Hey.
t's been a minute. Or two. Alright, maybe more like 6 months. I'm not sure if anyone actually missed my writing, but, on the off chance you did, I'm sorry. I don't necessarily have an excuse for not writing more often, and I suppose I don't really need one, but well, you know how it goes. Life happens. The daily grind does as it promises, and grinds you down. Time slips away.
n the last six months, I've felt fairly stagnant in my life - the only progress I feel I've made as a person comes in two forms:
1) As a parent. I feel like I'm getting better at doing this "dad" thing. My kid seems to think so, in that she seems outlandishly happy all the time, and I suppose that's all that matters.
2) I've gotten a lot more, as I believe the kids call it, "woke". I feel like my outlook on life and society has shifted quite a bit recently, but I'll probably unpack that in another blog installment (hopefully sooner than 6 months from now).
n the meantime, let's touch on point number one.
I'm still living in a 600sq foot box, surrounded by other, identical 600sq foot boxes. This amalgamation is lovingly referred to as the "Urban Village" by the property developer who put it together. While it's certainly cozy (the polite term for it), it's rapidly getting smaller by the day. Which isn't to say that it's actually decreasing in volume, but more so that my child is increasing in size at an alarming rate. She's pushing two years old, but is as tall as many three year olds. But since buying a home in Vancouver is fucking stupid, we'll likely be here for a bit longer yet. The upside to this is, she doesn't seem to care.
We on't spend a lot of time at home. Living in central Whalley, or as the city of Surrey would have me call it, "the west village", has a lot of perks. Chief among them being proximity to a number of great parks, the mall, the library, the pool, and the SkyTrain. All things she loves. Its also a few minutes drive from Grandpa's house, Gran's house, Nana's house, and Aunties house, where her favourite (re: only, at least for now) cousin lives. Watching a child interact with her family, and her surroundings, is truly one of life's most simple pleasures.
She's not only walking, but climbing all over everything. The climbing leads to her routinely scaring the shit out of me by showing me how good her balance is as she stands on the arm of the couch, yet again, while yelling about a clumsy Eggman. Or scaling the ladder to our loft bed, six feet off the ground, as she tries to justify this excursion to find the cat like it's some sort of holy pilgrimage. Now if only she could figure out how to climb down...
She sings. She dances. She proves that the hokey pokey is truly what it's all about on a daily basis, as she lights up my life with her infectious giggles.
To cap it all off, she's finally got the fine art of sleeping down (mostly), and sleeps through the night (mostly). Which is tremendous. I had no idea how little sleep I'd been functioning on previously, until I realized I'd managed to get at least 6 consecutive hours every night for a span of 2 weeks. To all my new parent friends (or soon to be's), it'll get better. Give it time.
This has been a rambling blog post, with no real purpose other than providing some sort of State of Union-like statement on how things in my life as a parent are going. Anyways, that's it. Leave a comment, let me know how you're doing. Like I said at the top, it's been a minute. Let's catch up.