Home With Baby

At long last, we were able to come home with Nolan today. The Nurses and Doctors were satisfied enough with his 4% weight gain on Monday that they felt comfortable letting us go home. That's where it all begins.

I know deep down that this is one of the happiest times of my life right now. There is nothing I like more than sitting with Nolan while he's asleep or while he's awake taking in the world around him, but I can't help but have these thoughts of horror. I worry constantly that he's not eating enough, or that we're feeding him too much, or the wrong way. This poor guy has absolutely no way to communicate with us other than cry.

Ever since I can remember, I've always felt and acted very grown up. I always pictured myself getting married, buying a house and having kids, etc..., but I never really understood what a daunting task that raising a child really is.

I found myself on one of the first nights absolutely distraught over something that had happened with Nolan and all I could do was cry. I'm trying my best to be there in every way for Natasha, but there are times when I wish I could be somewhere else being someone else.

Please don't read this and think that I'm going off the deep end here. This is something that we will surely get through and most assuredly look back and laugh at.

Yesterday we finally figured out a system of feeding him. It didn't always work to perfection, but it rarely strayed too far from the plan. We got him home this afternoon and started a feed shortly thereafter, everything went fine. The second time we tried to feed, he started giving us problems and we could not figure out what the cause was.

He eventually calmed down and ate for a short amount of time. These are the type of feeds that scare me, the ones that seem to be going so well just to come to a short and unexpected end. I begin stressing immediately about his food intake and start picturing in my head the nights when he wasn't getting any food at all and all we could do was cry with him because we didn't know what to do.

The only thing that seems to stay with me is the overwhelming thought that if I don't make the right choices I could ruin him forever, that is what I think scares me the most. There is such an emotional high and low when it comes to being a parent. I feel completely helpless when he cries and I can't figure out why, but on the flip side, I feel such a sense of relief when Natasha tells me that he has a good latch and is feeding well. It's sometimes almost too much to deal with at once.

I love Natasha and Nolan with all of my heart, I've even found some heart I didn't know I had and loved them with that too. I am just in total fear of causing irreparable harm.

This is truly one of the scariest and happiest moments in my life.

Sleepless in Hamilton

So, it has been 3 days since Nolan was born and we haven't had a great night's sleep yet. This isn't anything unexpected as far as sleep goes, we were expecting some interrupted nights. What we weren't counting on is him staying up ALL night. We didn't get any sleep at all on Saturday night, we were up the whole time. Last night was a little bit better, but we still only managed a couple of hours each.

What I have been doing the last couple of days is having Diane (Natasha's Mom) come down in the morning to look after Nolan so I can go home and get some shut-eye and at the same time, Natasha doesn't have to worry about him, so she can sleep too.

The problem with this is that I feel like such a heel when I leave.

I can handle a lot of things in a lot of different circumstances, but for whatever reason, I can't seem to focus on being positive with Natasha & Nolan when I'm exhausted. I try my best to keep my absences to a minimum amount of time, I really do want to be there for Natasha.

The other upsetting thing that we are dealing with is Nolan's constant weight loss. To date, he has lost 10.3% of this birth weight and the Hospital will not let us go home until he can at the very least maintain or even gain some weight.

This would be an easier task if it were not for a couple of problems. First, Natasha delivered via C-Section, this means that her body didn't get a chance to secrete all of the necessary hormones that signal the breastmilk to start flowing. Secondly, Nolan is absolutely miserable to try and feed late at night. He gets really restless and does little else, but cry.

We are hoping and praying that when the Nurses weigh him tomorrow morning that he will have stopped and hopefully even reversed his weight loss so we can take him home. And hopefully Natasha can start producing more breastmilk today so we can have him eating more frequently and therefore theoretically gain some weight.

I hope that the next blog I write is one telling you that he gained a bunch of weight and that he's safe and sound at home. We'll see.

Finally

Well, it finally happened. After 41 weeks of waiting, yesterday at 8:34am a 7lb 11oz young man came into our lives and changed them forever. Nolan Dennis Chester Cleroux is a beautiful baby that is loved by everyone he knows (and even ones he doesn't yet), especially his Mommy and Daddy.

His Daddy though is absolutely terrified. I am not the type that is easily intimidated by anyone, except Nolan. I have never really had someone that was totally and completely dependent on me for everything. About 45 minutes after he was born, the L&D Nurse got us to start breastfeeding, that went alright for the first try I guess. After we got into the Maternity Ward we had to feed again, this was a total disaster.

