Tag: dad

Dad Brog (#138): About that “fake” global warming

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I remember when I was a kid, outdoor play was as regular as going to school or a job; something you did on almost a daily basis.  Summer vacation saw tons of playing outside, I have tons of memories of exploring the woods, playing basketball, practicing rollerblading, and all sorts of things done solely outdoors.

Sure, the summertime would be hot, but we kids would pop outdoors without blinking an eye, and spend hours playing basketball, or just wandering aimlessly.  Personally, I don’t ever recollect putting on sunscreen at any time, and I’d go outside, do shit, and be content to come back home sweaty and relieved to be out of the heat, but otherwise not worrying about dehydration and excessive sun exposure.

The other day, I was at a parent orientation for my kids’ preschool, talking to the teachers about what to expect for the upcoming year, and a question that mythical wife had asked was if they adhered to the county protocol when it comes to heat advisory, to which they did, which was good to know, seeing as how often the temperatures here in Georgia are 95F+, which is that if the heat index exceeds a certain threshold, kids are not sent outside for recess.

Sure, there’s a knee-jerk reaction somewhere that wants to call everyone today soft and that they need to toughen up and get out in the sun and live a little, but the more rational part of my brain also understands and acknowledges the existence of global warming, and in spite of the dumbasses of the country who like to claim that it’s fake news, the fact of the matter is that every summer seems like it gets to become the hottest one ever, and we’re getting to the point where the act of going outside in the summertime comes with actual health risks involved.

My kids have gotten to the point where their general love of books, puzzles and board games has been diminishing a little bit, and they really want to be active and do physical activities, like playing tag, hide-and-seek and just plain run around and expend the gas tanks worth of energy that kids this young are in disposal of.  I want to be able to oblige them, and it kills me that I have to always be cognizant of the heat index conditions, and over the last few weeks of this summer, it’s either been torrential downpour or temperatures well in excess of 95F, with the heat index being even higher.

And I keep them inside, because they’re not old enough to be mindful of dehydration and exertion in the sun and heat yet, and I’ve seen them be affected by lesser temperatures, so I don’t want to subject them to the risk, just because they’re a little bored and antsy.  It’s like the outdoors, as beautifully sunny and picturesque it can be sometimes, is like an episode of Dual Survival or that mission in Mass Effect 2, where you had to rescue Tali from the planet that was too close to a sun, where excessive exposure to the sun would erode your shields and health.

The point of this post is that I just think it really sucks that I have to err on side of caution with my kids and taking them outdoors, because global warming is a very real fucking thing and the planet isn’t just hotter than it was 30 years ago, it’s gotten to the point where everyone has to exercise a ton of caution, preparation and basically gearing up, just to go outside.  It’s obnoxious and bothersome when dumbasses like to proclaim their opinion that it’s not a real thing, because there’s monumental amounts of evidence that says that it is.

As much as I’d love for my kids to have the kind of childhood that had the type and amount of outdoor play as mine did, I just don’t think it’s going to be possible, at least without elevating their risks of physical harm, dehydration and skin cancer risks.  It’s not fair to the kids of tomorrow to have to deal with the consequences of the generations long before them, and it makes me anxious and disappointed that I’m going to have to basically wait until like October before it’s going to be really comfortable and adequate to play outside with my kids.

Dad Brog (#137): I’ve been waiting their entire lives for this

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

My kids made me bracelets for the first time.

There are randomly colored beads, pink, blue, green, yellow, white, red, green.  Some smiley faces, some flowers, an octopus, some eyeball-looking beads.  Some stars, a moon, and some random letters.

And they’re my favorite things in the entire world now, and short of showers and exercise, I’m seldom going to not be wearing them.

Even before I had kids, whenever I’d see a guy wearing some bracelet or some accessory that was clearly made by their children, I always thought it was sweet, and I admired their sense of security at not being embarrassed or afraid to wear their children’s creations, and I knew that those were the kinds of dads that I wanted to be more like rather than some stuffy stooge of a dad that doesn’t move the needle of what it takes to be a modern, supportive and loving father in this day and age.  Few things irk me as when I see content insinuating dads are distant deadbeats and have no connection to their kids, but at the same time I understand how that narrative came to be, and why it’s still in such prevalence.

All I really want in my life is to be the type of dad who breaks that sad mold, and be the type of dad that people can look at and talk about as being someone who loves the hell out of their children, is unafraid and apologetic about show affection and doing corny things like wearing princess apparel or colorful bracelets and other handmade jewelry.

