Snapshots

I just realized that I have blogged on my birthday, and Benny’s birthday.  I suppose it’s only fair to blog on Dezzie’s birthday too.

Even though it’s a Saturday, it isn’t the best of time to celebrate her birthday.  Benny just got sick a couple of days ago (after a long streak of no-sickness of perhaps 3 or 4 months, I can’t remember exactly).  He’s having some bad coughs and runny nose, and have been extra clingy these past few days.  Dez hasn’t been sleeping well.  I haven’t slept well either, but kind of making up the lack of quality with extra quantity (meaning I’ve been sleeping a bit more, which means doing less non-infant activities).

There have been quite a few times when I actually had thoughts I wanted to blog about, but then the thoughts came and went, as there was no opportunity to really sit down in front of a computer and blog.

I’ve been really busy.  I don’t know if I am at my limit…  But man, I really don’t like having so many things going on at once.  I’ve been taking it one day at a time, but there just seems to be no end to this.  We’re still in the very early stages of planning for a vacation for November.  With Benny, of course, which makes things just so much more difficult.

Being a parent is a really humbling experience…  I remember before getting married, people were jokingly saying how it’s gonna be different.  Sure, other than getting yelled at more often for being messy, everything was pretty much the same before and after marriage.  Honestly, no one said much about having kids, other than “Oh enjoy your sleep now because you won’t be getting any after!”  No, turns out having kids completely changed my life.  Like a caterpillar morphing into a butterfly, there is no semblance between the before and after.  Almost everything changed.

Lets hope we’ll get some uninterrupted sleep in the near future!  Benny was just napping, now he’s awake…  Guess where I have to go now.

A year ago today, Benjamin was born.  Life was never the same since.

I don’t remember the last time I slept 8 hours without waking up at least once.  Actually, make that 6 hours.  The fatigue is almost perpetual.  I think even though I’ve heard about how new parents don’t get enough sleep, I was still unprepared of what was to come.

I think the toughest part about being a parent, for me, was my inability to truly multitask.  I can only have my attention fully focused on 1 thing.  If my attention was split, my enjoyment of whatever I was doing was lowered.  For example, I can’t be happily enjoying my time cleaning up the desk while tending to Benny, neither can I happily enjoying my time with Benny while watching the oven.

But of course, when I did have moments to pay full attention to Benny, it was awesome.  He’s grown so much, so fast.  Lots of first times for everything.  A baby’s laugh just melts the heart.  It’s like an addictive drug that you just can’t get enough of.

Ever since Benny was born, I’ve suddenly noticed all the dads and moms with their babies everywhere.  It’s like they were invisible to my non-parent eyes before.  That was interesting.

I don’t know if I am a little more patient than when I was a year ago, but this year has certainly been a growing opportunity.

Anyway, I think the worst for me is over.  I think the first couple of months of endlessly worrying about a helpless baby falling or suffocating or snapping his neck was the worst days.  Even though now Benny can be a terror sometimes, I definitely prefer this state more.

We survived!

Benny is now over 9 months old.  Time flies.  Going from a baby who can hardly open both eyes for long periods at a time, to a baby who commando-crawls his way around the rooms.  Lots of things have changed, but some unfortunately have not.  (Still not sleeping through the night!!  Not even close!)

Thanks to the digital cameras and large hard drives, we have many thousands of photos and a few hundred short video clips.  I wonder what it will be like 20 years later when people go through his photo albums…  It would be so different from the old days.  I think I have like, a total of 1 album.  There are probably more photos scattered in different places, but I probably have less than 1000 photos of my entire childhood.

Getting old is pretty cool for a baby, but not so cool for the dad.  The body just doesn’t feel as great due to a variety of things.  Ever since I had my teeth fillings replaced (from silver to white) at the end of April, I could not eat off my right side because it hurts when I bite anything moderately hard.  I’ve gone back to get some adjustments, but they simply did not help much.  So it takes twice as long to eat the same amount of food, and I have to do it very carefully.  Food just doesn’t taste as good when you have to watch every bite.  I still have to go back for more adjustments, and possibly replacing the fillings in that 1 or 2 molars.

So in addition to not being able to eat much, my right hip still doesn’t feel right after the sun run.  It wasn’t caused by the sun run, since it was my fault I injured it 2 weeks before the sun run.  I haven’t run for about 2 weeks now hoping that it would heal.  It has gotten better, then regressed, then better, then regressed again.  So I don’t really know what’s up with that.

Dez and I are doing this experiment of eating organic/homemade as much as we could for the entire month of May.  That also means our food has less grease than before.  So the combination of these 3 factors have made me lose a lot of weight.  I now weigh 10 pounds less than before Benny was born.  And for those who know me, I already didn’t have much to lose to begin with.  And, once again, I exercise in order to gain weight, not to lose weight.  If I don’t do lots of cardio like running, I can’t gain much weight.  I know this apparently shocks everyone I know who wants to lose weight, but that’s the way it is.

