I wish I could fully describe, to non-Bostonians, what Marathon Monday means in the Boston area. It’s Patriots Day, a state holiday. All of the schools are closed, and many offices are, too. There’s Revolutionary War reenactments and parades all over Lexington and Concord and all of the other historic towns. The marathon starts at about 9 in the morning in Hopkinton, and you couldn’t miss the coverage if you tried. At places along the marathon route, crowds are five and ten deep. People take their kids to watch the runners, and the finish line is right in the middle of the city. There’s always an early home Red Sox game, which lets out in time for the baseball fans to walk the quarter mile to the marathon route and watch the thousands of runners finish the last couple of miles. It’s the most festive day of the year, it might as well be 4th of July. It’s not just a big race and some inconvenient street closings.

I was on my computer as the news of the explosions broke, a little before 3PM. I pretty much haven’t stopped shaking since. It was right around the four-hour mark of the marathon. The elite runners were long gone, the packs headed towards the finish were made up of people who were running for charity. Running as a partner for a blind man. Running to benefit kids with leukemia. I had friends who crossed the finish line 5, maybe 15 minutes before it happened. Friends who were watching from that exact spot two hours earlier. Friends who had been watching with their kids and had only just left. A friend who works a block away and was on lockdown in his office building for hours.

I am fine, my family is fine, it appears all of my friends are fine. But I am completely shaken. Injured kids taken to Children’s Hospital – I know that lobby too well. One of the fatalities – eight years old. I just can’t. I cannot.

I’m trying to focus on the immediate outpouring of good. In the split-second after the explosion, dozens of police officers and paramedics ran, without hesitation, towards the smoke. Runners who had just completed a grueling 26.2 miles kept going straight to Mass General, to donate blood. People all over my twitter feed were offering up spare bedrooms and food and wifi and phone chargers to stranded runners – so much generosity, Boston.com set up an open Google spreadsheet to help match up offers of space with people in need.

Mr. Rogers was right.

“Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.”

It’s 2:30 in the morning and I’m sitting on my couch, burning through the second season of Glee on DVD.

I’ve long had an obsessive personality, but it shows up the strongest when I’m trying to escape something else. The last really notable phase was when I moved East after college and was painfully lonely. I spent my hours listening to Barenaked Ladies and getting front-row tickets to concerts near and far. But then I met M and that emotional need was filled in a much better way.

I’m a giant ball of stress right now. December kicked my ass, and there’s some lingering family drama that I need to deal with. The big kids are extra whiny and needy, probably from the post-holiday crash and the readjustment to school that I always forget about. Ellie’s birthday is approaching, and while part of me is excited and happy about it, a big part of me is stuck in a loop of anxiety flashbacks.

Enter, Glee.

Obsessing over a tv show is my way of trying to push the rest of it out of my head. If I fill my brain with random show trivia and cast member interviews, then maybe there won’t be room for that unpleasantly messy reality.

I’m not in complete denial, of course. For one thing, I’m writing this post. My family has food on the table, we mostly have clean clothes to wear, the house isn’t a complete disaster. The stress can’t really be ignored. M and I had a good talk about all of this tonight, and while there were no shortage of tears on my side, it wasn’t a bad conversation to have. Truth be told, I actually feel like M and I are in a good place, relationship-wise, and I am very aware of how much he’s got my back right now.

But our talk brought so much stuff to the front, I couldn’t sleep. So, well after midnight, I came downstairs and revved up the DVD.

At least it’s the weekend, and I can hear M snoring away up there, so at least one of us should be rested and functional when the kids get up.

Alright, yesterday’s pity party is done. It’s a new year, new start, new mood.

Here’s the thing – I can’t force 2012 to be less stressful. There will still be plenty of chaos in my world – I do have three kids, after all, one of whom has higher-maintenance needs that aren’t going anywhere. But I’m remembering the chapter in Nurtureshock about sibling relationships. The idea was that the amount of arguing and conflict between siblings wasn’t the determining factor in how close they reported their relationship to be. Some brothers and sisters fought a lot, some fought a little. But the ones who reported the closest relationships were the ones who had the most positive interactions and memories together. The good balanced, or even outweighed, the bad.

So that’s what I want for this year. I want to make it a point to create a lot of good – good experiences, good memories, good events, good progress – so that the good can outshine any bad. To that end, I’m starting a list of goals for this year. It’s a mixed bag, they aren’t all shiny, pretty, fun goals. But they are concrete and specific, which means I am more likely to actually accomplish them. They give me a structure of things to work towards, and I always work better with structure.

