Tag: famiry

Year four of forever

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

And just like that, #1 is four years old.

Throughout my own parenting journey, one of the most heard things I’ve been told is to not blink or take any time for granted, because it’ll all be over in the blink of an eye and the kids will be grown and be pains in my ass before I know it, and I’ll wonder where the time went when they were still in diapers and couldn’t do anything for themselves.

Honestly, I think I’ve done a pretty good job of not taking my time for granted, and I’m so often reflecting on the past and I think in this age where everyone has phones and cameras on their phones and it’s fairly possible to chronicle our lives through photographs, that it makes it easier to have a visual reference to reflect with as we can simply just open up our photos app and scroll through time.  That, and the fact that I’ve also been a prodigious brogger for more than half my life at this point, and I’ve always got the means to not only look back in time and reflect, but to also read my very own words to recall specifically where I was throughout the journey of life.

I’ll often times just stop and watch my kids doing the things they do, and marvel at the state they’re in now, as opposed to when they were babies or infants or toddlers, because it’s just incredible watching someone else’s journey through life, through the eyes of a spectator, and of course being their father, I’ve literally seen just about every single day of their lives.

I think it’s safe to say that I’m the first face they see in the morning, about 99% of their lives, I make the vast majority of their meals, and I put a tremendous amount of physical and time effort into my kids regularly.  There are times in which it feels like a lot of work, but I don’t regret any bit of it, and I take a tremendous amount of pride in trying to be the best dad I possibly can be.  There’s nothing I won’t do for my children, and the only thing I really care about at all is being a good dad.

But #1 being four years old, that’s still mind-blowing to process, even though I know the day is coming.  It’s just so hard to fathom that it’s literally been four years since she came into existence five weeks early, right at the on-set of COVID and the (majority) of the entire (intelligent) world shutting themselves into isolation.  Being born so early, she was whisked away into the NICU and stayed there for two weeks, while mythical wife and I had no idea what was really going on with her health, the world, coronavirus and everything else because so much was going on concurrently right then.

Looking at her now, it’s hard to believe she was ever considered an at-risk baby that had to be connected to a heart monitor for the first four months of her life, because within six months, we stopped referring to her as “adjusted age” and never looked back.  She’s a strong, healthy four-year-old that’s ridiculously smart, thoughtful, and brings joy to my life on a daily basis.

She’s fully potty-trained, never has any accidents, knows all her numbers and letters, has demonstrated some rudimentary reading ability, and I have a feeling math will come fairly natural to her, as she’s apparently understanding the processes of basic arithmetic, even if she doesn’t know what the words addition or subtraction mean yet.

She remembers damn near everything, and is so quick to remind me of when she thinks I’ve screwed something up, and seems to be able to recall things from the past now, which shows her budding brain being able to store and recollect memories, and even going to sleep, she always remembers to remind me of what she wanted for breakfast the night before.

Not a day goes by where she and/or her sister isn’t the brightest light of my entire day, whether it’s by making me laugh, something sweet they do or say, or just the happy peace I feel when I watch them doing kid things.  So I’m happy to do whatever it takes to bring happiness to their lives… like taking a cake decorating class, so that I could make my child a triple-layered chocolate cake with buttercream and a dark chocolate drip ganache.  But even if it’s basically pure trash food, it’s also a symbol of growth for my child in that her original severe intolerance to eggs has dissipated over time, and she can at least handle having it in baked goods or cooked into things.

Still not going to give her a straight up omelet or scrambled eggs, but considering I still can’t eat those things without considerable punishment, who knows if she’ll ever fully grow out of it, or be as limited as I am.  Only time will tell, and hopefully there will be many more decades of years to bear witness to what happens next.

Disney Cruises are almost hilariously exploitative

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Over the years, mythical wife and I have decided that we like cruising.  It’s a good way to get a sampling of lots of international places, and then at the end of the day get dined, sometimes wined, and retreat to what’s basically a mobile hotel room.  Sometimes you stay aboard the ship and enjoy the relaxation and amenities, other times you disembark and do a little bit of exploring.

Recently, we completed a short cruise aboard the Disney Wish, supposedly the newest vessel in the Disney Cruise lineup of ships.  With this one, we’ve now done the Fantasy, Magic and Wish, and are pretty much veterans as far as cruising with Disney goes.  Now the only other cruise we’ve done was Royal Caribbean, but at first comparison, Disney is believed to be the cream of the crop, and at least compared to RC, it really is a step above.

