I spent four hours on Thursday with Jerry at his new pre-school, Nadeshiko Kids, which is run out of the home of our former mid-wife. Jerry consistently put toys in his mouth - which resulted in the toys being gently removed and washed. Sachiko recommend that we consider giving Jerry a pacifier so that he can fulfill his need to chew and learn that the toys themselves are not appropriate for chewing on.
As I continue to adjust to life as a married man, as a father, and as an employee with signficant responsibility (all of which have happened in the last two years) I find myself slowly making peace with the new definition of “my time.”
In light of my recent realization, I’ve set some new, reasonable goals for myself:
Progress, of the best kind, is comparatively slow. Great results cannot be achieved at once; and we must be satisfied to advance in life as we walk, step by step.
- Samuel Smiles
I find myself often engaged in thought, creating a blog entry in my head - far more often than not, that entry never sees the light of day. When I discover how to turn thoughts into actions, I will be SO much more productive…
Which brings me to another topic I’ve been thinking quite a bit about lately (or on and off for the last 5 years, if you check out the history…) - how to make more time for the things I consider important. As I become more aware of my own actions and how certain choices lead to others, I am starting to narrow in on the simple fact that I haven’t clearly defined what is important. There is a long litany of items that I “want” to do, or “need” to do, and I end up making time for little of them and feeling frustrated by it - because there are simply too many.
This has been a bad week for sleeping. Jerry had a fever last weekend, so he didn’t sleep well on Saturday night. That led to Eriko and I sleeping poorly and being a little short with each other. I had Jerry for the day, so he had lots of time to share his cold with me.
Then comes Sunday night - Jerry couldn’t sleep well and neither could I. I spent most of the night holding him in one position or another and probably got about 2 hours of sleep, at best. There has only been one night this week where I had 6 hours of sleep (and they weren’t interrupted, of course.) The average has probably been more like 4.
“what’s the key to success?” - “two words: good decisions.” “what’s the key to good decisions?” - “one word: experience.” “how do i get experience?” - “two words: bad decisions.”
On Tuesday, I was watching a Mariner’s game and Jerry happened to come sit on my lap. He watched a bit before something caught his eye. He stared for a bit longer and then it dawned on him - “poi!” he said. (Poi is Japanese for throw.)
Jerry had realized that the pitcher was throwing the ball to the catcher. We spent the next 10 minutes watching the game - with Jerry and I both noting when “poi” happened. Then Jerry hopped up, ran over to where my baseball mitt and ball were (on the shelf) and pointed at it - “boh boh” (ball).
