Some reflections of the year that was…
Highlights:
-Family Travel. As a family we went to Berkeley/ San Francisco in the spring, a took a road trip to Maine in the summer, and then flew to Taiwan and Kuala Lumpur for winter break. There was also a camping trip to the Shenandoah National Park for just me and the two little kids. I love cozy times as home, but I also love seeing new things and changing my points of view every so often.
-Watercolour class. In February and March, I took a weekly watercolour class the the local community college. I loved having that creative outlet and learning how to work with watercolours. I feel like watercolours are great because they can be hugely effective if you know what you’re doing, but at the same time even those with no experience can make wonderful color stories with them.
-Some bloggy highlights – Getting to write guest posts for Engie and Elisabeth. What an honor it was to appear on their excellent blogs. Participating-ish in NaBloPoMo. What a lot of writing that was, but also how lovely to meet some new to me bloggers that way.
-New Sign in sheet process at work. For all my years at my company, the process of having people sign in for rehearsals and then calculating their rehearsal hours for payroll always felt fraught and prone to mistakes. This year, several departments collaborated to figure out a new, simpler method for people to sign in to rehearsals. It felt like the first systematic improvement that I’ve worked on in my new position at work. Also along the work front, I got to work on some really great and challenging operas this year.
-Seeing kids thrive in their activities. The activities balance is always a difficult one – I want the kids to have a variety of outlets to explore things that interest them. They are currently at an age where they still want to do everything, as opposed to intensely doing one thing. I kind of love that for them. I’ve been loving seeing how they light up when an activity clicks for them.
-Reconnecting with friends and family. This year we’ve had lots of friends pass through the DC area and we also met up with family and friends while on our travels.
-Trying some new things as a family. As a family this year we went duck pin bowling, contradancing, climbing at the climbing gym, and discovered the joy of the high school and middle school musical, and had many game nights. I love our traditional pizza and movie nights, but I’m also loving finding things we can do as a family that are off the beaten path. I feel like we’re in a sweet spot right now of being able to find activities that everyone can participate in and that everyone is willing to participate in. Even still, the 12 year old often declines coming on family outings, so I’m always on the look out for things that she will participate in which are also appropriate for the littles too.
Some Lowlights
-The youngest child not getting into kindergarten early. This was such a bummer because we really believed that kindergarten was the right step for her, and she misses the cut off by only three weeks. Yes, there is the fact that we are now spending $20, 000 for her to repeat what is essentially pre-K, but we wouldn’t have begrudged the money if we thought she would have benefited from another year at the child care center before kindergarten. As it is, she is doing well and having a good time, but she’s not being challenged the way she would have been in kindergarten.
-The Election. The whole 2024 Election cycle was just bonkers. Like what kind of scripted political thriller are we living in? And then the results of the Presidential Election were just so deflatingly unbelievable. For me, it wasn’t about party – I fully support everyone’s right to their own beliefs and ideologies. Rather it’s that a misogynistic felon who peddles misinformation was seen by the majority of Americans as a qualified person to lead our country. This is not how I want my kids to understand the democratic process.
-October, November, and December were really hard because on top of our regular activities, 3 out of 5 of the people in the family were participating in operas. Being in operas was a highlight, for sure, but the logistics of getting everyone to rehearsals and performances and figuring out meals and all the other life stuff around that was a definite stressor for everyone in the family. I feel like this is one of those things where many things in our life is a simultaneous highlight and lowlight – kid activities, for example – above was listed as a highlight, but the logistics of them was definitely a lowlight.
-No job next summer for me. I’m sure by next July, having the summer off will be a highlight of 2025, But from the 2024 point of view, not being hired for work made me more than a little sad and my self esteem on the point certainly took a hit.
-Screentime struggles with the kids. I really feel like a lot of the parenting battles this year were over screentime. Maybe we’re too strict about it, maybe we’re too lax? I don’t know. I do know I want the kids to spend less time on screens, and part of making that happen is for me to spend less time on screens myself. Feeling like I’m not finding a balance or screentime policy that works for everyone has been hard.
Seven Things that I Learned in 2024:
-How to make bao. Starting the list with one new skill, to remind myself to keep learning how to do new things.
