And then we just kinda pulled the plug and did it.

We got a puppy.

The night before the big adoption, we had a family meeting, during which we discussed the annoying and gross responsibilities that come with a dog (none of which, truly can be accomplished by either of my children!). We made lists of things we’d want in a dog (Annabel: a dog that cuddles, Luke: a dog that plays, Me: a dog that doesn’t immediately smell like a toilet and that looks cute, and Antony: a smart dog) and things we didn’t want (Annabel: a dog that jumps on people, Luke: a dog that runs away and never comes back, Me: a dog that is extra large, Antony: a dog that is extra small).

And then of course, we made lists of name suggestions. Luke went through his entire class of preschool, offering suggestions of first and last names together, and then started to make up names (that was of course, after his silly stage of suggesting things like “Canal” or “Steering Wheel” as the perfect name for a dog). Annabel went for flowery names like Lily or Sandy. I went for names that reminded me of our family life together or my history with Antony, like Scout, Georgia, Gideon, or Kakuli.

And I still didn’t think we’d actually go through with it.

The next day, I emailed to Antony a photo of a little dog named Ferdinand from Petfinder. “He’s at the shelter near us!” I texted. Ferdinand seemed like the perfect dog for us. Firstly, his name fit our family to literary perfection. I’ve always loved the children’s book, Ferdinand, and my son, Luke, seems so like that character, not a rough and tumble boy but rather more one who marches to the beat of his own drum. And this puppy, boy was he cute! He was a golden retriever mix with blue eyes!

Antony called me that afternoon. “I’m here with Ferdinand,” he spoke cautiously.

“What?!?” I was shocked. Were we really going through with this? It felt like when we really, really decided to stop using birth control and try for a whole few minutes and then, BAM, we were pregnant.

“Bring the kids to come for a look,” he said.

“Is he so cute?”

Antony paused, “Yeah, but there’s another little guy here who’s super mellow and cute, too. Look at him online.”

So I did. I looked at his photo and didn’t think much of him. I rather drove out there thinking about the literary connection I had with this handsome Ferdinand.

When we arrived at the shelter, Ferdinand indeed was there and available for adoption. He was super soft and super cute and friendly. He also immediately jumped up on Annabel, like excited puppies tend to do. I saw her hesitate. I saw the look of surprise mixed with a little fear.

And then they brought in puppy #2. They SAY he’s a wheaten terrier mix. I’m doubtful of that. He’s definitely some kind of terrier, mixed with who knows what else. He has a silly black beard that goes along with his black patch on his snout, which makes him look old beyond his years. They estimate that he’ll be 40 pounds-ish, but honestly, how can they know that when he’s a mutt of breeds?

But he immediately came over and cuddled with Annabel. And he smelled like a puppy. And he played with the squeezy toys. And he was gentle and loving and soft and wiry at the same time.

This is our dog.

He’s not the dog I thought I’d get, but he is now ours. We call him Winston (after another old man whom I admire–Churchill). He’s pooping on my floor and whining at night, but hopefully those things are temporary. Because he’s also cuddling with my kids before bedtime and looking at them with the same love and anticipation of times to come that I did when I first met THEM.

Some of you may have heard that we’ve had record breaking snow amounts in Vermont lately. You can tell it was record breaking because they actually closed schools and government offices; that never happens. So today I had my first real snow day with my 20 month old. Alone. This event has compelled me to offer some advice for others who might be trapped in a similar situation. (As a bonus, a good proportion of this might also apply if you fell into the polar bear’s pit at the zoo.)

1. Play dead.

While I brought Addy into bed with me this morning at 6 AM, having persuaded her it was still night-night at 5 and 5:45, I did not interact with her at all. Instead, I handed her my iPod. Thanks to that annoying talking Tom and Gina Giraffe, I got an entire extra hour of dozing. Sure, I know, I shouldn’t be introducing Addy to video games yet, and I do pay for it later when she tries to wrest the iPod from my pocket, but an entire day trapped indoors does merit some rule bending. I’m promising you survival here, not a parenting award.

2. S-L-O-W D-O-W-N.

Of course you should slow down on a snow day and do your best to enjoy this time with your kids. Duh. What I’m recommending you also do is to slow down doing things for your kids. Today I let Addy climb every dang step on her own. I was in no hurry to get her anywhere or to do anything, so we just took our sweet time doing everything. I even refused to rush her diaper changes. If she refused to lie still while I was changing her, I told her, “Let me know when you want me to change you.” Then I’d go sit in a chair and ignore her. Sure, I could only play it this cool after I’d wiped the poop off her bum, and sure, it meant I had to wipe pee off the floor once today. It was really easier on me though to just let her run around naked for 10 minutes while I played solitaire (oh, blessed iPod), and for her to learn that if she wanted my attention she had to first let me take care of her.

