Thanks 2014, it's been nice to know ya!

Disclaimer:  Yes, this post will serve as our family Christmas card, a much-needed blog update, and the final blog post of the year. Yes, you can call it "lame", if you'd like. I prefer "efficient". And if you're a family member looking for our Christmas card and haven't read my blog before, check out the "Cast of Characters" page down to the right. I've given the girls all pseudonyms to ensure plausible deniability when they're older. But I'm sure you can figure it out.

2014 was a year of ups and downs, as they all tend to be. We worked. We played. We traveled a bit. But we are all healthy and together at the end of the year, so I call it an overall win. We truly do have much to be thankful for. As I've written before, we are rich. No, we don't have our dream house yet. No, we haven't won the lottery. But we have a comfortable snug home with heat that we can turn up in the winter. We have warm clothes to go play outside in. We have more food than we should probably eat. We have a high-quality and safe school to send our girls to. We have loving parents and siblings that live too far away. We have a loving family of close friends that live a bit nearer. We have friends and family scattered across the nation that pray for us, cheer us on, and bring smiles to our days. We are rich.

And the rest? Well, we're working on a little concept called "contentment".

The girls are just getting bigger and better every day:

HeyMama is 6. She loves to read, loves to do math, and says she wants to be a scientist when she grows up. And no, BestestHusband didn't tell her to say that. But he might be a bit proud... She started playing the piano, and is quite diligent about practicing. She gave a short concert of Christmas music at our friends' house on Christmas Day, and is anxious for lessons to start up again in the new year. She enjoys gymnastics more than ever, and can frequently be found hanging upside down or jumping from things. And she is the most perceptive, doting, and sweet big sister a baby sister could ever hope for. And she likes to talk. A lot. I'm still trying to find a way to bottle her energy. Or just find a mute button.

MeToo is 5. She loves to do whatever her older sister is doing. So she's into reading, math, and maybe being a scientist too. Or a unicorn trainer. Or a dance teacher. We might need to start dance lessons first... She is a child of wide-eyed wonder, finding magic in the most mundane of tasks. "Mama! Come look! I pooped a 7!" And she was right, it really did look like a 7. Other letters and shapes eventually followed. MeToo will interrupt dinner with, "Guess what! I'm having a dream inside my head RIGHT NOW!" She's full of fun ideas and whimsy. She's currently lobbying us to trade her to a neighboring family so she can have a brother.

LittleDebbie morphed into HurricaneDebbie, and is typically a Category 5. At 16 months old, she is already the strongest personality in the household, and that's really saying something... She has quickly learned to communicate her wishes, and this week has decided to do that via sentences:  "I need milk!", "I need Uppa!", "I need Daddy!" She has also learned quickly how to climb up to the top bunk, rock standing in the rocking chair, retrieve things from the middle of the dining room table, let herself out the door to outside, and undo an hour's worth of cleaning and organization in 2 minutes. According to BestestHusband, she is a living example of the Second Law of Thermodynamics. And she makes me want to drink. Good thing she's so dang charming and cute...

The dogs continue to add love, fur, and noise to our household. They have become skilled opportunists, seizing on the chance for a belly rub any time one of us sits or leans over to the floor. They even demand belly rubs from the girls. And you know what? It works. It's sweet to see them develop relationships with the girls, and see the girls take more responsibility in their care.

BestestHusband started a new job at a tech company downstairs from his previous job. What's a guy with a PhD in Chemical Engineering and a background in discovering oncology drugs doing working at a tech company? Something Very Different from what he did before. But he still has the same bike commute. (Some call being a one-car family being "cheap", again I like to call combining a commute and exercise as "efficient".) In his spare time he plays the role of SuperDad, stalks Boston real estate for our future house, tends a good-sized garden, makes out-of-this-world mexican sauces, and helps reign in the chaos that has become our household norm.

I'm still doing many of the same things as last year. I work per diem at local rehab hospitals a few days per week. I shepherd the girls to and from the bus stop. I try to keep up with a kamikaze toddler. I started running again this past year, mostly to improve my patience level. And I started baking sourdough bread. And at the end of the day, when the house has been destroyed by my kamikaze toddler and my patience has been destroyed by everyone else, I at least have something tasty to show for my time.

So if you're in the area, stop by for a slice of fresh bread and a glass of wine I'll be ready to pour. We have a guest bedroom, and plenty of mayhem to share. We are truly blessed by what we have, but are pretty much constantly exhausted by it. And we look forward to a new year of exhaustion, love, joy, tedium, exasperation, and blessings in 2015.