Nolan was not able to latch correctly which was upsetting him quite a bit which in turn was upsetting us. He did nothing but cry and cry and cry and all we could do was try to get him to latch on and eat something. After the ordeal, I went for a bit of a walk as I had not seen daylight since 4:30 yesterday morning (I guess there isn't daylight at 4:30 so technically I hadn't seen it at all). When I got back up to the room the Nurse had taken Nolan to the Nursery so Natasha could get some rest. I took advantage of this time as well.

Although Natasha could sleep, every baby in that Ward sounded like Nolan to me so every time one would cry, I would jolt me out of whatever pre-sleep I was in. Every time I heard a cry I felt the need to go into the Nursery and check on him. Every time I went though, he was happy as a clam sleeping the afternoon away.

We had a ton of visitors yesterday, just bout everyone from either side made their way in at one time or another. Nolan was surprisingly calm for newborn being passed around countless times in a very short period of time.

Before I left for the evening, Natasha decided that she needed to get up and walk around a bit. She had just gotten a C-Section less than 12 hours ago and she is already itching to get up and walk around? I guess. So, I took Nolan to the Nursery so we could do some walking in the room without disturbing him. We walked back and forth for about 45 minutes, practiced getting onto and out of a chair, into and out of bed and such.

I left the hospital around 8:30 and went home to go to bed, I was exhausted. I went to bed after sending a quick E-Mail to all of my friends and family to officially announce the birth. I was asleep before I even hit the pillow.

I got up this morning and Matt (who stayed over last night) yelled down that Natasha had texted him that she needed me 'right now'. I called her in a panic thinking the worst. She said that she just wanted me to bring a few things from home and that she wanted me to help her shower. Apparently Nolan threw up last night, but is doing OK now. So, here I go for Day #2 of fatherhood.

Wish me luck.

Baby Name

We finally did it, we agreed on a suitable name for the baby. His name will be Nolan Dennis Albert Cleroux. He will be named after both of our Grandfathers. We're excited that we've moved through this crucial step in the process and can now focus on getting everything ready for Nolan when he arrives in late June/early July. That's all for now.

Roller Coaster

So, things are going pretty well for me right now. I just keep getting these days when I feel like I have become nothing but a complete failure in life. I look at the people around me that have finished school and have gone on to work at their dream job somewhere, and feel like I'm just sitting here watching life pass me by.

Now, I don't feel like hanging myself off of the shower bar if that's the impression I'm giving, I just feel down sometimes, that's all. My wife has been incredible through all of this, she's been really patient and understanding when I just need some time to myself.

Hopefully, things will turn around and something will happen. I guess I just need to go out and make it happen.

Never Judge A Book By Its Cover

Have you seen it yet? On the UK version of 'America's Got Talent', Simon Cowel is one of the Judges, and he's as harsh to the Brits as he is to Americans.

An older lady waled onto the stage looking as out of place as anything and exclaimed that she was there to become a star. Simon, and both other Judges for that matter, laughed and joked that because she looked the way she did, there's no way that she could sound like a star.

Apparently she's never been kissed, never had a boyfriend or anything like that.

Simon 'allowed' her to sing anyways, and when she did, they kept the camera on Simon and you could actually see his mouth drop as she began to sing. She was absolutely amazing!

When she was done, the crowd roared in approval of her performance and something strange happened, every single one of the Judges apologized profusely for their preconceived notions of what she was going to sound like...even Simon. It was even funny that when the Judges were giving their apologies, they still kept the camera on Simon, he had this look on his face of sheer disbelief, that's the only way to describe it. Although he put his own little twist on it, it did seem heartfelt.

I've included the link to the video below, watch it and see for yourself.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=luRmM1J1sfg

Finally...

It has happened, after 5 years of plugging away in this business, I have finally been rewarded with my own store.

Effective this coming Monday, I will take control of the Burlington North location. Now, it's a relatively new store, so it poses some real pros and cons.

First the Pros:

It's a newer store, nicely finished.
It's a relatively young staff.
The previous Manager sucked, a low threshold of success
With the growing volume being put out, that means lots of bonuses
More money

Now the Cons:

The staff have been notoriously lazy
They're a relatively low volume store, only about $1,200,000
It's a complete unknown (the people and the area)

Other than those few things, I think that this is going to be a really exciting time for me. I've worked long and hard for this and I've finally made it. Now it's time to start looking for that District Manager job. There's no rest for the wicked I guess.

Pro Wrestling, A New Career?

