Number 3!

I’ve been waiting for today like an impatient child waiting for Santa. I’ve been waiting so I could tell my son, my sister, my friends… I’ve been dying to say something to just about ANYONE but promised I would keep schtum until today.

We let my son have the morning off school so he could come with us and find out for himself. Then we went for lunch with my sister and, before either Chloe or me could get a word in, our son told my sister.

Then we went to see Chloe’s parents and our son told them the good news. Then it was to the phone to ring around my nearest and dearest who aren’t close enough to just pop in on.

And now that’s done, I can put it here.

We’re having another baby!!!!!

Number 3 will be with us in early August – probably just before Sophie’s first birthday.

We didn’t plan to have another baby within a year of Sophie’s birth. But by the same token we didn’t do anything to prevent it. And we’ve discussed how wonderful it will be to have two so close together in age. Our son is enjoying his older brother role and will feel like King of the Kids with 2 younger siblings to protect.

He’s excited!

Needless to say, our little girl is far too young to understand (she’s only just 5 months old)!

But I understand and today I’m so happy to be able to share it. I promised I’d wait until the 12 week scan, which was this morning. Our son just loved it – as much as Chloe and I did.

What a wonderful feeling. I’m ALL KINDS of excited all over again.

When Things Work Out

I’ve been really fortunate over the last year to see so many of my friends and family enjoying life… getting good things, achieving awesomeness and generally getting all the greatness I know they deserve.

And when things just ‘work out’ it makes absolutely everything bad they had to go through seem like a distant memory. Allow me to give my favourite example:

My Sister

Fell pregnant (unplanned) to an asshole boyfriend. That was not great. On the flip side, it led to my beautiful nephew and he has made her the happiest woman on the planet.

She split with the Father of her son and he decided he wanted nothing to do with his son. On the flip side, my sister met an awesome guy who treats her son as his own.

Awesome guy was homesick and moved back to Brazil. Hideous for her. But then he came back and (very romantically) just turned up on her doorstep telling her he misses her and her son too much to be away. They will marry in March.

It’s always shit to have to experience break ups, deaths, loss, stress, financial hardship or pain of any kind. But without it, could we really ever fully appreciate what we have? It took my sister enduring a relationship with a waste of space to fully appreciate a nice guy. It took them losing one another to fully appreciate how much they want one another.

I look at my situation – my wife, my beautiful children, business and home… and I look at where I was a few years back and how dark it all seemed. I feel as though I appreciate what I have so much more than I think I otherwise would have.

My friends (online and offline) who I see thriving in their lives and genuinely experiencing happiness are benefitting from what I like to consider good karma. These are good people who deserve good things.

I love it when things work out.

From Russia with Love...

From Russia with Love…

“From Russia with Love. Lol.”

That’s how she signed off the email in which she confirmed she would be moving to the UK so I could be close to my son. Only a couple of weeks later I was picking them both up at the airport, eternally grateful to a woman who was turning her world upside down to allow me to have a real relationship with that little boy. That little boy had taught me more about love in the first 24 hours I had known him than I had learnt in the 20-something years prior.

Not even two years later, that little boy and I would be back in Russia attending the funeral of his Mother – of the woman who made my relationship with my son possible.

And just 2 years later again, that little boy would be a little man with an inspiring outlook on the world. For someone so young, he’s been through a great deal and handles it better than many adults I know handle their own challenges.

My son has a homework assignment to talk about the greatest gift he’s ever had. As we sat down to talk about it yesterday, he asked me;

“What’s the greatest gift you ever had?”

“That’s easy,” I told him. “You and your sister – the best gifts ever.”

“I wasn’t a gift!” he laughed. “I didn’t get wrapped up!”

“You were a gift,” I assured him. “You were brought to me all the way from Russia. And no, you weren’t wrapped up. But not all gifts get wrapped up, do they?”

“My Playstation was wrapped up?” he told me. “And so was my guitar and those new notebooks you got me for my birthday. And everything Santa brought was wrapped up!”

“Not all your gifts have been wrapped though… your new bedroom wasn’t wrapped. Your new sister wasn’t wrapped either, was she?”

He has an answer for everything so I was a little surprised when he didn’t say anything for a moment.

“Hmm.. I know what my best gift ever was. And it wasn’t wrapped,” he finally said.

“What was it?” I enquired.

“I’ll tell you later.”

And off he went to get started on the assignment.

Two hours or so later he brought his book to me and asked me to look over the work. The title was, as per instruction from his teacher, “The Best Gift I’ve Ever Received.”

I read it, corrected one or two little errors and explained to him why they were errors and then I suggested he took it to Chloe.

She cried – tears of happiness of course. And he had the biggest smile on his face ever. Sometimes it just feels that good making someone’s day.

I’ll leave you with the opening paragraph:

“The best gift I’ve ever received is my new Mum. Her name is Chloe. She isn’t my only Mum. My first Mum died from cancer and then I thought I would never have a Mum. But Chloe married my Dad and they asked me if I would like it if Chloe was my Mum. I said I’d like it a lot because I love Chloe and she loves me even though she didn’t know me when I was a baby.”