Back into Routine....

I didn't sleep last night. Not much anyway. It was 3:30am last time I checked the time and I was up at 6. So I'm feeling somewhat the worse for wear though a caffeine overdose is helping.




I wasn't thinking about anything or worrying about anything in particular. I'm just out of routine having been out of the office for almost 2 weeks. It's good to get back into routine, as even my son concurred when I got him up for his first day back at school this morning.



"Rise and shine, Mister," I said, perching myself on the end of his bed. "It's snowed again!"



Sure enough he darted out of his bed to the window to see the snow damage. Not enough to be off school but enough that he could make snowballs on his way to school.



"I'm glad I am going back to school," he told me. "I've missed my friends."



I took him in myself this morning and watched him race into the company of his buddies as if he had not seen them in years.



I remember how cool it felt to see your mates for the first time again after school holidays.



He's had an exciting break. Christmas, New Year, Uncle Craigy's wedding and his own birthday. It's been amazing. He was a pageboy at the wedding and I was best man. On the morning of the wedding as we "tuxed up," he said,



"We look good, Dad."



He loves to wear a suit or tux.... but as expected, there were holes in the knees by the end of the day as he took it upon himself to go tree climbing in said tux!



Oh well... I remember being there too!



So it has been an eventful couple of weeks for both me and my boy. And now, back into routine. It's going to be a busy year....

Happy New Year

I have had the most wonderful Christmas and New Year. It’s almost over, which is sad, though we still have our Argentine and Russian dates to mark on the evenings of 6^th and 7^th respectively.

I go back to the office Tuesday (4^th) and my little boy (now 7!) goes back to school the same day.

We enjoyed a really amazing family festive season. He got sad a little on Christmas morning and asked if we could go to his Mother’s memorial tree, which we did. Turns out he just wanted to say “Merry Christmas,” to her and after that he was fine. This year provided such a wonderful festive season that I could actually cry (yep, man point loss) thinking about it again. I’ve never felt happiness like I’m feeling it now.

Last night, before we left for our New Year meal (we had a family New Year too) my son came into mine and Chloe’s room asking,

“Dad, Mum... do I have to wear my shoes or can I wear my trainers?”

It was a simple question. But “Dad, Mum,” was something he’s never really put in a sentence like that referring to me and Chloe. I looked at her for some sort of instant reaction to find out whether she was comfortable with this. I had no need to doubt. She answered his question before I could:

“You should really wear your shoes with your smart pants, sweetheart.”

“Ok thanks! I thought so too.” And he trotted out. 

Then she cried. Happy tears, granted, but she cried. It was a pretty moving moment and we have both decided not to make a fuss of with our son. He’s obviously made a decision in his mind and we’re going to let it be, happily. He continued to refer to her as “Mum,” through the night for the most part and that has continued today. Today, she and him have gone bowling while my sister and I made some time for our Mother. We spent a couple of hours in the cemetery this afternoon. 

I don’t make resolutions at New Year. I just never have. Though this year I made something of a “to do,” and a “not to do” list, which I suppose kind of counts.

• -          Get married (of course)!
• -          Give my sister away ( not in a mean way, she is getting married too)
• -          Spend at least one weekend per month away with my Fiancee and my son

I have also decided to continue with my “limited online personal time” approach of the latter weeks of 2010. I decided, given how much time my business requires me to spent on the Internet in the office, that my personal time would not be eaten up by it. I have not logged in to Second Life in weeks, I let the freebie store parcel go... I never keep up with my SL blog. I have it on its own domain, www.pixelscoop.net,  with a good number of subscribers and a great history. But I don’t use it anymore. I am thinking I might donate the domain to an institution that does charitable work in Second Life, as it gets thousands and thousands of visits a week through searches for Second Life related things, so would be good for hosting a website of an organisation like that. Will look into that.

I will continue with this blog, now and again, but for the most part I think “down time,” from the Internet is doing me the world of good. And so, while it’s working, I’m sticking with it.

