BEING PREGNANT IS HAZARDOUS TO YOUR WEALTH

Well first the good news: my wife is pregnant with our first child! We're due in February.

On the flipside, have you checked out a Babies R Us store lately? Jiminy Christmas, you've never seen so many "must-have" items in your life. Lord knows how I ever made it through babyhood without a diaper genie or kick 'n play bouncy thingy or boppy pillow or a mechanical breast pump. I don't even know how I ever made it home from the hospital without a friggin' toddler car seat with an added $10 foam rubber thing that kept my neck from wobbling. I guess my wife and I were seriously deprived as babies without all these necessities, and as first-time parents, we're the perfect pawns for these peddlers. Of course we need the Eddie Bauer car seat that fits not only in our Eddie Bauer Ford Explorer, but also in our Eddie Bauer tri-wheel stroller. Gotta keep up with the Joneses, right?

It's certainly a stressful time. We're living day by day, counting the weeks, waiting for our next doctor's appointment, our next ultrasound scan. Time's never gone so slow. There's the body changes, too. The sudden weight gain. The face breaking out in pimples like in puberty again. The sleepless nights with multiple pees. And I'm just talking about myself. My wife is persevering much better than I am. Simply put, I'm a wreck.

Needless to say, this doesn't help my trading out. The burden of making money and supporting the family suddenly gets all too real. You finally get the meaning of "baby needs new shoes" and it's terrifying.

Luckily, trading is a "be your own boss" profession, and as the boss, you can do your own damage control. That's a big chunk of daytrading anyway: damage control, limiting your losses, having the freedom to walk away before your emotions get the best of you. One must always have self-awareness. There just are times when you're not going to be on top of your game. For whatever reason, your mind will be clouded with non-market issues, and as I stated before, successful daytrading is about concentration. I'm not a proponent of forcing trades, chaining yourself to your computer, simply outstaying your welcome, thinking that you can work your way into a better mindframe and into better trading. That's a quick recipe for disaster.

I find now that I'm good for four days a week. I take Fridays off and enjoy the extended weekends. On the four working days, I've changed my usual stance and now only trade in the afternoons. I'm not sleeping as well as before and I cannot wake up in the pitch black here at 5am like I used to and get geared up about looking at candlesticks and bars. I had a real rotten week of disasterous mornings like that, and that's all it took for me to figure out I needed a different approach.

I love the morning action. Sometimes the first 30 minutes are the only action of the day, but approaching it half-awake is approaching it half-asleep, and that's no approach at all. I'd rather be fully awake and alert for afternoon slim jim action, eeking out a few points while in full control, so that's what I've been doing. I'm sure my approach will evolve further as the due date nears and my wife takes time off from work, my mother-in-law comes to visit for an extended stay, and the baby actually arrives. Tis the joy and challenge of trading.