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Then you have to teach it to be quiet.

Our kids are talking a lot these days. A lot of their speech is combined with sign language that we began teaching them when they were newborns, and now at almost 19 months they’re picking it up like crazy. They’ve been talking for a while now in single-word statements, but lately their vocabulary has really gathered momentum. We’ve been writing down things as they say them, and so far they know over 50 words and signs. I have to give a lot of credit to the signing — it really gave them an early aptitude for language that I believe they might not have had otherwise.

Tonight we witnessed a bit of a milestone. I was giving the kids their bath and towards the end they were starting to look like prunes but didn’t want to get out of the tub. I told them I was going to drain the tub and when the water was all gone they’d have to get out. They watched the water disappear down the drain, but then when it was finally gone they both got upset.

My daughter looked up at me. “Waa?” she asked and made the sign for ‘water‘.

“Water all done,” I said, making the signs for ‘water‘ and ‘all done‘.

Then she held out her hands with the palms up while shrugging her shoulders and asked “where waa all done?” She made the signs back at me, looking very upset that the water had all disappeared.

“The water is all done, sweetheart,” I said. “It went down the drain, down to the ocean. It went bye-bye like when Daddy takes out the garbage.”

She looked into the empty tub, staring at the drain almost wistfully. “Waa all done down garbage,” she said. “Bye bye.”

Then it hit me — My daughter just made a sentence! I’m having my first real conversation with her!

She spent the next 20 minutes in complete turmoil over the fact that waa was all done and had gone down garbage. We had to repeatedly reassure her that it had gone to a better place and would come back to visit some day.

Today my daughter pointed to Bill Clinton’s autobiography in the bookcase and said “Da Da!”

I think it’s time to start dyeing my hair.

I feel like my life is finally heading in the right direction again.

Taking the past month off was definitely a good thing for me, but now I’m ready to get back to business. A local consulting firm has made me a generous offer to join them as their Vice President, so I’m going back to work.

Tomorrow I drive to my new job in my new car with a new perspective. And a new pair of pants.

My son got a special package in the mail today… It’s a replica of the stuffed tiger Hobbes from the Calvin & Hobbes comic strip.

Continue reading “Calvin and Hobbes.” »

I have reached a point in my existence where I have to pick a new direction.

I find myself at the beginning of a new year feeling very reflective about the preceding one. A lot happened for me in 2006, much of it good and a fair amount not so good. As I look back, I realize that drastic measures are needed and something has to give.

With that in mind, I gave two weeks notice and quit my job yesterday. I’ve saved a little money and have decided to take the next month or two off, a hiatus of sorts. I’m not sure what I’m going to do with myself during this time or what I’m going to do for work after that. For now I just want to spend some time with my lovely wife and my beautiful children, do some writing, work on my music, hit the gym a few hours a day, finish some projects around the house, and just generally decompress. I need to revitalize, rediscover and reinvent the man that I am until I have finished the transformation into the man I want to be. It’s long overdue and my soul desperately needs the time. I will genuinely miss all the wonderful people I worked with and I sincerely wish them well as I head off towards a new horizon.

So now I’m on a new road. I’ve taken steps to remove things, people and situations from my life that are bad for me or otherwise cause me pain. I’ve cut them from my life completely, excised them like a cancer, added salt to the earth behind me. The path ahead of me is seeded with hope and opportunity. And bad metaphors.

I don’t know what’s waiting for me down the road, but that’s half the fun of life. Mystery is the special additive that turns a journey into an adventure.

Whee.