happy new year!

okay, it took seven days for me to get around to this, but that's about how far behind in life i generally find myself.
so, how is 2008 shaping up? little early to tell! ha ha.
paul went back to work today after three weeks off. it's a little weird to be back to just punky and me. of course next week i too return to paid, gainful employment. i'll be working mondays, thursdays and fridays. percy will be at the local SDN child care centre. of course she'll be fine but i'm not looking forward to it. we are going in this wednesday and thursday for a few hours of familiarisation. let you know how we get on...

maybe it's more pertinent to reflect on 2007.... certainly was the most challenging year of my life. (even more so than a couple of bungled attempts to slit my wrists and leaving my parents home when i was 16. but then, don't all 16 year olds do spastically stupid things and generally mess them up?)
back to the reminiscing... percy's birth in hindsight, was awesome. at the time i was a little spacey. her gorgeous nuzzling into me and suckling within minutes of her entry to the world was the best feeling of my life. i still adore, in the dark of the nite, when she finishes her feed how her little lips smack together and she sighs completely contentedly, body floppy and eyes closed. ('course i wish she was sleeping 12 hours instead, but that's the way it is.)
taking her to kiev was incredibly hard. i think now of the numerous times i slumped sobbing against the wall not knowing what to do, what to expect, what would come next... hoping against hope that she'll grow up normal and not in some unidentifiable way scarred and scared because of what we did or did not do. seems now that i can forgive myself and relax- she seems pretty normal to most everyone. except to paul and i to whom she is extraordinary!

amongst the many conversations with friends that passed last year some are memorable. others might be memorable but i was too tired to recall them then, meaning i certainly can't now. conversations about our aussie politics, our relationship with the world, our morality and mortality, what do we do for our children, what can we achieve for ourselves, why are we programed the way we are...? other's perhaps not so weighty but none-the-less important for our sense of self and place in the world. for instance we were trying to decide our favourite foods; for robyn it is cherries, and while i certainly place them high on the list, as opposed to paul's sausage and mash (!), my favourite is my mum's roladin, red cabbage and dumplings dinner. i salivate just thinking about it. then we also turned to smells. cloves stuck into oranges as christmas decorations ranks high for me.

seeing more of the world, as well as the recent possibility of moving to melbourne (currently undecided) has made me realise how much i prefer to stay where i am! this is a real surprise to me as i always thought i could up sticks and plonk down again, easy as pi, just about anytime, anywhere. perhaps the negativity surrounding the kiev adventure has stuck with me. maybe it's the thought of packing all the things that make our life in our little home our own. very probably it's the dread of reshuffling percy. also, tho, is my abiding affection for sydney and in particular this little pocket of erskineville. waxing lyrical about erskineville is a separate undertaking. suffice to say i'd miss it terribly.
i'd miss my confidence about where i am added to knowing quite well where i need to go to do what; be it mundane grocery shopping, transcendental wilderness walks or swimming classes for percy. am i too old to traipse across country, continent or planet now? god; that's a depressing thought! perhaps new options in '08 will change my reluctance. bring it on! i'm not scared of making the decision, just the consequences!! ha ha.