The Girl on Fire - The First 12 Years of Anna

This blog space has been empty for a long time. No excuses. I'm happy to say that much of the last 12 years has been spent with us doing activities together, but even that isn't as much time as either of us wanted (this is my fault, not yours).

When I left this blog, I had just met you. This is on or about the first day we met:

There is a Facebook post your Mom did after I cut my hair about you not ever really knowing what I look like with long hair. While I don't think you were missing much, this is what that looked like:

The truth is, when I was updating this blog, I didn't yet know you. I am sorry I didn't capture the learnings a little bit along the way but, if there is any benefit to doing it this way, it is the fact that I get to look back on watching you grow into the young woman you are - something unique for both you and me! This is you just a few weeks ago - pretending to like my cooking even though I made it just a bit too spicy for your taste:

If the first 4 years of this blog were written as a sort of description of my learning to be a dad, this section might be best described as me sharing what I love about being your Dad now that I have had the chance to be yours for a while. I am grateful every day for the gift of you in my life, and I would like to let you know a few specific things that always make me laugh and cry at the same time :).

YOU. ARE. FIERCE.

This may not always feel like it's true inside. Feelings can sway what is happening inside at any given moment, but if feelings are the weather, your fierceness is your climate. It's your long-term core state. Please do not take this to suggest you are mean; that has never been true. Fierceness is not cruelty but instead, "a quality characterized by intensity, strength and often a wild, untamed nature..." 

The picture below was my screen saver on my desktop for my computer for years after it was taken not only because you're cute as heck but also because it gave ME strength when I was feeling down or afraid. Your strength and certainty still give me strength every day and nothing will ever erase from my memory the day you looked at me and said,

"You know what? I LOVE being me!"

Yeah, girl. Always bring that energy, every day of your life!

You are Coooooooool

Sure. Every parent loves their kids. But you...YOU? You are coooool. "Cool" is sort of hard to define, but a person knows it when they see it. For you, it's sort of effortless. When you aren't busy being fierce, you are a cross between an acrobat and a rock star. You are sure-footed, relatively fearless when in your element, and you are quick to be reassuring to others when they feel uncertain. This is not something you can buy, practice, or even learn. A person has to have it and, My girl, you have it. 

When you go through something hard (like every time your Mom has nursed you through a sickness), you stay cool...even when you don't feel cool.

When you choose to learn to snowboard a bit because it's a little bit more like what Dad does. Inherently, that is cool (because snowboarding is so much cooooooler than skiing, amIrite?)

When, instead of flashy birthday parties and presents, all you want to do is your own, wild things...running around outside, setting your "goals" for jumping on the trampoline or learning 12 new languages...that is the true definition of cooooool.

When, given the choice for a fun afternoon with Dad, you decide you want to dress up in a princess dress and tour fancy ice cream parlours and parks in the city....there was NO cooler person than YOU!

There is no one I know who has the cool and attention necessary to just learn something from watching someone else do the thing, but I have watched you pick up kung fu, snowboarding, piano, guitar, and countless other skills and abilities just from seeing them...and seeing yourself IN them. You connect, and in so doing, you grow. When you decide something, the fire within you makes your will come true. I am proud of you and how you show up to every moment.

You Are the Miracle of My Life

Going back to your fierceness, you fought hard to come into this world and you made sure everyone heard you arrive. While I am sort of intolerant of loud noises by nature, there was nothing that made my heart leap for joy more than the sound of your first cries in this world! The terrible few seconds before that cry were the most frightening I have ever lived through and, even today, the miracle of your first few breaths always brings tears to my eyes (but, since I am so macho, I try to keep them to myself most of the time ;)).

I love being your Dad. I have loved being your Dad for these 12 years and, as long as I live there won't be anything I love more than walking alongside you feeling that fire inside you grow bigger and more brilliant every day.

I love you. Happy Birthday. More blogs to come!

So fast

Your Oma just called and asked to talk to you. You took the phone and absentmindedly walked to the window and looked out while standing on one foot.

No big deal.

You are growing up so fast it hurts my heart but I love seeing it at the same time.

Love, Dad.

You aren't in Canterlot anymore, Twilight Sparkle! (NOW with May 2025 edit!)

It has been a long time since I have written here.  I have a million excuses about why that is, but by the time you are able to read and understand this blog I will have doubtless told you that excuses are good for nothing, so I won't dare to make any now.

