Tag: kids

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.

Dad Brog (#134): Father’s Day 2024

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

#3 of forever

I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that there are few things that I look forward to every year more than this photograph.  I actually almost took it a month early, because the conditions were ideal, having just gotten a haircut, my lawn just been freshly cut, and the weather wasn’t sweltering yet, but mythical wife kind of poo-poo’d on the idea, and so I felt that I should just hold off until the actual month of Father’s Day. 

But that’s just how much I was looking forward to this particular shoot, that I was on the cusp of doing it nearly seven weeks earlier than I would’ve actually done anything with the photo.

Regardless, when the conditions were right to do it in June, there was no stopping me this time.  I got the blets all out of their storage, took time to deliberate on which blet that I wanted to wear myself because I’m a hipster that loves rando-midcard titles over any traditional World championship blets, and got all my camera equipment prepared for, what the girls have declared, “belt picture day.”

When I said it was time for belt picture day, I was so tickled when #1 quickly grabbed her little bejeweled tiara and magic wand, and was 1000% on board with her accessorizing for the photograph.  #2 still isn’t as gung-ho about it as her sister is, but she also didn’t fight at all when I said it was time to go outside.  Fighting boredom is clearly among the most important of duties I have as a parent in the summertime, and I’m fortunate that they still love the idea of belt picture day.

I almost thought this might be the year in which I could actually do it all in a collective photo, seeing as how they both got into their chairs with their blets, and all I had to do was jump in, but getting them to actually look at the camera, and not at a bird, a squirrel, or the dog taking a dump in front of them was too much to ask for, and despite some funny candids, I did have to resort to shooting them individually and then myself, and putting this together in Photoshop, in post.

But all the same, mission accomplished.  I’m so stoked with how it turned out this year, and much like how I happy I was last year, the following year just gets better, and I’m thrilled to time-lapse these, and see just how big these kids are getting with each successive year.

So until belt picture day in 2025, fare thee well.

Dad Brog (#133): Separation anxiety

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

When I was unloading my car after our trip, I noticed that my Baby On Board placard had fallen off.  Presumably in part due to the nuclear heat wave Georgia is going through because global warming is fake news, but there it was, no longer stuck to the windshield, letting other motorists to get off my tits because my kids are more important than your bullshit aggressive driving.

During the trip, the thought actually crossed my mind that I still had it on the window, and how that 4 and 2, my kids aren’t really babies anymore, regardless of the fact that I’m always going to see them as my little babies no matter what their age is in life. 

For two years, during the rise of #2, we didn’t encounter a whole lot of the impending separation anxiety with #1’s belongings, because we knew that just about everything we ever bought for #1 would get a second life with a younger sibling that was for all intents and purposes pretty close in age.  So instead of getting sad, mopey and melancholy that a material object was nearing the end of the line, just about everything got to be used again, and really get its money’s worth.

But now though, is a different story, as #2 continues to outgrow and retire clothes, shoes and other things here and there, comes the reality of having to say goodbye to things, which I’m normally pretty good about tossing things, or donating or getting them out of our home by whatever means, but when it comes to the things that belonged to my children, that’s a different story.

Which is why we still have tubs full of infant clothing, a disassembled crib that we have no use for, car seats, strollers and boxes of shoes, toys and other crap we want gone, but are still struggling to actually remove from the premises.  Like, I want the space back in my dining room, garage and sunroom something fierce, but at the same time, it’s sad to say goodbye to all these random crap and clothing that basically had notable contributions in raising my children.

As for the window placard, I thought about keeping it off the window because my kids aren’t technically babies anymore, but then I was like fuck that, and slapped it back up on the window.  Even if my kids aren’t crawling around in diapers, I would still appreciate if shitty aggressive drivers would have a little bit of understanding maybe at why I might not drive like an asshole when I don’t have to.

Those who are quick to judge the shopping cart mom probably aren’t parents

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I came across this story about this California mom who apparently enraged The Internet because she proclaimed to rarely return shopping carts when she went shopping. 

My knee-jerk reaction was like, what a lazy Karen-ey bitch, but when I actually read a little bit about the context to the whole story, my stance softened, and I began to empathize a little bit of where she was coming from, because it’s come from the place of her being a parent, and if there’s one thing I’m observing in the world this day and age, is that at a glance, it feels like fewer people are having kids these days, therefore there are fewer parents as the generations move on, and therefore there are fewer people who can relate and understand to where this California mom is coming from.

Basically, her defense of her decisions to not always return carts to a designated area stems from the fact that when she’s out and about with her kids on her own, she doesn’t want to leave her kids unattended, even for 20-30 seconds, while she takes the cart back to a designated spot.  And as a parent, who definitely understands the abject horror of the reality that the world is full of a bunch of sick fucks out there whom you never know are ready to strike at any given point, I wholeheartedly understand where this mom is coming from.

