It’s been ages since I’ve posted anything. With each passing month, it just gets easier and easier to let another month pass by. I suppose, it’s a good thing that I don’t have a lot to say. It just means that my life has settled into a comfortable routine.
During the last year, my carpal tunnel syndrome has not worsened, so I was surprised when I realized that it played at least a role in my lack of enthusiasm for typing at home after having typed dozens of pages at work. I had grown so accustomed to the low-level pain that I didn’t realize that it was altering my behavior in any way. What finally broke the cycle was finally switching over to speech recognition software for a majority of my typing. Unfortunately, I have not reached the point at which I am as comfortable speaking something as I am typing it. Hopefully this will improve over time, but if not, I will just have to learn to accept my new written mediocrity.
The kid is in his “terrible twos,” which is made this last year a bit of an adventure. He is going to turn three in a month, but I don’t expect any magical transformation. Most of the time he’s a pretty good kid, so I can’t really complain. The only frustration that I have had is the fact that he is still speech delayed, in large part, we believe, because he has been prone to frequent colds, and each cold has caused his ears to become filled with fluid. As a result, although he periodically makes sudden strides in speaking, he soon regresses once the next cold hits because he suddenly loses a large portion of his hearing. It’s a bit like the old math problem about the snail climbing up the well (“each day the snail climbs 3 feet up the well, but slides back 2 feet…”).
As you can see, although I can still carry him (somewhat), he is no longer a baby, but rather a small child who runs everywhere, loves jumping on (and off of) everything, and basically enjoys doing all things that a small child wants to do. What’s funny from my standpoint is the fact that I remember doing all of the things that he now does, and how much fun they were, but now witness it from the perspective of a parent who is afraid his child is going to accidentally split his head open diving off of the sofa.
We went to harvest festival this year, looked at gigantic pumpkins, went on pony rides, and jumped in bounce houses, like we’ve done each of the last two years. This year, however, we had an extra addition to our trip.
One of the surprises that I had growing up was discovering that my father had been married prior to marrying my mother. Even more surprising was learning that he had other children (who had been adopted by their stepparent), meaning that I have a number of biological half-siblings. Recently, my half-sister contacted me, and I had the pleasure of seeing her for the first time in 16 years, as well as meeting her daughter. After all this time, it was strange to talk to her only to discover how many things we have in common. I’ve always been skeptical of the stories of twins separated at birth who develop very similar interests despite growing up in different environments, but this visit was almost enough to make me a believer.
I’m still not used to the idea of having any immediate family, but I think I can get used to it. I think I’m actually lucky in that I get to reap the benefit of having a sibling without having endured the years of harassment and torment that siblings typically inflict upon each other. If nothing else, the kid really enjoyed meeting his cousin.
With October off to a big start, next on the agenda is creating a Huckle costume (Busytown) for Doyle to wear this Halloween, working on his enunciation so that we can understand what he’s trying to say and planning for the holidays. Who knows, if I’m feeling while I might even post again this year! With everything that my friends have been going through this year, I feel truly blessed that I haven’t had much to say.
