The Past

• Sum up the past year in one sentence:
  • I will never get the hang of… oh wait… never mind, things are okay
• What’s on the nightstand?
  • The past year I spent a lot of my reading energy starting books about parenting and then not finishing them because they were either too preachy, too cheesy, or too zen.  Eventually I gave up on improving my parenting through reading and went back to doing what I’m good at – and that is reading novels.  I read a couple of the China Bayles murder mystery novels which were good, but got too formulaic after the first two.  Early in the fall I settled into the Games of Thrones series, which I am STILL reading.  On the 5^th book and moving slowly, but dammit, I am going to finish it before I move on.
• What’s on the tube?
  • We remain purposely cableless because we just can’t reconcile how much cable is for how few channels we would actually watch.  Plus, Pat firmly believes that cable is the past and internet TV is the future.  So we use our Roku to stream Netflix and HuluPlus (both about $7 a month), and supplement those with Amazon.com rentals.  My favorite shows on TV right now are Parks and Rec and 30 Rock (so apparently I love the SNL ladies).  I’m also enjoying New Girl.  We starting watching all the back episodes of Breaking Bad a month or so ago as well, but we’ve also plowed through Friday Night Lights, Game of Thrones, and The Wire.
• Filling “spare” time?
  • I put “spare” in quotes because there isn’t a ton of un-used time on a daily basis.  That said, I’ve broken out my sewing machine again during the last year and worked up a couple things I’m proud of.  I also went through a baking-in-miniature phase this year where I couldn’t stop myself from baking tiny cupcakes/muffins/eggbakes/etc.  I haven’t been making much jewelry this year, but I have been reading when I get a chance.  I also fill blank time with the internets – more than I should, but I normally enjoy reading blogs, facebooking, etc.
• The revolving door of life
  • This year was a year of additions.  We had a few new babies join the mix, most notably my friend Alyssa’s baby girl, Winnie, who showed up in December , and several sons by way of coworkers.  There are many babies in the hoppers though, so I expect my 29^th year will also involve a lot of dropping off casseroles…   In a less direct sense, I added some new adults to my own regular social life this year including the Newell Park ladies, along with their husbands and children.  It is hard to make new friends when you are knocking on 30 since there aren’t a lot of opportunities to meet new people, but this is one place where the whole “better living through blogging” thing is SO TRUE.
• Where did I go?
  • Mostly to Target.    Other than that, most of my travel during the past year was directly related to visiting family or friends.  We almost went to the Bahamas for a dear friend’s wedding, but Milo’s surgery and recovery scrapped that plan.
• What did I do?
  • I did lots of things.  I parented a child through his first year and into his second.  I functioned on way less sleep than is healthy for a really long time.  I made new friends and maintained really great relationships with old ones.  I did a surprising number of projects around the house and yard including reworking the West side of the front garden, making a king size quilt (OMG it was a learning experience), I canned over 50 quarts of tomato sauce with a friend (and maybe more impressively, I grew pretty much all of the tomatoes used for the canning).  I traded in the good old Subaru for a minivan.  I dropped my gym membership because it just wasn’t worth it to me.  I got tenured at my job.  I made a lot of new types of food.  I started drinking coffee, eating onions and some mildly spicy things.  I cut about 12 inches off my hair at one time.  I sucked at wearing cute clothes.  I rocked at nursing my kid.  I kept almost all my house plants alive and I killed 11 fish.  Big year.
• What do I love?
  • I love my family.  So so so much.  This little pod of three is the source of so much joy so often.  I love that Milo is becoming a little person who interacts with his world.  I love that Pat worked hard and succeeded at relaxing a little more this year.  I loved sitting on the patio with my husband reading our books while Milo played at his water table.  I loved taking walks on the weekends and other “dadventures” that Pat planned.  I really loved my friends, those close and far away.  After those years of living in Chicago and having no real girlfriends to speak of I realize just how much I NEED female companionship and I feel like I really have a variety of it through work, mom friends, neighbors, and old friends from high school.  I loved getting to spend time with our extended family.  I loved finally figuring out that I needed some time to myself in order to feel whole and planning daycare accordingly.  I loved the long fall we got. I loved MPR.
• What do I not love?
  • I really did not love Milo’s surgery and recovery process.  That fucking sucked.  It was emotionally, mentally, and physically terrible and I sincerely hope that the next surgery will be easier for us to deal with.  I hated politics and rhetoric.  I felt like 2011 was just a shit show that made me distance myself from politics, which is a bummer because I love to be informed and have opinions and feel hopeful that there is a working system in place.  Now I pretty much just feel like integrity is non-existent and people just say whatever shit they think others want to hear.  I actually think that Obama isn’t sucking as bad as everyone says he is, but that there is NO cooperation anywhere, so how can anyone move forward.  Suck Suck suck.  Last, but not least, I was pissed that we didn’t get snow in December.  I missed winter and my white Christmas.

