I've made resolutions for many, many years.  There's always to resolution to lose weight, or maybe eat out less, or just eat more veggies, or try new things that will eventually lead me to less weight.  And I'm still about 260, last I checked.  However, I'm cool with that this year.  Sure, I don't love my body, but I'm comfortable with myself and my flaws for the time being.

I resolve to write more, or to learn an instrument.  The usual. 

But none of that for this year.  This year, I'm just going to have hopes for myself.  If I fail, so be it.  I find that I've made more positive change to my life by going with the flow, than I have by trying to regulate and force and timeline it.

So, this year, I hope:

× I hope to be an attentive and exciting mother to my son, who will be a toddler all too soon!  (10 months already?  Where has the time gone!?)  On a related note, I hope to be an attentive and interesting wife to my husband. 

× I hope to be less reserved.  I'm at a stage in my life where we're getting ready to move away from our comfort zone, and after six years in Manhattan, it's going to be hard to put myself out there and make new friends.  I want to find myself less shy if I want to sing along with the radio at work.  I'm a damn fine not an awful singer, and I know it. I shouldn't be shy about my hobbies.

× I do hope to write more.  This is okay, because it's totally not a resolution. =D  And I hope to take the next step forward in making writing more of a career choice, and less of a career I hope to maybe have someday, if it's in the cards.

I had more at some point, but I can't think of anything more that I'm concerned about it.  If I can get these things working in life, I'll consider 2010 a successful year.

Tomorrow, I want to talk about 2010.  Tonight, I just want to wish you a happy, fun, and safe New Year's Eve!  I'm going to stay home, have the lamest party ever, and stream the NY broadcast on Hulu.

Yes, I missed yesterday (and likely today)

Given that it's almost the first of a year, and I've apparently just woken up from my post-pregnancy coma, I'm going to try to get back in the habit of blogging, and I'm going to go for Monday through Friday.  That's right.

And I'm serious about that post-pregnancy coma thing.  It's weird, but I never felt all that different -- except the addition of a child.  But I didn't really want to write, or do much.  I didn't exactly shower every day, and I didn't care much for making meals, or keeping things tidy.*  I wasn't really interested in sex, and getting enthused was some pretty hard work.  It happened, but not as often as before I had a baby.

He's almost ten months now, and all of a sudden around the nine month mark I wanted to do things again. I was writing, and it was fun.  I'm showering, styling my hair, even wearing make-up.  Sometimes.  We're cooking and cleaning and having a better time than ever, and our marriage feels like two people live in it again.  It's crazy.  Maybe it's that the baby is on more of a schedule now, or maybe it just took me that long to come to terms with my new identity -- who knows? 

But I am a happier person now, and I'm looking forward to the future.  =D

* Okay, that wasn't really new -- that I'm now trying to keep things tidy is the new part.

As you may know, I've been a mother now for nine months.  For the most part, I love it.  I feel like being a mom has mellowed out a lot of the crazies I was facing at twenty-one, when I felt so old and like my life was already over.  You can go ahead and assume that I had, among others, the severe baby-rabies.  (Amusingly enough, I had decided I was over that about two weeks before I discovered I was pregnant.)

I also spend a fair amount of time on the internet, particularly in the BabyCenter Communities.  Being pregnant for the first time and being the third of my friends to get on the baby-makin' train, it was a lot of fun and a great comfort.  One thing being a mother on the internet has made apparent, though, is that I don't display any real pride/venom over my parenting choices.

I feel bad about this, like if I don't make a big deal about something then I obviously don't care enough.  And it's not that I don't, it's just that I really don't feel like... well, like my parenting choices are all that big a deal at this stage.

I chose to breastfeed because it was the cheapest and easiest solution for our family.  When he was born it was not a priority for me, and I was okay if it didn't work out.  It worked out, I love it, and I even got sad when it looked like I wasn't going to be able to after four months. (We made it past that, FYI, and he still nurses well.)  I pumped at work for a long time, but now he has a bottle or two of formula when I'm at work.  I don't think that mothers who choose not to are bad mothers, or selfish, or should be made anti-examples of.  

I vaccinate because I think vaccinations save children from diseases that would have killed them thirty years ago.  I don't think it's a big deal for parents who opt not to, though.

I've used disposables forever, because I thought cloth diapering seemed gross.  I changed my mind because Rockin' Green Detergent looked awesome, and led me to read more about it.  I try this for the first time tomorrow (cloth diapering; we already tried and liked the detergent), and I hope I love it.  Because once the initial investment passes, it's cheap.  I don't think disposables are nasty or terrible.

It seems like the choices that are going to matter are the ones we make later, when he's cementing his personality and remembering how we raised him.  While some of these choices affect his health (I guess all of them, if we're counting cloth diapering as healthier), he'd undoubtedly be just as healthy if he was formula-fed, unvaccinated, and used disposables all his infancy.  I know what kind of parent I want to be as he grows, and I just don't feel like he's going to care how I diapered him when he's an adult.

I think I just worry that because I don't get riled up on any of the "big" parenting choices, that I seem blase in my parenting methods.  I don't think I am, but perception bothers me sometimes.

As a teenager I had this sort of dual mental image of myself. 

I was going to be a reculsive and brilliant writer.  I was going to lose eighty pounds or so between being 15 and an adult, and be fabulous.  I was going to throw parties, drink and rock out, and make lots of money.  Men would love me, and, oh, would I love them.

I was going to find love right out of high school.  We would have a lovely wedding, he would work while I raised a brood of children -- I wanted at least four.  We'd have a nice enough house, lovely children, and be financially stable enough.  I'd write, probably.  It had this kind of seventies, smoking and drinking while the children sleep thing going on. 

Of course, I never really accounted for reality in these things.  Editing.  College.  How really unpleasant pregnancy and childbirth can be.  (I did get pretty lucky on the love front, I won't lie about that.)  Marketing.  Hourly wage.  Bills.  The willpower it takes to lose eighty pounds or so.

So, sometimes, when I'm laying on the floor in the baby's room, waiting for him to stop screaming and just get some sleep already, I think back to this image.  How nice it was to imagine adulthood before I knew what it was like.

I am in the midst of my first thanksgiving as a mother and wife, and what I believe is the latest one to date.  Andy works until seven tonight, so we're planning on eight for dinner tonight.

We're going to have entirely too much food, for what I believe is going to be four people.  Five if you want to count a baby, who will probably have less than a spoonful of anything.  <3  We had a couple cancel out on us, and really, I always make too much food for these things.

But, I really just wanted to say, take care guys!  I'm going to play more Spore while there's a lull in food prep.