Happy new year!

So it's that time again. Last turkey butty finished and decs back in the loft.  It's been an odd Christmas.  Five days of my father in law (enough to tip Mother Theresa over the edge) and a one year old who thinks sleep is for wimps and that's before cooking for 8 on Christmas day. 

But all the knackeredness aside, one thing that has consistently made me smile is my one year old's new found appreciation of music.

He's always liked singing (us not him)  but in the last couple of weeks everything changed. From starting to sing the odd word along to the Christmas song in the car to asking for a particular CD to be played so he can sing and dance along.   It seems that he also can't play with building blocks without singing either, every round of duplo is accompanied by some random lalala-ing. Brilliant to watch.

I won't lie, I'm a bit  of a soft sap. But there is something wonderful about dancing your little one around while he adds the 'shooby-dos' to Robbie singing 'I'm the king of the swingers' and I did well up a little when he wanted me to  dance with him as we watched some 'greatest dance moments' on TV on new year's eve as he tried to copy Thriller (hysterical!).  I'm pretty sure he's dancing or asking for the radio on every half hour. And the singing is getting more coherant and the dancing even wilder every time. He is amazing and it makes him so happy.

I know the old phrase 'dance like nobody's watching' gets thrown around a lot but that's the lovely thing about toddlers... They don't care who is watching and it only adds to the excitement and fun if someone is.  So that's my resolution sorted for this year. Dance more, smile more and worry less. Sometimes toddlers are smarter than we give them credit for.

Good Riddance 2011, hello 2012

For a year that started with so much promise, I can honestly say that by the end it was the year that well and truly sucked.  The only good thing I can think of that happened was [finally] becoming pregnant (and believe me when I say that that in itself has its pros and cons!) and having an amazing drive around the west coast of the US.

Poor Husb's mum was ill from the very beginning, and quite unfairly so. For a lady who had never consumed alcohol (with the exception of the odd bit of sherry trifle) to develop Non-Alcoholic steatohepatitis causing cirrhosis of the liver (following a nice bout of e-coli and proceeded by pneumonia) was really not a nice thing.  She never really recovered. For one reason or another, the complete rest she was meant to have was never really forthcoming and so even by the summer she was still very weak.  Eventually her immune system had enough and gave up on her and so following 2 weeks in hospital she quietly passed away, thankfully before the pain got too much to bear.  From then on, things got progressively worse.  My father-in-law became unbearable and incapable, we became very poor overnight when it transpired we would have to cover all the funeral costs, we all went into collective consultation at work and redundancy loomed (and came for many) finally culminating in the sale of our flat falling through after our buyers walked away at the 11th hour.  Nice.

Christmas came and went in a blur spending an excruciating Christmas day with my father-in-law followed by a much more relaxed affair with my parents on Boxing Day.  Given my circumstances I couldn't even drink through the pain.  Husb managed to do exactly that though - lucky swine. 
New Year was rather pleasant in spite of the awful driving weather we encountered all the way to and from Hereford although it was a more subdued affair than usual given the emotions running high and a lot of reflection going on.

So bring on 2012, I say.  I can't see how it could possibly be much worse....
Arse, that was stupid wasn't it.
Jinxed it now....