hodge podge

1. Happy New Year! We spent some of our evening with a few new friends and the rest (after the boys' bedtimes) at home. I made it all the way until 11:00 this year, which is really quite the accomplishment considering I'm lucky to get two chunks of four hours of sleep a night. I happen to love New Year's resolutions and am almost always able to stick to them, and Shawn happens to eschew resolutions and make fun of me for making them. In case you're wondering, Jude's New Year resolutions were: 1. To work on potty training 2. To wean from the pacifier 3. To cuddle and kiss Mommy and Daddy more 4. To stop this nonsense of taking two hours to go to sleep. Cohen's resolutions were: 1. To sleep twelve hours a night. Every night. 2. To figure out this crawling business and eventually work on walking. 3. To learn how to say, "Mommy" and "Daddy." 4. To cuddle and kiss Mommy and Daddy more.

It's true, they told me.

2. Jude began his first day of preschool today. He'll be going Tuesdays and Thursdays from 9-2 through the school year. He was ridiculously adorable wearing his Thomas backpack and holding mine and Shawn's hands on the way into the church. I'm so excited for him to get to learn in a structured, Christian environment, to interact with other kids, and to get some of that boundless energy out. I'm also of course, sad that someone else will be teaching my child, that he'll be away from me for what feels like half a week, and that I'll no longer experience pretty much everything in his life with him. I expected those feelings of sadness and knew that it's just the natural part of a child growing and gaining independence. What I didn't expect, however - was the worry that crept in.

Will he make friends? Will he behave? Will he be bullied? Will the teacher know that he wants a graham cracker when he says, "crax?" Will the teacher freak out when he lets out a guttural scream in exasperation? Will the other kids know that he wants to play rough housing when he says, "I push?" Will he nap okay? Did I pack the right thing for his lunch? Will he eat enough? Will he be able to open his lunch box? Will his pants keep falling down because they're all sized for cloth diapers?

Will he miss me? Will he miss me so much that he thinks I'm leaving him and not understand what's going on?

I'm getting ready to go pick him up here in a few minutes, so I guess I can't actually answer any of those questions yet. Since I haven't heard from the school though, I have a feeling he ran full force into the life of a preschooler and didn't look back. He probably already made little friends with his friendly, "hiiii!" and will hopefully just ignore any bullying. His teachers have worked with two year olds for a long, long time, so I'm certain they're great at deciphering, and if his pants fall down he'll pick them back up.

Still, this Mommy thing is tough. Just when you think you want to lock them outside for the day, you realize you actually never want to let them go.

3. I'm running again, and loving it. I know that's not really noteworthy, but I felt like updating you on two items just wasn't enough.

More Christmas photos coming soon. Can you handle the anticipation?