Over the last few years, watching my kids grow and seeing their interests come and go, ebb and flow, I’ve always been waiting for the time in which they might, in some of their budding arts and crafts explorations, be in a position to make me a bracelet or a necklace, or some other accessory. 

That day has finally come, in which a mini bead and bracelet set was provided to them, and I came home to find that they had each made me a bracelet, and I couldn’t have been more over the moon to put them on and wear them with pride and love for my perfect kids.

And much like them, they are my treasures.

Thoughts on Cruising with Virgin for the first time

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Mythical wife and I recently went on an adults-only vacation, probably the first one since well, we had children.  Sure, we’ve had a quick jaunt away here or there, but nothing like a four-night cruise on an adults-only line, where we had no real objective other than the pursuit of relaxation and feeling not just like parents.

So let’s get it out of the way now, yes, which meant that we were Virgin virgins, as we had never cruised with Virgin Cruises before.  We’d both heard lots of good things about them, and it seemed as good of an endeavor to embark on before mythical wife has to start preparing for the next school year.

It was kind of weird preparing and embarking on this trip, seeing as how like I’d said, we’d never really had such time away from the kids under these circumstances.  We got to fly somewhere instead of driving because the cost of two adults is way more feasible than flying five humans, where none of them are lap-rider eligible (read: free) anymore, and we had nothing but carry-ons instead of the maximum baggage allowance allowed to travel with.

I got to enjoy a legit Cuban sandwich and coffee in downtown Miami before we departed which is definitely worth mentioning considering how neither seems to be capable of existing outside of Miami and presumably, Cuba itself, but from the very start, Virgin Cruise Line seemed to be a breath of fresh air compared to other experiences we’ve had cruising in the past.

As all sorts of identification, passports, and documentation are logged in advance of travel, we basically show up to port at a general assigned time, and then we’re through in a jiffy with minimal waiting.  There was little feeling like cattle, slowly moving through the pen before we’re on the ship, and we go straight to our stateroom, where a nifty tablet is waiting that controls everything, and fresh canisters of water, as if they know the process of embarkation can be a pain in the ass and it’s important to replenish the hydration of being in South Florida.

Admittedly, I had some concerns and thought that it would temper my enthusiasm when doing some recon prior to the trip, because there were some things about the branding, the presentation and general vibe I was getting, that Virgin Cruises might be a little on the douchey side; I mean, the ice cream joint on ship is literally called “Lick Me til Ice Cream” which is about as cringey to type out as much as it is to see it on a fucking wall (but it didn’t stop us from going there a few times and enjoying some decent quality gelato), and the cruise line’s general importance placed on drinking and partying.

But a lot of those preconceived notions were put to rest pretty early on, and other than like, the temperature of our stateroom, and the occasional clunkiness of the app, I really don’t have anything bad to say about the entire experience, and I can say without hesitation that we had a fantastic experience, and we would without hesitation do it again in the future, which is all but guaranteed, seeing as how we’ve capitalized on their future voyage bait of a large amount of on-board credit for putting a deposit down for a future cruise.

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Dad Brog (#136): even bad behavior can be lovable

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Sometimes when I come home from an office day, as soon as I come inside the door, my kids go running off mischievously like little shits.  It makes me smile and laugh all the same when they’re playful and being little shits together, and I don’t think anything of it.

The other day, I came home from the office, and as I walked in the door, I saw #2 run down the hallway, clearly following #1 in the day’s edition of hide from dada when he gets home.

And then I turn the corner and I see the marker marks on the wall. Then on the bathroom door, and then on the light switches and various surfaces. My jaw dropped at the incredulousness of them actually having drawn on the walls, as if I figured it was just some trope from a paint ad or something and that my kids wouldn’t actually do it themselves.

Naturally, mythical wife and I were pretty upset with this bad choice, and tried to calmly as possible explain to the girls that what they did was wrong, and why we were making them help clean the marks off of the surfaces they drew on.  Dessert and evening television were both taken off the table for the night, and they seemed to understand that they had made a poor choice.

The thing is, the following day, I was thinking about the whole incident but then I found myself smiling and chuckling about it, because of how the girls were working together and having fun together, and I really couldn’t feel that made about it.  The squeals of fun and laughter when I walked in the door is music to my ears, and even if they had vandalized walls in their own home, they did so in the name of having fun together, and I just couldn’t be upset with them any longer.

