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Danielle’s beautiful post makes my heart overflow with love and gratitude for my dear female friends. And with admiration for the ways that women can honor and support each other.

I have a powerful series of experiences of Christmas and Advent, both alone and with my children. Certain hymns embed themselves in my thoughts for days, my children ask questions about divinity and holiness, and the presence of something sublime visits me as I sit in silence with my Christmas lights.

Grace and I start reading Harry Potter, finish the first book, and watch the movie.

My town is hit by its first blizzard of the winter.

Our Christmas celebrations are small and lovely, with just my family (my parents and my sister, her husband, and two girls) at my house. On Christmas Eve we see some of the children that my sister and I grew up with (some of whom have their own children now). That reunion is wonderful.

My goddaughter turns one on the day my grandfather would have turned ninety. The universe spins inexorably forward.

We have a great Christmas celebration with “the stool” – the two other families who are our family’s dearest friends. The eight children run around madly, enjoying each others’ company. The adults marvel at having gone from 0 to 8 children in 7 years.

I feel ponderously, occasionally paralyzingly aware of the turn of the decade, of the uncertainty ahead and the regret behind.

A trip to American Girl Place with Grace makes me think about money and what kinds of values I want to instill in my children about it.

I read The Embers by Hyatt Bass, Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith by Anne Lamott, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard, and Olive Kittredge by Elizabeth Strout.

A post by Mrs. Chicken makes me think hard about my personal mythology, and about the moments that make me who I am.

Thanksgiving in Florida. A first for me. I learn that Grace is now super easy on a plane, because she can sit and watch TV for hours. I learn also that this is not true for Whit.

I launch my Present Tense interview series, and am heartened by the response by those I ask to participate. My preoccupation with the notion of presence leads me to think about why I am always the one taking pictures. It also leads me to reflect on Gwen Bell’s essay about her mother’s death and the resultant melancholy that shapes her life.

We have parent-teacher conferences for both children and learn, in short, that Grace is a high-strung perfectionist who likes to read and enjoys computers and that Whit is a natural comedian who hates being alone and prefers outdoor physical play. In the simplest terms, we have one of me and one of Matt.

Grace shares with me her feelings of not entirely fitting in in her classroom, and of the resultant loneliness. I find myself lost in a quagmire of identification and wonder how best to help her with this.

A poem my father wrote in college is featured as the preface to a book called Finding Pete. I am once again wowed by my own father.

Blog conversation about boys, girls, the families we imagined and the families we have makes me think about my own children. About the differences and joys of each gender and of the various permutations we each wind up with.

I took the children to see Where the Wild Things Are and found myself massively moved. It’s gorgeous.

Weekend in Vermont with Matt’s whole family. There is skeet shooting and marshmallow roasting, and the stunning foliage makes up for the incredibly long and trafficky drive up.

Godmom Gloria comes for a visit and the children swoon.

Grace turned seven and I wrote her my annual letter. Her birthday party is a doll tea with her best friend at a local restaurant. 24 girls and 23 American Girl dolls (and 1 stuffed animal, bless that child).

Halloween: a witch and a clone trooper. This is the first year the children have not matched. I stopped influencing their choices and lo and behold they did not choose to match. Oh well.