I hold this truth to be self-evident: that anything meant to be frequently in contact with water (shower rack, for example) should not be made out of metal that rusts easily. Because SERIOUSLY. How dumb.

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One of the children in our household brought home information about The Constitution, and what surprised me is that reading it chokes me up as quick as hearing The Star-Spangled Banner: at some point in my own educational experience my brain hard-wired this stuff to Deep Emotion.

It occurred to me later while making dinner that “We hold these truths to be self-evident” is super-gorgeous writing. It’s all, “We don’t think this even needs to be said, BUT HERE IT IS IN CASE SOME OF YOU ARE A BIT SLOW AND NEED TIME TO CATCH UP.”

But then I thought how obnoxious I’d find that phrase if I didn’t agree with one or more of the truths. Which I would then refer to as “truths,” using a sarcastic tone of voice. But it’s hard to argue with “all men are created equal.” Isn’t it. Except for the part where “men” means “oh, women too, obviously.” Because the word “people” would mean typing FOUR MORE LETTERS GAH NO WAY DEAL-BREAKER AMIRITE??

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When I learned about The Declaration of Independence in school, I don’t remember it affecting me as sentimentally. It’s kind of like poetry: it takes some slow reading and some mulling to understand the convoluted phrasing—and then once you understand what it MEANS, the convoluted phrasing seems like the beautiful way to say it.

Here’s what it says: “When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

Here’s what it means: We’re leaving you. We think it’s only fair to tell you why, instead of just taking off without even saying goodbye.

Here’s what it says: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Here’s what it means: WE (unlike YOU cheeseheads, is the implication you should be picking up at this point) think it’s obvious that everybody’s a person, and that it’s only fair that all each person should get the same basic rights.

And so on. I like it better all fancy, but only after it makes sense.

One thing that doesn’t seem to change about children as they get older is that they still don’t wait to bring up a difficult issue (is it teeth or is it ear infection?, is this a discipline issue or is it an issue of emotional needs not being met?, what does this decision mean for future applications of our parenting philosophy?) at a time when you’re well-rested, well-fed, and sitting comfortably and approachably by the fire sipping your after-dinner brandy and hoping for an exhilarating exchange of ideas.

Instead it is at 6:10 a.m. while the coffee is still brewing that two of them want to call in judicial moderation on the subject of whether Child One WAS or WAS NOT out of the bathroom by 6:05 as required by household law, AND whether that household law is fair and appropriate. Or it is at 10:00 p.m. as I am wearily brushing my teeth that one of the children asks why religious people can’t just follow the rules as they understand them, rather than spending most of their time monitoring whether other people are following those rules. (YES, dear children, and perhaps you could apply this new-found insight to your own CONSTANT TATTLING.)

I’ve read a lot of stuff, mostly written in metallic script on greeting cards, about how much children TEACH us. Perhaps my own children are somewhat stupider than the standard-issue child, and that is why so far I don’t feel they’ve taught me anything—and in fact, I have to spend a lot of time explaining things to them that seem really obvious, such as “This is why we don’t throw a rubber band ball at the window” and “Are you serious, scraping a FORK into the TABLE??” But what I HAVE noticed is that I teach MYSELF things as a RESULT of having children—and perhaps that’s what people mean to say but their children haven’t yet finished teaching them how to articulate their thoughts clearly.

The child doesn’t come along, hitch up her diaper, spit out her pacifier, and say, “When a human failing is consistent rather than periodic, that failing can no longer be blamed on external circumstances but must instead be blamed (if blame is to be apportioned) on the human herself—either on her unchangeable nature or by her failure to make the necessary changes to her actions that would lead to a change in results.” Instead, it’s that as I teach the child this concept (“If the clock is wrong, that excuses you the first time when you didn’t know it was wrong—but after that, you KNOW the clock is wrong so it’s back to being your fault you’re not out of the bathroom on time”), I learn it better myself (“Hm. If I am ALWAYS rushing/frantic/stressed to get to kindergarten drop-off, maybe I should start getting ready 5 minutes earlier instead of blaming the child and/or the circumstances for always making us late”).

