This time last year I was not a wife.  I was not pregnant.  I was not a published author.  I was living in New York.  A year later and I’m living in Texas, married, published, with a son and a daughter.  One hell of a year, one even a horoscope would be pressed to predict.  And as different as my life is, I am in love with it.  I love Phil so much, love that the other day, at the hospital elevators, he pulled me into him and whispered, "I couldn’t be happier than I am right now, with you."  And I hit him for making me cry.  "Not that everything doesn’t make me cry, but still."  Then we kissed on the elevator ride down.  Then last night, there was this:

"I think it’s time to dump."
"Excuse you?"
"It is.  It’s time."
"Well can you shut the door!"  Phil won’t let me go to the bathroom with the door open.  Our bathroom is enormous, but our WC is claustrophobic.  And it’s my damn house.  I like to leave the door open.  He gasps at this, even when I’m just making a quick girl pee.  But this conversation isn’t about making.
"Well do you think we have to dump?"
"You only had two glasses of champagne."
"Yeah, but I don’t want to risk it."  We decide to dump my breast milk in fear that I might be soused.  "We’re getting those strips tomorrow," I say as he makes Jello Pudding eyes at me.  "What?  I’m getting the damn strips!"  The strips tell you if there’s any alcohol in your breast milk.  "Oooh, and let’s make brownies," I add, insisting we’ll bring at least some of them to the NICU staff.  After I eat half the tray, that is. So on this New Year’s Day, we’ll be getting some strips, some baked goods, and some matted frames (we’re framing our favorite children’s book covers as the art in the nursery).  I hope there’s a book out there about baking for children.  I don’t even like to bake, but suddenly I feel the desire to write a children’s book about a magic bakery.  All this talk of milk and brownies has gotten to my head.  Happy New Year.  I hope yours is decadent and delicious.