Notes to Sparty #6

So last week, we met up with a friend of your mum and dad’s named Udi. We first met Udi about a year ago, in 2015, in a place called Malta. It is a beautiful little island in the Mediterranean Sea and is one of your mum’s favourite places, so I am almost certain we will be going again so that you can see it too. But for now, back to Udi. 

I don’t remember the precise chain of events that led to him being on the same bus as us, I am just happy that it happened. I suppose this is the beauty of serendipity, these seemingly random occurrences that result in your gaining of something that you were not really seeking in the first place. In this case, what we gained was a beautiful friendship. 

We are still really only getting to know Udi and his pretty amazing story, but here’s a little summary of what we know so far: He is from Israel, he has a sister, he is a passionate, lifelong supporter of his local basketball and football teams, and he travels the world as a photographer, mostly to the games of his beloved teams, but also of some other sports as well. 

Oh, and another thing- Udi is almost completely deaf. But he doesn’t care. 

That first time we met him, we ended up spending the whole day chatting with him, with him reading our lips, and with us hearing about all the places he’d travelled, watching him jump off the top deck of our boat and into the sea, then jumping into a motor boat to get a tour of some nearby caves, all while almost involuntarily getting everyone around him to smile while he clicked away on his camera. 

We then spent some more time with him over the remainder of our holiday, and when eventually it was time to say goodbye, we both felt like we’d known him for years. Of course we promised we would be in touch, but we didn’t really know whether we would see him again. Life has a way of getting in the way, people always get busier, and besides, Udi seemed like the kind of guy who had a million friends. 

But then! Last week he messaged saying he was coming to Amsterdam, and we finally had the chance to meet up again and hear all his latest interesting stories and talk about how we first met all those months ago. We told him that you’re going to be arriving soon, and he told us he has a nephew arriving soon too, so one day maybe when you meet uncle Udi, you may also meet another little person who’s around the same age as you! 

Good friendships are precious, Sparty, whether they arrive by accident or by design, so make sure you try your best to maintain them. It can sometimes feel like hard work, but for the right friends it is always worth it. 

As for Udi, we are both glad he is our friend. He is remarkable in many ways, and is an inspiration to me personally. He may not be able to hear as well as most other people, and yet he listens. He is kind and thoughtful, and he always somehow leaves you happier than you were before you saw him. 

He might have a million friends, but for us, Udi is one in a million :) 

Love, Your dad

Notes to Sparty #5

Hoi Sparty! hoe gaat je? Your dad has been taking Dutch lessons for a few weeks now, and so far this is one of the few bits of conversation he can employ with a reasonable degree of confidence. It’s possible that by the time you are reading this you will be quite fluent in Dutch, and maybe by then your dad will know a few more questions as well, so I can try and have a conversation that lasts longer than 30 seconds. wat denk je? 

Anyway, today I thought I’d tell you a little bit about the Olympics since that’s been the main thing on television for the past two weeks. 

The Olympic Games can be traced back to ancient Greece, where competitions were held in honour of Zeus, the great god of the sky. The modern games were revived just over 100 years ago and since then, the world’s best athletes gather in a different city every four years to compete for the supreme honour of being an Olympic champion. 

The 2016 edition took place in Rio de Janeiro, a stunning city in Brazil which one day we will hopefully visit. 207 nations took part, and the United States ended up at the top of the table with 121 medals. 

‘How many did India get’, you ask? I am glad you brought that up, little Sparty. India, our weird, wonderful and utterly incredible India, the second-most-populous-country-in-the-world-with-1.2 billion-people India; well, we won a grand total of 2 medals. That’s right. 2 medals. One silver and one bronze. In the meantime, countries like Fiji, Kosovo, Puerto Rico, Singapore and Tajikistan- countries with less inhabitants than some mid-size Indian towns, actually won gold medals. 

Now, this is a tricky subject because it is difficult to be critical of India’s performance without somehow undermining the effort put in by our athletes just to be there in the first place. It is impossible to fully know their stories, or appreciate the sacrifices involved in the professional pursuit of pretty much any sport in India apart from cricket. (Cricket isn’t exactly easy either, when you consider the number of kids playing it and the fact that only 11 will walk out onto a field wearing the India jersey at any given time. The road to the national team is littered with the bitter remains of broken dreams.) 

