Cloudy In Seattle

Personality traits

I wonder if my newborn son’s personality traits will stay with him for the rest of his life.

Vik seems to know exactly what he wants: within minutes of being born he started rooting for his mom’s breast. Its only been a week, but whenever he cries, there seems to be a purpose: a wet diaper, or feeding time. Once you figure that out and solve it, he goes back to being quiet. He also seems to be precocious. He’s already turned over once on his own and raised his head. He tries really hard to focus his eyes and looks at you really hard. 

So my guess is that he will always know what he wants to do at different points in his life; he’ll be very self-directed. He will also be very hard on himself and strive to achieve things that I wouldn’t expect him to achieve until much later.

It’ll be fun to read this post again as the decades roll by. Only time will tell if these are insights, or just parenting goggles :)

Changed state

Its entertaining and a little humbling to think of the world the way it used to be before my son was born. Some things are part of my life now that will make him go “huh, what’s that?”. Other things might be relevant in his lifetime too, but started in mine.

• Famous people who are now no more: Michael Jackson, Steve Jobs.
• Current events that he will consider “history”: the tea party, occupy movement.
• Fads: the ipod, the 80’s (although neon is back now - apparently we haven’t learned)
• Viral videos - Gagnam style hit the week this guy came out
• People using “like” too often in every sentence
• Thinking green.

He’s gonna be a week old later today. I should start the history lessons :)

Daddy don’ts

Thought it might be a good idea to put down things my parents did that pissed me off growing up. I can check myself before I repeat these with my son:

• Repeat the same story about me to different groups of friends - especially when I recall it differently.
• Pretend I’m a child to friends of mine just a little older than me. Especially calling them “big brother” or “big sister”. Not everyone needs to be typecast into a protective older sibling, especially people I think have huge personality flaws.
• Ask me if I need money.
• Ask me what it is I do, over and over again.
• Ask me if I’m happy at my job, over and over again.
• Ask me if I’d rather do some other job you’ve picked out, over and over again.
• Introduce metaphysical coincidence once the outcome of an event is known, when said coincidence was never mentioned before/during the event.
• Defend me blindly, even when I’m trying to be self critical.
• Imply people are evil, but not tell me the reason why. And when I get older, still not tell me the reason why, but keep on implying.
• Blame yourself for imagined mistakes in bringing me up. I was fed, clothed and had a great support system. I could have done much much worse than this.

Son

My son was born 3 days ago. The last 72 hours have been a roller coaster of emotions. I wasn’t one of those people who always knew they’d have kids. My wife and I decided to do it because we had 8 good years of being a couple, and yes, time was running out. Now that he is here, my head’s been a maelstrom of thoughts. I’ve been overwhelmed: wondering how I could make this work, and why I gave up on the way things were and changed what I thought was a perfectly enjoyable existence. I’ve been glad that I’m finally doing something for someone other than myself, and excited at how that will change me. I’ve lost myself staring at his face. I’ve felt extreme sympathy and pity for my parents: wondering how I could restrict them to a call a week from across the world when they must have gone through this and more for me. I’ve longed for a simpler time, when my biggest cares were whatever was the crisis (or so I thought) of the day. I’ve been bipolar. I’ve been sad and frustrated: wondering why I can’t make my own child stop crying. 

This is change at its rawest: unrelenting, in your face and in the middle of the night. But it is also welcome. He hasn’t smiled yet, but he will. Then it will all be worth it.

TILT: the good you do

…stays on in the world.

My grandad helped a lot of people in his time. One of these is a doctor who faced a hard time early in his career. He wouldn’t have made it without my grandad’s support.

This week we found out my uncle has cancer. This same doctor has become an expert in removing tumours surgically, and is operating on my uncle. Its been a great comfort to us that he is in charge of my uncle’s surgery.

Marking time between meals

I’m on the couch on a Sunday morning listening to a mellow Spotify playlist and the gloom Seattle likes to wear this time of year. This feels nice. Sloth feels good. Why do we ever stop doing this?