Up until D2 was born, I guaranteed that I’d take just as many, if not more, pictures and videos of her.

A year later, when I went to edit the video for her Dol, I was shocked! “Ummmm, Ok. Let’s see…We have quite a few clips in August 2010…..and OH! Some good ones in September….and….that can’t be right. The next clip is in December?!?!?! Did I lose some clips?!?!” Our pictures were even more sparse. In one picture, D2 is chunky like this, and in the next, she’s got teeth.

At this rate, Baby #3 will be lucky if he/she gets any pictures taken.

Obsessively documenting feetstones (get it? they’re so close together, you can’t call them a milestone?! sigh) isn’t the only way that I’ve grown up as a dad.

When D1 was little, I thought my #1 priority as a father was to make sure she was obedient. Since D1 was a girl, we initially thought that she would have me wrapped around her finger and mommy would have to discipline her, but my wife became infatuated with her. So much so that she began having thoughts of giving up her career and staying at home with our kids. So although I was absolutely enamored with D1, I took upon myself to be the disciplinarian.

This often led to screwups. Painful, painful screwups. “Of course I’ll have to yell initially,” I thought, “But as she gets more and more disciplined, I’ll be like those supermoms who can control their kids without even raising their voice.”

A steady dose of Super Nanny and watching other moms nodding approvingly of other such moms at the mall gave me the idea that being a good parent means you are in control, not the child.

Sleep training by crying it out, time outs, spankings. You name it, I tried it. The worst part is, it was actually working and I patted myself on the back and made myself feel better by saying, “Sure, she may dislike you now, but she’ll thank you when she’s older.”

Then one morning I came to Romans 8:14-16 in my devotional:

 14 For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God. 15 The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.” 16 The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children.

I prayed, “Father, thank You that You don’t lead me with fear but with love.” Then I heard God speak (no, it wasn’t like James Earl Jones in my head), “Do likewise.”

At that moment, I realized I was leading my daughter out of fear. I was afraid of other moms at the mall judging me. I was afraid of being called a bad parent. I was afraid that by not meeting certain milestones, she’d be doomed to a minimum-wage job for the rest of her life. Overreact or neurotic much?

So what does fear do? It leads to the desire to control, whether that be the situation or people.

I realized it was time for daddy to grow up. To let go of my fears and understand that obedience isn’t the goal of parenting but love.

That doesn’t mean I’ve stopped spankings and time outs – I still discipline my children. But my mindset has changed. My goal isn’t to put a system of control around my children but to inspire and love them. And that’s made all the difference in my relationship with my kids.

What about you? How have you “grown up” as a parent? How has your parenting changed from your first child to second and beyond?

I apologize if you are afraid of clowns

but when I looked in the mirror on my birthday, I told mysellf, “enough is enough.”

You see, I entered 2012 in a pretty sorry state.

For those who’ve been following this blog, you know we’ve been trying to sell our home. Well, we  sold it a few days after Christmas. After having our home on the market for nearly 8 months, you’d think I’d be excited but those 8 months were arduous, as we had to mull through low-ball after low-ball offer. After all that waiting, we still ended up selling our home for much lower than we anticipated and had to wipe out our savings and borrow from my sister in order to complete the sale.

I kept saying positive things to my wife like, “You know, some people had it much worse and lost a lot more money on their homes,” “Sure, if we rented after we got married we would’ve been in a better state but 7 years ago, NO ONE was renting because home values were skyrocketing,” “Sure they took all our money, but at least they didn’t take away our kids or vital organs or anything.” But who am I kidding? I wasn’t trying to alleviate any of my wife’s concerns; I was attempting to reassure myself that I wasn’t a complete failure.

I say I don’t subscribe to traditional gender roles but when it comes down to it, I still consider it my duty to provide for my family. After having been married for 7 years, all I had to show for it was $13.54 in my savings account and I’m now living with my parents as a 30 year old.

