I've been invited to post on my wife's blog! She asked me (and at least 23 other people) what I feel most thankful for this year.
It’s not really hard to know what to be
grateful for when it’s a year in which you’ve had a new baby,
and a healthy one at that. Everything else pales in comparison. Still, many other
things have happened. Good ones. Staying on the family side, there’s Poppy’s
fantastic acclimatisation to her new school, to the point that her teacher made
her the piece de resistance at their
year-end concert, by having her do a solo dance (the only one in the whole
school, actually, who had a solo). As a parent, one can’t help but feel proud. And
Poppy also loves her little sister, and I’m pretty sure the feeling's mutual.
Never does she show any sign of jealousy, and it’s pretty obvious she
understands that when we take care of Calla first, it’s because it’s a must,
not because it’s a choice. They seem to have started fighting together, though.
Yep, already.
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| It's mine! Mine! My precious! |
Then of course there was the visit from my
mum and my bro’s girlfriend (practically his wife, let’s say it – he himself
couldn’t come, unfortunately), who came to see the baby. Having them come over
instead of us going sure saved us a bundle! Har har har. Final thing about my
family: my wife. She did so much this year, for the girls, for her career (her
blog sure is flourishing), and for all of us. I’m sure most men say the same
about their wives, but woo! What would we be without them!
On a more personal level, I have had the
pleasure to work for 6 different employers during the year. Six. Six. It may seem
like I repeated myself here, but one six is in English and the other is in French.
If you don’t know French, we pronounce it like “cease” in “cease fire”. Some of
these six jobs were concurrent, while
others were but a few days apart. Needless to say that for a guy who likes
change as much as I do, it’s quite enjoyable. I didn't get fired from any of these places, it's not like that.
Another similar streak is with my
phones. After 3 years on the Bold, I went through 4 different operating systems
this year. To me it’s a fun thing. Blackberry, Meego, iOS and Android (and back
to Meego to finish the year). Don’t alert Mother Earth, I’m not a consumeristic
maniac, I only bought one of them, and the others were either borrowed, or they
transited through me. And Windows Phone? Maybe next year. Like I said, I like change.
Then there’s the rest, some small things
that I like to recall. Like that night Calla was born, and that I had to leave her and her
mama at the hospital and walked out at 4am to find out that there were no more
night buses, that the ATM was not working and that I didn’t have enough dough for
a taxi. But with the full moon to light my way, I simply walked all the way
home (luckily I had my headphones), nearly 7km, smiling all along.
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| All the way home, she showed me the way. |
But the nice walk home is not
what I’m grateful about, by the way. I’m thankful that it’s one week later
that one of my shoes broke. Something funny is that I got forewarned about
this, as I saw three different people with broken shoes just a few weeks before, including
Adora who broke a slipper. Premonitions exist! Just need to know how to see them.
Still on that night, it’s nice to think about our
friends who took care of Poppy and let her sleep over at their place. It was at
her best friend’s house and they ended up having a slumber party and slept
really late, like ten or eleven! For a couple of three year-olds (back then),
that’s big!
All in all, 2012 was a year of newness,
change, and good stuff. The laws of statistics dictate that next year can’t be
as good (don’t expect us to have another kid!), but that doesn’t mean we can’t
have fun all year round!
