We're leaving for Ohio for a few days tomorrow, so today is all about making sure those turkey leftovers don't go to waste. (I'm in charge; so far, so good.) Also packing. And maybe seeing Big Hero 6 again, because it's amazing (seriously, even if you don't have kids: go).
Also snuggling with my new blanket from Woolrich and my new buddy from my Dad.
When I was expecting Goldie, I wrote and wrote and wrote about my fear of losing all those special times I had with Indy; those days when it was just us two, wandering around and stopping into diners for pancakes, paging through books in bookstores…being not just mother and son, but friends. Like, best friends. That's one thing that surprised me about becoming a parent, you know: the fact that your children aren't just your "kids"; they're people you love hanging out with, who are funny and smart and interesting and make everything you do together more exciting, because you get to see what it's like to do it (whatever "it" is) for the first time ever.
I was scared I'd lose that in the madness of a new baby's arrival; that he'd feel pushed aside, or forgotten somehow. And so it's something that Kendrick and I have spent a lot of time talking about, and we've worked very hard to make sure that I get time once in awhile to go somewhere on my own with Indy.
Yesterday I told my son that I was taking him on a special adventure. "Is Daddy coming?" he asked. "No," I said, "It's just you and me today." And instead of being sad that Kendrick wasn't coming along - which was what I expected - he literally flung himself into my arms and said "Let's go NOW!"
You want to know how I spent my morning? It was super fun.
See, in that Spirit Of Saying Yes that I wrote about a few weeks back Kendrick and I have started getting out more; accepting dinner invitations, making plans to catch up with people we haven't seen in ages, et cetera. Yesterday we went into the city for breakfast with two old friends, then decided to go to a party downtown while our kids fell asleep at my parents' place. And then it seemed like it made the most sense to just let the kids stay asleep; Kendrick would take the train home to deal with the dogs, and I'd drive me + kids back in the morning.
7AM hit, and everything went swimmingly: both kids woke up on time and in decent moods, I got everyone dressed and fed and packed, and we headed towards the front door with exactly enough time to make it to the car and get out of town before 8AM, at which point we would suddenly became illegally parked according to city regulations.
And then I realized:
My favorite of our holiday traditions (which only became "a tradition" last year, but still): a family trip to a Christmas shop in Nyack, where we each pick out an ornament that symbolizes what the past year meant to us.
For Goldie: An old-school My First Christmas ball engraved with her name and birth year.
For me: An ornament with the sun on one side (to symbolize our summer in California) and a moon-and-stars design on the other (to symbolize Goldie's birth during the Supermoon and Indy's first spoken "sentence," which was "moon…stars").
