The close of 2012 is upon us. Instead of doing crazy things, I’m older now and sort of lame and counting down the minutes until bed time instead of the Times Square ball drop. C’est la vie, right?
This morning I decided to dig through the archives on ye olde blog to see what happened this year. One thing I noticed is that I averaged posting 10 times a month. Another is that there was a whole lot more that happened this year that I just didn’t write about. So next year–tomorrow–I should fix that, I guess.
In January, I started my dream job, part time, as a TV Critic/reviewer for TV Fanatic. It’s basically as awesome as it sounds. I watch TV and they pay me to write about it. What started as me covering American Idol blossomed into me also covering Real Housewives of Orange County, Bones, Glee, Scandal, participating in Round Tables for The Vampire Diaries and Burn Notice, and pinch hitting for Dexter and Major Crimes. And let’s not forget America’s reality-TV sweetheart Emily Maynard, The Bachelorette.
February brought about a lot of discussion and explanation of my decision to VBAC and why I believe it’s so important that we evaluate our choices. Our choices affect the choices others can make and while that shouldn’t be the case, I believe it is.
In March, I started my fourth decade.
April was huge, of course. I rocked a med-free VBAC after about 14 hours of labor and we welcomed Emma into our family, this blog, and the world.
In May, I handed over my resignation in a quest to simplify our life. I packed six years of my life into the back of a Highlander and drove away with my career in my rearview and my sights on being a stay at home mom.
Then came summer and with summer came challenging days where I questioned my ability to mom both kids at once. The year is over and I still don’t have any answers to this. I’m never entirely sure whose needs come first and whether emotional or physical are more important. I’m doing the best I can. I’m not supermom. I’m just giving them fodder for therapy one day.
July was a tough month. I hadn’t (and still haven’t really) hit my stride in this new life. There were a lot of “those days” and I did a lot of reflecting on them. Then in late July, after Emma’s 100 day birthday, the kids and I loaded up and took a trip to visit my sick grandfather. It wasn’t a trip I wanted to take, but it was one I needed to take. Joshua and I will probably forever be finding our way around one another’s hearts. Such is the life of the pioneer children who make us mothers in the first place.
In August, I took another trip. To BlogHer. With a baby. I saw New York City for the first time and marveled at how alive the city feels. I took a stand for nursing in public in honor of World Breastfeeding Week.
Everyone went back to school in September. Except me. And I didn’t miss it. And I still don’t. But that doesn’t mean there weren’t and aren’t hard days. So I wrote myself a letter to read on the bad days.
In October, I had to go back to the doctor to have the doctor give my lady bits a look-see. That ended with silver nitrate in my nethers and a funny story for me to tell.
November was my grand attempt at NaBloPoMo. I failed. It’s okay. I do that from time to time. My favorite post from the month is this one about finger dimples and the ways childhood is a blink-and-you-miss-it affair. My kids, so big already, but still so small in my heart. And then there was my recipe for Apple Crisp. Mmm.
December started with a four day internet outage from which I never seemed to recover. Truth be told, the time change and resulting earlier nightfall has kind of done a number on my mood and my motivation. There were things I wanted to say that just didn’t get said. Oh well.
Thank cheez-its, there’s always next year.
Alena
Tuesday 1st of January 2013
To 2013, a year filled with more Ian images than we will ever know what to do with!