I’ve never done Celebrity, Norwegian, Princess or any other cruise line, but from scuttlebutt, most of them are still a step below Disney if not RC as well, but I’m not going to poopoo them really until I’ve tried them myself.  That’s besides the point though, what spurred this post from coming to fruition is that regardless of how enjoyable and how much I like cruising, it’s also impossible to ignore the fact that the whole business operations of cruising, Disney or other, are almost hilariously exploitative, as far as labor goes.

So we’ve learned that cruising, as enjoyable as it is, is a very expensive mode of vacationing.  Between mythical wife and I, it’s thousands of dollars, even more once we factor in the kids and anyone else we want to come with.  But on the other side of the coin, once we’re on the ship, it’s hilariously evident that the ships are run and operated by almost entirely foreign labor, whom are obviously being paid way less than domestic counterparts would cost.  Mostly Indonesia, India, the Philippines, and seemingly mostly from the south/southeastern Asia/Pacific islands  region, from what I’ve observed.  And obviously, Disney and/or whatever cruise line are the ones pocketing the difference in the middle of what consumers pay and what they pay their labor.

Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t to say that the service on any of the cruises we’ve done has been anything short of outstanding.  I’d want these stewards servicing every aspect of my life if I could get away with it, but it’s just hilariously exploitative that cruises employ almost entirely out of third-world countries, to whom this is akin to winning the lottery of jobs, because they’re making USD, getting tipped in USD, and can probably more than adequately provide for their families, at the cost of their indentured servitude to the cruise lines when they’re on.

It’s kind of mind-blowing, because service on these cruises is nothing short of exceptional, and with toddlers, I’m unfortunately taxing them more than when it was just mythical wife and I on our own, and they’ve had to clean soiled linens and change sheets in the middle of the night, and they always do so with smiles and enthusiasm, and they’re so grateful for the cash tips I give them as way of saying thanks.  And when it comes time to tip out at the end of the cruises, the general expectation of gratuities on a daily basis, would make the internet rage, if such numbers were even proposed to be tipped to an American, but is more than adequate for the staff on a cruise.

Of course, it makes me pleased to know that it helps my bottom line tipping a recommended amount that’s less than the expectations that American laborers would expect, which kind of makes me hypocritical I suppose, but at the same time I’m not going to turn a blind eye at the observation that Disney, and probably all other cruise lines employ the same exploitative strategy of staffing up from third-world countries. 

It’s kind of a shame too, because as observed, all these workers are so upbeat, enthusiastic and seemingly grateful for their jobs, and are getting paid peanuts compared to what Americans would expect, most likely to do their jobs as bare minimum and apathetically as possible, but I guess all that really matters in the end for the consumer, is a positive experience, and if exploiting the third-world in order to gain it, it’s the preferable option, I guess.

A 2023 Year-End Post

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

In spite of all the changes to my general writing habits, one thing I always feel compelled to write about is the end of the year post, even if I have an inkling of knowing that it’s going to be pretty mundane, if not kind of depressing.  It’s something I’ve done for years, and old habits die hard, and in this case, it’s a habit that’s not necessarily bad, as much as it is just writing with the hopes of being able to reflect and contemplate life in general, and maybe I’ll recognize some patterns or observations to possibly improve my standing in life.

But mundane and kind of depressing are a fairly accurate way to describe how 2023 was for me.  This isn’t to say that I thought it sucked by any stretch of the imagination, there were definitely a lot of positive things that occurred throughout the year.  It’s just that we as people tend to dwell more on the negative things that upset us or make us unhappy and it truly is a case of what have you done for me lately, life, huh?? kind of attitude.

As has been the case since becoming a parent, twice, and living through the pandemic, I’ve made my general world a really, really small place.  Being a dad and parenting comes ahead of absolutely everything else in the world, and considering the immense amount of, capacity, it requires to raise two toddlers, I barely have any time on a daily basis for myself, and so often times I try not to dwell on just how much shit I have to punt on, on a daily basis because there’s just not enough hours in the day to accomplish everything on top of being a parent.

