Tag: dad

New Father Brogging, #027

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I was at a Target the other day, and while we’re checking out, I hear this little girl at the in-store Starbucks, ordering a caramel macchiato.  Now I think Starbucks’ caramel macchiatos are definitely tasty, but the thing is that this girl was like, ten years old.  And a Starbucks caramel macchiato probably has ten times the sugar and caffeine that a grown-ass adult ever needs in one sitting much less for a ten-year old twig of a girl.

Basically what I saw was a future Karen in the making, with a child already having developed a penchant for froufrou Starbucks coffee drinks, and for her own sake, it was good that the espresso machine was down, but I’m surprised that she or her completely disinterested looking dad didn’t demand to speak with a manager, and she walked away saying she was good instead.

One of my dreams now is to one day sit with my daughter in a coffee shop and have some coffee together.  However, seeing as how I would prefer for her to not start drinking coffee until she is like 17, that’s going to be a ways from now, but I’m willing to wait it out as long as I don’t risk stunting the growth of my daughter and/or make her a slave to caffeine as much as her dear old dad is.

New Father Brogging, #026

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Mythical wife and I were playing some games online with our friends because we’re still very much immersed in pandemic ‘Murica and this is how things are done these days in order to be safe, and as we’re in between games, the topic of conversation goes towards what television shows everyone is watching.  Talking about The Mandalorian and Utopia among other shows, and how some of us might like them, or if they’re not any good at all, etc.

But mythical wife and I haven’t really seen or finished any of them, because we don’t have time.  Story of parenthood now.

We then start talking about video games; mythical wife and I just started playing Man of Medan, and gotten maybe three hours into the game, before we realized it was midnight which might as well have been 3 am for new parents like us, but reality sunk in that we weren’t sure when the next time we’d have a chance to play more of the game, because we just don’t have time, the perpetual story of parenthood now.

Even playing Jackbox games with friends for an evening means not having the opportunity to do another thing that we may or may not have wanted to do with what limited free time we have available to us, because as the story of being new parents go, you just don’t have much of it, because the primary meat of our time is spent raising our infant child and putting her needs first and foremost above everything else.

I do not have a single iota of regret for having a child and I love my daughter more than anything else in history, but as the objective of these new dad brogs go, is to express the realities and genuine thoughts that I have going through my own personal journey as a first-time father, and the reality is that I just don’t have a lot of time, like ever, for myself anymore, and that part is something that’s always going to be a tough pill to swallow, especially in conjunction to our lives pre-children, where we’d sometimes have nothing but time to sit around and literally do nothing at times.

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The precise moment where the Braves fulfilled their destiny

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Top 4th, runners on second and third, nobody out.  The Braves had just taken a 3-2 lead on the Dodgers on a single by third baseman Austin Riley, and were in a prime position to bust the game open and put the Dodgers into a precarious hole.  Instead, in only a way that the bumbling Braves are capable of doing, they turn a scenario that has a high probability to score some runs into one where they commit three outs in mere minutes in a game where every single one of the first four innings felt like Star Wars trilogies in themselves, they took that long.

After Austin Riley got tagged out for the second out of a bang-bang botched run down, and then the Braves completed the colossal fuck up by harmlessly grounding out to end the inning, this is where I knew that the game was effectively over.  I’ve watched enough baseball in my life to recognize that when you give away opportunities to score runs that don’t cross the plate, Murphy’s Law dictates that the opposition will definitively, cash them in instead.  What probably should have been a 5-2 or a 4-2 score to end the 4th inning instead remained at a paltry one-run 3-2 score, which the Dodgers would easily grind away and overcome, while the Braves literally went three-and-out in every single inning except one throughout the remainder of the game.

The fuckup on the basepaths undoubtedly sucked all the wind out of the sails of the Braves, ruined all of their swagger and confidence, and most importantly, planted the undefeatable seeds of impending defeat into their minuscule brains.  The remainder of the game after that tragic sequence was all but a formality, and a contest of when, the Dodgers would eventually take the lead.

Frankly, the only reason why I watched the entire game was that I was hoping that the Dodgers would go to Kenley Jansen to close the game since he’s been pretty awful throughout the season and he would be the best chance for the Braves to maybe make some late-inning heroics as they’ve done numerous times throughout the year, but it turned out that the Dodgers didn’t trust Jansen in this critical game, and instead rode the hot hand of Julio Urias instead to close out the game himself.

Naturally, I’m sure anyone of my zero readers can see through the façade I put forth of being the world’s worst baseball fan when it comes to the Braves, and I spare a lot of words and drivel bemoaning them and deriding them, as if I had the mutant power to tempt fate to prove me wrong with writing, but in reality, there’s nothing more I would’ve wanted than to see the Braves actually not fuck up for a change, defeat the Dodgers and actually go to the World Series against the Tampa Bay Rays of all teams.

