Being Southern, there are certain traditions and superstitions attached to New Year’s Day. For traditions, you must eat greens and black-eyed peas. For superstitions, it’s traditionally believed that whatever you do on the first day of the year is a sign of what the rest of the year has in store for your life.
Having lived 37 years on this planet, I can vouch for the fact that the superstition is more hope than truth. Very few of my years have followed the pattern of what I chose to make happen on New Year’s Day.
Still, childhood traditions and superstitions cling harder than we’d like to admit sometimes, which is why I find myself praying really hard right now that the Southern superstition is as unfounded as my experience would prove. Our New Year’s Day was anything but an auspicious beginning to the year.
I arrived home from work on New Year’s Eve at 10:00 p.m., utterly, to my bones, exhausted. This last work trip was a combination of three assignments in two different bases (as I received a base transfer beginning December 30th) that began when I left last Friday.
Six days on the road, away from my family, and only three of the flights I worked actually went as scheduled. In fact, my last two day assignment was deemed by my fellow crewmembers as “the trip from hell”. Their words, not mine…though I scarcely disagree. It was awful.
So when I came trudging home, later than I’d planned (my last work flight was delayed, making me miss my original flight home), I wanted to curl up in a ball and disappear for a few days.
New Year’s Day was looming, though, and I felt compelled to ensure that the day went beautifully to ensure a successful 2015. That whole superstition thing, you know.
Darrel did let me sleep in a bit in the morning, and when I woke, it was to my sweet boys bouncing on me in the bed. Jed saw I was awake and made his first words to me “Zac got my yellow chips (corn chips) and ate them! But then Daddy took them away. And Zac got sick.”
Good morning, anyone?
Darrel filled me in when I walked into the kitchen. Apparently, Zac had vomited in the living room. Why, no one knows. AFTER he vomited, Darrel caught him eating some of Jed’s pork rinds (not corn chips), and took those away.
Hello, 2015, right?
Zac honestly seemed fine after that. I relaxed, thinking maybe it was just a small reaction, though still perturbed that our planned gut rest will now need to last longer before resuming food trials.
Unfortunately, the rest of the day wasn’t really all that great.
While making sweet potato-banana ice cream for Zac, my food processor went berserk and exploded the lid in my face, throwing bananas and sweet potato all over the kitchen.
It’s ruined and must be replaced. And Zac was very upset that he couldn’t have any ice cream.
The boys played really hard in the living room today, and it looked like it, too! Toys were everywhere! Since my parents were coming over for dinner, and no one could walk in the living room, I informed the boys that they needed to tidy up.
I tried to make it fun! I challenged them to a “pick-up game”. I tried to make it into a race. I did everything but hop on one foot while patting my head and rubbing my belly.
No dice. They refused to pick up a single toy.
Finally, I made it an order. “I’m setting the timer. When it goes off, if you haven’t picked up the trains and put them away (see? I’m being nice! I only demanded they pick up the trains – not all the toys!) you will lose all TV watching for a day.” I set the timer for 15 minutes, and even picked up a few toys to encourage them to do the same.
When I saw one minute left on the timer, I told Jed he’d better hurry. I even sweetened the deal! “Jed, I have picked up 7 toys. If you can JUST pick up 7 toys in the next minute, I’ll give you more time to clean the living room without losing the TV.”
Jed just looked at me, sat down on his new play workbench, and said “I can’t. I’m so out of breath from playing.”
This kid has some serious cheek!
Needless to say, the boys don’t get to watch any TV, play with either of our phones, or play their Thomas computer game for a whole day. I even turned the whole entertainment setup completely off, to avoid Jed turning it on by changing out a DVD. (He hasn’t discovered the power button yet, but knows how to make it “come to life” by opening and closing the DVD player.)
And they still picked up all the toys in the living room. It just took a grand total of almost an hour to get the job done…when it should have taken a mere 4 minutes at most.
Frustrated at that, I went to finish cooking dinner.
Remember my awesome pantry solution? Well, the top slide out shelf of my baking section wouldn’t pull out. When I looked closer, I saw that one of the slides had completely collapsed in the back!
All my baking stuff is now covering my counter until the drawer is fixed. THAT makes cooking so much easier, don’t you know!
Right about then Zac had a poopy diaper, which was not a great one. It stunk badly and had some mucous. A couple of hours later he had another one. This time, he presented us with a bright red allergy ring and a bright red heinie where the poop had touched, squirmed to get away from being wiped, and the poop smelled awful…but at least it looked a little better.
Sigh. A food reaction, willfully stubborn kiddos, a broken kitchen, total exhaustion and a couple other things I’m leaving out that stunk. This is NOT what I had planned for New Year’s Day!
To be completely fair, the day wasn’t all bad. I did get to read to the boys quite a bit today, which is always fun. We played a lot, and I built a really cool train layout for the boys that they loved. Zac said two new words that I’d never heard before. The boys both went to bed right on time without a fight. My Mom and Darrel cleaned up the kitchen for me after dinner, which was glorious. And my Dad managed to fix the most-used-electrical outlet in my kitchen that had been inop since before Thanksgiving.
Still, this wasn’t what I would call an auspicious beginning to the New Year.
Let’s hope the Southern superstition doesn’t ring true for us. I don’t think I could handle a whole year of this (unless it was just the good things!)
Hopefully your New Year’s Day was better than mine! Do you have any New Year’s traditions/superstitions in your family?
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