2013!

Alright (sound of knuckles cracking) here we go.  New year, new resolve.  The last few years the first post of January has been a recap of the last year and an explanation of my planned resolution/philosophy for improvement. I think I will save the recap for a seperate entry, but I will take a minute to revisit my 2012 resolution to see how I did:

whatever it is that you find to do, you do it with all your might.

I found that this mantra is empowering.  I am often telling my kids things like - since you have to be at [school, music lessons, sports practice, the dinner table], you might as well enjoy it and make it the best experience possible, and it is kind of an extension of that.  If I am going to be at the gym working out, why not push a little harder while I am there?  I'm going to expose my crazy a little bit here, but when I am instructed to do something that requires immense exertion and perserverence, I sometimes pretend that I am being tortured by an evil warlord who are going to do something bad to my kids if I don't complete the task.  And when I am practicing yoga, I pretend that I am in the Olympics and being judged on my form.  You can laugh, but I recently earned a silver medal for my chaturanga. (Actually I'm pretty certain the competition of any sort goes completely against yogic philosophy but whatever, I always forget to check that part of my nature at the door).  I employ similar methods of imbuing self-confidence elsewhere - when cleaning house, why not be a professional house keeper with attention to detail (if only I could do my job once a week!), in real estate, I treat every transaction from the perpective that it is my own money involved in the ultimate purchase.  Whatever it is that you find to do, why not do it with all of your might?

So that leads us to 2013 and a new resolution.  (I can tell you that it is not nutrition related, as we kicked off the new year with cornmeal waffles (a la Brown Sugar Kitchen in Oakland) topped with spicy sausage, topped with fried chicken (Bon Apetit February 2012), topped with a fried egg, slathered in melted butter, maple sugar, brown sugar and cinnamon.  It wasn't really neccessary to eat again until January 2nd)  The underlying theme for this year has to do with being the best parent I can be and cherishing the fleeting moments with the kids that I chose to have.  But the overarching goal is to take more pictures and video of the kids.  I was inspired sometime last year by the film Two Brothers, part of the 5000 Days Project.  There may be nothing better than looking back at home movies or photos.  Of your kids, of yourself, of friends.  I keep every Christmas card I get because I know that one day I will love to have those to look back and remember people that were in my life at all stages.  So recording memories in general is important to me. Hence the time spent blogging and journaling and cataloging digital images.  It's the closest thing that I can fathom to time travel.  However, to make things more meaningful, more intentional and more valuable to me as a parent, we are doing our own version of the 5000 Days Project (if you haven't seen this already, I highly encourage it, it is free to watch online).  We started with a video interview of the kids on the night before the first day of school - a tradition we will continue...although next year dad will know that you can't hold a camera vertical when taking video (Ben - you can't hold a camera sideways when videotaping).  We ask basic questions - what is your name, age, favorite things in a variety of categories...and deeper into the interview the questions are supposed to be more probing - what makes you scared, if you could be the boss of the world what would you change, etc.  I think it is a little bit of a disadvantage to be a parent interviewing your own child but maybe we can remedy that in the future. 

So in addition to the first day of school interview I thought it would be fun for the kids to tape their new years resolutions on an annual basis.  I will try to post them eventually but Avery's resolution involves pretending "vegetables taste like candy, and that candy tastes like...beer", Miles' 'solution' is for our family to "have the best Christmas ever" (yes, on Jan 1) and Cruz's resolution for 2013 is to "oppan Gangnam style".  Seriously.  And why not.