confidence

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about confidence. Apparently a lot of other people have, too. A recent Google search had over 176 million results for that term alone. Through the personal development training that Erin and I have done, the books that I’ve read, and the seminars I’ve sat through, I have come to believe that confidence is one of, if not the, most important personality traits for happiness and success in life.

I see proof of my belief every single day at my work. On the days that I feel the most confident, I have the best time at work and make the most money. Even on the days where I force myself to fake being confident, I make great money and end up having fun. And I especially see it in my guests. We have plenty of guests who are obviously lacking in self-esteem. You can hear it in their language. “I’m not good enough” is usually the underlying message in their speech. Whether they’re not good enough to appreciate a decent glass of wine or a top-shelf margarita, it’s all over their words.

Of course, on the flip side, we have plenty of guests who are over-confident, or cocky. I believe that being arrogant is merely a defense mechanism for a lack of confidence and self-esteem. These people are easy to spot, and they’re everywhere.

I like to think that truly confident people tend to fly just under the radar. They know things are going to work out for them in the end. They get that life is short and is to be enjoyed. These people can accept and deal with anything that comes along. They embrace and dive headfirst into the unknown. I’d like to think I’m in this category. I’m sure we all would.

In the end, I tend to have my days in each category. Sometimes more categories than the ones I’ve mentioned. Sometimes all of those categories in one day. And yet I know that on the days where I don’t let my self-doubt run the show, those are the days that are fun and productive.

The challenge is that I know that confidence, or the lack thereof, comes from your childhood. Whatever is learned in your early years takes a lot of effort to overcome later. So the question now is, how do I instill a general sense of confidence in Kai? How will he know that he is good enough, he can do and have anything? Sure I’ll tell him, but is that enough?

I feel like I’m at the crossroads of development here. I have no idea where we’re going next. All I know is that today was great, and tomorrow will be great, too. It doesn’t matter what we’re doing tomorrow, it’s going to be awesome. So will the day after that...

sleepy time

While I hate to possibly jinx it, Kai does finally sleep through the night. Actually, he’s been doing it for a few days, but under the influence of the cold virus I forgot to update you all. He did cry for a couple nights. One night he cried for an hour straight. I didn’t think he had it in him, but man he is stubborn. As far as how we got through it, I recommend very good earplugs. When purchasing earplugs, they will usually be rated with a negative dB number, the bigger the number, the better. Mine are -29dB. I didn’t hear a thing.

But getting back to the present, Kai now sleeps about nine hours a night, straight through. It is quite pleasant. The trick now is to get him to stay up until as close to 9 as possible, so that he doesn’t wake up before the newspaper deliveries begin. Tonight he went down at 8:30, which means he’ll be up no later than 5:30 in the am. He nurses first thing in the morning, and then plays with Erin until she leaves for work or until I get up. Sometimes a boy just needs his mama.

For President’s Day, Erin and I celebrated our past American presidents by purchasing a British-invented Dyson vacuum cleaner, the kind that never lose suction. Let me be the first to tell you that this thing is expensive. I never imagined that I would ever spend that much money on a vacuum cleaner. But with a baby on the verge of crawling, it would be nice if the floors that he crawled on were free of excess filth.

This Dyson sucks. Everything. We ran it over the rug that Erin had just vacuumed two days prior and it dug up more dirt than a tabloid photographer. I was impressed. This thing is awesome, and it just looks like a man’s vacuum cleaner. That’s important, although 99.9% of the time Erin does the vacuuming around here. Have I mentioned how great she is?

And since you asked, I think I’ve pretty much kicked my cold. I’m still a bit congested, and some of the congestion has moved into my chest, but my energy level is up and today I had some of my mom’s tom yum soup, which always helps me get over any illness. Sometimes a boy just needs his mama.

state of our union

As the weather around Central Florida warms up, I have succumbed to the common cold. It’s actually a quite mild cold, I just have a scratchy sore throat and bit of congestion. I’m taking Airborne 24-7 now, and getting as much rest as possible.