Even with modern cars that auto-lock when the RFID chips in the keys or phone signals stray, there’s still a few second delay, and in this day and age all it takes is a few seconds for some twisted psycho to try to kidnap a kid, inflict harm or just be a plain sick fuck, and it’s my duty as a parent to protect my children from that kind of stuff, no matter how unlikely or one-in-a-million chances it might be.

Now personally, I’ve done both things, where I have not returned a cart to a designated spot, as well as returned my cart, while my kid(s) were in the car unattended.  When I didn’t return it, it’s not like I left it in the middle of the parking lot or have it cockblocking an entire parking space, I’ve typically moved it onto a curb or onto an island, out of the way as best as possible, and perhaps I’ve had been having a bad day or the weather is ass for why I didn’t return it, on top of the fact that my kids were secured in their seats and I didn’t want to leave them unattended.

And when I did return my cart while the kids were unattended, I would always be looking back ever two seconds keeping my eyes peeled for any prowling psychos, and I would only take my cart back as far as to where I could then heave it forward and make it into the galley before walking briskly back to my car to be with my kids again.

But the reality is that whether I’m at Costco, Publix, Target, or anywhere where I might need a shopping cart, I deliberately park away from other people, as well as often times, as close to a cart return as possible, so that I can return my cart conveniently close to my vehicle to where I don’t have to deal with the fear of leaving my kids unattended while I do something honorable.

Back to the point though, I have this feeling that all the white knights of the internet who are in defense of retailers and attacking this mom for her choice to not always return her cart, probably aren’t parents, specifically to kids of very young ages, like car seats and diapers or younger.

I can’t imagine that it’s not just Korea and Japan that are having falling birthrates, when I look at my own circles of people, and seeing people getting older, passing traditionally prime child-bearing ages, and making the choice to live on the rest of their lives without experiencing the journey of raising another generation of human beings.  I don’t fault anyone for making that choice, and I would appreciate the same courtesy for my own choice to have children.

But let’s face it, it’s people who don’t have kids who probably have more time than people who do have kids, to be on the internet and judging a mom who admits to committing the worst offense of history 1B, not returning shopping carts, because she’s afraid of the psycho world we live in, and doesn’t want to be the rare exception statistic where her kids get snatched because she’s trying to make some store employee’s life a little bit easier.

Her life could become a little bit easier by deciding to be more like me, and doing what I do, but sometimes that’s not always going to be the case.  Especially in a high-density region like California, and depending on when she goes to cart-utilizing stores, such parking options might not always be available.  But I for one am never going to judge a parent for doing something that might offend others, but stems from a place of being protective parent.

Now if she were to continue this behavior on excursions where she’s alone, then she’s being a lazy Karen-ey bitch, but as long as her mom hat is on, I’m not going to blow her up for it; I’d suggest she be more like me, but wanting to protect her kids isn’t something I will get up in arms over.

Dad Brog (#131): Con Pollo es mierda

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Look at this photograph of Jennifer Lopez and Jimmy Fallon.  They’re laughing at all the parents whom they duped into buying their “collaboration” book, Con Pollo.  Frankly, I don’t know how my household ended up with this book, we’ve inherited a lot of books and mythical wife has a lot of books from school, and we’re often given books as gifts for the girls, because it’s known just how much we read to them.  I just know that I didn’t purchase it, because if I saw anything “authored” by Jimmy Fallon or Jennifer Lopez, I probably wouldn’t have bought it, especially if it was by both of them.

But somehow, this book exists in my home, and all I can think of it is just how much bullshit it is.  It’s 48 pages of a basic journey of a young chicken doing things throughout the day, but it’s more like 24, because it’s this format where query is asked two times, with the second time in Español.  I haven’t taken Spanish since the 9th grade in high school, but even I can recollect the basic words being spouted in this book.

In all fairness, it contains more words than MAMA or DADA or BABY like all of Fallon’s previous, and unfortunate New York Times bestsellers, which means that Jennifer Lopez probably used her IQ points to insert some basic words, in two languages at their most basic forms into this.

And then they slap their names on it and call it a day, and of course, because there are lots of parents who impulse buy because they see celebrity names on it instead of actually checking to see what the substance of the books themselves, this too is a New York Times bestseller.  Which further emphasizes the sheer lack of merit or sales numbers actually necessary to earn that seemingly important designation.

Frankly, it’s crap like this that exemplifies the notion that celebrities shouldn’t be allowed to write books, other than autobiographies.  Most of the time, they’re wholly unqualified to produce content that might actually have some influence on the young budding minds of tomorrow, as demonstrated by Fallon, who clearly roped J-Lo into putting her name on a turd to help fling it off shelves so that some rich fucks can get even richer.

I look forward to the future book audit where this fails to meet the cut, and ends up in the donation pile, so it can rot someone else’s shelves and collections, and be the fuck out of mine.