This kind of learning (I teach it to them, and that’s when I learn it better too) reminds me of some rule of education I remember hearing somewhere along the line, which is that to fully learn to do something, you should watch one, then do one, then teach one to someone else. I think it was a medical thing, maybe? Like, first you watch someone give a shot, then you give the shot, then you teach someone else to give a shot—and THEN you can say you know how to give a shot. It seems like it would take more than that to say you knew how to do, say, neurosurgery, but I get the gist: you kind of know it when you’ve been told it; you know it better when you put it into practice yourself; you know it the best after you explain/show/teach it to someone else.

It’s like a very irritating thing Paul used to say (I’ve made him stop) (I hope), which is that if you can’t successfully explain it to a 5-year-old, you don’t really know it. I can think of multiple reasons why that is crap as a hard-line philosophy (but I can’t explain it to Henry so that he fully understands concepts well beyond his developmental level, SO I GUESS I KNOW NOTHING)—but the IDEA is that in order to simplify something down to its bare bones so that even a little kid could understand it, you have to know all those bones really well.

Artists study skeletal and muscular structure even when they’re not going to be drawing bones and muscles, because they know you draw the skin better if you know what’s underneath it. Again, many an artist over the centuries HAS been able to draw excellent pictures of people WITHOUT first knowing all the bones, just as you can know you want go to the less-expensive grocery store without first minoring in economics. But knowing the bones and the economics means knowing more THOROUGHLY what you’re doing and why. The children don’t teach us in the first sense of the word (by being the ones to tell us how things are) (or at least, as mentioned previously, MY children don’t), but we learn it better when we teach them. (That doesn’t look as pretty in metallic script, though.)

I find it very, very discouraging to face dialogue such as this:

Friend: “Have you had your thyroid tested?”
Me: “Yes, and it was normal.”
Friend: “Oh, but you can’t rely on that test. You need to ask your doctor for a different test.”

Aiiiieeeeee. Here are the two reasons I find this so discouraging:

1. My doctor has the medical degree and medical experience, but my friend’s argument requires me to believe that this well-known thing about thyroid testing has completely escaped her attention and she and all the other doctors continue to order the useless test despite how obvious it is to the non-medical-degreed public that it doesn’t work. My friend knows more than my doctor (or any doctor), and now I need to go tell the doctor so. I can’t face it. Even if it’s completely true and all doctors are less educated than my friend, I still can’t face it.

2. How many tests will I need to have before my friend will finally believe that my thyroid is normal? If the more unusual test she wants me to get also reports a normal thyroid, will it turn out I need to have a STILL MORE UNUSUAL test? And then if THAT one ALSO says my thyroid is normal, will the response be that many thyroid issues escape notice by ALL tests so I still need to act as if I have a wonky thyroid? For how many years must I continue to insist to my doctor that something is wrong with my thyroid, before I am finally allowed to concede that it looks like there isn’t?

I notice this mostly happens with the Popular New Ailment. We read about it everywhere, and we start thinking we have it—it’s like how medical students famously diagnose themselves with each new disease they study. The power of suggestion then becomes a faith issue: we BELIEVE an ailment exists, and so no amount of evidence to the contrary is sufficient to shake that belief. The tiny percentage of cases where someone is right to persist in a belief is all it takes to fuel the enormous percentage of cases where someone is not.

I seem to have gotten off my original intended path, which was to say that although this kind of thing drives me nuts, I see how it gets started (because tests DO miss things and symptoms CAN be atypical, and then people spend unnecessary YEARS suffering something until it finally, finally, finally gets diagnosed), and in this particular case I would like to actively seek out stories and information of the VERY SORT that I usually avoid and dislike.

