I don’t have a list of New Year’s resolutions or goals for the coming year. Because I think I’ve got it all together? No. Far from it. I just don’t see the point of making a list that doesn’t have groceries on it.

2006 will bring what it will bring, list or no list. I do hope that 2006 is a tsunami-free year. I hope there will be fewer hurricanes, or at least kinder, gentler hurricanes than in 2005. I hope we get some rain here in my neck of the woods. Soon. I hope 2006 brings a lot more of our brave soldiers home from around the world. I hope that the right and left in our country can set the example for the world and our children and play nice together. I hope that 2006 will keep my family and friends and you my dear readers, safe and healthy (and reading!!)

Ooops. That looks like a list. Better add milk.

Happy New Year!

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 “Hot Dog!” — The most honest expression of Christmas joy heard all season exclaimed by Sean upon opening a box containing Crayola Color Wonder markers, paints, paper and coloring book from Aunt Jane, Uncle Jim and Cousins Scott and Cody (or Cot and Sody as Sean says).

“Way cool!” — The second most honest expression of Christmas joy heard all season exclaimed by me when I read the words “Mess Free” on the packaging. Thanks Jane!

Photo: Sean is hoping that Mommy got some Crayola Color Wonder stuff too!

This year’s winner of the first annual “Antique Mommy’s Spirit of Christmas” award goes to Margie, the owner of the condo in Destin, Florida where this past September, we spent our first family beach vacation.

Each year the AMSOC winner will be selected from a list of worthy nominees who at some point in the year endeavor to pull Antique Mommy’s behind out of the proverbial sling. Extra consideration is given to those who manage to refrain from exlaiming in disbelief “You did WHAT?” and/or calling CPS. This year, it was hard to choose just one from the long list of nominees, but Margie was clearly the hands-down winner.

After ten days at the beach in September, we returned home exhausted and with only one black eye amongst us, so all in all we felt our first family beach vacation was a success — until we started unpacking and trying to get our sleepy boy into bed. “Muhn-ee! Muhn-ee!” Sean demanded rubbing his non-black eye. We looked through all the bags and the car several times before panic set in. Panic quickly turned to nausea when we had to face the grim reality that Mr. Monkey was still on vacation in Florida — or worse, riding around in an airplane alone and unarmed with Clorox Wipes. Gulp! Of all the things to leave behind — what kind of mother would do such a thing? If a license were required to be a mother (and maybe there should be) mine would have been revoked on the spot.

Out of sheer exhaustion, Sean fell asleep with Snoopy, an understudy, and I immediately went on-line to try to track down another Mr. Monkey. After several hours it became apparent Mr. Monkey was on the endangered species list and there were none left anywhere in the galaxy at any price. In a last desperate attempt, I found an email address for Margie, the condo owner, whom I had never met or even spoken with, and I threw myself on her mercy. I asked her if there was anyone there in Florida who would look to see if Mr. Monkey was still there somewhere in the condo. If not, then we could be at peace that Mr. Monkey was never coming home and begin looking for responsible people to raise our child.

Before the light of dawn, Margie (who lives no where near Florida) emailed me back promising to send out a search and rescue team to look for Mr. Monkey. She said that she was a mother too and that when her daughter was little, she had a special stuffed unicorn, and that she understood my predicament. Several days later, the prodigal monkey returned home courtesy of Margie and the US Postal Service. When I opened that little box and saw that raggedy well-loved monkey it brought tears to my eyes. When Sean saw it he clutched it to his chest and in a low manly voice chattered “ooo-ooo-oooh!” like a little machine gun. And then he looked up at me and smiled like I’m the one who orders the sun to shine and not the one who couldn’t keep track of his special friend.

With nothing in it for herself, Margie went to the trouble to make a big difference in our small world. And she did not even once give in to blurting “You did WHAT?” And so Margie, you are the recipient of the first-ever AMSOC award. Congratulations!

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So much has been written and said about Hurricane Katrina, that I hardly think I have anything more to offer on that topic in terms of how things went so horribly wrong and who is to blame. What I do have to say is how proud I am of my adopted home, the great state of Texas and the many Texans (naturalized or native) who have stepped up to the plate to care for the suffering. We are a big state with big hair, big hats, big ideas, occasionally big mouths, but most of all, big hearts. I am not surprised in the least by the outpouring of help because this was the same response I received when I moved here 24 years ago.

