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 On
August 5th, 1999 at 2:30 in the morning, my life changed forever. With the
arrival of our daughter Shelly, Sylvie and I had become parents
and entered a New World of experiences, challenges and joy.
Although she needed a little
coaxing to finally join us, Shelly has very quickly established
herself as a going concern and I am amazed at how much she changes
each day as she burrows herself securely into our hearts and
lives.
I do my best to get as much quality
time as I can with Shelly now that I'm back at work. She has
just started sleeping through the nights and starts to stir around
5:30am. I make sure that I'm up with her and we share some time
together as I give her first diaper change of the day. It usually
takes a few minutes for her to fully wake up but we are in no
rush. After a few yawns, grunts and a furious session of blinking
and squinting, she breaks into a heartwarming ear to ear smile.
She starts to coo and does her best to communicate with me as
I chat with her and sing a song or two, in a horrible morning
voice that is screaming for it's first cup of coffee, but she
doesn't seem to mind me being off key.
Once the changing is done, I
bring her to her mother for her morning feeding and go off to
take my shower and get ready for work. When I leave they are
together and I kiss them both good-bye and head for the train.
When the working day is over I can't wait to get back home to
spend more time with them.
I am also the " giver
of the bath " and this provides me with an opportunity
to spend more time with Shelly, as she loves taking her bath.
I'm not sure who takes on more water Shelly or I but we have
lots of fun.
Although the ongoing demands
of work are high, especially in this time of application migrations,
rewrites and that Y2K thing, I am finding that being a father
is helping put things into their proper perspective. Work is
work and family is family and there is nothing like the smile
of your child to wash away the worries of the day.
Jeff
(Article originally written for
the IATA Talewind newspaper)
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