Thinking and thanking

     We just passed Thanksgiving long weekend. As with Halloween, we don't celebrate it in Romania, but since this holiday involves lots of food, shopping and resting with the family is was obvious we'd adopt it. American people gather around the table and before they start eating they say their thanks. It's not much different from Orthodox religion when before each meal (not only Thanksgiving) we are supposed to thank God for the food, for keeping us healthy and all the other good stuff.

   At my first Thanksgiving dinner in America I had no idea what to be thankful for and this ended in quite some embarrassing silence at our hosts table. Truth is, I never felt the need to express my gratitude, as I never felt extremely lucky. My life was just ordinary. Obviously, when Catalina came into my life my eyes opened and I saw whatever I could not see all this time. To say I am thankful for Catalina, is superficial and covers only little that actually goes through my mind. It's true, she's an amazing gift by herself. However, with her, came the knowledge that life is great, the opening of the eyes and seeing the amazing sunshine, the amazing rain, the amazing everything. Something clicked in my brain and now I can see I was lucky all along, that life was beautiful for me most of the time and, truthfully, I am one of the luckiest people around. I did not have an ordinary life, not because I did great things, but because I was given great things. To count only few:
     I was given a whole body that is healthier than most of of other's.
     I was given enough brain power to have a good education that lets me work little and gain more
     I was given enough mental strength to pass the rainy days without sacrificing integrity or self esteem
     I was given a mostly normal family. I was raised by the most amazing mother. I was given the most amazing sister. I was loved by the most amazing grandmother. I have met the guy who actually "gets me" and luckily enough, he was given to me as both a husband and the father of my child.
    I was given Catalina and all the light that came with her.

So, sitting at the dinner table this year I was prepared. It's just that we skipped the thanking part and went straight for the turkey :). Not a bad one at all.

We spent the holidays in a traditional way: eating, drinking, sleeping and shopping. And when all that was done, we started it from square one.
We ended it by decorating the Christmas tree. We were a little worried that Catalina will knock it over, of break some of the decorations and hurt herself. We were planning on keeping her as far as possible. Ha ha ha...there was nowhere close enough for her! She wanted to touch every single ornament, every single branch of the tree. To be honest, she was quite helpful in handing mommy and daddy ornaments to hang.

Yes daddy, my heart is all yours! (as I know your heart is all mine, too)

When all was done, she was ready to admire her work.

Later on, it was my time to admire my work :)

What can I say, from all the things I've done so far, Catalina is the only one purely perfect. Well done, mommy :)