Way back in 1981, before many of my fellow mommy’s were even born, I moved to Texas from the cornfields of the mid-west. I was 21-years-old and greener than the green beans my son lobs at me at the dinner table. I had been working for an insurance company and when an opening in the Texas agency opened up, I jumped on it and transferred. When I say transfer, I don’t want you to get the idea that they paid to move me and set me up. What I mean is that they said, hey, if you’re crazy enough to move to God-forsaken Texas, then we’ll pay you minimum wage when you get there.

When you’re 21, you are long on hope and dreams and short on wisdom and cash. So it seemed like a reasonable thing to do. I loaded up my Honda Civic with what little I had and set off to become a Texan. I vividly remember the January day I was packing all my worldly belongings into my little car. As I was carrying a box down the icy, snowy steps of my parent’s house, I slipped and slid all the way down on my back, bumping my head on each step until I finally came to rest completely under the car. I had figuratively and literally hit bottom. As I was lying there on the dirty snow looking up at the underside of my car, I knew I was doing the right thing.

After I arrived in Texas and got my apartment and paid my rent and my phone bill and utilities, I had exactly $8.43 for two-weeks. But I never felt more wealthy. Everyone I met extended kindness, encouragement and offers to help. And they meant it. A lady who worked for the company in the next office nearly every day would bring by a meal that she said was left over, which I kind of always doubted. “Nell, you mean to tell me this entire roasted chicken and corn casserole is leftover?” I’d ask. She’d wave both her hands like she was shooing away chickens and say, “It’ll just go to waste, honey, now you take it home and put it in the fridge.” I never went hungry thanks to kindness of Nell and many others like her.

I’ve been the recipient of Texas hospitality more times than I can remember in the past 24 years. I hope that maybe I’ve passed a little of that along to others somewhere along the way. Sometimes on the hardest, hottest, most miserable of Texas days, I’ll think back to that January day when I was laying under my car in my parent’s driveway and I remind myself that I did the right thing in coming here. These are my people and this is where I’m supposed to be.

I went to a baby shower recently for the daughter of a friend of mine. My friend, The Grandmother, is anxiously awaiting her first grandchild. A multi-generational collection of women had gathered to shower the mother-to-be with mostly useless, but cute, teeny tiny baby thingees. At the unveiling of each precious little thing, everyone in the room would coo in unison, “Oooooh!” followed by chorus round of, “Isn’t that just adorable? That is just adorable! That is entirely too cute! Let me see that! Pass it around!”

As I sat there ooooh-ing and cooing and munching on gospel-prescribed baby shower fare (that would be white cake, punch, mixed nuts and pastel butter mints) I looked around the room and noticed that two separate and distinct worlds had convened in this one living room. And I was awkwardly straddling both.

On the one foot, I related to my friend, The Grandmother. We were close in age and shared a common obsession with HGTV. Our friends had names like Terry, Debbie, Linda and Cindy. On the other foot, I related to the younger gals who were just starting their families and worried about important issues like can Jen and Brad ever get back together? They had names like Ashley, Tiffany, Kelly and Brittney. We had pierced ears. They had pierced navels. What the older moms called diapers, the younger moms called burp cloths. We wore shirts that covered the area where our abs used to be. They had abs. I know this because I saw them when I was gawking at their navel rings. The younger moms named their babies after dead presidents — Kennedy, Tyler, Jackson, Madison, Taylor. The women my age had named their babies Ashley, Tiffany, Kelly and Brittney.

As I was eavesdropping on the younger mom’s conversation, I couldn’t help but overhear one of them talk about going to the mall on the way home from the hospital after having her baby. I presume to return some of the many cute-but-useless things she had gotten at her shower. I, on the other hand, did not take my baby out in public until he was four-months-old and then I kept him covered with a blanket the entire time we were out. I could have had a puppy in the carrier for all anyone knew. Anyone not clean enough to perform surgery who dared to peek under that blanket might come away with a few less fingers if the laser beams shooting from my eyes didn’t vaporize them first. We carried Clorox wipes and surgical masks in our diaper bag. You think I’m kidding, don’t you?

In spite of the many differences between the younger moms and the older moms, I realized that regardless of age, all mothers want the same thing: healthy, happy, well-adjusted children. Well, maybe the next generation will have better luck with that one.

Oh, and by the way, I got a nice thank you note in the mail the other day. It reads: Dear Antique Mommy, Thank you so much for the little pink baby thingee. It’s just adorable. Little Madison will enjoy it. Did you get it at the mall? Love, Brittney.