Tag: kids

556 days later

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I went into the office for the first time since March 16, 2020.  I know this to be true, because the desk calendar of daily dad jokes that I have, that’s the last date that was shown, and my my morning routine typically consisted of setting my coffee down, tearing away the prior day’s dad joke, turning it into a paper ninja star, and putting it into the spindle lid, as shown above.

The thing is, I left on the 16th with no intention of returning to the office for a while, because it was not long after the birth of #1, and I was going to flex some work from home in order to best be available as brand new parents.  Sure, I had an inkling of the news rapidly spreading around the world about how coronavirus was ravaging China, and initially finding their way stateside, but little did myself or anyone else really know or understand that the office was on the verge of indefinite closure on this particular day.

By the end of the week, the building was vastly shut down on account of the rapid spread of coronavirus throughout the country, and businesses and offices all across the world were doing the same thing.  In between learning how to be a dad for the first time, and trying to keep up with the new rhythm of the work day, I had to sign off and fill in numerous requisition forms for my reports to be taking their physical iMacs home with them, so that they could embark on the new world of working from home.

Frankly, this is no new story for just about anyone with an office job, and I’m stopping myself from reminiscing too much, because I’m trying to remind myself that I’ve got many other retroactive topics I want to brog about and a very finite amount of time in which I can do such.

Regardless, the plant pictured to the right, now that was one of the few things that actually worried about, at the office, when the world shut down.  It was but just a small succulent that was given to all employees at the door in promotion to spread awareness of the arrival of spring, and seeing as how I have a window cube, it was quite easy for me to put it on the sill, and see how long it would take before I would invariably end up neglecting it and it dying.

But succulents are some tough motherfuckers, and it persisted all through occasional watering droughts, time off, my wedding and honeymoon, and not only survived, but thrived.  What started out as a little nugget of a plant branched out into these lengthy, snakey vines, and to where I eventually put a little bit of effort into its general growth and development, like the tape-rubberband combo to help it stretch out and sun.

However, as pandemics do, 500+ days is too much to ask of any plant, and when I popped into the office for the first time in 556 days, the anticipation of what I’d see from my little succulent was answered, in a reddish, dead husk of a succulent, almost frozen in time, by virtue of never being molested at all during that stretch.

And with my biggest curiosity answered, I finished up doing what I came to the office for in the first place: removing all of my personal effects in an attempt to low-key clean out my desk, because I have no intention of ever coming back to this office again in my life, if things go my way.

But as many of my peers and co-workers have said to me, it was as they described – it was almost as if the entire floor were frozen in time, as if the calendar never moved on from March 16, 2020.  Calendars all around the floor were still in March, name plates of numerous people who have moved out or moved on are still in place, and lord only knows what’s living in the break room fridge at this point, but it was an interesting field trip all the same, and I’m glad that all my personal shit is out of there, but sad all the same, to see the fate of my determined little succulent friend.

2 Under 2: Hold please (#063)

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I’ve resigned myself to the notion that until #2 gets onto some modicum of a sleep schedule, then my personal life is more or less on hold.  0-120 minutes a night to not be on either double baby duty, baby duty of one plus work, or work plus two kids?  That’s life as it is right now.  And the sooner I try to expect to have some free time in which I can actually sit down, relax, and not have to be on high baby alert, the better things might be.

Because that’s probably what’s been the greatest source of my angst and frustration over the last few weeks, is that I want to do things, but in almost all of the time, I just simply don’t have the time to do such.  But if I can mentally accept that there will be no time for me for a little bit longer, then it’s slightly an easier pill to swallow.

Sure, I still feel overwhelmed and miserable when I’m in the way-too-frequent scenario of where my wife is unavailable, I’m on both kids at the same time, and I’m getting blown up by my work email.  That happens way more than I wish it would, but tis the season in my particular line of work.

Salvation is, however, the fact that I am less than two weeks from starting my paternity leave, eliminating one of the biggest roadblocks to parenting for a substantial chunk of time, and I will get the opportunity to be nothing but a dad, instead of dad + corporate bitch, which I believe will take a tremendous load of anxiety off of my docket.

I have a few major objectives I’d like to approach while I’m on leave this time around, but one of the things that I plan on getting on sooner rather than later will begin some sort of sleep training with #2, as I had done with #1, which I like to credit as laying down the groundwork for her outstanding sleep habits to this very day.

And once #2 starts to get on some semblance of a nap schedule and a formalized bed time, things can really only go up from there.  Because this current operation of basically surviving infanthood has been pretty brutal due to the compounding of responsibilities, but as most people describe parenthood, things tend to get easier for a little while before the cycle of difficulty begins spinning as the years progress.

