The Child Grows

Each and every day I see the child grows more and more and it absolutely fascinates me seeing it all happen.

Now for those of you who don't know, I'm a first-time parents and so if any of you already have children of your own or don't have children at all, then you may not know what I'm talking about. For everybody else out there reading this, as my dear Isabelle gets ever closer to being two years old, she's learning so much so quickly it's absolutely amazing to see.

Just yesterday I very clearly heard her saying the words "brush teeth" together even though she wouldn't say it upon request in front of Carley, BUT I KNOW SHE DID! Currently she is able to repeat almost anything said as the last word in a sentence and I think she's JUST starting reeeeeally put two words together as she says more and more words on her own without any prompting. She's got a few opposites such as up and down confused sometimes, but other than that her language seems to be right on the edge of starting to say whole phrases at one time. Just a few days ago I got her saying "Oh man". (She's really good at that one.)

I imagine life is a bit difficult for her at this time with trying to learn so many things all at one time. She's been constantly learning new language skills as well as learning to climb and colour and trying to learn to use the potty. We've also started using a consistent timeout method with her which seems to have her all rattled now that mom and dad are both on the same page with not letting her get away with things... even if mom doesn't like it so much.

At this point, with her birthday being only a little over a week away, I'm looking forward to seeing all the possible new changes that are coming over the next year to see where things go from here... hopefully with more cuddles in the future as well.


~ Kyle Welykholowa

Puppy Training

     For anybody who has never trained a puppy, they can be a complete pain to deal with. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love our dog, but he has been sooooooooo annoying for us to deal with at times. Usually he's pretty good for us, but he loves to bite as I would imagine most dogs do before they learn not to.

     Now some of you out there might meet Furgle and think, "How could he be a pain? He's such a sweetheart!" Well, don't let him fool you! He's actually a tiny terrorizing monster at all other points in time. Okay, maybe I'm over exaggerating a bit. He's actually not that bad when he isn't biting us all the time. We've recently started using a spray bottle whenever he starts biting to get his attention and get him to stop. He's not the biggest fan of water and to be honest, we're not really complaining about it. He's learning quickly what it means and hasn't been biting nearly as much as before.

     As for house-training him, he's been pretty good with that so far as well. He doesn't really seem to get HOW to tell us he needs to go outside yet and rather stops pretty quickly and just starts peeing... but at least he's learned to pee and poop on the pad (mostly) rather than anywhere in the kitchen. Probably in about a month from now he should be big enough to hold his waste long enough to train him to only go outside (mostly). He's progressing well I think and he seems like a pretty smart dog to me, so we'll see how long it takes him to learn everything we need to teach him. I'm looking forward to him being calm and mature enough to actually teach him some proper commands and things.

     With one solution comes another problem though. This problem isn't really a HUGE deal though compared to the issues that are possible with a dog. Furgle has... started to hump everything. Oh goodie.... I have to admit, it's a little bit funny, but I suppose it's not exactly something that I'd like him doing to things or people in public. He'll surely calm down once he gets fixed as most dogs do. We have no plans to breed any dogs, so I don't think that will be an issue at all. I'm sure just a little bit of persistence will get him to stop in no time. He usually picks up on things pretty quickly so I'm hoping we won't have too many issues with the coming baby on the way.

     So far, best Christmas present ever! ^_^

~ Kyle Welykholowa

Better Than Bottom of the Barrel.

     I've just started a new job two weeks ago. So far, I think it's fantastic; I get to answer phones and enter hours and do whatever other office things and such. It's pretty fun for me so far. There's a lot to learn already which is pretty overwhelming, but I'm sure I can survive and continue here for quite a while. I think the most trouble I'm having so far is that we don't have a proper trainer. I do think we're learning things pretty well, but we're actually supposed to have a mentor to shadow us for some time rather than an associate who also has to keep up with her own work.

     Regardless of that, I feel like I'm capable of doing what is needed of me so far. I think it's really just a matter of doing the work on a regular basis and getting to know how everything works. I think in time, things will make more and more sense as I use the system, solve problems and complete required tasks. Everything seems to be quite organized around here, I just have to learn where everything is.

     I'm looking forward to continuing to work here in the future and learning to do a great job of what they need. It really makes me happy to finally be working somewhere that pays more than minimum wage and rather than being an atmosphere of "do everything faster", it's an atmosphere of "do what you need to please the customer" (even if it takes an hour). At least... that's what it seems like to me.