3. Break your toe.

Okay, I don’t really recommend you do this. I just wanted to get some sympathy for having a broken toe and a toddler who is inexplicably drawn to stepping on it. Repeatedly. Turns out it’s a bitch to play on the floor with your near spastic toddler with a broken toe. I would recommend that you avoid playing it up for sympathy with your child,  since s/he will try- again and again- to kiss it and make it better. This, of course, results in you wincing and smiling and thanking your child for causing you more pain.

4. Stock up.

Do I really need to tell you to make sure, if you know snow is coming, to have enough chocolate, wine, and coffee on hand to get you through? Make sure it’s the good stuff too, or you will regret it. In an emergency situation you can, and should, offer some, or all, to your child.

5. Do some chores.

All my friends, who are better parents than I am, spent the day posting to Facebook their friendly tips on indoor activities to do with your kid. They included links to mommy craft blogs, ideas for creating an indorr obstacle course, and cookies to bake. I opted to put Addy to work scrubbing my bathtub and doing dishes; she was thrilled. The trick is to clean with baking soda and vinegar, I’ve found, because Addy still loves to taste everything that passes within 50 feet of her mouth. She was perfectly content to scrub alongside me with a toothbrush covered in baking soda for a good 30 minutes this morning, and I have a very shiny tub that I’m considering taking my own bath in now. With one of those glasses of wine. My friends, by contrast, are now busy cleaning up from all their craft projects.

6. Call in reinforcements.

My husband, on spring break in Colorado with our firstborn, has not called to see how his wife and baby are fairing in the BIGGEST SNOWSTORM of the season. Thank god for my neighbor who came to my rescue this morning. Passing me her own young daughter through the crack we managed to make in the door, she gamely set to shoveling me out of the house. In all honesty, I only left the house for 5 minutes later that afternoon to make sure our heating vent was clear so we wouldn’t die of carbon monoxide poisoning, but it was nice to know I could open the front door if I needed to thanks to D. D’s real heroism, I have to say, was for trekking across our neighborhood to keep me company in the BIGGEST SNOWSTORM since 2007. It was just very nice to sit on my couch and remark how kooky my child was with her to listen.

I’m hopeful that we’ll all be plowed out tomorrow and that life and work can resume as normal. If not though… will someone send me a link to one of those mommy craft blogs or cookie recipes to bake with your toddler? It’s gonna be a long day…

Most of us, at multiple times throughout the day if your toddler is like mine and likes to use items off her dinner plate as hair product, have looked at our child and thought, “Wild thing!”

I can’t say I’ve met a person who doesn’t like Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are, and my kids are no exception. As Addy’s entered that charming stage of needing books read to her multiple times, in a row, immediately, I’ve been spending a lot of time with Max lately and have come to the realization that the real hero of the book is Max’s mom. Sure, she appears in no pictures and has only one speaking line, and true, the story’s charm is built around Max’s solo adventure. I have to argue though that Max’s mom is the heart of the story and without her, the book would not be the childhood classic it is today.

I want to be like Max’s mom.

Let’s start with the central premise of the story that Max wears a wolf suit. How much do you want to bet Max’s mom made it herself? I do not have visions of myself whipping off an adorable costume for my child on my sewing machine (even though I own one), but I know plenty of moms who could and do. And you have got to give Max’s mom, and  women of her ilk, props.

She might, of course, be a teensy bit to blame for encouraging Max’s behavior by providing him with a wild animal costume.  I think it’s important to note though that Max wasn’t sent to his room for putting a nail into the wall or for chasing his dog with a fork; he got in deep doodoo for talking back to his mom. If you’re like me, you’re too tired to chastise your child for minor infractions or even mildly major ones if you didn’t explicitly warn her against it. A couple of weeks ago, for instance, I warned my daughter and her friend not to go into the laundry room to drink bleach or play with the circular saw. I did not, however, warn them not to break a picture frame, not to pull my antique quilt off the wall, or not to jump off chairs in an attempt to crack their heads open. So when having worked their way through all such tricks they decided to conclude with pulling the entire contents of Penny’s dress up rack down on top of themselves, I held back fussing at them because I figured I hadn’t told them not to do all these things. But later when Penny tripped her baby sister, I ripped into her. I got into her face and really let her have it, partly because I’d told her to be careful with her sister and partly because I’d held back from yelling at her all the times before. I celebrate Max’s mom for being like the rest of us holding it together only to suddenly lose her cool; I love that Max got into trouble and that his punishment was probably a little extreme. It’s validating to see a mom hold the line against her wild thing.

