Resolutions vs. Goals

I've said in the past that I don't like resolutions, and that's true, to a point.  I think that to bring about healthy changes in our lives, we need to set goals and make plans to achieve those goals.  I believe that to make these changes, we need to commit to them and commit to making good choices, year-round.  Resolutions always seem to be BIG things that we struggle to stick to.  I resolve to lose weight.  I resolve to quit (bad habit).  I think it's easier to make that your goal, and map out some smaller steps to get there.  If you want to lose weight, then you resolve to work out several times a week.  Or you resolve to make better food choices.

But despite my wariness of big new year's resolutions, I do like the idea of starting fresh each year-- of setting goals and working toward them.  I like the idea of a clean slate.

Tom and I talked about our goals for the upcoming year, so here are a few:

Tom's goal is to run a full marathon.  I don't think there's a timeline attached, so let's say maybe April of 2013 (the Country Music Marathon is each year in April).  Tom will work on adding mileage and building to a full 26.2.

He also wants to "de-clutter."  We have a house full of stuff, and we'd like to whittle it down a bit.  Now that we both have kindles, and devices with access to the "cloud," we should both be able to reduce our paper.  We also have lots of toys and clothes that aren't getting much use anymore-- and would probably make other households very happy.

I have lots of goals (more of a five-year plan, really).  I want to become a runner, so I resolve to run three times a week.  Mileage doesn't really matter to me, so long as I am actually running every week.  I want to complete a writing project.  I've realized that although getting a master's degree is important to me in the long run, it's not particularly high on the list at the moment, so (although I have not definitely decided) I plan to take this semester off from school and use the time I would be spending on schoolwork to work on writing.  I like my job, so I'm not pushing to make a big change any time soon.  I'd love to be making more money, but I'm content to sit still for a little while.  I can re-assess in a year or two.

So, those are my goals.  I've mapped out some steps that I can take to make some progress towards them.

But this year, I do have a resolution.  This is not a goal, because it is not something with an identifiable end-goal.  I don't know that I can map out steps.

I resolve to be happier.  I resolve to live in the moment-- to stop worrying and planning for the future, to stop thinking ahead-- and enjoy my amazing little girl and my wonderful husband.

I'm a planner- and a worrier.  I'm usually several steps ahead of myself, planning how to get to where I want to be.  But, if I'm not careful, I'm going to worry myself to an early grave.  And that is not a place I'm looking forward to getting to.

So, my resolution this year is to enjoy where I'm at.  No, I'm not where I want to be in the long term.  But for a 28 year old?  I'm in a pretty great place.  And now, I'm going to (TRY to) slow down and enjoy it.  In fact, every day, I'm going to tweet one thing that I am happy about/grateful for.  So, at the end of the year, I should have 365 things to demonstrate how happy I am to be where I am.  (I'll tweet three things today to catch up).  You can follow me on twitter: @hamco

My Birthday Wish for You, Emmy Lou

Two years ago, I was sitting up in bed, counting contractions and waiting through the interminable hold recordings on the Women’s Health Division phone line.  I wasn’t really sure how quickly things were happening, so I just watched the minute hand on my watch and tried to remember the peaks and valleys chart from the childbirth class.  (I couldn’t remember if I was supposed to time from the start of a contraction to the start of the next contraction or merely the period in between.)

It amazes me that, two years ago, I was handed a small bundle that fit in the crook of my arm, and now, I have a toddler who can’t be contained, but who now freely gives hugs on request (when she feels like it).  I don’t have the words to do it justice.  I vividly remember the little face that peered up at me on that hospital bed.  I remember my fascination with the whole process.  I remember the bow that the nurse made on her little hat.  (She looked like Mamie from Gone with The Wind, done in miniature)

I remember Tom’s face.  I’d never seen him look like that before.  And that’s another thing I don’t have words for.  Thank God for cameras.

Maybe all parents feel this way, but I am in awe of my child.  She is just so smart.  She catches on to things so quickly.  I’ve always loved seeing children learn—that moment when something finally clicks and they just get it, (If I flip this switch, the light turns on.  Pink means all the things that look like that (flamingoes, and tutus, and PINK!)) but it’s so much more intense when it’s my child.  I derive a lot of joy from seeing her learn. 

But there’s also a lot of fear.  Fear that I’m doing it wrong.  Fear that something I neglect to do will limit her potential.  Fear that something I do will teach her to be angry like her mama.  She is so much like me.  And here’s the interesting thing—she’s like me now, not like me as a child.  She is independent and strong-willed.  I watch her at school, and she genuinely doesn’t care what the other kids are doing, she’s just doing her own thing, and if it overlaps, that’s fine, but if not, she’s going to continue doing her own thing.  I was the exact opposite as a child.  I was into everything, into everyone’s business, often to the point of being annoying. 