I hope you had an amazing and wonderful  Christmas and New Year and I hope all of your dreams and wishes for the coming 12 months are realised.

I raise a glass for you all.

Happy New Year.

Merry Christmas!

I'm going to leave the office in half an hour... and I am not going to come back into it until 4th January.

That feels good to say.

This is the first year in many I have decided to take the entire festive season as a break and do no work whatsoever.

Well, I may get the occasional call or need to respond to an email or similar but no "real work."

So consider this my "have a great holiday season" post as I am unlikely to be blogging over the festive season. We have family over from abroad and a lot going on... and the little guys are all excited about Santa coming. Then between Christmas and New Year it's my son's 7th birthday, so we have lots happening.

So to all of you, I hope you have a wonderful, wonderful Christmas filled with fun, turkey and (most importantly) lots of love!

Here's to 2011.

Passing Time or Filling Time?

The difference between passing time and filling minutes has been something I have come to grips with this year.

I've truly found that Fatherhood has taught me to fill each minute with memories and reasons to smile, rather than to wile away the time waiting for the sparsely distributed events of the year.

My Mother never used to ask me, "What did you learn at school today?" when I was a child. Instead she would ask, "What made you smile today?" And if I answered, "Nothing," or "I don't know" then she would tell me, "Adam, then you've wasted your minutes."

I've picked up that habit of asking my little boy questions like that. He looks at me with the same blank stare I am sure that I looked at my Mother with when I was his age.

Another habit I have picked up is the "ego box." My Mother used to take all the nice things people said about myself and my sister and write them on individual pieces of paper. We had a box each in which she would put these bits of paper. It could be snippets from school reports or something that a family friend had said. And on bad days or days (like we all have) where we had a downer on ourselves or were not feeling so sure of ourselves, she used to hand us the boxes and tell us "take a compliment." We'd then read them out loud. She had me do that until I was 19 or so.... I never understood the value of it until I was in my teens.

I do the same with my son now. Sometimes we all need reminding of the nicer things people think about us....

But I digress. I suppose 2010 has been entirely transitional for me in many ways. I have, though, thanks to my beautiful little boy and my stunning fiancee, learnt how to stop passing time and to start filling it instead.

Life's a gift :)

My Parents' Wedding Rings

My sister wears the engagement ring my Mother wore. It's beautiful.

When Carlos came to me and asked my permission to propose to her, I wholeheartedly consented on the condition he took the ring, had it reduced slightly in size to fit my sister's finger and used that ring.

He did so. She wears it now with beaming pride.

My sister and I were discussing my forthcoming wedding yesterday afternoon.

"Are you going to wear Mum and Dad's rings?" she asked.

"I thought you and Carlos should take them?"

"No...." she said. "You and Chloe should wear them. I've got the engagement rings. It's fitting that you should take the wedding rings."

So this morning before I left for to take my son to school (his last day before the Christmas holidays), I took them carefully out and tried my Father's for size. An absolute perfect fit. I have a feeling my Mother's will be the right size for Chloe but she's really very superstitious about trying these before the wedding lol and so we will find out on the day. I'm quite convinced it will be just right though.

"What are you doing?" my son asked as he picked his school back.

"Trying on my Dad's wedding ring." I told him. "This and my Mum's will be the wedding rings me and Chloe wear when we get married."

"I bet they're lucky rings," he said, peering into the box containing my Mother's.

"What makes you say that?" I asked.

"Because your Mum and Dad will be together forever now won't they?"

He says such beautiful things at just the right time...without even realising he does it.

Christmas Times Three

Babushka




Last night was beautiful. We all sat on the couch reading Christmas stories and my son then volunteered to tell Chloe and myself about the Russian Christmas figure, Babushka (literally translated as Grandmother).



I knew little about Babushka prior to this and so was fascinated to listen to him recount the tales he remembers being told by his Mother.



"Babushka," he began, "was supposed to go and see Jesus with the three wise men. But the weather was really bad and cold so she decided not to go."



