Tag: birthday

Year four of forever

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

And just like that, #1 is four years old.

Throughout my own parenting journey, one of the most heard things I’ve been told is to not blink or take any time for granted, because it’ll all be over in the blink of an eye and the kids will be grown and be pains in my ass before I know it, and I’ll wonder where the time went when they were still in diapers and couldn’t do anything for themselves.

Honestly, I think I’ve done a pretty good job of not taking my time for granted, and I’m so often reflecting on the past and I think in this age where everyone has phones and cameras on their phones and it’s fairly possible to chronicle our lives through photographs, that it makes it easier to have a visual reference to reflect with as we can simply just open up our photos app and scroll through time.  That, and the fact that I’ve also been a prodigious brogger for more than half my life at this point, and I’ve always got the means to not only look back in time and reflect, but to also read my very own words to recall specifically where I was throughout the journey of life.

I’ll often times just stop and watch my kids doing the things they do, and marvel at the state they’re in now, as opposed to when they were babies or infants or toddlers, because it’s just incredible watching someone else’s journey through life, through the eyes of a spectator, and of course being their father, I’ve literally seen just about every single day of their lives.

I think it’s safe to say that I’m the first face they see in the morning, about 99% of their lives, I make the vast majority of their meals, and I put a tremendous amount of physical and time effort into my kids regularly.  There are times in which it feels like a lot of work, but I don’t regret any bit of it, and I take a tremendous amount of pride in trying to be the best dad I possibly can be.  There’s nothing I won’t do for my children, and the only thing I really care about at all is being a good dad.

But #1 being four years old, that’s still mind-blowing to process, even though I know the day is coming.  It’s just so hard to fathom that it’s literally been four years since she came into existence five weeks early, right at the on-set of COVID and the (majority) of the entire (intelligent) world shutting themselves into isolation.  Being born so early, she was whisked away into the NICU and stayed there for two weeks, while mythical wife and I had no idea what was really going on with her health, the world, coronavirus and everything else because so much was going on concurrently right then.

Looking at her now, it’s hard to believe she was ever considered an at-risk baby that had to be connected to a heart monitor for the first four months of her life, because within six months, we stopped referring to her as “adjusted age” and never looked back.  She’s a strong, healthy four-year-old that’s ridiculously smart, thoughtful, and brings joy to my life on a daily basis.

She’s fully potty-trained, never has any accidents, knows all her numbers and letters, has demonstrated some rudimentary reading ability, and I have a feeling math will come fairly natural to her, as she’s apparently understanding the processes of basic arithmetic, even if she doesn’t know what the words addition or subtraction mean yet.

She remembers damn near everything, and is so quick to remind me of when she thinks I’ve screwed something up, and seems to be able to recall things from the past now, which shows her budding brain being able to store and recollect memories, and even going to sleep, she always remembers to remind me of what she wanted for breakfast the night before.

Not a day goes by where she and/or her sister isn’t the brightest light of my entire day, whether it’s by making me laugh, something sweet they do or say, or just the happy peace I feel when I watch them doing kid things.  So I’m happy to do whatever it takes to bring happiness to their lives… like taking a cake decorating class, so that I could make my child a triple-layered chocolate cake with buttercream and a dark chocolate drip ganache.  But even if it’s basically pure trash food, it’s also a symbol of growth for my child in that her original severe intolerance to eggs has dissipated over time, and she can at least handle having it in baked goods or cooked into things.

Still not going to give her a straight up omelet or scrambled eggs, but considering I still can’t eat those things without considerable punishment, who knows if she’ll ever fully grow out of it, or be as limited as I am.  Only time will tell, and hopefully there will be many more decades of years to bear witness to what happens next.

The birthday post, circa 2023

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I always get kind of bluesy around my birthday.  It’s like in one hand, I don’t make a big deal about advertising it, but at the same time, I want others to know about it and maybe be nice to me for a day, but then again I almost feel more comfortable if people didn’t know and didn’t treat me any differently.  Like nobody at work knows it’s my birthday (at least I think) and I just want to go through my normal day without drawing any attention.

I think what it really comes down to is the fact that I’m not really comfortable being a center of attention, and that’s typically what happens for a lot of people on their birthdays.  It just makes me feel kind of cringey and awkward, and wondering who is coming out of the woodwork on social media to wish my a happy birthday because they mean it, or they feel obligated to do it because, and just how genuine it is.