I know that there will come a time when such sounds and behaviors won’t be happening any more, and it’ll make me sad to come to the realization that my kids are too old and grown past such playfulness.  So even if it means that they’re making bad choices and doing a little bit of destruction of property, I don’t think it’s the end of the world if they’re doing it together, having fun, and learning afterward that their behavior was not acceptable in a calm and rational response. 

I wonder what it says that I relate so well to mommy bloggers

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

In the connected world we live in full of prying digital eyes and ears that seem to exist solely to collate information for algorithms and targeted content, I was fed this blog article from some mommy blogger, talking about how lonely it felt being everyone’s B-list friend.

It was a headline that I immediately knew what it was going to be about before I even started to read it, but like a masochist I clicked on it out of curiosity to see how someone else felt about this fairly accurately named affliction.

And unsurprisingly, I feel as if this entire article could have been written by me, except with a little more feminine eloquence and emotional neediness.  But I definitely felt this article so very hard, and the examples of where they were resultantly made to feel B-list resonate so much with me, especially since becoming a parent, and transitioning into the inevitable zone of I have kids and lots of my friends don’t, and the gradual position of not only being excluded by everyone, but also no longer even considered for invitation.

I’m seldom mad or upset about it, that just seems to be the way life is for people who age and people who have children, but one thing I’ve always said is that there is tremendous power and consideration in the act of the ask alone, and although I know and most everyone knows that asking me do something is nine times out of ten going to result in a no I can’t, I always appreciate the ask, because it makes me feel like people still think and consider me.

Honestly though, even before kids, I felt this way a lot of the time, mostly because I was the sad-sack single guy for eternity, and I get that nobody always wanted an odd-numbered wheel on their activities.  Things improved a little bit once mythical girlfriend-now-wife came into the picture, but now that we have children and have stepped onto a less-adjacent plane of existence as most everyone around us, going back onto the B-list feels more prevalent than ever.

But going back to the article, it clearly hit home hard enough to pop the synapses in my brain to want to write about it, because it was that thought-provoking.  I don’t think it hurts me as much as it hurts the author of this post, but I see, I acknowledge and I can relate to so much of this.

Frankly if I’m being honest here, the only people in my life that I don’t feel like put me on the B-list are my children.  As much as I bemoan the workload sometimes, feel like I’m overwhelmed and tired of being a parent at times, when the day is over, my girls are the only ones who don’t make me feel like I’m B-list ever.  When they have bad dreams and wake up at night, they call for me.  When it’s the morning and they know it’s time to get up and have breakfast, they know it’s me.  When they’re distressed and need a hug and snuggle, they come to me.

This isn’t to say I resent everyone else for making me feel like I’m B-list.  Everyone else just has their own shit going on their lives, and it’s easy to take a self-sufficient machine like me for granted.  I feel like everyone else already does a lot of the time, and I don’t always feel comfortable expressing such opinions too often, so it’s just the norm.

I agree with the author that it’s not good to measuring self-worth by the effort others put into our relationships, but at the same time, it’s also kind of impossible to ignore the scales of relationships and when those around us are putting us into the B-list.  It’s always easy to say one thing, but doing them is a whole different matter, and in this particular case, it’s not necessarily a bad thing to struggle with chessboard of where we’re positioned, because frankly I think it’s human nature that everyone does, and those who don’t are either blind or lying.

All the same though, going back to the title of this post, I wonder what it says about me, that such thought-provoking mommy content is what is fed to me, and resonates with me so much.

If there were a gun to my head to relax, I’m as good as dead

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

The kids were shipped off to the grandparents this weekend, and it’s not only a kid-free weekend back home, it’s a long kid-free weekend, since it was parlayed into July 4th.

I recall the immediate feeling of pressure being released after dropping the kids off and driving home, but a lot of it more had to do with the fact that I was driving to a destination with a predetermined time with goal, and the fact that it was an obnoxious trek up I-85 given the usual array of crap drivers on the road.  The drive back down to Atlanta was certainly less occupied, leading to an easier drive, but the mental weight of not facing a clock being off the table felt palpable.

