Thank Heaven for Little Girls

Having a daughter inevitably brings memories of your own little-girlhood to the forefront. It's one of my favorite things about spending time with Gwendy- watching her experience things for the first time and remembering a time when the world was new and wonderfully confusing and crammed full of hidden delights and dilemmas.

Today I painted her little finger nails an iridescent blue (a shade she picked herself at the drugstore). When I was done carefully dabbing color on her minuscule nails and blowing on each one in turn, I watched her gesticulate and wave away invisible fog, showing off her hands to herself like a newly-engaged debutante with a 3 carat rock. I was struck hard by the memory of myself as a child, delighting so thoroughly in my own red fingernails. I kept noticing them-how adult and legitimate they seemed- and went about finding new things to do with them so I could admire how they looked in different poses. Here are red nails holding a dinner fork! Here are red nails flouncing a hanky! How wonderful to feel such delight in something so very simple...

And so tonight, at my girl's insistence, I painted my own nails for the first time in forever in that same blazing blue. And God, but I couldn't help but notice my hands all night- pouring in bubble bath, toweling off a squirmy toddler, tucking a blanket all the way up to her perfect little chin. And I took delight in this simple thing- having my girl and being a girl again with her.

Resolved:

Instead of nebulous and unattainable goals for this year (Be kinder to myself!- what the f does that mean?), here are 10 completely do-able resolutions for the year to come:

1. Shred documents that have personal info on them as I come across them, rather than just putting them in the ever-growing Bag Of Papers Intended for Future Shredding, or BOPIFFS, for short.

2. Spend more time cuddling my dogs. It's not their fault I'm all "touched out" by the end of a day of kid wrangling. Of course I'd be more kindly inclined to them if Emmy could go more than three days without managing to remove a diaper from the trash and shred it to bits all over the rug...

3. Go to the dentist with consistency. Also, floss more. And also also, buy more floss instead of just keeping empty floss thing in medicine cabinet.

4. Throughly rinse out my recyclables rather than pass them under the faucet once regardless of amount of sticky gunge still stuck to insides.

5. Shave my legs with more frequency and more attention to detail, regardless of season.

6. Piggy-backing on #5, look at legs twice a week so as to avoid that queer feeling when you first put on shorts in the summer and it's like someone surgically grafted someone else's pale, chubby legs onto your torso whilst you were asleep.

7. Remember to bring non-disposable shopping bags to grocery store. I have enough disposable trash bags in my basement to melt them into a mold and make a usable kayak. I don't want to toss them, and yet have no use for them, so there you go.

8. Eat less sugar (currently I am on the Hummingbird Diet).

9. Go out for coffee/wine/whatever with friends without kids in tow at least once a month.

10. Never utter the phrase "I'm so tired!" Because really? Everyone is tired.

If I can hit 50% of these, I'll be in pretty good shape on my way to world dominance, I think. So, c'mon, 2012! Let's go!