My daily routine has mostly maintained the same course over the last three years, and I’m always the first one up in order to make breakfast for the kids and be ready for them in the mornings, and most every minute upon my arrival back from the office or the end of my work day is spent with my children, until they go to bed at around 7-8, and then I do a bunch of daily chores to reset the house and prepare for the next day, and when I’m done with that, then maybe I’ll have an hour, maybe two, depending on if I want to forfeit some sleep, in order to have some personal downtime, which has its own pressure in not wanting to squander it, and a feeling of failure if I do.

I don’t have the capacity to dick around on the internet as much as I used to, and look up news and stories from around the world, the state, or even my own city, to have inspiration to write about, and even if I do have the inspiration, I don’t have the time to write about it.  If I earmark it for later, it stands a good chance to not happen, because the knee-jerk reactions that fuel lots of writing don’t exist after too much time passes.

Among the numerous self-imposed writing exercises I put onto myself, I keep a living document that tries to summarize every single day of the year.  In the past, I would jot down some interesting news that might have happened on X day, or a sports occurrence that happened on Y day, or tragic news of a shooting that occurred on Z day, but I generally had this belief that something, somewhere, was interesting stuff happening, on every single day, and it was my way of trying to capture all some of it.

But then COVID hit at the same time I had a kid, and my world became extremely small.  Even though the worst of the pandemic has passed and my kids are getting older, my world hasn’t expanded back out that much, and my general daily summaries are usually along the lines of me being agitated about something, usually parenting related, things my kids did, occasional sports or wrestling observations, but for the most part, a very sparse well of topics that I’ve had the capacity to summarize on a daily basis.

If it sounds depressing, it’s because I’ve come to the admission that I probably am depressed, possibly on a clinical level.  As in the chemicals in my brain are wacked out, causing me to feel apathetic, disinterested in everything, unmotivated to do the things that I generally enjoy and other activities.  The thing is, I feel like I know what’s causing the depression, and it isn’t just solely a chemical imbalance, so I don’t necessarily feel like medical intervention is necessary. 

Throughout my life, there’s been a direct correlation with my emotional state and my financial wellbeing, and the fact of the matter is that I haven’t felt financially comfortable in like three years, and I don’t know how to fix any of it, so it leaves me feeling despair often, and I’m pretty sure that’s the root of my depression.

Like if I were to go on some sort of anti-depressants, sure that might make me feel like I’m not so stressed or sad anymore, but no medication is going to magically make my financial woes go away, so I’ve never felt like I should see anyone to try and see what’s up.  Also, my medical insurance at my job throughout 2023 has been absolute hot garbage, but I’m going on mythical wife’s medical for 2024 which is way better, so perhaps I should swallow my pride and look into getting checked out, because living the way I have been living throughout the last few years probably hasn’t been the best for all parties involved.

But like I said, there was also a lot of good stuff that occurred throughout the year, even if I’m a headcase for more days of it than not.  My family went on a bunch of Disney trips that were brutally expensive for sure, but rewarding in their own rights.  Cruising out of New Orleans was great, visiting Hilton Head was pleasant, and trying a bunch of new restaurants at Disney properties were all good, and my kids seemed to enjoy a lot of it, and that’s what really matters.

One of my closest friends got married in Vegas, and I didn’t hesitate to go out there and bear witness, and my company sent me out to Los Angeles for the Adobe MAX conference, which was the coolest work trip I’ve ever been to in my career.

Most importantly, as much as they sometimes drive me crazy with their roller coaster of toddler emotions, watching my kids grow throughout the year is always a wondrous sight of seeing them develop, physically and intellectually.  Both my girls have demonstrated a ton of intelligence, and sometimes I just stop and watch them while they eat, play, read or just simply exist, and three years into the journey, I remind myself of how unbelievable it still feels that I’m a dad.

So, much like my emotional state throughout the year, this year’s end post goes up and goes down, like a roller coaster.  There may be plenty of days in which I’m burnt out, worried as fuck about finances, or in need of a good anxiety outlet, but there are no days where I don’t have love for my family and children and friends, no matter what is believed to be on my exterior.

Overall, I do not feel that 2023 was a poor year, and at the same time, I hope that 2024 and beyond is better.  Because why shouldn’t anyone not hope that the next day is better than the one before it? 

