Happy Father’s Day!

This is now my second official Father’s Day, although this will be the first one where I feel I’ve spent enough time actually being a father to merit it.  The first time around, my little girl was barely three months old, and much of that time, both her mother and I were around to watch her.  This time, it’s been primarily me for the last year, and I have to say, it has given me a very different perspective on being the stay at home parent.

Growing up, I think we take for granted how much the parent who stays at home had to sacrifice in order to take care of us.  We never grew up with the awareness that the parent who stayed home was just a person like anybody else, who wanted to do their own thing, and who was learning how to do the job of being a parent.  No one is born with parenting skills, and no one hands you a manual once you have a child.  You have to take the time to figure those things out, as well as figure out how to be the person your child needs you to be.

For anyone who tells you having a kid is easy, they’re either teasing you, lying to you, or they’re not very good parents.  Nearly every minute of your day is spent making sure that your kid, especially when they’re little babies, is healthy, happy, learning, and not doing something that would be harmful to them or anything else.  No, you don’t always have to watch them like a hawk and have them in your sight, but you do always have to be ready in case something goes wrong.  You can cut down on some of this if you don’t care about stuff, which is ideal to some extent, since that means you’re not about material goods and whatnot, but I’m not really that much of a Zen Buddhist, so I want to be able to keep my things without having them destroyed at a moments notice. 

With that alertness comes exhaustion, stress, and tough times in your relationship.  Nothing will rankle a stay at home parent more than the parent who goes to work, coming home and saying “What have you been doing all day?”  This has led to more fights than anything since the birth of our child.  Not in those exact words, but no one likes to be questioned about how effective they are when their entire day has been nothing but stress.  When someone comes home and sees a mess, and their spouse unmoving, while the child is happily playing?  That means the spouse did their job of making sure the child is growing up well.  It also means that you can only imagine what a worse mess it would be if the stay at home parent didn’t do what they could. 

I’ll admit, I have found myself in that position more times than not.  It takes me a lot of energy to keep up with my daughter, and at the end of the day, there’s not much left to do the daily chores that need to be done.  I try my best, but it’s hard to focus on what you’re doing when you’re trying to make sure your child isn’t eating something they shouldn’t be, or tearing something down that is important, or just generally being destructive.  They have to do all this while keeping in mind that the child is not doing this intentionally, and that they are just exploring and don’t have the physical capability to be more delicate with things.  I know for myself, that was a hard lesson to learn.  It took nearly everything I had just to make sure my daughter was clean, clothed, fed, and healthy. 

Slowly, I’ve been able to add other things to the list of daily things that I can accomplish.  It’s still a struggle, and I still slip from time to time, but I’m now more on the side of getting things done than not.  Whenever I feel I have a handle on things, I try to add a little more, just to keep the burden off of my wife since she has her job to concentrate on.  I still need her help, but I would like to be able to get it to the point where she can at least relax a little when she gets home from work, instead of having to figure out what’s for dinner and how to get past the giant mound of dirt, dishes, and laundry that used to be waiting. 

As for my little girl, she is still the primary focus of all of this.  She is the reason that I am here, and honestly, she is the greatest source of joy for me now.  Whenever she hits a new milestone, or accomplishes some task that I've seen her working towards, it fills me with a kind of happiness I wasn’t aware I was capable of.   I still remember the squeals of delight that emitted from my mouth when I witnessed her first unassisted steps.  They probably heard me back in the US.  There are still a lot of those kinds of things to look forward to in the future, and much of me being able to witness these moments first hand is because I get to be the stay at home dad.

There are so many things still ahead of us, but I’m going to enjoy the fact that as a dad, I grew a lot this past year.  All the bumps along the way have just served to make me a better person, thankfully, and hopefully, I can pass that on to my little girl.  So to all the dad’s out there who look forward to their kids’ future, happy Father’s Day to you, and regardless if you’re the one who leaves for work, or the one who stays at home, I hope the love that you show to your children is paid back in full all year round.

They Grow up So Fast

Haven’t really written here in a while, as I’ve been in my own head, which tends to flow out on my other blog, but I figure enough time has passed where I have something coherent to say on here.

My little girl has just recently hit 14 months.  The realization of that hit me like a ton of bricks, because it honestly still feels like we just brought her home from the hospital not too long ago.  However, she is developing so quickly, and sometimes, it feels like it’s getting harder and harder to keep up.  Currently, she is standing on her own, cruising (walking while holding onto stationary objects to assist herself) quite efficiently, babbling while learning new words, and generally figuring out how things work, at a rather frightening pace. 

