New Year's Resolutions

I have never been a big believer in New Year's Resolutions. January seems like such a miserable time to be pledging to give up all that is fun in life, so rather than make up some boring rules for me to spend the beginning of 2012 breaking I thought I would come up with some potentially more attainable goals to aim for. 

1. I will try to limit shouting at the children to less than five times a day (or 10 at the weekends when school doesn't keep them out of my hair for the best part of the day). 

2. I will endeavour to remember to video the twins at this most gorgeous of ages. I want to preserve forever the fabulous nicknames they have come up with for themselves. Zakka Pakka Pookalakka de Blue and Jonah Bachina de Green should not be lost in the mists of time and my dicky memory. I want film of their smooth two-year-old dance moves that look a little as if they are going into spasm, I want to keep a pictorial record of them curled around one another like puppies in bed, I want to remember how whenever you ask Jonah how he is he responds "I'm gorgeous", while his twin pipes up "I'm gorgeous too". I never want to forget how they scold me roundly telling me I am 'A naughty boy and have to go on the naughty step'. I neeeeeed (as Jo would put it) a recording of Zach singing "You look like a monkey and you smell like one too". 

3. I will stop and enjoy time with my boys rather than wasting their childhoods in a round of cooking chunks of breaded chicken and washing their school shirts. This one may be tricky to achieve as the moment I stop either of these activities the 'I'm hungry' whines reach fever pitch and the house slowly sinks beneath a tidal wave of grubby laundry, but I can dream. 

4. I will eat an entire family meal without once having to wipe something up. OK this one is about as outlandish the idea that you will actually use that gym membership for the next 12 months, but it is a secret hope that 2012 is the year that my boys will acquire table manners. Of course I try to drum them into my sons, but they appear to go in one ear and then out of their mouth as they spray me with a fine mist of their meal whilst simultaneously eating and shouting at one another. 

5. I will enforce bedtime once again. Gone are those halcyon days when by 7pm the house was a serene, child-free zone in which one could indulge in such adult pursuits as speaking without being interrupted and sitting down for a stretch of several minutes without being asked to replenish a child's food or drink. 

Now my eight-year-old keeps a schedule that would put a world leader to shame. If he is asleep before midnight it's a good night, yet he is up with the lark (at least on the weekend he is) and raring to go. I am sure this can't be good for him, and I know it's not good for me - a diet of TV and conversation suitable for the under-10s does not a good night in make. 

6. I will blog more. I have neglected FDMTG as the children grew up and didn't provide me with as many amusing anecdotes to record as when they regularly threw up over me, but I don't want my record of their childhood to stop here. Surely the best bit, when they are potty trained and can eat without assistance is yet to come?

Happy New Year and good luck with your resolutions. Please make one to come back and read more FDMTG and I promise to reward you with intellectual stimulation and stories about poo.