The Holiday Famiry Road Trip

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

In an attempt to tackle numerous birds with a single stone, my entire house packed up and hit the road, so that we could visit family, see some sights, and let the kids and the au pair see some things outside of our everyday life in Georgia.  All of the driving necessary to hit all of our destinations was daunting, but with hopes that breaking up the trip with strategic stops, and having an iPad full of kids’ movies and television shows to distract, it wasn’t really that bad aside from the sheer time and boredom of the driving aspect which is I guess the burden of dads everywhere in the world when it comes to a famiry road trip, but honestly I can’t complain.  The kids were great on the entire long stretches of driving, and we didn’t have to stop nearly as often as I feared we might have.

As for the trip itself, it was pretty good from the standpoint of getting to see a lot of family, and taking the kids and au pair into Washington DC to see some sights.  Say what I might about DC as a former resident of the area, but places like their zoo and all the museums truly are top-notch.  And the gentrification fairy certainly has done some work to the place since the last time I really went exploring or got lost in the city itself.

Pour one out for the husk that used to be Chinatown, which is apparently limited to like two restaurants and the big red arch that remains.  It’s also hilarious to see all the American and chain businesses that seem like they’re required to have Chinese writing on their storefronts, so like you’re seeing a Chipotle, with Chinese characters that probably say like Mexican food or something on it, since I doubt there’s specific characters to describe a burrito.

I took our au pair to a Caps game since somehow she’s inexplicably a hockey fan from South America and is apparently a New York Islanders fan, and since they were playing the Caps during our trip, it seemed like a layup to be able to gift something of a dream experience for her to be able to see the Islanders in person.  Unfortunately, the Islanders took the L, but she got to witness the general apathy and low-excitement of the DC sports scene, where the entire crowd basically waiting for Alexander Ovechkin to do something, and the guy looking like he’s playing hurt, based on the Undertaker-way he was coming into the game only at optimal scoring chances, and shooting from the same spot on the ice a few times before coming right back off.

In the past, I used to hold onto something of a kinship with the general area, and have a sense of pride of being a former Virginian.  I liked knowing that I still knew the area very well and could get around without a map, take Metro without needing guidance, and generally co-exist with the denizens of the area without much complaint.  But during the span of this trip, there were several instances of where I came to the realization that I’m just not one of them anymore, and not just that, that I don’t really like it up there very much, and often wondered how I was able to live up there for like 12 years.

People, in all of the DMV, are just so much more conceited and petty and just generally more selfish than what I’m used to living in the South.  It’s hard to explain, but there’s always the smallest of micro-aggressions that I witness that remind me that I’m not in the South anymore, whether it’s holding doors open, being in the way on sidewalks or being at restaurants and being completely unwilling to offer up extra chairs or space.  Like we’re at a restaurant with six people, and there are only 4-tops left, but both adjacent tables have people with extra chairs; perhaps it was presumptuous to assume anyone would’ve offered them up to my party, but down South, people are just a little friendlier and a little more aware of others, as opposed to the people around us who insisted their coats or their empty bag of takeout needed their extra chairs.

Mythical wife actually wants to ultimately end up back there, as she has lots of friends up in Maryland, but I have very little desire to move back up there, even if 75% of my general family lives up there.  It’s not like they’d all automatically become ready babysitters, nor would I want to put that responsibility onto all of my cousins or my parents, and then I’d be stuck up in DMV paying DMV land values and being subject to all the shitty people and worst of all, the motherfucking traffic.

Because that was absolutely one of the worst parts of the trips, was the aforementioned motherfucking traffic.  It was bad when I lived up there with the seemingly endless construction of the I-495/I-395/I-95 interchange, but because VDOT apparently needs to always have a 20-year project on their docket at all times in order to justify their existence, they’ve decided to turn I-495/I-66/Rt. 123 into their personal battlefield now, and getting stuck on a route in which I remember cruising back and forth through in the past just made me feel homicidal whenever I was caught in some standstill traffic.

In fact, while up in DMV, there was literally not a single instance where I got into my car and didn’t get stuck in some catastrophic traffic jam.  Going to Gaithersburg, traffic.  Coming back from Gaithersburg, traffic.  Going to my mom’s place, traffic.  Going to the nearest Metro station to pick up wife and au pair, traffic.  After my family gathering, my house was going to head back to Richmond in order to shave an hour off of the big drive the following day, and one of my cousin’s said that I shouldn’t expect any traffic on the night of December 23rd, but naturally, there’s some catastrophic traffic jam in fucking Quantico of all places, as if my time in the DMV area just had to get one last fuck you before I left.

