[A note on this post: Do you get Night Sadness? Where it's the evening and you feel like everything is crappy and hopeless for no particular reason? It's kind of like depression except that it's only occasional and it goes away by morning. Anyway, when I wrote this post I had Night Sadness, and when morning came I felt happy about the holidays again---though I do still find I'm connecting each happy thing ("Almost time to put up the lights, yay!") with the corresponding sad thing ("Ug, and then we'll have to take them down, and they always look so tacky and sad as soon as Christmas is over"). And so then I felt a little silly about this post, but I'm on a deadline here so I'm going with what I've got---particularly because I am certain to feel this way again and again before it's January and we can relax and enjoy the inventory clearance sales.]

I’ve been up to my hairline in holiday shopping and I’m sick of it.
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Before my first son was born I was working full time, we had no childcare costs, my husband was well-rewarded at his job, and our investment portfolio had yet to begin its terrifying toilet-bowl downward spiral. I only have to consider the stroller we got back then in order to truly visualize how things have changed. It’s not that we’re in trouble now, it’s just that with my 3-day-a-week salary, my husband’s exciting-but-scary startup, two kids in daycare, college savings plans, and a staggering monthly grocery bill (the children eat NOTHING, and yet I keep TRYING TO FEED THEM!), there’s no way in h-e-double-hockeysticks I’d buy such a spendy stroller today.

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I have often thought that caring for a baby in their first year of life is like watching the lights come on in a house, one by one. First they’re all unfocused and mewly, then they’re laughing and doing that funny stationary leg-marching business, and soon they’re entirely purposeful and able to reach right out and grab what they want. Click, click, click, one room after another gets lit up in their brains, and their worlds open wider and wider.

If that’s true, then the stage around 18 months is like having all the lights on at once, blazing away, while a mad scientist operates the giant electrical switch powering it all. “MOO HOO HA HA HAAAA!” shrieks the apparition in the white coat, hair standing on end and eyes pointing in two different directions. “HA HA HA—WAAAAHHHHHHHH!”

Young toddlers are insane, is what I’m saying. They’re physically capable of outrunning you, yet they have no sense of self-preservation. Their emotions are as wild and unpredictable as a storm on the high seas, and the smallest trespass will send them flinging their bodies to the floor in order to throw a tantrum loud enough to detonate an adult’s eardrums at fifty paces. They kick, they slap, they throw things, they scream, they eat things that aren’t meant to be eaten while hysterically refusing things that ARE meant to be eaten.

Thank god they’re still formed entirely of Pillsbury thigh-rolls with baby-soft faces and the occasional desire to cuddle, because in my limited experience this is the age which most strongly begs the question, Would It Be Wrong To FedEx My Child to Octo-Mom, Since She Apparently Can’t Get Enough of this Crap?

So! Let’s talk about ways to survive the 18-month zone, and by that I mostly mean “let’s open up comments because I sure don’t know what the hell I’m doing.”
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I have always been scared of having to take my kids on a plane. We’ve never done it, because our family is close enough to visit by car, and every time I fly on my own I surreptitiously stare at other parents trying to manage small kids and strollers and bags and think to myself, oh thank GOD that’s not me.

The time has come, however, for me to nut up and face my fears, because I have the opportunity to take my 3.5-year-old on a trip to Washington DC at the end of this month. It will be just the two of us, and I am both thrilled about the adventure and, um, COMPLETELY FREAKED OUT.

We’ve been talking a lot about the trip and watching YouTube videos of planes taking off and so on; I feel like I’m doing an okay job on preparing him as best I can. He’s super excited about everything, but I know the fickle nature of a preschooler: it’s inevitable there will be some challenges along the way. So, what sorts of gear can help make it all a little easier? I’m hoping you guys can help me out, especially those of you with experience traveling with children. Here are some items I’m looking at:
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January can be a sad month:  the post-holiday letdown, the weather, the mid-school-year slump, the lower sunshine levels.  It can also be a BROKE month as the bills start to come in from December.  Here are some easy and inexpensive ways to decrease the sad without increasing the broke.

1.  Sunshine.  If it’s in short supply where you are, you may need to grab your moments.  We have one particular window that’s aimed to catch any midday sun there is, and on bad days you can find me with my face almost pressed against the glass.  I close my eyes and upturn my face and admire the pretty pink-orange color of the inside of my eyelids.  The light and warmth and vitamin D are like a shot of…wheatgrass, or something.  Without the gagging.
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As I write this I’m feeling something less than the perfect picture of health and fitness: I’m traveling for work, and nothing does in a diet quite like 24/7 access to room service. After a long day of standing around a tradeshow booth smiling vacantly at people, the notion of chocolate cake being delivered to my king-sized bed at 10 PM is just too tempting to resist.

