It’s been 2 solid days now of solo parenting, and to be honest I think it’s gone really well. Isaac has been merciful to me during the nights and only woken up once at 3am. Even then I just had to pick him up, comfort him a bit and set him back down and he went right back to sleep. So yeah… dodged that bullet!

The thing I’ve noticed most over the last couple days is exactly how “busy” these boys are. While I will fully admit to liberal use of Curious George as a diversion, in those moments when I’m cleaning up from a meal or doing dishes or something I’ll hear Joel in the other room playing make believe with his trains. He’ll be acting out a scene from one of the books or movies, or just making up his own dialog. It’s really cute, and a good reminder to me that while I do enjoy rough-housing with him it’s important for him to have his OWN playtime too.

Isaac is all about the business of developing his 9 month old skill set. And he is SERIOUS too. If he’s pulled himself up to stand next to Joel’s train table and discovered a new toy (which we have an abundance of these post-Christmas days) you’d be well advised not to try and take it away from him because he’ll let you know how unhappy that makes him. It’s as if every single new trinket he finds is the most amazing thing he’s ever seen… and in some ways that may be true. He’s so determined about it too. It’s like the second he’s done eating he’s scanning the room, ready to start exploring. Look out Dad, I gotta PLAY!

We’re heading to Tacoma today to spend a little time with Grandma & Grandpa and then Sarah should be home by dinnertime. I’ll be nice to have her home with us, but I’ve also really enjoyed this special time with my boys.

The dynamic duo at yesterday’s Mobile Chowdown.

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I’m not typically the type to make grand New Year’s resolutions or anything like that. Maybe because I know myself too well and the inevitable result of setting myself a specific measurable goal is me being afraid I won’t be able to achieve it and so therefore not really try thereby justifying my failure by saying “well, I didn’t REALLY try that hard”. Dumb huh?

Not this year.

This year was interesting for me because I did just that. I set myself just one specific goal and set about the task of getting there. It was to ride the High Pass Challenge, a very strenuous ambitious bike ride this past September. The act of setting and attaining that simple goal this year reminded me of the fact that I do have a say in how to to go about this whole life thing, so next year I’m setting some more.

Specifics:
- Learn to play steel guitar. That’s right, good old school country gospel twangy pedal steel.
- Author at least one iPhone or Mac application. I work at a flipping software development company for crying out loud, time to move past scripting and unix hackery onto something more elegant.
- Lose these last 10 pounds. I already dropped 30 this summer while training for the bike ride, but I’ve picked up 5 or 6 again in the last couple months.
- Find a church home. This is an aspect of our family’s spiritual and social life that is sorely absent.
- Take my wife on an extended getaway, somewhere new and fun. At least 4 days.

Things to do more of:
- Writing, both music and otherwise (blogging, letters, etc).
- Projects at home, like paining, home improvement stuff. I’m way more capable of that stuff than I give myself credit for and it always feels good to have it done.
- Traveling, both with and without the kids.

Things to do less of:
- Drinking & eating junk food. Not talking about an absolute ban here, but definitely need to get this back into balance.
- Watching TV, waste of time.
- Twitter / Facebook / RSS reading, basically all forms of digital ADD. It’s a time-suck and also impedes my ability to focus.
- Making excuses for not starting things.

All things considered 2009 was a really great year. I’m looking forward to the 2010’s (or whatever the heck this next decade is supposed to be called). I hope it is a blessed one for y’all!

PS> Just for fun I poked around in my old photo box (before the advent of digital cameras & iPhoto) and found this picture of me and my brother Jason at a “Dress Like The Future” party from New Year’s Eve, 1999.

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It’s been cold here recently, cold enough in fact to force me off the bike for my daily commute. However, despite the chill and the torrential rain we had throughout November, there’s not a flake of snow to be seen. I’m still holding out hope for some semblance of a white Christmas but I doubt we’ll have much and almost certainly it’ll be nothing like last year!

Also, going thru these pictures I came across this video of Joel reading. It doesn’t seem like he changes that much from day to day anymore, but looking back it’s pretty remarkable (insert some “they grow up so fast” platitude here). I think he was fighting a cold or was all stuffed up from being outside or something. The result is even that much more adorable.

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