My mom has these symptoms:

1. Sudden unexplained weight gain
2. Feels cold all the time
3. Tired—can hardly get out of bed
4. Fighting off depression
5. Brittle hair
6. Itchy dry skin

Sounds like hypothyroidism, right? So she had her thyroid tested this past week, but it came up normal. I told her I was sure I’d heard thyroid discussed in the way that frustrates me (“Oh, the test for it is stupid and useless unless it gave you the answer you wanted—you need to tell your doctor what to do instead”), and would it frustrate her for me to find out more about it? And she said NO, it would NOT frustrate her, because in this case she would LIKE it if it’s thyroid issues (or some other fixable problem) rather than losing-her-mind/becoming-elderly issues.

The most important purchase on my shopping trip today was these boots:

(photo from Target.com)

For years, I have been looking for boots. The ’90s were a good time for me: I am a work boots, jeans, and flannel-shirt-over-t-shirt kind of girl, as it turns out. But after that style went out of fashion, I had a ton of trouble replacing my excellent Skechers boots with anything similar.

I saw these at Target, and they were leather, and they were the right style and the right height, and they were $13.48 down from $44.99, and they had brown laces with optional wine-colored laces in a little packet. (I see on the website photo they have woven the two colors together. I just put in the wine ones.)

FURTHERMORE, they had them in my size, which is usually 10-1/2 or 11, which is usually hard to find in women’s sizes. I put them on—and they were way, way too big. That’s when I realized they were men’s boots. But here is the thing: I think they were on clearance because all the men looked at them and thought they were women’s boots. I showed them to Paul and when I got to the part about how they were men’s boots, he looked at them with one nostril bunched and said, “Those are not men’s boots.”

I am wearing them right now and they are WARM, but without being HOT. (And it’s fun to be wearing something that says size 9.) My feet have been so cold in the maryjanes I’ve been wearing since boots went out after the ’90s, and I’d been thinking, “If only there was some way to, in chilly weather, wear a shoe that didn’t have a huge cut-out in the top!”

Next! I found this dress for Elizabeth, $7.48 down from $24.99, also at Target:

(photo from Target.com)

I hesitated because it’s black—but Elizabeth LOVES black. And I think it looks less goth-glamor-funeral in person. And if it IS too black, she can wear it over a pale pink shirt and pale pink tights with sparkly pale-pink shoes or something.

Next! I bought this backpack at TJ Maxx:

A group in our town does this thing every summer where they collect donated backpacks and fill them with donated school supplies and clothing to give to families in financial trouble who have schoolkids. The first time I heard of the project, I thought, “Wow, that’s great, but this is the VERY WORST time of year to buy a backpack!” So the following January, I bought a pile of Lands’ End backpacks that had been marked from $40 down to $11 and then had an additional 30% off, and tucked them into a bin in the basement; that summer when the project requested donations, I donated them. This year I’m doing the same. My rule of thumb is that I only buy a backpack I would buy for my own kids—so, for example, today I bought this backpack marked down to $5.00 at TJ Maxx; if Elizabeth had wanted it, I would have bought it for her. But I left behind the half-dozen that seemed like they were on clearance because they were ugly and cheap and no one would want them. My favorite, though, is to get the Lands’ End ones (I just bought a few at $15 plus an additional 30% off), because they’re durable and good quality; I’d rather get three of those each year than ten of the kind that will only last until the next year’s donation. It’s a very satisfying project, and I recommend it if you enjoy bargain-shopping and you’re looking around for a Nice Thing To Do For Other People. (And if your community does something similar. Obvs.)

Next! Wrapping paper:

I realized the last time Paul had a birthday that all our wrapping paper was (1) girly or (2) little-boyish. These may have leapt right across from little-boy to old-man, but I liked the look of them. And Paul likes (1) clocks and (2) vintage maps, so, score. Not on clearance or anything, but $2.99 each at TJ Maxx.

