i just spent the last three hours with a 3 week old baby asleep on my chest. mmmm baby. this was the definitive highlight of christmas take 3, with the rest of my dad’s side of the family, siblings and partners and babies. lots of sounds and great food and another gift exchange – have you played the white elephant game? but the highlight is ooooooh….new babies with their tiny little perfectly formed fingers and fingernails and feet and eyelashes and baby smell and baby skin and the sheer miracle of something so perfect that can’t hold its own head up or see more than two feet. magic.

had a wonderful talk with my mom and sisters today about choices in life – the choices they have each made, the choices i am trying to make. i love the way my family communicates – we work hard at making sure we’re clear and honest and thoughtful with each other, our antennae are always up. we were noticing today the shifts in and out of our traditional roles.

i used to be the mediator, trying to clarify everything, protect people from themselves and others. i have mostly let that role go now, learning to step back, be quiet, let people figure it out themselves. its hard, but i’m learning that there are areas where my energy is needed, but there  are lessons that i am not meant to teach. if there was a theme to this year, it would be stepping back, letting people step up to own their victories and mistakes without me as a buffer. i was merely getting abused in the role anyhow, and its exhausting and egotistical. i get to be so much more engaged in my own life and growth process, and in serving the world the way i am meant to, when i stop trying to control it all.

and as my sister autumn says, its all communication anyway. most of what people argue about is not content, its context, its tone. everyone wants to be understood and respected…but in order to do that you have to just let go, let go of what others think and trust that you can sleep at night, that you understand within yourself what you mean, what you value, what your choices are.

santana and jenn said the motto is drama gets nixed in the 06. i am SO down for it.

check alternet next week, gavin leonard and i have a point/counterpoint going up as one of the first big pieces of the year.

it someone special’s birthday in a few minutes. sending love, sending love!