People seem to think Atlanta traffic is, which it is, but I still think traffic up there is still way worse.  Atlanta traffic is primarily aggressive drivers and poor infrastructure, but the DMV area has infrastructure and a reliable train system.  Their traffic is on account of bad drivers who are all pussy-whipped into overly-safe-into-becoming-dangerous drivers by the Commonwealth’s egregious ticket fines and the area’s constant tampering with the road system buoyed by their $4B+ road budget.  The overall result is me wanting to blow my brains out every time I got into the car, and most definitely not wanting to be in the area, as a residence especially.

But like I said, this trip was not entirely about me.  It’s important that my kids meet and have exposure to my family, and it’s important that our au pair gets to actually travel and see places and experience things outside of her daily routines, so if it means accomplishing those things, I’ll take some traffic on the chin for the greater good.  As much as I bemoaned the traffic and aggravations of DMV living, seeing how happy my kids are around their grandparents and extended family, and seeing how happy the au pair was when she got to see her favorite Islander players in person, I really can’t ask for better gifts than those.  This is why I often insist on getting nothing for the holidays, because some of the best things just aren’t tangible things.

Dad Brog (#127): Purging and inevitability

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Over the last few weeks, be it because of needing to clean for hosting, needing to clean just to free up space, or needing to clean because sometimes I come home and want to blow my brains out because it feels like my house is a sneeze away from becoming a subject on an episode of Hoarders, my house has been doing some purging. 

Mostly baby related things that we’re long past needing anymore, and although there’s a tremendous amount of relief whenever we manage to unload a piece of furniture, or a large item, or a box full of clothes, toys or other kid-related things that have long since been outgrown, upon reflection, it’s still bittersweet and inevitable that it would not go unnoticed by me that things that were once mainstays of when our kids were babies and infants, are now no longer part of the home, symbolic of the passage of time and that my kids are growing up.

In the past, I would just drop all these types of stuff off at the local Goodwill, get a donation receipt, and claim as much as possible for tax purposes, but as I’ve learned over the last few years, unless I donated like, my entire home, donations hardly have any effect, if any effect at all on one’s tax refunds, so my thinking lately has been, if I’m getting rid of stuff, I’d prefer them to go to people whom might actually need them for their intended purposes, and not end up getting thrown out by a charitable corporation.

However in spite of the altruistic intentions, fewer things is as maddeningly frustrating than the process of trying to give shit away.  I mean, the stuff is absolutely free with zero strings attached, but it also works against the givers, because of the zero money involved in the transactions, receivers also feel no real obligation to come receive, and the flake percentage is higher than Shaq’s chances at missing a free throw.

But that’s beside the point, the point of this post is that in all the purging we’ve been doing, I recognize the fact that we’re getting rid of some pretty substantial thing in my home’s history over the last 3+ years at this point, with two notable things that are at the forefront of my mind when reflecting over this recent purge. 

Since #1 was born, we had a bottle sterilizer that lived on the kitchen counter for over three years at this point.  When we had a second kid, we actually came upon a second one, courtesy of the manufacturer, sent to mythical wife when she was making videos on YouTube.  But having two kids raised on breast milk, we needed these sterilizers a lot, multiple times a day at the heyday of having a newborn and an infant at the same time.

And they lived on the counter, 24/7 for years.  Eventually we got rid of one, and I was glad to give it to a colleague who was having her first kid ever, because I know how great I loved having the sterilizer early on, to ensure that my kid’s bottles were as clean as could be, but the thing is, they were always there.

No matter how disastrous the residents of my home clutter up the counter and make me want to jump off a cliff sometimes, whenever it is eventually cleaned up, the sterilizer stayed.  Everything worked around the position of the sterilizer and at least once a day, it was running, cleaning bottles and other sterilizer-friendly kid bowls or cups or utensils.  It was a mainstay of the home.

