2011 is drawing to a close.
It is a cozy close, a calm and tea-by-the-fake-fireplace sort of close.
It has been a calm year, really.
Busy days but all of them cluttered mercifully with not much more than the bits and minutae of daily life. The cleaning and driving and cooking of it; walks around the block and pushing kids in swings; the softness and the brutality of routine.
Not much has changed this year, at least nothing monumental. Personally speaking-- I've lost about 15 pounds and have made exercise and writing more a habit in my life. I've learned how to fit more and more in my day and discovered how much I value a clean kitchen before bed. I've woken up early for work and driven a lot and I've learned to love listening to books on tape during my commute. I've gotten a new car and a new phone and some new clothes. I've taken my children to the library and the playground and Target and the museums; I've cooked a lot of Mac-n-cheese. I've spent far too many hours on the couch with the dog and a computer on my lap. I've been to Denver and Guernsey and Aurora and Farley'; return trips one and all but wonderful all the same.
I've watched my children grow and change each and every day and I've settled just a tiny bit further into my role as their mother.
It gets a little, tiny bit less strange with each passing year, this role.
In 2011, I have not had nearly as many moments where I catch a glimpse of myself in a mirror and think, with shock, My god, I am someone's MOTHER.
Rather, this year I am struck with amazement that I have TWO children. Two actual-factual kids who belong to me, who are from me and of me and wrap up my history and my future and my mortality and eternity all in their warm, soft-skinned little selves.
At years end these two little beings are amazing in every way. From their skin and their lips and their hands and their little nails that grow oh-so-fast, the sheer physicality of them, to their smiles and their words and their laughter and the way their noticing changes my noticing, completely altering the way I see the world.
My amazement is not always suffused with joy. Not at 3am when I am amazed, continually, at just how long a little girl can refuse to sleep through the night. Not at the dinner table when I am amazed that I seem to have birthed not one but two picky eaters. Not at 6:30pm when I am exhausted from a day at work and amazed at the energy the children still seem to have, and the chaos they leave in their wake.
But somehow that is all drowned out when I see these two magical creatures laughing together over some private joke that sounds an awful lot like random squeaking to my adult ears. Or when I snuggle with my boy before bed and am awestruck by his thoughtful questioning of the world. Or when I burrow my nose into my girl's feather-blonde hair and breathe in her scent. When I hold my son's hand and marvel that this was the tiny baby I brought into the world, just 4 short years ago. When my girl dances on her tiptoes and hugs her babies and declares the world to be "mine!" and I see time racing away from the day she was my tiny baby, too.
They are amazing. They are breathtaking.
And if 2011 was unremarkable and calm and yes, nigh boring-- I will revel in it and be grateful to it for each and every day of regular-daily-life it has given me with my children. With this little family of mine. Tucked in our little home in this little city, leading our ordinary lives.
How lucky are we?
May 2012 bring more of the same.
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