#11 Babies falling asleep on you

Does this really bear explanation?  I will have a limited number of children - maybe 3 - and they are young enough to fall asleep on my chest for a short period.  So this is something that comes in short supply, thus increasing the enjoyment factor.  Everyone older always says - 'drink it in, you never really appreciate it when they're this young.'  I'm always a little bit insulted...I am drinking it in, I fully enjoy and do appreciate it. I am very thankful for my children and the moments I get with them, and I am thankful on a daily basis.  Perhaps those people were busier than I am right now.
Other people's babies falling asleep on you...nice, but not awesome.  Unless you are a single guy looking to impress some girl.  Even then, still not really as awesome.  

#10 Disappointment

There is a silver lining in every cloud, they say.  While despair is the unbearable absence of hope, disappointment is hope's much maligned partner.  Disappointment reveals our nature, our expectations, and our capacity for hope.  Each time a person leaves me dejected, I betray the love I have for them.  Behind every underachieving and underwhelming teenager is a hopeful and unreasonably loving parent (and teacher).
Logically, it seems flawed to continue to hope when life so reliably disappoints.  But seeing silver in the cloud is more than feckless naivety.  My faith teaches me to see the plan behind the cloud (the climate behind the weather, so to speak).  This is not only my story.  This is the story of all humanity.  Seeing a final hope to which all our unmet potential is striving elevates optimism to more than a salvo.
Hope does help us get through the day.  It is a crutch.  And that is one half of its purpose, unapologetically.  But hope is more far-sighted than that and disappointment is our constant reminder of the ability to acknowledge, grieve over, but ultimately see beyond the present circumstance.  

#9 Summer

Perhaps summer is the elephant in the room.  After all, as a teacher I have 8 weeks off and the weather is amazing - do I even need to say I'm thankful for that?  This is not only summer, this is the first summer I have not worked a 10-12 hour-a-day job since 2000.  In other words, it's the first summer I've actually enjoyed in 12 years.  Sat on my new front porch the other night and watched a rain storm.  Sat in the same spot the next night, staring at my oscillating sprinkler.  Glorious.

#8 Enthusiastic People

Kindergarten teachers.  Aerobics instructors.  Young Olympians.  Friendly waitresses.  No one can deny the infectious nature of a bubbly personality.  You want to be around these people, listen to what they have to say and you really want to see the world the way they seem to see it.  They make you want to be enthusiastic about something, whether it's the alphabet, fitness, or today's entree.  If this is not your nature (and it is not mine), these people are our rose-coloured glasses by proxy, as if we say silently to them, 'You see the sunny side; tell me - what do things look like over there?'  

#7 My Parents

Though we all have very different parents and there are certainly some extremely bad eggs, I think there are a number of shared experiences that resonate with most.  I am thankful for how weird parents are.  They are their weirdest during our teen years, of course, at our peak of self-absorption and egocentrism, believing the world is watching us and also judging us by the coolness of our family members.  More than that, I am thankful for their 'larger-than-life' personae.  That we adored them like that as toddlers is a given, but as the teens fade in to 20s and we have our own toddlers, we gain an appreciation for them as adults and for what they went through to parent us.  Again, this makes them seem superhuman, since it miraculously seems as though they still love us unconditionally.  I am thankful that by design, I am certain, God made us bond so strongly with our children that we could love them in this unique way.  Whether we are worried about weirdness or adoringly imitating them as heroes, they are an abiding centre and grounding force in our psyche precisely because of this big love that only parents are capable of.  Thank God (literally) for that human capacity.