New beginnings
A typical early September post can be summarized thusly: “vacation was cool but too short, now back to school and the weather’s gonna start sucking soon”. Or some other upbeat variation. However, this year, things are little different over here: it’s not back to school, it’s first day of school…
For baby girl, to start: Monday was indeed her first ever day of school. After 3 years at daycare, so she’s somewhat familiar with the notion of going to a place with other kids all day. Only this time, it is school we’re talking about, a place to not only play at but — hopefully — start learning things. Things other than curse words: because English is my second language, I found myself cursing way more than I would in French in front of her. And she clearly picked up on that: “give me my f*cking drink”, she told me last night.
That first day went pretty much like a breeze, too: she was excited to go in the morning, and even more so in the evening when we picked her up, after having had so many interactions — most of the kids in her class are new to her, and they also happen to be older. I predict she’ll start reading by Christmas, writing by next spring and teaching me by fall 2025. All joking aside, things are looking pretty good: she’s clearly into learning new things. To a fault: keeping up with her energy level is proving somewhat of a challenge. My advanced age does not help.
But this whole new beginning thing is not only about my daughter: yesterday, I went back to the gym for the first time since Covid. To be clear, I did workout in the meantime, only it was more of a prison workout-type situation: got myself a bunch of dumbbells and did as many push ups as possible. I actually reached 100 for the very first time recently: I could have stopped there but figured I might as well get back to business. Because a gym has one thing my 6 dumbbells don’t have: variety. Today, my shoulders are so sore I can only turn my head left.
And it’s not just about the physical aspect either: this fall is another pretty big milestone as far as I’m concerned. Not to mention my wife: by December, we will have a second daughter in the house (if all works out as planned, naturally). So I got myself a pretty clear deadline after which I will have no life to speak of. Now is the moment to get a move on when it comes to my projects: I have a couple live, a couple more in development. And a couple of months to go…
To new beginnings!