I was reading this article by Paul Graham 'Lies We Tell Kids' It is a great read. And I believe all parents should read it.
I can almost relate to almost half of what this author has written. It is so true that I think I would lie to myself just to give myself a peace of mind that I am doing the best that I can as a father. Yes, I lie to my daughter most of the time, either because
1. I want to pacify her annoying curiosity,
2. Get her to do something,
3. Simply do not think she will understand,
4. I don’t know how to explain it in a simple form.
But I guess as my daughter gets older, this list will expand because this article relates to kids that are 5 years and above.
As they begin to learn and wonder from their surroundings their curiosity will ultimately grow. And somehow or rather I will need to prepare myself with the answer.
Even now, take point one for example, ‘I want to pacify her annoying curiosity’ the curiosity itself is not annoying, it is more the timing she choose to ask me about her curiosity.
I know it is bad, a lie just to pacify her so that I can get on with what I am currently doing. I think this should not happen. Parenting is not only about teaching our kids, but I believe it is also a true reflection of what we are.
I know I should take time to explain to her all question and curiosity raise by my daughter. That is the part where I believe I need to put more emphasis on. To lie to her because I want to protect her for the time being I believe is alright. But to lie to her because I want to get it ‘over with’ so that I can continue my current chores, is well…. Not right.
As time goes by, all the lies we have told our kids will be apparent in not only their lives but also the parents. And when that time comes, it is time to sit down and start to undo the lies that we have told them and tell them the truth.
I do not think that we should underestimate our children, when the time is right, the situation will present itself, and that is the time when parents must have the courage to correct all lies told.
Toys are great, it is a wonderful thing that helps build creativity, imagination, motor skills and a whole lots more. When we pass the toy store, my daughter would always point to a toy and says that she wants it. She wants to play with it. Either she is curious or just want to scratch that itch to play something new I don’t really know.
Since I am a believer in toys helps a child grow, I never hold back on buying her toys to play with.
But at times, I do hold back because either she has a similar toy or I feel that that toy is of inferior quality and would wait to get her a better one.
My parent sometimes says that I spoil my daughter because most of the time I always buy her toys and she would just play with the toys for a while and then chucks it away when we buy her a new one.
Hey…. Isn’t that how we are now?
We buy a new stuff in the house and we would play with it for while. After a while when we go out and buy a new stuff, we would leave the old stuff somewhere in the deepest darkest part of our store…
So I guess I am spoiled too…..
The point is that, I believe a particular toy is great but once it has leave out it’s usefulness it becomes junk.
In my daughter’s case, she plays with it until she can’t find any other way to play with it. Her attention would obviously go to another toy or rather another activity that would engage her creativity.
But I feel in order for the toy to live out it’s usefulness to the max, the parents too must learn to play that with the kid.
I guess that is what I must try to do as often as I can….
I remember reading an article, as a child turns 4 years old, he or she finds the source of courage through the father. Between 1 and 3 years, the child will learn about their emotions via their mother and once they become more independent. They begin to be close to their father where they begin to shape their thoughts and surrounding through their father's courage.
I am still not sure what does this all means but I somehow can comprehend just a little. These days my daughter seems to only come to me when she is upset or when she feels that she needs some help with something. Where else when she is sad, upset, or even happy she would share this with her mother first and then share it with me later.
Like when she is trying to build a rising tower from her building blocks, even though her month is close to her when she fails to achieve her objective she would seek me for help.
I guess in that sense she seeks me to give her assurances and guidance in achieving her objectives.
I know fathers places a very important part in a child's upbringing. And I guess the source of courage when a child grows up would be his or her father first and foremost.
And if a father easily gives up... so will his child. While I am unable to prove this.... at this point in time I believe it to be true.
It is for this reason that I have to try and persevere in all my endeavor on and not to give up.
Wow... did not realize that it has already been close to a year since my last entry. And as usual the excuse is busy busy busy.... leaving no time to blog about fatherhood.
Recently after putting my thoughts together, I thought it would be great to restart my blogging about fatherhood. Life as a father over the year for me has been very hectic. I have to be on top of so many things.
Day Job
A Provider
Playmate
Father
Husband
Maid
Worker
And I guess the list goes on and on and on....
Begin a father in this century is no joke. Fathers are no longer seen as the sole provider in the family. A father must be in tune with everything and start to wear every hat in the house hold world. Putting on an apron if required. Having a mop on one hand and a feather duster on the other....
Ok... maybe I should not generalize to father in this century. Maybe it's just me.... I have been busy putting on so many hats that I did not have time to really update this blog. After spending so much time designing this site, I guess I should not leave it to rot in the open internet space.
I guess keeping this site up to date is a way of showing my gratitude of being a father and a husband....
