In Japan, New Year’s Eve is marked by the ringing of 108 bells. As old customs tend to do, this ritual has acquired various meanings. The way I learned it, this is a Zen Buddhist tradition. Humans are plagued by 108 negative emotions that stand in the way of their happiness and enlightenment, and on New Year’s Eve, a bell is tolled 108 times to cast out those emotions and face the New Year with a clear spirit.

In my Zendo, we tolled the bell ourselves. Somehow, our Sensei (he was also my karate teacher) had gotten hold of an ancient Chinese bell, a heavy metal monster that had apparently been buried in the ground during the Chinese Revolution to hide it from authorities.

A carpenter who was part of the group had built a frame to hang it from, and for years, on New Year’s Eve, we drug it to the center of the town and set it up as part of the First Night celebrations. We lit coals, and in turn, each person dropped a pinch of incense on the coals, bowed, and then struck the bell with a rubber mallet.

We usually lost count; I suspect that sometimes we cast out a good 200 or so negative emotions, because we wanted to give all interested passersby a chance to get rid of whatever they were carrying.

The tradition came to an end the year the Grannies for Peace squatted on our site and got snotty with us when we pointed this out. The irony of a throwdown between the Zendo and the GFPs was not lost on us, so we retreated and rang the bells among ourselves in the Zendo that year.

The year after, I had an infant and couldn’t go, and I haven’t rung them since, but I always liked the tradition. It surrounds the desire for a light heart and a new start into a ritual, and I believe there can be real value in a ritual like this.

A couple of posts back, my friend commented that she doesn’t make resolutions, instead listing 101 wonderful things about the past year. With proper credit to her, then, for being the partial spark to this idea, here is my twist on the 108 bells ceremony, adapted to this bloggy world.

I invite you to leave, in the comments, the things you want to remember about this year, large and small, that gave you hope, joy and peace, that made you feel accomplished, that you can carry with you into the new year, one in which you will find what you seek, one that will be kind to your and your loved ones. They can be little or big, funny or serious. Leave as many as you like (and come back as you think of more), but number them, and let’s see if we can get up to 108 good things.

Ready?

I’ll start:

1. Rediscovering what wonder really is, as I experience things that have become mundane to me through the enraptured eyes of my daughter and realize just how amazing it is that dogs are soft and flowers bloom in the spring and the harmonica makes noise when you blow on it and people make peepees and poopies inna POTTY! (I am looking forward, especially, to her discovery of a. the inside voice and b. discretion!)

2. The feeling of accomplishment as I ran toward the finish line in my first race.

3. Walking arm in arm with my sis and my friend M on a brisk but beautiful night in Boston. I spend far too little time with both people, my sister especially.

4. The beaming smile on Jim’s face every time Eliza correctly IDs one of his favorite songs.

5. The day I spotted the flyer announcing that the Y was going to start offering karate lessons, thus making it possible that in 12 days, 4 hours and 25 minutes I will be at my first class in nearly two years.

1. To tie two strands together neatly, I present the following image:

Yep, that is the self-same pantiliner, which Jim threw in the wastebasket in the office, but the Small Person saw it and fished it out and stuck it on his head cover (I know, I know, but he swears that is what they call those sock-thingers that you put over a golf club).

We have gotten a lot of mileage out of Eliza’s gift to daddy. Eliza watches movie with Donkey, Jim sits around making jack-ass references, and the other night, I hid Donkey under the covers on Jim’s side of the bed, a la The Godfather, and actually startled Jim.

The pantiliner has now been disposed of in a garbage can with a cover, hopefully permanently.

2. I forgot to post this at the time, but when we first decorated the tree, Eliza became enamored of a Merry-go_round horse ornament and a tin mouse. She took them down and declared that the mousie wanted to ride the horsie and arranged them thusly:

3. Croup-Pee

After about 4 hours of underpants time (which I suspect was making our cleaning lady nervous, seeing as how she faced the not-so-pleasant possibility of cleaning up after the Crazypants), Eliza agreed to put diapers on so we could go to the store to buy pull-ups and to the Y so I could exercise and sit in the steam room (note to self, add discovery of steam room to 108 wonderful things list).

I offered her the opportunity to watch a movie on the potty, but she wasn’t having it (I’m going to try that again, though, because I think it is a promising strategy), so I dropped it for the evening.

At midnight, she woke up barking and rasping badly, thus marking a full-on croup attack, rather than the half-hearted salvo of yesterday morning. I steamed her in the bathroom and she slept half-upright in my arms (me, not so much), and in the morning we went to the doctor for some ‘roids. I figure one challenge at a time is enough, though, so no progress on the potty front today.

One of my favorite things about the Simpsons has always been how so many episodes seem to be heading one way and then suddenly there’s some weird 180 degree turn, and, Bam! totally different episode than you thought you were watching.

That’s kind of how my morning has gone.

