Going to Disney World with the kids was definitely something that was going to be inevitable, given its place as far as mythical wife and I are concerned. A wedding in central Florida where the wife was to be one of the bridesmaids accelerated the trip, and no matter how ready or not we were, the time had arrived to take the girls down to Orlando for a lengthy trip that was chock full of memories, lessons, trials and tribulations, as far as I was concerned.
Tag: famiry
2 Under 2: My wife left me (#062)
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: I have already become my mother (#057)
All through my life, my mom would accidentally call me by my sister’s name, before correcting herself and addressing me by my name. There were younger points in my life where I would let that piss me off, but eventually it more or less because everyday occurrences, and I stopped really noticing them beyond hearing them when they happened.
It didn’t even take a full 24 hours to pass before I had already called #2 by #1’s name. It happened more frequently in the AM hours where we were struggling to get any sleep we could. But by day two of #2’s life, I had already slipped up numerous times, and even the times where I stopped myself from making the mistake, if there was ever any hesitation in my flow of speech, mythical wife would pick it out and know that I was on the verge of using the wrong name again.
Therefore, I have become my mother in this regard, and I can only hope that as their lives progress, they can forgive their dad for being just like halmoni, and roll with the slights as well as I eventually learned how to do as I got older.
2 Under 2: It’s all worth it (#056)
I know it might seem like a lot of the things I’ve written since the arrival of #2 might seem a dour and with a negative lean. Sleep deprivation, temperamental screaming babies, having almost zero time to decompress and catch my breath, yes there’s no denying the tremendous amount of work and effort that goes into raising kids, especially under these specific circumstances of having two under two.
I’ll be the first to admit, as much as I might regret or feel ashamed of it, of how often I’ve lost my cool, get frustrated, and generally get fried, because I’m human and this is reality of just how hard things can be.
But then there are moments like this specific photograph, of where my oldest is giving my youngest a gentle kiss, after knowing her new sister for all of five days, and all my anxieties, stress and negativity washes away like beads of water off a waxed surface.
One of the biggest concerns mythical wife and I had about having a second child, especially so soon after the first, was the potential for jealousy and the resulting behavior from the first. We can talk about plans and ideas all we want to try and help mitigate things, but we wouldn’t really know what was going to happen until the day came where we introduced the kids to one another.
And much as my first has often times met or exceeded my expectations, she appears to have welcomed and accepted her little sister with no complaints or objections. If anything at all, it’s mostly fascination and curiosity at her smaller doppelganger, but no real signs of aggression or animosity, yet.
The above sight was something that instantaneously melted my heart and took my emotions to a place that is seldom seen, which is how I know it’s genuine and perfect, and that in the end, no matter how much stress, hardships and bullshit I might go through or think I’m going through as a parent, this is all worth it.
May my daughters accept each other as not just sisters, but as the lifelong tag team partners I hope they will become, with the blets to prove it.
2 Under 2: If you’ve ever said this (#055)
This, or anything like this, to me, or to anyone who was expecting a child not their first: “oh if your first child was good, that means the second one is going to be a nightmare”
Fuck you. Just fuck you. Why in the fuck would anyone want to put these ideas into the heads of parents knowing that they’re already going to be re-embarking onto the already tremendously difficult path of new parenthood, but knowing that the subsequent children are already pegged to be nightmares? That fucking sucks, and I genuinely mean it when I want to tell everyone who insinuated this to me, that fuck you.
It has come from friends, it has come from family, and it has come from colleagues, all the same. I know it’s just conversation, it has no bearing on the fate of our relationships, but fuck you all the same.
I say all this because I am living this. As much as I love my second child and will continue to love my second child, there’s no sugar coating the genuine difference in difficulty with #2 than there was the first time around. #1 was a vastly more chill and low-maintenance baby, and I know comparisons are inevitable no matter how much I can tell myself to try and not make so many, but there’s no denying that #2 has been substantially more challenging, and it has been testing my patience on a daily basis since her arrival.
I’ll go ahead and say it, just about every single night since her arrival has sucked. This is no knock on my child, but because her circadian rhythm is all out of whack and night is day and day is night, when it’s time for conventional sleep is when the most challenges emerge, and mythical wife and I have been pushed to our breaking points numerous times, and I’ve gotten angry and broken way more than I’d like to admit. Now things have improved slightly since I’m writing things in retrospect at this point, but without question, the first two weeks, every single night sucked, and I burned out repeatedly.
Accurate to this very second, #2 exists solely in three states of being: sleeping, eating, or screaming her head off bloody murder. There is seldom any moments of normalcy; typically what seems normal or calm are usually precursors to indigestion-related screaming bloody murder, or the next starving like a UNICEF child screaming bloody murder. Calm is when she falls asleep, but it’s really only a matter of time before the clock gets too close to the next feed, and if a bottle is not prepared in anticipation, it’s going to be eight minutes of agony of waiting for a bottle to warm while she’s screaming her head off the whole time.
Suffice to say, it’s back to being Desmond from Lost, where we exist on these windows of time of 90-120 minutes where she dozes off where we can catch our breath, and if we don’t prepare well, then it’s a punishment of more soul-grating screaming until a bottle is in #2’s mouth.
