I started collecting items around Halloween--picking up a few costumes (a ladybug, a pirate, a doctor) and then I hit the party store for a collection of hats and accessories. I made sure to pick two of almost everything. Just in case.

The goods

The first thing Jocelyn wanted to wear was the ladybug costume. She asked to wear it to school the following Monday. And the next day and the next. Aja took all the contents out of the box and put it back, and then threw it out again. I was thinking the entire thing might have been a bust.

But like most kids, they love to rediscover what has been there all along (or for the last week).

The best part about all this dressing up is that we used one of their two toy boxes to house the goods. Meaning, we were forced to purge our life of half the toys. The girls have yet to notice.

Pancakes made from scratch are lacking deliciousness if there is not enough syrup to go around. I braved the store on New Year’s Eve, grasping a grocery list a mile long, and I checked items off my list, one by one. We were planning for multiple events—a New Year’s Eve party, a pancake breakfast, a friend’s annual Shogatsu party, and New Year’s dinner full of fried chicken, black-eyed peas and chard (our substitute for collard greens). It wasn’t until the pancakes were served that I realized that I had forgotten that the syrup bottle was near empty. Again. We stretched it and made do.

That’s how I feel about a lot of our life—we’ve stretched it and made do—but this year will be different. I will make better lists and I will plan ahead.  I will plan to plan, which never goes according to…well, you know.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned about being a parent it’s that we will continually figure things out as we go along. There’s no amount of planning that can prepare us for what our two little lovelies will throw at us. But if I can control their surroundings, just a little bit, then I might be able to control the chaos that ensues when they start playing. Fighting. Being.

Christmas was small but full of laughter and shaking booties.

Christmas Tree Lane on the eve of Christmas Eve (a new holiday tradition)

Getting ready for visitors

So excited that all they can do is dance and laugh

Christmas morning with Nana

Dress up boxes are fun for all

We've made resolutions, and many of them are typical choices such as eating better and exercising more. But there are conscious choices that we're making about being there for our kids and taking time for ourselves. For me, I want to read and write more. I want more than the stops and starts. I want to continue to finish things. I finally finished a master's degree after EIGHT years. Throw in a marriage and two babies and it's no wonder that priorities changed. I don't quite know what to do with myself, now that I don't have the school angel/devil on my shoulder. With no looming deadlines—for the first time in what feels like forever—there is just life ahead of me and I want to do more than make do.

So this year, I am planning to continue to eat, drink, and be merry. So long as there is syrup, my kids will be happy along with me.

 And so I give you, shaking booties:

Happy holidays!

I reread the email and thought, "No fucking way." 

The girls were not infected, at least not yet, but if the little nits take hold, I have a hard road ahead of me.

I think an army of animals could live beneath her curls. I checked her scalp to the best of my ability (holding fistfuls in each hand, trying to keep her still) and I washed today's outfits and jackets, but now we wait.

I feel itchy.