My favourite thing about New Year

I can still remember (very vaguely) what New Year used to be like before there were children. The angst of trying to figure out how you were celebrating, hoping to be invited to so-and-so's party or get into a club; incidentally always the worst option! The few club new year's celebrations I attended the line to get in was so long - despite pre-booking and VIP tables sorted - that we'd get in just as it became midnight and only be able to make a toast if we were luck enough to have been given our drink by then. I always preferred being at someone's house and remember, with fondness, two years in particular, 2007-8 & 2008-9 (if I'm not mistaken... There were a few blurry years around then).

The last one before pregnancies and children was my first with my other half, also my first one in Scotland as we'd been over for Christmas. We were badly prepared though and instead of going to Edinburgh's famous Hogmanay celebration (which now has to wait till the kids are old enough for us to escape for a few days, by which time we, or at least I, probably won't even want to think about staying up for the bells) we ended up at someone's house. Somewhere along the lines we got kicked out, I believe a drink was spilled on the carpet and we were deemed a bit drunk (which I feel like we ought to have been since it was New year's Eve!); to be honest I think the missus of the household just didn't like us. We ended up doing the longest walk back to the hotel ever, super drunk, but at least it was 2013! I became pregnant later that year and every Hogmanay since I've either been pregnant or had a baby making me tired so I've struggled to stay up till midnight.

I don't miss the parties, with the three wee ones about I'd rather sleep than risk the worst kind of parenting: hungover parenting. But I still spend that awkward week between Christmas and New year when no one knows what to do with themselves (it's aptly called the "in-between days" - "mellandagarna" in Sweden) just dying for New Year's Eve to hurry up. Not because I'm excited to celebrate it, nor am I one who makes resolutions and so am bracing myself for all the new possibilities that may come with a new start. I'm not big on reflecting on the year's events (although I love all the satirical TV shows that are out through the last weeks of December), that said 2018 was a pretty busy year for our family. We started it off with a car crash which I can't write more about yet as the legal proceedings are still going on. At the beginning of February our yet to be born son was diagnosed with achondroplasia, a form of dwarfism. My plans for a home birth (a goal that had made my hyperemesis gravidarum just about bearable) were erased in a heartbeat and a month later our son was born by cesarean section. The day before his birth my father had passed away after years with Alzheimer's and sadly my husband's father met the same fate in June. In August my other half and I got married outside our house with just a few of our closest friends and out kids present and then we were lucky enough to be part of our friends' weddings the following month. Sadly as the year neared it's end we found out my mother in law has cancer, so to say the year has thrown most things our way this year (both good and bad) feels like an understatement. It would be strange to not reflect on a year with so many highs and lows, but even with the lows I reckon it was one of our happiest years yet. I don't know what 2019 will throw at us but I hope it's a slightly calmer year!

Whatever is coming our way I've already gotten to do the simple thing that excites me in the run up to Hogmanay, it's been my favourite thing about new year since moving out of my mum's house: hanging up a new, fresh wall calendar. I know it sounds like such a ridiculous thing to get excited about but I love making sure all appointments and plans are carefully recorded and colour coordinated. I very rarely store any such things on my phone and rely entirely on the calendar hanging in the kitchen. During the "in-between" days I take a day to fill in birthdays and nursery days and revel in how new and shiny and clean the calendar is. Before we had the kids I'd have fun picking a new design ever year, but now the kids all have butterfly names I invariably end up with a butterfly calendar. I guess it's my own way of taking in all the promises that come with a new year and clean slate...

With the calendar being so important to me I wanted to try to help our eldest, who'll be five in February, understand a little better how the year works. I've always pictured the year in a circle, so I made her a round calendar of her own so she can try to get a visual idea of time. We're going into the family's birthday season and even though she's only halfway through the academic year she's dying to start primary school (has been since the summer) so I hope this will help her see how long she has left to wait as the months and seasons go by!

I've never been one for making resolutions, I figured out early on that I hate goals that I don't achieve and I'm really good at not finishing what I've started. But I hope I continue to find time to write this year and work on not letting my emotions get the better of me when my fibromyalgia makes me feel run down. I don't like the impact it has on the children and I fervently believe I can be a better person than I sometimes am.

Hope your start to 2019 has been good to you too, I'm off to admire my calendar.