Happy New Year

Here I sit, looking out the picture window, watching the sun set on another year. It’s truly amazing how much we can experience from Solstice to Solstice. We pack in memories and hopes and dreams and good and bad over the last 365 days, then file it with all the previous ones. Some make big plans for the upcoming year. People resolve to this and that, or maybe quit something else. I was asked yesterday what my New Year’s Resolution was. It’s the same as usual. I’ll try to be a good dad. I may even try to be nicer to people and swear less when I work cows.

This past week, I took my lovely bride out to dinner. A young couple was in the booth behind us with four little ones, I’m guessing about eight, six, three, and a new baby. They were good as gold. When they left, I attempted humor and wondered aloud if they knew what caused that. My bride reminded me that our children were actually closer than those four.

So now, as the current year draws to a close, I have been reflecting on our past New Year’s. I thought I’d share one when our children were about the same age as the little ones at the restaurant. For some reason, we got a wild hair and decided to haul four kids, ages 1,3,5 and 7, to Minneapolis to see my bachelor brother. I’ve made poor decisions before, but this one was a doozy.

First night there, we’re off to Chuckie Cheese’s to eat bad pizza, drink too much soda, and touch a hundred games that a thousand children before us had touched. All was well, until the next evening, when child number two unloaded used hot cocoa all over my brother’s living room. As much as I prayed that it was just her weak stomach, child three and four, quickly followed with violent volleys of partially digested food and nuclear waste.

New Year’s morning we decided to make a run for it. My brave brother, who hadn’t had a stomach bug since high school was locked in his bathroom with lysol and disinfectant wipes. We said good-bye through the door and loaded the kids in the minivan as child number one began to forcefully empty.

Five hours into our eleven hour trip home, Number Two decided she’s better and she’s hungry. All vomiting had slowed so we pulled into the first fast food place and got her chicken nuggets. Bad decisions seemed to plague this trip. Not twenty miles down the road, I hear, “Dad, I don’t feel so good.” That was immediately followed by ‘SPLAAAAAT’. While we cleaned chicken nugget chunks off the windshield (yes, really) we contemplated getting a hotel room in Omaha and waiting it out. That’s when we made our first good decision. Five hours more, and we would be in our own beds.

Trust me. Our driveway never looked so welcoming. I came to a stop at the back door, stepped out of the van and it was my turn. Good Heavens. The bathroom floor was the most comfortable spot in the house for the next eight hours. I actually decided I might live the next morning when my phone rang. It was my brother. A weak and trembling voice on the other end of the line said, “I hate you.”