I was due for my first round of allergy shots today (12 in all!) but due to my illness the torture treatment has been delayed a week. I had to get an EpiPen for the treatments, in case the cure causes me to go into anaphylactic shock, swelling up my throat and choking me to death. Wish me luck!

Kai, on the other hand, has been in good spirits lately. He’s beginning to bounce when he hold him up, which is a early stage of crawling development. Who knows, he may even walk before he crawls. He’s developing his hand-eye-mouth coordination quite well, too. We have to be very cautious about what gets within his arms’ reach now.

Erin is going to make some homemade chicken soup for me tonight. I’m very excited about that. I don’t tell her how much I appreciate her enough. Not that I don’t do it at all, I just need to do it more often. She really is great.

I’m still waiting on our great and almighty State of Florida to process and accept my application to become a licensed mortgage broker. It’s been two weeks with no progress. It’s maddening how slowly these bureaucracies move. It’s amazing that anything gets done at all. Doing business with the government has to be the most inefficient, mind-numbing exercise known to man.

Anyways, back to bed for me. I’m fighting a cold, and it’s going to be a quick fight.

snafu

As you may know, Kai has been “backed-up” for several days now. Well, today he got all caught up. Over six times, today alone. It was one for the record books, at least.

As you can see, we have started Kai on the sippy-cup — which he was a natural at. Thanks to Marty for getting Kai his first sippy-cup.

Now to the meat of the matter. Today, at our casually-sophisticated restaurant, the computers crashed at closing time, meaning all the guests who were waiting for their checks got a free meal. Lucky them. It also means that we did not get our money and have to wait for the geek squad to fix it up and give us our money. It was an interesting night, to say the least.

On another interesting note, two of my fellow team members just had a baby together. She’s super cute and only a couple weeks old. We’ll call the mom “J” and the dad “K.” This early evening, J came in to pick up her paycheck, while K was working. Enter, area-manager, “D.” Of course, a newborn baby tends to attract attention at a workplace. It’s natural. It’s a beautiful thing. Well, area-manager D pulls father K outside and basically tells him that mother J should not bring baby Emma into the restaurant as she is too distracting for the staff, and from a business aspect he doesn’t like that we are all friends at work. Father K, being one of the original team members with the company, tells area-manager D that he’s crazy, and if his employees are not doing their job, it’s not daddy’s problem.

Now, I understand where area-manager D is coming from. He’s a by-the-book, business-is-war kind of guy. But god help him if it was my son and he told me not to bring him in the restaurant. I’m so disappointed right now. How could this organization, that was built upon the values of Respect, Integrity, Courage, Excellence, and Teamwork allow someone like this to rise to a leadership position? Doesn’t teamwork thrive on friendship? Is mother J not entitled to pick up her paycheck? Should mother J have to arrange for a babysitter just so she can pick up said paycheck? Or should she leave the baby unattended in the car while she picks up her paycheck? Or should she just forgo her paycheck for the business’ sake? What happened to the our company’s soul? Thank god mortgage school is coming up.

bathtime at the apollo

I think we made it through. Kai’s fever seems to have disappeared, and touching his left ear no longer produces blood-curdling screams. I suppose that this coming Friday we’ll have to restart the cry-it-out-phase of his sleeping routine. Wish us luck, again.

As for what calmed down his intense earache — willow/garlic oil drops from Whole Foods. Worked like magic. Today, Kai experienced prunes and oatmeal for the first time. We’ve discovered that he hasn’t found a food yet that he doesn’t like. I’m very curious about whether or not his tolerance for spicy foods will be similar to ours.

Today I got to meet my friend Kenny’s baby girl, Emma Rayne. Emma is two-weeks old, and was born about a month premature. Her current weight is two-pounds less than Kai’s birth weight. When I first saw her, I was trying to picture Kai at her size, but after a minute I realized Kai was never her size. He’s always been big for his age. Emma was so small and precious — I remember when Kai was her age — eyes closed and sleeping all the time. It seems like it was so long ago.

fever revisited

Kai woke up today at the YMCA and began screaming. The counselors had just gotten him calmed down when we came to pick him up. He seemed kind of hot, and on the long, crying-filled ride home, his temperature rose steadily. By the time we got home and got a dose of baby Tylenol into him he was 101°F. Needless to say, he was not happy. He hasn’t been that unhappy since he was a newborn. While he had a slight fever on Wednesday, the day of his HIB vaccination, he was fine the past two days.