When I’m feeling down, I usually turn to food. If you couldn’t tell, I kind of like food. A lot. So the entire holiday season, I felt like Fat Bastard from Austin Powers, “I eat because I’m unhappy, and I’m unhappy because I eat. It’s a vicious cycle.”‘

To top it off, I had zero motivation for anything and often felt lethargic. I didn’t workout. I didn’t update my blog. I told my kids I’d read them books later. I passed my time with simple pleasures: memes on Reddit and games on my iPhone. I got the point where much of the content on Reddit were reposts and I unlocked all the achievements in Plants vs. Zombies (this was 1000 times less exciting than I thought it would be).

WAH! WAH! WAH! Will you get to the point already?!?!?!

Right. So, now we’re back to me looking at my jiggly, unmotivated self in the mirror on my birthday.

I sat down and made goals for my 30th year.

1) Eating whole food – I read In Defense of Food, watched Food, Inc., a few years back but processed and fast foods were so much more convenient for us as parents. D1 is now able to point out McDonald’s, Panda Express, and other fast food places in the car. Yeah, it’s time to change.

I’m going to try and follow “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” So that means minimally processed food (no more than 5 ingredients). But don’t worry, I’m still going to enjoy a juicy, sizzling steak every now and then.

I like it rare

2) Consume more Scripture and less media

3) Exercise regularly – 3x/week

Aside from having to pee every morning around 6am, 30 doesn’t physically feel any different than 29. But I’m resolved to make it my best year yet.

Go, Pop, go!!!

What about you? Have you made any goals for 2012? What changes did you go through when you hit a milestone birthday?

While my wife took care of the copay, I took the referral for the sonogram and hurriedly called the closest locations, hoping that we could get squeezed in that evening even though it was already 4:58pm. The first location I called led me through some menus and then to the prerecorded message: “We’re sorry. The office is now closed. Our normal business hours are 8am to 5pm Monday throu….” I hung up and hurriedly called the second location. Same message. ARGH! At this point, I’m panicking more than a little. I called the third location and…YES! A human! While they couldn’t see us that evening, she scheduled us for the very first appointment available the next day at 12:45pm. The drive home was filled with anxiety.

I always have a lot to say but I’ve learned over two pregnancies that it’s best for a man to keep his mouth shut whenever it comes to anything regarding pregnancy. Telling a woman, “WOW! I’ve seen my fair share of pregnant women but you are PREG NANT!” will get you slapped and ensure you won’t be getting any action in the foreseeable future; telling a woman the wrong thing in a situation like this could wound her for the foreseeable future.

“Remember at the couples retreat a few weeks ago,” my wife began, “and how they prayed for all the pregnant women? I felt like a fraud because the other ladies were clearly pregnant. Maybe I imagined this whole thing? What if the baby’s gone?” Numerous other what if’s followed but for some reason, I was sure the baby was still in there. I placed my hand on my wife’s belly and reassured her, “It’s going to be ok.” What else could I say?

My wife texted a few ladies, one who went through numerous miscarriages. We got home and I told my mom the news. We agreed that we’d be praying. Hard.

The Bible says, “Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.” Our house had been on the market for a very long time. We got an offer in late September but the potential buyer flaked out. It looked like our home would never be sold. Finances were getting tight and living with my parents was challenging. To my wife, this just seemed like another case of hope being deferred.

The next morning, as we were getting ready for work, my mom pulls me aside and says, “You know you lost the baby because you told people too early, right?” Most Koreans I know are more than a littlestitious, and my mom is no different. Apparently, one of her friend’s daughters told people immediately after she got pregnant and she miscarried. For D1 and D2, we waited until the 1st trimester was over before making announcements; for this one, we announced it about a month and a half in.

After a half day of work, I picked my wife up and we headed to the radiologist. The way my wife was carrying that referral, you’d think it weighed a ton. She also had to pee really bad. As if it’s not enough that they insist your bladder be completely full, they then jab around your bladder with the vaginal ultrasound thing.