But until those supposed things begins getting easier, I just have to accept that I won’t really have the time to do so many me things, be it running, watching wrestling or other television, and even writing, as much as that one hurts me so.  I still jot down notes and reminders of the things I’d like to touch on, and I’ve gotten to where I don’t discount the Notes function in my phone if I’m feeling so driven.

This is parenthood, in a nutshell, where sacrifice isn’t merely a choice, but often times a necessity, in order to keep things moving with some degree of harmony.

2 Under 2: My wife left me (#062)

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Oof.  Even out of context, writing those words stings, and I hope that I’ll never have to write those specific words again.

But yes, mythical wife took #2 and went to go spend a few days with her parents, and I am at home with #1.  No, this did not stem from a fight and we’re already on the rocks after two years of marriage.  It was a call that she made on account of observing the fact that I’ve been operating at a stress level of 170 out of 100 and it’s only been getting worse over the last few weeks as the job that I’ve already lost my favor for tends to get seasonal this time of year, adding to the fuel of anxiety, frustration and negative short fuse, and that I could use a little bit of a break in from the constant screaming and very hands-on requirement of #2.

She’s not wrong at all, but the days leading up to this, I had a hard time digesting the whole plan, no matter how much I actually did need some quiet time.  No matter what anyone tells me, I can’t help feel a sense of failure or shortcoming at being a partner and father to my children, because I have been becoming increasingly short and miserable dealing with two under two, and the sheer lack of time I’ve had since the arrival of #2 to occasionally catch my breath, decompress and feel like a normal human being again.

But I really did need a break.  Pretty much since #2’s arrival, I haven’t had 30 minutes to myself where I haven’t been working, sleeping or being actively hands on as a dad, and the sheer lack of time to come back to earth has been grating at me and grating at me, every single night where I go to bed thinking about all the things I wanted to do but couldn’t do, and then it compounds each and every night.

As gross as it sounds, I’ve basically been showering once a week because I just frankly can’t find the time to do it more regularly.  Even though I know I’m getting grosser and grosser in between them, the time it takes to clean myself up seems more like a chore and a nuisance, and that I’d rather spend that 20 minutes doing absolutely anything else more self-serving than personal hygiene.

A similar sentiment exists for sleep itself, where in the past, I’d probably embark on the whole notion of revenge staying up late, where I’d sacrifice sleep for personal time because I’m so resentful that I didn’t have any time to myself that I’m going to take some in spite of the need for sleep.  Fortunately, cooler heads prevail most of the time, and I remind myself that the only ones getting hurt by me being gassed from not getting enough sleep are my wife and kids, and I opt to get sleep more often than making poor choices.

And as the days turned into weeks, my general state of being was not in a good place.  My patience deteriorated into nothingness, and just about every little thing would set me off.  #2’s frequent crying would grate at me, and I’d begun making more tasteless jokes about killing myself as a result.  All I was feeling was that every single day was wake up, work, and then clean, clean, clean baby stuff until it was time to go to sleep again, with nothing but feeding, diapers and thanklessly trying to calm a screaming baby in between everything.   And it basically began breaking me.

However, the notion that my wife has to take my fussy child away from me in order for me to not feel the like I’m burdened by responsibilities makes me feel sad, makes me feel defeated, and makes me feel overall lousy, even if it I am getting the opportunity to write in silence and stare at the wall in between the typing.  This is one of those instances where I do not feel like I have done well as a father, and it’ll probably stay with me for a while, but hopefully it will change my perspective a little bit, teach me a little more patience, and help me grow as a dad.

2 Under 2: It’s okay to get pissed (occasionally) (#061)

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

As I write a lot of these daddy brog posts, I try to weed out through a lot of the irrational and hope to ultimately be able to sift out important knowledge and bullet points that I’d hope to be able to impart and share with other like-minded fathers in the future.  Nobody’s ever come to me for advice or opinions, and I’m not about to just willy-nilly give them out unsolicited, but in the event anyone ever does, I’d want to actually be able to have some useful suggestions and opinions to share.

Anyway, for this particular post, this is actually kind of funny: obviously at this current juncture, I rarely have the luxury to be able to write at the very moment the words are formulating in my head.  But I’m so determined to write about particular things that I’ll take down notes or jot down a blurb of what it is I’m intending on writing about when I do have the time, ignoring the very important factor that my emotional state might not even be in the same stratosphere when that time actually comes.

