Happy New Year!

Bringing in the New Year with a very small child is always somewhat of a challenge. Since the holiday is primarily celebrated with adults in mind, (alcohol, parties till 3am, going outside at night in the cold, getting dressed up) celebrating at home with someone that goes to bed by 8:30 presents some interesting choices. First, finding a babysitter, even if you wanted to, is pretty much impossible because all people without someone to babysit, ie their own bundles of joy, have plans, big fat fabulous fancy plans. But, we did not particularly want to go out. We weren't invited to any parties because almost everyone we know either has kids and isn't going anywhere either, or knows we have kids and it's useless to invite us anywhere. And the option for outdoor celebrating, (meaning freezing among a thousand other stupid people to see something that you can always see better at home on TV), was the Peach Drop. Yes, a Peach. Suffice it to say, we stayed in and created our own partay! The day before Laylah and I blew up about fifty balloons of different sizes and colors, then I took two garbage bags, cut them each down one side and then sewed them loosely together with yarn. I then taped half the garbage bag to the ceiling and filled it with the balloons and then taped the other half up. This became a constant source of fascination for Laylah, "Want Boons Down!" But I told her that they were for the New Years party and she only asked every ten minutes until we actually did the balloon drop the next night. What patience my child has! We also made two noise makers from Pringles tubes which we filled with unpopped popcorn and balls of tinfoil, and put construction paper on the ouside that Laylah colored on. Then we made a sign for the wall saying Happy New Year! and we were set to go. The day of we stayed in, played with her new toys, made a slide out of her mattress because we changed all the sheets (I just like the idea of sleeping on clean sheets to start the new year) and she loves doing this. We balance her mattress on the otoman of her chair in her bedroom and she proceeds to slide down it, slide her cars, trains and animals down it, it's a great time had by all. We made twice-baked potatoes, cooked for eight hours with a hunk of ham so they are not at all healthy green beans, and some very nice tenderloin steaks for dinner. Brandon wanted to get a whole tenderloin to cook in the oven form a recipe he found in GQ, but getting a whole tenderloin was just way too expensive so I just got two steaks. I made really good horseradish sauce to go with it. We showered and dressed around 5pm, having spent the day in pj's. I wore a sparkly purple evening gown complete with fuzzy socks and thermal underwear, Laylah wore her pj's (she refused to take them off) plus a dress pulled over it, and flowers in her hair. Brandon wore his black suit with his new red shirt and red pocket square. We ate dinner with red wine for us and sparking blueberry juice in a plastic wine glass for Laylah. Go some cute pictures of her being a lush. After dinner we celebrated new Years in England, meaning 7pm. We did the countdown with Laylah's microphone, she helped by counting up as I counted down. Then the balloons pdropped, we stomped on big buggle wrap, shook our shakers. We ate our 12 grapes, drank rasberry champaign and wrote out our wishes for the new year and put them in our Christmas stockings so that we can find them next year when we decorate and see whether they came true. We danced, we sang. we popped all the balloons, mostly by Laylah sitting on them. Then we did the usual bathtime and bedtime ritual after talking to Tita and Tito on the phone. Then Brandon and I watched yet another episode of Dexter, soooo good. Brandon then promptly fell asleep at 10:30 and I stayed up to ring in the New Years at midnight on the couch. I did go give my two loves kisses at midnight but I doubt they noticed. Today we got up and had breakfast, went to the store to get more balloons, she's become obsessed. Then after Laylah's nap we hid gold chocolate coins all around the living room. She went around finding them. The idea being that finding coins is good luck, and finding chocolate ones on New Years Day has to be better! It think it's a fun tradition to start anyway. We also watched lots and lots of football and the Rose Parade. I think we made up some good traditions to celebrate New Years with little ones that we will continue for years to come. Hopefully Laylah will remember them fondly and celebrate with her children this way too, after she has a few years of going out to parties, dressing up all fancy shmancy and going to stand in the cold with thousands of other people and seeing something she could be seeing on TV better, but it wouldn't be nearly as much fun, well at least until she has someone worth staying home for.