Next! Eye shadow from TJ Maxx:

Eye shadow makes my eyes irritated, so I never wear it. But sometimes I WANT to wear it. So I bought a pack of Physician’s Formula eye shadow, to see if that will be better. (Not really MATHEMATICIANS at Physician’s Formula, are they?)

Next! Earrings from Target:

They seemed like the right color to just go right home with me.

Sometimes the success of one project (such as finally replacing a shade in a bathroom) can lead to another successful project, such as tackling a this-is-not-working mudroom.

Here’s the mudroom Before:

There are hooks along the left wall, and stackable-cube-unit shelves/drawers/cubbies along the right. The door to outside is directly to the right. (The blue splotch at lower right is a bag of reusable bags hanging on the doorknob.)

This plan was good in theory: each child has a hook, and then the cubbies are used for things that don’t hang on hooks (boots, bike helmets, etc.) and for things someone might need to rummage for (there’s a drawer of hats, a drawer of gloves, a pile of spare lunch boxes, etc.).

The problem with this set-up was that it made the mudroom too narrow to comfortably walk in—and then there’s stuff on the floor too because the children are slobs who don’t listen, and that makes things even worse. And the cubbies went too close to the door, so it was awkward to go in and out. And people kept putting stuff on top of the cubbies, because that area was right there when people had their hands full. And the cubbies were mostly near the floor, which in a narrow area makes them really hard to get to. And yay, it’s the first thing people see when they come into the house, so that’s pleasant.

The first step was to take everything out:

I left the stuff on the hooks, because I wasn’t planning to do anything with those; and I left the stuff on the windowsill, because that wasn’t the day’s project.

This took a million years, and revealed spiders. It also made this mess in the dining room:

I sorted things into piles as I went: a pile of boots, a pile of lunch boxes, a pile of umbrellas, etc. I also wiped down the cubby things.

I got rid of some stuff: bike helmets and sandals that didn’t fit anyone anymore, a couple of semi-broken umbrellas, miscellaneous trash that had fallen behind the cubbies. I didn’t try to go through the hats and gloves in the drawers, because ONE THING AT A TIME.

I relocated some stuff: bin of sandals to a downstairs closet, EXTRA extra lunch boxes to another closet, gardening/potting stuff with the rest of the gardening/potting stuff, winter boots to a couple of boot trays I’d bought recently and hadn’t made anyone use yet, lightweight jackets to hangers in the coat closet.

Then I put some of the cube units back in. But I put them on the far wall instead of on the side wall, and I built them higher (three cubes high instead of two cubes high) so we wouldn’t have to stoop as much to rummage in the drawers.

One downside is that now we see the contents of the cubbies head-on. That will be even more of a problem in several microseconds, when they get all jumbled/crammed instead of being tidy. But there it is: it wasn’t working to have them sideways-so-we-can’t-see-the-contents, because as it turned out, that meant we couldn’t see the contents.

Another downside is that it’s fewer cubbies. But quite a few cubbies were being used for things we didn’t really need in the mudroom. Yes, it is good to have spare lunch boxes where we can find them quickly when we realize 10 minutes before the bus comes that one has been left at school, but do we need SIX spare lunch boxes within easy reach? No, we do not. Yes, it is handy to have all the sandals in one bin, but do we need them stored in the mudroom year-’round? No, we do not.

The next step will be to put more hooks on the right-hand wall. For one thing, having the cubbies at the end (even with them shoved to the right instead of centered) means that Henry’s hook area is squashed. For another thing, we need more hooks: each child’s hook situation has not been sufficient for each child’s hook-related possessions. It would also be nice to have a hook for my own coat and purse, and another for Paul’s coat, and another hook or two for guests.

Goodness, there certainly are LASTING EFFECTS from online shopping! Dearest online retailers, may I give you a WEENSY little tip? Sending a new customer emails every single day is unlikely to result in anything except a click right to the unsubscribe button, especially since many of us were new customers because we were shopping for a gift for someone else. I assure you that I personally am not interested in all these emails about exciting tool/hardware specials. If you dialed it back a bit, though, I might be reminded of you the next time I was shopping for that same person. Instead, too late! Unsubscribe! Now I am forgetting all about you, instead of having your company name on my mind like a sweet scent on a gentle breeze!