Yes, it has been a while since I last updated my site. Life has been good but hard. Why do I say that, because as a father, I try my best to build a good foundation for my family.
Ok... let see over the past few months what sort of foundation am I building.
For one, me and my wife have been trying to get a second child. Some say it is easy, some say it is not. Over the past few months I have been swarm with work that I did not put time and effort into doing the limbo rock...
So it took me quite a while to put my mind and effort into it. Playing sports twice a week to get my stress level down. Finishing up my work and leave the work at work rather than taking it home. Taking some make shift 'viagra' pills.... hehe ok maybe it was more ginseng pills.
Man this combination is the works man. My sex life like went up like.... 'This HIGH'. So we have been trying every month and sometimes in between we do some warm up. Alright... I shall stop it there. Yes, I have been pre-occupied with this.
That is not all, my daughter is has grown.... She is no longer the baby I can carry effortlessly. She is very much more active and more curious these days.
She is beginning to learn more and start to ask more questions and of course she now wants more attention. It's only normal and all I can do is give my time for her as much as my 24 hours a day allows. Most of the time is playing with her. My wife also do get into the playing mode with her and she has more time with my daughter than I do. Lucky her...
Which brings me to another thing that I hope would be one of a good foundation block and as always it's the financial part. I have been working not only with my day job but also my other activities which I hope to supplement my income to welcome my next child. I also do hope to be able to build this foundation strong enough for me and my wife to have more time with our family.
While it is not straightforward and easy, it is not impossible. Thus, getting my priority and balancing the 24 hours time that I have a day is what makes it hard but it is very good in the sense that I have a very clear direction which I am moving forward day by day.
Last weekend was a very stressful. While having dinner with my in laws at a restaurant near my place, my daughter fell down and bump the back of a head on something sharp and to our horror, there was deep cut slightly less than an inch. My daughter was crying in pain, and blood was dripping from my daughters head. We tried to put pressure on the back of the head to stop it from bleeding, and we had to endure my daughter's ever increasing crying. We had to rush to the hospital.
Upon reaching the hospital, the doctor said that our daughter requires about 3 to 4 stitches because the opening of the cut was deep and wide and there could be a possibility that it could get infected. Now my daughter was still crying and I requested the doctor to see if there was anything that would help my daughter calm herself down before proceeding with the stitching. While the bleeding has stopped the pain had not.
After the doctor gave my daughter something to calm her down, she had to be wrapped in a strainer to hold my daughter down. She was crying for help and struggling to free herself because she felt very uncomfortable.
We knew that my daughter needs to be restrained to keep her from moving too much while the doctor tries to perform the mini surgery. We were helpless and my wife was trying very hard to hold back her tears. She was more upset at the fact that she could not even hold my daughter to reassure her that everything would be alright.
Even after local anesthetic was administered, my daughter was still asking for help from my wife. The doctor quickly tries to stitch up the cut as fast as she could. While both me and my wife reassured my daughter that everything would be alright.
At that point, I could not stop thinking about the anxiety and both my wife and my daughter is feeling. While I was worried for my daughter I could not understand why I am not as uptight or upset like my wife and daughter were.
All that was going through my mind was that everything is alright. It really hit me that I was not feeling the way that my wife was feeling. Why?
Am I not also concern for my daughter? I may not be the one who gave birth to my daughter, but I believe I had the same love for her as my wife would have. But why didn’t I feel the same way my wife did.
Should I feel the same way or was I supposed to have a different role in that situation?
I understand that a mother would do anything to console her child. This agony I believe is magnified 10 times by both my wife and my daughter. After the doctor had stitched the gash up and release the strainer, both my daughter and wife quickly embrace each other like they have been reunited after a long while. I could see some calmness in their eyes and their body language.
I was relieved that the ordeal was over, I hugged them both and somehow I could feel that they were calmer and they were suddenly smiling.
I was still thinking about what had happened and I know I should not try to understand the situation and just be grateful that nothing serious happened to my daughter. The thought still bugged me.
Probably it was a new experience for me. I have never gone through an ordeal of an emergency situation before especially an emergency that involves my family, thus I could not know how or what to feel. I would assume that my instinct would kick in automatically.
But my instinct just told me to be calm. And that is either reassuring or something is just not right.
I read somewhere that a father is suppose to be the pillar of strength and support to his family and maybe that is what I believe it is all about, to be calm when everything else in the family is in state of chaos.
While I do not think I will be able to understand the empathy a mother has for their child. But I believe I can understand what a father needs to be in a time of duress.
My daughter is now alright and she is as she was, playful and happy as thought the incident had never happened. The doctor says that we should not worry about it because our daughter did not faint or vomit when she had a bump on her head.
But to be sure, we need to take her back for two more visits; one to see how the wound is healing and the second time is to remove the stitches. At that time I do hope that my daughter will have the courage to brave through that.
