changes

At work tonight one of the servers said that she could tell that fatherhood has changed me. She said I seem much more responsible now. Upon further reflection, I concur. As I thought back over the past four months since Kai was born and how much he’s changed, I’m sure that I have changed along with him. It’s hard for me to tell sometimes, but I know it must be true.

Kai was a high-maintenance baby today. In the middle of the afternoon he decided he was not happy. He didn’t want to eat or sleep, and changing his diaper or clothing did not help. I could only make him forget his anger for brief moments while playing with him, and was it tough. I thought we were pretty much past those days, but you just never know what’s going to happen from day to day.

Kai was sitting up quite well today. He can hold himself up for about five seconds before he tips over, which is quite an improvement. He’s grabbing at things now, and keeps trying to grab his feet and shove them in his mouth. We had a nice extended tickle session today — sometimes I think that I may actually enjoy our play time more than he does. Which says a lot because he definitely digs our play time.

One of my co-workers today was telling me about her failing marriage. She and her husband have two young children which are basically keeping them together. She doesn’t any family locally to help her raise the kids, so she feels that she has to stay with him. I’ve always thought that staying together “for the kids” is a flawed concept. Your kids can tell that mommy and daddy aren’t friends, and don’t love each other. It sets a dangerous precedent for their futures, as well. I know that my entire idea of married life came from my parents’ marriage. I would venture to guess that marriage is not an instinctual skill, it’s something we learn from our parents.

As far as the business planning is concerned, things are progressing nicely. I’m in the middle of doing the businesses financial projections, which is quite tedious, and entirely fictional. It’s like writing “what if” scenarios, with numbers instead of words. But it’s quite enlightening, too. As the 7 P’s saying goes: Proper prior planning prevents piss poor performance.

Until next time, au revoir!

that's a bold statement

I’ll say it: the Orlando Magic are the best team in the NBA right now, and they are the best Orlando Magic team since the 1994-1995 team led by Shaq and Penny that took us to the Finals. Tonight’s dominating win over Seattle and Monday’s gritty victory over Utah have firmly cemented this in my mind.

Tonight was my first baby-sitting assignment with Kai. Erin had to fulfill a volunteering obligation for Isaac’s basketball team, so I stayed home with Kai for a few hours. I gave him a bath, we sang songs, and I tickled him silly. He was literally howling with laughter. He loves it when we gum-chew his belly region making loud chewing noises — he smiles and laughs so loudly when we do that. So of course, I do it a lot. He fussed for a few minutes, but I managed to get him to fall asleep and take a three-hour nap. He woke up to eat, and has been out ever since. It was an awesome experience.

In other news, I have begun work in earnest on writing the business plan for our wine bar. Erin and I both share a passion for wine that is simply too great to ignore. I believe we have a solid idea, that once translated onto paper in a business plan, will provide us with the foundation to build a business that will allow us to make a good living doing something we love. I am accepting suggestions for names for a wine bar — if we use your suggestion you will get a rather nice bar tab at our business upon its opening.

Money has been quite scarce around here the last few weeks. I had two weekends off this month, one for Isaac’s Landmark Forum and another for Thanksgiving. And yet I really feel that Erin and I are about to make the turn to financial abundance soon. Once I’m finished crafting our rock-solid business plan, I’m confident that I can find investors to back us and then we’re off to the races. It’s going to be a lot of work, and we’ll enjoy every minute of it. We really feel that we can create a business that stands apart from the competition, and will grow for years to come. Compared to child-rearing, how hard can it be? :)

giving thanks

Kai’s abilities continue to amaze me. On Thursday, we hosted Kai’s first Thanksgiving dinner at our home, and he brought both sets of Erin’s parents together and even inspired a wonderful surprise visit.

Thanksgiving was awesome. Our families all came together and had a great time. We hosted dinner for 22 people in our backyard. Halfway through the party, my parents had to leave to go their friend’s house whom they were obliged to visit. They said they would return shortly for dinner. When they returned, they completely surprised all of us by showing up with my sister, Lanna! They tricked me! I was very happy to see her — she had just flown in from Seattle to spend the weekend with us. Just in time for dinner, too... It was so good that we decided to have a second Thanksgiving dinner on Friday night, with a smaller group and a fried turkey, thanks to Uncle Eric and Aunt Kelly.

Kai has become a prolific drooler. He has apparently forgotten how to keep his mouth shut, and drools all over himself. It’s so damn cute and funny. His hand-eye coordination is improving rapidly — anything he can get his little tiny fingers around heads straight for his mouth. He’s like a little vacuum cleaner.