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I watched TiMER (Netflix link), and although I have complaints, I am also feeling obsessive and thinking about it A LOT, and I want everyone else to watch it too. Just for starters, the lead girl is played by Anya from Buffy, and she was one of our top favorite Buffy characters. (I liked her in this movie, too, but “turning 30 next week,” my foot.) And then the lead guy (John Patrick Amedori) is played by a guy who reminds me strongly of my high school boyfriend, so.

The plot is that it becomes possible to get a wrist implant (a TiMER) that counts down to the day you’ll meet the perfect person for you—but ONLY if that person ALSO has a TiMER. (I apologize in advance for how annoying it is to read “TiMER” written like that. I will try to use it as little as possible.) So you might get the implant (you can legally get one at age 14) and it could be blank—and it might STAY BLANK YOUR WHOLE LIFE, if there’s no perfect person for you OR if your perfect person never gets an implant. Or your perfect person might get an implant and then your blank TiMER suddenly pops up some countdown numbers!! You’d have to glance at it a million times a day!!

Are you fascinated? I am fascinated. I didn’t even really want the movie so much as I wanted a multi-volume set of short stories telling me every possible way this could go. (I felt the same way about Death Match, a book on a very similar topic.) What about someone whose perfect person dies before they meet? Does the screen suddenly go blank? What if you’ve already met your perfect person? Does it just countdown to the next time you meet them? What about all the people who were already partnered when this technology was invented? Would they get a TiMER or not? (Would you?) Did anyone do that and find they were already with their perfect person? What if your perfect person was already, say, your sister’s/friend’s husband? Could anyone have more than one perfect person? Could there ever be a situation where the numbers would change—like if there’s a different perfect person for you, or if your perfect person dies and a new perfect person is substituted? The movie touches lightly on some of the issues, but mostly focuses on these:

1) What if your TiMER is blank and you get kind of obsessive about it and keep trying to get every guy you meet to get an implant?

2) What if your TiMER has a date far in the future? Like, you’re 21, but your implant says you won’t meet the love of your life until you’re 45? What do you do about dating in the meantime? (And do you go ahead and have children with someone else?)

3) What if you meet a great guy and your TiMERs don’t match? Do you date him while you’re both waiting to meet your perfect person? and then, like, break up when the timer is at zero? Or what?

4) What if you get the implant when you’re 14, and the countdown is for a few days later? When you’re not even really ready for dating? Won’t that be kind of weird for everyone, including both families?

5) If this technology exists, should everyone use it? or not? Does it make things work better, or does it mess things up? (I appreciated the way the movie didn’t get heavy-handed here: I wasn’t even sure which side it was coming down on in the end.)

My main complaint was this: If we really did have these countdown devices, it would take mere microseconds for everyone to be online comparing numbers and matching them up to try to find their perfect matches earlier (“Okay, everyone with a countdown to June 5th, 2013 go to THIS forum, everyone with a countdown to June 5th, 2014 to THIS forum…”). But then…that would screw up all the numbers, right? Because they’d all meet sooner. So what about THAT? I would be willing to let that go, though, with the smallest attempt at addressing it—just a mention that people tried it and it messed everything up and didn’t work and the numbers got all wonked so everyone stopped. (But still. Wouldn’t you be like, “Hey, your device says June 5th, 2021? What a coincidence: so does my friend’s! I should introduce you!”)

Now I would like someone to start writing the stories, please. I want MORE.