I watched the new Muppet Movie with Tom, and I walked out of the theatre wiping away tears.  We live in a very cynical world.  And though I often call it pragmatism or practicality, I’m a cynic.  I knew it when Conan made his goodbye speech to NBC, and I knew it when I walked out of that theatre.  And I’m terrified that Tom and I will accidentally infect our baby girl with that negativity.  We mock everything.  We always have.  Maybe it’s a defense mechanism.  And, honestly, our practicality is what is directly responsible for our level of success and comfortability in our lives.  We’re young, and we’re doing well.  We both have good jobs, and we’re both on a career path to have much better jobs in not much time.  And maybe we don’t love those jobs, but we certainly love the stability they provide.

But watching that movie, a movie about dreams and making them come true (on whatever scale possible)—a movie made by dreamers influenced in their childhoods by another dreamer who made the Muppets come alive—watching that movie made me question myself.  What doors did I close by taking the safe path to a steady job on a stable career path?

What doors do I risk closing for my little girl if I push her in the same direction? 

Tomorrow, my baby turns 2.  Tonight, at 12:04 am, I will most likely be in my bed, asleep, and there will be nothing to mark the anniversary of the most significant event in my life so far.

I know I said that I don’t have the words for this, and it’s true, as I’ve written this much and not yet hit upon my point.  I love her so much.  Out of that love comes a desire for everything to be the absolute best that I can get for her.  When she puts on her tutu and lifts her little leg behind her like the ballerinas she saw on the TV, I can see her on a stage, dazzling audiences.  When she rode the pony, I could see her taking care of a horse of her own.  She is a blank canvas, and I want her to write anything on that canvas that her heart might desire.  So, I wait, and I watch, waiting for something to become her passion, and trying to figure out how I can facilitate her dreams.

But no matter what her dreams are, the thing I want the most for her is happiness.  I want her to be happy.  I want her to have hope.  I want for her to never be angry at the world.  That may not be possible.  There are so many things to be angry about.  When I look at my baby, I see her joy.  The world is full of wonders for her right now.  And my birthday wish for her is that she never loses that. 

'Ship, Mommy!"

Last night, we had hamburgers for dinner.  Knowing Emmy's preference for ketchup, I made her little burger with cheese and ketchup.  Then I sat down to assemble my own burger. 

My daughter looks up and says, "Ship, Mommy?"

I look at her for a moment, then ask, "What do you want, honey?"

She points, and says, "Ship!"

This continues for about five minutes, as I pick up EVERY single thing on the table and say it's name.  "Do you want salt?" No.

"Do you want mommy's sandwich?"

No.

Do you want a pickle?  More drink?  A napkin?  I look at Tom, who shrugs.

Finally, at a complete loss for what "ship" could mean, I look at the last thing on the table, a giant bottle of ketchup. 

OH! I think to myself.  So I hold it up.  "Do you want ketchup, baby?"

Exuberant nodding.  "Ketship, mommy!"

So, when you come visit and I seem to be able to intuit what she wants despite her words seeming like complete nonsense, please know, it comes from exhaustive trial and error of picking things up and naming them until something sounds vaguely close.  We had this battle with necklaces, (I can't even remember her word for them, but it sounded like absolutely nothing and she kept pointing up, which made no sense, until I realized that Tom had looped a necklace over one of the cabinet knobs to get it out of her reach) oranges (ornge, mommy!), and many many other things. 

My favorite was "Myen-nyes."  Any guesses?  Myen-nyes is Daddy's favorite candy, Mike and Ikes, which he bought a bunch of tiny bags of for Halloween.  Of course, once we ran out of Mike and Ikes, she still pointed at the Halloween candy bowl, screeching for "Myennyes, mommy!"  So, one day, I gave her a tiny bag of m and m's instead, which was just fine.  So, apparently, myen-nyes means any candy.

I don't mean to make her sound like a spoiled rotten child who shrieks and gets what she wants.  She always asks very politely for what she wants, the first few times.  But when it takes me or Tom more than 3 guesses to get it, she gets frustrated.  And the screeching about the Myennyes was most likely because she knew good and well that there was still candy in the bowl (which Mommy was happily grabbing) so why would Mommy say there were no Mike and Ikes?  Once I figured out that "myennyes" was just "candy," peace was restored.  Except on the days when she asked for candy before dinner.

The Pony Ride (An Eventful Weekend)

It was a very busy weekend in the Watson household.  Emmy went to visit Santa, we put up our Christmas tree, Emmy threw several "I'm-two-now-and-I-want-you-to-know-it" tantrums, and poor Tom had to spend a big chunk of money on his car (Eleanor, his beloved Mustang).