The Present

• Standard routine:
  • Wake up, Pat brings Milo into bed, Milo nurses/jumps all over us, everyone gets up, eat breakfast, go to work, teach, pick up Milo, come home to play/get dinner ready, eat dinner, play, take bath with Milo, put Milo to bed, watch TV with Pat, read, sleep.  On weekends that routine changes to a going to play somewhere else or with friends.  Also, sometimes it means I sleep in.  J
• Feelings on work
  • Love it.  Sometimes I get frustrated with grading and with the feeling that people just are not getting quality k-12 education and are woefully under prepared to do, um, anything, after high school.  Most of the time, I feel excited that I get to talk about things I think are interesting and try to help people appreciate the world around them.  I really love my colleagues and my dean and I feel like there is a wonderful atmosphere at work.  I ENJOY going to the office.
• Feelings on kids
  • They aren’t so bad.   I think that I really like toddlers and I’m not a huge fan of infants.  And I think that is totally okay.  And if you want to judge me on that statement somehow, to you I say “screw off.”  Infants are squishy and cuddly and a wonderful reminder that life is amazing, but toddlers are PEOPLE.  They have feelings that consist of more than not crying and crying.  They know joy.  A toddler is just the truest display of the range of human emotion.  They force you to do all the awesome stuff you stopped doing because you got too old for fun.  I think we’ll have more at some point in the future, maybe one, maybe two more, but I also have moments where I feel like Milo is perfect and we are just fine as a family of three.
• Feelings on marriage
  • Marriage is the best.  I find myself being that lady who just wants everyone to get married – not because I have some ridiculous notion about marriage and family values and society or some crap like that – because I like being married so much and I want all people to be happy all the time.  Sometimes I feel like Pat and I are still getting to know each other and in sometimes I feel like we are two sides of the same coin.  We are getting a lot better at talking about our needs and about helping each other feel content, but we also still butt heads regularly – mostly on issues of time (who gets it, what the priorities are, how we spend it, etc).  I still like to get really mad all of sudden over small things and Pat still likes to try to approach any argument like it is a logistics problem.  But I’m getting better at cooling down more quickly and he is getting better at incorporating emotions.  We grow.  We raise our son.  We go on dates.  We try really hard to be good to each other.  What more is there?
• Feelings on world in general
  • Tumult ruled.  Revolts became common in some parts of the world.  Governments teetered.  I can’t imagine that is anything new, but I do feel like the past year was a year of adjusting.  And I think the years to come will be too.  In a lot of ways, it seems like this is all a reality check that was long overdue and that I am kind of glad is happening.

The Future

• What’s coming?
  • I don’t have anything big planned for the last year of my twenties (sorry folks).  We don’t plan to move.  I don’t see any job changes for me.  Pat will still be in school.  I don’t see us adding any new members to the family.  I don’t see any big trips or huge events.  I hope to get some more yard work done and to finish up the play room downstairs.  I hope to repaint our bedroom.  I hope to work on improving my wardrobe.  I hope Milo’s second surgery is uneventful.  I hope I make another quilt.  I started this year feeling like we were barely hanging on to sanity and ended it feeling like we are doing okay, even wonderful most of the time.  I hope we are lucky enough to lead fairly quiet and happy lives for another year.

