Financial Security/Life/Marriage/Parenting & Family

Playing Catch-up

Posted on by noemikjames / 21 Comments

Well, a belated Merry Christmas to you and yours. I hope you had a great day, whether you celebrate or not, and that you have plans to celebrate the New Year in a way that brings you joy.

Things are going pretty well around these parts. There is much to report, so I will fall back on the bulleted points to get the job done. (I’m alternating bulleted paragraphs because I don’t like that you can’t keep a space between them otherwise. Sorry if this is distracting.)

  • My husband and I have had the weekend alone, and it’s been tremendous. It’s been exactly what we needed. I promise to write more about it soon.

We left the kids with my parents on Christmas night, came home, watched the new Mad Max (Fury Road–crazy, but good) and then went to bed. Upon waking we picked up our disaster of a house because a cleaning lady I had schedule was set to come at 1pm. The chaos of the house had been driving me crazy and no matter how hard I tried to get it under control, with both kids home I just couldn’t do it. So we spent four hours just picking it up, so the cleaning lady could spend four hours cleaning it. Now it’s immaculate (or close to it) and I feel 100x better.

  • Related: I really do think that a monthly house cleaning would go FAR in keeping my anxiety at bay, and at $140 a shot (that includes a sizable tip) I might actually be able to manage it. My goal is to spend the next three months closely tracking our finances so I can figure out if we can add that line item to our budget, because I think it would be more beneficial to my mental health than therapy at this point. If we had someone come once a month it would provide the impetus needed to pick up, and inspire me to get rid of stuff on a more regular basis. It would also keep the dust and cat hair under control, which is better for all our health. If the last few years have taught me anything it’s to know and respect my limitations, and keeping a clean house is one of them. If this could make it manageable for me, I really want to make it happen.

We have had considerable difficulties with our new tenant, which I’ve been so upset about I haven’t even come here to put it into words. The good news is that the issues have been resolved, and that the nightmare prompted us to get a second opinion on some plumbing issues we were told were unavoidable. $1,200 later (mostly financed by in my in-laws as a belated combined birthday present–they wanted to get us a new fridge but we never pulled the trigger, because the only problem with our is the inside light doesn’t work–and a combined Christmas present), a valve is keeping our water pressure in the ideal range, and now our pipes don’t hammer when the washing machine runs or our tenant takes a shower. Our original plumber told us we needed all new pipes to fix those issues, but that was not at all the case. I wish we’d sought a second opinion earlier, but I guess I usually assume people are going to tell me issues can’t be fixed, so I accept it when they do. I’m not sure where that attitude comes from, I suppose a general ignorance about house stuff. We definitely learned our lesson and will seek second and third opinions in the future.

  • Oh, and the best news about the plumber is that he had to reconnect our heating duct when he added an expansion tank to our water heater, because the water heater and regular heater ducts were connected, so now we have heat again! This weekend it was getting into the low 30s at night and one night it was so cold that every time I rolled into a section of sheets that weren’t warmed by my body I jolted awake. Sunday we were out of the house long enough to run the heat with the windows open for a few hours and that night we got our first taste of sleeping in a toasty 52* (that is a good temperature to set for the night, right?) I’m definitely worried about what this will do to our PG&E bill, so we’re going to keep the thermostat low (or off completely when we’re not at home), but at least we won’t be freezing in the mornings. (What do you keep your thermostat at? I was thinking 60-62*.)

We were having a SERIOUS ant issue that was starting to get me really depressed. I read a couple articles about how ants in California come in to find water during droughts or escape the rain during storms, so we’re basically fucked and there is nothing we can do. I cried, a lot, about it, because it was getting to the point where they were EVERYWHERE, and massive in number. But I researched some bait traps and put them in strategic places and the cleaning lady got rid of any unseen food remnants and so far we haven’t seen an ant in three days. I know they will keep coming back, but I don’t feel so hopeless about the prospect of cohabiting with literally thousands of them.