So, my body ain’t feeling so great, and neither is the car.  My Toyota Corolla is now 11 years old.  Not too long ago the brakes start to make high pitch squeaking sounds when I brake.  Then some dashboard lights burned out.  Then I was driving on Knight bridge (not even fast, about 50 km/h) when something flew from the opposing traffic, through the inner lane, and hit my windshield on the outer lane and chipped the windshield where it sort of impairs the driver’s vision.  I can still drive and see OK, but the chip really is quite big.  Like a big water drop that never goes away.  And then the seat belt warning light was behaving weird (always flashing ON even when I already put on the seat belt), which was actually more annoying than the chip on the windshield.  I managed to make it so that it’s always OFF, so at least I don’t have a flashing light on my dashboard.

Anyway, I think most of these health / mechanical issues are fixable.  But they’ll take some time.  In the meantime, I just gotta get used to it…

Dez, Ben, and I went for our final “-lympic” event: Paralympic gold/silver/bronze medal curling game.  It was Canada vs South Korea for gold/silver, and Sweden vs USA for bronze/nada.

Of course, we were mostly watching the Canada vs South Korea game, not just because we’re Canadians, but because they put the Sweden vs USA game on the sheet closest to where we sit, so we can’t actually see much of it since too many heads were blocking our view.

There are a total of 8 ends (as opposed to 10 ends in regular curling).  The Canadians was demolishing the Koreans by the halfway point, 8-1.  7 point difference.  Pretty hard to come back on.

And then Koreans scored 2… then another 2… then another 1…  Oh man, it was nerve-wrecking.  Deja vu all over again as we compare the parallels to our women’s gold medal game.  Women led… until the last end, where they led by 2 points.  Yup.  And then overtime… then lost.  Well, the game was a nailbiter for sure.  Good thing the outcome was different.

Too bad USA lost again, so they got nada.

Anyway, on a separate topic, for those who didn’t click on any of my previous links: Those links are actually a subset of all (or nearly all) the photo highlights we have of Benny.  We have thousands of photos, and Dez selects the good ones, as well as ones that tell a story.  I post them using a free and great simple php-script gallery that I found on the web that did exactly what I wanted my gallery to do, except doing it better than if I were to code it myself.  I even donated $10 because I was so impressed.

Benny’s gallery is mostly for the grandparents who are not computer savvy, but also for people who would like to have a glimpse of what have been happening to us.  It’s categorized by months, with subcategories of special events.

Onto another unrelated topic, there has been much changes at work.  It’s still too early to tell if it will be good or bad in the long run, but changes are certainly happening.  Adapting to changes is never as easy as staying in a status quo.  I’m handed with more responsibilities, which is both welcoming and challenging.  I always like a good challenge, but sometimes I reflect on whether I really want to be committed to this line of work.  I know for certain that I enjoy software development, but I do feel that it’s a “top 3″ rather than a “top 1″.  It’s in the “I enjoy it but I don’t have a fiery passion for it” category.

Benny is now 7 months old.  Time seems to be accelerating, and the world is changing so fast.

So, what has happened?  In no particular order…

We caught the stomach flu.  “Gastroenteritis” is the proper term.  “Norovirus” is the name of the group of virus that induces Norwalk-like symptoms.  Vomiting, diarrhea, fatigue, etc, for 3 to 5 days.  For me, it was basically a mild flu + food poisoning.  I had sore throat, and couldn’t eat much for 4 days.  Benny was also sick, although we didn’t realize until he was kinda done being sick.  Dez got sick last, and although her stomach problem went away in about 4 to 5 days, she has been coughing and coughing since.  Oh, and we passed it to my dad and grandma.

Didn’t go to Fitness World very much due to the illness.  After I recovered, I had to spend more time taking care of Dez and Benny.  I can feel my muscles withering away.

I spent about 2 to 3 weeks looking for good computer component deals to build a budget computer for Dez’s cousin.  Once in a while I have to learn about the latest and greatest in the computer world, and then decide what is the “best value”.  The budget was $500, and with the help of a Microsoft insider friend, I was able to put together the computer for under $500, and it’s a computer with pretty good parts, too.  Something I would be proud of owning.  I really pushed the limit as to what $500 could buy, while accounting for future upgrade capability, etc.

Even though I have PS3 now, I have hardly used it, except to watch a couple of non-BluRay movies.

At work, the table tennis tournament has become more demanding of my time.  Regular season ended in January, and we’re now into playoffs.  I ended up being a team captain because I was a top 8 players among the participants.  But due to bad luck, I ended up on the same team with the weakest player.  So in this double elimination format, we’ll be a 2-game team.  I’m looking forward to the end of the season so I can get a break at lunch without all the table tennis obligations.