summing up

Hello there, loves, and almost happy new year. Actually it would be more appropriate to say goodbye, 2006, you've been a good year. An awesome year. For us, anyway. I hope for you too.

2005 was a really rough year for our little family. First of all Helena was not in the world, which is just sad now that you think of it. She's such a little joy. And she's making the rest of this sad world so much better. But I digress. In 2005 our most wonderful and favorite dog of all time, our first dog as a married adult family and Ben's first dog ever was hit by a car and died. And I witnessed him getting hit by the car. And so did our neice, who was eight. And it was terrible and scarring and horrific. Anyway, so sad. But it happened. And a few elderly extended family members died. Which was also sad and hard. And then the kicker--our very greatest male friend was in a horrible car accident and he too passed away. After a week of intensive care, and lots of prayer, and brain damage, and the unplugging of his life support. And that was terrible.

To top the year off, my grandpa died (of old age/strokes) three days before Christmas. And that, as they say, was history. Dear 2005, you were not good to us.

But 2006, I thought, would be a different story. And it was. Although lied to by many friends with children about how "not that bad!" it is the first three months, and how I'd probably (really, most likely) be one of the lucky ones who went into labor early/had a baby who sleeps through the night immediately/lost all the pregnancy weight in two months or whatever, it's still pretty amazing. If you had told me mid-2005 about how amazing and breathtaking and hard and scary and awesome 2006 would be, I'm not sure I would have even had the capacity to understand.

I guess being a mom is full of this feeling of wow, life is amazing. I had my whole entire family here for Christmas--in-laws, parents, stepparents, sister and new fiancee of sister, neice, friends, etc. etc. etc. and it was something that I had dreamed of my entire adult life. Being able to say "hey, Christmas is at our house, come if you want!" is something that I bet a lot of children of divorced parents dream about. Not trekking back and forth from mom's to dad's or dad's to mom's and eating two dinners, having to keep families separate, having to tread lightly. I'm not saying that having everyone here was easy, but it was something I'd always dreamed of and I'm glad it happened. Everyone was couth and moderately appropriate, and from my family I can expect no less. It was good. And who knows what will happen for Christmas of 2007! I can blame the whole thing on Helena--if it wasn't for her we wouldn't have had all her grandparents--all five of them--and relatives, and friends over. Suddenly there's this extra reason for people to get along and be together, and for her and for that I'm so thankful.

Basically I'm going to just say that it's been a good year. Our first year as parents. Suddenly Helena is 7 months old now, and just around the corner is going to be her first birthday. It's just wonderous, something out of the movies, to look at her and have her look up with those perfect gray-blue eyes and smile. At me. Her mommy!

If you're pregnant please, do not let anything I write about scare you. It is going to be scary, of course--if you don't know that life sometimes can be scary, you haven't lived too much yet. But it is just something you can never know, so awesome. Not "awesome, dude, totally" awesome--the same kind of "awesome" I picture God to be. Like, something so amazing and out there and unknown and huge that we can't even imagine. And that is what being a parent is. And that's what being at the beginning of this year is, too--holding this little baby of a promise of a good year in your hands and nurturing it every day, until it grows into its full potential. Until you can say in, 2008, wow, that was awesome.

Happy new year!