FITNESS

1. run a 5K in 35 minutes or less - I’m currently nursing a hip/muscle injury, but really do want to stick with running. If nothing else, it lends itself to such clearly-defined goals. I’m not sure I’m ready to tackle longer distances, so for now, I’d like to get a bit faster.
2. beat my time in the Feaster Five – I really enjoyed running this race on Thanksgiving morning, and would love to do it again. Faster this time.
3. finish a 10K – Adding another mile to my longest-ever.
4. lose (at least) 35 pounds – Oh, come on. It wouldn’t be New Year’s without a weight-related goal, right? But there it is, I want to be down at least 35 pounds, and I’d like to do it by July. Why July? That’s when my stepsister is getting married. I’m a first-time bridesmaid, and most of the rest of ‘em are a size 0, maybe a size 2 post-kids. And there will be pictures. In case I needed extra motivation, there it is.

HOME

1. de-clutter at least one day a week – It’s an ongoing battle over here, always so much clutter. I need to attack it one bit at a time. Especially if, as we are strongly considering, we plan on moving in the next six months or so. Half of this crap really doesn’t need to be packed up and moved to another house.
2. find a house we love, not just like – I think we’re settled on the town, so now we need to find The House. It doesn’t need to exactly be the house of my dreams, since I rather doubt we could afford such a house here in Massachusetts. But I want it to be a house that we really, truly love. I don’t want to settle for something “good enough.” I want to love it.
3. decorate our new house with thought and purpose – That’s something I’ve never quite done in our current house. Next time around, I want to go room-by-room and, again, make it a space we really love.

PERSONAL/FAMILY/KIDS

1. complete project 365 – I’ve wanted to do a one-a-day photo project in the past, but either I get too daunted, or don’t remember until a week into the year, or whatever. No excuses, it starts today. At least one picture per day, all year (366 days, technically). I’m not committing to blogging those pictures in any particular way, other than probably uploading them to Flickr, but I want to do it. Phone camera or DSLR, doesn’t matter.
2. find a synagogue – It’s time to find a community we like and really bring the kids into it. After all, Hebrew School starts in the fall…
3. take a family summer vacation – Just a vacation. Not visiting parents. Not in Chicago or Florida. Just us, just for fun. Maybe we get together with some other friends, maybe we don’t.  But a VACATION, not a family visit.
4. get away by myself – Restorative. Necessary.
5. get away with M – Restorative. Necessary.
6. get a babysitter – I need someone I can leave Ellie with from time to time, so that I can run errands or go work out by myself. Not to mention the occasional evening out with my husband. There’s a chance my in-laws will be moving closer, which would fit the bill, but in the meantime I need to find someone I can pay, and who can actually take care of feeding Ellie and not freak out.
7. get a financial planner – This one is boring, but way over-due.  M and I do fine with our finances – save for our mortgage, we have no debt, and for that I am grateful.  But I know that we need to be a lot more proactive about saving and investing and allocating in a responsible and productive way, so that’s high on the list.
8. get a therapist – For me.  I’ve thought about it several times this year, and am so daunted by the idea of adding any more appointments to my day.  But I think I could really use it. In part, I’d like to work through some of the stress that is lingering over Ellie’s rough beginning and ongoing needs. But one of the big things I’d like to address is my relationship with food (see: Fitness Goal #3). It’s messed up in all kinds of interesting ways, so I’d like to try to work at it from another angle than simply “dieting.”
9. get a piano and start the kids on piano lessons, if they’re willing – I want my kids to have at least a basic knowledge of music. I had a conversation with S of Lit and Laundry after her post on finding an “I HATE PIANO” note in some old sheet music, and I totally agree with her that music is a part of basic literacy in my mind.  I don’t want to be a crazy Stage Mom, I’m not trying to re-live my own childhood and adolescent love of music through my kids. But I at least want them to have some exposure, in case they find they have a gift for it, or at least a love of it as much as I did. I’m not going to force it on them, kicking and screaming. I’m not going to make them take lessons until they graduate from high school if they don’t want to. But I’d like to start and see where it goes.

Alright, that’s my list. I’m sure there will be other things I want to (and, hopefully, do) accomplish this year, but these are the ones I’ve got for today.

What about you? Do you share any of the same goals? Have some big ones for yourself?

I have a tendency to power through most challenging situations, only to lose my cool right at the end. I’ll keep it together while traveling with the kids, but find myself on the verge of a mental breakdown halfway through the final flight. In college, I did a 30-hour dance marathon. While lots of people hit a wall in the middle of the night, and then rode a wave of excitement as we neared the end, I ran completely out of gas at hour 29. I was cranky, tired, and probably kind of bitchy to innocent bystanders.