The technician inserted the probe and

Baby #3

a few minutes later…

“Ok. So I think I see a second line. Do you?”
“Kind of…it’s really faint though…hey, it’s kind of getting darker!”
“Do you really think we could be…”
“Do you feel like you are?”
“Not really but it’s been over a month and a half since my last one.”
“Well, you can call me Cookie Monster because that’s good enough for me!”

a few weeks later…

“Feels so surreal to be back here again.”
“Yeah…Oh look, a boy and girl were born today.”
“This sure is a lot of paperwork…”
“Yeah…”

a little while later…

“Ok…so it looks like you are about 9 weeks along. So we’ll see you back here in 3 weeks.”
“Thank you!”

exiting…

“I really don’t feel pregnant at all…”
“Well you know, birth centers do minimal testing so we should be able to hear the heartbeat at the next appointment.”

three weeks later…

“Yay, we get to hear the heartbeat today!”
“Yeah, that woosh woosh woosh never gets old.”
“This sure is a lot of paperwork…”
“Yeah…”

a few moments later…

“So we have so and so here, she’s in training. Would you be ok with her helping us out today?”
“Sure!”
trainee goes through the list of questions and begins the physical exam…
“Ok, so it looks like you’re a little over 12 weeks along. We’ll need you to undress and here’s something to cover up with.”
“Ok.”

a few moments later…

knock knock
“Come in”

“ok…where are ya baby?”

“Hmmmmm…I can’t seem to find the heartbeat…maybe you (midwife) could try”

“Hmmmmm…I can’t seem to find it either……..have you had any bleeding?”
“No.”
“Ok, well, maybe we couldn’t hear it with this doppler, would you mind us trying a vaginal doppler?”
“Not at all”
“Ok, we’ll be right back…”

knock knock
“Come in”
“Ok, let’s give this one a try…”

“Hmmmmm…I still can’t find it.”

looks around for what seems to me like an eternity…

“Ok. Well we don’t have a heartbeat…You can go ahead and get dressed and we’ll be right back.”
“….ok”

a few moments later…

“So there are a number of reasons why we may not have found a heartbeat…so we’re going to send you for an ultrasound. If everything is normal, we’ll see you back here in a month. If there’s a problem, we’ll need to see you immediately to take care of you.”
“…ok.”
some other stuff that I assume is what midwives/doctors are supposed to say in this situation but I don’t remember any of it…
“Well…we wish for the best.”
“…thank you…”

After a moment with my wife, I looked at my watch and saw that it was now 4:58pm. I hurriedly rushed out of there to call the radiology centers as fast as I could, assuming they closed at 5.

To make matters worse, my parents read an article in the Korean Newspaper that talked about malaria and other diseases mosquitoes can carry shortly before we left for Thailand (for those planning on traveling to Thailand with kids, malaria can be a problem in some areas according to the CDC). If you know anything about Korean immigrants, they believe everything the newspaper says (think Fox News). So for about 2 weeks, I kept hearing how we need to protect our kids from mosquitoes every.single.day. from my parents.

In previous visits to Thailand, I’ve found that mosquitoes love me. The locals say it’s because I’m fat (seriously, I’m an XL there; M to L here) and I eat a lot of sugar (guilty). The nice thing is, even mosquitoes in Thailand don’t mess with the heat, so you don’t have to worry about being bitten between 10am and 5pm. But after that, it’s like a high blood sugar buffet for those pests when I’m there.

So on Sunday, July 17, we were heading up to our pastor friend’s home for dinner around 7pm. D1 and I playfully ran ahead of my wife, D2, our pastor friend, his wife, and 2 of his kids. We raced up the hill, and as usual, she won. I opened the door to enter the house and told D1, “HURRY! Or mosquitoes will come in.” We enter the doorway and I tell her to take off her shoes. I go to close the door since we’re both inside and then D1 SCREAMS! I look down thinking that something bit her feet and see nothing. She continues to scream and I look over at the door and I closed the door on her finger. I figured it’d just be bruised and calmly opened the door.

Now my wife and I aren’t the type to normally cuss, but I definitely screamed *($##^* in my mind. Her hand was positioned in the doorway in such a way that my closing the door on it caused the fingernail of her right index finger to tear completely off of her finger and loosely hang on by a sliver of skin, and was bleeding profusely. I remained calm, or at least tried to, picked her up, and slowly walked back towards the rest of the group, who had just made it up the hill. I calmly call out, “I think I need some help.” Once everyone saw the finger, they knew we had to rush to the hospital.

*&%* You are such an *#$&ing idiot! I repeating to myself in my mind. Not even a week into the trip and I hurt D1 like that. We put an ice pack on the finger and rush to the nearest hospital.

