I thought I knew what this item would be about up until today. I was going to write about board games. Andrea, Jacob and I play board or card games almost every night after dinner, sometimes even at lunch if we need a break from work, and sometimes during the day on the weekend.

We have even done a “tournament of games” this past year where I tracked who won all the games we played so we could see who was the grandmaster for the year (I have to still total up Q4 — Jacob won 2 of the first quarters, Andrea won 1, and I was equivalent of a “ball return” in bowling, I passed the cards back to the next dealer). And we’ll do it again this year.

I’ll also add some Lego activities, some video games with Jacob, etc. and some more activities outside the house with Andrea (more walking, most likely). Plus whatever comes if I retire this year.

But then today happened.

We got some really good news on one of Jacob’s health-related issues. I’d love to brag about it, but well, it’s not really my story to tell. And it isn’t necessarily amazing to anyone who doesn’t know Jacob’s story. The average person would think it was no big deal. But it was huge for Jacob, and one of the rare occasions I have seen him almost bubbling over in the last few difficult years. He’s not the most emotional of kids outwardly, but he was tickled pink today at his own performance.

And so I wonder if I need to think more about the family item and related goals. Most of the time since 2020, we’ve been looking for an “absence of bad news”, or some form of manageable normalcy. Actual good news has been rare.

That sounds a bit harsh, I know. We had good times in 2025, for example, I’m not saying we didn’t. We took a great trip to BC and saw some amazing things. And Jacob had a great time in the mountains, as expected. Switchbacks weren’t much fun for me, but the rest of the trip “worked” most of the time.

But I realized today that almost all of our family life comes with an asterisk. And while there is still an asterisk on the stuff today with Jacob, it’s a small asterisk and likely to disappear. It may not, but we’re taking the win for now.

How do I harness more of THAT awesome sauce than the “absence of bad” that we’ve been dealing with? We need more of those moments to celebrate. And it doesn’t have to be big wins.

Yesterday, Andrea had an appointment late in the morning, I drove over to pick her up, and we were both free together at lunch. So we stopped at Kettleman’s for a bagel lunch, BLT for her and club for me. Just a nice leisurely lunch, no kid, no appointments to get to, not rushed to get back to work, no work to talk about, just chatting. It was really nice, something we haven’t done in a while. Unrushed. Kind of the type of lunch or outings I would like more of in my retirement, although Andrea likely won’t retire quite yet.

Is it too simplistic to just say that I want “bigger”? More positive oomph in our lives?