New Years Day 2009
It’s New Years Day and I have no particular resolutions. Just a cafe au lait, cranberry walnut cookie, and an hour away from home. I’d say that’s at least as good as any resolution I could think up.
Today’s been a good day so far. Elliot and I went out on the town, just the 2 of us. Well, 2 of us and “Mr. Frog,” a Kermit puppet I’ve had since I was a kid. We were going to go to the pet store and wish Maxine the parrot a happy New Years, but the pet store was closed so we went next door to Kroger instead.
Elliot wanted Mr. Frog to talk to him through the store as he pushed the kid-sized cart, and while I felt a bit self-conscious talking in the voice of Mr. Frog while picking up chicken, tomato soup, and Disney Princess bubble bath that was on clearance, I sustained the conversation most of the way through. To get Elliot into the bathroom, Mr. Frog told him he had to go potty, so Elliot went in with Mr. Frog to the men’s bathroom (usually he insists on using the women’s, but Mr. Frog must have swayed him the other way).
Elliot and Mr. Frog were in the bathroom a LONG time. I stood outside the door and listened as Elliot kept trying to get Mr. Frog to talk to him, but without my voice, Mr. Frog just wouldn’t. “You’re not saying the right words, Mr. Frog,” Elliot kept saying, so I opened the door a bit and told Elliot to just use the potty and come back out, that Mr. Frog needed me to help him talk. A few minutes later and Elliot was washing his hands and asking Mr. Frog if he wanted soap on his hands too. Apparently he did. A few minutes later and Elliot was still inside, probably playing with the paper towels. So I opened the door a bit and told Elliot to bring Mr. Frog, that Mr. Frog was done using the potty. “Alright,” Elliot said, “I just need to turn out the lights.” And then a voice from one of the stalls.
“Hey! There’s somebody else in here!”
“Sorry,” I responded, thinking the problem was my interrupting somebody’s bathroom privacy, “just trying to help my son.”
Elliot turned out the light and walked out. Again, the voice: “Hey! I can’t see in here! Turn the lights back on.”
“Oops. Sorry!” I said again, reaching my arm inside to turn the light back on.
At the checkout lane, Elliot unloaded the cart and gave Mr. Frog a ride on the conveyor belt. I avoided a potential meltdown over a talking Tinkerbell balloon he desperately wanted with the promise of a balloon (”maybe they have Tinkerbell too!”) at the Dollar Tree where I’d been planning to stop to get “party” items for New Years (nothing like the promise of a party to help get through the day).
So off to the Dollar Tree we went. Only it wasn’t open yet. The rest of the mall was, so we walked around and shared a lukewarm eggroll at HOT RICE!!, then promised the pizza man we would eat pizza next time since his pizza’s better and he has a great personality. Even though the eggrool was mediocre, I did, like Elliot’s cookie fortune for the New Year: “You will always be surrounded by true friends”. I very much hope that is true for him. A free sample from the pretzel store and a little walking around and the Dollar Tree opened just for us, it seemed. No Tinkerbell balloons, but Elliot was so enamored by the party concept that he chose three different Happy Birthday balloons instead, some paper party horns, paper party plates, and a $1 Betty Boop DVD (she’s one of his passions…Lucy’s too for that matter).
As for the party, we haven’t had that yet. After lunch Lucy went down for a nap and Todd and Elliot started their Betty Boop movie. The party will happen probably happen sometime after dinner and before bedtime, during that minefield time where anything could happen. Good to save up something special for that time. We’ll eat cookies and ice cream from our party plates, decorate with Elliot’s art from the morning, blow out a candle and come up with a silly New Years Day party song which will probably sound like “Happy Birthday” with “Happy New Years Day” substituted for the words.
That’s New Year’s for me. Like I said, no particular resolutions this year though there’s plenty I should make. But I’m just happy if I can take one day at a time without worrying about the whole scope of life.