To be fair, this could be a fluke.  BUT, we have been working on counting on our fingers a lot recently and talking about “how many” we have of things.  When ever anyone says any number string, he starts putting up random assemblages of fingers and going “one two free two foo ahh nee soo”  So we kind of lose track after three, but by god, the kid is trying.

The small sentences are wonderful and still kind of rare, but he is mastering putting together really fantastic two word combos.  For instance, when Pat was driving Milo home from daycare today, Milo sat in the back seat yelling “Mommy Go Go!” to encourage Pat to get home faster.  He says “Thank you” (which sounds like “ti ti”) whenever he shares something, and that is the odd part.  He doesn’t necessarily say “thank you” when he receives something, but always when he gives something.  We get lots of “peeeeasee” these days too when he would like something.

One of my favorite little quirks is that he likes to add “eeee” onto pretty much all words.  Going to the doctor?  Nope, going to to the doc-eee.  We wash ourselves with soap-eee and then moisturize with looshee.  We read lots of bookeees.  He needs helpeee to take off his jack-eee (jacket).  This tendency becomes really comical when coupled with words that already end is an “eeee” sound.

When things make him laugh, or make someone else laugh, Milo will let you know he enjoys it by saying “Thats FUNNY!”

I particularly love when he narrates a scene while he creates it.  For example, he will find his baby doll and decide the “baby pooped.”  And we need a new “diapeee.”  Then he’ll run down the hall and by the time you catch up, he’ll have stripped the baby of its diaper and tossed the doll up on the changing table and be asking for “new diapee, clean clean.”

Yesterday I found him in his nursery staring at the wall and when I walked up to him he pointed to the wall and said “trees?  He had just realized that there were trees on his bedroom wall and the trees had birdies and OH MY GOD we love birdees.   It is weird when he suddenly finds the word for something that has always been there and discover it all over again.

When he sees things he likes, he calls them out and then asks for more.  This is fine when the thing is an orange or Daddy doing something funny but it gets more complicated when a huge garbage truck drives by and then Milo stands there very innocently and intently requesting “more truck.”  Yes son, excuse me while I go run after the garbage man and ask him to take a few labs by the house for our amusement.  The ridiculous thing is that I would totally consider doing it.

Still, and I’m guessing for a while to come, the most common phrase from his mouth is “wasssat?”   Good boy, Milo.  Good boy.

He asks for kisses and head bonks (which is a loving gesture in our home), and cuddles.  And when we ask him to ROOOAAARR, he does.

Our leon.

As I mentioned above, I pretty much start anticipating the entire holiday season in, oh, say, September.  The first sign of cooler weather triggers my desire to sip pumpkin or mint cocoa by a fire, wrap things, and smell pine 24/7.  Thanksgiving is like the kick off, and as soon as we got home from Chicago this year, we ran out and cut down our Christmas Tree and set the radio dial to 102.1 – the 24 hour Christmas station.  The tree was up and decorated before December even began because, damnit, I want to milk every moment of holiday cheer out the season that I can.

All the ornament should hang in one place, not evenly distributed over the tree the way Mom wants.

Without snow or really any indication that it was, in fact, December, we made sure to get out to lots of different holiday events, most of which Milo seemed to really enjoy.  I imagine that bringing a load of children to the Holidazzle Parade or Macy’s 8th floor Elf Land would not be quite as magical, so I feel really glad that we are getting a chance to milk the 2:1 parent to child ratio for all it is worth.  Fortunately, Milo doesn’t need siblings of our own, because we’ve got friends with kids!  All the fun, none of the work. 

Dashing through the (lack of) snow, in a (two reindeer) open sleigh, over the "parking lot" we go...

Laughing all the way!

