Tag: kids

New Father Brogging, #023

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

tommen jumping

This gif is precisely how I feel after my kid wakes up at 9:30 pm, 12 am, and 3 am to scream bloody murder for an hour each time.  Although we’ve narrowed the possible causes to a bad case of reflux or teething syndrome, it definitely seems to be more the latter, given the related symptoms going on.

At no point did any book, parent or any other resource tell me that teething was going to be this bad.  Teething is absolutely the worst thing that’s happened throughout my foray into parenthood, and there aren’t many ways to describe how much I’ve grown to hate the misery it puts me, mythical wife, and our child.

If teething were a person, and you locked me in a room with it, the baked potato and Adolf Hitler, and then gave me a gun with two bullets, I’d shoot teething twice.  I’d rank teething higher than coronavirus and Atlanta morning radio, as in things that absolutely suck.  I would rather have an entire week of one-on-two you-suck-at-your-job meetings than a single night of the hell that teething put me through the night prior.

Seriously, I could go on, but there aren’t enough words to express just how much I hate teething now.  Obviously it’s of no fault of my precious kid herself, but damn does it chap my ass to how much things are sucking, and having no expectation or warning that teething was going to be this bad.

There is no more feeling of being helpless and defeated than your kid wailing in agony at their little infant teef, drilling and boring upward to try and be out in the world, and us as parents who have little to no ability to do anything about it.  We’ve tried teething rings and other little aides, and as much as I don’t want to have to, we even tried infant Tylenol to try and dull the pain, but nothing seems to be working other than snuggling her until she tires herself out back to sleep, which usually takes anywhere from 45-60 minutes, which at 3 in the morning is about as appealing as getting on I-75 the morning when the baked potato is in town.

And this has been going on, off-and-on over the last few days, which now that both mythical wife and I are both back to working, is very much discouraging.  We already get less sleep than either of us would really want to be getting, but the one thing we’ve always been able to rely on throughout the last six month is that our kid has been a very good night sleeper, capable of sleeping through the entire night.  But now that’s been compromised, and we’re very much feeling frazzled and defeated on a nightly basis, as we have no time to really wind down and relax, without the anxiousness of worrying about if/when she’ll wake up unexpectedly, and we’ll be greeted via monitor of angry cries and screaming.

Suffice to say, teething has really been the worst thing about new parenting there has been.  I know that all babies are different, but as far as ours is concerned, I don’t think anything has been as painstakingly crushing as the teething experience has been.  I know this storm too, will eventually pass, and it’ll hopefully be back to some semblance of normalcy again, but until then, it’s a nightmare every single night.  And the fact that she’ll have like 30 teeth give or take to grow in, it’s only a matter of time before we realize that this will either happen frequently, or mercifully only in bunches.

New Father Brogging, #022

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

It’s been two days since I’ve reported back to work, and the first day wasn’t admittedly as horrible as I thought it would be despite the fact that my credentials didn’t get activated until nearly 1:30 pm despite me following all proper protocol to come back to work, but on the second day, I’ve already had a ten hour work day, where I had maybe 45 minutes before my child was ready to go down for bed.

After she goes down, I have some errands to run, and then when I’m back home then I have to run, because it’s good for my health and I don’t want to ever be at risk of ending up on My 600 Lb. Life no matter how stoked I’d be to be able to meet Dr. Nowzaradan, and when I’m done with that, I have a litany of little chores, cleaning and baby prep to do, before I go upstairs to shower and then finally sit down to relax.

It’s practically 10 pm at this time, and I’ll have less than two hours before the smart move is to get ready, and go to bed, but not before waking up my child for what mythical wife and I call the nightcap, which is a miniature feeding, in order to tide her over through the entire night despite the fact that on this specific morning she awoke at 5:11 am screaming bloody murder to which really was just, hunger.  We’re hoping this is a growth spurt or some aberration, and nothing that will become an ordinary occurrence because 5:11 am is frighteningly insane.

So what do I do to unwind starting at 10 pm?  Watch something else on Netflix or Plex?  Burn time browsing through YouTube and instead inevitably watching video clips I’ve seen hundreds of times?  Nope.  Brog about all of these slice of life experiences and inevitably end up sitting on my recliner and doing internet surveys for 42¢ for 15 minutes (I’m currently at $569.99 made through internet surveys).  Because when the day is over, that combination of activities seems remotely more productive and self-gratifying to me than burning brain cells looking for something to watch and inevitably finding nothing, plus I’m still building towards the inevitably blet fund for a blet that will never ever be released so maybe it can go towards a fancy vacation or something in the future instead.

A long time ago when I was in the midst of my life of freelance, I developed a pretty good working relationship with one of the account managers of the agency in which I temped through.  She was really nice, and one quality important to me, which was loyal.  We kind of lucked into each other when I came aboard their roster, and within days of starting up with them, I was immediately placed with ScumTrust, which at the time was a massive career upgrade for me, but was more importantly, an open-ended contract with no definitive end date, which means we were both getting paid as long as I did good work, which I did.