To tell you this exciting story about replacing a window shade in the bathroom, I really, really should have taken a Before picture. I could show you just the After picture, but that’s no good at all. Seeing only the After picture, you would have nothing but criticism and mehs. “That really doesn’t seem worth either the fuss or the celebration, and also she has no concept of window design, and really that whole bathroom is kind of depressing-looking,” you’d say. “Here Swistle has been for YEARS representing herself as a person on the forefront of home decor trends, and now we find out she doesn’t even know how high to hang a valance! And that she still uses SHADES!”

No good. In order to really APPRECIATE the hero of this story (me), you would need to see how it looked BEFORE. THEN you would see the difference and be amazed. But there is no Before picture. And since I didn’t take a Before picture, there will also be no After picture: instead I will call on your imagination. (I am saying that in the SpongeBob voice, with hand rainbows.)

So this is what you should imagine. We begin twelve years ago, when Paul and Swistle have just bought a house and now are in the process of switching from third-person to first-person. One of our very first home improvement projects was to take down the DARK GREEN window shade in the bathroom and replace it with a white one. Window shades apparently need to be cut to fit by a store employee. Our store employee did such a crappy job, I can’t imagine how he handed us the shade with a clean conscience: the shade was ragged all the way down one side, with actual little ripped bits sticking out. He surely would have noticed this, even though we did not.

Did we return it, as we should have? No. I was a week or two from giving birth to William, and we had one zillion other things to do with the house, and even just changing from “battered dirty green” to “ragged new clean white” was such a vast improvement we weren’t so concerned with the little details.

Next what happened was that because one of the ragged places was right near the stick that goes through the bottom of the shade, the sticked area gradually ripped off completely; I trimmed the edge with scissors to make it tidier. Still we did not replace the shade: we had a toddler and an infant, and that was for me the most impossible stage of parenting. Going to Home Depot for a new window shade seemed like it belonged to an alternate reality.

Let me see if I can speed this story up a bit. Next the shade got some sort of mold/mildew issue, and then Henry used scissors and snipped it in the middle, from which point it continued to rip until nearly the entire shade was in two pieces. A ragged-edged, mildewed, no-bottom-edge-thingie, ripped up the middle shade, for YEARS.

(This is where my dad cut into the story I was telling, saying “So this is when you started thinking it might be time to start thinking about needing to replace the shade sometime in the near future,” and my mom said to him reproachfully, “SWEETheart.”)

MEANWHILE, there was no curtain on this window, even though I’d thought it would look nice. There was a lot of mental whining every time I turned my mind to the issue. “But I don’t know what style of curtain to use! There are too many/few choices! And what COLOR? I don’t want it to MATCH the shower curtain, but it should Look Right with it. And the shower curtain is kind of whimsical/babyish, but curtains aren’t—unless they are, and then it looks like a Kid Bathroom when it isn’t. And I like to change shower curtains periodically, and then the curtain won’t go with the new one and I’ll have to go through all this AGAIN.” And then, at the store, more whining and indecision: “They’re charging $14.99 for a 1×4 piece of fabric I don’t even really like?? Outrageous! I see these on 70%-off clearance ALL THE TIME. I will just get one THEN.” And then, when there is a clearance display: “There are too many/few CHOICES. This is such a messy pile. I don’t know what would look nice. I should just pay full price and get the full selection. I’ll do this later.”

Okay, so how is your imagination working? Good, good. So you can see that the situation was dismal, and not likely to improve after a decade or so of no progress. It was not a situation for drops in the bucket; only big SLOSHES would accomplish anything here—and big sloshes are in short supply and have to be reserved for big priorities such as choosing a new calendar.

But then, unexpectedly, RESOLVE kicked in. New feelings and thoughts emerged: (1) The situation was bothering me every single day, and (2) the situation was fixable. I used one of my Coping Thoughts For Hurdles: “This will not be fun but I am technically capable of handling it; by this time tomorrow it will be over AND done.” (Some of you reserve such thoughts for, say, childbirth, or for a move, or for a major remodel. Different strokes.) I scooped Henry up, and off we went. First to Home Depot, where I chose a shade and got it cut. (Fortunately I’d thought to measure the old shade before starting out.) Then to Target, where I went to the shower curtain aisle and got the same shower curtain we have, and took it with me to the selection of seriously four valances they had, chose the one I liked best (a sort of butterscotch color), and paid $14.99 full price for it with hardly any flinching and only minimal whining.