  • We got a letter from the water company authorizing a $500 credit due to us fixing the leak in our tenants’ toilet. The whole ordeal still cost us $500 dollars, but it’s better than nothing. We’re also hoping that the lower water pressure will keep our water usage down moving forward.

Christmas day was okay. My daughter was very much into “are there any more presents for me?” but she wasn’t too upset when the answer was finally “no.” My son was actually almost as into the present-opening as his sister, which I hadn’t even considered, as he wasn’t that interested two months ago at his birthday. He had a lot more fun playing with each toy he opened, and it was fun to watch him rip apart presents that weren’t even for him (with the permission of the correct recipient). All in all it was a fine day. I really can’t complain. (Except that my daughter had pink eye and my son ended the day with a 102* fever, but otherwise it was fine.)

  • We finished the second season of Broadchurch (loved it, David Tennant is a master) and Interstellar, which we also really enjoyed. It’s been so nice watching good television and awesome movies.

We’ve been eating out strategically during our weekend without the kids, keeping the financial damage at a minimum (and using Christmas cash from our parents to pay for it). We’ve kept it to small food trucks and pop-ups, eating huge meals so we can skip a few or just eat a snack at home to tide us over. Oh, and we’ve been making all our own drinks at our place.

  • My husband and I happened into the library the other day and then he randomly eyed some new graphic novels on a shelf, which prompted us to seek out the graphic novel section, where I found a ton of comic books I just saw at a store and really wanted to read. I felt like a kid at Christmas, only it was the day after Christmas and I was just borrowing books from the library. I brought home ten graphic novels and I’ve already read five. It’s been a lot of fun to lose myself in the comic book world again. It’s been a long, long time. And I’m stoked to know that my library has so many graphic novels. I had no idea they carried DC and Marvel comics in such vast quantities. It’s going to take great restraint to keep this under control moving forward. 😉

Last month I finally filled out the paper work to get my paycheck direct deposited to our new checking account. I have also changed all my auto payments to come out of that account. My husband is half way through those same steps. By 2016 we should be spending from the same joint accounts. I also have a new budgeting tool to help me in 2016. I will write more about it presently.

 

So yes, right now, things are good. I have a ton to say about my marriage and how important it us for us to get away from our kids for a few days. I have even more to say about the new year and managing expectations. There is much to say, but I’ve already said enough. And I need to keep exercising, so I can shower, drink a bloody mary and go see Star Wars at the new Alamo Draft house (complete with drinks and food).

I hope you’re all having a good time in the space between holidays. Thanks for standing with me through the past few months. I hope I have something valuable to add to the conversation in the months to come.

Financial Security/Parenting & Family

Teaching What I Don’t Know

Posted on by noemikjames / 26 Comments

Only two more days until Christmas. Thank gawd. I don’t think my daughter and I can last any longer.

My daughter LOVES stuff, toys, books, jewelry, art supplies. She really loves NEW stuff. She sees something that she wants and she fixates on it. For her the phrase, “out of sigh, out of mind,” just doesn’t apply. If she decides she wants something, even if she only sees it for a second, she will remember for months and months and months.

For this reason (among others) it’s really hard to take her places. You don’t know how much shit is on display until you’re trying to avoid it. And even if you can avoid it, other kids are carrying around their shit (which I totally get, my kid is carrying around her shit too), so no place is really ever safe. The number one thing on her list for her last birthday was a mermaid doll she saw some girl walking around with at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk. She was talking about it for three months.

It’d be one thing if she fixated on a thing and then, once she got it, she played with it like crazy. That is not, in fact, what happens. What does happen is she plays with it like crazy for a couple of days, and then it disappears into the ether. Except, it doesn’t disappear enough that I can get rid of it, because she will remember it again, randomly, months from when it was last seen, and have a total shit fit when she finds out it’s not around anymore.

That whole, take your kids’ toys away and they will be happier thing? That doesn’t seem to apply to my kid.

