by Jacqueline Goldschneider Each December, I make a bunch of resolutions to become a more productive, well-rounded and improved mother, and each September I look back at most of that list with a sense of total failure. So this year, to avoid inevitable disappointment, here are the 5 resolutions I won’t be making:
1. Cook for my family: Every January I gather recipes and excitedly whip up a meal that all of my kids complain about. As I beg them to chew and swallow, I realize I’m just done with cooking. I really want to be the mom who discusses the amazing balsamic chicken she made in her slow cooker last night, but alas, it’s not happening.
2. Organize the playroom: I blame all those catalogues showing the awesome kids at their shiny table next to white shelving impeccably organized with labeled fabric bins. Even if I could get my act together to make sense of the monster load of junk that’s accumulated in my playroom in the past 7 years, it would all be disheveled within days and that white shelving would be covered in crayon and stickers. Still, every year I promise to do this and it hasn’t gotten done. I now accept it will not be happening in 2015 either.
3. Read more books: I desperately want to be a mom who can discuss which was better, Gone Girl the movie or book. But every December I make this promise and I still haven’t read a book in years. I even solicit opinions and actually buy a book. Every time I see last year’s book with its uncracked red cover it reminds me of my failure. Unless “Pete the Cat” becomes a movie, I accept that I won’t be joining the book to film conversation anytime soon.
4. Go to sleep earlier: Every year I make this a top priority, and it doesn’t happen. But when there’s finally silence after everyone’s asleep, and I can return emails and check Facebook, I just can’t pull myself away. Besides, the Real Housewives start so darn late. It’s really beyond my control.
5. Keep a memory jar: Years ago a friend said that each day she writes down one great thing that happened with her children that day, and at year end they have a fun memory jar to piece through and remember good times. Such a totally cute idea - and I resolve to do it every year. I think the most scraps of paper to ever fill my jar by October was 4, and throwing those out made me feel pretty bad. It’s not that I’m lazy, it’s just… yeah, I’m lazy. No memory jar this year.
So for 2015, rather than pursue specific tasks, I simply resolve to be the best me for the ones I love. And toward the goal of self improvement, perhaps I’ll resolve generally to stop procrastinating.
I’ll get on that in a few weeks.
Jacqueline Goldschneider is a freelance writer and a mother of four living in Bergen County
