It’s like I have to photobomb my girl or I’ll never be in a picture again. Around here, if there are pictures being taken, they ain’t being taken of me. She was cool about it though. Let me off with a stern warning.
I mean, with chops like this-
-she’s in no danger of me stealing her limelight. Too charming. If there is any such thing as the fourth trimester, she’s pretty far along the curve. A preemie. Ready for primetime. So alert and chatty. She didn’t call me daddy today, but she didn’t miss a detail of what was going on around her. Until she fell asleep in the swing. Out for hours. Marjorie says she’s fighting off a thing. Could be. The volume of phlegm in that tiny sinus cavity is… impressive. She didn’t need clearing out this evening though – breathing just fine most of the day, even. But she was cross-eyed with sleepy at the end of the bottle I was giving her at 8:15 tonight, and I just swaddled her up in the bassinet. No fuss, no games, no last round with mum. She couldn’t wait to get settled. Unheard of. Makes me wish we had grand plans for the evening. Marjorie got to have a long hot bath. I sorted some Italian honeymoon pics. Luxury.
I checked on her a while ago, and she was out like a light. I made a bit of noise to make sure she hadn’t asphyxiated when we weren’t paying attention (I’m a dad now; that kind of fear is a fact of life), and she peeled an eyelid (quite judgingly, I might add). For a minute I worried she might wake up and take three hours to get back down (what was I thinking?), but she tossed her head around and that was it. Beautiful. She’s kinda unpredictable that way. She can wake up all beaming smiles and the whole room is filled with sunshine and birdsong. Other times, it’s more of a hedgehog scenario:
Those times, she doesn’t want much to do with anything that comes with consciousness. She’d rather just burrow back down into snoozeeland. That’s her mom’s favourite, when she does that. Meltingly adorable. Do hedgehogs snort and snuffle when they burrow? Marjorie says she is her daddy’s daughter. Whatever does she mean by that? That I am adorable? That’s probably it.
Tomorrow! Fuel meets to discuss the next year in business. On the table are such myriad ventures as expanding the education program, an increased presence in schools, exploding the CBcom project to its full potential, and pushing our software out to beta in Q1, with an aggressive dev program for full (but exclusive) release in Q2 and the first expansion (v2) in Q3. There’s lots more going on, and that only the Fuel side of the company, but I’m getting exhausted just reading it. At this particular moment you’ll have to take my word for it that 2013 is going to be exciting stuff.
Interestingly, we are also taking time to talk about what we each want out of next year on a personal level, outside of work. That little move might be the surest sign of team growth yet. What that conversation might net out of this bunch is debatable. (Hobbies? You mean like extra side projects? No, I mean hobbies. Like watercolour painting. Or skydiving.) But I think it’s terrific that we’re having the discussion. Recognizing (as a company) that in order to bring your A-game to work, you have to actually leave work at some point. Not sure how that applies to those of us that are making a living doing everything that we love. Not counting being a dad. Doesn’t actually pay but I am enjoying that thing very much.
Talk about motivation to succeed. But also to find the balance that lets me be a major part of her life, too. I’m cocky enough to believe that it can be done. Steve Jobs looked at his teenage children one night and realized he’d missed most of it. He had regret in that moment that completely overwhelmed his billions. Made it all meaningless. If you can imagine that. And now he’s gone. I don’t want to have regret, and I think I don’t have to. Work hard, and fence it off from the family time. I will have happy billions to go with my happy daughter. Smiley face sunshine and birdsong.