Well, it’s gone now.  Mythical wife has gotten on yet another Great British Baking Show kick again and this time, it’s manifested into actual desire to bake, and when she gets on a kick, she goes full retard and now we’ve got a brand new Kitchen Aid jesus mixer that everyone who bakes loses their shit over, and being the less sentimental between the two of us, she didn’t hesitate to jettison the sterilizer from the counter, seeing as how the kids are using cups that really need to be sterilized, especially since they’re drinking regular cow’s milk from them, long past the days of breast milk.

And the counter still looks weird to me sometimes, not seeing the giant white box underneath the cupboard anymore.  But we didn’t need it, and it was off to the charity pile for it, and it was picked up by someone that allegedly had a five month old, and hopefully they’ll get great use out of it as my household did.

And next we have the high chair(s).  Despite the fact that my kids could still very well use them, they, and really I mean #1, but then #2 has to do everything that her big sister does, has gotten into that stage in her life where she’s clearly three going on 18, and refuses to sit in high chairs and boosters, and will lose her shit at even the notion of being denigrated into sitting into a baby’s seat.

The thing is too, I eventually grew to hate the last high chair we had, because the legs were spread so far out to give it as wide as base as possible to be safer from tipping over than any other high chair, but it actually took up more surface area than it appeared to, and when it was used regularly, not a day went by where someone didn’t trip over the ultra-wide standing legs because it didn’t look like it was that space-consuming.  I fucking hated when I was the victim of it, and when the kids spurned the high chairs in general, it sat in a corner where it could do the least bit of tripping.

Well, it’s gone now.  Along with our old transitioning high chair/booster seat, because my kids refuse to use that one too.  And just like that, my breakfast nook has gone from having boosters and high chairs displacing the normal chair(s) against the wall or absconded by mythical wife into her office that already has multiple chairs in it already, we’ve got a table with four ordinary, regular, grown human being sized chairs.

And unsurprisingly, I got some feelings about it.  Nothing I won’t get over after I post this but it’s still a little bittersweet to see some pretty mainstay things in the house for raising my kids being given the boot, but at least with these specific things, they’ve all been successfully unloaded to other parents and people whom I hope manages to get continued good use and a successful second life, raising kids as they did my own.

Because my kids were born so closely together, it wasn’t difficult to treat the last few years like one really long and continuous birth and raising, because there was a good bit of overlap when both girls needed the same stuff, and I could stop and look at my life and just see myself with two babies.  But now that they’re both basically thinking they’re full-ass grown adults now, but most importantly, out of diapers, it’s been time to say goodbye to a lot of baby stuff now, and time to be me and reflect and reminisce on it.  I’m satisfied with every inch of surface area we can liberate in my home, and frankly it’s harder to give shit away than it’s hard to say goodbye to a lot of baby stuff.  But as much as I do use dad brogs to complain about how hard my life is and how over I get parenting sometimes, it’s times like these that are reminders that time is most definitely passing, my kids are growing further and further away from the babies they once were, and if I keep blinking to brog and bitch, I’m going to miss everything on the way to sitting down with them to guide them through their first job applications because oh yeah, my kids will be working.

Dad Brog (#126): When will the holidays be enjoyable again?

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

This morning, I was awoken a few minutes before my alarm went off, because #1 had already begun to stir and babble and indicate that she was awake.  My alarm went off three minutes later at 7 am because I get up at 7 am every single day of my life regardless of if it’s a weekend or holiday so that I can hope to get some stuff done and have breakfast ready for the kids for when I inevitably get them from their respective rooms.

I got off of the couch because my in-laws were visiting and mythical wife and I forfeited our bed because we no longer have a guest room because we have an au pair, and I trudged into the kitchen to begin the morning routine.  It didn’t last long, because #1 began screaming and crying out for dada to come get her, and it was getting louder and louder, and typically I try to no-sell it and hope she calms back down, but it was evident that that wasn’t going to happen this morning.  And before her screaming would wake up the rest of the state of Georgia, I went up to get her early, regardless of the fact that I hadn’t gotten anything prepared for the morning.

Turns out she had completely soaked the bed, and most likely from a combination of shame and embarrassment, she was furious, despite the fact that I did not get mad or upset with her and explained calmly that everything was okay and that we would fix it.  She wailed like a banshee and had a nuclear meltdown, while I stripped the sheets and got her changed and brought her downstairs.  I love my kids, but trying to do anything with them around is at least three times harder than it should be, and putting away yesterday’s dishes and trying to prepare breakfast for them is no exception.

