Embracing Routine

I love the start of a new year, despite the weather that usually accompanies it, and I'm not ashamed to admit I love resolutions. Not the "will lose weight" kind, but the kind that make me really think about what I want for my life and the year ahead. This year, not surprisingly, I have lots to think about. It will be a year in which Jaya goes from baby blob to active toddler. A year in which we really start to discover his personality and learn ever more about ourselves as parents. It will also be a year, hopefully, of simplifying our lives...or maybe not simplifying...maybe just streamlining. It is my hope, and here I put it in writing, to be living in just one place by the end of the year. Hope, I say, not expectation, since I'm trying to let go of that one, but hope, nonetheless. But back to resolutions that are within my control...

This year, as for the last many, I resolve to Embrace Inconvenience. Every year this is a reminder to myself that the "convenience" of our wealthy western lives comes at a huge cost to the planet and our coinhabitants. So, when I'm sorting through messy recycling or stirring compost in the rain or remembering to walk or straining Jaya's pears or whatever picky little thing I'm doing and feeling crabby about, I try to remember why I'm doing it. And not only that, but Enjoy It. Because I'm also resolved not to spend much time doing stuff I don't enjoy. So, okay, I almost never stir the compost, but if and when I do, I will try to appreciate the exercise, or the smell of wet leaves, or just the pleasure of knowing that big pile of rotting yuckiness will one day feed the garden I will one day get around to growing.

And for this year, I have made a new resolution, that never, in years past, would have occurred to me: Embrace The Routine. I hate routines. I have never had them. Probably the only one I have consistently had in my life is to brush my teeth in the morning and before bed. My morning tea comes close, but it's not every day and sometimes it's coffee. But then along came Jaya. And it turns out that babies, and I'm imagining the same is true for small children, demand routines. I've tried to do without. But on days without a routine I inevitably forget at least one of Jaya's meals, I'm late getting him to a nap, I forget to pump for the reserve bottle, I'm still in my pyjamas at noon, etc, etc. While none of these are devastating once and awhile, they're pretty discouraging day after day. And so, the routine. We're still working on what it will be, and it's an ever evolving thing, but still, there's a structure there that's both foreign and reassuring to this new mum. And this year, I will embrace it. And by embrace, I mean enjoy. There's that word again.

So perhaps all of this can be summed up as : This year I will Enjoy My Life As Much As I Can, As Often As I Can. Amen.