The First Month of a New Year

January came and went with its usual mercurial weather, sometimes beautiful and sometimes frigid, bearing the burdens of cedar allergy season, and the start of a new year. We took full advantage of the warm weeks and played in the yard or at the park as much as we could (after I carefully pre-medicated with allergy pills, nasal spray and eye drops).  We visited museums, we spent time with good friends, we set goals for the year and made a list of family values to live by. I started doing more yoga, finished my marathon re-watch of Gilmore Girls on Netflix, mourned the end of Parenthood, finally got through all of Anna Karenina (incredible!) and turned 29. Drew got to see the Jazz and Spurs play ball in San Antonio, landscaped the front yard and built a wall for his growing compost pile in the back, installed a floating floor in our living room, and made some real publish-able progress at the lab.

January also marked the beginning of a wonderful new stage of sibling love (and mischief). Henry started to really interact with Lilly, to play and communicate and venture away from me and into the care of his "second mother." Sure Lilly still "hugs"Henry too fiercely, and sometimes her "hand holding" is more like a vice grip on his wrist to drag him around, but mostly they love each other more than anything. Watching them interact is one of those exquisite joys of motherhood; the kind that (mostly?) makes up for all the drudgery and whining and separated abdominal muscles.

January had me thinking a lot about life and happiness and all things existential and metaphysical and unexplainable. It reminded me of my favorite Emerson quote, a gift, in fact, from a dearly loved and now departed English teacher. "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds," he wrote/she taught, because when we are too afraid to trust our hearts, to change our minds, to be misunderstood, we sell ourselves short. So here's to banishing hobgoblins, loving like children, and hoping Lauren Graham will be starring in a new television show for me to love in 2015. :)

Oh, and sorry for all these words if you just came here to see the pictures . . .