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New Father Brogging, #025

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

If I had a dollar for every time my kid shit herself while riding in the car, then I could easily get a Chick Fil-A Spicy Chicken Sandwich meal.  Not the classic #1 combo, the spicy variant, which costs more.  With large fries and a large drink.  And a brownie.

Like at this point, it’s pretty laughable how routine this is becoming.  I/we decide to go run an errand, and bring our child, so that she can see a little bit of the world outside of the safe confines of the house.  When we get to our destination, I remove her from the car seat, and do the courtesy sniff test, to which is naturally like getting fierce punch Tiger Uppercutted by Sagat, and then it takes ten more minutes to actually get started with whatever said errand or destination I/we are doing, because I have to change her diaper in the back seat of my car, and pray to god that nothing leaked out and soiled her active clothing, not that her travel bag doesn’t already have a spare outfit in case of emergency.

It’s just funny how she can go days without pooping sometimes, but the second she’s put in her car seat and taken out on a ride, it’s basically automatic that she’s going to blow up.  It also doesn’t matter if she actually poops at home, and creates a false sense of security that the pipes have been cleared, that when you do go out, because it’s like there’s a separate release chamber strictly meant for while in the car that will be unleashed when taken out of the house. 

At least I know that if I’m ever concerned that my child is facing constipation or any strange digestive ailments that result in some backing up, I’ll know exactly what I have to do to increase my odds of helping alleviate her.

It’s naturally a little gross and off-putting at times, the whole notion of babies and poop, but historically Asian cultures are pretty laissez-faire about pooping in general, often citing good bowel movements as indicative of good health.  And since my child is half Asian, the topic of poop will not be off-limits or very taboo; if anything at all, it’s something of a personal trope that I can laugh about, at its absurd predictability.  And maybe one day when she herself is reading through my brog in the distant future, she’ll cringe and wince at the notion of dad putting this all down in writing.

New Father Brogging, #024

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Today marks seven months since my daughter was born.  Since then, she’s over doubled her birth weight and creeping closer and closer to ten inches grown.  She’s gone from being a NICU baby that struggled to feed from a bottle to being a strong independent infant that doesn’t need mom or dad to hold the bottle for her to wolf down a full feed in eight minutes.  She’s now eating solids, and has been a very good eater thus far, consuming pretty much everything we’ve put in front of her.

It’s difficult for me sometimes, to not get emotional over every little step she takes and the growth that we watch happening right in front of our very eyes.

But last night was a particularly difficult pill to swallow, as it was the first night in which mythical wife and I both slept apart from our child, as we have begun the transition into having her sleep in her own room.  Monitored, obviously, but sleeping in a room outside of ours.  The reality is that she has basically outgrown the Snoo bassinet that carried her throughout the first six months of her life, and she needs room to turn and maneuver, otherwise it leads to a very grumpy and unhappy fussy baby.  Combined with teething, it led to what was basically the worst sleeping week of our lives over the last week and change.

Gradually working in her crib for naps has proven to be working that she can sleep in the crib, and it’s proven that the crib and its space is proving beneficial to our child’s sleep, so we finally pulled the trigger and had a few test nights where she stayed in the crib overnight, while I slept on the futon in the room as a safety net.  It only took two nights to really prove that she was up for it, and as of last night, we had her sleep in her own room by herself for the first time.

It was hard to not feel emotional going to sleep myself, watching her on a monitor, instead of knowing she were mere feet away, and I would be seconds away from swooping in to get her if there were any sort of discomfort or need to physically pick her up.  I had some unpleasant flashbacks to the NICU days, where mythical wife and I only had the comfort of a webcam that had limited times in which it would be on, instead of 24/7 real-life accessibility as we’ve had over the last seven months.

Ultimately, we know this is for the best, and is the natural progression of growth for children.  Obviously, she was never going to be sleeping in the same room with us forever, and it was only a matter of time before she’d eventually be in her own room.  This was always part of the plan.

Still, it doesn’t change the fact that it makes me all sad and emo-ey knowing my child is growing so fast and it feels like it’s only a matter of time before she’s asking me for $100 at a time so she can buy some frivolous crap, or will eventually be asking me for advice on which insurance plan she should be picking at work.

Seven months have flown by, and it’s going to be hard to not feel a little choked up when I have to pack up and move our $1,200 bassinet out of our bedroom and into storage.  As much as I’ll be glad to never stub my toes on the legs of it again soon, I’m going to miss like hell, the days of our sweet little warm baby sleeping right next to our bed.

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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