2007 - In Retrospect

I know it's so cliched and everyone always says it at the end of every year, but I can't believe it's the end of 2007 already! The year just seemed to fly by, helped along I'm sure by how busy and full this year was.

Let's see, this year we:

• moved over a few states
• got a new job
  
• bought a new house
• had our oldest child turn 3 years old
• had a baby

Did I miss anything? Whew! It was a very crazy year full of all kinds of major changes for us! Not to mention how much the kids have changed over the course of the year. Amazing, isn't it, how each little day goes by and you don't really notice a big change in them from one day to the next but when you look back over the year, how those incremental steps forward add up to one big leap! Bree seems so much more grown up at the end of 2007 than she did at the beginning, being potty trained and starting to get past the toddler tantrum phase and more into the preschool age. And little Noah...eating baby food, rolling over, and starting to babble, they go through so many milestones in the first few months! Here he is on the verge of 6 months old as we head into 2008 and it's gone by so fast!

Which leads me to my New Year's resolutions. I know, I know, they never really work and we all end up breaking them after just a little while. In fact, I usually try not to make any. And mine aren't resolutions so much as general goals anyways, but the main one is to spend some good quality time really enjoying my children. Now, I'm not saying I haven't already been doing this, but I want to try and do it more often in the upcoming year. It's too easy to get swept up in the piles of laundry or never-ending dirty dishes, I can ALWAYS think of some chore or other that needs to be getting done around the house.

You know how it is, first thing anyone tells you when they see you with young children is, "Better enjoy them while you can! It goes by fast!" And, while I often feel grouchy that people feel the urge to act like my kids' childhoods are practically over before they began, (I KNOW they grow up but do we have to dwell on it? Not to mention I really honestly DO try very hard to enjoy them as much as I can.) While that's a pet peeve of mine, it IS true... So my goal is to firmly push that extra stuff lower on my priority list, at least when it comes to the kids, to put the cleaning by the wayside more often, take at least an extra half an hour out of each day to sit down and really play and laugh with them. I guess more and more I'm just feeling the moments slipping past me like sand through my fingers. (And I don't think that having that darned birthday ticker up there, just counting down the days of the kids' childhood really helps either. Can't tell you how weird it felt the day after Bree's 3rd birthday to already be putting up a year 4 countdown...kind of like how stores have out their Christmas stuff after Halloween, way before most people feel ready to start the season...like that. Maybe I'll banish the tickers!)

This year in particular, with all the changes and business that's gone on, I feel like I just have been super preoccupied and time has passed me by in a blink before I was ready. Especially with Bree, who is already 3 1/2 yrs, it will be no time before she's off to school and I'll be looking back at the time when we spent all day together...and I don't want to be at that point wishing I had just taken a little more time to cherish her preschool years. But I know I won't be wishing I had folded more of the same laundry. I guess adding another child only compounds the situation as well, less time to spend on each one individually perhaps.

So, that's my goal and I am genuinely going to try and pursue it whole-heartedly. In fact, by posting it here and making it public I'm hoping it will hold me more accountable to it. What's your resolution this year?

That was our 2007, I can only imagine what the kids will be like at this time next year.... Hope you all had a wonderful year gone by and a great one to come.