With love,
The Bundles Of Joy Family

The Death of Perfectionism

What do you do when you have 12 pictures to hang in a semi-symmetrical formation that will dominate the wall of your bedroom, and you discover that your laser level and old-school bubble level disagree? If you’re me, you swear a bit, fight the urge to cry, and remind yourself of why you’ve let those 12 pictures sit in a box in the corner for more than a year.

But the girls were at daycare, I was at home, and I'd sworn I’d hang those pictures THAT DAY. So again, what do you do when your laser level and bubble level are at odds? Swallow any remnants of perfectionism and just get the dang job DONE. It’s not like the wall will fall down if the photos aren’t hung PERFECTLY...

So I decided to agree with the laser level. I could at least put in on a tripod and have it project nearly-level lines on the wall for me to use. That required 2 less hands than using the bubble level. (2 extra hands I didn’t have.)This turned out to be only the first complication.

The second complication involved difficulty with measurements and calculating how far apart to put nails. You may have heard about my love of Ikea storage containers. Well, I also have a love of Ikea frames. The problem is that they are made with odd dimensions. One frame was 5 and 6/16 inches by 9 and 3/16 inches, and another was 10 and 1/16 inches by 16 and 11/16 inches. Try calculating nail distances when you have to divide the frame widths by half, add them together, and add a spacing distance in-between. Then try actually getting the nail in that place given you have a not-quite-level level and no extra hands to assist you. In the next hour before you need to pick the girls up from daycare.

The process was not pretty. I had to silence the nagging voices in my head that said things like:

“Don’t put extra holes in the wall!”

“It needs to be symmetrical, but not TOO symmetrical!”

“The pencil marks on the wall still show after you erased them! See, that spot’s a little shiny!”

“It needs to be artistic, but not TOO artistic!”

“The highest frame on the left side is an inch higher than the highest one on the right!”

“Are you sure you picked the best pictures? Maybe you should go have some others printed…”

The finished result? It’s passable if you aren’t a perfectionist. It’s a nagging annoyance if you are.

So sanity requires swallowing perfectionism. This is a lesson I learned when I had my second child. Toddler + newborn = barely controlled chaos. Graduate school destroyed most of my Type A tendencies. Having more than one child killed the rest.

Yay! Wedding photos are up! Dang, we look so young...

I think I might want to replace the smallest frames, they look a little chintzy with the rest...

So I’m happy with the results. The photos are on the wall instead of in the corner. My scientist BestestHusband who evaluates small errors for a living? I think the jury’s still out…

And yes, I know that the big frame above the bed’s empty. I still need to print more photos. But it’s above the bed! I need really good photos! The pressure’s still too much for me…

The room still needs some work. What do you think it needs? Sconces over the bed? Interesting lamps on the nightstands? I'll take any advice I can get!

My Days as a Trophy Wife

Allright, no one looking at me would confuse me with a true trophy wife. Just LOOK at me! My hair’s pulled back in a pony tail, I’m wearing old yoga pants (J.Crew circa 1999), an old t-shirt from some run I did with a friend in 2002 (thanks Rebecca Salama!), herding children dressed in head-to-toe hand-me-downs (thanks Jen Hartmann!), and driving a “pre-owned” Honda CRV. I’m hardly fit for a season of Real Housewives of Boston.

But a few times a week I FEEL like a trophy wife. I leave my children with the “staff”, go to the gym, watch the Food Network, take an uninterrupted and leisurely shower, and walk out of the gym with a glow and a smile. Hair flowing in the wind… ok, no, that’s just the TV show. My hair’s still drying, and a little frizzy. But I feel like a million bucks. And mildly guilty for being so indulgent…

Living in Boston on one income, we count our pennies. Life is expensive here, even with good jobs. BH got his PhD from a highly geeky and highly regarded local institution. And got a great job right out of grad school with other highly-regarded geeks. You’d think that it would make a difference. But alas, we penny-pinch. So the idea of spending money on a GYM MEMBERSHIP seemed a little extravagant. But the prospect of another dark cold winter drove me to NEED it. I’ll work extra Saturdays. Please, please, please, I just need a little exercise and free babysitting a few days a week!

And so we bit the bullet. And like my friends had insisted all along (yes Jenny, you were right), it really is totally worth it. I’m less cranky with the girls, my ability to push the double stroller up hills has improved, and a few times a week I get to feel like a trophy wife. It still feels a bit extravagant. But every trophy wife deserves a bit of extravagance now and then. Right?