Then I went home, forgot to take a Before picture, took down the old shade and threw it away, did a little wiping of the dusty window frame, put up the new shade and adjusted the tightness, found a curtain rod in the basement, realized it was all bent and found another curtain rod in the basement, put up the new valance and tidied it in a finicky way, and DONE.

It was not that big a deal, but IT WAS A HUGE DEAL. (This is where my dad cut into the story to say “Wait, is this the same window you’re replacing in the spring? That new shade isn’t going to fit,” and my mom said, “SWEETHEART.”)

Okay, fine, here is the After picture, since I do have one. I trust your imaginations to handle it:

William is doing a little experiment for fun: he asked a bunch of kids at school to guess a number he was thinking of between 1 and 10 (inclusive), and he recorded their answers. He’s intrigued by the results, and wants a bigger sample size, and I said I could ask on the blog, so that brings you up to where we are today. I’m putting a poll over to the right. (Avoid looking at comments before you vote.) [Poll closed; see results below.]

Note to self: When tearing computer apart looking for document written in first half of January, look under previous year’s date. I wonder how many 2012 files I saved with titles like “20110102 Post About Something,” considering how many 2013 files I’ve already saved with titles like “20120102 Post About Something”?

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Well! We were certainly ready for everyone to go back to school/work today! Or, I was. Do you know what is difficult to do with five children and a spouse in the house? EVERYTHING. But especially anything involving putting thoughts into a more solid form.

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I didn’t make any resolutions this year, even though I always do. I was getting a little agitated about that, and then I heard Temerity Jane in my head saying, “There’s no rule.” It would be another matter if I were agitated because I WANTED to make resolutions and hadn’t—but in this case, I don’t feel like it this year, and all I’m agitating about is that I don’t feel like it. But that matters not one whit. So I won’t do it this year! It is okay not to do all the same things all the same way every single year! It doesn’t BREAK anything to not be utterly, persistently, relentlessly, unnecessarily consistent!

It is odd how difficult this can be to remember. If I were going to do one of those “pick a concept to meditate upon for the whole year” things, that would be my concept. It’s okay not to make resolutions this year, even though I USUALLY want to. It was okay not to write in the Christmas cards this year, even though I USUALLY want to. It was okay not to get out the special dishes for Thanksgiving, even though I USUALLY want to. There is no need to think of it as starting over at square one after ruining an important unbroken record, or as the first year of a permanent new way of doing things; it is nothing more than “not doing it this year.”

In fact, if I were going to make a resolution, it could be “Skip some things that have been allowed to build up into feeling like an important unbroken record, to alleviate the unnecessary pressure caused by such build-up.” That’s a little bulky for a resolution. “Skip some things.” That’s better.

Rob first asked to stay up for New Year’s Eve way back when he was 7, and the twins were about a year and a half old, and I was pregnant with Henry.

Looked pretty much like this all the time, but with a second toddler too.

Yeah, it was more like that. With me barfing nearby.

(That first photo, by the way, is an argument for “Keep photos of yourself, even if you hate them and can’t bear to look at them and have to hide them because if you have to look at them you won’t be able to help shredding them.” I hated that picture so much when I first saw it, I thought Paul must secretly dislike me to have taken it. Now I love it and am so grateful to have it, and I don’t care whether it’s flattering per se.) (But Paul really does need to learn about not photographing from up under someone’s chin.)