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Quarantine Hair

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The last time I got my hair cut was January 10, 2020.  Obviously, I looked up old bank statements to find out precisely when the last transaction was made to my barber, but I knew it was way back a while because I remember the disgusting growth of my hair throughout the weeks into months after my child was born and ‘Murica descended into the endless pit of pandemic.

For obvious distancing reasons, this could not be rectified at all for a period of time, and I genuinely had concerns that my barber, who is a one-person independent operation, might actually be in jeopardy during the initial onset of coronavirus and the sheer nightmare it was wreaking on small businesses across the country.  I entertained the idea of experimenting with my own clippers and perhaps doing something on my own, especially seeing as how I rarely leave the house as it is and nobody would see any abominations that might’ve happened before it could grow back in, but with a kid in tow and life getting turned upside down, my hair was barely a concern.

As some might recall, Georgia was basically the first state to rashly drop most distancing guidelines and our idiot governor was very quick to allow for haircuts to be one of the services to be allowed back, regardless of the endless spike of infection cases throughout the country.  Despite the fact that I had a green light to go get my hair taken care of, there was a large part of me that simply refused to go along with it, because I frankly did not agree with the notion that barbers and salons were “essential;” they were more catering to the vanity of people who feel the need that their fucking hair is worth putting human lives in danger.

So, for months, my hair has been growing and becoming quite unruly throughout the process.  For a while, I was still able to keep somewhat of the spiky faux-hawk look that’s kind of become my general look, but eventually the length began to defy gravity, and it started to become the long wavy mess that it becomes when it gets too long. 

A part of me was tickled at the idea of trying to grow a man-bun since full disclosure, I actually don’t mind the way a lot of them can look.  But that would likely have required longer than a year to really accomplish, and frankly when I get flustered, anxious or stressed, hair getting in my face is one of the easiest triggers of aggravation there could be, which is why I went short every single time I even thought about letting it grow out.  Plus, my hair is really thin to begin with, so even with tied up, it’s a small yield of fluff that doesn’t seem worth it.

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New Father Brogging, #021

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

As my paternity leave winds down, I naturally feel like the last six weeks have blown by, and that I wish I had more time.  Mentally, I’m not really that prepared to return to work yet, but it’s not like I really have much of a choice if I want to be able to provide for my family, other than to suck it up and get back to it.  But I definitely wish I had more time, without a doubt.

Overall, the last six weeks have been mostly anything but easy, as raising a child is definitely no small feat, and I should be fortunate that I even had the luxury of paternity time in the first place.  As necessary as it most certainly felt to me, the reality is this is something that my company did not have in place when I first started there, which wasn’t even a full five years ago.  I remember the big deal it was within the company, and even getting some national news traction about how when we went full paternity, and thinking nothing of it back then, because I wasn’t even married yet, but having capitalized on it now, I couldn’t be more grateful to work for a company that offers it, because I know that such is not the case everywhere else.

But throughout my paternity leave, my child has grown a bunch, begun eating solid foods, competently rolling over front to back to front, has graduated out of swaddles, and has been teething, chatting a lot more, and we’ve begun trying to get her to sit up on her own strength.  One of my prime hopes was that while I was off, we’d be able to get her into a casting call for some sort of baby company, and put her to work a little bit, and once she actually did get put on a shortlist of candidates, but then they hit us with the curveball that all babies would be required to be able to sit up on their own power.  Bummer

Aside from baby-ing, over the last six weeks, I managed to get my brog back up and running, although it’s an indeterminate time to whether when or if I’ll ever get the pre-2010 archives back up and running, because that’s way lower priority than the brog.  I also had some house issues, when some freakish storms exposed some leaks in my home, which turned out to be a time consuming and costly ordeal in its own right, which really messed me up, and I also found out that my own dad has been having some minor health issues on his own, leading to my sister and I to have some real talks about the inevitable future.

Needless to say, it’s been a time during paternity leave, and it’s hard to comprehend that these six weeks have evaporated so quickly.  Put being on full-time daddy duty 10-12 hours a day, with next to no help and practically no down time for myself, and it’s been very understandable when people try to expound the difficulties of parenthood.

To reward myself and/or indulge in some retail therapy, I decided to get myself a new belt, as well as track down my own belated birthday gift, in this sweet Power Rangers T-Rex DinoZord.  And the belt is mostly as a result of an Amazon gift card my sister got me for my birthday when her own attempt to get me the T-Rex stalled out due to a flaky seller in Japan, and much like Target gift cards, I’m left with a wtf do I purchase, until it came to my attention that Amazon actually had a few people selling legitimate belts.  So now I have a Ring of Honor tag replica, that guys like Kyle O’Reilly, Bobby Fish, the Young Bucks, Hardys, AJ Styles, Kevin Steen Owens, Cesaro, CM Punk and Seth Rollins have held in their histories.

And modeling the belt is my new life-long tag team partner.  As intensive as some parenting might have felt at times, I wouldn’t take anything away from the last six weeks, and I’m sad that it’s likely I’ll not get another massive chunk of time like this to spend with my child for the immediate future.