As you can imagine, this time of year is a nightmare for us. I quite literally can’t take her anywhere because every store, even ones that don’t usually sell kid stuff, have toys near the checkout. Even Safeway and Whole Foods have entire sections dedicated to toys right now. I can’t run a single errand with my daughter, lest she fixate on something and add it to her list.

She spent most of the Nutcracker sulking about a giant ($100+) wooden snow fairy statue that she saw at the gift shop that you needed to pass through to get to our balcony seats. On the way home she made up a song about we never get her anything she wants.

To say this is upsetting to me would be an understatement. I find her attitude absolutely devastating.

The reason it’s most devastating? I know I’ve played a big part in cultivating it. Her grandparents are definitely partly to blame, but I played my part too. When she was two and three and things were HARD with her, I definitely used “that shiny thing” to coax her out of her hours long meltdown or to just get us through another hour at the zoo with our friends. The offending object of distraction wasn’t always a toy–I actually have a firm policy of not buying things from gift shops–but it was someTHING that enticed her to stop being impossible so we could just get on with it. Of course now, when she’s jonsing for her “new thing fix,” she’s a total wreck until she gets it.

The thing is, I don’t know how to teach her to not want the things on which she’s fixated. How can I teach her something I never learned myself? I say all the things I assume I’m supposed to say: I validate her feeling of want, and how bad it feels, I remind her of all she has, I tell her that the feeling will pass and we can do something fun in the meantime (frequently I get fed up and yell at her to get over self already).

It’s the exact self talk I direct at myself. And it seems just as ineffective on her and it is on me.

How do I teach my daughter not to try to escape from her unhappiness in shiny new stuff, when that is exactly what I do when I feel shitty? I feel like I’m failing as a mother.

They say that the best teachers are the ones who struggled with something themselves. I think that’s true, but it’s only applicable when they’ve mastered the skill, not when they are still learning it. You can be a good math teacher if math was hard for you, but you eventually figured it out; you definitely have more empathy for struggling math students and you also probably have way more useful strategies that you perfected out of necessity for yourself. But if you still don’t really understand fractions, it’s going to be hard to teach some else how they work.

When my daughter is really struggling with vision therapy and just wants to give up, I know how to talk to her about doing things even though they are hard. I’m good at doing things even though they are hard, and the pep talk I give her usually bolsters me up. But when I’m telling my daughter to be grateful for what she has and to stop fixating on a toy that definitely won’t make her happier, my voice sounds hollow. I worry she can sense that I don’t actually believe those things are true.

The thing is I WANT them to be true, I want that self talk to work, for both her and for me. But it has never seemed to make me feel better when I’m fixating on something I want. How can I expect those platitudes to make it better for her?

I think eventually I will get it, and I will be able to tell my daughter what works for me. Or maybe I’ll be able to tell her that nothing really works but these tricks help make it better than it would be, and that will have to be enough. I’m definitely getting better, but I’m not there yet.

Last week I make the mistake of letting her go in the Swarkovski store downtown (I met her after care program at the ice skating rink), and we both found something we really wanted. If she hadn’t been with me, I might have bought mine. She’s still talking about the crystal Cinderella statue she saw, but I’ve mostly let go of the sparkly trinket that caught my eye. It took me a few days, but I eventually realized that I wanted something sparkly for my anniversary coming up, because I haven’t felt that great about my marriage and I wanted something to help me celebrate. But I realized that a shiny thing wouldn’t make me any happier in my relationship, and the object of my affection quickly lost its luster. I was pretty depressed for a few days afterward, but at least it was about a disillusionment with my marriage (something that actually matters) and not about denying myself something shiny (which does not).

So I’m getting there, taking baby steps in the right direction, and I think I might eventually arrive, but I’m worried I’ll get there too late, and the damage will already be done. I’m worried it has been done, and there’s no salvaging my daughter from this vicious cycle of obsessively wanting things an becoming miserable when she can’t have them.