The Santa trip went fairly well.  As soon as we can download the photo, we'll be sure to post a pic.  I had to go out Friday night to find a dress.  I went to Target first, because they usually have such cute toddler outfits, but this trip was a real bust.  Then I went to the mall, and checked all four children stores (Carters, Children's Place, Gymboree, and JC Penneys) and ended buying the dress I picked in the first store I went to (making the comparison shopping in all three other stores a waste of time-- hooray!).  We also got a pair of black patent leather shoes with a bow. 

The next morning, I got Emmy dressed and when I got the dress on her, she looked down at it and said, "Mommy, I princess!"  (Inward groan) So, she loved her "princess" dress.  I asked Tom if, instead of packing the dress up in her closet for a potential special occasion, we could just put it in her toy box for princess dress up time.  We almost never have any occasions to dress up, and it would be such a waste for her to never get to wear a dress she liked so much ever again.

Emmy did fairly well with Santa.  The wait was long and she got bored and fussy while we were stuck in line, but we utilized our Abby videos on YouTube (THANK GOD FOR IPHONES) and we got through it.  I was also fairly certain she was getting sick, but though she felt warm several times over the weekend (and was occasionally quite a bit fussier than usual), she never registered an actual fever.

When we finally got up to Santa, and she got put on his lap, she seemed a little wary, but we managed to get an acceptable photo.  When you see it, you'll notice that she is leaning decidedly away from Santa, but Santa is leaning right along with her, so it worked out for the photo.  If it wasn't such a pain, I might try again for a slightly better picture, but I don't really want to put any of us through that, so, c'est la vie.

On Sunday, Tom took his Mustang to get some brake trouble diagnosed, and because of the rather long wait, we decided that I should come pick him up and get a shopping trip done while we waited.  After shopping, on the way back to the car place, we passed an odd sight.  On the strip, just before the turn for the on-ramp, we noticed a small tent with a gaggle (flock? group?) of ponies, walking in a circle with saddles.  Tom said, "Do you think Emmy would like to ride a pony?"  As I swerved into the right lane to turn into the parking lot, I said, "No.  I think Emmy would LOVE to ride a pony!"

We were right, of course.  Emmy loved her pony ride. 

What Emmy did not love, however, was leaving after the pony ride ended.  After we loaded her in the car, while she screamed at us about her "horsie," she sobbed for roughly 20 minutes.  I dropped Tom off and took Emmy home, and she finally stopped crying as we pulled in the driveway.  That was a harrowing 20 minute ride.  I considered turning around and taking her back to the ponies.  I mean, it was a $5 pony ride.  Surely we could arrange to string a few more rides together since she loved it so much.  But I figured that having to leave the ponies was inevitable, and no matter how long she got to sit on her "horsie," she would cry when we left.  So, I stayed strong and took her home.

This morning, while getting dressed, Emmy asked me something about "horsie."  I asked if she rode a horsie this weekend, and she said, "okay."  Which is her way of saying, "Mom, I'd sure like to ride a horse again."

Update on pink.

This morning, I got out a pink shirt and socks for Emmy and when she saw them, she said, "pink."  And I asked her if she liked pink.

Her response?

"I looooove pink!"

So, yeah.  My daughter loves my least favorite color.

Emmy's Accent

Emmy is learning so much at daycare.  She can recite numbers from 1 to 10 (and sometimes up to 14, which is how many steps we have to get downstairs).  She also knows at least a few colors.  And she can sing her own version of several songs.  She sings twinkle, twinkle, little star; Baa baa black sheep; the Sesame Street theme song; and now, the ABC song.  Her version of the alphabet goes like this: "A B C D F I K, LMNO(this is just mumbling, and not the actual letters) Q S T XY."

If you start singing too, she'll stop you by saying, "No no no," because you'll sing it differently than she does.

Last night, in the car on the way home, she was jabbering away, and the only word I recognized was "mingo" (her word for flamingo, which is, at the moment, her favorite animal).  So, wanting to reinforce her attempts at language, I asked her what color a flamingo is.

She paused for a moment, saying "Uhhh," while she thought about it, then she said, "Pank!"

Oh my.  Clearly Mom and Dad were not the ones who taught her that color.

She also calls her sippy cup a new word.  She calls it her "drank."  This morning, when I made her put her coat on, she had to put her cup down, and she whined at me, "My drank!"  (At least it wasn't Mah Drank.)

Anyway, I got a video of her singing the alphabet song last night.  I'll try to get around to posting it this weekend.

I thought I had Halloween in the Bag...

I'll admit to some procrastination when it came to choosing a costume for Emmy.

A lot of that was because it felt weird to be imposing my taste on my daughter, but, at the moment, she can't really tell me what she would like to dress up as.  Also, I'm fairly certain she wouldn't understand the concept even if she did have the words to tell me.