Like this post, where I’m as calm as a hindu cow now, as opposed to the mental state I was in when the idea for this post came to be.  I mean, look at the blurb I wrote:

8/22 – dad brog – it’s okay to be pissed off and upset with a difficult baby.  it doesn’t mean i love my children any less, but holy fucking shit do i get sick and tired of their bullshit when they’re screaming all the fucking time.  i know this is the time to be savoring and enjoying all the moments of their rapidly moving newborn stage, but i’d be lying if i couldn’t wait for the colic, the fussing, shit sleep habits and the endless screaming to be grown out of.  i get absolutely dick done on a daily basis because while my wife is on maternity leave, i work my ass off doing double duty parenting while not pissing people off at work by being afk so much, and when i’m on paternity leave, i’ll just be doing double duty parenting work then too.  i get no fucking time off ever, and it’s hard to keep my mental state above water sometimes.

As the kids would say, he mad.  But as I often believe, things said in the heat of frustration are often the most honest, and even looking back at that wall of text rambling, I don’t disagree with any of it.  And that’s one of the things that I would probably impart onto other future dads, and even moms because frustration doesn’t really have a gender associated to it.

That being said, what I would definitely tell all new parents, is that it’s okay to get pissed off, occasionally.  Because raising kids is hard, often frustrating, and sometimes, all the mantras to remind ourselves to be patient just won’t cut it, and we just need to let ourselves get pissed off and blow off some steam in order to bring ourselves back to level.  I imagine we all want to believe that our children are nothing short of perfection and they do nothing wrong, but that’s all bullshit, they’re going to do things that annoy us and piss us off and that it’s okay to acknowledge such behavior as bullshit and it’s okay to be tired of it, because we get tired of the bullshit of adults, why shouldn’t the same apply to babies?

I believe it’s important to not bottle things in, because little good can come from holding our emotions in for too long, lest we eventually blow up, and then have a word vomit like the blurb above, worse off if it were something in the physical world.  Obviously, little is done in front of my kids as far as my frustrations go, often times I just walk out of the room or tag out to mythical wife, and then I go throw a tantrum in another room or outside of the view of my kids.

As far as my lack of time goes, hopefully that is something that eventually rectifies itself as my newborn grows and settles into a routine, most importantly a structure sleeping schedule.  Because it does get frustrating and does get mentally challenging, when I don’t have the capabilities to turn dad mode off, even for just an hour or so.

But until then, I just want to tell myself and all other new parents, that it’s okay to occasionally get pissed off.  It’s going to happen to the best of us, whether or not we want to admit to it, but it’s human nature, and it’s completely okay.

2 Under 2: Critical mass (#060)

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

This is my general schedule:

