Pocket Aces

Another year over.

It's New Year's Eve, and everyone in the house, myself obviously excluded, is asleep. The blog has been ignored for nearly a month, as I figured it would be, while I am not quite sure how to explain just what it was I have been doing. But what I can say with certainty is that I am looking forward to doing... something else.

Look, I'm no Grinch. I LOVE Christmas, and this year Christmas was especially fun as it was Mason's first ever, and Riley's first where he's started to get it. Of course he gets it more now that it's over, but still that's something to smile about. But right now the one thing I love most about Christmas is that it's gone, done, over. See ya next year, Santa.

Hey, speaking of next year! As I may have mentioned, it's NYE, and that's really what I've been thinking about today as I putter about starting to put everything away. It's what was rolling through the dusty plains of my mind like tumbleweeds while I got the kids down for naps. It's this - 2007 was a bit of a rough year, and I'm glad it's over. The funny thing about that is that I can't think of one single bad thing that happened. In fact, lots of great things happened, not the least of which was welcoming my beautiful healthy daughter into the world. The year was wonderful and, next to leaving home to go to grad school, the most challenging period of time I've ever experienced. Now I'm not used to writing about myself yet, and this is all sort of clumsy and uncomfortable, so rather than detailing my issues and coming across as an undiagnosed clinically depressed lunatic, I'm just going to say that I am both tired and energized, feeling both courageous and scared to death, and that I am eager to start going through some closets to see what I find. What I can throw out, and what gems await me there that I'd long forgotten. Hell, I'm pretty sure there's some stuff in there I've never even looked at. 

So with that, I'm signing out.  I'll be back next year (I kinda hate when people say that) with more energy, more failed jokes, more witty asides, more useless knowledge. In fact, I'm pretty sure I have not yet given a glimpse of the scores of useless knowledge that reside in my head on this blog. So that should be fun, yes? Oh, and pictures. Lots of pictures, including an overview of the holiday season. So Happy New Year, Internet. Happy New Year, imaginary yet earnest readers. And even a Happy New Year to you, spammers. I hope somebody, somewhere, wants your oxycodone and Italian leather handbags. 

Any given Sunday...

...you might find a scene like this:

Or maybe even this:

We like to start 'em early.  Your vices need just as much nurturing as your virtues, do they not?

That makes me want to watch Guys and Dolls, despite having seen it recently.  One of my favorite musicals.  Which reminds me that it's time to break out White Christmas!

Thanksgiving pictures, finally.

I was pretty happy with some of these pictures I took, and think some of them could use some prettying-up in Photoshop, not to fix errors but just to maybe add some vignettes, or color pops, just to "magazine" them out a little, you know? 

But.  If I wait till I have a chance to sit down and play with them, I may never post them, and then what is all this for anyways?  So we'll go straight out of camera.  Just know I COULD do it better. 

 

I don't have any clever commentary for the photos tonight, seeing as I'm running on sleep-deprived autopilot.  Mason seems to have developed an allergy to sleep.  Very, very unfortunate.

Remember those footie pajamas?

Yes, so do I.  So long ago, wasn't it?  Ok, here's the photos:

Look at the feet!  So cute.

 

And here's an extra one, just because I love it so.  Mason makes the best faces...

(No time to fix my white balance issues, due to the uploading of forty bajillion pictures what for calendar building.  So shut up about it, ok?  And then come over and sweep the Cheerios off my kitchen floor.)

(No?  Not even if I say please?)

What it's like.

This is what it's like around here trying to get a Christmas card photo. 

I am beginning to doubt my ability to get out Christmas cards this year.  Which sucks, because I really like sending Christmas cards, and it's historically been one of my don't-miss things.  All the more important when you've got little one's progress to track.  BUT LOOK AT WHAT I'M WORKING WITH HERE, PEOPLE.  Does that look like progress to you?

Ok, deep breath.  I may send a card yet, but it will contain two separate pictures of the two charmers seen above wiping their noses on film.

(Hey, stick around!  I'm gonna post more than one entry tonight!)  (Maybe that's how I'll work.  Dry spell for 2 weeks, then 68 posts in one night.  It could be my "thing".)

Red footie pajamas

So, Riley hasn't worn the footie pajamas of his baby days in quite some time.  Now it's all Old Navy PJ sets, or flannel PJ pants with Hanes t-shirts, and never EVER any socks.  That's just wrong.  (See?  The kid IS like me.)  And tonight I'm going through the jammie basket in his closet, which is dipping perilously low due to my still not being caught up on laundry from our holiday trip.  So out comes a pair of footie pajamas that he got last year, and has never worn.  They're finally just the right size, because I purposely asked for them to be too big.  Trouble is, last time we tried to get Riley in footie pants, he flipped.  Still, despite all that I've learned, I remain an optimistic soul, so I headed downstairs with the new footies, as well as with a backup pair of Old Navies, just in case.  But I'm not going to cave.  No no nooooo, I'm not. 

Riley starts to whine the second his foot slips into one side and he realizes HIS TOES CAN NO LONGER BREATHE OMG HELP ME! The whine turns into full on tears and shrieking as Marc and I sadistically shove his little body right into those jammies and zip him up tight.  Then he curls up into a ball all pitiful, and I wonder briefly how I turned into the mother that shoves her unwilling child into footie pajamas for kicks, and then I pick him up and take him to look at the "blinky blinky blinky" Christmas lights, and all is forgotten.  The trauma is over, and he looks so flippin cute in those jammies I could eat him up.  Off we went to bed.

Once in bed, I made the mistake of trying to pull a blanket over him.  "Don't push it, mommy!" says the warning kick he gives the blanket.  Ah, of course.  Just like me, he can't stand the feeling of foot covers under blankets.  They get twisted, you know.  And nothing's worse than twisted socks. 

Gotta remember to take a picture of the blessed footie jammies in the morning.  He'll be all sleep-rumpled, and his hair will be curly and sticking up everywhere.  It doesn't get much better than that.