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Home > Blogs > Adventures in Motherhood > Archives > 2009 > December > 31 > Entry
Decade has been full for growing families
Today is New Year’s Eve and, at least until we break out the cheap champagne and sparkling soda to celebrate the new year, it is a good time for reflection on the year and years past.
And this New Year’s Eve is a particularly good one for that kind of pausing and perusing, since this is not only the last day of 2009, but also (at least colloquially) the last day of the first decade of the 21st century.
(The official first decade of the millennium ends next year, but popular usage has the decade from 2000-09. Many Web sites are referring to the decade as the “Naughties” working off the “aught” theme and making reference to all the negative things that happened in that time. But I digress.)
For many of us, life is very different now than it was 10 years ago.
Back in 1999, we looked up information in encyclopedias and phone books and on road maps; we debated whether to upgrade to a stereo that played CDs rather than cassette tapes; we only sent pictures to friends and family after we got those photos developed; and we talked on phones with cords.
And, those are just a few of the cosmetic changes. Ten years is a long time — at least an eighth of our lives, if we are lucky — and it is interesting to think about the personal and family changes that have occurred in that time frame as well.
For example, 10 years ago tonight, my 8-month-old son and I celebrated New Year’s Eve alone (my husband worked nights back then) in our little apartment.
The two of us were sitting in our big, blue recliner watching the ball drop on Times Square. Dick Clark was still his preternaturally young self, about five years away from his debilitating stroke.
As I recall, the “New Year’s Rockin’ Eve” coverage that night spanned the globe. We all waited to see whether the Y2K bug would cause all the lights to go out in China before it crept its way into our computers to derail our lives back home.
At our house, we had the requisite gallons of water, chunk of cash and extra batteries — just in case.
In the 10 years since that night, like with all growing families, it has been one change after another.
We had another baby and watched both kids grow out of their baby dimples and into their first pimples, saw them lose their first teeth and had discussions about braces, and listened to their cries of hunger evolve into more coherent complaints of hunger.
Also in that time, siblings and friends welcomed babies, advanced careers and moved into new stages in their lives.
Many of us bought houses, acquiring all the work that comes with homeownership, and people who used to eat Ramen noodles raw learned to cook real, balanced dinners for their families.
We purchased lawn mowers, grew gardens and sewed everything from patches to carpet to ailing stuffed animals. We learned useful terms such as “soffit,” “fontanel” and “iPod.”
Also in that time, for many of us, our first gray hairs made their appearance and brought their buddies, the crow’s feet. Our bodies got a little more creaky, and pulled muscles no longer had to have a clear source of origin.
There also was great loss for many of us, with grandparents, parents, peers and even those younger passing on, and the subsequent lessons in trying to live with those losses.
But, as we learned this decade and in all the years supporting it, this growth and change are just part of life.
Novelist Max Frisch put it well when he wrote: “Time does not change us. It just unfolds us.”
It will be interesting to see what unfolds in the next year, and in the next decade as well.
I just hope, for all of us, that the days are predominantly filled with less “naughty” and more nice.
Happy new year!
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