New Year. New Blog

So, its already January 2 and its my first blog posting since before Christmas. The season really just flew by this year...so fast in fact, it seems like none of it really happened.

The best part of the holidays, without question, was the amount of time I got to spend with Kieran. I find that right now is the most amazing age...I love watching him get smarter right before my eyes. He now can build Lego towers that are structurally sound enough that they don't fall over until they are well above his head. His comprehension is coming along in leaps and bounds...as my sister so aptly put it during the holidays: "he can follow a ten-page list of directions." I swear, if we could just sort out his shopping excursion behavioral issues, we'd be all set.

We spent a week visiting my brother and his family in Boston. We love to go there - especially at Christmas. (Although, we also do enjoy summer pool season....) Anyway, there is always lots going on, lots of people around, but the house is big enough that you can actually almost always find somewhere to be alone if need be. Or find a spare child to play Scrabble or watch a movie with.

Although, we did end up leaving my brother's house a day earlier than planned. Once my parents arrived and had to boot my youngest niece from her bedroom, I felt bad that we were taking up two spare rooms, so we decided to head out. Its nice to go away, but nice to get home and just chill. We had friends over for a New Year's Eve fondue, which was a real hit and was very low key, which is just how I like New Year's to be. I postponed taking down our Christmas tree too....I was going to do it yesterday, but we were having such a nice quiet family day that I didn't want to mess it up by creating any chaos.

Which brings us to this morning and a crashing end to the holiday bliss. What a disaster, starting with the fact that we realized at the last second that it was garbage day, and having missed one over the holiday, and with three full boxes of recycling (kids toys have way too much freaking packaging) we were in no position to miss it again. So there Eric was outside at 7 am, in -24 wind chill, dealing with garbage, while I'm still half asleep (stupid New Year's Eve) getting the boy ready for daycare. Finally, just as we ready to leave, both Eric and I get into the car and notice some really weird burning smell. And the battery light was on. So, deciding that the coldest day of the winter thus far would be a poor day to be stranded on the QEW, we decided to take the other car. So, Eric starts to unfreeze the Sentra, which has not been used since before Christmas and was nothing short of a frozen iceblock. Twenty minutes later we are finally on our way, almost 45 minutes later than our usual departure time. Eric has a brutal cold, is frozen solid, and we are late enough that we even bypass our semi-regular Tim Horton's coffee stop. Luckily, traffic was a breeze and since it was too cold to even attempt to walk from Globe, Eric dropped me off at the door of work, so I was even on time.

So, two days into the New Year, and we will already undoubtedly have a nice car repair bill, which does not bode well for 2008, when I will be on poorly paid mat leave for the vast majority of it. Arrgh.