Welcoming in the new year




Last night we welcomed in the new year with a family game night.  We had Kris and Natalie and Diane and MomMom over with the four of us.  2011 was definitely the year of entertaining for us!  Our home has become the place to gather to have fun and that is a wonderful thing!  Our evening started at around 6 with Dakota and some friends dancing and playing XBOX and Aunt Diane and MomMom arriving.  Brian David was singing in his room and my husband decided he needed to go outside and burn our entire Christmas tree in the fire pit.  This took him about 3 hours.....   Diane, MomMom, Koda and I played Words with Friends on our Kindles and chatted and ate.  Kris and Natalie came about 8 and the gaming began.  For some reason my friendly, in a great mood for the past week or more husband decided to be a.....well...how to put it nicely.....a pompous poop.  He wouldn't play games with all of us and then decided to put me down and "be on Dakota's side" when he got out of control.  Embarrassing, really, and confusing for the kid.  Oh well.  We've been through this before.  Dad has decided to come to the rescue when I have needed to come down harder with discipline on one of the kids.  He feels I am being unfair and the child needs saving.  The child, of course, sees this as a golden opportunity to pit one of us against the other and get constant attention, so he jumps right on it.  I am not sure what to do about it. Dad wants to be his friend and he is a good one.  He is a wonderful companion and they play together constantly, which now leads to Dakota thinking he must be constantly entertained by someone. The problem here now is there are no boundaries and when things get out of control or it's bedtime or dinner didn't get eaten or the child needs to wear a coat etc, Dad is the hero saying all the right things the child wants to hear and I am the bad guy, saying that dinner does indeed need to be eaten, coats do need to be worn, behavior does need to be modified. Bodily functions are no longer rude, even in front of relatives or friends.  Screaming, racing around, not listening...normal now.  And what will happen, once again, is that after a few months of this Dad will go on to fulfill his work and football obligations and I will be left to pick up the pieces and get things back in order, only to have this happen again next December.  I have years of this yet.  It's wonderful......

Anyway, the six of us who did play games had a great time. Logo proved to be no fun at all, with questions this time that were just ridiculous.  We moved on to Apples to Apples, always a crowd pleaser, and Dakota had everyone laughing with his version of the word "chimpanzee", coming out more like a french accented "shim-paaan-zee".  Adorable and hysterical.  We finished the night with Scattergories, which Dakota did really well for, especially at seven.  He hangs in there really well playing with all adults.  MomMom really enjoyed this one and, before we knew it, it was 11:30 and we crowded in the livingroom to watch New Year's Rockin' Eve.  I got to dance with my granddaughter, who giggled the best she could with limited lung capacity from this darned RSV.  We counted down together and then the boys went out front and popped our confetti filled balloons we made earlier before Dad took them up on the roof to watch the fireworks at the Inner Harbor. 

I had an okay 2011.  The biggest blessing was, by far, the birth of our granddaughter.  Lots of my daughter's friends had beautiful babies this year.  So many little ones!  My oldest daughter and my son in law moved back home to Baltimore after a long fifteen months in North Carolina.  My younger daughter took a chance, moved away, moved back home and then found a great roommate and moved out on her own close by.  My oldest son, who started out going through his first true heart break, became a man, learning to deal with the adversity and come out a stronger person.  He enjoyed his last football season and put in his first college applications.  Dakota, the youngest of our family of six, sailed through the year, starting as a kindergartener and finishing halfway through a very successful first grade year.  He played basketball and baseball, tried arena football and started wrestling.  He started a new co-op and has blossomed from a little kid to a big boy.  He lost his first tooth...and then lost five more!  The tooth fairy has become very familiar with 3023 Vermont Ave lol.  My husband and I have made it through our twenty second year.  There were good days and not so good days, but all in all it was a good year for us.  We stepped into our new role as grandparents with ease and we are enjoying our extended family. 

So what will 2012 hold?  I am very nervous about it.  It will be a year of big change as our Brian David graduates high school and moves away to college.  He is staying close by, thankfully, but I just can't wrap my head around the fact that this boy is hitting these milestones.  He has always been the family's baby and thinking that he has essentially been through his entire childhood is just too much for me.  I hope that I can handle the next twelve months with grace, enjoying every minute instead of dreading the next day.

So welcome, 2012.  Please be kind to those that I love and hold dear in my heart.  Let my children enjoy a healthy life, true love and much happiness.  Let my husband and I continue to grow together and don't let changes put distance between us, but rather pull us together.  Let my mom continue to enjoy a healthy, active lifestyle as she turns 80 this year.  Let me look back, on New Year's Day 2013, and say "Wow, I hope this year is as good as the last!"

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Changes, COVID and Career

Senior Year

Last Week