Petunia Face's New Year's Rockin' Eve

Zoey, looking a little bit like The Lion King on New Year's Eve, 2007.

I realize it hasn't happened yet. It's only just after noon. But I already know just how my New Year's Eve will play out this year:

• 5pm: Bryan and I talk about going to our friend's New Year's Eve party in the city with Zoey to see how long she'll last. Feed Zoey a quesadilla and string beans for dinner. Zoey eats 2 bites of the quesadilla and none of the veggies which we knew would happen. We simply cook them to feel like good parents.
• 6pm: Bryan and I talk some more about going to said New Year's Eve party. We sing Jingle Bells with Zoey and pick bits of yellow Playdoh out of the carpet. I wonder what I should wear to the party.
• 6:15pm: I am trying to decide between jeans and a slinky top or a dress. Zoey spots my bottle of pomegranate juice and hands it to me, beginning her tiny-voiced refrain of open it? open it? OPEN IT, BITCH? I do not. Alas, Pandora has still somehow made it out of the box and let loose the furies. Zoey throws her last tantrum of 2007.
• 6:16pm: Nothing is said, but Bryan and I both know we will not be going to our friend's New Year's Eve party in the city. I finally know what I will wear--my bathrobe.7pm: Zoey goes to sleep. Bryan opens a bottle of wine trying to get me drunk.
• 7:45pm: One glass of wine and I am drunk. Bryan's plan backfires on him and I fall asleep on the couch watching The Real World: Sydney. Bryan retreats to computer to shop for cars on Craigslist.
• 8:20pm: I wake up and Bryan and I eat a frozen pizza. We trade places and Bryan falls asleep on the couch watching the bajillionth rerun of The Outsiders. I cry when Johnny whispers to Pony Boy to "stay golden." I think about making that my New Year's Resolution but then remind myself that I hate resolutions. I hate New Year's Eve. I decide to shop online myself.
• 11:30pm: It's time to wake up Bryan so I have someone to kiss at midnight. He grumbles and turns over on the couch. I turn the channel to a newscast of a New Year's party in some city somewhere.
• Midnight: The ball drops. I kiss Bryan while he sleeps. Then I creep down to Zoey's room and kiss her slack, heavy-breathing mouth. I silently hope that Frost was wrong when he wrote that "nothing gold can stay." From the living room I hear Auld Lang Syne playing on the tv and I remember how that and the graduation march always make me cry. I cry. I feel stupid. I wake Bryan and we go to bed.
• The next morning: 2008. There is ice on the deck outside and inside Zoey, Bryan, Nacho and I cuddle in bed. I am very happy not to have a hangover, not to have to worry about something stupid I said to someone the night before, not to have driven anywhere drunk or sober. I am very happy.

And I hope all of you are, too. Happy New Year's!