Growing up, birthdays never really meant much to my family beyond a certain age, and it’s evident that I’ve gotten my general ambivalence and weirdness about them from my parents, who never did anything for their respective birthdays during my upbringing, so it kind of stopped being a big deal to me around then, regardless of the fact that I’ve tried sporadically to breathe some life into my birthday throughout my adult years.

I’ve also met and have people in my life whom I share the birthday or are close to others, and it’s by no fault of anyone else, I just want to avoid the possibility of being envious of others and the things they do, by trying not to make a big deal of mine in the first place.  It’s like I’m happier and more amenable to celebrate the birthdays of others than my own, regardless of the date or proximity to the date.

Maybe it’s the feeling of anticipation of a birthday, and the kind of melancholy disappointment of when it’s passed and in the rear view, and knowing that it’s going to be another year before we can hope for our specific day to come back, and hope that it’s also good.

Or maybe it’s the dreading of growing older, and now that I’m 41, I’m still sometimes wondering what I’m doing with my life, and wondering if what I’m doing is good, successful, and has a promising future ahead of it, or if I’ve put my life kind of on hold while I put all my importance on raising my children, because when it really comes down to it, they’re the most important things in my life, and raising them well still takes precedence over everything else.

Honestly, I don’t really know what the point of this post is, or if there’s even one at all.  It’s my birthday, and I just felt like writing about it, even if it’s not particularly the most exciting, promising, or positive-feeling post I could possibly make.

There’s not much in the world that I have a want for, physically.  Not even any more wrestling blets, because I pretty much have everything at this point.  I guess I just want a general sense and feeling of comfort and happiness, and if I can just have a day where I can not get too stressed out, have a good workout, have some Willy’s, and spend some happy time with my kids and wife, then I don’t think I can really ask for much else.

So here’s 41 years old, hardly feels that much different than the last few years, but I suppose that’s what life is going to be like until I can look forward to a better retirement portfolio or registering for AARP.

Dad Brog (#093): Year One of Forever, part 2

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

As is often the case with life with two kids as young as my own, things seldom go according to plan. And as much as I loathe tardiness and inability to be on time, things happening behind their intended time has become more and more of a routine occurrence that I hope one day rectifies itself as/if life ever calms down to a less frantic pace.

That being said, with no disrespect for my second child, #2’s birthday has come and gone now, for a few weeks now, but finally I’m taking the time to really reflect on the monumental  occasion.

To be fair, some of this delay had to do with the fact that unlike with #1, #2 got to have a traditional big Korean first birthday party, as the travels I described in prior posts was so that my side of the family could celebrate the first birthday, as is a big tradition in Korean culture.  And that particular weekend was the best chance at getting as much of my family members present, even if it meant celebrating a little bit past the actual date.

But my little #2 is officially one year old, and it most certainly has been an eventful twelve months since her arrival into the world.  I’d be full of shit if I didn’t talk about just how difficult it had been at times, especially considering her challenges she’s had with sleep in general, that still rears up every now and then even to this day.  And when she gives us hell about going to sleep, I fantasize about when she’ll one day be a groggy teenage girl who wants nothing more than to sleep, and I’ll be the obnoxiously awake dad who will gleefully remind her of her infant days when she fought like war to not sleep on a daily basis.

Continue reading “Dad Brog (#093): Year One of Forever, part 2” →

How I spent my 40th Birthday

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Mythical wife, my brother and several close friends and I actually celebrated my birthday this past weekend.  Because my birthday fell on a Tuesday which is probably the worst day for a birthday to ever fall on, it made sense to do stuff on the weekend before.  It was a pleasant time to hang with people I love and eat and drink while my in-laws watched the girls.

It was probably for the best because as far as my actual birthday has gone, there wouldn’t have been any time for well, anything.

#2 is sick with strep where I’m probably prime suspect to have been patient zero that got her sick.  Subsequently, the new nanny got sick and didn’t come in, so as is the case when someone is sick, I had to eat the day and work from home and take care of both girls all day, and get no work done and miss the gym when I’m trying to stay on something of a routine.

However, being my birthday I refused to let myself get upset or fall into disappointment because nobody wants to feel either on a birthday.  I made the best of my day, and thankfully my workload could permit it, and I actually had a pretty pleasant day with my kids before the sickness started to really overtake #2.