My parents are leaving for their annual Thailand vacation tomorrow, and won’t be back until February. At lunch with them today, Erin mentioned that Kai will be six months old by the time they get back. It’s hard to get my head around how far we’ve come since this time last year. In fact, last year at this time we didn’t even know that Erin was pregnant.

For an early Christmas present, my parents gave me an iPod Shuffle. This thing is literally the size of a matchbook. It’s crazy small. It may actually be a choking hazard for Kai.

In the spirit of Thanksgiving, thanks to all of you for reading and your words of support. Your comments keep me typing.

one year

Today marked the one-year anniversary of our engagement. I was able to get present to the emotions of this time last year and all of the wonderful things that have happened since then.

Erin and I got engaged last year in St. Augustine at the urging of our friend Jason Rodriguez. His conversation with Erin went something like: “You love him, right? You want to be together for the rest of your lives, right? Then what are you waiting for?” Erin told Jason that we hadn’t really even planned to get engaged, and so we didn’t have a ring. He promptly took off his diamond wedding band and gave it to Erin. This all happened without my knowledge.

She walked up to me and said something like, “Look, just ask me. Because if you don’t, I’m asking you.” I was completely confused at first, and then I saw the ring in her hand. So I asked. And just like that, we were engaged.

It was about two weeks later that we found out that Erin was pregnant with Kai. Just a couple weeks earlier we were discussing getting married and the possibility of children, and BOOM we were going to have a child. Talk about life changing in a moment.

I could write volumes about what has happened since then, but I’ll save that for my memoirs. What I do know is that Erin and I have truly come together as a team moving forward. Coming from a guy who never wanted to get married, I cannot imagine my life without her. We finish each other’s sentences. We know how to make each other’s coffee in the morning. We call each other on our BS and support each other completely. I love my wife.

So it’s been a year. What an amazing, unbelievable year it has been. I am loving this.

off the charts

We’re back from Kai’s checkup, and he is officially the most perfect baby ever. He weighs in at 16 pounds, 10 ounces, and 27 inches tall. That places him in the 90th percentile for his weight, and he is off the charts for his height. He is a linebacker in the making.

We spent this weekend in Fort Lauderdale. Isaac was in the Landmark Forum for Teens this weekend, and Erin and I took Kai around South Florida and had a great time. The Water Taxi and the Anne Kolb Nature Center were a couple of our fun excursions. Kai loved being on the boat and walking around the nature center with me. He also got to feel the sand between his toes for the first time, and took a nice nap on the beach.

On Sunday night, we made an excursion to Le Tub, the winner of GQ Magazine’s Best Hamburger in America award. This place was even featured on Oprah. Isaac and I are burger aficionados, and let me tell you this was a phenomenal burger. First off, the ground sirloin patty was as big around as my head, and over an inch thick. It had a wonderful charred flavor and was perfectly juicy. Did I mention it was gi-normous? It was delicious. It’s almost worth the three-and-a-half hour drive just for the burger. Google it for yourself and see.

baby talk

After watching “The Secret Language of Babies” special on Oprah the other day, Erin and I have been trying desperately to figure out what Kai’s sounds mean, with limited success. According to the author, all babies instinctually make five sounds that correspond to various states of need, including hunger, discomfort, sleepiness, burp assistance and lower abdominal pain from gassiness. What she was saying made sense, but it takes a trained ear to distinguish the sounds, which are not as different as one would hope. I’ll update you on our progress soon.

Kai’s advancement is rapidly progressing. His attempts at grabbing objects placed in front of him are getting more effective. He definitely makes more sounds now than ever, and is sleeping more than ever. He usually gets a good 5-7 hour sleep period in, and then wakes to eat every 2 hours after that. He then enters a wakeful period around 7am for a few hours, and then needs several siestas to get him through the day. I wish I could sleep that much.

Our “Sign With Your Baby” book/DVD arrived today while I was at work. I’m totally psyched! I know a few words in American Sign Language (ASL) and would love to be able to communicate with Kai in a language we both understand. Wish us luck!