We talked a lot about Santa this year.  I know that some people don’t do the Santa thing, but whatever.  I love Santa.  And for the record, I totally think he in exists.  Mostly because, why not ya know?  Couldn’t we all stand more magic and generosity in our lives?  I maintain that I heard hooves on the roof above my bedroom when I was 13 (please note, at that age I OBVIOUSLY knew that a jolly old man did not come down my chimney), and my brothers concur.  I’m a believer and I hope Milo can be a believer too.  At least for a while.  So we talked about Santa.  And as it happens, we seem to have done a really good job of it because Milo is still spotting Santas everywhere.  David the Gnome = Santa, old black lady janitor at daycare with santa hat on = Santa!, Target deli employees wearing white chefs hats and red shirts = SANTA!!   Unfortunately…

An actual Santa = T.E.R.R.I.F.Y.I.N.G.

Like last year, we had both sides of our immediate family down to our place for a few days over Christmas.  This works because 1) no one is our immediate families is crazy, and 2) our wonderful neighbor lends us their house while they are with family over the holidays so, between the two houses, everyone has an actual bed and a little bit of quiet space.  Pat and I do a big soup dinner on the 23rd, Pat’s folks do their traditional Christmas Eve dinner (AMAZING french onion soup, cesear salad, prime rib, twice baked potatoes, and veggies), and my folks do their traditional Christmas Day dinner (which is basically Thanksgiving 2.0 and every bit as good).  There are lots of pies, cookies, banana bread, beers, and napping.  Auntie Catie read Milo every book in the whole house, Uncle Billy’s beard warranted frequent touching, and Uncle C.J. and his dog, Hugh, provide near constant babytainment.  Meanwhile the Grandparents fill in any left over minute with hugs and shoulder rides.  It is not a bad deal to be the only grandchild on either side of the family.  We put the finishing touches of the christmasing of the house in the week before everyone came, so our Christmas Eve looked like this:

Just waiting for people to come sit down and become uncomfortably full

My 2011 Christmas Crafting. A hanging centerpiece above the table.

And of course, the head of the table...

And in addition to all this eating, there were, of course, presents.  So many presents.  So presents that my present to Milo was a new playroom downstairs (for yet another post) in which to put them all.  The most wonderful part about watching Milo opening gifts was that, every time he would rip off the paper and see whatever the gift was, he would go “oooooohh WOOOOOW!”  Such joy.  It didn’t matter if it was socks or a play kitchen.  He went right to work playing with everything and is still going strong today.  Milo and Pat have been particularly fond of the train table.  Milo likes to stack things on it.  Pat likes to build crazy extravagant train loops after Milo goes to bed.  Milo also enjoys making “soup” in the sink of his play kitchen (making soup entails putting everything you can fit in the sink and stirring vigorously).

I'm not sure I'm doing this the right way...

But I'm SURE I'm using this the right way!

It was, as always, a wonderful chance to get to spend time with our families and remind ourselves of how fortunate we are to come from such good stock.  After everyone headed back to their respective homes on the 26th, Pat and Milo and I bundled up for a nice quiet walk to sort of unwind from the flurry of the weekend.  “Bundled Up” requires air quotes, because it was about 55 degrees in the shade and the most mild post-Christmas day I can remember.  We walked through the Reservoir Woods up in Roseville and smelled the dirt and looked at birds and ate snacks.

Will walk for Crunchies

Always gleeful for a ridealong.

As if to wrap up our holiday weekend, when we turned back towards the car on a different trail we found this little pine all dressed up for Christmas.  It was sitting there snowless and sparkly and just perfect in every way.

I love you little tree. And little boy. And husband.

Say "Cheeeese!" School picture from Fall 2011. Note the fading forehead bruise.

I’ll be the first to admit that  I might be a little biased here, but only because I get to spend more time with him than anyone else.  No other reason.

He walks.  And runs.  And falls a lot.  He talks.  He babbles in English as well as some language I do not speak, but sounds like the gibberish equivalent of Spanglish.  He screams and chortles and rawrs and whispers and gives really wonderful kisses and cuddles if you ask him to.  He points at EVERYTHING and says “Whasat?”  Alternately, he loves to point at things and have you name them.  High on the list of wonderful things in his world are elephants, birds, cars, “cookies,” blueberries, hiding, throwing balls (or, as Milo says, “THROWM!), and drawing.  He also likes to load up a little shopping cart/man purse/arms and transport materials around the house.  He loves snow and when we are graced with the white stuff he stands by the window and just yells “SNOW” until you bundle him up and take him out.  He loves coming home to a parent in the house, or being in the house when a parent comes home (pretty much anything that involved anticipating seeing a parent is SO EXCITING!).  He thinks it is really fun to put food on the floor for the cats, but then does this big dramatic hand gesture and says “STOP” whenever they get close to the food.  He is having a love/hate relationship with the blender because he hates the noise it makes it makes but loves smoothies.  Like a moth to flame…

Or a butterfly to a finger..

