Week 707AZ - Dad, guess what? What!? I got married today

Nuptials wasn’t exactly what I was expecting, but it’s clear Amelia is no longer a little girl. She’s now somewhere between a girl and young lady. Almost double digits as she likes to say. We’ve been spending more time together, which is precious, and I’m incredibly grateful that we’ve been getting lots of quality time together.

First, Amelia got married to another nice young lady on Friday. They exchanged rings, and the octopus was the engagement gift - wonderful! Perhaps I’m slightly slow to catch on, but when I asked Amelia if she’d like a date with this young lady she was like Dad, you can’t say date, you need to say playdate, as date means something else. Oh, right.

Even Igor gets shy

“Igor, Amelia’s friend is hosting an x-mas party. Starts at 6, band at 7”, Tori’s text said. Meeting new folks sounds fun I thought, and I’m not one for advanced preparation, so at 5:45 I grabbed Amelia and off we went. “Band at 7” should have been a tip off, so should the address, see this wasn’t just 2 families hanging out.

As I parked in front of a 5 million dollar mansion, I saw lots of folks dressed up in fancy suits and dresses also hanging about. I went in the front door and there were people everywhere, fancy dressed people like at a fancy work dress up Christmas party. My normal courage evaporated and I was taken aback by some stranger danger. I asked some grown ups where the kids were, they said upstairs. I told Amelia, I’ll be back in 3 hours, the kids are upstairs - have fun!

How to have self-discipline

“No, I can’t have a donut, I don’t have the discipline”. I explained to Amelia, and she said “Dad, do you want to know my trick to not overindulge?” Sure, I said. “OK, well, see I imagine the things, say donuts like this are all super poison. And I have the antidote to make one safe, and I apply it to the one, but then the rest will be totally dangerous so I can’t possibly eat more.

Makes sense, I said, and ignored the donut anyway.

Meta Breakfast Dream Achieved

One of my reasons to work at Meta was bringing the kids over for breakfast before school starts. Between accepting the job and starting COVID happened, so there was no chance to take the kids for breakfast. Then school start times became earlier and Meta breakfast time became later, but then I realized, hey kids can be late for school.

Amelia loved the idea of being late to school, so she was in. To my amazement, and with utmost pride, Zach was like no Dad, I have something important to get done at school today so I won’t go. I offered to walk Zach to the school bus anyway, and he was like, no you’re like the serpent from the garden of evil, I’ll walk the righteous path myself.

Works for us - Amelia and I really enjoyed our breakfast.

Juicing up the tesla and X-Mas hats

Another adventure is charging the Tesla. Charging at home is complex, and usually I can charge at work, but sometimes I can’t so we make a 30-minute pilgrimage to charge the Tesla at the super charger. A bit of the chore, but way better if Amelia comes. I didn’t take pictures of that, but I did have pictures of the time we took the subway down to the x-mas carolling competition. Maybe it wasn’t the most fun, but was nice to hang out together!

Have a great week, and remember, “From playdate vows to breakfast’s treat, life’s unplanned moments can be sweet.” - ZiaT