As I watch her day to day, and see how she has developed her motor skills, her recognition of words and gestures, her sense of humor, and her ability to learn the mechanics of day to day living, I’m still at a loss for words that I’m somehow involved in all of this.  Every little advancement is a cause for celebration nowadays, although admittedly, the celebration consists primarily of clapping, oohing and aahing, and squeals of joy from both my daughter and myself.  It’s amazing how much pride you can feel when your little baby does something that we take for granted all of the time, like take a step, bring food to their own mouth, laugh,  or a recent development that has my wife and I bursting with joy, giving kisses to loved ones.  That’s probably the biggest one.  My little girl now knows how to kiss and hug. 

When she first did it, on our trip back home to NYC, we were amazed at how suddenly it came about.  It was completely unexpected, but you could not have seen two happier parents at that moment when she first returned one of our kisses.  Shortly after, it seemed like a lot of her neural pathways began falling into line, because she began picking up other things in short order.  Her overall coordination improved a great deal, her ability to repeat things seemed to increase, and she was beginning to learn how to play games.  Specifically, my mother taught her this little hand gesture game in Cantonese, and she picked it up and responded to it in a very short time.  In fact, she still does it now, despite not having been around my mother for a few weeks, and she’s actually repeating some of the words too, despite not being exposed to Cantonese much except for what she heard from my mother, and what little I’m able to repeat. 

I know I’m just doing the standard new parent gushing, but it really is incredible to me watching her grow as much as she has.  Without really noticing it, my little baby has grown in my little girl, and before I know it, she’ll be my big girl.  While I look forward to it, I’m a bit frightened too, just because I don’t want the time to go by that fast.  There are currently some growing pains, mainly the development of her self-identity, which carries with it some willfullness, as well as some odd moments of crankiness and temper flare-ups.  Overall though, she is the sweetest little thing, and I count myself lucky for having her as my first child. 

That being said, I’ll try to be more active here, as there are plenty of things going on in her life that I think would be interesting to recount.  The hard part is remembering it myself in order to write it down.  My brain is so moment to moment lately, I don’t have the brain capacity to retain the interesting parts for very long.

First Year

So today, we celebrated Tiny Tien’s first full year.  She has left the tutorial stage, and is now level one!  What amazes me the most is how quickly the time has passed.  It felt like just yesterday I found out that my wife was pregnant, and about an hour ago that I was worried about all of the complications that we had run into leading up to her birth.  Now, she’s a full year old, and I have to tell you, it has been a heck of a ride.

First and foremost, I was able to keep her alive for a full year!  For me, that’s a heck of a feat.  I’m sure there was some luck involved, but I’ve been trying my best to make sure she’s safe, healthy, and generally happy.  Her frequent smiles, and her desire to cling to me seems to be a sign that I’m providing her with a safe haven, so that’s good.  Honestly, it amazes me how much she wants to be around me.  She’s already around me most of every day, and yet, even when her mom comes home, she will routinely look for and crawl to me. 

While I’m very happy that she trusts me, and wants to be near me, a part of me is concerned that when the time comes for me to go back to work, it might affect her adversely.  I guess we’ll have to see what happens.  I love spending time with her, but to be honest, I’m getting a bit antsy to return to the workforce.  I’ve learned over the past couple of years that I’ve been here in Japan that I function much better when I have a regular routine that compensates me for my work.  Otherwise, I easily begin to slack off, and generally feel kind of worthless because I don’t feel like I’m contributing anything. 

Yes, I understand how much effort goes into raising a child, and I don’t belittle or discount the amount of work that goes into it (believe me, after this experience, there’s no way in hell I’d ever do that) but to be honest, I just feel that unless I’m actually working at a job earning a paycheck, I’m not doing enough.  Of course, watch me go back to work and start to complain about missing the time with my little girl.  Argh, stupid brain.

Anyway, back to her first year.  It has been filled with a lot of trials and tribulations; things I’d expected, but wasn’t as prepared for as I thought.  Mainly, it has to do with the difficulties in the marital relationship, as I’ve said before that I never expected to be the one at home.  However, we’ve been working those out, and with my daughter growing up well, and being happy, it has made things much easier to handle.  I’m sure if my little girl was cranky, or crying all the time, or generally a much less joyful child, there would be a lot more issues.  However, whether it’s due to her naturally happy disposition, or I’m actually doing something right, her happiness is contagious, and my wife and I are doing much better than earlier on. 

