So you know how inevitatably you get That Christmas Letter every year that leaves you thinking, “I really don’t care if your daughter is acing out her 6 yr. old Gymboree class and now knows how to shake a morraca with the best of them?” It also cracks me up when couples write about all the amazing things the wives are doing as a SAHM. Bully on that. If I was ever to really write a letter, to recap my major annual accomplishments, it would say, “Meredith survived 2011, and both of her children are still living.”
In any case, I have never written a Christmas letter before and don’t plan to start a tradition here, but this one is purely for the record books and for my husband and sister who have been my rocks through a year of note. So this is another post my regular readers may want to bail out on. Here goes…
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| “I Heart 2011” |
We rolled into 2011 with me continuing with some pretty crazy pregnancy sickness (read: I continued vomiting until the 36th week of my pregnancy). Two days later on 1/3/11 we were delivered the shocking news that we had to drop another couple grand into the house we sold 6 mo. prior or deal with some major unsavory (and expensive) court issues. This was a rather unexpected post-Christmas budget gut punch. After battling through a round of flu later in January while preggers and chasing a 19 mo. old around the house (that’s a character builder for you 😉 ), we swung through a relatively peaceful February and March.
April began on an alarming note when my sister, my son and I routed my dad from an appointment at his primary care doc to the ER at Lancaster General Hospital for emergency open heart surgery requiring a double bypass, repair of his aortic walk and a valve replacement. While he hung out in the hospital for the rest of April, my sister, BIL, husband and I threw my mom’s retirement party, which was a rather large affair. She taught at the same school for 40 yrs. as a high school math teacher until the day she was literally pulled from her classroom last year and sent to the hospital after tests came back indicating that she had liver cancer. She is currently continuing with chemo treatments while her condition declines. We rounded out April by biting the requisite parenting bullet and buying our first minivan 🙂
April began on an alarming note when my sister, my son and I routed my dad from an appointment at his primary care doc to the ER at Lancaster General Hospital for emergency open heart surgery requiring a double bypass, repair of his aortic walk and a valve replacement. While he hung out in the hospital for the rest of April, my sister, BIL, husband and I threw my mom’s retirement party, which was a rather large affair. She taught at the same school for 40 yrs. as a high school math teacher until the day she was literally pulled from her classroom last year and sent to the hospital after tests came back indicating that she had liver cancer. She is currently continuing with chemo treatments while her condition declines. We rounded out April by biting the requisite parenting bullet and buying our first minivan 🙂
May kicked off with my sister’s grad school graduation and then my husband headed out to CO for his youngest brother’s Air Force Academy graduation. In June we celebrated my son’s 2nd b-day, had some early labor excitement, and then kicked it Old-Faithful style as the water main in our front yard sprung a leak. After a $6000+ estimate from Horizon (this is definitely NOT a shout-out to their sevices), we were incredibly blessed when our pastors gave us a day of their time and were able to fix it themselves with my husband, a loan of a water main key from our neighbors, and a $20 part from a shop in Coatesville.
6 months down into 2011 and our beautiful baby girl joined us on 7/13/11 with an astoundingly easy delivery. We had a few weeks of just enjoying her sweet disposition and further wrapping our heads around pink baby clothes. My sister’s bridal shower in August was a lot of fun even though despite her attempting at acting, she was definitely NOT surprised :).
We rolled into the fall with continuing issues with Jared’s maternal grandfather’s health, but after twice very nearly exiting this earth, his cancer now appears to be in remission. We enjoyed a happy day dedicating our daughter with most of our family present on 9/11/11. Sadly, my grandmother passed away that night. I never dreamed how difficult it would be saying goodbye to this wonderful woman whom I loved very much. 4 weeks later, my beautiful sister and BIL got married and their wedding was just too special and too much fun 🙂
Plus, my son’s go at being a ring-bearer was pretty cute 🙂
We rolled into the fall with continuing issues with Jared’s maternal grandfather’s health, but after twice very nearly exiting this earth, his cancer now appears to be in remission. We enjoyed a happy day dedicating our daughter with most of our family present on 9/11/11. Sadly, my grandmother passed away that night. I never dreamed how difficult it would be saying goodbye to this wonderful woman whom I loved very much. 4 weeks later, my beautiful sister and BIL got married and their wedding was just too special and too much fun 🙂
Plus, my son’s go at being a ring-bearer was pretty cute 🙂
2 weeks after this, my son broke his femur and you know the story…After a hospitalization in Nov. requiring the placement of 2 stents in his heart, my husband’s paternal grandfather is doing well. Last week, my husband’s aunt donated a kidney and his uncle received one through a donation chain, and they are both recovering and feeling blessed by the lives that have been touched.
I would love to say “That’s a wrap!”, but the truth is, I don’t know. We studied this year in Bible Study how God will often use rough circumstances to take your family to a place you never thought possible, where you say in awe. “He has brought us SO FAR”. I’m not foolish or hopeful enough to believe that we have slogged through all our bad for a time, but I am wowed by HOW FAR God has taken us. This has been an incredible year of being blessed by the growth and presence of amazing friendships–old and new. There was some really wonderful and very cool things (this blog starting and being such a sanity-saver as one of them!). We have stuck together through it all and are all alive and (as soon as my son figures out how to move his leg again) kicking.
We are so blessed, and we are so grateful.
We are so blessed, and we are so grateful.
So, all that said, wishing you and yours a very merry and blessed Christmas,
Love,
Meredith
To commemorate this epic year, I had these shirts made up on Vistaprint (for free, of course) for my sister, my BIL, husband and me…:)
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| “2011: The Legend” |
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Meredith blogs at The Mom of the Year, where she dedicatedly earns her title one epic parenting fail at a time, offering quick, relatable laughs for fellow parents and all their empathizers. She has been part of several best-selling anthologies, featured on prominent sites such as Huffington Post, In the Powder Room and BlogHer, and loves her role as the Executive VP/Operations Manager of The BlogU Conference. When she's not breaking up fights over Legos and juice boxes, she remains fully committed to sharing a less serious look at the world of parenting.
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