Ella: Tonight you made me so mad I didn't know whether to shout or laugh.  I'm pretty sure I told you to "cut the shit" and go to sleep.  Mercifully, though you often repeat things I say, you never repeat curse words.  It was a simple matter of you not going to bed when you should have.  This is, admittedly, not totally out of the ordinary.  What was exceptionally maddening tonight is the manner in which you defied me: like an adult pretending to be a child not knowing any better.  I'd ask you to lay down; you'd lay down...sideways.  I'd ask you not to hang your arms over your bunk; you'd look me in the eye as you inched your hands ever closer.  I'd ask you to cease your singing; you'd continue the song in a whisper.  Maddening.  And fully aware of it.

Now, here's why it's worth writing about: You are officially no longer an only child and I get that this can suck for you at times.  Your new sister will be getting her own blog post along side this one, but I thought it only fair that you get one all to yourself about the issue...it was your blog first, after all!  That might sound like an odd reason, but I wanted to share with you that I know your pain: I am a former "only child" myself!  Your little regression into asinine less mature behaviors this evening is to be expected and, to be honest, you are handling the "intrusion" of a new sibling better than almost anyone I know (me included).

The fact is, this is the last stop for the gravy train.  Your time of enjoying the undivided helicoptering attention of both your parents is gone...never to return.  From now on, you are going to be "the example," and expected to be "mature" and be a "good role model" for your sister because she "doesn't know better."  If that sounds like a lot of work, it is.  But please take a moment (and I hope it's not too far into your development that you read this) to see this work as a golden opportunity as well!

What opportunity?  The opportunity to make them look bad by comparison.  This is your ace in the hole.  Your younger sibling is always going to be the baby of the family and they will use that against you every chance they get.  You have to play to your strengths and this, my dear, is where you can play your strongest game.

Carrots?  Get ON those things.  Eat them faster and in greater volume than any one of us.  Imagine the praise and adulation you will receive.  "She is SO grown up...look at how well SHE eats!"

Bed time?  No biggie!  You were just putting the finishing touches on that digital 3D model of the Horse-Head Nebula but you can't fight the fact that rest is necessary for solid brain development.

Listening skills?  Of COURSE it would be more fun to keep on practicing your steps for the lead in
La Bayadere, but Dad did say it was time to come in and practice your Calculus again.  You'd hate to mess up your derivation!

Careers?  Yeah, we know it was hard to choose between reversing climate change to save the polar bears and negotiating the successful entry of Canada to the European Union.  We also know why you had to go ahead and do both.  We understand.

With this approach, you get the best of both worlds: you get to show up the "bundle of joy" who has stolen your limelight AND you get to not have a 220 pound man losing his mind because you swallowed the Pinkie Pie toothpaste again.  It's Win-Win.

Your sibling can be one of your closest friends.  You will grow up together, have stupid inside jokes that are impossible to articulate to anyone else (I'd give you an example but, you know, it's hard to articulate one), you will routinely experience common loathing of and laughter at the expense of your clueless parents.  But now is the time to change your game from being the only one in town to being the best one in town.  Because, you know...you aren't getting any younger!  ;)

---------------------------

May 7, 2025 Edit

Hello, Twilight Sparkle! This is a brief edit just to add something cute that I can't believe I didn't add before. This is the first picture of you meeting your sister. The moment we took this picture, we had my glasses on you, so we laughed and said, "you look like a Hipster! A Hipster with a SISTER!" We thought we were so funny! And, at the time, so did you!

I am happy to say, now that you can read this blog, that not only are you an amazing big sister, you are also not even CLOSE to being a Hipster. You're waaaay cooler. 

Circuitous Conversation while Pooping

The following statements were collected by Mommy who was eavesdropping while I was helping you through a particularly difficult poop.  Your choice of bathroom literature was a copy of "DC's Superfriends."  You had this to say about its themes of good and evil (with a brief comment on genetics):


E : The robot is not nice
and lex luthor is not nice
He is a Guy... but then he is not nice

S :   That is right, but that doesn't mean that all guys are not nice

E: No, Superman is nice
and mommy is nice
and Batman is nice

S: Ya he is kinda nice

E: and the flash he is nice

S:  Yes, he is actually nicer than Batman

E:  But the flash is not Batman


E:   You have blue eyes daddy and oma has grey eyes

L: Brown eyes

E:   Oh ya brown eyes


E:  "Owwww"

S:  were you trying to hit me?
That's not nice

E:  Lex Luthor is not nice

S: Yes, because he tries to hurt people and that is not nice

Daddy, tell me things!

I think it might have been the best moment of my life.

There we were, playing on the playground this evening after dinner, and you asked about the shadows.  I, not thinking that there is anything wrong explaining the refraction of light to a toddler, began to wave my hand up and down in front of the sun as I showed you the shadow it makes as it moves.

"There!  See?  On the bars there...you see the shadow is shaped like my hand because when I move my hand in front of the sun, it blocks out the light!"