-It takes a village, but you have to seek it out – We’ve been having some challenges at school with one of the kids, so much so that we were thinking of changing schools, but then I talked to the teacher and one of the school administrators and together we came up with a game plan. I think I had always had this idea that school is some kind of black hole – I send my kids in the morning, and then the get spat off the bus at in the afternoon, and whatever happens in the middle is a great unknown. I think this was the year that I realized that no one wants my kid to do poorly in school , no one wants them to be unhappy-the people at their schools actually care, I just have to also care enough to reach out and ask for their help in understanding what is going on because sometimes they need my help to. The response I’ve gotten from school administrators that I’ve contacted this year has been overwhelmingly positive. I say this also knowing that my kids’ issues at school are not systematic or health related or anything that requires medical intervention, and for that I’m thankful.
-Just pick up the phone. Maybe I’m old fashioned, but I find email such an inefficient method of getting to the root of what people need. I’m realizing that I work better when I just pick up the phone or walk down the hallway to talk to someone. There were several times when I agonized over how to perfectly work an email about a tricky situation, and then just fixed it much more quickly with a brief conversation. I don’t love the idea of making phone calls, but I usually feel better once I do so.
-Just put away the phone. This is one of those things that I already knew but had a hard time putting into action. I started the Bored and Brilliant Challenge, though life got really busy before I could finish all the challenges. The first challenge was to put the phone away whenever you’re traveling between locations. I don’t know why this simple rule made putting away the phone click for me. Maybe because it’s a simple rule? I realized this year that I feel more balanced and less frazzled if I’m not scrolling or checking email while walking around.
-Talk less. I credit the Puberty Podcast for this lesson. There was one episode where one of the hosts talked about how they sometimes just go into their kids’ room while they are hanging out, and just go lie on their bed and not say anything. And once in a while that presence is all the kid needs. Sometimes conversations evolve, and sometimes not. Sometimes with the kids, the best way to connect with them is to just be in their space So I started to doing – just lying on their bed at random times. And two things became clear: 1) being in a quiet space with my kid is very soothing, 2) they don’t always need or want to hear from me in order to feel connected.
-Touch someone. For years it was kind of a running joke in our family that when we took family photos, the Husband always looked like he was in another part of the universe. Even when he was standing right next to us, for some reason, he just seemed like he had been photoshopped in. Then I was looking at our Christmas card from last year and comparing it with the professional photos that we’d had taken, and an idea struck me. The next time we were trying to snap a group candid shot of the family, I said to the Husband, “Touch someone!”
“What?”
“Touch someone! The picture will look better.”
And it turns out, my hunch was right – having everyone in the picture make physical contact with at least one other person makes the people in the picture seem so much more connected, even when you can’t see the touch point.
So now, whenever we take a group photos, I yell out, “Touch someone!”
-Framing the mundane in life with the amazingness of it. One of my favorite podcast episodes that I listened to this year was an episode of House Calls with the Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, where he talked to Astronaut Kyla Barron. If you like conversations about how to stay human and grounded in the chaotic world, I highly recommend this episode. One of the things that Barron said that has stuck with me:
“You have these grand moments of space flight, but really the most beautiful part about it is the day-to-day nothingness of it all. Like that you’re just like going about your life in space. And so I think I try to keep that in mind. Raja [one of her team members], he had this thing where he would say what he was doing and then add “in space” on the end to remind us how cool it was. So we’d be like “fixing the treadmill…in space” and you’re like, “I’m looking for my lost iPad… in space”. And so I think there are a lot of moments like that as a parent where you can just be like stressed, you’re tired and you’re like … “with my baby”. Like that’s really cool, right?
So more and more, when things get hard, I try to remind myself that I get to do these hard things with my amazing kids, or at a huge theatre, or with my super cool spouse. “Dealing with that difficult long day…at the opera.” “Schlepping to swim team practice… with my kids.” “Making dinner… with my family.” Maybe this dips its toe into toxic positivity, but I think it is helpful for me to remember that even when things are hard -and things are allowed to feel hard – it’s amazing just to be here.
What’s one thing you learned in 2024?
