Every few years, it seems that people are worried about an Armageddon date.  They chose some sort of date based on something and promptly report it to the media as the date the world will end.  Nine years ago now, it was Y2K – do you remember how many people built shelters, stockpiled canned food and emergency supplies?  I was due to have my first child as the ‘millennium baby’, and I was worried something catastrophic would happen; at the very least, the lights would go out in the hospital or something.  My daughter arrived a few weeks early though, on December 21, 1999, so we were at home safe and sound to ring in the new year – and surprise, surprise, nothing happened.  So it’s not a shocker that people have pinpointed a new date for the Apocalypse; this time it’s based upon an ancient Mayan calendar – well, some scholars’ interpretation of it anyway.  What will you be doing in 2012?  According to some people, you should live 2011 to its fullest, because that’s all we’re going to get!  The following article is from cnn.com and was written by A. Pawlowski.

Just as “Y2K” and its batch of predictions about the year 2000 have become a distant memory, here comes “Twenty-twelve.”
The sun shines through the door of the Seven Dolls Temple, in the Maya ruins of Dzibilchaltun in Mexico.

The sun shines through the door of the Seven Dolls Temple, in the Maya ruins of Dzibilchaltun in Mexico.

Fueled by a crop of books, Web sites with countdown clocks, and claims about ancient timekeepers, interest is growing in what some see as the dawn of a new era, and others as an expiration date for Earth: December 21, 2012.

The date marks the end of a 5,126-year cycle on the Long Count calendar developed by the Maya, the ancient civilization known for its advanced understanding of astronomy and for the great cities it left behind in Mexico and Central America.

(Some scholars believe the cycle ends a bit later — on December 23, 2012.)

Speculation in some circles about whether the Maya chose this particular time because they thought something ominous would happen has sparked a number of doomsday theories.

The hype also has mainstream Maya scholars shaking their heads.

“There’s going to be a whole generation of people who, when they think of the Maya, think of 2012, and to me that’s just criminal,” said David Stuart, director of the Mesoamerica Center at the University of Texas at Austin.

“There is no serious scholar who puts any stock in the idea that the Maya said anything meaningful about 2012.”

But take the fact that December 21, 2012, coincides with the winter solstice, add claims the Maya picked the time period because it also marks an alignment of the sun with the center of the Milky Way galaxy, and you have the makings of an online sensation.

Long Count 101
• The Long Count calendar was one of several created by the ancient Maya.

• It consists of the following units of time:

kin = one day
uinal = 20 days
tun = 360 days (18 uinal)
katun = 7,200 days (20 tun)
baktun = 144,000 days (20 katun)

• The calendar shows the number of days elapsed since the beginning date: August 13, 3114 B.C. (some scholars think the date is actually August 11, 3114 B.C.)

• The dates are written as numbers separated by periods in the following order:

(baktun).(katun).(tun).(uinal).(kin)

• July 20, 1969 — the date of the first moon landing — would be written as: 12.17.15.17.0

• December 21, 2012, would be written as 13.0.0.0.0 and the day after that as 0.0.0.0.1

Source: Howstuffworks.com

Type “2012” into an Internet search engine and you’ll find survival guides, survival schools, predictions and “official stuff” to wear, including T-shirts with slogans such as “2012 The End” and “Doomsday 2012.”

Theories about what might happen range from solar storms triggering volcano eruptions to a polar reversal that will make the Earth spin in the opposite direction.

If you think all of this would make a great sci-fi disaster movie, Hollywood is already one step ahead.

“2012,” a special-effects flick starring John Cusack and directed by Roland Emmerich, of “The Day After Tomorrow” fame, is scheduled to be released this fall. The trailer shows a monk running to a bell tower on a mountaintop to sound the alarm as a huge wall of water washes over what appear to be the peaks of the Himalayas.

‘Promoting a hoax’

One barometer of the interest in 2012 may be the “Ask an Astrobiologist” section of NASA’s Web site, where senior scientist David Morrison answers questions from the public. On a recent visit, more than half of the inquiries on the most popular list were related to 2012.

“The purveyors of doom are promoting a hoax,” Morrison wrote earlier this month in response to a question from a person who expressed fear about the date.

A scholar who has studied the Maya for 35 years said there is nothing ominous about 2012, despite the hype surrounding claims to the contrary.

“I think that the popular books… about what the Maya say is going to happen are really fabricated on the basis of very little evidence,” said Anthony Aveni, a professor of astronomy, anthropology and Native American studies at Colgate University.

Aveni and Stuart are both writing their own books explaining the Mayan calendar and 2012, but Stuart said he’s pessimistic that people will be interested in the real story when so many other books are making sensational claims.

Dozens of titles about 2012 have been published and more are scheduled to go on sale in the coming months. Current offerings include “Apocalypse 2012,” in which author Lawrence Joseph outlines “terrible possibilities,” such as the potential for natural disaster.

But Joseph admits he doesn’t think the world is going to end.

“I do, however, believe that 2012 will prove to be… a very dramatic and probably transformative year,” Joseph said.

The author acknowledged he’s worried his book’s title might scare people, but said he wanted to alert the public about possible dangers ahead.

He added that his publisher controls the book’s title, though he had no issue with the final choice.

“If it had been called ‘Serious Threats 2012’ or ‘Profound Considerations for 2012,’ it would have never gotten published,” Joseph said.

Growing interest

Another author said the doom and gloom approach is a great misunderstanding of 2012.

“The trendy doomsday people… should be treated for what they are: under-informed opportunists and alarmists who will move onto other things in 2013,” said John Major Jenkins, whose books include “Galactic Alignment” and who describes himself as a self-taught independent Maya scholar.