Milo is now aware of the pantry and the fact that it holds “cookies.”  I put that word in quotes because his standards for what counts as a cookie is very low.  We just call everything that is small and crunchy a cookie, so this includes actual cookies, crackers, dehydrated fruit chips, etc.  So god help you if you should open the pantry when he is around because all you will hear is this tiny adorable voice going, “cooookie?  mah cooookie?   mah coookie?”  It is really hard to not just give him a “cookie” when this happens because Pat has taught Milo that anytime he gets a “cookie” he will get two (one for each hand), and then he must to the cookie dance upon receiving them.  Teaching your child weird rituals is one of the many bonuses of parenting.

He knows what is hiding in the leaves...

Building with blocks is big activity these days.  He is constantly taking out the big cardboard blocks and building little structure in which to “hide” his animals.  Pat recently commented that Milo’s architectural philosophy can be summed up in one word, “Pie.”  To translate, “pie” is what “up high” sounds like.  It is awesome because when they are building towers with the blocks, Milo just constantly sticks more and more blocks on while yelling “PIE” and then eventually feeding Pat blocks to place higher than he can reach.

Building with blocks? Good. Building with blocks in a cape with no pants? Great.

Sleeping keeps getting better.  Milo sleeps from about 7:30pm – 7:30am more nights than not.  A couple times a month he will randomly have a series of wakeful nights that we can’t really explain.  Sometimes he is stuffed up, and I think he sometimes has dreams now that wake him, but mostly I can’t tell you why he wakes up, just that he needs a little reassurance and generally goes right back to sleep.  We are much more relaxed about it now too since it doesn’t feel like it will never end.  Even on those bad nights, I rarely wake up in the morning feeling like I won’t be able to get through the day.  The more I talk to parents of toddlers and kids, the more I realize that few children ALWAYS sleep through the night and most wake up now and then and we (parents at large) just deal with it.  A couple awesome little sleep-related tidbits: Milo’s sleeps with a blanket over his head most of the night.  He sleeps with his two little black kitties in his hands, and his puppy by his head, and occasionally his “baby” in the mix as well.  Sometimes he will wake up at night, gather his puppy, kitties, and blanket all in his arms and then lay down on top of them.  I love having a video monitor.

On the food front, I believe we have worked our way through all the stages of grief.

DENIAL:  Little kids just eat like little birds, and lots of people struggle with eating issues – we’ll just keep using tricks to get him to eat and eventually he will just wake up one day and be a good eater.
ANGER:  Dear child, you MUST EAT OR YOU WILL STARVE!
BARGAINING:  Okay, eat this shred of chicken and I’ll give you a blueberry!
DEPRESSION:  He is going to be 25 and still only eating bunny crackers, cheese, and blueberries and beans.  Why are all these other kids hoovering their food?  What is wrong with us?!
ACCEPTANCE:  You can lead a Milo to the table, but you can’t make him eat.  So just give him food and let him figure it out.

Since you aren't eating, you might as well practice your buffalo impression. TaTONKA!

Milo still nurses a couple times a day, and it is still working out for us just fine.  He usually isn’t demanding, and it is clear that he still really loves that snugly time together.  We always nurse in the mornings and it is part of what has become sort of a centering family ritual for us.  Every morning when Milo wakes up, Pat goes to get him and brings Milo into our bed.  Milo and I nurse and Pat lays back down and snoozes. Eventually Milo starts talking to us about birds or Honey (one of our cats), or asks to be “hiding” and we throw a blanket over his head and peek at him.  Sometimes we’ll read a book from the night stand.  Sometimes we’ll talk about the bears on his pajamas.  It always ends with Milo crawling on my head and Pat leading him off to the kitchen for breakfast.  I love it.  It is so nice to be able to sort of check in all as a family in bed for 25 minutes every morning before we head off to our separate places.