New Father Brogging, #020

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

As many parents of babies go through, I change a tremendous amount of diapers.  It is nothing that has ever worried me the least bit about impending parenthood, and I don’t really see what the big deal is all about honestly.  I’m thinking it has a lot to do with the fact that I’ve been a pet owner for the better part of the last 20+ years, and cleaning the pee and poop of animals has conditioned me to where baby human excrement seems like nothing at all, especially since it’s mostly encapsulated inside of diapers.

Anyway, what I wanted to new dad brog about today was the fact that over the span of the last six months, I’ve gotten to give some pretty good sampling to several baby wipes varieties out on the market, and I think I’ve become somewhat qualified to be able to rate and impart my opinions on my zero readers, in case the day comes in which they are in the market for baby wipes and decide to use my ratings as a baseline to sway their opinions.

I judge based on performance criteria, and not necessarily cost; mythical wife had gone through months of cerebral couponing and deal-hunting to stock up on baby supplies prior to the arrival of our child, so the factor of cost was somewhat irrelevant by the time we got to starting to use all the supplies that we’d hoarded, plus it’s safe to say that at no point have we ever paid full price on any baby wipes.

So the things that I judge baby wipes are on:

  1. Thickness – too thin and you’re wearing excrement; too thick and you might as well be trying to wedge a beach towel into the sensitive areas of your baby
  2. Softness – the softer the better as babies’ skin is delicate and gentle, especially down there
  3. Moisture – too little and you might as well be using sandpaper, too much and you’re leaving too much moisture which could lead to irritation
  4. And most importantly, when your baby has exploded, and you’ve only got one hand free because the other hand is holding their legs up so they don’t dip their heels into feces, how well the packaging dispenses, because I’m convinced that they’re all perfectly engineered to sense urgency and make it impossible to pull out anything other than the entire fucking package when all you need is one at a time

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Blet Money

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Over the last two months, whenever I’ve had any downtime, I’ve been doing online surveys for mostly pocket change.  Jokingly, I declared that all of the piddly change I’d make would eventually feed into a larger pot, and that the goal would be to get enough money to where I could get myself a new replica wrestling belt for my collection, and hopefully by then, the WWE Shop will get their heads out of their asses and release an NXT UK Tag Team Championship replica.

Well, as you can see above, I’ve done quite a lot of surveys, and the pot has filled up way faster than I would have ever imagined, and I’ve more or less got enough money socked away to where I could be ready to pull the trigger most any available belt out there.  Shocking nobody, the WWE has still yet to release the one belt that I really want, but I’m hoping that perhaps the re-launching of NXT UK in mid-September might jog someone’s memory that there’s still an active belt out there that still has no replica available.

The funny thing is that a long time ago, I used to do random surveys on pen and paper, when companies would send them to me, with pre-paid postage envelopes, which made it easier.  I remember the first time I got actual currency in an envelope, which inspired me to keep going with it for a little bit longer.  Jen on the other hand, got a free pack of toilet paper to sample and judge, which was always funny since I was getting cash for doing surveys.

Ironically, it was mythical wife who introduced me to 1Q (yes that is my referral link), as an app that provided digital surveys, and the payouts were immediate and through PayPal.  Sure, they were only quarters, but still, a bunch of quarters turns into a bunch of dollars over time, and every little bit helps, when there’s one pot all this change is getting dumped into.

I say ironically, because this clearly re-ignited this compulsion to do surveys for pocket change, because it lets me at least be making something, in my downtime, as opposed to making nothing when I’m bored and doing nothing, although that’s hardly the case this day and age, seeing as how there’s a baby in the equation.

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The cold equations of life

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There was a sci-fi story I read in high school that I always remembered called The Cold Equations by Tom Godwin.  In short, it was the story about a guy who was piloting a supply ship through space, to deliver medical supplies to a mining colony on another planet.  However, unbeknownst to him, a young girl, hoping to hitch a ride to the colony where her brother was located, had stowed away and was discovered after the ship had launched and was already in route.  She thought the punishment for her discretion would merely be a fine, but quickly learned that the ship had only enough fuel to make it to the planet and did not account for the weight she had added to the ship. 

In other words, her stowing away jeopardized the lives of herself, the pilot and the colonists depending on the medical supplies because the ship didn’t have enough fuel to haul the extra weight and would fall short of its destination and crash.

Initially, the pilot was callously instructed by his superiors to jettison the girl off the ship and continue the journey, and naturally he showed tremendous reluctance at the thought of having to kill someone; but it was a matter of kill one person to save the many people who needed the medical supplies, or jettison the medical supplies in order to save the girl. 

Spoiler alert: they deliberate for so long that it doesn’t even matter; after jettisoning the medical supplies, it turns out that a little thing called physics had already come into play, and they’d been flying overweight for long enough to where the girl needed to be unloaded anyway, due to fuel constraints.  The pilot is mentally murdered by having to push the button on someone’s life, the colonists on the planet do not get the medical supplies, and he is arrested and imprisoned for insubordination. 

Everyone loses.

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