As for the part of raising Rinny, she’s actually been rather simple.  Not easy, because no child is easy, but there have been very little complications along the way.  We’ve gotten her all of her shots, she’s been hitting her milestones pretty much right on time, if not a little early, and her growth is pretty much exactly where it needs to be for her age.  Between those things, and her generally being a very sweet child, I couldn’t ask for a better first kid experience. 

We of course had a little party today for her, even if she doesn’t remember it.  We went so far as to bake her a cake, which she was allowed to have some.  That kind of backfired a little, as all the sugar and things might have upset her tummy, but all in all, it was a very nice day.  We were able to get some friends together, both of the adult and infant variety, so everybody was quite engaged.  She got some absolutely adorable gifts, which there will be pictures of in the near future to be posted on my facebook, and it was just a nice, fun day. 

Everyone absolutely loves her, and I think that’s just part of who she is.  She is really easy to love.  I have yet to meet a person who has been hesitant around her, even if she herself has been a little shy around new people.  Her face and smile just seem to inspire happiness in people.  I hope it’s a quality she maintains throughout her life, as it will serve her well.  I think she will, and my job is to make sure she’s able to hold onto her happiness as much as possible.

It’s been an exciting first year, and I can’t wait to see how things progress from here.  I’m a bit torn because I want to see how she grows up, but I don’t want to lose my little girl at the same time.  I have no choice but to watch her grow up of course, but that’s how being a parent is: hope for the future, but holding onto the present.

11 months

Today is the 11th month of my daughter’s life.  It has been a heck of a time so far.  I figured it’d be a good idea to update people on how she is doing, if you don’t follow me regularly on facebook or something.

So at this point, she is eating solids for 3 meals a day, plus snacks.  She still breastfeeds a few times a day, but she’s slowly lowering her intake of breastmilk, by herself it seems.  She just drinks progressively less and less each time it seems.  This coincides with changes in her digestive system, which any parent will know is an… interesting time.  For those who aren’t parents, lets just say you don’t care and don’t really want to know. 

She’s standing frequently now, and taking a few steps, although she still uses assistance.  Not that she necessarily needs it, because she has a tendency to stand on her own, unassisted, but once she realizes that’s what she’s doing, she’ll immediately sit down, normally with a rather loud thud right on her butt.  It’s very cute, very funny, and a little frustrating, because I would really like her to be able to stand and walk a little on her own.  Can’t force it, but it’d be nice if she got over the fear.

She currently has three teeth, with a fourth just about ready to burst through the gum-line.  This has led her to have a very adorable toothy grin, which she readily shows off.  It’s accompanied by a very funny face scrunch, so that all you see are gums, the teeth, and what can only be described as a “HEEEEEE” face.  I do everything in my power to get her to make this face as often as possible, because it normally comes with a laugh that makes my heart melt.  These are the moments that parents look forward to, and make all the difficulties of having a child worth it.

Speaking of difficulties, her fingernails grow at roughly the same pace that sharks replace missing teeth, and are about as sharp.  In fact, today, she used her fingers to show me a new defensive move.  It involved taking her finger, and jamming it in the space between my eyeball, and the edge of my eye socket, through the skin.  I didn’t realize this was possible until today, and I have to tell you… it hurt like a son of a b*(&^.  In fact, it STILL hurts now, and it’s been about 7 hours since it happened, so I’ll have to remember that should I ever have to defend myself.  It’s effective, and it doesn’t destroy the eye, which is good for me, cause squished eyeballs make me queasy.

Her eyes seemed to have settled in color.  Amazingly, despite being half my child (half-asian) she doesn’t have solid brown eyes.  Her eye color shifts slightly between a light brown and an olive green.  It depends on the lighting, and the clothing she wears, as well as just the day in general, but her eye color isn’t typical, which I think will lead to a very dramatic look for her when she gets older.  It has a very nice effect, and I can’t wait to see how it develops as time goes on.

She’s still not forming coherent words yet, although every now and then, it seems that she’s imitating enough sounds to form words.  She does babble a lot more now than she used to, and she’s not afraid of making those sounds around strangers now, which is good and bad.  Good, because it means she wants to talk.  Bad, because it means she won’t be automatically quiet in public now like she used to be.  She’s still pretty well behaved in public though, but every now and then we have to shush her.  No big deal though, since everyone gives her a pass cause she’s so cute.

