More Tigger! Less Eeyore!

I was nursing the baby and thinking about months. I’ve heard a lot of talk about how November is a terrible month but I have always loved November. Even this past November. I did love it. It was fine. The days have been dark but I am cooking more soup. It was no better and no worse than October. I think it is only the months from which you expect Great Things, like JUNE or MAY or FEBRUARY where there is the potential to disappoint.

Of course that would be different from person to person. Those are the first months that sprang to mind for me so apparently those are my hooray months. If bad things were to happen during those months I would be surprised and disappointed.

I like February because my birthday is in it. But I have a friend who hates February because it’s the last month of winter in the midwest US and the last month of winter apparently can just about kill you with its incessant piles of snow and hundreds of degrees below freezing. I don’t take it personally. Every year she sends me an email; I know your birthday is in February and I like you a lot but DAMN I hate this month.

What month do I hate? January. My mother’s birthday is in January. And a few other people that I love. But damn I hate January.

Because: if you start counting from November, January is the third month of winter – whatever that means in your part of the world. Here it usually means freak snowfalls that no one shovels because the stores are all out of shovels because it never snows in Vancouver. And then more rain. And then slush. It’s still dark. It’s 31 days long. After a string of extra days off, Christmas / other holiday excitement, the novelty of a new calendar year: suddenly it’s just. January.

There are no holidays in January (in Canada). It’s Back to Business. Back to School. Stop your slacking. Make some resolutions. Be better than you were last year, last month. It’s like a whole month of Mondays. God.

I hate Mondays. Even now that I don’t have to stand around a water cooler and go on about what I did all weekend, I still hate Mondays. Mostly because the children get used to having enough attention after a weekend with 2 adults : 2 kids and then on Monday they are clambering over me like competing clans of monkeys more more more and neither will take no for an answer.

Also, half the businesses in the Mizzle are closed on Mondays. Not that this really affects me but I mention it as one more strike against.

I am anticipating January 2009 being something like a month of Mondays. Having had SA home a lot in December, come January I will be undoubtedly looping the following recorded announcement, “No, Christmas is over, there are no more gingerbread cookies, not till next year, (yes, I know I can make gingerbread all year round, thanks) Santa is gone, that’s it for presents, now would you go play with them and let mommy lie on the floor in peace.”

Or maybe not. Is January anyone’s favourite month? If so, why? Do you all even have favourite months? Am I crazy?