You looked at the shadow.  Then back at the sun.  Then at the shadow again.

You seemed rather nonplussed, so I wandered over to the little bridge and let you play about on the perforated plastic platform.  I got lost in some thought about how nice the evening was or some such thing.

Then, over my shoulder, I heard your little voice ask, "Daddy, tell me things!"  I turned around, amazed, and said, "Sorry?"

"Tell me things more, Daddy!"

I couldn't help but stifle a little tear.  I have never wanted anything more than to have a conversation with you...to tell you things and for you to tell me things.  What's more is that I didn't even know I wanted that until the moment you said it.

So I stifled my tear and I told you things.  I told you why nighttime comes and why metal bars make noise when you tap them.  I told you how trees grow, how sand is made of little rocks and how snow turns to water when you hold it.

Finally, I told you I loved you and told you that we could go home and see Mommy.

A perfect evening, all in all.

Night night.

Daddy (the teller of things)

We were sitting at the coffee shop today and you were looking out at the cars going by...counting them.  Then you waved and said, "Hi everybody!  Hi everybody!"

You just totally, innocently, and wonderfully love the world.  That's awesome.

Love you,

Dad.

My Gift is My Song...and This One's for You...

Though it will just be one click away from your point of view, it has been several months since I have written here.  Today is your second Christmas day, though I have been up fighting evil as Batman and haven't been to bed yet.  I am staying up foolishly late playing video games for the same reason I haven't written in several months: I don't make enough time for it.

Most of the time, I am too busy either working or playing with you to be writing in some dusty blog.  It is, however, important that you understand that I am not going to stop making entries...I'm just choosing to actually hang out with you instead.

This morning, I just want to share a fun little story with you about what Christmas with you means to me.  I am notorious among our friends and family for being a bit of a Scrooge (a bit mistakenly, I would argue, because Scrooge sought to take Christmas from others; I just prefer not to be bothered with the event if I can avoid it.)  However, the fun I am finding in it now is seeing how excited you get about us having time to just be together and about the lights and about special dinners and, yes, tinsel-y gifts beneath a magical tree (about which you whisper "~~masstree" each and every time you see).  The story I want to share is about what gift giving should be and how you helped me find the perfect one.

For some context, it's important that you understand that my Dad (your Grandpa Neil) loves Canadian Tire.  Knowing this as I do, I decided to go there to find a good gift for him this holiday season.  I was grouchy about the weather and being cold and trying to find something from Canadian Tire that my Dad didn't already own!  I left you and your Mom to look about at the pretty lights as I glowered through each isle of handy tool sets with interchangeable thingies and rubberized doodads but it was no use: I just had no clue!

Then, as luck would have it, you came upon me as I was standing around waiting for Divine intervention.  Divine as you are, I looked down at you and said, "OK...what should I get Grandpa Neil?"  No sooner had I asked you this than you said, "Gampa Neil!" and walked straight ahead pointing with bloodhound-like focus.  I followed you and, within a matter of seconds, you led me to the one thing in the store that a) my Dad was certain not to buy for himself and b) that he was certain to think was "neato" (Though I write this at 1:25 am on Christmas Day and Dad is unlikely to read this for some time, I am still not going to reveal publicly what this gift is).  Needless to say, I was immediately enlightened as to the power of giving a gift from a place of love rather than one of fear (fear being operative because it is the goofy fear that your family member will not feel love if you don't get them a doodad).

And so, thank you for sharing some of your seemingly inextinguishable supply of love.  Among the 234,323,546 gifts that you seem likely to receive this holiday season, I am going to give you one right now that may seem lame but, by the time you can read this, should be appreciable by you.  Because you are already a smart cookie and because it is clear to me that learning will be a passion of yours (in whatever form it takes for you on your journey), I am going to do what little I can to help make knowledge free and easy to access for you as you grow up.  For every Christmas of your life, I promise to donate 10 dollars to the Wikimedia foundation, the organization that operates Wikipedia (and so, my donation this year is 20 dollars).  My reason for this odd little gift is twofold:

1. The aforementioned hope that you will always be able to have access to a good jumping-off point for anything you want to know about and;
2. So that the little links I pepper into my posts will stand a better chance of still working when you are able to read this blog. 

 I want you to be able to see what I see when I sit here and write to you.  I want you to know where I'm coming from and about all of the weird peripheral information that I get to just reach out to whenever I want.  I don't want you to have to take my word (or anyone's word) for anything; I want you to live what you know as much as you knew which gift to buy Grandpa Neil.  I want you to have every tool you can have...starting with the endless toolbox that is a vocabulary.

"I know it's not much, but it's the best I can do..."

Love and Merry Christmas 2011

Your Dad.