As soon as I get home, though, I plan to get back in the swing of things diet-and-exercise-wise, and since January is traditionally the time of year when most of us re-visit our health goals, I thought I’d share my favorite workout DVDs with you guys. I prefer the accountability and challenge of an exercise class, but it can definitely be challenging to find the time to get out of the house and to a gym. Sometimes it’s all about jumping around the living room like a dork in order to work up a sweat, and for those times, here are my go-to videos:
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I’ve been listening to my iPod on shuffle recently and it’s been unexpectedly enjoyable — I keep hearing music I haven’t played in years, and as I drive to and from work I drift in and out of these nostalgic fugues. Music can make you remember a certain moment or time period in such a visceral way, don’t you think? Like how a certain smell will bring you back to a specific moment more intensely that your memory alone ever could.

Here are some albums that are both meaningful to me and awesome, in case you’re looking for new (well, old, but you know) tunes. I’m hoping you’ll tell me your memory-triggering albums/songs, too.
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As far as I’m concerned, one of the best investments we’ve put into our house is the corner soaking tub in the master bathroom. It wasn’t cheap, but I use it every single night, and it’s big enough to fit all four of us in its soapy depths.

(Sure, someone’s toes might kick you in an unpleasant location, and sure, someone is bound to produce a thrilling arch of pee, but still: a toddler, a baby, and two adults in one tub! As long as no one poops, it’s all good.)

My solo bathtime is right before bed, and I can literally feel the stresses of the day melting away under the hot water. It is one of my favorite rituals, and one that can only be improved by the right consumer products.

Which leads me to: bath soaps! Let me discuss my favorites with you:
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Happy New Year! Not that you’re even reading, because surely you’re all recovering from your various thrilling New Year’s Eve festivities, which probably included bubbly beverages and steamy midnight kisses.

My own evening featured an illicit 5 PM Red Bull, so I’d have a fighting chance at staying awake to watch the Space Needle fireworks at 12 AM, at which point I kissed my bottle of Tums for helping to keep the worst of my pregnancy-induced acid reflux at bay.

Yeah, don’t try and tell me I don’t know how to party.

Anyway, I have been thinking vaguely about New Year’s resolutions, and how being a giant third-trimester whale on January 1st really goes a long way towards getting you off the hook on those damn things. My resolution for 2008: have healthy child, maintain sanity afterwards.

I know there will come a time, though, when my thoughts will turn from the daily chaos of newborn + toddler to the state of my body. While I have no plans to make life even more stressful by fretting over the inevitable postpartum disrepair, I know from experience that getting back in shape will make a huge difference in my emotional well-being and overall productivity.

With that in mind, and the fact that most New Year’s goals tend to involve dealing with our waistlines, forgive me for going the predictable route on this post and recommending some fitness products. Earlier in 2007 (before I got knocked up and everything went to hell) I was in a really good exercise groove, and I’d like to share the things that worked excellently for me—as a busy mom with not a lot of time to invest in gym visits. If working out is the last thing you want to be thinking about right now, please enjoy this great forum thread instead.

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I’ve never been someone who goes overboard during the holidays, but this year I’m definitely feeling a sense of pressure. It’s hard to believe we’re already halfway through December already, and I have this very un-festive desire to barrel straight through to January—despite the fact that January marks the only-one-month-to-go mark with my pregnancy and holy crap, I haven’t done one single thing to prepare for this baby.

Between fighting off a cold determined to suck all the joy from my life over the last few weeks, dealing with my office moving across town and thus complicating my commute all to heck, and juggling a monster freelance project to which I totally overcommitted myself, I just haven’t felt the holiday spirit this year yet. We got our tree up and I put out a few decorations, but man, I haven’t followed through on any of my ambitious November plans (homemade wreath for the front door! Lights for the house! Gingerbread cookies for Riley! Hand-crafted holiday cards! Advent calendar craft project! FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL).

I’m trying to resuscitate my dwindling jolliness and squelch my inner Grinch, and I’m hoping you guys have some ideas for making the most out of the holidays—in a low-pressure kind of way. You know what I mean? I want happy holiday traditions and memories for my family, but in reality I work more than one job, I have a 2-year-old, I’m five thousand months pregnant (well, give or take), and I seem to be missing some critical Martha-esque gene required for effortless crafty projects.

My own suggestions: this year I used tinyprints for our holiday cards instead of making my own the way I usually do (they turned out great!), and I’ve shopped online for literally every single holiday gift on my list (making good use of Amazon’s Prime program). I also gave up on the homemade advent calendar idea and found a really cute wooden box version at Goodwill, and every day Riley opens a new door to reveal . . . you are going to think I am SO LAME, here . . . half a Flinstone’s vitamin (Riley: “A BITAMIN! YAYY!”). What can I say, he loves those things. Sometimes we shake things up with a sticker or a tiny piece of chocolate, but I’m telling you, the vitamins are the biggest hits.

Okay, this is totally one of those posts where I’m hoping the helpful comments make up for the lack of useful blog content. Please share your holiday traditions, ideas, tips, and anything else that might help the overloaded, overscheduled, and overburdened with mucus.