However, there was also another feeling that I was feeling after handing the kids off to grandma; I already miss my children.  That feeling actually started pretty immediately, watching grandma’s car pull away with the girls in tow, and it’s funny because as much as my kids drive me bonkers on some days, and as much as I complain and bemoan the lack of support I feel, and wish there were times where I didn’t have to be a parent, whenever those instances actually come to fruition, there’s nothing more I feel than how much I miss my kids and how much I love them.

That being said, when I got back home, I basically went through the rest of my day like a lost ghost, unable to figure out what to do, paralyzed by indecision, and completely incapable of relaxation.  Like the title of this post states, if a gun were put to my head and I was told to relax, there might as well be a clock over my head to count down when the trigger would be pulled to put me out of my misery.  I’m pretty sure I’ve written about this pathetic condition, but it’s also not often that I’ve ever in the circumstances of being completely kid-free at home where I don’t actually have to be a parent for a few days so you’ll have to forgive me if I’m regurgitating a trite topic.

I tried to decompress and wind down and watch some television, but that didn’t last long.  I watched the last episode of season 1 of Succession, which was a show that I thought I would like more than I did, but it’s just been a little too slow of a burn for me, and I have doubts on if I’m going to keep watching more of it, or deciding to punt.  I tried to follow it up with a layup of something I thought I’d like in watching the latest episode of The Boys (S4E6), but I couldn’t stop myself from feeling distracted, and dicked around on my phone through more of it than it deserved.

Ultimately, I ended up tidying up both of the girls’ rooms, tidying up my bedroom a little bit, and tidying up the bathroom where the girls have wrecked shop.  I made a list of other menial tasks that I could try to tackle while the home remained kid-free, but the point of the matter is that I spent very little bit of all this free time, actually being free and relaxed.

As I’ve said many times before, the ability to relax is a genuine skill and it’s a skill that I simply do not have.  At the same time, I am not envious of those who do have this skill, because deep in the recesses of my mind, I’m probably judging everyone who is relaxing too much and thinking that they’re lazy and not doing a laundry list of things that I think they could be doing instead of relaxing.  I think what trumps my self-pity at being incapable of relaxation is the sense of satisfaction and accomplishment I feel when I am alternatively being productive.

All the same though, if Sunday afternoon comes, when I’m feeling the clock again at trying to be somewhere on time in order to pick up the kids, and I haven’t taken even just the smallest sliver of time for myself, then I’m going to go straight back to feeling like I’ve squandered all this free time, and be salty and full of piss and vinegar about it.

I really wonder if this conflict in my head could be considered somewhat of a disorder, or if I’m just simply too wound-up of a personality that needs to learn to fucking relax.

Prior to this, during one of the occasions where we watched some television as a family, we were watching some of the newer episodes of Bluey, which I’m convinced is pretty much the greatest show in existence for this generation, the episode titled Relax was basically speaking directly to me.  I know I feel like Bandit a lot for the obvious reason that he’s the Dad of the family with two daughters, but in this particular episode, I 1,000% was Chilli, as the parent who is entirely incapable of relaxation.

It’s astounding just how many episodes of Bluey are just so sniper accurate at detailing what parenting feels like in this day and age, at least to me, and as the episode was unfolding, I knew where it was going, but I still was unable to avert my eyes at the obvious conflict that was going to arise as Chilli wanted to get everything in order, wrangle the kids and just get down to the god damn beach.  And the feeling of getting some time, but not knowing how to actually turn off and relax hit harder than a baseball bat.

So, all I can do instead of anything sedentary and mindless, is brog about it.  These last 20-30 minutes could’ve been used relaxing and finishing the last book I started and haven’t finished yet, or watching an episode of a show on my list 74 titles deep.

I wonder if one day, I will be able to acquire this skill to relax, or if I’ll always be plagued by the need to always be doing something productive.  If I’m a betting man, I think I’ll have to bet on the latter. 😩

Dad Brog (#135): Frustrating realities of my life sometimes

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Prior to going on vacation, I saw a deal for some HexClad cookware while I was at Costco.  As the person who does the vast majority of the cooking in my household, HC stuff has been interesting to me, and I admit that there’s a bit of bait that I bit as far as its immense target marketing that they tend to do, but all the same, I am interested in the product, but the ridiculous price points on their products always kept me away.

But Costco was selling something like a seven-piece set, which would have allowed me to replace my existing pan set, as well as give me a wok, something that I’ve felt might make some of my cooking life easy at times, and it was for a fairly reasonable $379 or around that.  I found the price to be appealing, but seeing as how I was about to go on a vacation with the family, I felt that I should hold off and see how much damage we would do before dropping $400 bones on something that I didn’t technically need.

