I’ve been avoiding the blog for several months now, mostly because I don’t want to only talk about Harper and work (but there’s not much else to talk about these days!). Really it’s just because I’ve felt pressure to catch up on a lot of time, but that’s what our New Year’s letters are for. I’m posting this year’s letter below, but hope to have more up-to-date posts in the future. One quick addition: Harper went down a slide for the first time today! It was a lovely winter Seattle day (mountains galore) and we spent two hours at the park eating wood chips, swinging in swings, and sliding down the slide. I refrained from eating the wood chips, but Harper absolutely loved them. It was nice family time after a long week!
HAPPY NEW YEAR FROM THE GREENES
2011 has been a year of contrasting experiences: great loss, incredible joy, new transitions and consistent relationships.
Just a week after I wrote our New Year’s letter last year, my (Keba’s) sister-in-law, Jenna, passed away. At 26, Jenna’s sudden death as a result of bulimia has been the hardest loss my family has faced in many years. My brother Ben has challenged us all to grieve and celebrate her life well, and as a result I believe our family has grown closer. I still think of her often and know that the healing process will be long for all of us, but especially for Ben. Jenna’s death came shortly after we lost both Aaron’s great-grandmother and grandmother at the end of 2011. We have found that nothing makes us think more about the goodness of life than when we are confronted with the death of someone we love.
For me personally, it was challenging to grieve the losses in our families while also joyfully awaiting the birth of our child. I gave birth to Harper Miriam on March 25th, with the best birth experience I could have imagined. She has been feisty from the start, and Aaron and I can’t imagine our family without her. We get a lot less sleep than we used to, but we don’t miss much about our old life (ok, maybe the ease of traveling), and we’ve done a good job of balancing time as a family with time as a couple. It is both heartbreaking and exhilarating to watch her grow up – she is so much fun to watch, but we ache with the knowledge that these days will pass us by so quickly.
I won’t go into any long narratives on all of the things that Harper does to entertain us (we’ll save that for in-person conversations), but she is the center of most of our love, affection and energy these days. I took five months of maternity leave after she was born (lots of walks and coffee dates), and Aaron took a month of paternity leave when I went back to work. We are very grateful that we were able to find a family just down the street who wanted to share a nanny. Harper has good fun with their son (11 months), and our nanny is fantastic with both kids.
In terms of work, both of us did some moving around this year. Aaron’s team at Microsoft was “re-organized” twice this year, which was especially hard because he was moved away from his previous larger team, which he loved. While he still has lunch with his old teammates and boss frequently, the constant movement of teams has left him feeling drained and a bit unsettled. One bright spot is that he had the opportunity to work on some interesting features for Xbox Live, including the code that helps find “related items” for Xbox TV shows and movies. Don’t email him if the related items don’t make sense. That is someone else’s fault.
After coming back from maternity leave, I took on (or was thrown into) a challenging project called the Shared Learning Infrastructure (if you’re bored, bing? google it and tell me your thoughts). I learned a lot through the launch of the SLI and got to take on more responsibility, but my transition back to work was more stressful than I anticipated. Thankfully the launch went well and my work returned to a much slower pace. Just recently, I accepted a new position at the foundation, working on the Pacific Northwest Team. While I may miss the glamour of working on national reform and the hype around blended learning, I am so grateful to be moving to work that is closer to the ground, and more in line with my social worker beliefs. I’ll be working with grantees in Washington State on early learning and K-12 reform, and I’ll get to see the fruits of my labor in my own backyard. I officially start my new job on January 3rd!
With all of the changes we’ve experienced over the past year, we are even more grateful for the stability and goodness of our family, friends, and community. Our “building family” and our good friends here are a constant source of support for us, and it has been especially fun as all of our families have grown. Harper has more playmates than she can handle, and we are incredibly blessed with loads of hand-me-downs and babysitters. We’ve settled in to a great church near our house, and we were amazed with the outpouring of gifts and food from members of our congregation at Harper’s birth. They love us well, even though we only make it every other week.
While the time of year always leads to long to-do lists and new resolutions to do more, I am resolving to try to DO less and BE more. For me this means less stuff, more depth in friendships (read: less time on facebook), fewer errands, and more play time with Harper and Aaron.
We pray that you would also have the opportunity to reflect on this past year, and to spend more time in 2012 with the people that you love.
Love, Keba, Aaron & Harper