So, I've decided to join a gym to get into better shape. I found this gym that offers Pro Wrestling training. My best friend Steve and I are wrestling fans so I figured that it might be a good way for us to get into shape. The first class was on Saturday night, the evening progressed as follows:

First, it was next to impossible to find the damn place, it was set back behind some warehouses just off of Barton St. I finally figure out how to get into this place and when I got inside, I discovered that it was a storage room for old manufacturing equipment. Half of it was filled with crap, and on the other side stood a wrestling ring.

I got changed and jumped into the ring with three other rookies (all smaller than me) along with the trainer (also smaller than me).

He started us off easy, teaching us how to take a proper 'bump' also known as a fall. This was pretty easy as it was the same as the karate training we got when we were kids. He started us off sitting, just to get the motions right. We were supposed to just fall back with our arms spread out. That was the easiest part of the night.

The trainer then told us to stand up and try falling from our knees, again, not too bad.

Next we all got a turn in the middle of the ring to fall backwards from our feet. That started to hurt.

I feel the need to explain what exactly I was falling onto. A wrestling ring is a solid metal structure with a plywood floor covered in 3/4" foam for 'support'. The middle of the ring is also supported by a spring, so the whole floor moves up and down.

After we perfected the art of falling, he then taught us how to 'hit the ropes'. Basically we would run back and forth in the ring bouncing off of the ropes. Before we started he explained to us that the ropes weren't actually rope, they were 1" steel cable wrapped in electrical tape. I have a 1" wide bruise all across my back from the 'ropes'.

He then decided that we needed to learn how to clothesline someone. A clothesline is just that, you run at a guy and stick your arm out straight and knock him over with it. The trainer decided that he was going to use me as the victim for this demonstration.

He told me that he was going to run at me and that when I felt his arm touch my chest that I was supposed to 'bump', a.k.a. fall as realistically as possible. Keep in mind, he's a real Pro Wrestler, so clearly he went on auto pilot at this very moment.

He hit the ropes and ran at me looking like he thought I just punched his mother in the face. Now, a normal person would just move out of the way if someone came at you like this, I tried.

I 'bumped' early and instead of his arm hitting my chest, it hit me square in he chin. Now, when you 'bump' properly, you're supposed to tuck your chin into your chest so that you don't hit the back of your head on the mat when you drop. Because he hit me in the chin, my head was arched backwards and it was the first thing to hit the ground.

He then asked me if I was OK, I said yes. He then said, "...did you see what you did wrong there?" The whole time I was thinking, "...yeah, I walked in the door."

So, here I sit, 48 hours removed from one of the most horrific experiences of my life. I hurt in places that I didn't even know I had...my new career as a Professional Wrestler up in smoke, and all my loving, supportive mother can do is laugh her butt off as I'm telling this story to her.

I need some Advil.

Feeling Beat Up

I have a boss that has absolutely no people skills whatsoever. He feels the need to latch onto things and pick at you about them until you feel like hanging yourself, I've had two of these occasions this passed week.

Like the fool that I am, when he's like this, I just take it for what it's worth, but when a couple of the guys at the store told be that they didn't like seeing me as depressed as I was, I went to Bill, the store manager, and told him how I felt. Now, he feels for our DM the way that I feel, so I really know what I was going to hear before Bill even said anything.

I came to work on Friday, still feeling quite down and uninspired when I get a call from my DM. He basically apologized for the last couple of conversations that we've had and told me that he was only being tough on me because I was the best and brightest in the region and that I was next in line to get my own store. So, in whatever twisted way, I guess it made me feel better.

The only downfall to being next in line is that I might be asked to move again. As a matter of fact, he came down on Friday afternoon and wanted to know my 'radius' for any positions that may come up...but that's a different blog for a different time.

...Back Home

Once upon a time, there was a young Assistant Manager who was just starting out. He was naieve and believed just about anything people would tell him. He was working in one of the largest stores on Southern Ontario, and was on the fast track to making it big. Although he would work in many stores since then, the people and the location would always be near and dear to his heart.

Well, effective January 13th, I went home. I'm now back in the Hamilton area as the Assistant Manager in the Stoney Creek store. Now, granted, I'm a little more jaded and far less naieve, but it's still great to be 'home'. I didn't find out until after I started back at the store, but the Manager, Bill, asked for me by name to come and be his Assistant. It was really nice to know that someone liked me enough to ask for me by name.

Now, on a side note, the tool that they had as the Assistant Manager in St.Catharines quit because she was going to be moved to a much smaller volume store. Too bad, eh? It wasn't until after she quit that the District Manager told us that it was a mistake to hire her (I could have told him that long ago).

Bus oh well, I'm happy to be back, the people are great and so is the drive, it's less than 15 minutes from door to door. My bank account is also much happier because I'm no longer filling up every 3 days. And at almost $1.00/litre, that's the best news of all.

