Shifting gears after the rush up to the holidays, now I need to work on stuff on my own behalf. This is often the hardest time of year for people, after the holidays. It's short days in the Northern Hemisphere, often overcast or raining (it has been that was this year for us in Texas - since our drought hasn't passed we need this, but a sunny day for xmas would have been nice!) As a possible aid to getting past the dreary part of the winter, here is an interesting story about a song I heard on an interview on Weekend Edition last Saturday. And here is the song. I really like it - on many levels, and frankly, the image of the family waiting for the grown daughter to visit is really wonderful - for her as well as them.

I don't have strong emotions about the New Year - though I enjoy the gap between xmas and Jan. 1 as a time to keep watching the holiday movies. I'll put a few in to view while I work on the playbills this week.

Yesterday was not a pretty sight as far as calories - carb consumption was at an all-time high with cookies and ice cream and pies. Oh my. A big bowl of oatmeal this morning to help flush some cholesterol through and I have some lovely salad materials and fresh vegetables here. I'll boil a couple of eggs and use some of last night's chicken and some of the honey baked ham my next door neighbor sent over to build a chef's salad. I love those!

Michelle, here's the unsolicited "been there done that" Mom bit: the holidays are sometimes hard on little kids. Toddlers can be completely overwhelmed by the holidays, too much excitement one day, nothing the next. Overstimulated is never a pretty sight. Putting away the old familiar toys and perhaps even a couple of the new ones, and bringing them out again later will help level things for him. What they learn when they're little about pacing themselves, calming themselves, comforting themselves, about how to entertain themselves and about how to respond to times of extra stimulation will give him a lifetime of being able to control and comfort himself, as needed. I miss the days when my children were so small, when we were their entire world, but at the same time, I love seeing how they have grown and how they interact in their worlds - and how they sometimes remember to report back and let me enjoy their experiences of the world.

SRS