Tickle Tactic

There are those days where nothing seems to work no matter what you try to do. Then there are those days where everything things to work in spite of what you try to do. Today was one of those days where everything was clicking. I purposely took the day off from running because these next few weeks of training are going to be very taxing on my body and I need all the energy I can muster. I did wake up very early and I was awake several times during the night. At one of those points I swear I saw my son enter our room but as soon as I checked the clock (which read 2:24 am) he seemed to vanish. When I went into his bedroom he was fast asleep.

My son does have a habit of sleep walking; however; this usually occurs much earlier in the evening and my wife or me leads him back to his bed. This is a bit frightening because the stairs are very close to our bedroom and as of yet my son has not tried to go down the stairs while he is sleep walking. I do remember my younger sister sleep walking at a very similar age to my son and she did this for an entire summer. It was scary back then and I don’t remember how or why she stopped but she did stop and I don’t think she has any issues with it at this point in her life. My wife and I don’t know what to do other than leading him back to his bedroom which seems to work but last night was more frightening than usual. I could have been dreaming because when I entered his bedroom he was indeed safely tucked into his bed fast asleep.

Yes, I was awake at other times during the night because my mind is becoming more and more active as I think of what I want to do during the day. I have a job which requires some creativity and this is a wonderful change of pace from the past 20 years. I want to build relationships and I am trying to think of different ways to build these relationships which sometimes wake me up during the night. I can deal with the disruption in sleep because it is a far cry from where I was this time last year. I would wake up every hour on the hour for apparently no reason whatsoever as I just wanted the time to accelerate so my sentence would be over. Now I want the time to last forever since I am having so much fun enjoying every moment one at a time. It is amazing how from I have come in just over 3 ½ years and yes; this is all because of recovery.

I was awake but I lay in bed as my son did enter our room at his usual time of 6:00 am. He is such a loveable little guy and I can’t help but to smile as he comes into the room even before the sun rises. These are those little moments and I will be damned if I don’t continue to enjoy every facet of these moments. It came time to get going in the morning and this required the movement of others. Not everyone moves quickly out of their respective beds in our household and even my son was a bit hesitant to get moving this morning. It seems to take a good 10 minutes to get my daughter up and moving. I have noticed that tickling seems to work the best because at the very least she is laughing when she gets out of bed. This is a far cry from her usual grumpy self so I will employ the tickle tactic from here on out.

I took the children to school for a reason. I wanted to see the principal since yesterday the announcements for the GATE (advanced subjects) Program were made and my daughter was not part of this program. She was visibly upset to have not been selected for the program and I wanted to find out the criteria for the program. The principal of the school is a very nice man who is always available. I have not really spoken with him at length in the past until today. I did approach him this morning and he was very cordial explaining how the GATE Program works.

He knew who my daughter was which a very impressive task with over 800 students in the school. As he explained it turns out that the selection process occurred over the past two years for the students and my daughter was attending school in New Jersey during this period. He went on to say that it may have been an oversight that my daughter was not selected and he would look into it especially since my daughter was enrolled in a similar program back in New Jersey. He did explain to me that my daughter is clustered with the “advanced” children in her grade which was very good to hear and my daughter also has the advanced math class. I’m not looking to add extra work to my daughter’s plate all I wanted was an explanation and the very kind principal did explain the process. I don’t know if my daughter will be added to this program at a later point but according to the principal the emphasis is having the children ready for middle school and having them in this program in the middle school is a big advantage. We shall see what happens.

After meeting with the principal I went about my day and as I mentioned everything clicked very well. I was given a “lead” from a co-worker and was informed that this lead had been worked on for the past year to no avail. I took the lead and made the telephone call. This was quite possibly the best telephone call I have made during my very brief tenure with the company. I not only converted the lead into something very positive for everything I think I made one of those “personal” connections.

I would like to say that I said something magical which persuaded this person but the truth is I didn’t do anything magical I was just in the right place at the right time. It was one of those “meant to be” moments and now everyone at the company is very happy. I will detail the specifics when everything is firmed up in the next week or so. Yes, another great day and yes; there aren’t any coincidences, just the way it has been Designed.