Tomorrow is Christmas Eve and she’ll get to open one present. I already asked my mom to put the Ana and Elsa magnet set under the tree so she can fucking have it already because I can’t stand the thought of her tossing all her other presents aside because that one isn’t there (we spend the morning with my in-laws and the magnetic set will not be there). So yes, I’m giving in, I’m capitulating, it’s a Christmas present to myself, because I’m already having a hard enough time this Christmas, and I don’t need some dumb magnetic set ruining the rest of it.

Minimalism

Mantra

Posted on by noemikjames / 2 Comments

I was digging around in a junk drawer the other day and found this:

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A reminder I made for myself many, many years ago. It turns out I’ve been trying to embrace this “want less” mindset for a long time.

Maybe some day I’ll actually manage it. I wish I could understand why it’s taking me so long to get there.

Uncategorized

Follow-up Thoughts

Posted on by noemikjames / 19 Comments

I’ve been thinking a lot about the discussion that took place on my last post. As is usually the case, you all have me considering possibilities I haven’t contemplated before. You all are such a valuable resource. Thank you for your understanding, support and advice. 

I haven’t responded to comments on that post because I feel they warrant one big response post, but I haven’t had a lot of time to write it yet. I hope to put that post up early next week. 

In the meantime I will say that my husband and I have tentative plans to discuss our expectations for how evenings will look moving forward. In the past evenings were my domain because my husband had our daughter in the mornings. This never really felt like a fair division of parental responsibilities to me, but it worked well enough for us. Now that I am home in the mornings I think we need to make sure our evening expectations reflect that. We’re supposed to talk about that tonight. 

We also spoke briefly about our overall financial situation and decided to gather data for the next three months before reconvening to see if it’s financially feasible for us to continue living in this house and making this much money. I have said that I suspect the answer is “no,” and that we’ll have to have some hard conversations about what our next steps will look like if we decide we aren’t making enough to save and still live comfortably. I’m hoping that the seed will germinate over the next months, and my husband will be more open to a meaningful, productive talk about this stuff when the time comes.

I will say though, the idea of suggesting my husband leave his job to make more money is like a dead weight in my stomach. My husband really likes his job, he is doing something that is important to him and making pretty decent money doing it. It’s unfortunate for him that the city he calls home (where he was born and raised) has always been expensive and is especially insane right now because of a tech boom. It’s not his fault it costs so much to live here.

I have been disillusioned with my own job for so long, the idea of asking my husband to leave his to make more money depresses me. I know how hard it is to find a job that feels meaningful and you enjoy doing. I want that so much for myself, the idea that I might have it and have to leave it to support my family saddens me deeply. Perhaps it is I who should be thinking about getting another job. I don’t know what I could do that would make more than I currently bring in, especially with how long I’ve been teaching, but I’m going to start looking into it. 

It sucks because my husband is an attorney, but he’d be miserable working for a large firm. So the one with the easy access to a high paying job already has a job he loves and the one who doesn’t love her job, doesn’t have access to a higher paying position. There are no easy answers here. 

And no, we can’t live somewhere more affordable and let my husband keep his job. The entire Bay Area is crazy expensive and my husband works for the city, so he can’t do his job somewhere else. 

So that is where I am right now. I’ve read some posts lately about professional achievement that leave me feeling pretty low about my own lack thereof. It makes this whole internal conversation about my husband and money and where we live a hard one to have with myself. It sucks to think the one of us who is happy might have to sacrifice that for the family. And yet, I am sacrificing in many ways now. I hope we can figure something out that works for both of us.

Marriage/Parenting & Family

Panic and Dread

Posted on by noemikjames / 37 Comments

On Sunday night my husband alerted me to the fact that he would not be home before bedtime one night this week, and I promptly had a panic attack. A real, legitimate, rock on the chest, panic attack. And then I asked him to please be home at least one day that week, because I couldn’t do all the days by myself.

And then I cried myself to sleep.