Jenkins said that cycle endings were all about transformation and renewal — not catastrophe — for the Maya. He also makes the case that the period they chose coincides with an alignment of the December solstice sun with the center of the Milky Way, as viewed from Earth.

“Two thousand years ago the Maya believed that the world would be going through a great transformation when this alignment happened,” Jenkins said.

But Aveni said there is no evidence that the Maya cared about this concept of the Milky Way, adding that the galactic center was not defined until the 1950s.

“What you have here is a modern age influence [and] modern concepts trying to garb the ancient Maya in modern clothing, and it just doesn’t wash for me,” Aveni said.

Meanwhile, he and other scholars are bracing for growing interest as the date approaches.

“The whole year leading up to it is going to be just crazy, I’m sorry to say,” Stuart said.

“I just think it’s sad, it really just frustrates me. People are really misunderstanding this really cool culture by focusing on this 2012 thing. It means more about us than it does about the Maya.”

So how is life with 4 kids?  One word – chaotic.  I suppose some of that can be attributed to us not taking any time off from volunteering with the various community groups we are involved in…  Most logical people would have done the smart thing and laid low for awhile.  But us, we did just the opposite and jumped into a few new projects head first – oops.  But, I do enjoy getting out and spending time with fellow adults, and besides, we’ve already committed ourselves, so it’s too late now.

But anyway, the kids are adjusting just fine to having a new little brother.  Our almost 2-year-old has reached the terrible twos officially, and she spends most of her time being upset or making messes.  Figures, doesn’t it, that she would reach this stage right as there’s a new baby in the house.  But it can’t be helped, and we just have to grin and bear it for awhile until it passes.  The upside is that her terrible twos are no where near the magnitude of the turmoil that her older sister caused in the house when she was going through them, but it’s still hard to see our once sweet little girl being so nasty.  I don’t know what it is about the terrible twos, but every kid goes through them (maybe the terrible twos aren’t so bad with boys?  I’m hopeful…), and they can totally change a child’s personality for months, even years.  Little Disney was the sweetest baby and toddler, and now that she is almost 2, she has begun tantruming (almost constantly), hitting, spitting, and biting.  Much, if not all of the behavior comes from being so frustrated – she gets frustrated when people don’t understand what she wants or when she thinks her sisters are taking things from her.  Even if they’re just trying to help her, if anyone is doing anything she doesn’t like, she’ll throw a tantrum.  But what keeps me going is knowing that it’s just the age, and she’ll magically return to normal one day; that’s how it works.  It usually happens suddenly, almost as suddenly as it began – it’s like a spell is broken, and hopefully it’s sooner rather than later; but I’m prepared for the long haul because her sister’s terrible twos (and boy, were they terrible) lasted from about the ages of 16 months until she was 4 years old.

And speaking of our 4-year-old, Sammie loves her new little brother and always wants to hold him.  I’m trying to get better about how nervous it makes me; especially because Disney sees her older sisters holding him and then of course she wants to do it.  But as time goes by, he gets stronger and less floppy, so eventually I can let them help more and be relaxed about it.

Taylor, our 8-year-old, loves her new little brother also, although with 2 younger sisters, she’s kinda been there and done that, as far as new babies go.  She is still a big help, especially with Disney, but she and Sammie fight constantly, and now Disney is starting to join in…  If we could get a handle on some of the fighting, things would be much better around here.  I feel like my kids fight, argue, and bicker constantly.  I probably feel this way because it’s true.  Part of it is Disney being so frustrated all the time, and then neither she nor Sammie like to share things with others; and then also Taylor can be really nasty to Sammie, probably just cuz it’s summer and they’re sick of each other.  Thank goodness school starts in less than 2 weeks.  I say that now, but I’ll also be losing my day-help when Taylor goes back to school, so we’ll have to see how things work out.

As for the little guy himself, Christopher is almost 4 weeks old, and he’s doing well.  He is a constant joy to have around, but aren’t they all at this age?  The only problem with him is that he seems to be nocturnal – wakes all night and sleeps during the day.  Luckily for me, my husband is a light sleeper and wakes with him before I even hear anything.  He is getting no sleep, but I told him weeks ago, once you let me start sleeping through the night, my body will get used to it and I won’t wake up…  I don’t think he listened.  But my sleeping-lightly days are over – during my pregnancy I awoke very easily at every little noise, but now I’m back to my I-could-sleep-through-Armageddon phase.  I also warned Hubby that this baby was going to be nocturnal because in the womb, he wouldn’t move much during the day, but he’s start going crazy about 9pm until after I went to bed.

And almost all new babies bring with them the fear of something being wrong – the other day, Christopher’s legs turned purple out of no where…  I had just gotten him out of his stroller, but his straps weren’t too tight or anything like that; I checked on them later.  It was horribly scary to see his little purple legs, and I’ve never experienced that with my girls.  But the doctor didn’t seem to be too concerned; just something to take a look at next appointment – might be a blood vessel spasm, which I found out is not terribly uncommon in infants after looking it up on the internet.  There is a condition called Raynaud’s Syndrome that is characterized by purple limbs, however they’re accompanied by extreme pain, and little Christopher was sleeping calmly while this happened.  We’ll see what the doctor says on Monday.

That’s about it for now; it’s good to be sitting here blogging again – it’s been so hectic for a few weeks that I was not in front of my computer enough to even blog.  But then I started thinking of all my faithful readers I was disappointing, and I thought I’d better make the time to give them something to read 😉