After getting #1 situated and eating, I went up to get #2, and thankfully this morning she was the chill kid, and didn’t fuss and fight at all which was a huge relief.  She sat down and began eating and for two seconds, things were quiet with them eating breakfast.  But that didn’t last long, because the rest of the house started waking up, and other human beings are automatically distracting to them, and before I know, breakfast is abandoned, and they’re running amok, primarily fucking with the Christmas tree and some of the decorations we had just set up the night prior after Thanksgiving dinner part two.

To cut to the chase and cut down on redundant words and stories about how hard my life is in my parental circumstances, that was basically the story of the day, playing a fuck ton of defense throughout the house as #2 was being a little shit all day long just trying to get into things, fuck with the Christmas tree and being a defiant dick, throwing and knocking over anything she could get her hands on, and #1 being an uber-clingy barnacle to me the entire day, demanding my attention or having a meltdown if she wasn’t getting it.

Mythical wife and I declared that today was arguably, the hardest day we had as parents as we’d ever had, as in ever, and we both agreed that as much as we love the kids, this was one of those days where we just could not wait to put them down to bed for the evening.  I often think it’s cliché for people to crack open a cold alcoholic beverage after a trying day, but today definitely encapsulated the circumstances for it to sound like the greatest idea in the world, and not five minutes after I came downstairs after putting #1 to bed, it was straight to the fridge to pull out a Schofferhofer, one of the weak-ass fruit witbiers that I still actually enjoy drinking at home, when I feel like having something with a little booze in it.

As nihilistic and pessimistic as it might sound, this was just another year of holidays that I just can’t really get into and didn’t really look forward to, because this stage of parenting is just so overwhelmingly difficult on a daily basis, that I don’t really much like getting out of the routine, even for holidays in which we’re expected to be happy and thankful for things, because it just means a whole lot of extra work of preparing my home, hosting people, and a whole lot of gray area of childcare and eyes on the girls, resulting in mostly me feeling like I’m the only one who is mindful of the kids and being the primary person chasing after them and keeping watch over them, all while I have other responsibilities and expectations to do as well, because trying to do anything with kids around is automatically eight times harder than it should be, but I still have to do them anyway, hell or high water.

And I can’t help but think about holidays in the past prior to having kids, because they were all just so simple and full of space to have the capacity to think about things like traveling instead of hosting, contemplating Black Friday shopping, and actually having the money to do both, and I love my kids and family until the day I die, but there’s no denying just how different, simple and mindless life was prior to the rigors of raising kids.

Lots of parents of children far older than my own often like to say how things get easier as they age, which makes sense, but god damn there are times in which I can’t wait for those days to become reality in my life, because days like this I find myself cursing in private at how much I’m so sick of parenting sometimes, and wanting to scream and break shit over the aggravation of my kids can be when they both feel like being little asshole shits, and I feel bad for doing such, but I’m already always living in a state of high RPM stress on the regular, and I just wonder when things will actually calm down to where I don’t have to feel like this and dread holidays and can eventually get back to enjoying them again someday.

Dad Brog (#120): the 2023 Famiry Disney Trip

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Typically, I imagine a lot of people look forward to taking a week off and going down to Disney World with their families.  But a lot of people also aren’t stodgy curmudgeons who is always financially paranoid and also knows just how much work two toddlers are regardless of how many adults are going to be involved in the trip, so personally it’s not so much that I was gleefully looking forward to taking a week off at the Happiest Place on Earth™ as much as I was just mentally trying to psych myself up for the sheer amount of, lift, that would entail on a trip as such.

I mean, two of the things that are basically atop of my general pet peeve list these days are crowds and being up against a clock, and Disney trips are typically nothing but dealing with gargantuan crowds and always being up against a clock since there are fast passes, lightning lanes, genie passes or whatever else that puts clocks on top of everyone’s heads.  Not to mention despite the fact that the weather is just now finally starting to cool off in Georgia, we head down to Florida, where it’s still going to be 90F+ every day, along with the daily Florida rains to contend with, and it’s like asking myself, why do we keep coming back to Florida over and over again?

Regardless, I don’t want to be a total curmudgeon that brings down those all around me, so I did my best to be optimistic that things were going to be okay, and I deliberately planned absolutely nothing at all for myself, since trips like these really are for my kids above all else.  Because if I had any real allusions that I would have any actual time for anything that I wanted to do, I would be cranky in the very likely chance that they did not occur.

