I went through all their old clothes - right, Mary, let's be fair, I went through Jacob's and Mary went through Emily's - and sorted out the too-small things. This is something that used to just break my heart, putting the teeny-tiny newborn outfits away and setting out the huge, hulking 6-month-size things. But now when the step is from 2T to 3T, and 5 to 6, it's a little less of an emotional shock.
But still, it sucks. Time rolls on, your babies grow up, the year rolls over, ready or not.
Speaking of which, I don't make New Year's Resolutions. Too arbitrary, and too easy to procrastinate that way. I'm much more prone to deciding on a new path and following it, regardless of calendar. But I do have some things that are brewing at the moment, though a lot of them won't move for another two months, at least. I want to know, to KNOW, about this internship thing, just to be done with it all.
In brutal, pathetic honesty, I actually want not to get an internship, so that I have a good, solid excuse to close that chapter in my life and move on to funner, more personally satisfying things. Sure, some day, I'll look back and wish I'd finished my doctorate, regrets and doubts will abound, blabbity blah blah. But you know what? There's something about doing what I want. Now. Without structuring my life around "it's only a year" and "look at the big picture" and "maybe someday." There's just too much untimely death and unfair illness and random accidents out there to delay happiness too long, you know?
I dunno. Something.
Anyway, the point is, I'll go to the interview and I'll put on a smile and I'll try to give the right answers, whatever those are. And I'll let them decide, and I won't tell them that I'm hoping that, given three intern spots, I come in fourth-ranked, at the highest. We'll see.
Anyway. This started somewhere more festive, didn't it? Yeah. Because my big important New Years Thing is, let's get rid of this uncertainty and just KNOW what's going on with the whole internship / doctorate / oh-yeah-what-about-the-dissertation thing.
I also want to try some new things. I want to make a sweater for myself or Willem that we can wear in public. I want to try to write, for real. I want to go on a family vacation. I want to bear another man's - and woman's - child.
So, we'll see. Should be eventful, if nothing else. If only I had a place to vent and ramble about it all... ha ha.
Speaking of which, I saw this on several blogs last month and thought I'd jump on the bandwagon, because it looked cute and kitschy. The first sentence from one post each month... easier than actually trying to summarize a year which was a lot of work and effort.
Welcome to the Dissertation Abattoir, Where the Studious Are Bathed in the Blood of the Ignorant. I still don't know what I'm going to do when I grow up, but I'm less pathetic and catastrophic and miserable today.
There is one, and only one, person on the entire planet for whom I will jump up and down, dance, and cheer when they successfully use the toilet as God and plumber intended. In case it wasn't common knowledge, I thought I would let everyone know that Children Are Evil and Must Not Be Seen in Public, and as a corrolary, No Mother Can Possibly Adequately Supervise Two Children On Her Own. Look at me, all crafty and having at least something besides crushing depression and an empty bank account and an unreasonably large derriere to show for having spent a year home. We have just about perfected the recipe for Kate-flavored Mommy Guilt.
Every woman needs a certain special little appliance to brighten the day. Let's pretend you're my husband and it's Friday night.
Five years ago right now, I was settling into my second day of "real" grad school, a doctoral program, so early into it all that I hadn't even yet reached the "maybe I don't really belong here" anxiety. I was just sitting here, minding my own blogness, typing away and thinking about how to write about my marriage without sounding flippant or sarcastic (because these things are a way of life in our household, which is a nice balance from the occasional inopportune moments of giddiness which have been known to interrupt serious movies and intimate interludes), when I hear "MOM! COME HERE!" in a voice clearly indicative of my daughter mistaking a meat grinder for a pillow. One of my grad school professors once said, "No one dies at the end of their life. They're always right in the middle when it happens."
Every time I start to think that we've got this parenting stuff figured out, just a little, I get a resounding reminder that we're actually just idiots.
Anyway. I'm feeling scattered, could you tell? And I do have a goal this year, that you - yes, YOU - can help with. I want to try and get a better idea of who's out there. Who's reading this? How can I do it better? More interestingly? More worthwhilely? More something? Maybe you're all just a bunch of google bots cataloging my blog and then flitting away, I don't know. But if you're out there... just know that I get all sorts of excited when I actually get comments, because otherwise it's like Helen Keller lecturing... who knows whether it's a packed auditorium or an audience of narcoleptics?
So, welcome to 2007. Let's ride.