After the trip, sure, we did some damage and naturally spent more than I would have hoped to have spent, but I still wanted the pans.  If they worked as advertised, I felt that there was a lot of potential to be had, and might make me more enthusiastic about cooking in the future.  I knew that the promotion was going to go until 6/23, so I figured I had a little bit of time to pull the trigger, and the reality is that the biggest challenge about ending a vacation for kids, is the adaptation back to the daily routine, which proved to be a little challenging, seeing as how the kids spent five straight nights in five different beds, watched a ton of television on the iPad on the long car hauls, and were a little bit rowdy once they were expected to fall back to the normal daily routine.

I finally was able to get to Costco, on June 23rd, and lo and behold, the HexClad endcap was gone without a trace, and it turns out that when they said until 6/23, it really meant that 6/22 was the final day in which the deal was live.

I had missed out on something that I had wanted, because I’d put something for me at the back of the line in order to be a parent first, and a member of the team, and prioritize vacation expenses over something for myself.

Another thing that has held my interest for a while now, in light of me always looking for ways to optimize my physical status, is a MaxiClimber cardio machine.  Yes, like the HexClad pans, they do seem a little bit gimmicky, but I like the science behind it.  I’m not swayed by LeBron James, Lady Gaga or any Kardashians that back it, but the science behind the machine is interesting, and it’s definitely I’d love to try before committing to it, but I don’t know of any gyms that have these not to mention I barely like working out among people at my tiny work gym much less seeking one of these out.

I got some targeted ad about how they’re on overstock from the company themselves, and that they’re selling for $149.  I’ve definitely dropped $149+ on things less productive than a piece of exercise equipment, and frankly $149 is probably cheaper than some of the family meals I had to cover while on vacation.  Needless to say, I was very interested in pulling the trigger, but then there was one question that stood in the way: where would I put this thing?

The sunroom, where my treadmill is, is too full of all of my wife’s things to be able to support another piece of equipement, despite it being the most logical place for it to go.  There’s no room in the family room because it’s been completely taken over by the kids’ toys, books and other belongings.  The dining room we don’t use is also overflowing with tons of shit that I wish we could make disappear, and the only place where something like a MaxiClimber could possibly finagle its way into is the garage, except for the fact that it’s the middle of a Georgia summer and every single day is 95F+.

So that means no-go on the MaxiClimber too, because there’s simply no space in my house to support it.

And this is where a lot of my general daily frustrations lie, in the fact that I have basically sacrificed everything, to the point where I can’t seemingly ever get anything for myself, regardless of if it’s attainable or not.

There’s no space in my own fucking house for anything I’d want, I’ve given up my office so that we can have our live-in au pair, but it comes at the expense of having nowhere in my own home for me to shut a door and be completely alone, and all of my personal belongings that bring me happiness are all stored in boxes and crates in the garage or a closet.

I barely have my own car, since it’s the most optimal for child taxi-ing, and much like my house, I’m paying a monthly note on something where I’m apparently the lowest user, and am typically using the third car of the household which is fine in its own right, but it’s still not my car.

And of course, there’s never any time for me to capitalize on things for myself, and I find myself in a position where I always feel like I’m being taken for granted by everyone in my life, and that I’m always last in line.

“But practice self-care,” faceless people on the internet love to preach; let me say something about that, self-care is entitlement, self-care is privilege – self-care if bullshit. People recommending to others to practice self-care probably don’t have young kids, or they simply have more support than I do.

The amount of randomly targeted algorithm content that is spoon fed to me that seem to be made from random burnt-out moms on the internet that I see, I find myself being able to relate to a staggering amount of them.  A lot of frustrations will organically quell as my kids get older, and I don’t have to always worry about them running off, and I’ll feel like I’ll have more freedom to do things with them outside the house, but that involves waiting, and like some random stranger said on the internet, if you’re always waiting for some condition, you’ll just find more future conditions waiting for you when you check off current ones.

I’d like to live more of life now in the present, but as the way things are, such a simple sounding want doesn’t come very easy.  So I guess all I can continue to do is just dream and fantasize of being rich to where I could live out hypothetical realities where I could have things such as time and space for myself every now and then, because those things don’t really exist in my reality, as sad as it sounds.