As we head into the new year and everyone starts reviewing the past year and making new year’s resolutions, I tend to frown upon living in the past or making resolutions that don’t necessarily work in a new year that presents different challenges and circumstances. Tradition is another behaviour that I find contradictory to logical thinking. Why do we bake ten pounds of cookies, stress ourselves out with decorating and seeing everyone we’ve known our whole life in a few days over Christmas? Tradition – that’s why! I stopped many of those traditions a few years ago – I visit people all year, I only bake one dessert for Christmas, I don’t over decorate and I spend precious time with my family. However, there is one tradition that the boys and I adopted last year – football. That tradition was born out of a string of bad luck last Christmas. It started last Christmas Eve with my youngest falling and opening up the back of his head for a few stitches. Christmas day I discovered no hot water and a trip to the basement revealed that our hot water tank packed it in and then a few hours later the toilet in our main floor bathroom flooded, not only the bathroom, but down the wall to the basement as well. I grabbed big bath towels to clean up the water and then changed into my sweats, picked up a football, called the boys and headed to the park. My dinner wasn’t ready, my table wasn’t set and I didn’t care – I wanted out. The boys and I played football until the light was gone and we felt refreshed. This year on Christmas morning we opened our presents, I phoned all of my siblings in Toronto and then the boys and I headed to the park. The boys love it – I consider it time to bond with the boys, the boys consider it time to beat the shit out of mom! However the boys see it – this is one tradition I plan to keep.
MOMWHEARINGLOSS 