That’s really all of the relevant things going on with her.  I’m excited about her getting to her one year birthday, just because it means she’s been with us for a full revolution around the sun.  Also because it means I’ve been able to keep her alive for a full year, which for me, is a pretty good accomplishment.  Heck, I’ve never had a pet I was able to keep alive by myself, so that says something.  Must mean I love her.

But seriously, I do love her a lot.  She’s been an absolute treasure to me since she was born, and every day, she just makes me that much happier to be her daddy.  I honestly never thought I would be capable of that kind of love, and yet I keep surpassing it with every day.  It sounds cheesy as hell, but it’s true.  I’m sure I’ll look back on this when she’s a teenager and cursing my name, and go “Man…I wish for those days” but I get the feeling things will be ok.  Guess we’ll see.  Look for a future update called “13 years… can I quit now?”

Time Passes By Far Too Fast

It’s been quite some time since I’ve posted on here (as I usually go through periods of just not wanting to write) but some big things have been going on, and I felt it was time to do an update.

We are 5 days away from my little girl hitting 11 months. It has absolutely astonished me at how quickly this time has gone by.  We went from a helpless little baby, who would just lie there, not being able to move in any way, unable to pick things up, completely reliant on her parents for everything, to a toddler that can crawl, stand and walk with a little assistance, pick up her own food and feed herself, and even starting to form words, and it all happened in the blink of an eye.

I’ve been there every step of the way, and I still scratch my head wondering how and when it all happened.  I still find it hard to believe that I’m actually a father, but to realize that I had a healthy hand in getting her to this point in her life… I’m still amazed that I didn’t kill her during the first week I was alone with her.  She seems healthy, happy, energetic, and sweet beyond words. 

I know there’s still a lot more to go, but I really do have to take a minute to step back, take a look, and give myself some kudos for taking care of my little girl.  I’m not going to pat myself on the back too hard, but it does mean something to me that I went from being completely inexperienced at handling children, to regularly feeding, cleaning, clothing, and entertaining my daughter, and have her come out through all of it quite healthy. 

There are still many challenges ahead, and there are still times (plenty of times at that) where I question whether or not I’ll be able to meet those challenges, but up until now, I’ve done alright.  I may not be the best dad in the world, since I know I get wrapped up in my own stuff sometimes, to the point of annoyance for my wife and probably even my daughter now and then, but I’m fortunate that my little girl still seems to like me, where she’ll cling to me if she doesn’t see me for a little bit. 

That being said, I’m looking forward to her first birthday.  I want to do something special for her, even if she doesn’t really remember it when she’s older.  Unfortunately, I kind of suck at that kind of thing, so I really don’t know what to do. I hope it comes to me though, because I really would like to make her as happy as she’s made me.  It may not seem like it most of the time, but I am actually very happy since she’s been in my life, my depression notwithstanding.  It’s a constant battle between those two feelings, and she’s the main reason the depression doesn’t have a permanent hold on me. 

Well, I’ll try to update more often, as I haven’t gone into any real detail for some time.  Her development will be picking up again soon, and I look forward to being there with her, every step of the way.

Course Adjusted

Being a stay at home dad was never in the cards for me growing up.  I always had that old fashioned model in my head where the man went to work, and the wife would stay home and take care of the house and the kids.  The dynamic has changed where a two person income is almost necessary, but I was pretty determined to make it to a point in my life where I could provide all that we needed so that my children would always have a parent at home to watch over them.  Daycare and nannies were never on my mind, it was always too impersonal.  I always felt that though it was becoming the norm where the children spent more time with strangers than with their own family, I didn’t want that to ever happen.  Little did I ever realize that while I would indeed have a parent to stay home to watch my kid… it would turn out to be me.

That being said, there are so many little things that have happened while taking care of my daughter that I would never have experienced (or at best would only have seen a repeat performance of) if I was the one who was the working parent.  Those little accomplishments that we as people take for granted that are so amazing when we see our own children do them for the first time.  Things as simple as grasping onto your finger, pulling something off from their face when it’s being covered, picking up their head, or (in my opinion, the greatest moment) when they laugh for the first time.  When I get to witness these moments for myself when they’re a first for Rinny, it makes my heart just overflow.  It’s funny how something so little can make you feel so happy.

I spend most of my free time now trying to make her laugh.  Most of the time it backfires, because she makes me laugh a lot more than I make her.  She has these ways of looking at me, or making just the right face at the right moment that just makes me crack up.  Of course, I keep on trying, and the reward of her laughter makes me all giddy. 