It was hard to leave for work knowing that he wasn’t feeling well. Plus, in my research I’ve read of many cases of vaccinations gone horribly wrong — out of control fevers leading to permanent brain damage or worse. There is also an all-too-coincidental correlation between the autism rate, ADD rate and when the current practice of combining multiple vaccinations for convenience. Not that vaccines aren’t helpful in most cases, but the current standard of one-size-fits-all-immunization-program doesn’t make sense. Throwing multiple lab-modified “weakened” diseases at a two-month old baby at one time doesn’t make sense to me.

We have decided to immunize Kai slowly over time, with our doctor’s help to decide which vaccines to do at what time. As it is, he’s only getting one vaccine at a time. I can’t imagine how shitty he would feel if he had multiple immunizations right now. This one single HIB vaccine is making his fever race four days later by itself.

My point is, all too often we just accept what our doctors say without questioning them or their motives. We would like to think that they are selflessly looking out for us. I invite you to consider that modern medicine does not always have the answer, and sometimes we find out later that the previously-accepted answer is now unacceptable by current standards. Question assumptions.

Moving along, Kai’s temperature is currently under control, the last report I received was that he was down to 99°F. He’s sleeping quite peacefully now. Tonight was supposed to be the second night our let-him-cry-it-out project, but I think he deserves a little bit of extra cuddling tonight. I think we all do.

fever

Kai received his very first vaccination shot today at his six-month doctor visit. Erin and I both braced for the very worst: a repeat of the time when we had to get his bilirubin levels checked at the hospital. He screamed bloody murder that day six months prior, and sent our blood pressure through the roof. We were expecting the very worst today.

Kai didn’t even respond at first. The nurse quickly delivered the serum and as she withdrew the needle, he just grunted, and went back to laughing and smiling. About an hour and a half later he became very lethargic (even for a baby!) and took a long, deep nap. When he woke up, he was clearly flushed and hot. The doctor warned us about this, so while we weren’t worried, Kai was unhappy. Grumpy, actually. We stopped and picked up some baby Tylenol to bring his fever down — let me just tell you that within an hour he was back to his usual happy self.

Erin and I have determined that this Friday will be the day that we teach Kai how to fall asleep on his own. Like we all do, he wakes up in the middle of the night. Starting Friday, he’s going to learn how to go back to sleep on his own. We have to let him cry it out. I know that I could not handle it without help — I’m investing in high-quality earplugs and perhaps a Tylenol PM. Wish us luck.

six months

To celebrate his six month mark, Kai gave me not one, but two hugely stinky diapers. The infamous bite mark is almost completely gone now. My parents came home yesterday from their annual sabbatical in Thailand. To mark the six-month anniversary, I figured I’d post a snarky list of Kai-related tidbits for you to enjoy and for him to be mortified with in 15 years.

— As of this morning, Kai weighed approximately 19.75 pounds.
— He pretty much will only fall asleep if he’s being held by one of us.
— Yes, he does sleep through the night. The problem is that his bedtime starts at 7pm.
— Which means he wakes up at 3am.
— Nap time is a beautiful thing.
— Kai lets anyone hold him. As long as he’s being held and coddled, he’s loving it.
— Make sure you always have baby wipes. This we know.

Our friends Robin and Lisa just got a new hot tub the other day. That is, Robin and Lisa just got Kai a new hot tub the other day. He just lets them keep it at their house.

Isaac brought home his progress report today. Unfortunately, Isaac let his math grade slip. Today was the first time that I have ever grounded anyone. It was an unusual experience. I had a face to face conversation with Isaac and explained the why he was being punished and we negotiated the terms of the punishment. I think we reached a fair agreement. It’s certainly more lenient than any grounding I’ve ever been subjected to. My how things have changed...