Overall, it was probably for the best that I went into the trip with such gameplan, because by simply rolling with the general agenda that mythical wife had set up and just reacting to what was in front of me, I can say that I think the trip went well, I didn’t burn out too much, and most importantly, I think my kids had a really great time, and I can take some really positive and core memories out of the trip as a whole.

Sure there were a few moments where I get fried where I feel like I’m the only one watching the kids while everyone around me is constantly shopping or indulging themselves while the girls grow restless and cranky and I’m the only one seemingly caring, but frankly this is often the case regardless of if we’re in Disney or Florida or anywhere really.

It’s the moments where I’m with my kids and I see them getting enjoyment or having fun in ways that aren’t available to them back at home, that make trips like these worth it, no matter how much angst or frustration I deal with at any other point during them.  Seeing my kids’ faces light up when they meet their favorite (current) Disney princess, or they get to eat something that we normally don’t let them eat at home, these are the true core memories that emerge from a trip while any of the fleeting frustration or grumpiness about daily changing sleeping arrangements get dumped into forgotten memories by the end of the trip.

But my god, I think the pinnacle of this trip for me, was seeing just how mind-blown and enthralled both of my girls were, when they experienced the big slide at our resort.  I had no real intention of letting either of them go down it, thinking they were too young or too small to handle it.  I figured the baby slide that was like 6 feet and a gentle, straight slope would be the highlight of their trip, and they seemed to like it fine, going down it like 30 times each, with me catching them at the bottom of it every time.

Then I noticed that some kids not much bigger or older than #1 coming down the big slide, and I’m asking the lifeguard if there was any age or size restrictions on it, to which they responded that there weren’t, other than kids like mine needing life jackets for safety reasons.  I stood at the bottom of the slide watching kids come down, and sure enough it wasn’t long before not just #1, but #2 wanted to try the slide, so it was the moment of truth to see if they could handle it or not, since we had the au pair who could catch them at the bottom while I took them up top.

Surely, one or both of my kids would be traumatized, or be that kid at the water park who puts on the hand brakes and gets themselves stuck and makes a scene, right??  I let #1 down the slide first, and she did a little bit of braking for herself, but otherwise went down the slide without any other incident.  #2, I had more concern for, being smaller and fragile, but when I set her on her way, watching her go down the slide, the smile on her face, man, was totally one of those things where if I could bottle that kind of joy and enjoyment and sell it to others, I would be rich three times over.

After sliding down myself to get my kids’ opinions on the slide, they were absolutely beside themselves and practically begging to get back up the stairs and go down the slide again, and again, and again, to which the au pair and I obliged and took turns at taking them up while the other caught them at the bottom.

After the 6th or 7th trip down the slide, I’m asking myself, why bother with exorbitant admission into the parks, when they’ve clearly found the highlight of their trip from one of our resort’s amenities?

Either way, that was probably my favorite memory of this year’s Disney trip.  I know that in future years, things will continue to get easier as my kids grow, and their sleeping arrangements change and settle, and we’ll need less and less assistance, but I can still say that this year’s trip wasn’t nearly as exhaustingly clunky as the one prior.

But of course, nothing can go too smooth, and despite the fact that the travel was going fairly smooth, it naturally came crashing to a literal stop, as it wasn’t until we started getting closer to Atlanta did we start to hit catastrophic traffic not just once, but two times, once in fucking McDonough, which is basically like the Gwinnett County that’s south of the city instead of north of it, and then naturally there’s a great big old nothing-caused turd of standstill traffic traversing through the actual City of Atlanta.

And I still don’t know what it was, although I suspect it might’ve been an excess of sun exposure, but I got waylaid pretty hard at the very end of the trip, dealing with a fever and body aches on the drive back, as well as throughout the weekend concluding our trip.

Overall, I’d say the trip was still pretty good though.  Several good memories were made with my family, and fewer things snap me out of grumpy moods than seeing my girls being filled with joy.  One of these years I’ll actually get to enjoy Food & Wine again, but I wouldn’t trade fun time with my kids for anything, so no regrets with forfeiting something I’ve done countless times already for the comfort and safety of my kids.