Regardless of the circumstances and minutiae, I did get to spend my birthday with my daughters.  At the end of the day that is what matters and it’s always time well spent.

And this is how I bring in my 40’s.  I knew I would probably end up writing some sort of drivel for the occasion, and all I knew was that I was going to compare it to how I ushered in 30, where I was discovering a donut burger in Midtown in comparison.

Aside from the fact that I moved out of my old house and into a new one, met a girl that would have me, marry her and have not just one, but two kids, not much else really feels like it’s changed between 30 and 40.  I still brog, I still watch wrestling, collect blets, casually follow baseball, it’s just now I have my own family interspersed among it all, and my days are packed every day.

I don’t make big deals about birthdays, even supposed milestones like 40, because i don’t want to get my hopes up in the event things go tits up.  Frankly if I were a more selfish person a day like today might’ve constituted tits up but perhaps I’ve grown or my priorities have changed to where I recognize a day with my girls as good in every way shape or form.

Otherwise the only real things I feel like I need to concern myself with other than the litany of old jokes I can make about myself is to better take care and be cognizant of my own health and well-being.  But a day like today, even if it is the only 40th birthday I’ll ever have, just feels like any other day.  Same overload of chores, childcare, feeling overworked and having no time for myself.  Except I made a very conscious effort to not give into the usual feeling of despair.

Except if I’m lucky, I’ll get some cake to eat and some gifts to open up.  But bring on 40; I’ve got not intention of slowing down at the gym and I’m determined to get my running speed back to where it was pre-pandemic.

Year two of forever (Dad brog #080)

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Under normal circumstances, I would’ve liked to have written something on the actual day.  But mythical wife and I were at Disney World with #1 celebrating her second birthday, so appropriately understandable, I just wasn’t around to take the time to write and reflect.

And just like that, my first child is two years old.  Naturally, the passage of time has felt like a blip, and I can still remember lots of the finer details of raising my daughter, and the world she grew up in and has been living in, still amazed at just how things have progressed in that span.

Over the last year, between first and second birthdays, a lot has most certainly occurred.  Not long after turning one, my daughter really kicked it into gear and began crawling like a speed demon obsessed, which was a might’ve been considered a little late in the development game, but honestly that part didn’t last long at all, because before we knew it she was suddenly upright, and it was barely a month after turning one, did she take her first steps and frankly, she hasn’t stopped running around since then.

#1 basically eats everything in sight now, and she went from being introduced to solids to not just inhaling everything that’s put in front of her, but now an innate curiosity and determination to utilize utensils and not just eat everything with fistfuls jammed into her mouth.

Obviously, one of the more substantial occurrences to have happened within the last year was that even though she was just one year old, #1 became a big sister already, when #2 was born in July, and my household had to deal with the harrowing realization of being a house with two under two, and the hard mode of life we were about to embark on.

In spite of everything I may have written detailing the difficulty and hell that parenting under these circumstances might have been, one of the joys to have emerged from it all has been witnessing just how much my now elder daughter, loves her little sister.  What started off as hesitation and fussing about the new edition to the home, #1 has taken to big sisterhood quite well, and fewer things bring genuine happiness to my heart than seeing her open up her arms and envelop her little sister in big hugs, whenever the opportunities present themselves.

Not a day goes by where I don’t just stop and watch my child at varying points throughout the days, just to see what she’ll do next.  Not a day goes by where it doesn’t seem like there’s some sort of growth or development with her, most of the time pertaining to absorption of the things she’s hearing and her ability to repeat and recollect, which also means that I have to really watch out for using profanity around her, because much like this meme, there’s no doubt that she’ll remember the bad words forever.

But every night while I wind her down for bedtime, I tell her that I love her so much, and it melts my heart every single time, when she repeats the words “love you so much.”  I know for now it’s mostly just repeating the words that I’m saying, but I’m hoping that one of these days eventually, she’ll be saying it as a declarative statement of her own volition and with understanding the meaning of the words.

As much as I love her though, all the same, has arrived the time of toddler defiance; a lot more no’s, a lot more fussiness at being told what to do, and a whole lot more determination to do things herself and her way, and not necessarily how others want her to do things.  I’m guessing this is probably the onset of the suppose terrible twos, but really it’s still just the never ending adventure of raising a child that I’m clearly experiencing first hand for the first time.  Hopefully she doesn’t make my life too hell as mythical wife and I embark on this next chapter of our parenting lives, but I’m confident that our love for our kids won’t waver, no matter how much trolling and exasperation they’re going to inevitably test us with throughout our lives.

