of the best ways to get a child to understand something is to have them act it out. It's important to me that Suzi understand the Christmas story, so I'm glad she did it. It was meaningful, even if at the end of the service one of our friends was jokingly singing "away in a manger, no crib for His bed, the little Lord Jesus had a cup on his head." (Watch the video and you'll see what I mean.)

Here's the video I managed to get before my Flip camera died...

Ten fabulous days of Christmas this year

Suzi waving excitedly at the Christmas parade...

Because she saw this guy! This Christmas is going to be magical for her.

Growing up and in college, I was spoiled by long, lazy Christmas breaks. Mama was a schoolteacher and Daddy worked at a university, so we had days and days off at Christmas together. I myself had 2-3 weeks off for the holidays, at least. Then I got a job, and learned that when you work retail you don't have this luxury. The past three Christmases I worked at Jennie G's and had to work either Christmas Eve or the day after Christmas. I don't think I ever did work Christmas Eve, but working the day after required rushing back from our out-of-town families to be in the shop by 9:00 am. And I certainly worked the week or two before Christmas and directly after. Jordan would be off work and while he was home playing with Suzi, I'd be stuck in the shop. I know it wasn't that big of a deal. There are people who are forced to work all holidays, even on Christmas Day. We were lucky to have our jobs, but like I said, I was spoiled.

I knew having oodles of time with family at Christmas would be a perk of being a stay-at-home mom, and it definitely is. Jordan is off from the 18th through the 27th--ten days total, including weekends. Ten days to hang out at home with our girls, bake goodies, make crafts, wrap gifts, watch Christmas specials... heaven! We're going to Jordan's parents' house Christmas Day and this year we actually get to spend the night. While we are there, we may even meet up with one of my best friends and her husband who we haven't seen in years.

I spent most of Thursday getting our house Christmas clean. I did dishes, laundry, organized, straightened up, and vacuumed--even under the coffee table. (There was some interesting stuff under there.) I love our little house with all its Christmas decorations and big fluffy recliner and Phibby the couch dog.

I've also finished up my last round of thank-you notes so I can stop feeling bad about that, and yesterday I made truffles with my mom. We've got a few other things to do, but at the top of my list is spending time with my husband and our two girls.

My try-to-get-done-before-Christmas list:

clean the van out so we don't have to ride with a bunch of junk

help Jordan finish up making a couple of gifts

make a couple of ornaments

wrap our last few gifts and put them under the tree

bake apple crisp

make chex mix

bake cookies

watch the Nativity Story movie

watch the Grinch, Frosty, Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol, and Rudolph

listen to my favorite Christmas music

I am glad to be doing these things. I am glad to have time to do these things. God has blessed our decision for me to stay home in so many ways.

Our fifth

The only picture from our wedding I have on this computer

Today was our fifth wedding anniversary. Right now five years ago, Jordan and I were leaving our reception. Our friends and family waved goodbye from the front porch of our venue, and then laughed when Jordan dutifully stopped at a stop sign five or so yards from where our car was parked. We drove to the tiny, I mean cozy apartment we would share and Jordan had cleaned it earlier that day so it would be nice when we got back. We drove to Atlanta to spend the night, and we stopped for McDonald's Happy Meals on the way because we got hungry. I still have those happy meal toys somewhere. We took a shower at the hotel in Atlanta and I started crying when I realized I'd left my deodorant at home. I freak out if I take a shower and don't have any deodorant. Jordan went down to the front desk and asked, can I please have some complimentary deodorant? For my wife? If you'll notice how young he looks in the picture, you'll see why we got some strange looks. We still do when people see us with our two kids.

Ah, 20-year-old Jenny. There are so many things I could tell her. To spend less money and more time, to complain less and forgive more, to realize that she is really skinny and enjoy it because it won't last much longer. And then of course, you're going to have a daughter in a couple of years! Try home birth. It's not crazy, you'll like it! Don't get me started on that. We both had a lot to learn and still do. I guess I should just be happy we are figuring it out now, year by year. I wonder what we'll be thinking when we've been married ten years...