By no means do have any feelings other than love for my second child, but at the same time, there’s no way I’m not going to document any of the bullshit and how much she’s driven me mad in the first few weeks of her life. I love my child and I love both my kids, and I love being a dad. But I also believe in being honest and transparent, and relay the fact that not every aspect of parenthood is a walk in the park.
In fact, I already look forward to the days when my daughters are older and savvy, and I can tell them stories of how #2 was a nightmare baby early on. Or better yet, when the day eventually comes when I become a grandfather, and I can relay stories to my daughters whom might becoming new moms about how #2 was a ballistic disaster, and that it’s almost ironic payback that she’ll have to endure a crying baby of her own, much as mythical wife and I had to endure her.
I love my daughter. I love my kids. But this is reality and in the spirit of transparency and honesty, these are the stories that I’ll tell about it all, good and hellacious
2 Under 2: Paternal Postpartum? (#053)
After a few days of feeling foggy and lost, both physically and emotionally, primarily on account of sleep deprivation, a question popped into my head: is there such a thing as postpartum depression for dads?
A cursory Google search says that yes, there very much is such a thing as postpartum depression for dads, and that it supposedly affects one in ten dads; it figures that a headcase like me naturally ends up lumped into that 10% chance of developing postpartum symptoms, but from what I was reading in the aforementioned link, I don’t think what I’m going through is entirely the same thing as the “classic” symptoms. But I am definitely in this hazy, foggy mood, and I think I should be happier, so it’s really up to interpretation on whether or not this is postpartum, or just me being who I am, perpetually concerned or contemplative on whatever I’m doing being a good decision or not, even at the potential expense of the present.
So I don’t really think I’m going through “classic” postpartum, but my mood is definitely probably not at happy as it should be following the birth of a child. I feel like, if I could pinpoint it as best as I could, which is a little bit easier considering I’m writing this after the initial period in which I went through this the most, is that I think that at the very root of things, I’m just struggling to find my identity as a dad of two children and not one, balancing the guilt of having to divide my time, and of course, the feelings of inadequacy as well as simply feeling overwhelmed with what life is going to be from here on out.
But the thing is, I like to tell myself that I didn’t feel inadequate or overwhelmed from time to time, it would reflect on my quality as a dad, because it would mean that I didn’t give enough shits about my family to where I’d feel so owned and defeated so frequently, because I just don’t want to ever let them down. At the end of the day, my goals are to be a good dad and a husband and not let my family down, and I care enough to let those motivations dictate my emotions if I ever feel concerned that I’m not meeting expectation.
At the end of the day, much like my first time around, things will ultimately settle, calm down, routines materialize, #2 will age out of some of the more challenging behaviors, and life will get easier, and emotions like postpartum will dissipate. As mythical wife and I have often said, now that we’ve had our agreed-upon second and final child, things can only get easier from here on out, as far as raising babies goes. Now infants, toddlers, terrible twos, and so forth are different stories, but at least by then, hopefully our girls will know how to wipe their own asses by then.
2 Under 2: I’m not dead (yet) (#052)
This is the first time I’ve had the availability to any sort of writing since the birth of #2, and it’s solely based on the fact that I’m back to work, sequestered in my office, and where my kids are being cared for by mythical wife and our nanny. In the downtime between periodic work emails where things are on fire, and the lulls throughout the day, I’m finding myself actually capable of finding a little bit of time to write something, and now that I do, I don’t even know where to start.
Over the last three weeks, I’ve jotted down notes and blurbs of things that I’d like to touch on, but never having the time and capacity to do so, they’ve just been amassing in a draft document and I’m debating on whether or not it’s worth trying to revisit some things but I think we all know that I probably will because I have a hard time letting go of things and ideas that were thought of, going unused. Including the topic of having no time itself on account of welcoming a second child into the world. We’ll see how my writing habits become in coming weeks and months, because as I’ve stated countless times, my brog is basically my lifeblood of hobbies, and no matter the circumstances it’s something I’ll never let go of.
Also over the last three weeks, I’ve gone through the a vast gamut of emotions, I’m sure that’s a surprise. Sleep deprivation has a tendency to alter mood and emotions like that, and regardless of knowing why and reminding myself to exhibit patience, it’s still been very challenging at times to not just feel fried and angry and frustrated with things, which then leads to guilt, inadequacies and an overall shitty feeling, but three weeks in now, I think we’re kind of, hopefully, finding some modicum of rhythm, and once #2’s sleep cycles start to stabilize, or at least she manages to chain at least one sleep cycle to another, then mythical wife and I might gain some free time, which in turns would mean gaining a little bit of sanity back.
Either way, this post serves really no other purpose than to break the streak of brog silence that would ordinarily have me losing my shit to have let a week, much less three, go by without any sort of post. Having kids seems like as justifiable reason as any to warrant it, but it doesn’t change the fact that I tend to get angsty when I don’t write for too long, which didn’t help feed the more negative emotions that have crept into my head over the last few weeks.
In a perfect more ideal world, I’ll comb through my notes and topics and try and write out some coherent and tangible stories and posts about the journeys of a second-time father and a dad of two under two years old, as well as catch up some of the other few topics that piqued my interest over the span and try to play some catch-up.