Man, last time I wrote I was on the other side of the continent. Avery had only ever laughed once, and that in her sleep. And not a single crane had collapsed outside my window.
We had a medium-good few more days in Vancouver. Marjorie’s cold swung a pretty heavy hammer, and the rest of the family was falling like dominoes. Avery had a bit of a sniffle, but I’m thinking Mum’s body was doing the work of fighting the cold for both of them, so a little sniffle was as far as it went – nothing the snot sucker couldn’t handle. And I was feeling better, so Avery and I enjoyed some one on one time for a couple days. Plenty of snacks – we had to cancel our New Year’s Day social. All the spinach dip you could ask for! And sausage rolls! All mine!
But we did manage to spend some quality time with everyone in the end, even if it wasn’t nearly enough. I set up the Wii for Gramma Judy, and she schooled Marjorie in the ways of cow racing. Andrea brought Lucas and Lily over to meet Avery, and they all got along fabulously. Avery loves kids. Lucas loves Angry Birds. And, on our very last day, we met up for lunch with Brian, Karen, Miguel and little Sofia. Sofia is a stunner of a precocious little charmer. Gorgeous! And if you need someone to throw down some high volume Christmas carols? She’s your girl.
And then it was time to come home. We were ready. Looking forward to our own bed. You know how that can be – we had such a good time with everyone (Gramma Di’s pavlova, the Harrington’s merino wool socks, Santa’s Happy New Beer), but after two weeks and three different beds and three different showers… we were ready for home.
After another good flight with exceptional and outstanding service from the Cathay Pacific attendants, we burrowed into our bed and slept for as long as Avery would let us. She was pretty understanding and gave us four hours. Marjorie let me have one more. She’s sweet that way. Mostly.
Little Pepper grew while we were away. She’s stretching even her big 3 month sleepers, and will have to swim a bit in the 6 month sleepers pretty soon. Her bassinet will be retired just as soon as the new crib is delivered. I don’t think she’s claustrophobic, but she doesn’t go down easy if she’s in there. A bit of a flailer. Trying to fly? High speed semaphore?
And she’s ever more alert. It’s hard to describe, but there’s more comprehension behind those eyes all the time. She’s reading at a third-grade primate level, fluently using all four limbs:
She’s starting to purposefully reach for things now, and when she holds something, she’ll take an interest in how it feels and tastes. Oh yeah, must taste.
And just today she laughed while Marjorie was playing with her. It was small, but unmistakeable. Naturally we spent the next ten minutes trying to coax another out of her, but she only smiled good-naturedly and offered us some more semaphore. Tonight Marjorie got a few more proto-giggles out of her, but I suppose there shouldn’t be any rush. We thrill with each new discovery, but there’s a part of me that looks, with just a brush stroke of sadness, at how much more real estate she takes up in that bunny swing than she did three months ago. Sigh.
To distract me from futile melancholy, a crane collapsed right outside our window this afternoon. It was really frickin loud. Very crashy.
The emergency crews were there in minutes. Very impressive. I guess in this town, if you cry “crashed crane”, they come a-runnin’. Thirty-five stories of crane popped a pin or something, and crumpled straight down. You can see the bundle of lumber they were lifting toward the bottom right. I heard, depending on your news source, that six or eleven people were injured, all workers on the site, but no deaths. With all the activity on the job site, that’s pretty lucky. At any given moment there are easily a dozen guys working on the upper deck. It’s possible that there wasn’t anyone underneath on the ground level. Pretty lucky.
This on the same day that a ferry rammed the dock in Lower Manhattan at speed, injuring 55 (one critically).
Meanwhile, Governor Cuomo gave a rousing State of the State speech, promising an equality act for women, an overhaul of gun regulation, sweeping improvements to storm-preparedness infrastructure and many other things that felt great to hear. His administration put it all down in a 300+ page book, which should make it pretty easy to make him accountable this time next year.
So, happy new year. Count your blessings. Count them again. Shell out a few meaningful hugs. You have your health. You have your life. It’s easy to take it all for granted. Because we are all immortal, right? Each of us the star of our own movie. Now if only we had final edit on the script…