The Old Year

This isn't a post about the kids really. I've never liked New Year's very much as a holiday. It always seemed too melancholy to be a celebration. But this year I am especially loathe to leave behind. Maybe I should feel the opposite, but I don't. It has been a year marked by loss and change, but tonight, just an hour and a half before we start a new year, a new beginning, I want to pump my fists in the air and scream for time to stop.

It was a new beginning for us, moving here, but we are still all reeling from the loss at leaving our network in San Diego. The friendships and connections that were, and too those that were growing, the possibilities of what could be in the years to come. I see, too, that my perspective is perhaps somewhat rosy, that an image may be most beautiful when it's frozen in time, that the ideal of what was may be as flawed in reality as the ideal I held of this place, this life, before we moved here. Still, flawed or not, what a wonderful network it is. What a wonderful community you are all a part of there, and I miss it, you, dearly. Juan too, so much more than I imagined.

The new year will start without my brother. As every year will now. It has occurred to me again and again over the past week. The holidays passed, but I was not as marked by sadness as I have been in this last week. The idea that it is time for a new beginning, it seems terribly wrong, too late. Just as John's transfer seemed, too late. The world is too small now, without Alex. Always eager to outgrow me, measuring your height against mine, your hands against my hands, arm wrestling until finally, on your visit to San Diego a few months after I moved down here, you were. It may have been the first thing you noticed at the airport, "Hey, I"m taller than you!" you said. Alex, I wish I were ten feet tall.

Mary Lu turns One

Ok, now I've waited through birthday and Christmas and I have a billion photos to post, so I'd better get on it already. Here I'll post a few from Mary Lu's birthday. I know I already did this, but it was a rushed version, and I feel Mary Lu deserves a richer ode. So, here goes. . .

Mary Lu loves to swing. Maybe I'll include my favorite photo of Mary Lu ever--swinging. She is a climber, a novice runner. She loves to be startled and chased, but she's not too crazy about being swung about. She yells. She now at times yells, in deep and loud bursts, bent slightly over and head cocked, hands on her hips (back of the wrists on her hips and hands, relaxed and open sticking out behind her back like she's about to shake a tail feather, looking just like some haughty southern firecracker telling someone what for). She likes to stand up in the bath and which is some improvement over her tendency, a couple months ago, to fling herself backwards in the bath from the sitting position. She stands precariously on chairs, beds, and looks at us until we tell her to sit down, then she slowly lowers herself, smiling, generally into a squatting position until we tell her to sit on her bottom, which she does. She turns lights off and on, loves getting in the refrigerator and digging through it to find something to carry around the house--mustard, butter, salad dressing. Don't try to take it away from her. Like her brother, she loves to drive the car. She "vrooms" and turns the radio up LOUD, I turn it down, she turns it up. She likes to lie in the middle of the floor, still, for a few minutes here and there. She puts everything in her mouth. Always has. I imagine she will outgrow this. Today, after she chewed a piece of cardboard off something and went to the cabinet to throw the piece in the trash. She finds tiny bits of trash on the floor and brings them to me. . .usually. She brings us books to read all day long and is partial to books about animals and babies and books with surprises. She loves the alphabet. About two months ago, right after we moved in, she began to associate the song with the letters and she sings "ahh, bahh," when she wants to go look at the letters and sing the song. She loves animals, she's drawn to them and wonderfully gentle with them. She loves people, especially people her age and Juan's. She does not love Santa. She waves, often with both hands, at characters in books, at the dogs, at us. She is an adventurous, brilliant girl. So sweet, and so full of joy. She gives wonderful kisses, often prefaced with a loud and drawn-out "mmmmmmm."

A Birthday Note

Just a quick note on Mary Lu's birthday. How wonderful it was to get birthday emails etc. from some of Mary Lu's, and my, friends. It really meant a lot and I wanted to say a public thank you. She had a great day with lots of naps, a couple turns around the cupcake plate, and some playtime with new toys. Juan even let her play some with the firetruck he picked out for her gift.

We just celebrated as a family today, and will have a small party on Friday.

As a birthday ode to Mary Lu, here's what she's up to. . .She's talking all the time, it seems like her vocabulary grows ten-fold each day. The thing that really amazes me about her is that she seems to need to just hear a new word once, and then says it. She says this one word, loudly and forcefully a lot. It may be "go" or "no" it may be both. She's working on running, she does sort of a fast walk with her upper body way ahead of her lower and then she usually falls. She holds her own in toy battles these days. She is as happy and loving as ever and had adopted this wonderful new tendency to hold on to my neck when she hugs me. She'll come running at me, arms up, I'll lift her up and she'll hug me tight and hold on.

She and Juan are down in our bed now, so I should make my way down there. I'll post birthday photos soon, but here are some others.