The New Blog

Finally, my first post since September 10th. I guess it's been a while since I've had something to say...not!!! Just the first time I've had the time to sit in front of my computer for longer than 2 minutes to check my E-Mail.

All is well in my world, we've launched a new department at the Church. The Bethel Media Department will one day be a fully independent Media and Advertising Department for the Church. They have some very lofty goals for the Department, but have a ton of money to throw at it...when we can prove the merit of the whole thing.

We met last month to lay out the 1, 3, 5 and 10 year plans for the department, and the whole thing is extremely exciting. They hope to stream live broadcasts of the services on the Internet within 2 years, and go to a T.V. Broadcast within 7-10 years. We're also spending millions on a new adult lifestyle condominium complex, as well as building a new, state-of-the-art sanctuary and worship centre. It's really neat to be on the 'ground floor' of something and be able to look back on it decades from now and say, "...I was there at the beginning."

At my age, I've never been able to say something like that before. I'm looking forward to moving forward with these exciting initiatives, who knows where it will take me?

One Good Thing To Know

I know I haven't 'blogged' much lately, but today I felt the itch to type again. I got an E-Mail from a good friend of mine, she told me what her father had just passed away after a long battle with cancer. Reading that brought back a whole bunch of memories that I would rather not remember, but nevertheless, there they were all over again.

I started thinking about cancer and why it has to do what it does to people, and I know I remember thinking that this is such an evil thing, all I wanted the cancer to to was die.

Then I had a rather sudden realization, it has. Even though it had to take someone with it, that tumor has died, it will never again harm another human being. So, however twisted the victory may have been, I can now count three cancers that will never again harm another human being. And for whatever reason, that gives me some sort of a feeling of victory, although there are some people I'd rather be sharing a laugh with, rather than a victory without them.

This stuff still sucks.

Shell

I've been confronted once again with the mortality of us all. I know I'm at a point in my life where this sort of thing will happen from time to time, but when it does happen, you're never prepared for it.

I lost my Grandfather a little over two years ago to cancer. It was heart wrenching to go and see him deteriorate like he did, he almost became a shell of his former self. I'm now doing it all over again with my step-father. He was first diagnosed with kidney cancer about a year and a half ago, and had one of his kidneys removed that Christmas. He has since been battling more tumors in various places throughout his body.

We were just told today that he will be sent home to be cared for as there is nothing more that can be done for him at the hospital. They're basically sending him home to die. I can't help but think that this is so unfair! He's only 48 years old, in the prime of his life, and now has been reduced to nothing.

I remember meeting him for the first time when he and my mom started dating, he seemed like a nice guy, but I didn't want anything to do with him. Now, almost 10 years later, I think of him as my father...he helped raise me and is a big part of who I am today. I've always been the type of person who wanted to fix things for people, this is why when I see him lying in a hospital bed, it kills me to not be able to fix him. I want so badly for him to just get up and walk out like nothing ever happened, for him to just go back to making his crude jokes and rotten stories. I know that my 'Change Oil' light is due to come on anytime now, and I don't know where I'm going to take it, David has always been my go-to guy for things like that.

Sometimes when life is going so well for so long, these sort of things just blindside you. I know that between now and whenever, there will be many tears shed. I know up to this point I haven't always been able to keep it together, but it helps to know what David would have told us..." Suck it up sissy! Quit your belly-achin' ".

Just In Case You Were Interested...

'Nicholas' means...

From the Greek name Νικολαος (Nikolaos) which meant "victory of the people" from Greek νικη (nike) "victory" and λαος (laos) "people". Saint Nicholas was a 4th-century bishop from Anatolia who, according to legend, saved the daughters of a poor man from lives of prostitution. He is also known as Santa Claus (from Dutch Sinterklaas), the bringer of Christmas presents. He is the patron saint of children, sailors and merchants, and Greece and Russia. Nicholas was also the name of two czars of Russia and five popes.

I bolded that one word because of its significance. The Patron Saint of Sailors and Merchants. See, Sailing and Selling were in me from the beginning!

These are my Kids, Billy, Jane, Thomas and '4real'

Yup, you read it right. There is a couple in New Zealand that want to name their child '4real'...no joke. They said that they were so struck by the sight of the baby on the ultrasound that they felt that they needed the child to know how they felt...for the rest of his life.

Their reasoning is that whenever you give a name to someone, the name means something. If you want to know what your name means, then you have to go through the process of looking it up in the name dictionary...oh, how hard that must be for some people. They figured that if they named their child '4real' then the child would always know that something was indeed '4real'.

