Happiness... Day 12

Day 12 and I am discovering the task of finding things I am grateful for a little bit easier than before. I realized there are many things in life that I should contemplate as a gift or a privilege.

3 Things I am grateful for:

1. Exercise books... funny for me to have to mention that huh! But being away from an Arab country, it is difficult to teach my kids how to read and write Arabic without the assistance of the exercise books. They make the task, of me writing the letters out and having my children copy, less tedious since the books are more colorful and include entertaining exercises and stories.

2. Little moments with my son where we fall into a fit of giggles over something silly. He has such an enchanting giggle which I can rarely resist not joining in. 

3. Outlook Express.... Huh? you might say... but honestly, with my absent-minded brain, I tend to forget meetings or something I had to do if it was not written down in a to-do list or sent to me as a reminder via Outlook express calendar. I missed the first half of a departmental meeting yesterday because I had not logged it in and went to a class instead. It was only when I excused myself from the class to recharge my laptop that I was approached by my Head of Department wondering where I was. He just grabbed me by the arm and said, "Hey... come and see this!" and he led me to the meeting room and showed me how the other three teachers were sitting down together working on something. I was so embarrassed and apologized profusely to everyone present.

Journal Entry:

I had an extra cake made for my daughter's birthday just in case the cat cake needed some touching up. I decided to use the heart shaped cookie cutter to make two hearts; one for her and the other for her brother, and celebrate her birthday on the day she was actually born. We just sang her the birthday song and had a few Skype sessions with her Bibi and Jiddo in Jordan and then her cousins and Auntie in Bahrain who sang her the birthday song as well. 

During that time, my husband was trying to retrieve the mothballs he placed in the ceiling to drive away the cats who woke us up at night. As he was coming down, his bum accidentally hit the side of the small opening and the ceiling ripped off. After the skype sessions ended, we spent some time sticking the pieces together with packaging tape. We needed to place the cover in the right place so that we won't have a square shaped hole in our crumbling ceiling. The funny thing was that my husband is known to be bum-less and so how that happened is beyond me. Hahaha!

My daughter usually slept with a pacifier at night only. She never used it during the day but found it comforting and relaxing when she wanted to sleep. Last night, I was unable to find them anywhere and it was actually a blessing because, even though I read that it was ok for children to use them until the age of six and before the permanent teeth came out, I wanted to ween her off of them as soon as possible. This was an opportunity to assure my daughter that she was a big girl now and she could sleep without them and she did. HURRAH for small blessings!