It’s been building over the past few weeks, this looming feeling of dread about the evenings. I’m not sure when it started (maybe with vision therapy?), or when it got so bad, all I know is that the thought of 5-9pm fills me with a panicky sense of dread.

Did you catch that? The mere thought of the only hours I spend with my kids during the work week fills me with apprehension. To say I feel guilt about this would be an extreme understatement. The guilt is suffocating.

But not as suffocating as the dread.

Those hours after work and before bed are my perfect storm. I’m tired after a day of giving myself to others who would do nothing but take. The transition from child care to home is a hard one, fraught with whining, yelling and full blown melt downs. Preparing food and feeding my children is the parental task I most loathe, and they have to eat dinner every. single. night. My son is increasingly a two year old and my daughter is increasingly her stubborn, emotional, aggressive, pre-diet self. Vision therapy requires I give 100% of my attention to my daughter for 20+ minutes. My son’s bedtime requires I give him 100% of my attention at exactly the same time I should be doing vision therapy. If I have to give either one of them a bath the whole schedule gets pushed back half an hour to an hour. Most nights I stumble out of my daughter’s room at 9:30, having not eaten dinner, with a load of laundry to fold and another to put in the dryer.

It’s a marathon and I have to sprint to the finish line. It requires a patience and empathy I just don’t have at the end of the day.  When I’m home alone it feels relentless and takes forever and even if I time everything just right, I’m still not done until late into the evening. When it’s over all I want to do is unwind for an hour but I don’t have an hour to do anything but laundry, pick up the house (not to make it clean, just to clear paths from one space to another), wash the lunch dishes, and pack the next day’s lunch. If I spend even 30 minutes on the couch reading blogs, I’m not asleep until midnight.

When my husband is home it’s more manageable, but he’s had work obligations a lot this month (fucking holiday parties, which he HATES to go to, but feels he needs to be seen at), and I’ve been alone until after bedtime most nights.

Asking him not to attend one of his events this week was the first time I’ve ever admitted that I couldn’t handle something with the kids. Want to go to SXSW for six days again? Sure! Feel you need to make that once a week nightly commitment because of your new job? Go for it. Want to take the weekend to attend a friend’s wedding? I got this.

But I don’t got this anymore.

I don’t got this.

I don’t know which felt worse on Sunday night, realizing that a week of nights alone with my kids gives me a panic attack, or admitting to myself, and my husband, that I can’t manage it anymore.

PS – I finally responded to all the comments on my last two posts. Thank you for your kind words of support. Sorry it took me so long to get back to all of you.

Life

C-

Posted on by noemikjames / 25 Comments

Lately I’ve been really feeling like I’m failing at being an adult. Like I can’t manage even the most basic tasks that adults have to do. I’m trying to get out from under this mindset, I keep stopping myself when I recognize I’m in a shame spiral and start using positive talk in an attempt to buoy myself up, but it’s hard not to feel like I’m failing when the evidence of it is all around me.

Well, maybe I’m not straight failing, but there is no way I’m getting over a C-.

It’s not that I’m depressed really, I’m just exhausted. And disappointed in myself. I feel like I should be able to manage my life better, and that I should have a more positive attitude while I do it, Instead it all feels like too much, and a huge part of me just wants to give up.

I don’t want to be writing this post, but I don’t know how to write anything else. This is what I was talking about in my last post, how I just CAN’T show up here with a positive attitude when I’m not feeling positive.

I. JUST. CAN’T.

Which means I shouldn’t show up here at all, I suppose, until the negativity passes. That’s what I’ve done in the past.

But that doesn’t feel like the right answer either.

I don’t know how to shake this shitty mindset. I don’t have friends I can sit down and talk to (and it feels like I really need to talk to someone about this, if that makes sense). My husband is in no way capable of helping me out of it, he’ll just pull me further into the muck. I can’t afford therapy (and I wouldn’t qualify for sliding scale prices). I don’t even have it in me to try to find a book to read… maybe because I’ve read so many and I know I’ll just end up right back here where I started. Like I always do. Why put in all that effort only to get nowhere?

