2010: Making Peace

So I thought about New Year’s resolutions back when it was actually New Year’s, and started this post, but didn’t finish it, and then the kids and I caught The Plague, and suddenly it’s February. So I’m making some Chinese New Year’s resolutions instead and wishing you all a very happy Year of the Tiger.

I thought about goals for 2010 and came up with a bunch of things that would be nice to change. Things like “drink less Diet Coke” and “stop biting my nails” and “actually put away laundry the same week I wash it.” I realized that all of my little resolutions had a larger overarching theme of “making peace” and changing my attitude, specifically making peace with my body and with my house.

I can’t call my extra weight baby fat any more since my babies turn three in March. Four years of fertility drugs, and carrying one set of twins for 21.5 weeks and another for 35, changed my body in lots of ways that I don’t like. And it’s hard to be motivated to take care of my body when part of me still blames it for losing Sam and Emilie. But I realize that I’ll be a better mom to Henry and Eleanor if I put myself first sometimes, and work to get in better shape. Plus there’re health issues that I either have or have risk factors for that would be lessened with exercise. And it would be nice to go clothes shopping and come home with actual purchases instead of frustration that nothing fits. I’ll always have weird mental tics over my faulty girl-plumbing and the heartache it’s caused, but I need to work on accepting my new post-kids body and take better care of it.

Andy and I moved into our house in June 2003 and immediately commenced the worst four years of our lives. As a result this house has never felt like home. We followed our bad years with sharing the house with infant twins, so we’ve never fully settled in. There are still unpacked boxes in our garage and nails left by the previous owners in the guest-room walls. It’s been really hard to get past all the bad memories this house holds. But in this economy it’s stupid to move because you think your house has bad mojo, so we’re staying put. This year I need to focus more on the three best years of our lives that followed our four worst. This house is where we brought Henry and Eleanor home, where they took their first steps. We have a great big yard for the kids to run around in, and their future grade school is just down the road. And I live in the middle of three (THREE!) different Targets, all a 5-minute drive away. Best of all, we got the house for such a good price it helps us afford to let me be a stay at home mom. There are certain physical aspects of the house I’ll have to suck it up and deal with (carpet, windows, kitchen) but I can work on my attitude and do my best to turn our house into a home this year. It will be a lot of organizing, cleaning, purging, possibly painting, and (fingers crossed) a new deck. I can’t take away all the bad events that filled the house, but I can choose to focus on creating a welcoming environment for my family to create many more happy memories.

So why am I telling you all of this? I figured if I share my resolutions with the internet, you guys can hold me accountable. If you catch me slacking, I give you permission to tell me, “Hey, Chubby McLazypants, put down the Diet Coke and pick up the Dyson.”