A New Year

Happy New Year, friends! 

My husband has mentioned that he feels there is a stigma around admitting you have New Years Resolutions, because it's sort of eye-roll inducing.  I will shout it from the hill top, I love this holiday.    I've never liked starting anything in the middle.  I want a defined beginning.

This year an important goal for my family is to spend time outside every day.  I feel better when I'm outside and it's truly one of the most important parenting goals for me and, yet, as the weather got colder over the past few months I found myself doing something that makes me feel just awful to admit…I was putting off going outside with the kid.  I wanted to wait until after nap time bc I didn't have the energy to get all of her layers together in the morning.  Then nap time went too long and I had to clean the house before dinner time.  Then it was too late.  Then it was too dark.  Then it was too cold.  Then it was too windy.  Then I was too tired, etc etc.  I found more than one week where we were going day-ZUH, plural, without spending time outside.  It made me feel moody and guilty…and feeling guilty and like a bad parent made me more moody.  I knew what the issue was and I needed to just change it.  Now.

Nothing like the first of the year coming just at the right time.  New Years Day was a COLD one here in Boston, but we bundled up, Mommy, Daddy and kid, and went for a walk through our local Nature Preserve.  The kid was enamored with all of the ice, making Daddy "ice-skate" her across every frozen sheet on the path.  We followed a winding brook and found a part where the ice had been cracked, the kid picked up a giant shard that she had to hold with both hands and she wanted to carry that around with her for the whole walk.  We are now in the midst of a winter snow storm, the kind that makes your face ache from the cold.  Today we all went out in the snow kicking inches of powder as the snow continued to fall.  The kid could not get enough.  Don and I both laughed, as we kept trying to inch her back toward the house, that kids just have no issues with the weather when they are having fun.  They want to play and that's that. 

Have you seen this film, Project Wild Thing??  It's been on my watch list for months and I am determined to watch it this month.  It looks like a must see for all of us.  Wishing you all a wonderful New Year full of fresh air in your lungs!  

PROJECT WILD THING - official trailer from Green Lions on Vimeo.