We hope that our annual missive sees you
all healthy and happy and enjoying the beauty of the holidays. It has been another great year to remember
here in the Dumaresq household! We have
loved having our sweet Cygni here to teach us all how to jump through new hoops
every day! And Mommy, in particular, is
going to miss the many moments she has had Cygni all to herself in the last
twelve months. Yes, Deb is back to
work! Her 10 year anniversary with
Starbucks was on the 25th of November and though she had to step
down from being a store manager (the availability requirement just couldn’t be
met with Jordan going to pre-school in Burnaby four days a week,) to part-time
barista, it was too much to ask her to look for work elsewhere as 10 years is a
lot to throw away with a great company.
And now that she is a ten year partner, she gets FIVE weeks of paid
vacation per year – didn’t want to have to start over on that account! She returned to work on the 21st
and is now at a newly opened store in a burgeoning shopping centre just a five
minute drive from home. So far it has
been lots of fun and very refreshing to not have to bring the heavier concerns
of a store manager back home with her after her shift is over. There are lots of new lessons to be learned working
at Deb’s very first drive-thru store, and lots of new partners and customers to
get to know.
Chris’ work didn’t have as much change as
Deb’s. His role changed somewhat as he
shifted to managing his team of ‘portfolio managers’ but it’s still the same
people in the same location. Chris was
able to avoid doing too much travel this year with just one trip to the EA
studio in Orlando, Florida… but this is likely to change next year because
Chris directly manages people in Bucharest, London, Orlando and Montreal and
his manager is in California. It starts
with a trip to Austin, Texas in January.
Deb is secretly hoping that one day EA will want to send him to Montreal
and we can perhaps make a family trip of it.
Jordan started out the year attending the Deaf Children’s Society Pre-school part time, but with the new school year he now goes full time (M-F, 9 am to 2 pm.) It took him a little while to get comfortable, but now when Dad drops him off, he doesn’t cling, he puts his things away and heads into class without even looking back. He can count to twelve, knows his ABCs and spells and recognises his own name. He is mostly a talker, but uses a lot of sign language too, usually in tandem with speech. It’s fun to see him signing full sentences; he’s so knowledgeable that he has even corrected Mom & Dad once or twice! We’re almost 100% on the potty training too! He’s diaper-free (even at school,) all day and only wears a diaper at bed-time now, though Mom’s thinking that once the New Year is underway it will be time to work on that. Jordy finally has a big boy loft bed and he actually sleeps in it like a big boy! For those who don’t know, we used to tuck him into his toddler bed and once we said good-night and closed the door, he would climb out with his pillow and snuggle down on the floor in front of the door. We aren’t really sure why he did this, but finally we’ve broken this routine and he sleeps IN bed! It helps to have a cool new bed, I suppose! The highlights of Jordy’s year were probably his 3rd Birthday Party, when we brought in a big balloon typhoon for the kids to play in, and getting to see The Wiggles live in concert this October. He really is quite the Wiggles Fan, and it was really important to us to take him to see the original members (3 of whom are retiring at the end of the year.) There will be new Wiggles, of course, and perhaps we’ll see them in concert someday too, but these guys were like family to us this year! Currently, though he still enjoys the Wiggles, his passion is Yo Gabba Gabba! And he sings songs from that tv show every day in the car when we drop him off and pick him up. Mommy likes the fun and quirky characters and the super music friends that they feature in each episode. As for his hearing, there haven’t been any changes and we are happy to report that his hearing isn’t getting worse, though we will have to take him in to the audiologist on a yearly basis to ensure it remains that way. Now that he is three, he is no longer part of the BC Early Hearing Program, so the province no longer covers the cost of things like new ear molds, batteries and repair/replacement of hearing aids; we’re sad to say good-bye to EHP benefits, but we are very thankful for their short involvement in our story. We’ll need to make sure we don’t lose or destroy these hearing aids, but luckily he won’t need to go for the ear molds quite as often as he has in the past, so hopefully his hearing needs don’t cost us too much more than what is covered by Dad’s extended health benefits.