I had never heard this tale before, for all my reading up of Russian festivities.



"But then she felt sorry that she hasn't gone," he continued, "So she tried to catch them up and find him. On the way she gathered lots of presents for Baby Jesus. But she didn't find him. And that's why she first gave presents to all the children in Russia. Because she had Jesus' presents and couldn't find him. And now she comes back every year and gives presents out in Russia."



"And Santa too?" Chloe asked



"No in Russia Santa doesn't come. That's where Babushka works."



"I see," Chloe continued.



"But she comes later than Santa, on 7th January," he told her.



"What's about Russian children who don't live in Russia?" Chloe furthered.



"Well, last year the Three Kings left presents on 6th January and Babushka too on the 7th January."



He's right. We do observe all three. Santa, Three Kings (Argentine) and Babushka. My son gets no more presents than he would if we were only celebrating the one day. But they are split out. He will get the bulk on Christmas morning (25th December) but will then get a couple of gifts on 6th and 7th Jan respectively as we observe the Argentine and Russian traditions of our respective heritages.



"Because," my son continued with his tale, "Babushka, the Kings and Santa know that I am from 3 different places really, so they share the work for me."





I like his outlook.

Lessons from 2010

5 Lessons from a Tough Year




It's always this time of year that we begin to reflect. We consider what we achieved in the year, what we lost in the year and what we gained.



It's been a turbulent 2010. I lost a close friend recently to a tragic car accident. I lost relationships/friendships with people during this year. But for the first time in many years, I am ending the year reflecting more on the positive that came out of it.



I gained a Fiancee. I strengthened my relationship with my son to the point of being unbreakable. And, more to the point, I learn some valuable lessons that will stay with me for the rest of my life and help me to avoid mistakes of the past in the future years.



Here's just some of those lessons:



1) Staying silent does not make it any less real. I have never been good at vocalising how I feel about something. Extremes of negative emotion have often manifested themselves in other ways with me - excessive stress, moodiness or even ill health. At the beginning of this year I sought help, having been a cynic of such help for as long as I can remember. The first few months were just unbelievably hard. It's like my counsellor prodded the sleeping lions and suddenly I was dealing with feelings I forgot I even had - a lot of them and all at once. It was incredibly tough. I'm still having sessions every other week and I find it much easier these days. I've learn that it's ok to say, "Ouch... this fucking hurts like hell." It's alright to let people see that you are upset. I've learnt I do my family no favours by adopting the very British "stiff upper lip" pose. Human emotion is as natural as breathing.



2) Unconditional love is real. I've never believed in unconditional love. I've always assumed there was a clause to every connection of love between people. But this year is the first complete year I have had my son living with me. He's been grieving his Mother who passed away in october 2009 and it was a tough year for him. But to take the silver lining, he and I are so close now. And he taught me that unconditional love is a very real thing. There is nothing that boy could do to make me love him even an ounce less than I do. The same applies to my sister and to Chloe. Nothing could make me love them any less...



3) Silence is louder than screaming sometimes. Sometimes there is just no need for venemous words or fighting and silence speaks more volumes than anything else. Plus... with silence, you damage nothing. And perhaps when the clouds have lifted there is a possibility of repairing what was broken, not to a place where it was precisely what it was before... but at least to polish it up to something equally as important.



4) There's no such thing as "too busy." Granted, we can find ourselves completely bogged down with work and other commitments sometimes. But if something is important enough, you make time for it. Even if it takes special planning and it might only be a few minutes, even if it means getting up 5 minutes earlier or going to bed 5 minutes later, if something is important enough you simply have to find a way to make it fit into your day.



5) There's nothing as important as family. I've come to appreciate my family so much this year. It got a bit disjointed following the death of my Mother several years ago. But we've rebuilt it... the "next generation," if you will... and it's the fundamental source of life for me.



It's been a valuable learning year, very much a transitional year with ups and downs. But the future is looking sunny (despite the layer of ice on the ground outside) :)