But what was amazing was how the day worked out. We tried to put D1 down for a nap earlier, but for whatever reason, she would not nap. So by this point, she was so utterly exhausted that she slept through the entire ride over to the hospital. Thank God.

When we get to the hospital, the doctors decide to clip the little bit of skin and take the fingernail off. So far, she’d been a trooper but no one likes getting open wounds cleaned, and she about screamed her head off.

The doctor taped it up with a lot of gauze and told us to keep it dry and come in for cleanings daily for about a week. Great….keeping a toddler’s finger dry in the rainy season in Thailand.

On the ride home, she’s still exhausted and looks sleepy. I’m feeling horrible at this point and replaying that moment over and over and over and over. Why the #$& was I so concerned about mosquitoes?!?! I’m such an idiot!!! GAH!!!!

And then…

In the softest whisper…”daddy, I love you.”

If that’s not grace, I don’t know what is.

The doctors prescribed a crap load of medication, mostly antibiotics and pain meds. But since she missed her nap earlier, she was absolutely exhausted and slept through the night without any medication.

Thankfully, there’s a nurse on-site at the hostel we stayed at, so she was able to clean it – my wife ended up calling the saline solution she used to rinse D1′s finger  princess water. That made the daily cleanings much more fun.

It was a challenge keeping the gauze dry and concern over it getting infected did wonders for my prayer life.

It’s sad for me to admit, but it took me injuring her, her courage through the situation, and the grace she showed me that began a change of heart in me.

We got the kids ready and headed to breakfast, which was included with our room reservation. For those of you who’ve applauded my wife and my stupidity bravery for traveling internationally with two kids, this was the thought that scared me even more: we’d essentially be eating out for every meal for one whole month. You see, there was a time when my wife and I enjoyed going out to eat, but now, we rush through meals outside of our home as quickly as possible. If Nordstrom’s Anniversary Sale brings out the crazy in shoppers, eating out brings out the crazy in babies. Combined with the fact that D1 has been getting incredibly picky with her food, I certainly wasn’t looking forward to meals. This was made even more depressing since the only thing my wife and I love more than the wonderful people in Thailand is their food.

In any event, we made it through breakfast and after some difficulty finding our gate, we boarded our flight to Chiang Rai.

Traveling with Kids Tip #1: Simply asking your child, “Do you need to pee?” is not sufficient. Remember how neurotic you may have been for your first child’s feeds, even spending money on things like the Itzbeen, and calling your pediatrician because your newborn hasn’t had a wet diaper in a while? This is how you need to be when you’re traveling with kids. If it’s been a while since your child has gone to the potty, you need to sit ‘em down on the pot and use Jedi mind tricks, the shhhhhhhhhhhhhh or UNGaaaaaah sounds, or whatever else you can think of to coax them into answering nature’s call. Even if it’s the tiniest drop of pee, trust me, that tiny drop could mean the difference between making it to the potty the next time. Also, you haven’t really lived until you’ve had to climb a massive hill to your hotel with a child that just said she needs to poop, your legs and lungs failing you.

After 36 hours of traveling, we made it to Chiang Rai, Thailand! We were greeted by our pastor friend at the airport and all the madness of traveling with 2 kids instantly disappeared. D1 was super excited as she got to ride in a car without a carseat. We settled into our guesthouse, which we would call home for the next month.

The rest of our missions team was arriving in about a week and my family and I enjoyed a great time of enjoying the beautiful sights and catching up with old friends. We also got to enjoy this goodness:

Thai BBQ Chicken with Tamarind BBQ Sauce

Fresh BBQ chicken. The chicken in Thailand are puny compared to their American counterparts since they generally don’t use any growth hormones. The chickens sold at this particular shop are free-range and delicious!

Thai BBQ Pork

This may sound like heresy but this tastes better than bacon, mostly because it’s smoked bacon with the skin on and cooked to crunchy perfection.

Mister DONUT!

And of course, Mister Donut! The only thing Stateside that I know of that comes close to these donuts is Einstein Bros. Bagels – the donuts are made of some sort of rice flour so they’re really chewy and have all the fried taste without any of the grease.

Things were going wonderfully until I made a huge, huge mistake.