     Both excitement and overwhelmed nervousness flow throughout me right now. I need to figure out how to properly reallocate my time so that I don't feel so rushed and short on time. I think the future looks good.

Have a wonderful day everybody! ^_^

~ Kyle

    

Sometimes it's just a short post about my thoughts.

     I've been told that people like reading my thoughts even if it's just something simple. So much so, that I should make a post every day, even if it's on nothing of interest. Well... I'll try to have something interesting to think about as often as possible. I can't promise having something to post about every day. Nor can I promise to have something interesting to think about on those days that I do post something. But I can make an effort to write more posts.

     I've thought about this a lot actually. If only I could be paid to write about my thoughts every day. Well... in theory... I COULD... but if that did happen, it would certainly take work and time. Not that that's a bad thing. I have a fantasy of finding something to enjoy doing every day and making money at it. Being successful at something I've created myself rather than being successful at a job that someone else came up with. I thought it was just a want to be a famous streamer or something... but after giving it some thought I realize that it's not just about a silly idea of playing games for a living... if I could play games, or write about things, or make artwork for a living and get paid for it... I think I would be really happy. I think it's that old creative me wanting to come out again.

     I used to be really creative. One of my best creations was a ship made out of popsicle sticks which I'll show a picture of. I've also had a couple drawings and paintings that I was really proud of that I unfortunately never got any pictures of and have been lost to the depths of moving multiple times. So now that I've had this time to think about things to myself, I have a better understanding of myself. Every time something new and significant happens, learn something new about myself and think that I must know all there is to know about me. And yet... I keep learning more about myself with every event. I'm a creative person. I know this... I just forgot about it.

     How can you forget about being creative? I know... it seems so silly that THAT could be possible; to forget something so significant about yourself. But when I think about it... it's not just something that I'm coming up with to try to be an interesting person. I'm not just making up stories to try to cope with having a crummy month earlier. I've done creative things that I've been proud of and others have recognized me for in the past. When I was a child, I used to play games with my friends that were all in our imagination. I loved being in impov in highschool. My favourite classes were the ones where we got to make funny videos and things. And heck, I still play table top games by myself, just because I think it's fun to think about everything going on even if it's on my own.

     I guess a person forgets about these kinds of things when being in school and worrying about money makes you think that you have to fit into some kind of cookie-cutter 9-5 job. I've tried really hard to understand these things and fit in and set myself up to be a guy with a good job and everything absolutely average and normal and all that. I think what really gave me this realization was watching a stream recently. LethalFrag gave this wonderful speech which really makes sense and I took to heart. He said, "If you don't like what you're doing, you're not going to enjoy your life. So find something you like to do, and do it. If you like cleaning and want to be a janitor for the rest of your life, be a janitor!" It's so simple. I don't know exactly what I want to do for the rest of my life, but I do know that I want it to be something creative.

     Alright... so this wasn't quite as short as I thought it was going to be. Enjoy everybody and have a great day! ^_^

~ Kyle

Understanding how to Learn.

     So I got an assignment for a class last week that was presented online as a recorded video due to my teacher not being there for that class. I found it much easier to follow along with what was going on because any time I missed something I was able to pause the video or rewind it and catch up. It makes me think about a couple things.

     First, I wonder if I would be doing a lot better if I were able to go over all my lessons as a video that I were able to pause and rewind... I'm thinking of buying a large SD card to put into my phone so I can record all my classes. I think I would then find it much easier to understand everything outside of class if I were able to go over the lesson as though it were happening again. Not to mention I think that actually might be a much easier way of keeping all my classes organized. I'd be able to upload them all onto my computer and rename them as their lesson names in the proper order. The more and more I think about this, the more I actually like the idea. I do in fact believe that is what I'm going to do next semester. Record everything using my phone. Yeah, definitely.

     Second, I think.... actually I don't remember what I was thinking of secondly. I probably just went over it because of how much I like the idea previously as I was typing it out. So I guess that's what I'm going to do next semester. So long as I'm allowed to, that's what I'm going to do. That way I'll be able to pay full attention to the lesson rather than furiously writing down notes as I go along, hoping to keep up and somehow understand what needs to be done at a later point in time.

     So now I understand what I need to do next semester to be more successful.

~ Kyle