It is true that India doesn’t spend a fraction of the amounts other richer countries spend on sports, and yes we have more pressing problems like figuring out how to feed the shockingly high numbers of people that go hungry in our country every day. 

Nevertheless, it is all by all accounts, a pretty dismal showing. I have been thinking about it quite a bit in the part few days since the games ended, and while it is fairly easy to figure out what we didn’t do, I think it’s more important to try and figure out what we can do in the future to improve things. It is obvious that a lack of talent is not the issue. 

By the time you are reading this, you may have an interest in pursuing a sport. Or maybe you won’t. Either way, you will probably have an opinion or some ideas to help improve the way sport is run, funded, and managed in india. I, for one, would love to hear them :) 

For now, though, here’s an ad for you to watch. Just because.

Always chase your dreams, Sparty. Even if it doesn’t end with you wearing a gold medal around your neck. 

Love, Your Dad

Notes to Sparty #4

So today you are 25 weeks old. And that means you will be out in just over three months. Your scheduled date of arrival is the 29th of November but you could come early or (depending on how much you take after your dad) you could be late as well. 

You’ll soon find out all about birthdays and we will make sure we celebrate every single one of yours. But in the meantime, I can’t help feeling that us humans haven’t quite figured this birthday system out. When you think about it, your first birthday should really be about three months after you arrive, because that’s when it will be one year since you were ‘born’. 

I suppose the logical explanation is that your time here on earth is measured starting from the time you officially arrive on earth, but that doesn’t seem too logical to me. Anyway, I just wanted you to remember that there’s life on either side of this fleeting time we are given here. 

Why fleeting, you ask? Well, when I was younger, it always seemed that time was as vast and limitless as the ocean. However, life has a funny way of getting shorter the older you get. And then all of a sudden, you think about all that you would like to do and see and hear and be, and how you’re never going to be able to get around to it all. This can be either incredibly dispiriting, or motivate you even more to make the most of every moment. My hope for you is that it will be the latter. 

One last thing- when you are little, you might think it’s much nicer to be a grown-up like your mum and dad. I remember thinking that when I was around 6 or 7, especially around 6 or 7 o’clock in the morning when I had to wake up and get ready to go to school. I thought it would be awesome to be an adult and sit in a chair having a coffee like my dad and not worry about scary things like maths homework. 

Of course, I didn’t know back then that soon after I left for school, both my mum and dad left for work and worked hard at their jobs to make sure my brother and I had everything we needed. 

So remember, Sparty, the best age is always the age you are, and every stage of life has both its joys and challenges. They say youth is wasted on the young, but I know this will not be true for you :) 

Love, your Dad

Notes to Sparty #3

Hi Sparty, so you are still reading these? Great! I’ll be honest, I do worry you’re going to find these tedious and eventually switch to the Lord of the Rings (which is totally fine, by the way- Gandalf is a much better storyteller than I am) 

Today, though, I’d like to tell about the first time we ‘saw’ you. It was a sunny 10th of May 2016 when we went to see the midwife. She asked us a few questions, gave us some information, and then she dimmed the lights and placed a scanner on your mummy’s tummy. 

For a few seconds, I couldn’t really make out what I was seeing, but then! There you were. It was our first glimpse of you. You were very tiny then (about 12 weeks) but you were unmistakably Sparty. It was pretty amazing seeing you moving around, a bit like an alien in a snowstorm. If you haven’t seen this already, here’s what you looked like.

In the weeks that followed, we tracked your progress with an app on your mum’s phone and every week we found some new and exciting information about you. Like for example two weeks ago, when we found out you’re already developing memory. Memory! Does this mean you might somehow remember what it was like when you were inside? I definitely don’t remember anything from my time in there, but then I’m reaching the age now where I’m having trouble remembering what happened yesterday. 

About four weeks ago we saw you again on the little screen, and this time you filled the screen a bit more. You were also moving a lot more that time around, and sucking away on your tiny thumb. You would think the second time would be less exciting than the first, but I can assure you it wasn’t. Your mum and I just stared at the screen, and I am sure I had my mouth open the entire time. I remember thinking about what it must be like for you, and whether you somehow knew we were checking in on you. 

