Cherish the memories

One of the most common things I hear about baby advice is "cherish the memories." Easy to say, but how to do? I will attest that the first year goes by super quick, as it felt like yesterday that we took Baby Girl Yan home from the hospital. Time flies I guess when you're staying at home all day every day with little variation in your schedule, but I realize much of those 7 months have been spent with Baby Girl, and that time is precious and in a few short years I'll be wishing I could play back those times again. Mundane tasks like changing diaper, singing songs to the baby, putting them in the carseat, all of those will change and eventually no longer be necessary, so I do appreciate the opportunity to do them while I can. One of the most relaxing activities I do now is taking Baby Girl into the hallways of the condo unit we live in and just walk around, checking out the different windows of the building. There are 4 floors to our building and they all have different color carpeting, so it's pretty interesting walking all the way through each hallway and letting her check out all the decoration our neighbors have on their doors, hear noises coming from inside our neightbors' units, and look out the window at the various scenery surrounding our building. The key is that she likes this activity, and even if she was getting fussy before "strolling" as I call it (walking around without the stroller, just me holding her) she'll be completely well-behaved when we're out in the hallway, being polite about not waking up neighbors or making too much noise. It's like my nature walk, very peaceful and time I get to spend with my daughter in a different environment than just at home, and she gets to be in the comfort of her dad's arms while feeling like she's going on a journey. Maybe she inherited my gene of loving to explore new areas and check out the unknown (something I personally have put on hold for her) but eventually we can explore the big wide world together. Right now, though, the big wide world of our condo unit is enough. Drew Goins is rumored to be in the cast of Survivor Season 52. This may not seem like big news, but in the tiny world of Jeopardy contestants, Drew Goins is kind of a big deal, and even bigger that a Jeopardy contestant can cross over into the realm of an original reality TV powerhouse, one of the shows that started the whole genre off and is still going strong. Also it's MUCH harder to get on Survivor than Jeopardy. Jeopardy casts about 360 new players every year; Survivor casts like 40 people every year over its 2 new seasons. You need to have something special to get on Survivor, and Drew Goins has it: the charisma, the charm, the wits, the personality, the smile, but most importantly for TV, the boyish good looks that can take you very very far in the entertainment industry. Some people were just meant to be on TV and meant for people like me to be jealous of him because he succeeded on Jeopardy (through the Second Chance tournament), did the Jeopardy Invitational tournamnet, did Pop Culture Jeopardy, and now going to other TV shows, something I could only dream of. Sadly, I once met Drew Goins at a Jeopardy event: as much as I wanted to dislike him, as we stood outside of the theater where the Jeopardy event took place, I just couldn't find anything fake about him, he genuinely has a good personality, and I'm sure that came through in casting interviews. It's kind of the story of my life or at least my relationship with being on TV: I know what it would take and would actually make pretty good TV (in my opinion), and the opportunity is just right there in front of me like Drew Goins was at the Jeopardy event, so close I can touch it, but also so far away because I'm NOT actually Drew Goins, I'm just a normal plebe who is lucky he ever got on TV at all, once, much less multiple TV shows. That's what jealousy is I guess: I would be content with my life IF ONLY there wasn't someone else who had more and shows that you could have more.