la_rainette | Happy New Year!

The French tradition says that you have until January 31st to bestow your good wishes on everyone and their neighbours. That's a very good thing, cos I haven't even started yet (and I'm not about to, since my "Happy New Year" cards are all in a box. One of the many boxes. No, I have no idea which one. Not that it would help if I did know, cos the pens, if I am not mistaken, are in another box. Wah)

So I'm grateful for the Internet and LJ, that allows me to send all of you my very best wishes for love, fortune, health, happiness, for 2005. HAPPY NEW YEAR, folks! Have a smashing, wonderful, happy year 2005.

In other news, I am still packing.

And making this astonishing discovery: as you age, moving becomes more and more like a minuscule, human-life-scaled paleontological exploration process.

Your life fossilizes as you go, have you never noticed? Well, come to think of it, most of you probably haven't yet, but see, it may just happen to you like it happened to me. One day, you look back, and there it is:

The pre-marriage era and its various heartbreaks, and those few items you saved preciously, because it hurt too much to even imagine throwing them away, but it also hurt to see them everyday, so you hid them. See which items I mean? THEY WILL COME BACK TO HAUNT YOU, mark my words.

Husband: What's that?
rainette: hmmmmmmm pffff qwzzzz.
Husband: ?
rainette: ahahahahaha. Oh, that? Ah. Hahahahaha.

Well, yes.

The pre-kids, pre-marriage, cat-filled era, and its many pictures of one and the same fluffy kitten, and then adult cat (sitting on a chair; climbing on the bed; sleeping in a backpack; eating a plant leaf by leaf, like an artichoke; and one memorablle picture of an empty chair, cos she jumped off and away as I was taking the picture)

The pre-kid-life-with-Husband era, with its many pictures of culture-filled vacations: with hot-air balloon rides in Turkey, skin-diving in the West Indies, and water-beds in the US; and there, right in the middle of the fun life-with-husband era: the life-changing, wedding-shaped eathquake, and it's honeymooney aftermath, and its ONE ZILLION pictures, congratulation cards, telegrams and mementos (including a few that got hidden in the hope we would lose them at some point, cos they were given to us by Husband's family and I didn't quite have the heart to tell Husband how ugly they were. THEY'RE STILL WHERE I HID THEM. Drat.)

The first-kid era: more pictures, little bonnets, little bracelets, little toys, little things that I cannot bear to part with, but that will fill up two extra-large crates when put together.

The two-kids era: MORE PICTURES, OMG!!!!! A double stroller; 4 car seats, assorted sizes; 2 playpens; more little toys; more little bracelets. Much fewer congratulation cards, though. It's like, yeah, yeah, we know you can do it, no point in congratulating you AGAIN. Reproduction is overrated, anyway.

And I'm listing the periods chronologically, but of course when you unearth the stuff, it all appears in reverse. It's a little bit unsettling, really, digging all the way back to your own teenage years -- which, let's face it, aren't always comfortable years.

And then, you face the questions about the many pictures.

Froglet: Who's that?
rainette: erm. That's me.
Froglet: Oh. It doesn't look like you.
(Geez, thanks.)
rainette: well, I was much younger. You weren't born yet.
Froglet: yes, I was still in your belly.

Froglet and Tadpole cannot imagine a time without them, a time before they were even in my belly. But see, I am getting to that point too. I see these pictures, and think, oh, I was doing that, sky-diving, swimming with sharks, what was I thinking, what about the girls? Well, there weren't there, of course. *shakes head* Funny, where life takes you.

So we all learn to cope with the transience of life, at one point or another. Froglet is dealing with it right now, and it's hard. Every evening almost she has a Major Meltdown and weeps her eyes out.

Froglet: But I love this house! I'll miss it SO MUCH!
rainette: We're taking everything with us, remember? All your toys, and everything.
Froglet: BUT THE WALLS WILL STAY! *throws herself against the wall and kisses it passionately*

What can I do, I wonder?

We took the Christmas Tree apart, yesterday, and she cried.

Froglet: BUT I LOVE IT! I don't want it to go!
Husband: It's DEAD, Froglet. We'll have another one, next year.
rainette *rolls eyes at Husband*
Froglet: I don't want another tree! I want this tree!
Husband: It's got to go, Froglet.
Froglet: NOOOOOOOO! *throws self against tree*
Froglet: Ow.

Well, yes. It's a tree. Trees aren't fluffy, honey.

I felt a little better after New Year's Eve, which we spent with Joey and Sam's family (and look, only Sam conked out before midnight! The three other kids toasted the New Year with Shirley Temples. We had 10-year-old champagne, as we waited until 2005 to open up the 1995 bottle ;) ). Joey, who is Froglet's age, was very sad that 2004 was going away and he would never see it again. Aha, I thought, so Froglet is just going through A Phase!

We'll keep an eye on it, just in case, of course, but she's still, most of the time, her usual playful, happy self.

Froglet *gallops past, with a pink scarf tied around her waist and floating behind her*
Froglet: Look, Mom! I'm a Unicorn! See my pretty tail?
rainette: yes, I do, but where's your horn?
Froglet *shrugs* Fell off in the fall. It'll grow back in the spring.

And unfailingly logic, too. :D

and now a few thank yous:

Alyssa, thank you so much for your card! OMG, I'm so sorry I didn't thank you earlier! *glomps*

Selk and Cole: *glomps and hugs* I got your card, too, YAY! Thank you so much!

Gareth!!!! OMG BOOK!!! As luck would have it, the book arrived the day after Husband had packed off all our bottles in boxes, so I am left reading the book and salivating in advance... BUT! I have found IRISH COFFEE GLASSES! I didn't even know I still had them (another pre-kid era item unearthed -- to our great delight), and we have lots of unbelievably funky and unusual fruit liqueurs, so I'm looking forward to the day we're unpacked and ready to ~~get drunk~~ celebrate with dignity. You're adorable, thank you so much *massive hugs*

And now? I pack some more.

Five more days, folks. Five more days and I can collapse.

I love you guys, and I miss you more than you would believe possible. *hugs entire flist*