year of old, year of new

I have a wire basket on the kitchen counter holding the materials for two art projects--corn starch, food coloring, wax paper, crayons, paper--plus the iron and ironing board set up, and a note reminding me to go on a nature walk through our enchanted forest and see what it looks like in the snow. I've been reading the blog The Artful Parent, specifically the Getting Started page which has ideas for very young ones, and I'm all fired up. It's a new year! (and a new decade, which does seem particularly weighty). Yay me! I'll let you know how it goes.

I'm specifically eager for the kids to get a tiny bit older so they can actually do these projects rather than just smear their torsos w/ cornstarch paste as I'm sure Clark will. That, of course, has its merits also, but is much less fun for me. I'm on some line these days, a sort of balancing between two places: round-sweet-warm babydom, with which I'm very familiar; and the-next-thing, which I can hear up ahead but isn't yet in focus. Because I tend to fear change in general and mourn things passing I've been sort of wallowing in the babyness. Then I get glimpses of what having a four and five year old (for example) will be like, which strikes me as less round-and-warmness, but oh the shimmer.

Sweet Old Year! Happy New Year! Moving forward.....