The kids were still asleep, so I didn’t even consider waking them up and I let my wife sleep in since she packed all of our bags the night before (two of the myriad of things my wife is better than me at are folding clothes and packing bags). So I took out our itinerary and read it over for the 50 millionth time.

Depart:    Washington Dulles Int’l Airport 9 July 2011, 1:25 PM (EST)
Arrive:    Seoul Incheon International 10 July 2011,  4:35 PM (Local time)

Depart:    Seoul Incheon International 10 July 2011, 5:40 PM
Arrive:    Bangkok Int’l Airport 9:10 PM (local time)

Depart:    Bangkok Int’l Airport 11 July 2011, 8:15 AM
Arrive:    Chiang Rai Airport 9:35 AM

That’s 21 hours of air travel and 12 hours and 10 minutes of layovers. From the time we planned on leaving our home until we arrived in Chiang Rai was about 36 hours.

My wife and I had already taken D1 on a whirlwind tour of Thailand and Korea in 2009, so the length of the travel didn’t necessarily worry me. What gave me pause this time was 1) we now have 2 kids and D2 just reached her I’m-mobile-now-and-I’m-going-to-go-everywhere-and-put-everything-in-my-mouth stage, 2) our family was under quite a bit of stress the past few months with moving out, running into difficulty selling our home, and acclimating to life with my parents, among other things, 3) D1 was now potty trained, which is usually a good thing but for travel? Diapers are a godsend, and 4) the entire family had a summer cold.

Additionally, in 2009, we went to Thailand on a family vacation to visit the people we fell in love with and became friends with after leading two missions teams in 2006 and 2007. This year, we were leading a missions team from our church – they would be joining us in Thailand a week after we got there. As team leaders, my wife and I certainly had our fair share of concerns on how this would work out.

Wife and kids finally awoke, we got ready, and headed off to the airport, all of our bags–and anxiety–in tow.

We were greeted at the airport by quite a few members from our church, who prayed for us as we embarked on our first family missions trip. We definitely felt the love, especially D1 from a certain boy her age from our church who kissed her repeatedly. Ridiculously cute at this age; a punishable offense in a few years.

The great thing about flying Korean Air is that parents with small children get to board first, along with the elderly, those needing assistance and pregnant women. Maybe it’s like that for all international flights? In any case, it’s super convenient to have all of your stuff put away and to get situated before all the other passengers board. Not to mention the food on Korean Air is ridiculously good and the flight attendants are super nice (I even saw a group of them assist a mother who was traveling alone with 2 sons, probably the same age as D1 and D2 by holding and walking around with the younger child).

Normally, we don’t let D1 watch much television but on this trip, we relaxed the rules. A lot. Which would continue to be a recurring theme on the trip. She pretty much watched Pororo for the entire trip. We also had fun with D2 and stickers.

She's a hungry girl

The flight was decent, save for us getting the death stare from all the other passengers whenever D2 would cry and D1 having to pee at the most inopportune times, i.e., when the bathrooms were always all occupied. Needless to say, we had a few very close calls.

Once we got into Incheon is when the trip started getting interesting. All of us were tired and cranky – or maybe it was just me? D2′s no lightweight, so my wife couldn’t move that fast and I was the family pack mule, carrying most of the bags, so I held D1′s hand. Usually in airports, I like to rush rush rush rush rush but D1′s short little legs couldn’t carry her that fast. So on more than one occasion, I ended up dragging her along. Oops. All of us were really tired and could’ve definitely used some rest, but by the time we got comfortable at our gate, it was time to board our flight to Bangkok.

This flight was much more difficult, with D1 and D2 both taking turns throwing mini tantrums. As we neared our destination, both of them passed out. So of course, they were ridiculously cranky when we woke them up to get off the plane. The only thing less fun than carrying a 30+lb child through an airport is carrying a wailing 30+lb child through an airport.

Being the clever dad I think I am, I asked D1 if she needs to pee when we walk past a restroom, to which she replies no. Of course, when we have long since passed the bathroom, she screams, “PEE PEE!” I drop all of our bags and hustle to find the nearest bathroom. I find one, plop her down on the seat and immediately, ‘shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh’. *whew* Crisis averted.