I did get a Greatest Lectures on CBT before I closed down my audible account. I’ve never really tried CBT before. Maybe it’s my magic bullet? Maybe those 12 hours I have sitting on my phone will make the difference.

Fuck. It’s not that bad. I need to get over myself. This too shall pass. It will be okay. I have SO MUCH to be thankful for. I have every reason to be hopeful. Life is beautiful. Take stock. Be thankful.

Just get through this. Things will look better on the other side.

They always do.

Identity/Life

Bad Attitude

Posted on by noemikjames / 36 Comments

There are some blogs I read, and people I know, that seem to have a better life than I do. An easier life. A more fulfilling life.

Their kids are easier. Their job is more satisfying. Their income is more ample. Their house is more guest-ready. Their marriage is more “he’s totally my soulmate.”

It would be easy to resent these people, and how good they have it. Some days I do. But most days I don’t, because I’ve been alive long enough to know that they don’t really have a better life than I do, they just have a WAY better attitude about it.

Some people just exude contentedness. They just seem super stoked to get up every morning and go through the motions. Sure they struggle, sure they work hard, sure they come up against adversity, but it never seems to get them down. At least not from anyone on the outside looking in.

And while I’m sure they are presenting a polished version of the way they feel, I’m also pretty sure they couldn’t be presenting that version, at least not as consistently and as well, if they didn’t feel pretty positive, despite the hard stuff. I really don’t believe you can’t “fake it until you make it” when it comes to general disposition.

Maybe you can?

I do not have a naturally buoyant attitude. Shit gets me down, a lot. I’m not sure where it came from–nurture? nature? anyone? Bueller?–but it’s there. It seems to be who I am. Perhaps I lack a certain resilience? Perhaps I’ve written into my software a certain sense of entitlement? Perhaps my hardware is glitchy, and there is nothing to be done.

But what if I want to be different?

Is this the kind of thing you change? Your general outlook on life? The way hard stuff makes you feel? What you choose to focus on? Is this what cognitive behavior therapy is about? Or is meditation and acceptance the answer? Will either tool truly change how I feel about something, or will they only give me options with which to react to those feelings?

I just wish I were one of the happy people, because I’m not, and it feels like I’ll never be.

And that is a shame, because for all intents and purposes I have a pretty great life. It seems like I shouldn’t feel so shitty about it so much of the time.

Home

Bitchy

Posted on by noemikjames / 6 Comments

I was a total bitch today.

No, I’m not being hard on myself.

I had a bad day today, and I was in an epically bad mood about it. I was truly the biggest bitch.

I guessed my period was about to show and half way through the day it timidly knocked on my door. I hate what a bitch I become right before my period. I can’t wait until the obligatory 8-12 weeks of post-vasectomy protection is up so I can get this IUD out and go back to the girl with the three day period and no PMS.

Even knowing that my period was compounding how upset I was about a situation at work, I couldn’t seem to shake my angry, melancholy mood. The looming night of solo parenting (complete with vision therapy, bath time and food prep for my son’s “winter festival” party tomorrow) did nothing to help me shake it either. I wanted to do something for myself, to get me in a better place, but that is hard when one is trying not to spend money.

At lunch, after I spent a good 30 minutes sulking like a petulant child, I decided I was going to cut out of work early (our last class ends at 2:30 but we’re contractually obligated to stay until 3pm, so leaving at 2:45 is technically leaving early), rush home and work out before I picked up my kids. I knew a hit of endorphins would make me feel a million times better, and help me manage the marathon of dinner, vision therapy, two baths and two bedtimes. Plus, being done with my workout would remove that panicked feeling I get when bedtime takes longer than I want and I still need to exercise.

So I did it. And it felt great. Sure I picked my kids up later than I like, but I was in a better mood for working out and the night went better than it would have if I’d picked them when I normally do.