Tom and I are pretty sure that the Princess Leia outfit would still fit, but we thought that we would look like bad/lazy parents if the photos indicate that we repeated a costume.

So, I looked around online for some good costumes.  I don't really like the cheaply made ones you can find at places like Party City and the Halloween sections of Target and Walmart.  Especially since they are never as cheap as they look.  I found a cute Little Red Riding Hood costume on Etsy, but as I'd waited so long to start shopping, I was concerned it wouldn't get here in time, and plus, the seller never answered my questions.

I also found some cute ideas for homemade costumes.  One was for a Hermione (Harry Potter) costume, which seemed like it should be easy, since you just get a school uniform and add a tie in the appropriate colors.  Unfortunately, even if anyone made school uniforms for children in size 18-24 months, it would be prohibitively expensive to buy all the pieces.  (Gray uniform skirt, gray sweater, white button down, tie, knee socks, wand)

So, I gave up on all those ideas.  It was looking like Princess Leia was going to be it.  But then, Emmy's daycare introduced Emmy to pumpkins.  When I went to pick her up, there was a picture posted of Emmy in the "pumpkin patch" and she was given a tiny pumpkin to bring home.  Emmy hasn't stopped talking about her pumpkin.  A couple of days later, she dragged me out to the area of lawn where the pumpkin patch had been (all that was left was the straw they had laid down).  She dug around in the straw for a minute, and I reminded her that there weren't anymore pumpkins there.  "Where they go?" She asked me.

Every night, at home, she takes her pumpkin all over the house.  It's been in the bath with her.  It's been beside her when she watched Sesame Street, and it's been on the table while we ate dinner.  Every time she sees it, she says, "Pumpkin!" and runs over to pick it up.

And now, every time she sees a pumpkin anywhere, she points to it and tells me that it's a pumpkin.  We got a Halloween card from her great-grandma Kelshaw, which, yes, had a pumpkin on it.  She grabbed the card and held it up.  "Pumpkin!" she said.

And so, I suggested to Tom, that since she seems to like pumpkins so much, maybe a pumpkin would be a great idea for a Halloween costume.  I found one online, with the option to pay extra so it would arrive in time, and I bought it.

It got here on Wednesday, and I showed it to Emmy, asked her what it was, and she told me, "pumpkin."  So, I asked if she wanted to put it on.  I had her step into the legs, and then pulled it up and tried to velcro it closed in the back.  That's when the trouble began.  "NO, No No," she said.  She tugged on the front and cried.  "No pumpkin."  So, we took it off.

Later that night, after bath time, we tried again, with just her diaper (so it wasn't so tight).  "No pumpkin," she didn't like it, but she was at least willing to sit in it while Daddy read her bedtime story.  Then she tugged at it again until I took it off.

Thursday night, we tried again.  "No pumpkin."  Although, she does seem to like the hat.  Friday night, she wouldn't even sit in it.  She just fussed and tugged at the neck until we took it back off.

Saturday, we went to a petting farm near my parent's house, so we took Emmy to visit after we were done petting goats and picking out pumpkins.  While she napped, we went shopping.  We stopped in four different children's stores, looking for a new costume.  I knew that I shouldn't expect anything, with kids already trick or treating at the very mall where we were shopping.


However, we were able to find something cute.  Unisex, but cute.  We found a little khaki shirt that said "zookeeper" on the patch.  Since our intention was to go to the trick or treating event at the zoo, we thought this costume was especially fitting.  And since it was just a shirt (the pants were way too big), and it could fit over her regular clothes, we thought (foolish foolish new parents) that Emmy would tolerate this one better.


Sunday afternoon, we got her up from naptime and started getting dressed for the event.  I put on her pants and a fleece jacket, socks, and then Tom tried to put on her new zookeeper shirt.

She freaked out.  She started crying.  Legitimate tears.  We ended up in the rocking chair in her room, with her curled in my lap, getting tears and snot all over my shoulder.  So, we gave up.  I took her downstairs and turned on a Halloween movie starring Shrek.  She calmed down and just watched.  A few minutes later, Tom came down with the shirt and she passively let him put it on her, never taking her eyes off the TV.  We grabbed a sippy cup and got in the car.

And we had a nice time.  Emmy tugged at the shirt a few more times, but for the most part, she didn't seem to care.  She figured out the trick-or-treating after about ten minutes and then she was running up to the volunteers to grab the candy.  But she always said Thank you.  We were a little late, and it got dark pretty quickly, so we didn't stay very long, but I think Emmy had a good time.  She also got to see her favorite zoo animals, the 'mingoes (flamingoes), who were actually pretty active at dusk (more active than when we usually visit), but they may just have been excited about all the people.

All-in-all, it was an educational Halloween.  And I still don't know why she hated both of the costumes, especially since the reaction was the same for both of them.  Maybe she just hates cheap fabric.