Over the course of the last five plus months (wow… has it been that long already?) I have really re-prioritized how I spend my time.  When she was first born, I was still struggling with trying to juggle the time I spent on myself opposed to the time I spent on her.  I hate to say it, but I would get annoyed when she would be demanding of my time, even though it’s not like it was on purpose.  Admittedly, I can be selfish with my time, because I like to do what I want to do for myself, and I hate to be interrupted, but with a baby, there’s no chance of that.  She requires quite a bit of attention, much more than I felt I was willing or able to give, and that was just pulling me apart.  On the one hand, I know that her needs have to be met, especially if I want to raise a well adjusted child, but on the other hand… I really want to have a few moments to do what I want so that I can have a clear head.  Whether it was talking to friends, playing a game, reading something, or really anything, it all had to be stopped at a moments notice if she needed something, and that was just really hard for me to adjust to.

Now though, I think I’m much more willing to step away from what I am doing to attend to her needs.  The good thing about this is that I think we’re forming a stronger bond.  She responds to me pretty well, as she reaches for me quite a bit, and I can regularly calm her down if she’s fussy with other people.  I think I’m slowly becoming a true safe spot for her, regardless of the circumstances, and that makes me happy and proud.  If I can always be her port in the storm, then I know I’ve done my job as a daddy. 

I love that I can hold her, hug her, play with her, and just sit with her, and it’s comfortable.  She grabs onto my hand, my shirt, my face, my mouth (sometimes my eye… ouch) and is smiling and giggling.  I know when she’s happy or frustrated or cranky just by listening to her subtle noises.  Every little thing that I realized I have picked up along the way makes me happier, because it means I’m actively learning about my little girl.  Some people might say “Well duh… you’re supposed to” but you’d be surprised how many dads don’t know squat about their kid.  Hell, how many parents in general.  I just want to make sure I know as much about her as possible so that when the time comes, I can be there for her no matter the situation.

Being a stay at home dad has been frustrating at times, but it has also been very fulfilling too.  To be honest, I still can’t say it’s the thing for me, because I still feel frazzled with her in a way I’ve never felt while working at a job, but just knowing that I have been somewhat capable so far has shown me that I’m better at adapting than I thought I was.  Hopefully, this also means that I’m raising her to be a good person.  It’s still early, but I think I’m doing ok… time will tell I suppose.

 

Growing Pains and Personal Growth

I really have to write more often…

My daughter is now only 4 days away from being 4 months old.  It may be cliché to say that it feels like it was just yesterday when we brought her home from the hospital, but the time really has just flown by.  Every day, it seems like my little girl has hit a new milestone, and it’s exciting and scary all at the same time.  The latest forward step for her is she can now pick her head up pretty much fully when placed on her stomach.  It’s a big step, because that means soon, she’ll probably be able to sit up unassisted, and that means we can start bringing her places on the bike instead of being confined to only walking.

As anyone with children knows, whenever the child hits their growth spurts, they experience some aches and pains as their bones and muscles begin to stretch.  She has gone through her fair share, as there are several growth stages this early on.  What was unexpected for me has been the personal growth I’ve been experiencing.  Priorities have shifted quite a bit from before she was born.  I should have expected this, but I’ve always known myself to be painfully stubborn.

I look forward to my daily interactions with my daughter.  Sure, there are times she frustrates me, mainly due to a lack of communication, but as soon as I get her to giggle or even just smile for me (or at me if we’re really being honest) it kind of washes away all of the other annoyances that can crop up when dealing with a baby.  It feels easier lately to just spend time with her, and play with her, and all of the other things that come along with watching after her day to day. 

This isn’t the most in depth update, as I honestly haven’t had much in terms of brain power to process everything that has been going on.  We are preparing for a big trip soon to see my wife’s side of the family in Hungary.  That will be a test of my little girl’s patience, as that will be a LOT of hours spent on trains and planes.  The longest we have spent on any sort of transportation so far has been on a shinkansen to Osaka, which was only about 2 hours or so.  The flight to Hungary will take approximately 17 hours one way.  I’m not really looking forward to it, but only due to the flight part.  I hate long flights, and this is already the 6th such length trip in the last year and a half.  Prior to that, I had never been on a plane longer than 10 hours, and that was to Hawaii. Hopefully, my daughter has her mother’s tolerance of planes.  I hate them, but they’re a necessary evil until they somehow develop teleportation or portals.