I woke up to Eliza barking like a seal and was into her room like a shot, where I found a flushed, sweaty, low-energy kid.

I took a sick day from work and Jim and I dithered whether to take her to the doctor’s early-morning open hours or make an appointment instead for later in the day, and finally decided to wait and see since the cough seemed to be getting less croupy as the morning progressed.

Some honey-peppermint tea and a bowl of oatmeal later the Small Person perked up considerably and declared that she wanted to sit on the potty. Nothing was produced, but when I tried to dress her again she declared that she did not want to wear a diaper and threw it in the trash, then demanded big girl underpants.

I thought I was going to be nursing a sick kid today, but apparently I am potty-training a toddler instead.

*Update*
Small Person had first of many acidents just now. Has declared that she dislikes making poopies and peepees on the potty. Also refuses diapers. Not sure exactly what her excretion plans are for the day.

Like many children, Eliza likes to rifle through my belongings, be they in the make-up drawer or my bag.

Yesterday, I noticed that my little bag of girlish necessities that I keep in my bag had been taken out and opened.

A short while later, I discovered what was indubitably the wrapping and paper backing of a pantiliner in the living room.

What I could not find, until this morning, was the actual pantiliner:

I am EXHAUSTED.

The Small Person woke us with a running stream of commentary at 5:45, prancing into our bedroom at 6:30 or so before being shepherded back to bed by my poor sleep-deprived husband. We ignored the monologue as best we could but finally gave up sometime after 7 a.m.

My mother struck a blow for equality by giving her a toolbox and stuff for her train set; Jim reinforced the patriarchy by getting her a vacuum cleaner. Unwilling to be bounded by traditional gender roles or overly strict constructions of feminist identity, Eliza expressed her love for both equally.

She marked the glory of the day with maniacal cackles, declamations on various subjects, radical reinterpretations of Christmas songs, and bouncing up and down. Incessant bouncing conducted incessantly, with a quality of incessantness.

The cats received little sachets of catnip. Barney could barely hide his self-loathing after riding the dragon all afternoon, but then in a show of Christmas spirit roughly equal to the midnight truces called on Christmas Eve during WWII between the opposing forces, Eliza let him sniff her breath and curl up next to her as we watched the Charlie Brown Christmas Special for the 756,678,567th time this week, and he recovered his will to live. I’m sure she will be back to poking him in the morning.

During this seated portion of the day, Eliza fidgeted, which she also did while I tried to sing her to sleep during quiet time this afternoon. *I* fell asleep — until she poked me awake — but she didn’t.

I had no idea how tiring it can be to simply behold someone incessantly bouncing for 14 hours. And have I mentioned the incessancy of the bouncing?

That said, her excitement was a delight to behold. It took us nearly two hours to be done with the gifting, because the Small Person had to play with everything she got for 20 minutes before moving on to the next thing. Even bleary-eyed, Jim and I had perma-grins on our faces.

***

Oooh. Barney farted. Stinky.

Hey, I’m live-blogging my cat’s smellular emissions!

***

Jim went down for the count for an hour this afternoon and I hope he is managing to keep his eyes open at work. At this point, in direct contravention of my policy never to write anything on my blog that I wouldn’t say to someone’s face, it has to be said: Jim’s workplace, is it REALLY necessary to make make my husband work Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day?

***

Less grumpily, the SMIL* is my current favorite IL because she got me: Not just a skillet. Not just an ORANGE skillet. No, an ORANGE skillet from Le Creuset. I have already cooked 3 things in it. I told Jim last night (I got it when we visited them on Sunday) that I would be sleeping with it, and he thought that was cool, since then I could hit intruders over the head with it. Joke’s on him, though, because NO WAY am I besmirching my lovely, lovely skillet with intruder-bonking.

This cookware-gifting is quite a change from the days of yore. Jim caught on early that I adore receiving high-quality cookware and over the years has gifted me with a spice rack, a fondue set, a waffle iron, and a couple of other things I’m not remembering right now.

One Christmas 7 or 8 years ago, ILs called to wish us well (we were not married but living in sin by that point), and asked him what he’d gotten me. He told them about the waffle iron with which I was at that very moment redecorating the kitchen (I am a messy cook), and I could hear the howl of outrage on the other end of the line from the next room. It took me years to convince them that this was not a hanging offense on Jim’s part which is really sweet because I know they were just looking out for me.

Really, God bless those poor people for putting up with my liberal-feminist-tree-hugging-leading-their-son-into-co-habitation-occasional-Buddhist-often-agnostic-sometimes-atheist-likes-to-carry-her-own-damn-boxes-keeping-her-name self. They have done so with more grace and kindness than I would’ve ever expected.

And on that somewhat gracious note, I am off to stuff myself on more Christmas cookies before I pass out in my (non-alcoholic, I hasten to specify) eggnog as visions of toddlers bounce in my head.

Incessantly!

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*Step-Mother-In-Law, for those of you just joining us.