My fancy smart-phone completely froze up yesterday, so I had to buy a new phone today. This thing plays live video off of the Internet, can ID the title and artist of nearly any song just by listening to it, shoots 15fps video and 1.3 megapixel photos. Oh yeah, and it also makes phone calls. I swear, it’s nearly impossible to find a modern cell phone that doesn’t have some complicated multimedia functionality built into it. And yet my phone still consistently drops calls right in front of the “fewest dropped calls” billboard on I-4. It would be nice if they stopped adding features and made the existing ones work really well. And don’t even get me started on rebates...

be here now

Erin pointed out to me today that while playing with Kai I act like a complete fool. It’s true. We both do. I make up songs on the fly, contort my face into ridiculous poses, and all in all make a complete ass of myself. If anyone were to see me do these things without having knowing there was a baby involved would have me locked up. I love it. No inhibitions. While Kai is around, we get carte blanche to act like silly-willies. Anything to get a laugh. If I were a comedian, Kai would be my ultimate audience. He laughs at nearly anything I do, no matter how dumb.

Kai has officially outgrown size one diapers. We had one last pair lying around so I squeezed his little bootie into them. I quickly realized that his little baby butt-crack was showing, which would also mean that anything that would come out of said butt-crack would probably come out of the diaper. Size one is now a thing of the past.

We had lunch yesterday with an old friend of mine. He literally asked us the same question four times, and he got the same answer every time. It made me realize that most of the time, we are not where we are — we’re somewhere else in our heads. We’re thinking about what we’re doing later, why is she wearing that awful top, how am I going to respond to what he’s saying, etc.. It’s absolutely true.

But in those moments where we are not present, we miss everything — the beauty of life. I’ve heard of people who miss their child’s entire life because they cannot accept the present moment. Which reminds me of an old proverb I read a long time ago:

“One moment of patience may ward off great disaster.
One moment of impatience may ruin a whole life.”

You could substitute presence for patience in that saying and hopefully get what I’m saying. So your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to take note of any time that you’re off in your own world while you’re with another person, and how that affects the quality of time you have with them. Be here now and let the good times roll!

rock the vote

Kai was the hit of our voting district today — the poll workers said he was the cutest voter they’d seen all day. Funny, with all the fuss over electronic voting machines that I’ve heard about on the news, our ballots were still paper-based and very straightforward. But as I understand it, every county gets to use whatever voting system they want; so some counties get the high-tech (read: easier to break) systems and some get the old-fashioned pen and paper.

Kai continues to delight us. Last night he slept for about seven hours straight! Erin was quite relieved — she doesn’t get much time to herself these days so a couple hours of rest were definitely deserved.

Happy birthday to Grandma Janet — the guru of knitting. Or sewing. Or both — I don’t know how to distinguish between the two. Happy birthday nonetheless!

Tonight I’m taking Isaac to the Orlando Magic game versus the Seattle Supersonics — we are definitely excited about seeing them play. One of my ticket hook-ups came through for us, so we are going to go and have a good time. I figure this is his prize for making the Winter Park High School basketball team and getting all A’s and B’s on his report card. Well done, young man.

Off to sleep for me now. I cherish mornings with Kai now — he’s so much fun in the mornings. Oh, and today I got Kai to fall asleep in my arms, twice. I have rediscovered my skills! Of course, now that I say that...

saturday in the park

Thursday officially marked Kai’s three-month old date. He weighs in just north of 16 pounds now, and every day seems to bring some new delights. He smiles and laughs quite often now, and he’s working on sitting up on his own. He’s a little wobbly right now, but I think it’s due to his enormous head. It’s seriously the size of a cabbage, which makes him a bit top-heavy...

Today we took Kai to Park Avenue to enjoy the beautiful weather (currently 76°F) and get myself a little exercise. He just loves being outside and looking around and taking it all in. Walking around with a large weight strapped to my chest is my new favorite form of exercise, so it’s nice to have Kai around for just that.

The other day our friend Dave took Erin and me to the Palm Restaurant in the Hard Rock Hotel. It was awesome — definitely one of the best steaks I’ve ever had. In addition, we got to drink some delicious wine, the BV Clone 9 cabernet sauvignon from Rutherford and we got to spend some time together. We had a great time with Dave and look forward to doing it again.

Afterwards, Erin and I went to check out the Beacon, the hip, new restaurant downtown. It was gorgeous. The interior is really classy and modern, with some thoughtful design touches. We didn’t eat there, but we plan on checking it out someday soon. Thanks to Grandma Marsha for babysitting Kai so we could enjoy an evening out together.

Life has really begun to settle down around here. The first few months of Kai’s life were so very hectic. We are all beginning to find a sense of normalcy around here, and I am thoroughly enjoying it. Erin and I can get some stuff done around the house now. His overall demeanor is calming down, which allows us to take him to new places and experience new things. I’m really enjoying this fatherhood-thing.