It's New Year's Day, and I'm writing this at the kitchen table during nap time with a cup of coffee I actually got to drink hot. The twins went to bed at 7:15 last night like it was any other Wednesday. Dan and I made it to 10:40, watched the ball drop on a three-hour delay from New York, and called it. Very rock and roll.
I've never been good at resolutions. Every year I write down some version of "get in shape, save more, be more patient," and by February I've forgotten the list exists. So last year I tried something different. I picked one word to come back to when things got messy. Last year's word was survive, which I chose while nursing two nine-month-olds at 3 a.m. I'm proud to report that I did it.
This year's word: steady
I thought about a few options. "Grow" felt like too much pressure. "Rest" felt like a joke with twenty-one-month-olds. "Simplify" is lovely, but I've read enough about it to know I'd turn it into a project.
Steady is the one that stuck.
Here's what I mean by it. Our family has spent almost two years lurching from one thing to the next: newborn chaos, my return to work in March, daycare sickness after daycare sickness, Dan's overtime seasons, the twins learning to walk in the same week. We did fine, but it felt like we were always reacting. This year I want our days and weeks to feel more even. Not perfect. Not impressive. Just steady enough that when something goes sideways, we don't all go sideways with it.
A few small goals
I tried to keep these small enough that I can actually do them on a bad week. Every one of them connects back to the word.
- Keep Sunday meal prep, even when it's small. Sunday prep is the single habit that holds our week together. Some weeks it's six containers of food, some weeks it's a pot of rice and chopped vegetables. Either counts.
- Open the budget spreadsheet every Sunday night. Not to fix anything. Just to look. I've found that I spend less when I'm paying attention, and I pay attention more when it's a habit and not a crisis. Starting with a no-spend January, which I'll write about next week.
- One walk a week by myself. Thirty minutes. No stroller. No podcast about parenting. My mom is here on Thursdays, and I'm going to steal half an hour of that day.
- Put the phone in the kitchen at 9:30 p.m. I'm the worst about scrolling in bed. When I do it, I sleep worse, and when I sleep worse, I'm less patient in the morning.
- Get the boring paperwork done. We have a list of adult tasks that we keep pushing off, like updating our renters insurance and figuring out life insurance now that we have two kids. I want to knock out one of those a month.
- Write here twice a month. This little blog has become my favorite hour of the week. I want to keep showing up.
What I'm not doing
I'm not doing a diet. I'm not signing up for a half marathon. I'm not promising to cook everything from scratch or to never let the twins watch TV while I shower. I'm not going to "finally get organized," because I've learned that organizing a house with two toddlers is like brushing your teeth while eating a cookie.
I'm also not setting a savings number yet. We'll see where January lands first.
How I'll keep track
I wrote the word on an index card and stuck it to the fridge, right next to the twins' daycare schedule and a crayon drawing that June insists is a cat. I'll check in on the goals at the end of each month, probably on a Sunday night with the spreadsheet open.
If you pick a word this year, I'd love to know what it is. And if your only goal for 2026 is to get through it with everyone fed and mostly clean, that's a great goal too. That was my whole plan last year, and it worked.
Happy New Year from our slightly sticky kitchen table.