I’d like to also give credit to Max’s mom for his creativity in growing a forest in his very own bedroom, making up a boat to sail in, and a world to reign over. Yes, he came up with all these things on his own, but surely his mother had been encouraging his creative play all along (see costume note above)? I see no signs in the book that Max’s mom considered dramatic play the work of the devil. Max’s bravery and leadership among the wild things is also commendable. This is a kid who’s been instilled with confidence and inner strength in his few short years. I like to think that we’re doing the same with our daughters, that if confronted with beasts rolling their terrible eyes and showing their terrible claws, they would subdue them calmly and then throw a great rumpus.

What I want most for my daughters though is to know that wherever they go, whatever trouble they get into that there is a place where someone loves them “best of all.” And I want them to want to be with us. Not that I want them to be with us all the time as they grow, mind you. In the last six months, Penny’s just begun having play dates at her friend’s house and each time K and I manage to arrange one of these afternoons for our daughters, we do a little happy dance (that could just be me actually…). Penny was one of those babies who couldn’t handle having unrelated adults look at her much less hold her or babysit her, so her willingness to go out into the world on her own in even this small fashion is a bit of victory. If I could project my desires into the future, I suppose what I really want is for my girls to be independent and homesick at the same time. Is that mean? Not sad enough that they can never leave, that they can never sail away to explore wild places, but enough to know that I did things right. That I created a home for them that they loved. My favorite image of Sendak’s book actually is the one of a crowned Max surrounded by his sleeping friends, resting his head somewhat mournfully on his fist. Having had his fun, having accomplished all he wanted to accomplish, he really just wants to go home to where he is loved. Home, he realizes, is not such a bad place after all.

Having set his mind on it, nothing can persuade Max to stay for more cheap thrills. His new friends do all they can to convince him to stay, going as far as to threaten to eat him, but Max is strong in the face of this peer pressure. What strength it takes for Max to give it all up, to sacrifice fun for meaning is perhaps the subject for another book. Watching Lindsay Lohan and Charlie Sheen’s downward spiral in the last few weeks makes me want a magic pill to give my own kids; one that helps them to hold firm to their values in the face of pressure. I hope that they will grow to be like Max, to be strong when confronted by beasts, to “sail” away and in and out of years if need be to something real. I like to think that we parents do have some ability to help our kids grow in this way. It’d be nice to know Max’s mom’s secret…

The biggest “aaah” moment is clearly the last line of the book “and it was still hot.” Max’s mom, having sent him to bed without his supper has relented (perhaps she got to sip a nice glass of red wine with her own dinner) and brought Max something to eat. There could be no better ending to the book than this simple gesture of forgiveness, nourishment, and love. Every time I read it, I think, now why didn’t I think of that?! It’s not that I send my kids to bed without their supper, but I punish them all the time for a wide range of acts from drawing a tic tac toe grid on the couch to simply pounding on each other. And following each punishment I sit and talk about what happened. And talk. And talk some more. We talk about the event, what choices they might make differently next time, future punishments, their feelings, my feelings… blah blah blah. How much would we all hate this book if Max’s mom had come into his room to talk about his behavior and how everyone was feeling? I’m taking note and trying to do less talk and more show of my forgiveness these days.

Max’s appearance in the final image of the book is the ultimate testament to the awesomeness of his mom. We see Max looking somehow contrite and happy at the same time as he takes his wolf hood down. It seems that in coming home, in leaving his world of fantasy, he’s come back to himself too. I think parents really love Sendak’s book for moments like this: moments when we recognize our own kid on the page.  Our children really are wild things roaring their terrible roars, showing their terrible claws, and someday all too soon rolling their terrible eyes at us. What Max’s mom teaches us is to not let our wild things run free, to not attempt to tame them either, but to, with love, keep bringing them home.

He shoved a spoonful of granola in his mouth and replied, “A firefighter and a dada.”

Affirming his choices as good, noble ones with a nod of my head, I probed deeper. “WHY do you want to be a firefighter, buddy?”

Responses I expected: to help people, to ride around in the big red truck, to appear on a pin-up calendar and show off my abs, to play with hoses bigger than my own.