My schedule feels so constrictive these days, I’m struggling just to get food on the table and diapers washed. It can feel impossible to carve out time for myself, but sometimes I need to find a way. Otherwise I might just go insane.

Or be really, really bitchy.

Life

Ingenuity

Posted on by noemikjames / 15 Comments

No heat for us this winter and it’s cold in the mornings. Really fucking cold.

We have a space heater in our bathroom and it can get that super small space warm pretty quickly. The promise of that heater is the only way I can get my daughter out of bed in the morning. She performs her entire morning ritual in that 4x4ft space.

When I realized we needed to do part of our vision therapy regimen in the morning, I knew I’d have a hard time getting my daughter to do it at her desk. Except, what if she didn’t have to?

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Now that is what I call ingenuity.

Home/Identity

Year-End Memories

Posted on by noemikjames / 8 Comments

I left Hong Kong, and my best friend, in 7th grade. I moved to California and she moved to Washington state. She and I wrote each other long letters and called each other frequently. Every summer we spent a week together, sometimes at my house and sometimes at hers.

Moving to a new middle school, in a new country, was hard. Really fucking hard. I did not make friends easily. At school I had almost no one–my year round swim team was where my strong connections were made. I think this helped me stay close to my best friend from Hong Kong. That, and our shared memories.

When we got together we spent a good portion of the time reminiscing. I don’t know if we did this because it is what young kids do, or because we had so little else in common after our years apart, or because Hong Kong was so different from our new lives in the United States. All I know is that we  spent much of our time together remembering our years on that over-crowded rock a half a world away.

I suppose those years spent remembering with my best friend have a lot to do with the fact that I can recall those years in Hong Kong with a clarity my other memories lack. We told the stories so many times that I know them by heart, which is probably why they are so well remembered.

I don’t know if is because of this obsessive revisiting of those years that I thought I’d always want a record of my life, but I wrote in journals and took pictures with a voracity that suggests I was sure I’d want, or maybe need, to look back some day. There are still boxes of journals and photo albums collecting dust in my parents’ garage, waiting for their reckoning,

The thing is, I don’t want to go back and look through them. I have, on occasion, pulled them out and flipped through those pages, and while it was a pleasant enough at the time, those painstaking efforts to record my life aren’t all that important to me. I don’t want to dwell in the past; I can barely keep up with the present.

Even with pictures of my children, after five years of taking literally thousands of photos, I recognize that I only need copies of the best shots, a few highlight moments to remind me of what my kids looked like years ago. I don’t even intend to make photo books for them anymore; the calendar I make every year is record enough. Even those are rarely extracted from the bookshelf to be flipped through.

{I’ve found that short movies are what I really love, because without them I’d forget what my kids sounded like, or how they walked, or the evolution of a smile on their face. It’s alarming how little of the actual details I remember even a year later. Without videos my children would be lost to me.}

We live in a small house and don’t have space for many decorations, but one thing I do invest in for the holidays are ornaments. Every year I make an ornament with a picture of my kids for myself and each set of grandparents. I also buy an ornament or set of ornaments to commemorate whatever my kids were into that year. We currently have Batman, some My Little Ponies, the Disney Princesses, Garfield, Thomas the Train, a Marvel comics set, a Sesame Street set and some Daniel Tiger characters. In this way, I spend the weeks leading up to Christmas remembering my children–what they looked like and what they loved. It makes the holidays so much more special, and allows me to dabble in a bit of nostalgia for just one month out of the year.

It has been a relief to realize that I am not pulled to re-experience the past in a way I assumed I’d want to when I was younger. I am better able to appreciate the present when I’m not scrambling to preserve what will soon be the past. Yes I still love capturing those important memories, because I know otherwise they would quickly slip away, but I don’t capture them with the intent of dwelling on what was. Instead I make an ornament, and hang that moment on my tree, along with all the other fun things that were important to my family.

And then I take a month to sit back, and remember.