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
These three kids are just awesome with their guitars. Michael (8) and Sullivan (10) play El Cumbanchero on mandolin and guitar. Backed by sister their Molly.
There are many children enrichment center coming up these days, Montessori, Kumon, Little Sprouts, and many more.
It is not surprising that all these child enrichment center is popping up one by one after all we are moving into the 21st Century which is deemed to be the century of the mind. And what has century of the mind got to do with child enrichment?
As we begin to understand more about the workings of our brain, experts also begin to believe that that brain development of a child could actually begin when the baby is still in the mother’s womb. Now this is not a new development. We all know that we should play Mozart music when the baby is still in the mother’s womb because it will make the baby smarter when they are born. But the more we begin to discover more and more about the wonders of our brain; experts begin to realize that we could actually begin to start our baby's education as young as 3 months old!!
Amazing isn't it? Now so far there is one center that claims that a child’s education could actually being at 3 months old and it is the center that I have enrolled my daughter in. The Shichida Method. I think it is the latest one which originates from Japan and was actually developed by Professor Makato Shichida.
Why am I drawn to this method and not other method? It was actually by coincidence that we joined this program.
Two years ago an associate whom my wife worked with recommended that we attended a presentation held at the center. At that presentation we were shown what Shichida Method was all about and was also shown some actual proof of children achieving tremendous things after a few years with Shichida Method. They were called geniuses. In fact, they said all children are geniuses and Shichida Method could help the child bring out the genius in them.
Like any parents, who wanted to give the best to our daughter, we signed sign our daughter up straight away. At that time our daughter was only nine months old. We assumed that, if we could 'plug' our daughter into this system, we can ultimately produce a genius kid. But it took us quite sometime to really understand that it was not going to be easy. How naive and ignorant. Don't get me wrong, I am not insinuating that we made a wrong decision.
We were naive enough to think that these programs can actually help our daughter to realize her potential with minimal participation from the parents. As time goes by, not only did our daughter learn, but also we as parents also learn a lot about parenting.
Shichida encourages the participation of parents and Professor Makato Shichida says that one of the key factors in the success of any child’s growth is parent’s participation and support.
Shichida is not only meant for children but it is also for parents who wants to learn to be better parent at the same time. Well for that matter it has helped me and my wife to be better parents to our daughter. We were taught how not to have too much expectation of our daughter, we were taught how to have the compassion to help assist her in her learning experiences. We were taught how to handle my daughters tantrum, we were taught how to help and encourage her when she did something wrong. We were also taught how to play with our child.
To be honest, I think Shichida Method is not only for our daughter but it was also for me and wife as young, naive and ignorant parents who wants the best for our children. Even till today I still continue to learn about the finer part of unconditional love and compassion for our daughter.
Another thing to add is that Shichida Method not only helped me and my wife to build a great bond with our daughter but also a great bond between me and my wife. One thing for sure, while my wife and I might not have a lot of common goals in life, the one goal that we have high on our list of goals is to see our daughter achieve her greatest potentials in this lifetime.
Is this a testimonial for Shichida Method?
Well, yes I can say it is. Shichida has helped not only me and my wife as parents but also they have helped my daughter. And I just want to share with everyone my thoughts and experiences as a Shichida parents.
And so my blog officially begins. It took me about a week plus to get everything correct. Header logo, side bars, left bars, outlook of the overall site.
I choose the title 'Gift of Fatherhood' because I am dedicating this blog to not only my family and my parents but also to all the parents out there. Being a parent is not exactly as easy as it seems. While both my parents had, I believe a tough time raising me, it never really occur to me the kind of stress, anxiety and also the joy that it can bring raising up a child.
Over the pass three years of raising my daughter, I have experience all these feelings.
Trying to communicate with when she can’t even utter a word can be very stressful. When she cries it’s like talking to someone in a foreign language. With a child you can not walk away, you have to solve whatever is bothering them. If it was any other person I will just shrugged my shoulder, say ‘I don’t speak your language’ and walk away.
Another thing is that my daughter is special, by that I don’t mean that she is physically or mentally challenge rather she is special because of her personality. She has so much ‘fire’ in her that when she wants something she has to get it and if she does not get it exactly the way she wants it, the whole roof might collapse by her crying.
So you can imagine trying to deduce what she really wants when she was an infant crying.
Well that was the stressful part of being a parent.
Now the anxiety feeling that comes with being a parent is not as great in a father as in a mother. Please correct me if I am wrong here. But when the mother is worried, the father has to be the calm and cool guy to reassure her that everything is going to be alright. Father rarely worries; don’t know if it’s a masculine thing or something else. Even if they do worry they are able to conceal it very well and we have to show to wife that coolness. If not I believe the mother’s worries would increase 10 folds.
For me, while I do not worry as much as the mother on the daily affairs of my daughter such as when she falls down and bump her head, or when she falls sick. Rather I worry about whether I can provide the best for her. The best education, the best milk powder, the best clothes, the best surroundings, well basically the best of everything. That is my greatest worry.
Apart from the stress and anxiety, the best part about being a parent is the joy and happiness that a child could bring. Watching her smile, watching play, watching her learn or even watching her sleep just brings joy to our lives.
Now this part I don’t really understand. Me and my wife would just sometime just sit down and watch her play and suddenly laugh when she does something so innocent like feeling frustrated when could not get the right shape blocks into the right shape hole. Don’t mean to sound cruel, but it’s the expression that she
Most of the time after a hard day at work, coming back to a smiling face of my daughter just makes the day. All my stress from work just seems to disappear and this is the sort of thing that always makes me look forward to coming home everyday.
I remember a former colleague of mine once told me a few days before my wedding. He said, ‘Do you know what the best part about getting married is?’ I told him I don’t know and he replied ‘It’s having kids!’
What?! I thought he was joking and maybe giving me a bit of a scare about plunging into the world of marriage. (You know how all these jokes go) Well, he was pretty serious when he told me that. By the way, he has two kids of his own then.
Of course being single at that time, I never understood what he meant by that. But now I kind of realize what that actually meant. And I must say, I totally agree with him now.
She is no longer the baby I can carry effortlessly. She is very much more active and more curious these days. 