Oh, and then there were the weeks in between where we were able to listen to your heartbeat. Your heart was still pretty small but it was beating away happily- it was a beautiful sound, like a little whale call; letting us know you were ok, while you danced in your own way to the gentle rhythms of this unfolding miracle. 

For a few days after I first heard your heartbeat, I kept thinking about it, and the little heart that houses it, and I felt my own heart racing at the thought of finally seeing you in the flesh. 

Life is a beautiful thing, and whatever your life has in store for you, there’s one thing you can be sure of: I will always be there, holding you so close that you can listen to the sound of my heartbeat in the same way I listened to yours. 

Love, your dad.

Notes to Sparty #2

Hello again. I don't know where we will be when you're reading this, but your mum and dad are currently in Amsterdam. We came here in April this year (2016) and then soon after that we got news that you were going to arrive, so, all things considered, this has been a pretty special year.  

Amsterdam is a beautiful little city in the Netherlands. When you first arrive, you might not think much of it because it's going to be cold, and most likely dark for most of the day. But, after a few short months I can promise you it will get warmer and brighter and we will take you exploring. You'll then be able to see, hear and taste all the things Amsterdam is famous for- the picture-postcard canals, the parks, people on cycles, beautiful music in the squares, old buildings, cheese, waffles, and all kinds of other magical things. There's also little rabbits, parrots and ducks to show you. I am sure you will love it as much as we do.

   I have already locked you away in a corner of my heart

Of course, Amsterdam is just one city out of hundreds of cities on this beautiful planet. Your mum and I have been to some of them, but there is so much more left to see. So we can explore new places together! Every time you think you've seen it all, you'll see something else that will take your breath away all over again. 

There's also a few special places you're going to be going to very soon. One of them is Hong Kong where your mum grew up, and where you currently have an uncle and an aunty; the other is London where you have grandparents, grand-uncles, uncles, cousins and all manner of people excitedly waiting to see you. You would probably have seen all of them before you read this, but it's possible you don't yet know who they all are and that's fine. For now, just know that they all love you, just as we do.  

And then there's India. I'll need a few hundred blog posts to tell you about India, and even that won't be enough. One day you will experience it yourself, and your life will never be the same again. 

Love, your dad

Notes to Sparty #1

Before we begin (and I hope you are beginning at the beginning) I guess a little introduction is in order. Welcome to this blog. I first started it up in 2006, and here we are in 2016.  For ten years, I've lovingly tended to it and grown kind of attached to it. I suppose it's been like my baby; but now, an actual, real-life baby is on the way (yep, that means you)  

Of course, that doesn't mean I'm going to just abandon this little blog, but, like a lot of things in your mum and dad's life right now, this is going to change a little. From now on, and for the foreseeable future, this blog will primarily be a place where I write these little notes to you.  

A word of warning- these will often be rambling (I always use five words when one will do) and are likely to contain more wit than wisdom. There'll be some lame jokes. Maybe some photos. I don't know, I haven't really thought through the details, except that it might be a good way to tell you what was going on out here while you were there getting bigger and cuter and ready to come out and meet us.  

So, on the one hand, there's the crazy, I-don't-know-what-to-do-with-myself type of excitement that we're both feeling right now; but, on the other hand, there's also the sometimes dull monotony of our daily routines. I hope to convey both, but most of all I hope to show you that even though life isn't always super-exciting, it is always beautiful. 

I did spend some time thinking about who to address this to. I mean, obviously this is to you, but seeing as you’re only going to be reading this in a few years’ time, perhaps it should really be addressed to your ten-year-old self? 

But then again, since most of what I’m writing about is set in the present time, maybe they should be addressed to your current self and this way it will be more interesting to read for you since it will be about a distant past? Perhaps i’m over-thinking this. I guess I should just write these the way they come, and we will figure out the space-time continuum stuff later. Deal?

Anyway, enough with the intro (see what I mean about rambling?) I'll finish with this vaguely appropriate quote by the great Bob Dylan (by the time you've read this, I’d have told you all about Bob Dylan) 'Stick with me, baby, stick with me anyhow; Things should start to get interestin' right about now.' 

love, your Dad