Our little Cygni is now one! She’s already got six teeth and even though
she still prefers to scoot around on her bum, she can walk too. Poor Jordan has been bested in all the
milestones by his baby sister! She’s a
clever one and can sign and say many words now, Mommy’s favourites to hear are
“done” and “mama” of course! The nurse
who gave her to Chris on Day One called it: she’s a snuggler. Cygni loves to cuddle with dolls, stuffies
and pillows in a way we never saw Jordy do, she is very attached to Mommy, and
not nearly as friendly to new faces as Jordy used to be at that age. But she certainly adores her big
brother! She loves to play with him,
follow him around and often makes him laugh!
Usually Mom and Dad have no idea what is so funny, but as long as they
are happy then we are too. For the most
part, Jordy has laid off the smacking and pinching that he used to inflict on
her the first half of her life, he’s often still too rough but we definitely
see an improvement and are pleased to see them playing together, even if J-man
still isn’t too great at being gentle or sharing toys with his sis.
We were fortunate enough to get Nanny Mary
out for January and February, her first trip out since leaving BC in
July of 2011 and her first chance to see and hold her brand new
granddaughter! The timing was opportune,
as EA Burnaby was hosting their annual Summit one of the weeks she was here and
it allowed Chris to spend a little extra time prepping presentations and going
to dinner with his team members without feeling guilty about getting home
late. Nanny was a huge help with the
kids and with the household chores; she can now personally attest to Jordan’s
ability to completely disarrange the house in about 20 minutes! And Jordan absolutely loved having her to
hang on while she was visiting, they are good buddies; he was pretty sad the
first morning he woke up and Nanny wasn’t there to say good-morning to him. We’re hoping for another visit from Nan in
the New Year. Another favourite family
highlight of the year includes our trip to Oregon in July when we had a big
potluck gathering in one of the beautiful city parks in Eugene and got to see
so many of our lovely friends and family.
It’s amazing how much the kids grow over one or two summers, and it
warms our hearts to also regain contact with old friends we hadn’t seen in
several years, even more so now that they have kids close in age to our
own. And it was great to see Cygni
practice her walking with her Lola and Grandpa Tom! Besides this, our hosts Stuart, Tina and Evan
took us to the coast where we explored and enjoyed some picturesque beaches and
then cooked up a mouth-watering crab feed we won’t soon forget! Then in September, Deb’s childhood friend and
neighbour, Jacquelyn came up from texas for a visit with her husband
Brett. It has been a long time since we
got to host some serious sightseeing, and it was a ton of fun showing them as
much of beautiful BC as we could cram into one week. Even though we never left our province, it
was as much a vacation for us as it was for them! One of our favourite events while they were
here was our very own Backyard Beer Fest.
See, originally, we had planned to take Brett to The Great Canadian Beer
Fest in Victoria that weekend, but they sold out of tickets before they’d been
on sale for even a day! Chris was
undaunted, we got all our friends together for Labour Day and we had our OWN
beer fest. Everyone brought different
beer: some brought their favourite old standbys and some brought new stuff they’d
always wanted try. We grilled up some
burgers, got the suds flowing in some solo cups and a rollicking good time was
had by all! We reckon we had 100 times
more fun doing it at home than we would have at the official event. And in case you’re wondering about a verdict,
Chris’ favourite of the night was Howe Sound Brewing’s Nut Brown Ale.
There’s so much more that we have loved
about this year, but of course, we can’t write it all down here! Feel free to look through our old blog posts
and enjoy some of our photos of past events and every day fun with the
kiddos. Even though we’re now, with the
virtual loss of an entire income, in Austerity Measures mode, we know that we
have much to be thankful for and much to look forward to. Like many of you, a little tightening of the
old belt is going to be necessary in the coming year, but one mustn’t forget
that whatever your current fortune may be, there is likely someone else worse
off. Some people, it is said, are so
poor that all they have is money! Merry
Christmas to you all!
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