We were fortunate to get to stay close to home this past fall, but did head down to Chicago for Thanksgiving.  Milo did pretty well on the long drive and was so happy to see all his Illinois family.  He loved running around Great Grandma and Grandma’s house and playing with his 2nd cousins (the only cousins he has   ) and ALL the dogs that were around that weekend.  At Christmas, which I will address more fully in another post, he was so pleased to have a constant stream of book readers, block builders, chasers, and huggers at his disposal.  I think he remembers Grandparents pretty well now.  We went Winona over New Years and Milo and my dad spent a lot of quality time doing grandfatherly stuff (laying on the floor looking at the ceiling, practicing blowing their noses with a whole roll of toilet paper, throwing things down the laundry shoot and retrieving them 800 times, playing with tape measures), so during the trip pretty hard to saying “Grandpa” which comes out at “Boppa.”  Every morning now when Milo wakes up (still, more than a week later!), he climbs into our bed and goes “Boppa?  Boppa?  Boppa?”  It is adorable and makes my Dad want to run up to the cities every time we report on it.  I love having a child who realizes he is part of a family beyond just Pat and I.

Grandpas make great perches

Throughout the holidays, we loved involving Milo in the things that Pat and I love about the season.  In addition to getting to do all our normal stuff (go cut a tree, decorate the house, listen to A LOT of Christmas music, drink eggnog, bake cookies, etc), having a small child has given us the chance to get out in to the community and enjoy a few of the many things going on around the city.  This exposure is such a nice perk of parenting!  I love my hometown, but Pat and I were talking last night and decided that living in St. Paul is just the bees knees.  We have easy access to so many wonderful things.  I don’t remember going to the MN Zoo even once while I was growing up (granted, we were frequently visitors to the Winona Deer Park!), and Milo gets to go at least once a month.  The museums and children’s theatre are year round options, but this winter we’ve taken in the Holidazzle Parade, the Macy’s 8th floor Elf Land, the St. Anthony Park neighborhood festivities (complete with reindeer and Santa!), and many other smaller holiday-type fun.

The picture quality isn't great, but the intention is so perfect!

All the these wonderful things around the cities have been made all the more wonderful by having really started to get comfortable with lots of “family” friends.  Not like people my folks knew, but rather those friends of ours who have really turned out to be friends of ALL of ours.  It has been freeing in a way that I haven’t felt since we left the world of free-ranging couples going out whenever/where ever we wanted.  And now that Milo actually PLAYS with other kids instead of just sits around and watches, everyone has a great time.  It is weird to imagine that someday he’ll have friends of his own that I don’t know well or, worse, don’t have a chance to screen based on their parents. 

With a new semester getting underway and the holiday break behind us, we are looking forward to watching Milo morph from a chirping bird (who spends an awful lot of time says “birdie, birdie, birdie!) to a full blown chatting two year old.  Who is this little boy we love so much?!

Aaaand cut.

Our previous experiences with professional photographers involved:

• a 900 year old wedding photographer who tried to make us late for our own wedding and took pretty uniformly crappy pictures
• a newborn photographer who was upset that our 6 day old baby wouldn’t fall asleep on command (hey lady, I got news for you, this was the beginning of a trend…)

So yeah.  I would put us in the “once bitten, twice shy” category, but also in the “oh holy hell we need a picture of the three of us that isn’t taken by Pat’s outstretch arm!”  And let me tell you, I’m so glad not only that we gave it a go, but that we had the good sense to hire someone that 1) we knew was awesome as a person, 2) we had seen LOTS of his pictures previously and had an idea of his flavor of photography, and 3) had a small child himself so wasn’t phased by the fact that my child was, in fact, a one year old.

In addition to the photo we put on our holiday card, he also captured these gems.

Hats off to Nate Grahek over at: www.nathangrahek.com

Finally. A photo of Milo and Mom

Naturalist in training

Milo plane

Cool AND chilly

Birdie! Always with the birdies!