The Government thus far has blocked the naming of the child stating that a name cannot begin with a number. So, right now, the parents and the New Zealand Government are in negotiations to come to terms with the naming of this kid. The Government won't out and out reject the name yet, but for this kid's sake, I hope they do.

If the two sides can't come to an agreement by July 9th, the child will be registered under the name 'real'. Under New Zealand law, no child can go without a name for more than 60 days after birth, so they're really under the gun to get this kid a normal name.

Why would you want to name your kid, '4real'? This simply makes no sense at all, but hey, who am I to judge...right?

Home Shopping

It is probably the most humbling experience one can have, when you start shopping for your first home. Natasha and I started looking around for a nice place to live, somewhere on the mountain preferably.

But whichever house we seem to look at, they're all like a million dollars. We're looking to spend $160,000 - $18o,000, that should keep the payments relatively reasonable. The trouble is, for that kind of money, the houses are surprisingly tiny...I mean really tiny.

There are a couple that Natasha has found that are pretty nice and reasonablly affordable, we'll see how they work out.

So, the search goes on, hopefully we'll be able to find something that will allow us to have enough room to start a family. Wish us luck!

People

I've never really understood what makes people the way they are. I've been working with the general public for the last 5 years, and I just don't get it.

I had a customer on Sunday who was obviously going through a mid-life crisis. He wanted the 'coolest' of everything, I didn't bother telling him that he was talking to the squarest of the square. He and his wife just couldn't say 'no' to anything that this young buck was putting in front of them. The couple just seemed generally happy to be alive, nothing really seemed to phase them. They ended up walking out the door with more than $1,200 in merchandise.

Then there are some people that you have to really work at. I had another couple, about the same age as the above mentioned, who were the sourest most ill-mannered people I've met in a long time. They ended up leaving with $0 in merchandise because nothing we had was perfect enough or cheap enough for them...kind of an oxy moron don't you think?

Maybe eventually I'll be able to look at someone and read them perfectly. Until then, I'll just have to keep on plugging away. I'll celebrate the good ones, and hopefully forget all about the bad ones.

Can't Sleep

Every now and then I get nights where I just say there staring at the ceiling. Tonight is one of those nights.

It's only 10:41, but I had been laying in bed for almost an hour trying to go to sleep. I tried watching some TV to put me down, not even Larry King could do the trick. So here I am, blogging with Spencer whining because there's someone down here that doesn't want to play with him.

Well, I guess I'll surf the net for a while and see what everyone else in the world has gotten themselves into today. Hopefully that will tire me out. Sweet dreams everyone!

Laryngitis

That's right. I can't talk. It happens so suddenly sometimes you know? I woke up Friday morning with a sore throat, but it went away. When I woke up Saturday morning with a sore throat, I figured it would be more of the same, but by 5:00 I couldn't talk anymore! It's now into its third day, and I still can't manage more than a whisper.

For someone who needs to talk in order to work, this is upsetting. I couldn't work today, so here I am at home twiddling my thumbs trying not to talk. This sucks. Oh well, could be worse I guess.

My co-workers were really enjoying themselves this morning at my expense, asking if anyone wanted a coffee, looking at me knowing I wanted one but unable to voice my desire. They'd laugh that this is the quietest morning they've had since I started. All of these jokes of course roll right off my back, but I am making notes. They'll need me someday, and when they do...

Anyhow, I guess a few days off never hurt anyone. Hopefully tomorrow I'll be able to get back into the swing of things. We'll see.

Update

I know it's been quite a while since my last posting, but I have been fairly busy. I know that reading my blog is such a huge part of all of your days, so I have decided to post again.

Well, it's been about 2 1/2 weeks since I started back at Moores, and as expected, I had some trouble adjusting to not being in charge anymore. The new Assistant Manager, who I'm sure hates me, seems to have it out for me. I'm sure she's just threatened by my unbelievable skills and my dashing good looks. After all, she's never worked in menswear before, she Managed a ladies' shoe store. Or it could be that I'm just a pompous jerk and I don't really know it. Either way, she doesn't seem to think that I'm giving her the proper respect. BULL-DOOKIE! I have no problem letting her run the show, but when they ask my opinion, I'm gonna give it to 'em. Oh well, these are the days of our lives I guess.

Other than the new Assistant Manager, things are going great. I'm making more money than I ever could have at Edward Jones, so I think this was a good move. I'm meeting with the District Manager on Friday to discuss my advancement in the company, so things should go well for me being back at Moores.

Anyhow, I'm off to Home Depot to price putting in a little patio in the yard. Until I post again, take care.