I have seen this video some time back and thought maybe it would be great to share this on my blog. It still amazes me how this 3 year old girl could play the xylophone so fluently and so expressively natural.
No matter how hard I try not to get angry at my daughter, I sometimes do blow a fuse at her. Yesterday was the worst, I was so angry at her because she just refuses to listen to me.
You see, putting her to bed is somewhat my role at home. I get her to wash her feet, brush her teeth, change her into her pajamas, let her have her milk and then read to her before I turn off the light.
That has been going on for quite sometime and you can say it has become somewhat of a routine.
Last night I have some friends over and wanted to sit and chat a while, and it was time for my daughters bed. I told her that mommy will settle her to bed tonight but she just won’t listen she still insisted that I settle her to bed.
So I told my friends that I would be down soon once I have settled her. But when we went to the room she just wanted to play. I told her that I would read a book to her and turn off the light because I had to entertain some guests. But no… she just wants to play with me.
I had to ask my friends that they would have to leave while I tend to her. Fortunately for me, my friends understood my situation. So once they left, I got back to try to settle her to bed.
Again, she refused and wanted to play. That was when I blew my fuse. I had to ask my friends to leave so that I can accompany her to bed and she still would not want to settle herself.
Man, I got so angry that I not only scolded her but told her that I did not want to read books to her that night and told her to go to her room and settle herself. She cried and mommy had to try to settle her. I just left the room and went downstairs to watch some television.
After I have calm down, I had started to think about the situation. Why did I get angry with her? Why couldn’t I play with her like I always do and then settle her to bed?
Could it be the weather? Yes, when no answers can be found we always blame it on the weather. It was hot and humid and I was just irritated by that. So, little things like my daughter refusing to listen to me just got it on the edge.
But I don’t think it was the weather. It was because I had to take time out with friends to be the father that I am supposed to be. We put her in a routine so I had to stick with the program. Once you get into a routine with your children, and they are some what comfortable with it. The parents have to stick to the program and we will need to work around the program if me or my wife have to do other things say entertain our guests or go out to meet up with friends.
It is just like us as parents, when we are in a routine that we are comfortable with it is not easy to change it even if it was just for a day.
So since putting my daughter to bed was almost my daily routine with her, I could not get out of it, even for once. So I guess that is what gets my temper rising.
After some hard thinking, I know it was wrong for me to scold her. It was not her fault. It was just her normal routine and I just wanted to make that day’s routine different. So, it got me angry and my daughter crying.
I apologized to her that night, and this morning she just work up and just suddenly said ‘I love you!' to me. My heart just melted.
Now this is the sort of times where I know I did make it right even after I made her cry.
Phew... these past few days I was busy looking for my daughters photos. When I started this site I wanted to post some of my daughter's photos but when I tried to look for it, I could not find it.
I search my whole cd rack because I knew I had copied onto a CD-R disk from my external hard drive. When I could not find it, I tried my external hard drive which I copied from. I could not find it either.
I was so sad that day. How could I have been so careless as to lose something so precious as that?
But I told myself, there should be a way to restore deleted files even though there were deleted even those that were emptied in the rubbish bin. I got that idea that it was possible after watching season after season of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
Anyway, after searching the internet I tried a free software call Restoration and I tired it but it was not to my expectation. Did not recover the files that I was looking for and it was pretty tedious. But never to give up, I search again on the internet and tried a few of the premium software and finally bought one of it called Recover My Files ™ by GetData Software Development Company.
It work well. I manage to recover most of it. Sigh.... I have lost the first 4 months of my daughters picture. Can not manage to recover those. But I don't think I should give up, I still believe that I can recover it those lost files. It's either that or I will have to ransack my whole house until I find that CD.
So I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I can manage to do it.
In the meantime, hope you enjoy some of my daughters picture.
(Click to enlarge and see as slide show)
Being a good father is not always easy. Being a great father is even harder. I have a daughter who is three years old and I don't really know how I fair being a father. I just have the idea that if I do what I am suppose to do, I guess I can come out alright.
Now the thing that really bothers me is that 'WHAT I am suppose to do' is kind of a gray area. Let's see if I can draw a few lines of what a father should do to make it to the good fathers list.
So here goes.... below are a list of what I think it takes to be a good father. You must be able to:-
change your kids diapers
make milk for your kids
wake up in the middle of the night to make milk for your kid (or get them a glass of water)
play with them with they are bored even though you are busy
take them to the park every evening after you get home
drop everything when they cry or seek attention.
sacrifice your saturday night football program to play with your kids
Phew.... I think that's already a lot of what it takes to being a good father don't you think, especially item 7. Sigh.... life is hard being a father
She is no longer the baby I can carry effortlessly. She is very much more active and more curious these days. 