Glllleeeeeee!

Sharing

Fall is falling

Family blanket time

Fly over

soooooo much cooooollll

Crazy, right?  I know what you are thinking.  You are thinking “wow, I’m really surprised that Maggie would go and buy a minivan.  She seemed more hip than that.”  And my response to you is “WRONG.”

It turns out that I am not hip at all and I would like to offer the following pieces of evidence to support my claim:

1. I don’t ever wear high heels.  In fact, when I see them now I don’t even think “Aw ma feet would look smoking in those!”  Instead the inner monologue goes something like “Ugh, I can feel my toes pinching just looking at these things!  I bet they don’t provide any lower back support.  What the hell kind of socks do people wear with those?!”
2. When we went to Bon Iver concert last month, I was shocked to find that mustaches had made a comeback.  Apparently they have been in style for years!
3. If people ask about the new car, I go on and on about the power sliding doors and the stow-n-go seats.

I find myself giving up on parts of my pre-child identity kind of regularly these days.  Fancy clothes I thought I might wear again are begin consigned or given away in favor of things that are machine washable and don’t have any embellishments.  Artsy marble lamps are stowed to make room for a little art table.  Truly wonderful shoes have been donated in favor of Dankos and Birkenstocks.  Time consuming hobbies are neglected in favor of building forts and cleaning my house.  Trashy, delicious novels are replaced with terrible terrible books like “What Cat is That?”  As often as not, date nights mean one of us goes out with friends while the other stays home because we don’t want to pay someone $10 an hour to sit on our couch while the baby sleeps.

I know I have been losing these things since Milo was born, but I think I recently reached a point where I made the mental adjustment that totally accepted this was the new me, not some temporary Maggie that just stepped in momentarily to take care of business.  The mid-20-something Maggie is as much a thing of past as 15 year old Maggie is.  Things about me and things in my life will truly never be as they were before Milo came.

And ya know what?  I’m glad.  I think I like this more.

It is more chaotic.  It is exhausting.  I never sleep through the night.  I never sleep in.  I never spend more than 25 minutes putting myself together.  I never bring a glass of wine into the shower while getting ready to go out for the night.  It is more expensive.  It is more stressful.  I feel a little closer to the edge of my sanity all the time.  It can be lonely.  It can feel thankless.

It also is more fun than I think I’ve ever had in my life.  This Maggie doesn’t spend half as much time caring about what other people think.  This Maggie gets over things a lot faster.  This Maggie has much more empathy for pretty much everyone.  This Maggie is really good at loving and liking people around her.  This Maggie feels purposeful and powerful all the time.  Things are unpredictable, yet I do more planning now than ever.  Things are messy, though I spend more time cleaning.  I spend less time eating even though I spend more time cooking.

I am all out, full on, utterly, totally, and completely thankful to get to be the new Maggie though.  With less time, less sleep, and less money, I have so much more than I did two years ago.  And I had an awful lot back then too.  But I think I am better at seeing through the embellishments now and getting down to the real substance.  And it turns out the substance is what it always was – family and friends.  Thanks. 

Lots of Ring around the Rosie

Milo didn't really understand the "fall down" part, but Annie was all over it. That girl has mad ring-around-the-rosie skill!

Everybody now!

That chair is for the birds

Sit down and smile? How about stand up and laugh?!

Almost of group shot except that Milo in incapable of posing.

On Halloween evening, we opted to hang around the house and let Milo “help” pass out candy to trick-or-treaters.  And by pass out candy, I mean stand in the doorway and wave bye-bye to everyone who came.  He also tried to pilfer candy for himself, but fortunately he has no skill when it comes to unwrapping.  Thus we were saved from a massive sugar crash later on.  I think my favorite part of Halloween 11 was Milo running around flapping his Parrot wings and shrieking paired with the fact that he was mildly terrified of his own costume when he wasn’t inside of it. 

The hat had to be part of his costume for a while

The trick-or-treaters are coming!

Small bird

Can you guess which one is Milo's?

All the pumpkins are belong to Milo