Anyway, I almost couldn’t bear the idea of staying up when I COULD BE SLEEPING. I first tried to talk Rob out of it, with the argument that he didn’t want to stay up. It was boring, I said. Nothing happened, I said. It was 30 seconds of watching a ball drop on television. It was a long wait in the middle of the night, and then it was over in one minute. I was not going to want to party, or play games, or in fact interact at all. I might even doze in the chair. He would be basically on his own for hours and hours, and he would have to be quiet and not wake up his father or siblings. It would be BORING, I said. He did NOT WANT TO, I said.

Well, but he did. So I let him, figuring I probably COULD manage such a sacrifice for just one night, but saying he had to stay in his room until 9:30, and then IF he was still awake when I came to get him, THEN he could stay up. I added further cautions about how it was not worth it and he would be disappointed and he would be sorry he’d tried it.

He was not sorry. He was not even very tired.

The next year was even worse. I was spending my days with two 2-year-olds and a nursing infant, and continued to be unable to bear the idea of staying up until midnight when I COULD BE ASLEEP.

Tiiiiiirrrrrrrrd

Especially since, at midnight, I would have to face the excruciating dilemma of “Do I go ahead and just stay up until what will likely be a 12:30 feeding—but then maybe end up sitting awake and grinding my teeth and crying with despair at 1:00, 1:30, 2:00, as the baby DOESN’T awaken as expected and I count the time I COULD have been sleeping but now with every passing minute it would be crazier and crazier to go to bed? Or do I go to sleep at midnight, possibly to be awakened by a baby riiiiiiight as I’m drifting off, throwing me into Night Mother Rage? Or do I wake the baby early to nurse before I go to bed, feeling stupid for waking a sleeping baby AND maybe not successfully nursing anyway, only to face the same dilemma at 12:45 instead of at midnight?”

God, the small-baby nights can be unpleasant. But we did it anyway: Rob and I stayed up for New Year’s again. I seem to have blocked out what I did about nursing. Isn’t memory merciful sometimes?

The year after that, William wanted to stay up too. I had the same rule, now for two children instead of one: if they were awake when I came in at 9:30, they could stay up for New Year’s.

They both made it. William just barely.

I’m not sure which year it started feeling like a party instead of an ordeal. I think it took me a couple of years to recover from night-nursing and to feel again as if I could imagine staying up late without suffering. It was probably two New Year’s Eves ago, in 2010, when Henry was 3 years old and Rob and William were 11 and 9. Instead of making them stay in their rooms, I let them just stay up and play video games and watch TV. Instead of deliberately making it no fun in the hopes that they would not want to do it anymore, I bought Festive Snacks: pizza rolls, Doritos, M&Ms, soda for them and champagne for me.

I still made it a low-interaction event: I would like to spend my New Year’s Eve filling out the next year’s calendar, being on the computer, reading a book, doing some puzzles, writing in a journal—not playing with children. But if the children would like to play nearby, that is fine.

And last year and this year, I’ve even looked forward to it. The boys and I plan ahead of time what snacks we would like to eat (my favorite is the boneless buffalo wings; I am also fond of champagne). We go out together on a special shopping trip to obtain those snacks, in case another snack idea needs to be considered on the spot (this year it was ranch-flavored chicken fries: we were intrigued) (edited to add: ick).

Paul has started watching a movie with them in the early evening, to give me some time to recharge before the evening ahead. (Paul himself hits the hay at 10:00 sharp. He is not tempted by our offers of snacks and Ryan Seacrest and grumpy tiredness the next day.) This year they’re all watching the first Harry Potter movie while I sit in the computer room, typing and looking through old photos.

Also, this year the twins are the same age Rob was when he first stayed up. They have been given the option to join us. Elizabeth is ALL IN. She won’t have any trouble staying up: sometimes when we go to bed, we have to tap on her door and say “Lights OUT, Elizabeth.” Edward is uncertain: he usually has dark under-eye circles by 6:00 p.m., and he is asleep 5 minutes after he goes to bed, so he doesn’t know if this will work. Either way, we have plenty of snacks.

Edited to add: They did it!

(William is not taller than Rob; Rob is standing down several steps.)