Response that I received: “So that I can fire people with the hose. I can spray fire at mean people. Bad people like pirates. Not babies or kids, just bad people.”

He then told me that ambulances take people to jail, that policemen are mean and like to tease people, and that to be a fireman, he needs to be funny. “It’s funny to fire people.”

I think Luke needs some career counseling.

Free Stock Photos

In honor of Black History Month, I thought I would share with everyone the story of my daughter’s racism.  It all came out one day a couple of weekends ago when a co-worker of my husband’s visited us with his four kids. When we informed Penny that they would be coming over, she asked, “Are any of the kids dark?” Hoping rather desperately to hear some concern about the dangers of tanning, I responded, “No, why do you ask?”

“Black people scare me,” she replied. “I don’t want to play with black children.”

Let me go back a step and explain just how hard we have worked to avoid just this moment. My husband and I are white Southerners and grew up well acquainted with racism. We both had the experience of having black best friends in grade school whose friendship we weren’t quite able to hold onto as we got older; friendships between black and white kids just weren’t encouraged. And we both heard more than our fair share of racist jokes, too often from my own family members. It’s taken me decades of hard work to silence their jokes, these thoughts, in my head.

As adults we’ve made friends of color, we studied other cultures, and we’ve spoken out on issues of class and color when we could. Professionally, I have worked to promote cultural competence for beginning educators by conducting research, by partnering with community groups, and by working to revise standards teachers have to meet. While I’m no expert on these issues, it’s kinda of become my thing at work. I want to “get it right” and I want lots of other people “to get it right” with me. You could easily accuse me of trying just a tiny bit too hard. If a black person personally asked me to pay restitution for the crimes of my ancestors 150 years ago, I would possibly hand over a blank check.

So when confronted with my 4 year-old’s sudden racism, I freaked out a little. I spent hours analyzing my every word and deed over the last six months. What had I possibly said that made her think this? What subconscious facial expression or vocal nuance had she picked up on that had taught her to think this?   The fact that my daughter’s pre-school teacher is a young black man was not enough to stop me from pulling my hair out over the fact that we live in one of the whitest states of the union. Had we somehow fed it to her along with our beloved grits? Or perhaps it was my insistence that she not call adults by their first names and my frequent reminder to her to answer adults politely by saying, “Yes, ma’am,” or “Yes, sir,” as we had been raised. I went to bed that night horrified that the seed I’d tried so hard to stamp out in myself had taken root in my daughter.

When I woke up the next day I realized that Dr. King was to blame. See, we’d made the mistake of taking Penny to our church’s MLK celebration where she’d heard our church librarian describe marching on Washington. Our minister then delivered her sermon on the Birmingham campaign. And while I know plenty about the Civil Rights movement, I hadn’t quite realized how strategic Dr. King had been when he included children in the Birmingham protests. Dr. King, I whispered excitedly in Penny’s ear, believed if you were old enough to join the church, you were old enough to march. And march these children did.

Two by two, children marched in the street and were arrested by Commissioner of Public Safety, Eugene “Bull” Connor (Note to self: avoid interacting with men who go by the nickname, “Bull.”). Over 600 children were hauled away to Birmingham jails while a horrified American public watched. And America continued to watch as events escalated (because locking up children wasn’t enough!?). Dogs, fire hoses, church bombings… it was a scary and powerful time to be a black child in America.  “Isn’t that amazing, Penny? Do you hear how brave the kids were? Ooh! Listen now there’s African drumming! Don’t you love the African drumming?!”

I realized that in my zeal to educate my daughter, in my efforts to explain what she should not believe, I had lead her to think that there was something different, something wrong with black kids.  “Dude, those kids get locked up in jail and have fire hoses turned on them!” There’s no way she was going to play with them if she could help it. And, who can blame her? Kids are hard wired for self-preservation not social justice. I like to think that I’ll be able to teach her to fight the good fight, to stand up for justice, to fight the wrongs of the world. I’m realizing though that she’s going to have to come to many of these realizations on her own.

My new strategy for combating racism is a kinder, gentler approach. I think I’ll continue to make sure we check out books from the library that include people of color (her new favorite is Mama, I’ll Give You the World.). I’ll be sure to invite her friends Kamaya and Fouzia from school to her birthday party next year. And to be absolutely crystal clear where we stand on the issue in our house, I’ll be banning the wearing of white sheets and the setting of crosses on fire.

Annabel, aged 6 and not quite 2 months, lost her first tooth. She’d been wiggling it for weeks, and it hung on by a thread. I was in my bathroom, brushing my teeth, when Annabel burst in, smiling and bloody-mouthed.

