Happy New Year!

I'm a day late, but happy 2011 to you!  I don't ever remember being so excited for a new year to begin, but here we are, starting afresh with days stretching out ahead of us full of possibility and hopefulness.  One of the things I am hopeful about for 2011 is that we will add a third little person to our family sometime this year.  We are very, very close to having all our adoption paperwork done and approved; we have missed my personal goal of having it done by the end of 2010 but we are down to just one form, I think.  (I hereby resolve to get to the police station for fingerprinting THIS WEEK, if at all possible.)  Once our paperwork is finished and approved, a birthmother could choose us at anytime but the average wait if you are open to a child of any race is three to six months.  Hopefully this calendar year will find us a family of five!

I am also excited because after the borderline-disgusting excess of the holidays, Rob and I have decided to turn over a new leaf when it comes to food and exercise and the like.  I am such a cliche!  Starting a new diet in January!  It just really wasn't practical through the holidays though, with parties and birthdays and dinners with friends and a marathon visit from Rob's parents.  So starting this week, I am cutting out sugar and white flour and other badness for a while and increasing my protein (eggs! lots of eggs!) and getting back to the sure-to-be-crowded gym.  I feel like I am in a really good place mentally and emotionally about this, in case you are remembering my body-image freakout of this past fall.  I am feeling motivated and realistic and ready to do good things to nurture and care for my physical self.  I may go into sugar withdrawal after the massive holiday overindulgence, but hopefully it will be short-lived and soon I will feel well-rested and clear-skinned and svelte.

For a variety of reasons, I feel happy just to be returning to the normal rhythm of our everyday lives.  Historically I have really loved this time between Christmas and New Year's, when the crazy pace of Christmas preparations has passed but regular life has not started back up, but last year we all had a terrible stomach virus and this year it was absorbed in the aforementioned megadose of family togetherness.  And then there is my darling children's, ahem, challenging behavior as the lack of routine and sugar and whatnot has caught up with them.  Maybe the magic of that week was a college and grad school thing and now that I am a real grown-up driving a child to school and running a household, the real magic lies in the everyday and the commonplace that make a family, a life, a year.  Here's to 2011!