Either way, I thought I’d have more to write about this than this, but I am still a tired dad with too much on his plate, and not enough time to accomplish everything he wants to do.  Regardless of the circumstances, a happy belated-in-writing birthday to my first child, whom I love so much, and will always love so much.  I look forward to watching her grow and develop, from the good to the bad, and there will never be a day where I am not thankful to be her dad.

Tirty-Nine

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Among the few things that I afford myself to indulge in on my birthdays is that I often feel like writing something, if for anything at all, the fact that it is my birthday.  Otherwise, I make little deal about it, I rarely talk about it, and almost nobody at work knows it’s my birthday, nor do I have any real intention to bring it up.

Usually, around this time of year, I have this ironic sense of dread of something bad somewhere in the world occurring, like a bombing, a fire, or some sort of massive loss of human life, that has so often times taken place around my birthday every single year.  But over the last few years, and especially this one, there seems to be a massive shooting that occurs somewhere in the United States on a weekly basis, to where all the shooting incidents that have happened within the past week alone seems to overshadow the notion that anything turrible happening is limited to just the radius of days surrounding my birthday.

Needless to say, expecting something turrible to happen around my birthday has kind of lost its meaning over the last few years, because turrible shit seems to happen all the time throughout this god-forsaken country.

Narrowing down the world to just my own little concentrated space, things are certainly brighter and more positive, in spite of the fact that I loathe my job, and feel a little bit trapped and held hostage by the fact that no matter how much I want out, they still hold the ultimate trump card solely because of the paternity time that I am entitled to, and plan on utilizing when my second child is born later in the summer.

But speaking of children, I can’t really complain.  My first daughter is still basically everything I could have ever wanted in my offspring, and it’s a daily joy to spend time with her and watch her grow, develop, learn and become increasingly mobile and intelligent on a regular basis.

Life as a father and a husband is about everything I could have imagined it to be, and sometimes I still bring myself to a point of disbelief when I’m spending time with mythical wife and my child to know that this is where I am in life, and as much as my sister gives me grief about it, having taken so long, I am here at least now, and I take a little bit of comfort in knowing that I’ll have both of my kids before the age of 40, and knowing that my life will be mostly complete in that regard, is a pleasant thought.

New Father Brogging, #006

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

One of the most important things that I’ve learned as a first-time dad is that whenever you feel like you’re getting a grasp of raising a baby, behaviors will inevitably change and then you’re back into a position of knowing nothing all over again, and feeling helpless when your baby is reduced to crying and finding great difficulty at what may be causing your child distress.

When my baby is crying, it could be a variety of things that could be causing it; might be hunger, even if it might be improbably because she ate a full feed just 80 minutes ago, but a growth spurt could be in play, meaning she’ll want to eat pretty much every single hour.  Maybe it’s indigestion, to which there are only a few things that can actually bring her relief, like pressing her up against the warm body of a parent, or medicinally with gripe water or newborn anti-gas drops.  Maybe she needs to be burped more.  Maybe she’s cranky because she needs to take a nap.  Lately, she’s become cognizant to the discomfort of having a soiled diaper, something that hadn’t been the case in the first five weeks.  And sometimes, she just wants to be held by mom or dad.

The point is, there have been numerous times where I feel like I’ve identified a behavioral pattern, only to rely upon the knowledge of yesterday for today’s problems, and find out that everything has changed all over again, and then I’m left feeling dumbfounded and useless that I can’t figure out how to bring comfort to my own child.

I never once discounted the difficulty of parenting, for the first time much less, but as I expected it would be, parenting is not easy.  This does not deter me in the least bit, but I am just confirming that it’s about as difficult, and occasionally frustrating as I imagined it would be.  There’s nothing like changing a diaper, only for the kid to rip a wet fart and soil it seconds after being put on, only for an after shock to hit two minutes later, and make me throw my hands up at the frustrating of changing three diapers in the span of 120 seconds.

Ultimately I wouldn’t change a thing, and I’ll change a trillion diapers if I have to in order to raise my little girl right, but damn can I at least say there are times when I just have to say, what the fuck man?

Continue reading “New Father Brogging, #006” →