“I thought I felt something stuck in my mouth,” she said excitedly, “and I stuck my finger in to get it out and my tooth came out!”

I asked her, “Did it hurt?”

She held out her little tooth to show me, “No, I almost swallowed it, though.”

“Well I’m glad you didn’t.” I took the sweet little baby tooth out of her hand, gently rinsed it off, and had her rinse her mouth out over the bathroom sink.

We called everyone we could think of, leaving ecstatic messages if the person wasn’t home. Then we began preparations for the night’s big event. Annabel drew a map for the Tooth Fairy, just in case she didn’t know how to get to Bel’s room.

And that tiny, white, perfectly-shaped tooth? We wrapped it in tissue and placed it in the pocket of Annabel’s heart-shaped Tooth Fairy pillow. She stuck that pillow under her actual pillow, and several times that afternoon and early evening, she’d rush back to her room, just to check that the tooth pillow was still there.

Later that night, I sneaked into her room. Annabel’s left leg hung off the side of her bed, just like mine does. Open-mouthed, she slept deeply. I caught a glimpse of that gaping space in her lower mouth as my hand slipped underneath her head to make the stealthy exchange of tooth for cash.

I felt like a grown-up. And I felt that my baby girl, along with her baby fat and her blind dependence on me, is losing the traces of her babyhood.

Last night, I threw together (in my mind) a fabulous on-the-spot dinner, concocted in my head at 5 p.m. and begun in my kitchen 20 minutes later: grilled chicken breasts that my husband had marinated the night before, roasted peppers, and rice. And water to drink.

How terribly exciting, I know.

My kids are too smart, though. Luke looked at me, and I’m not lying when I say he raised his 3 year-old eyebrows. “Mama,” he pointed outside, “are you allowed to touch the grill without asking Daddy?”

He had a point.

I texted Luke’s question to my husband, who responded back with a sarcastic, “Well, are you?”

This upped the ante. I now had to produce the most delicious boneless, skinless chicken breasts known to mankind. A dinner to impress the most persnickety of eaters. A piece of meat that my son wouldn’t ask to dip in ketchup and that my husband wouldn’t douse with balsamic vinegar or hot sauce.

Alas, they were still just boneless, skinless chicken breasts. Marinated with lots of flavor, and grilled to perfection, I might add, but it was just grilled chicken.

Sigh.

At least the ice water was a hit.

Last week at the grocery store, for the one millionth time, an old lady instructed me to treasure my daughters while they’re this age. Now I, like you, typically smile at whatever old fart is in front of me and go about my business with a “Oh, yes! I am!” But this time, with Addy strapped to my back and kicking, and Penny whining she wanted to buy some flowers, while I searched vainly for some garam masala in the spice aisle, I responded, “You know I’m trying. But it’s getting awfully hard to treasure those 3 AM wake up calls. Followed promptly by a 4 AM wake up. And winter? Do you know what it’s like to get them bundled up, out the door, and in their car seats everyday when it’s below freezing? Not to mention the fact that I somehow neglected to put gloves on my daughter’s hands today, and now I’m going to have to buy a ridiculously overpriced pair just to make it home. To be honest, I can’t get through these times fast enough.”

Smugly I went back to tuning my children out to scan the bulk spices thinking the old lady would scowl at me and leave me alone. Instead, she blinked a moment and laughed. “Oh, I remember those times too. I read something the other day, you know, something like… the days are long but the years are fast. It’s like that, isn’t it?”

Stupid old ladies and their stupid grocery store wisdom. She’s right, the days are forever but when that first day of school or that birthday or that whatever it is hits, you find yourself flummoxed. How did this happen? How did my baby turn into this real live little girl all of a sudden? You panic and think: It’s all going so fast and I’m not treasuring it enough! Instead I spend precious hours of the day largely annoyed with them. Why are you taking so long? Why are you fighting me while I’m trying to change your diaper? Why are you dancing around the bathroom not getting your underwear pulled up? Why can’t you let me finish my coffee/email/lunch/work/bill paying? Why don’t you have your shoes on?

And then the guilt hits you. Why does their very smallness and inability to do anything just keep sucking the life out of me? Why can’t I just enjoy them? Or more specifically, why can’t I let this one beautiful, amazing moment when we’re all dancing madly around the kitchen to Bob Marley be enough? I do so want to treasure holding you in my arms when you’re so small and cuddly, but at the exact same moment I want to put you down so I can brush my teeth.

