Christmas Woo Hoos and Boo Hoos.

Santa and his elf.

A cereal bar! What could be better!!

The red nail polish is chipping, which means that Christmas is over. It was good and bad, like all things are.

Watching Ethan was joyfully good. He can't help but be happy, and his happiness reaches anybody in eye or ear shot. That is him playing Santa in his sleigh, delivering toys to "all the children"-his phrase, not mine. For a very old two year old, he handled the present over load very well. By the end when he'd open a gift, I'd start to say, "Ethan, go say tha--..." and he'd start reciting, "thank you thank you thank you" about fifteen times to nobody in particular, in a trance-like tone. I felt so bad for him I just let him be. I'll send a "thank you" in the mail on his behalf.

The bad is that I still feel tired, even with the new eight hour sleep schedule I am on. I feel old. What a horrible feeling. Maybe some of it has to do with my short hair--when I wake up I look like a drunk off the street. Seriously. With my missing half eyebrow and crazy hair and blotchy skin. So the rest of the day, after I shower and cover my face with color, I still feel old and worn underneath it all.

My marriage feels old too, quiet. Not really sure what to do about it--I feel like I have tried all the tricks I know over the last five years to try and liven things up, and none of them have any lasting effect. It's just me and Joey, same as we've always been. He's practical and consistent and hard working and boring, and I am emotional and inconsistent and looking for a thrill somewhere.

And then sometimes I look over at his profile in the car, when we are driving, and it's like all these petty feelings come to a cosmic explosion of a different reality, a reality of Joey as my provider and leader and companion, even if I don't feel the slightest mushy gushyness at all. The realness of this reality is gone in an instant, and then we are just driving again, trying to get somewhere.