  • wake up at 7:20 so I can have ten minutes to let the dog out, feed the dog, take a piss, and get #1’s milk ready
  • Get #1 out of bed and pray to god (1) she hasn’t leaked out of her overnight diaper because she sleeps face down and butt up and no diaper company has figured out how to solve gravity
  • If she hasn’t wet herself and I don’t have to strip sheets, change outfits and give her a comprehensive wipe down, I bring her down to start her day
  • Between 7:30-9:00 I hang out with my kid and pray to god (2) she’s not in a cranky mood and going to whine and fuss all morning like she is at the time I’m writing this down. On weekdays, I’m also technically on the clock as of 8:30, so I low-key act like I’m active at work but I’m just monitoring work on my work phone, and praying to god (3) that nothing substantial happens, but if it does then I have to actually work while placating a toddler for until our nanny shows up or my wife relieves me
  • On weekdays, by like 8:50 I’m in my office so that I can prepare for my workday for a job I’ve completely soured on and want out of. On Mondays and Wednesdays, I have 9 am meetings where often times I’m the one driving them because in spite of the technical competency everyone is required to have in order to have their jobs, I’m the one most capable of actually utilizing WebEx, Acrobat and Outlook. All other days, I may actually have a few minutes to breathe and compose myself on company time, but those are few and far between as I am often playing catch-up on the work that doesn’t get done because I’m often playing dad throughout the workday (despite having a hard paid nanny and wife home on maternity leave).
  • Throughout most workdays despite being on the clock, I’m pulled away multiple times to assist with #2, which are usually burps and diaper changes because mythical wife is doing her duty of pumping so that #2 can eat. However this often puts me behind on my workflow and has a trickle down effect to where I have to make up the time somewhere
  • At some point during workdays as well as weekends, I try and spend some time to begin cleaning the numerous bottles and pump parts we go through in order to feed and provide for #2. If we didn’t have two sterilizers, I would literally never be able to catch up ever
  • At noon every day, #1 goes down for her nap. This is a 2.5 hr window where only one child has to be cared for, provided her frequent screaming and crying doesn’t wake #1 up, to which I pray to god (4) daily does not happen
  • By 2:30, #1 is awakened and it’s back to 2 under 2 time, except now the nanny is clocked out, and it’s my wife and I dealing with things with me back to low-key pretending to have full undivided attention to work for the next three hours and praying to god (5) that my bosses who have no respect for core hours or late afternoon meeting etiquette don’t drop a 4 or 4:30 meeting on my head
  • 5:30 is when I’m officially off the clock, but often times due to my juggling acts there’s always a few somethings that need to be resolved, and I might have to punch in an extra 30-45 minutes to settle things down, provided my children will cooperate
  • 6:30(ish) is #1’s bath time, followed by wind down for a 7 pm bedtime. Mythical wife and I have been having to divide and conquer between two kids here and she’s often caring for a screaming #2 while I’m taking care of #1
  • By around 7:15, we’re back down to one kid, but #2 is still too early to have any routine since she’s more or less in survival mode, of eat, sleep, scream bloody murder, and any order of those three activities. It’s at this time mythical wife and I talk about how starved we are, indecisions about dinner, and how most of the local restaurants we like seem to close at 8 and we’re too late to put in a takeout order because I probably won’t get there by 8, so we eat Chick Fil-A or Zaxby’s all the time if we don’t have any palatable leftovers in the fridge
  • From dinner to bedtime, mythical wife and I play hot potato with #2 because this is the time she’s been getting colic-ky and screaming bloody murder and I’m praying to god (6) she won’t wake up #1, but the majority of the physical caring falls on me since she still has to pump a few more times to keep up with #2’s increasing eating
  • Anywhere from 11-midnight, we migrate up to the bedroom which usually feels like a meat locker now that our HVAC has been replaced, and wind #2 for the night with final feeds and diaper changes and praying to god (7) that there’s no colic or stomach aches and she’ll actually go to sleep before 1 am
  • Once #2 is down for the night, it’s typically far too late and I’m usually so gassed that I’m not even in the mood to hate-stay up late just so I can feel a shred of having two seconds for myself to not be in dad mode, and then go to bed anxious at not getting to have any me-time to unwind and feeling fried because I’m 6-7 hours from starting all this over again while also knowing there will usually be one mid-sleep wake up to feed and change #2, and I pray to god (8) that it’s just one time

If you’ve read this far and have been keeping count, you might notice that there are usually at least eight prayers to god and fewer minutes in the day where I don’t have to be a dad.

I’m sure that last part sounds selfish and gives off the impression that I don’t want to be a dad, which couldn’t be any further from the truth. However, one of the pieces of advice I was given going into parenthood was the importance of not losing one’s identity to it, to which I definitely agree that there’s definitely a balance to try and maintain when it comes to being a parent and being ourselves.

I’m in a stretch where I’ve been incapable of having the time at all to be able to switch off being dad, and having any time at all for myself to be myself. I haven’t run in over a month now, I barely have the capacity to watch any television; only really getting to when stacked on top of less effort baby activities, and most importantly to me, I have next to no time at all to write.

In fact that only reason why this post even exists is that I’ve composed it entirely in a note on my phone, while #1 was literally strapped to my head because she’s having one of those days where if dad’s not carrying her, she’s going ballistic, and I’m up to her current height off the ground at how over her bullshit I am right now, well at critical mass at how fried I am at being in dad mode for so long, and so I just strapped her in and began writing on my phone while monotonously walking in circles. At least she’s not wailing anymore.

Like most topics I write about that sound like they suck balls and might deter other bros from thinking about having kids, this would go into the category of “someday we’ll look back and laugh at this,” but in my case I look forward to the days when I can tell my kids how much they made my life pretty insufferable when they were babies.

2 Under 2: Up there with teething – colic (#059)

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

While raising my first child, I determined that of all the rigors that babies and parents go through, was teething.  The times in which the tiny chompers of our offspring are boring their way up through the gums and into the world, to help them level up in terms of foods they can eat and sensations they can experience.  It’s obviously painful and frequent, given that the average child has around 20 total teeth, and every time it seemed apparent that #1 was going through some teething, the days were full of lots of crying, lots of drool, occasional vomiting, and struggles to sleep, leading to some very exasperated parents and one definitely fried dad.

