Welbi ‘Round the World

2009 – What a year you have been?

I spent a couple hours late last night (or early this morning) thinking about this past year.  Yea, jet lag still sucks.

What will I remember about 2009 for years to come?

It got me thinking of past years and what I remembered about them.

• 2008 – The Year of Autism.  I have thought about this year, and I couldn’t come up with anything.  Then it struck me.  This is the year that I was convinced that Tess was autistic, and we would have to move back to the States to get services for her.  She didn’t talk to us or understand us until after she was two.  She turned on after her second birthday, and, luckily, all is well now, but that was a long, bleak year that I would prefer to forget.
  

• 2007 – The Year of Japan.  We spent the first part preparing for our move, and Todd rapidly learned Japanese.  Then we spent the last couple months of the year getting used to Japan.

• 2006 – The Year of Tess.  I spent most of this year pregnant with or focusing on a newborn Tess.

• 2005 – The Year of Depression.  I spent the first several months suffering from severe postpartum depression and the last several months getting therapy.  Finally, finishing the year accepting the fact that I could be good enough at something and not perfect!

• 2004 – The Year of Riley.  I spent most of this year pregnant with Riley.
  

• 2003 – The Year of Trying To Conceive (TTC).  Yea, that was fun.  Then it wasn’t, and then I started charting.  Then we stopped trying, and then I was a wreck! Damn you Depo Provera and your lasting power.

• 2002 – The Year of Going Overseas.  Culture shock and travel.  The worst and best parts of living overseas.  In Peru, there were also in-house massages and maids, too.  Ahhhhhh, how I miss you.
  

• 2001 – The Year of Being a Teacher.  This was my second year of being a teacher, and I didn’t feel like such a fraud.

• 2000 – The Year of OMG, I Am A Teacher and A US Citizen.  In the same week in August, I started teaching and got my citizenship.  Yea, that was crazy!

• 1999 – The Year of Getting Married. We got married.  It was beautiful.

• 1998 – The Year I Graduated College.  I had a horrible kidney infection, but no insurance because I just graduated, and my first job didn’t cover me.  I was a teaching assistant at a Nature Center.   I ended up drugging myself with Dayquil to get through the ceremony.  That night there were so many people sleeping in my apartment, and I was running a huge fever.  When we woke up the next morning, Andrew Leeper, bless his heart, said it was like the Titanic.  I keep saying in my sleep, “I am soooo cold.”

• 1997 – The Year I Turned 21. Love you Nicole, that was a crazy night on Northgate.

• 1996 – The Year of Todd. Todd and I first started dating on December 28, 1995, so during 1996 very little existed in the world that I cared about besides him.  Even $600 phone bills (between the two of us) seemed insignificant to me – not so much to my parents.

That’s pretty much as far as I got.  Before that there are some important years, but nothing hugely significant.

So what would I say about 2009?  I am thinking it was The Year Of No More Babies.  There are no more diapers (during the day), there are no more bottles, there are no more cribs.  They are both in school.   Yay!  I am pleased to say there will be no more babies in the Welbi household.  We are already slightly outmatched.

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