We finally made it to our hotel for the night, Louis’ Tavern Transit Hotel, absolutely spent and ready for bed. But of course, the kids are in no mood to sleep.

At this point, I wish I had good thoughts toward my kids, but the only words I could think of to describe them at this point of the trip was ‘nuisance’ and ‘burden’. I longed for the days when it was just my wife and I traveling. When we didn’t have to worry about bladders the size of a pea and it was us complaining about the babies crying on the plane.

We finally got the girls to go down. Just before I passed out, I hoped tomorrow would be a better day. It wasn’t.

So where have I been? Well, for the past 3 months, my wife and I were preparing to take our family on a month-long missions trip to Chiang Rai, Thailand. Between this and the stresses of trying to sell a home, not to mention the stress joy that comes with raising a toddler and infant, I had zero creative thoughts to share with you on this blog. Anywho, our church has been sending teams to the same ministry since 2004 and my wife and I led 2 teams (’06 and ’07) prior to having kids. In 2009, we took D1 on a 1-week trip to visit our friends in Thailand prior to spending 3 weeks in South Korea. This year, we lead a team of 6 and it was incredible!

By God’s grace, my wife and I somehow managed to survive a total of 40 hours of travel with 2 kids. But between jet lag and D1, D2 and myself catching pretty nasty colds toward the end of the trip, the last week has been torture interesting.

So I’m back and I hope to share some awesome stories and pictures of our summer abroad.

How was your summer?

So in light of that, I’d like to talk to you about something that quite honestly came as a shock to me when I became a dad: postpartum depression. Prior to the birth of our first child, my wife and I rarely heard anything about the topic except through the news, so we thought postpartum depression was limited to those crazy moms who drove their kids into the river or something heinous like that. We rarely ever thought about the mental effects of becoming parents and instead we were far more concerned about the color of the nursery, educational toys, and all the SIDS prevention things we could get our hands on. When we considered the emotional effects of becoming a parent, everything we considered was usually warm, soft and fuzzy.

So needless to say, I was a bit surprised when my wife didn’t quite seem herself a few days after D1 was born. I attributed this to the fact that she wasn’t getting any sleep and D1 had a hard time latching on for breastfeeding. A few days later, she seemed genuinely sad and then a day later, she seemed sullen.”Uh oh,” I thought, “Is she going to harm our kid?” My mind began to race, frantically trying to figure out what to do and all I had in my arsenal were Baby Einstein toys and some Halo SleepSacks.

Before I go on, if you’re a dad, let me just say that the following is general advice. You know your wife better than I do (or you really should anyway), and since every birth, newborn, home environment, support network, etc… is different, please pick and choose what you think would be helpful to you. There’s also a difference between Baby Blues and postpartum depression. And did you know that men, particularly new fathers experience postpartum depression as well? So anywho, here’s some advice from one dad to another.

Dadvice #1:  understand that postpartum depression is ok. Particularly in Asian communities, any sort of mental illness carries a stigma, so they’re rarely discussed and you certainly wouldn’t want anyone to know. So when it became clear my wife was suffering from it, I began to panic and tried to find a solution. Which leads me to my second bit of dadvice:

Dadvice #2: don’t rush to find a solution. The first thing I did was respond like most men would: try to figure out what’s wrong and fix it. How could she be so sad? Our daughter is so cute and she’s such a joy! Is it me? Am I being unsupportive or too overbearing? The best bits of advice I learned about women were from Homer Simpson:

Son, when a woman says nothing’s wrong, it means everything’s wrong. When a woman says everything’s wrong, it means everything’s wrong. And when a woman says that something isn’t funny, you’d better not laugh your ass off!

and White Men Can’t Jump.

See. if I’m thirsty. I don’t want a glass of water, I want you to sympathize. I want you to say, “Gloria, I too know what it feels like to be thirsty. I too have had a dry mouth.” I want you to connect with me through sharing and understanding the concept of dry mouthedness.

The quote from Gloria definitely applies here. I’m no psychologist, but I did suffer through several bouts of depression, and I know that there was no specific way to fix my depression. People tried to offer solutions, often telling me how great I had it, counting my blessings and all that, but nothing really worked. I just needed people to be with me. So just be with your wife. Be there for her. Listen. And don’t be afraid of counseling.

