2015.

My Christmas tree is still up, and today Jr went to school in big boy underpants.

These two things are actually totally related – so stay with me here.

2015 is going to be a biggie for us.  It will be the year that the diaper pail leaves our house, and the year the big boy bed comes into it.   The year that sees the end of trips into the baby product aisle, and me carrying a diaper bag….  the year the bubbie (pacifier) finally truly exits our lives forever.  The year scribbling turns to coloring, forks get used more than fingers, and the year that feetie jammies get traded for two-piece (easy bathroom access) models.  A year of so many changes I haven’t even had time to think up and obsess about yet.

Jr LOVES Christmas stuff.  He loves the lights, loves the decorations, the special toys and books that come out of storage, loves Hopscotch (the family Elf on A Shelf.)

With all of the changes coming with the new year, I have been in no hurry to get everything stored away this go-around. I still happily comply with his giddy requests to drive down every side street and cul-de-sac on the way home each night to see what holiday light displays still linger in neighbors’ lawns.   As I box up Elmo Christmas books and the Little People Nativity and North Pole sets, I wonder if he will be as excited to see them next year.  I know that sooner or later he won’t.

It was just last year at this time that he was still calling Frosty “Prosty” and Santa “Ho Ho” – try as I might, I can’t get his older, wiser self to go back to that – so I know that next Christmas can’t be the same as this one.

This was his last Christmas as any sort of a baby.  Now he is a little boy in tiny Batman briefs playing on the “big kid” equipment in the gym at school that he used to be too little for.   And I am a crazy woman clutching his cushy elephant rattle while crying and eating a whole plate of bacon.

Yep.  So far I am KILLING the “well-balanced parent” thing in 2015.

If anyone needs me, I will be trying to teach Potter how to use a bubbie and ride in the stroller.