Mark was peeling an orange and accidentally dropped a piece of peel on the floor; I managed to rescue it mere milliseconds before the dog pounced. I took that opportunity to tiresomely remind the children to be careful because food dropped on the floor could make Barkley sick. I finished with “The only thing worse than a barfing dog is a barfing kid.” Mark thoughtfully followed that up with “And the only thing worse than a barfing kid is a barfing mom!” True enough, however, the conversation turned to the possibility of a barfing dad, which to me is even WORSE. The kids didn’t think so. As they pointed out, Dad’s not home all day anyway, so if he’s sick, no big deal. If MOM is sick though…
While I appreciate the sentiment of my own indispensability to household harmony, I also recognized that during the Christmas holidays, the title of Most Important Parent is not mine. Mostly this is because of my complete inability to figure things out on the Wii or to put Lego together. For a few solid days, every few minutes I’d hear “Dad! DAAAAD! Can you help me?” followed up by a request to a) get to the next level, or b) put something together with Lego. Truth be told, the children do not want me to even touch their Lego, and shoo me away from it whenever I stop by to “help”.
But my husband is now back to work, and most of the Lego is already put together, and it’s time we start slowly getting back to regular routines, with regular food and with putting regular clothes on prior to “after lunch”. The boys are still sharing a room; Christmas Eve we moved Jake’s bed into Mark’s room, as per our tradition, and they are loathe to end this sleepover atmosphere. I’m happy they enjoy being together, but their chatter goes late into the night, or what passes for it at my house: anything after 9:30 pm.
Did you make any resolutions this year? I made some usual ones: to read more, write more, play the piano more, that sort of thing. One of my favourite resolutions came from an old friend who resolved to wear her nice shoes and carry her nice handbags more, which I think is brilliant. Don’t we all feel better when we look better? On that note, yesterday I put on my nice new sweater dress I bought at a 60% off Boxing Day sale, and some sassy high heeled boots, and went to the mall to buy makeup and socks.
Things to note about this picture: Barkley has a need to sniff my leg frantically whenever I change shoes, and you can see the fuzzy burgundy slipper I’ve discarded to make way for my high heeled boots. It felt great to get dressed up, albeit for a pretty lame errand, but I think tomorrow I’m going to laze around in yoga pants with lots of coffee and maybe an episode of the Price is Right. After all, the break is almost over and I should probably have a resolution to the effect of savour every moment or something like that. In any case, I call Lazy Day tomorrow.
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Happy New Year to me! I’m so pleased with my new blog design, many thanks to my dear, longtime friend Marilyn at Cursive Web. Don’t you just love it?
Today was my first lazy day this break and it was great. I spent the morning reading one of the many many many books that i own but have never read and I decided my resolution this year is that I will read through the pile of books I own before buying more…and then I bought a new book an hour later. So I’ve modified the resolution so that every second book I read will be from the pile I already own.
Haha! That’s a good resolution! Thanks again for the FABULOUS new look!
According to feedly, I am your second subscriber. Love the dress and the cameo of Barkley 🙂
Thank you! And thanks for subscribing 🙂
I love this blog look and I love you! I’m feasting by the tree lights whilst I still can!! Ok, I’m grumpily eating breakfast, forlornly glancing at the tree, because
A) it’s the only thing left of Christmas – the rest of the house is bare, sparse and barren like a desolate wasteland
And
B) because I have to go back to work in 30 minutes.
I have not made any resolutions as such but I am going to try to wear matching bra and knickers on more than two occasions. ( ie my birthday and Christmas Day )
I am going to try and never leave a room empty handed ( my wise old Gran swore this helps keep things tidy )
As the great love of my life Mr Brandon Flowers said, I’m also going to smile like I mean it every day!
I’m also going to use part of this comment as my blog post today!
Happy New Year lovely lady xxx
I LOVE these “resolutions”. Happy New Year sweetie. If you haven’t gotten your card yet I’m putting another one in the mail 🙂
We did lazy day yesterday – my husband came home from work to find 3/4 of us still in PJs. By dinnertime the kids were just about ready to kill each other. Tomorrow we are going on some lame errands in -32 degree weather because I can’t take another day. Hopefully we make it back alive!
I hope you make it back alive too! Brrrr.
I think my son spent most of break in his pajamas. And he will today, too, because after one day back at school they’re home again because we have a snow day.
Because I got sick in the middle of December, we started back to school lessons on Monday. Not my idea, by the way. The boys asked as they were concerned about losing “their edge.” I don’t even know what that means.
I didn’t make any resolutions. Oopsy!
Love the new blook.. Great work, Marilyn! My resolution is to make up more words, like BLOOK which is a “blog look.” Huh! See? Yeah!
Okay, not really. Sorry about that.
I don’t usually make resolutions at this time of year — I make them year round — but this year January coincided with giant shake-ups in my brain anyway so I do have a couple…to focus on my own work instead of the work of others, to smile using my whole face (after reviewing several …smirky-looking photos taken over the holidays) and to reframe the things I don’t like so that I like them. This resulted in me in the bathroom at work on Thursday grinning at myself in the mirror, whispering “I AM SO HAPPY TO BE HERE AND HAVE A JOB!” which is a bit crazy but then, so am I and also, it worked.
Very pretty sweater dress. I love sweater dresses.