Dadvice #3: It’s ok to feel powerless. From the beginning of labor through much of the first year of D1′s life, I felt worthless. Worthless because I couldn’t do anything. Worthless because I had to sit idly by as my wife labored for hours on end. Worthless because I didn’t have the solution to help my wife out of the baby blues. Worthless because I thought I should’ve been able to prevent her from suffering from postpartum depression. But fact of the matter is, yes, I was powerless to do much of anything concerning labor and the emotions my wife was going through, but that’s very different from being worthless. When it comes to supporting your wife through postpartum depression, your value isn’t in what you can do but who you are.

Dadvice #4: Screw stigmas. In the 3 years of being a father, I often found that I made decisions based on what others would think of my parenting rather than what I thought was best for my child. Screw what other parents and their often judgmental eyes think of you. As I wrote on Nat’s blog: you’re the perfect parent for your child. In the same vein, you’re the perfect partner for your wife. Forget what everyone else thinks – do what’s best for you and your family.

So what about you? Any advice for dads from you moms out there?

Narcissism vs. Altruism

As awesome and helpful, not to mention powerful, as social media is, it can also be problematic. Personally, it has often encouraged narcissism in me. Granted, I’ve never humblebragged, because quite frankly, I don’t have much to humble brag about, but status updates by their nature are often, “Hey! Look what I’m doing! Read how funny I am and what a witty take I have on this recent news story! See where I’m ‘checking in’?! Look at how cute my kids/pets are!” And yes, I will share this blog post on Facebook and Twitter because I think it’s worth my follower’s time.

And as my kids grow up in a world increasingly engaged in and reliant on social media, I wonder what kind of virtues that will encourage in them. What I hope my wife and I, and the support group we surround our kids with will instill in them is altruism. My hope is that they wouldn’t find their value in how great they think they are, but in how great they are to others.

The great thing about social media is that it gives a voice to people with great ideas who might otherwise not have an avenue to share. The flip side is that it gives a platform to people who probably shouldn’t have an audience to propagate their hate and/or stupidity. I hope my kids will fall into the former, not the latter.

God’s Judgement

Speaking of hate and stupidity, it always puzzles me when Christians declare natural disasters as a sign of God’s judgement. Are earthquakes, floods, etc…a sign of God’s judgement? Maybe. But that’s for Him to decide. Unless your name is Othniel, Ehud, Shamgar, Deborah, Gideon, Tola, Jair, Jephthah, Ibzan, Elon, Abdon, or Samson, I’m pretty sure God didn’t appoint you as a Judge. What He did appoint us to do was to go and bear fruit (John 15:16) and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you (Matt 28:19-20).

And how did Jesus make disciples? Yes, He did often say, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near,” but He made disciples by calling forth destiny in people, not calling down judgement. He loved His disciples; He didn’t scare them into obedience.

How to Pray

Lately, I’ve been learning what it means to be a son of God, mostly by observing my daughter.

For example, I took my daughter to Baskin Robbins a few weeks back. Unable to see what’s going on, she shouts to me to pick her up. When I do, she no longer sees things from her perspective; she sees what I see. This is the picture I now get when I sing songs or pray about being in God’s arms – He picks me up to see His perspective.

The other day, my daughter asks me for chocolate. We had to take her to the emergency room a few weeks back for dermatitis/cellulitis and getting her to take antibiotics proved difficult. So we did what any parents who want to save their sanity would do: bribe ‘em. As a result, my daughter knew that we had chocolate in the house. CURSES! That’s daddy’s stash! Anywho, this was our exchange:

D1: Daddy, can I have chocolate
Me: Why should I give you chocolate?
D1: Because you love me.

Not only did she get her chocolate but she now knew the secret to getting chocolate from me every. single. time. If you could see me now, you’d see that I’m shaking my head as I type this.

But this exchange taught me something profound about prayer: to approach God as a child, not a beggar. If I really believed He was a dad that loved me, the words I say to Him would be completely different.

Enough with my ramblings. How’ve you been? I hope to be able to visit some blogs that I’ve dearly missed and catch up here shortly.