trisected

Tag: parenting

  • Mid May Madness

    I’ve been fully back to work since the start of May, and it’s quite hectic managing both home and work fronts. It’s a lot of energy and time, but I’ve had to learn what my margins are like.

    Funny enough, I started working on my keyboards again. There’s always been something fun and somewhat magical getting to tinker and try out more typing things.

    I’ve also started to figure out more of my RG35XXplus and I just installed a new OS on it – muOS. It’s been working better than the stock, and the shortened wake time has been a lot more exciting. I might actually try to finish Final Fantasy Tactics Advanced this time. That’s always my hope.

    I might also try a range of games and come to my recommended list of games. I’ll figure something out, but I think I’m kinda boring and I don’t think I game the same way everyone else does. But I still want to talk about the games I like to play. So maybe I’ll still make something up.

    Key thing I’ve also learnt about parenting is the need to manage myself more than ever. If I’m about to crash, I can barely focus on baby and family, and definitely not work. So I do a lot more check in’s than I have to, just to measure myself appropriately. It’s a slow reflective work, but I hope to use it to make things go smoother a little.

    One day at a time

  • Parenting and Being The Adult

    I just read an article about a girl who was murdered by her mother and her mother’s boyfriend. Having a child now, it really just makes me so sick to my stomach. It’s not the first article I’ve read about child abuse, but it is so disgustingly sickening that I want to do something about it.

    So I write this for it to be unearthed some day.

    Parenting is being the adult. The adult doesn’t take advantage of a situation for their own benefit. When they do, we call that person a thief, or a robber. Someone who does something wrong for their own benefit.

    Therefore, being the adult in a parenting situation means we educate with a good sense of how the person would learn best. And it’s definitely not through abuse. Reprimand is needed when moral or criminal wrong is done, like stealing, hurting, or abusing someone. So the parent teaches by showing how an ideal adult should behave, not being a hammer or cane themselves.

    That is what the parents who have abused their children have done. They are tools. They’ve lost their humanity somewhere along the way, maybe because they were taught to be tools by their parents.

    But it’s not about continuing the narrative to be a tool. It’s to stop it, and to change the narrative to bring humanity back again.

    I don’t know which religion would bring any solving to this situation, but I know the Christian one does. But the solving I look at is for God to do something about the society we live in, for two human beings to consistently hurt a four year old child. I know something will be done some day. My job today is to talk about how to not to that.

    I love my baby Allison so much, that her pain often feels like mine. Clarice feels really bad, but I feel like what I feel when I have pain: I want to get rid of the pain. So I think about how to relieve her pain, not about how to cause more pain instead.

    Why would someone want to hurt their child, I really just don’t understand humanity, in so many ways. I am more bewildered day to day.

    and I am absolutely upset.

  • Working out how to Work out

    Among other things of being a new father

    There’s been many small thoughts I’ve been having so here’s some of them:

    The Army TSHIRT Dad look

    I finally understand why so many young dads wear this tshirt. It’s because the baby’s going to poop, puke, or pee on you, and you need a shirt that you can wash hard, or just throw away without feeling like you’ve wasted money. Thus, the army tshirt that we paid no money for.

    I’ve worn green for so long, I actually felt weird wearing non green when taking care of the baby at home. Then I decided to just be real and wear whatever I felt like wearing, because I could just wash my clothes if stuff got on them.

    The Ease of Food Delivery

    We’ve been ordering food in all the time. It’s because it’s insane to try and cook with a newborn around. I get maybe 15-30 minutes of pure time on my own. Sometimes a bit more. But there’s always this pressure of the baby crying. It’s like having a turnout, but it’s not a drill instructor, it’s a 3 week old baby screaming her head off at you.

    Therefore, we order in food. I order in more than Clarice because her mom cooks dinner for her. I get a range of carbs and proteins, but my fibre’s pretty low right now. Might need to get some veg in the week to come.

    The Dad Bod

    I totally understand why my friends got fat after the baby came in. Simple answer is: Why would you work out when you seriously need sleep?

    The answer I have come to is: working out gives me a little bit more strength to maintain the crazy lifestyle.

    It’s not really making sense. I start my runs with a slight headache, either from dehydration or lack of sleep. By the time I hit 1KM, I’m not sure if I can survive the run home. I reach home and I feel pretty good for awhile. Then it crashes on me.

    But the next day my energy is actually better by a bit. It’s crazy what your body can do when you tell it to toughen up.

    TV

    I understand cable TV now. In so many ways. I just need something to sit there and play as I deal with a crying baby. Or having to burp my baby after a meal, and I’ve got literally nothing else around me. I can’t read a book with no hands. I can’t write. I cant draw.

    But I can watch TV. And YouTube gets boring real quick. Trust me. I’ve done at least like 3 weeks worth of camping videos, and it’s a lot. I’m done with algorithms, I just want mindless TV network timelines.

    That’s it for now. I probably have more here and there, but this is all I’ve got tonight.

  • So much for daily posts

    LOL What a crazy thought I had, thinking that I’d be able to survive everything well and I’d be able to go through the night feeding without issue. It’s been a crazy two weeks since Clarice has been back with the baby, and about 17 days of baby’s life. But it feels like forever.