I suspect, despite what old ladies in the grocery store may tell you, we weren’t meant to treasure these times. For every sweet memory you have with your children, there were a hundred hours of simply enduring. A hundred times you wiped their truly stinky bums. A hundred times you sneak an extra bite of oatmeal into their screaming mouths. A hundred times you pulled them into your lap only to have them wiggle to get back down just so they can yell at you for putting them down again. These are not the times to treasure, but they may be the times to remember. I recommend that if you remember them, you remember them only like an impressionist painting: recognizable but with a lot of fuzzy details.

It seems to me that there is no greater way to force yourself to live in the moment than to have children. Nothing puts a stop to naval gazing faster than your toddler reaching for the hot pan on the stove. Nothing could make you savor your dinner more than watching your delighted 4 year old sauté the onions for the spaghetti sauce. And we can’t both live in the moment and treasure the moment. Or at least, I haven’t figured out how to.

What we really need is not another Ordinary Day video, but our own version of It Gets Better. Your average parent is already so overwhelmed by the minutia of getting completely unreasonable creatures fed, clothed, and entertained, that the thought of another grocery store admonishment that we’re somehow not appreciating this special time makes me want to jam my head inside the Coinstar change dispenser. You’ll forgive me if this “special time” when my preschooler just had an accident and my toddler ate the grocery list is something I choose to forget, or to recall in the distant future when my daughters bring home their first dates.

So grocery store ladies, next time could you please just tell me that it gets better? That it’s okay to find huge chunks of this time in their lives simply exhausting? And that while the days are long, and the years fast, I’m treasuring it just the right amount.

And I’m ridiculously sad about this.

Annabel is ecstatic. She packed her school backpack last night with 2 Barbie dolls, a ziploc bag of silly bands (knock-offs), and a pink beaded bracelet that she made for her new friend. She and her friend have been talking about the playdate for days. “Mama,” she informed me, “we’re going to trade silly bands and have a party in her bedroom! And, her mommy is going to make us quesadillas for a snack and I know she knows how to make them because Claire eats them sometimes in her school lunch!!!”

Yes, this sure sounds fun for her. And I’m sure part of me will like spending one-on-one time with Luke this afternoon.

So why is crazy me so sad? Maybe it’s because Annabel leaves for school at 7:45, and usually I see her by 2:15. Today, it’ll be 10 hours before I see her again. I’ll miss her. Maybe it’s because she’s absolutely fine with someone else’s mom picking her up from school; yes, I know this mom, and I do trust that she can drive my child 2 miles safely. But it’s weird-she’s not a good friend of MINE picking up my child.

When our children are very small, often we choose friends and make our kids play with theirs. Sometimes those turn out to be their best friends, too. But now that Annabel’s in school full time, she’s choosing and making her own friends. These friends, while sweet, energetic, imaginative, fun-loving girls, have nothing to do with me.

I know, it’s not all about me nor should it be.

But I feel that tug, that tug at my heart and at the pit of my stomach when I send my six year-old off into that big world of school and playdates and the making of friendships that are out of my realm of control. That tug that wants me to fold her back into my world, my house, my arms and yes, even my womb for a little bit longer.

And then you blink, shake your head, and wake up. You realize that this is not your life. No chance, no how, not since life before kids.

When you have kids, babysitters on New Year’s Eve, even if available, are quadruple the normal astronomical rates. When you have kids, thigh high boots just seem, well, impractical. And when you have kids, staying up till midnight (especially with them) sounds like a torture worse than hairspray.

So, luckily, our good friends invited us over for a New Year’s get-together. Six kids played happily, noisily together without parent intervention needed. That’s a holiday. The kids ate hot dogs while the adults gobbled down steak and salad and good cheese and even better bottles of red wine. We all enjoyed the firework display shot off by one of our friends from the golf course behind the house, and the kids shrieked over the sparklers that they wrote their names with in the night sky.

Once they started to tire, we plopped all of the kids on the couch with old-time episodes of “Scooby Doo” and we adults ventured outside. We listened to The Cure, drank more red wine, and discussed family vacation ideas. We ladies even planned a dream girls’ night out.

Party pooper that I am, I was ready to go home before ten. I left sated. Good food, good wine, good friends, good fun. It was one of my best New Year’s ever.

And those New Year’s Eves of my past? I never really like Prince songs anyway, champagne makes my stomach hurt, and kissing your honey at eleven under the warmth of your own covers can beat confetti and sequined midnight any day.