Well, with #2 a little over a month old now, I think mythical wife and I are experiencing yet another new thing: colic.  Basically periods of time when the baby goes completely apeshit ballistic nuclear and is screaming their heads off for an inconveniently long duration, and there doesn’t seem to be an explanation for it.  I mean seriously:

Unfortunately, there is no definite explanation for why this happens. Most often, colic means simply that the child is unusually sensitive to stimulation or cannot “self-console” or regulate his nervous system. (Also known as an immature nervous system.) As she matures, this inability to self-console—marked by constant crying—will improve. Generally this “colicky crying” will stop by three to four months, but it can last until six months of age.

I read shit like this, and my thoughts usually go in the direction of, how long as the human race been in existence, as well as existing in the age of modern medicine and diagnosis, and nobody’s still been able to figure this shit out?

Needless to say, it’s evident that #2 has occasional colic, and when it starts, it’s basically the worst scenario in the world.  Seriously, I’ve never had suicidal thoughts in my life before sitting there with an inconsolable newborn screaming their lungs out and there being seemingly absolutely nothing in the world that can bring them down.  Blowing my head off, or jumping off a cliff seems like a preferable alternative to trying and failing to calm a colic-ky baby back to earth.

And as often times the case during this second go-around, I’m ashamed to admit just how often I lose my cool and let it get to me.  It’s like I know that parenting is excruciatingly difficult, and I did sign up for this, but to me, and by no fault of anyone much less my precious #1, we have comparisons we’re capable of making, and when didn’t go through it so badly the first time around, but are going through it horrifically the second, it creates that space for their to be additional frustration.

All the same, good or bad, these kinds of posts exist to be the real life truth to how parenting really is going for someone like me, and I do want to remember the things that I can hopefully look forward to in the future as talking points to remind my children of in the future when they’re older, wiser, and can comprehend words in the event that they find this shit on their own. 

The daunting reality is additionally the fact that we’re still so early on that teething hasn’t even yet come into play, but considering how #2 has been so far, I can only make an educated guess that I’ll go back to thinking teething is the biggest cancer on the planet again in 4-6 months.

2 Under 2: Fuck Jimmy Fallon (#058)

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Mythical wife and I are raising our daughters with some fairly simple rules, one of which being no screen time until the age of 2, in which we will introduce small amounts of screen time of quality kid-friendly content with at least some educational value, and work our way up from there, so they don’t become lifeless couch potatoes by the time they’re age five.  Maybe that’ll happen when they’re seven instead, but hey if we can bilk out two years of life where they’re not parked in front of a screen, then all the better for us.

That being said, we’ve accumulated a lot of books over the last year and change, as books and reading have been among the primary forms of entertainment and storytelling to our first, and will be for our second.  Among the things that brings pride and happiness to me is seeing my first hustle over to her bookshelf, pick out a book, rush back, hand it to me, and then plop into my lap to enjoy some story time with dada, and her appreciation and enjoyment in books is already being established.

However, of all the books that we’ve amassed so far, few make me scrunch my eyebrow and hope that my daughter doesn’t pick it and bring it back, than the books mythical wife picked out by none other than quote-unquote “comedian,” Jimmy Fallon.  Everything is Mama and Your Baby’s First Word Will Be Dada, specifically, because I for one won’t go out of my way to pick either myself.

Why?  Because they’re both complete and utter bullshit.  Spoiler alert, both books are basically 15 pages of either “MAMA” or “DADA” over and over again, with literally nothing other than single contrast words and some singular illustrations.  I’m not saying my children should already be capable of reading The DaVinci Code or anything, but even infants and newborns deserve better than this horse shit.

Let’s be real here, if not for the simple fact that these books are “authored” by, and has the name of Jimmy Fallon slapped onto these things, these shit books would probably rank lower than the bible at being usable for toilet paper.  It truly is a case of how nice it must be to be a celebrity, because an unfunny hack like Jimmy Fallon can literally produce a bullshit no effort stack of cardstock paper, put his name on it, and it will make it onto bookshelves, and I bet if I took two seconds to look it up, these were probably New York Times bestsellers at some point in history, but I’m not going to because I’d rather spend 52 seconds typing this sentence up instead.  He’s probably made more than what I make in a year in salary, on the royalties of this fucking snooze job of children’s literature, which only further feed the angsty narrative of how unfair the world is.

The takeaway of this post is that if any new or impending parents ever read this, do yourselves and your children a favor and stay the fuck away from Jimmy Fallon’s shitty books, especially if you actually love your kids and want their brains to actually develop.  Might I recommend authors such as Anna Dewdney or Sandra Boynton instead as opposed to the guy who could barely keep it together on SNL and often times failed, to not laugh at his own unfunny shit jokes?