    To begin with, the birth process itself was tremendous. Both Clarice and I have been so emotionally traumatised by it, and I’m convinced the best contraceptive is to watch and experience the birth process. There is no way you would want to casually have sex with someone, because there is such permanent severity to it. Clarice is truly a beautiful human being for being able to go through all of it, and also I would not have wanted to go through this with anyone else but her.

    Labour was basically 24 hours, and even then, it ended in a Caesarean cut, because we were just not big enough at the end. This was the safest option for baby and Clarice, but as they wheeled Clarice away for the operation, I sat down and cried my eyes out. It was horrendous, sitting there waiting for Clarice and my baby to come out. They called me when Allison was out, and her date and time of birth was 13 March, 1203HRS. I cried when I held her, because by then, her birth meant everything. It was bittersweet, because we waited so long, and I was so proud of her already for surviving.

    Then she pooped on me and the nurses took her away for a second while I looked for my parents.

    Then I spent another hour or two waiting for Clarice to come out, and I was so afraid of the surgery. All surgeries scare me, but the chance of losing Clarice and the baby in the same hour was the craziest. But baby was out already, and now it was just Clarice. So I pressured the nurses to just let me know if she was okay. Then they wheeled Clarice out and I cried again.

    At least Clarice didn’t poop on me.

    Fast forward to right now: Both Clarice and I are sleep deprived. I’ve got a headache from the lack of sleep or water, probably both. Baby has been awake and moving since 7am, but she’s gone to sleep for a total of 2-3 hours. Meaning, Clarice and I have had very interrupted sleep. I’m not a good napper so I have real bad sense of time and focus.

    Everyone tells me this is the hardest part, and soon it will be over. But it feels like we’ve been doing this for years, even though it’s only two weeks.

    Thank God for keeping everyone safe through the birth though. And thank God for my parents who’ve been around and supporting me with all the help I’ve needed since the labour. My sister’s also been an awesome aunty, carrying screaming and crying Allison.

    But Allison’s actually really chill when she’s full, and diaper’s changed, and without gas. But any one of those three, and she yells So Loud.

    Anyway, probably no daily posts. What a crazy thought I had lol!

  • Bringing daily blog back again; Becoming a parent

    I’ve been thinking hard about this, and what the point would be, and these are my thoughts:

    • Writing daily gives me a range of thoughts to work on, and I can build on the ones I like better for newsletters or other portions of writing.
    • I can have a far wider scope of work, because I can write about different things everyday.
    • A little bit a day chips away at a bigger goal.
    • I will use some of my writing here to make zines, and finish them up a bit with more imagery and other things.

    I’m a night away from having a baby. Tomorrow we will be inducing our baby to come out, and prayerfully everything will go smoothly.

    I am anxious.

    A part of me wonders if I’m anxious because everyone’s asking me if I’m anxious or not. But the main part of me has always been aware of the risks and complications, and I have this gore nightmare that flickers into my brain every now and then. What if the baby falls, what if we fall on the baby, what if the umbilical cord and this and that, and I go on this panic trip in my head.

    But as I talk about it with other people I am reassured, and everyone tells me not to worry. But they asked if I was anxious in the first place, so I tell them what’s up in my head.

    So the first thing I learnt about parenting is the irony and insanity everyone throws you through.

    I don’t think my child will be the cause of my crazy, but I think it’s everyone else. I finally understand why some people look like they have crazy families, but it’s more like their social settings might have just driven them a little mad, and they’re deciding not to stick with it anymore. So instead of looking normal, they push back and make their families their safe spaces.

    Not that crazy families ask me less crazy sets of questions, but at least I understand why every family’s a little mad.

    Pray for Clarice tomorrow, pray for me tomorrow, pray for baby Allison tomorrow. Pray for the doctors and the nurses, and the midwives, and for my parents who are fetching me around too.

    I can’t wait to see my baby, and I hopefully I learn how to relax a little in the meantime.

  • Childish thoughts

    It was good sleep for both Clarice and myself last night. We sang ourselves to sleep on a whole range of songs, and now we’re up and awake on a bright hot Sunday afternoon, listening to the songs that we were singing to last night.

    It’s fun to just not have to care about anyone else, and just do what we feel like. A few of our friends who have babies can’t do this anymore. They’re in that job of being parents. Maybe they could go for dates, and spend time together when the kids are asleep. But they can’t just take a break whenever they want to. Or just sleep in just because. There’s always gonna be someone there to take care of, until the day they die.

    I don’t know if I’m ready for that yet, to be really honest. More than that, I don’t know if I want to stop being carefree, and silly. I enjoy my time with Clarice tremendously. I also enjoy being able to spend money on keyboards, and other random ventures when I feel like it. It’s childish, self centered, but it’s quite fun.

    Would I lose myself, when gaining another person into my life? So far, it’s not been the case, and I find myself growing more and more as a person. But for a child, I think a part of me dies, and another part is born and growing, as the child does too. I can’t tell yet, because I’m not there, but I’m thinking about it.

    When that happens, I’ll find out. Both Clarice and I will find out, and we will need to grow together from there too.

    But otherwise, I’ll just enjoy this Sunny Sunday with my love.

    p.s. We had a ton of Tea and Biscuits for breakfast today for fun, so I might be awake most of tonight lol.