1. What did you do on your birthday?
I had a great birthday this year. On the day of my sister babysat Jack for a bit while I went and browsed at a local bookstore and then bought myself a cake :) I celebrated that night with family and then the next morning we went to the Cape. We ended up with beautiful weather and went over on a boat to Martha's Vineyard for the day. At night, my parents babysit where Eric and I went to the restaurant we had our rehearsal dinner. It was such a great few day celebration and probably more than I deserved for 34 ;)
2. What are your strongest memories from this year, and why?
So many great memories from this year! We had a goal to do 1 Eric and Kelly date and 1 "family date" per month- a lot of these stand out in my mind as happy memories, especially more than one family walk around Walden Pond. I also have mostly good memories of spending days with the boys, especially our fun Spanish class we took. Max doesn't remember much but Jack still says "adios!" when saying "bye" to toys or other things (we say "adios shower!" when it's time to get out). I loved doing jogging stroller runs with Jack, chatting on Marco Polo, somehow attempting to have my kids not kill each other on the days they were both home (well, maybe those aren't happy memories). In the summer, we enjoyed Caroline's wedding- both kids made it down the aisle which was a major accomplishment and I survived giving a speech. Eric and I took an amazing trip to Bermuda that was the best "last hurrah" ever before I went back to work. I have strong memories of the transition back to work- it was great to feel productive again and see my work friends. It was hard to leave Jack and transition him to school. The second half of the year was more of a blur, but it was fun to see both boys enjoying school. We had a fun trip to New Hampshire and Santa's Village. We loved seeing Santa come by fire truck, getting our tree etc. The boys got a new cousin in September. It was fun to see their reactions to a new baby in the family. Jack loves him so much as long as his mummy is not holding him LOL.
There were some hard times too. Toddler tantrums. Preschool attitude. Just being dang exhausted of children sometimes. Of logistics and being in charge of everything. But, like most times, these don't stand out as much when I look back on the year.
3. What did you do this year that you’d never done before?
I think I'm going to beat my previous number of books read. That counts, right? I went to Bermuda, never been there before. In Bermuda I rode on the back of a motorcycle and went scuba diving. I've done both before but not in years. I survived working full time with 2 children. I also survived my entire family getting the stomach bug at once, that had never happened before... hope it never does again, lol.
4. What did you want and get?
I wanted lots of time with my little family this year, I got that for sure. I wanted more time with just Eric and I, I got that. I wanted to work out consistently and I did that, though it was still far less than before I had kids. I wanted to make time for reading this year and I did.
5. What did you want and not get?
Relaxation? Lol... I know, hopeless.
6. What would you like to have next year that you didn’t have this year?
I'd like more time to myself and more time with friends. We shall see if I can make this happen.
7. Did you make new year’s resolutions, and did you keep them? Will you make more for next year?
Yes, I resolved to do a monthy date with Eric and a monthly family date. I wasn't perfect at keeping track but I'm pretty sure we met this goal! I'm still thinking on what my goals will be for next year but I think they will have something to do with my answer to question 6. I also plan to maintain the monthly dates.
8. What was your biggest achievement of this year?
Survival? I really need to step it up next year on the achievement part...
Actually, here's another one, between last year and this year I think I've *finally* reached the point where cooking can be an enjoyable process. It used to be that when I cooked I was chained to the recipe, measuring everything, failing half the time in the end and then getting really frustrated. Now, most of the things I make actually turn out good and dare I say, sometimes I even enjoy cooking. I feel like I have some basic knowledge now of what will work, what my family will like etc. That's probably not a big accomplishment to others but I basically have no home related skills so, now I have maybe half of one, still not a gourmet chef.
9. What was your biggest lesson?
The first is that it really benefits me when I have a schedule/plan. This isn't that surprising but at the same time I've always prided myself on being a flexible person. That said, I've noticed it helps me to have a routine. For example, it really helped me to plan monthly dates for Eric and I. Having that plan made it happen, and it helped me whenever I felt like Eric and I never have any quality time together, because I could remind myself it had never really be much longer than a month since at least SOME quality time was had. I also started doing monthly meal plans this year with a weekly check in and grocery list. This worked really well too and eliminated the decision fatigue of figuring out wtf to eat every single week.
The second thing I learned was how to balance our weekends. I have found that if I divide the weekend into 4 parts (Sat morning, Sat afternoon, Sun morning, Sun afternoon) we should have plans for no more than 2 of these parts in order for all 4 of us to be happy. We really enjoyed some lazy Saturday mornings. We are not Saturday morning kid activity people, at least for now!
10. What did you rely on when you were overwhelmed?
Talking to Eric. Talking to friends on Marco Polo or texting. Reading. Maybe too much internet scrolling. To do lists.
This was fun to fill out. Please play along or answer some questions in the comments!
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