This is where I find myself, now. Ellie is 10 weeks old today. The surgery is done, it went “smooth as silk,” according to her doctor. Her recovery is going pretty well. We are talking to medical supply liaisons and discharge coordinators. We’re out of intensive care and on a regular pediatric floor.

And that is where I burst into tears in front of the entire rounding team of residents and nurses.

Anyone who has spent time in the NICU knows, you learn quickly not to even speak the four-letter word that starts with “h.” You don’t dare ask “when” until it’s obviously immenent. And once you start asking, you’re really in for it. God forbid one person say Tuesday when another says Wednesday. Relatively speaking, you’d think one extra day in the scheme of multiple months wouldn’t make that much of a difference. But when you know you’re SO CLOSE, even the littlest bit of wavering or false hope can make you crazy.

Almost there. Almost. I hope.

Having some connectivity issues here at my dad’s house that are getting in the way of posting the remaining few days of the big birthday retrospective. Back online soon, but feel free to check the May, June, and July archives in the meantime!

A quick last post before we head to NYC for the weekend.  I’m frantically trying to get the house in order so life will be easier for my SIL (who I’ve invited to guest-blog while she’s here… we’ll see if she can still string together words after taking care of two 11-month-olds).  I’m not too nervous, and I know she’ll take awesome care of my kids and they will be in great hands.  I’m really getting excited, honestly.  A long train ride, staying in a hotel, lunch and dinner with friends, seeing a show… should be great!  I even bought a book!  That’s not about kids!  I’ll also bring my knitting, and will probably work on Daniel’s hat.

Did I not mention I’ve been on a mini crafting bender the last few days?  Ooh, once I get started…  I got really into those French knots, and embroidered the quilt tops that I need to put together with backing and batting and all of that.  My brother and sister-in-law’s wedding quilt (yeah, I missed that whole “1 year” mark…) got the date of their wedding, and the kids’ quilts each got their initials and date of birth.  It was really fun.

I also picked up some fat quarters while at the craft store (look out, I’m addicted again!) in some fun food-themed prints, and will (someday) make an apron out of it.  Just as soon as I get my sewing machine set up.  And finish the three quilts I have in progress… someday.

Alright, away I go!  Have a great weekend everyone!

I’m not really one to write about global current events. I prefer to keep my blog a little more self-centered, and leave the political commentary to the experts (or Jon Stewart, preferrably). But even Jon Stewart isn’t touching the shooting at Virginia Tech with a 10-foot pole. He’s an expert at poking fun at people in power, or pointing out the foolishness of the average person. But there is, of course, nothing funny to be found in something so awful.

It’s hard to read about what happened there. With many things I watch or read (news stories, books, American Idol, whatever), I have a tendency to internalize whatever emotion is most present to me, and it’s not frequently the good ones. No, what sticks with me is the fear, anxiety, dread, loneliness, embarrasment. This is why I quickly realized I shouldn’t do things like watch 24 or read The Time Traveler’s Wife before bed. It’s why I was crying my eyes out while driving to work the other morning because of a segment of This I Believe on NPR.

A few years ago, the part of the horror I would have most identified with is the students themselves. I still find myself imagining their disbelief, shock, terror, and confusion. But now, the part that makes me cry the most is seeing interviews with the parents. The ones who lost sons and daughters are clearly numb, or hanging on by a thread. I can hardly imagine anything more heartbreaking than the sudden loss of your child. It’s so awful, I can barely even type it. Even the ones whose kids were OK… I can imagine the panic. I was again listening to NPR last night on the way home (I’ve become a bit of an addict), and they interviewed a student who appears to have been the only one in his French class to not be shot. As soon as his dad got the call about what had happened, and that his son was alright, he dropped everything and sped to campus. Even sitting next to his uninjured son, the dad could hardly maintain his composure.

This is the part I find myself unable to let go of, as I am on my way to becoming a parent. The panic, the worry when you don’t know if they’re alright. The immense, yet only partial relief when you find out they’re OK. The crush of your soul if they aren’t. I haven’t even met my kids yet, but I’m starting to understand the desire to do anything you possibly can to keep them safely wrapped up in your arms. I can’t possibly know what these students and parents are going through, and I don’t mean to imply that I have anything other than a superficial idea of their pain. But even the tiny fraction that I can begin to fathom is scary enough.