Happy Earth Birthday

Dear Js,

On the last day of 2014…

J: “Everybody sit on the couch and watch me pop my star. 1… 2… 3… No. 3… 2… 1… POFFFF. j pop your star!”
j: “Me busy Jacha.”

I think I finally figured out why holidays and celebrations depress me. It reminds me of time passing. Yet another birthday. Yet another year. What have you accomplished? Should I have accomplished more? Am I successful? Or am I a loser? I tapped on my phone to take note of my thought. Meanwhile, j, you charged toward me and gave me a knee hug.

After you ran off to play, I wondered if I was ever happy. Why have I not been able to shake the feeling of being a loser, no matter what I do? Then I remembered that there was one Christmas I felt relaxed. It might have been the only Christmas I felt mellow and probably pleased with myself. And not like a failure. It was some time ago.

It was in Australia, with my ex. We tried and failed at 3 long-distance relationships. After our last one, I was miserable, angry and single for a number of years until I met your mom. But it was when we were together the last time that I had the most sedate Christmas and new year ever. The word ‘sedate’ is the perfect description. I had no worries, but also no motivation. All the dreams and goals I had, gone. Didn’t matter anymore. I felt like I had nothing to prove, and I felt like I didn’t want anything more. I was just content to chill and do nothing.

It was a strange feeling. I felt like almost disgusted at myself, like I was a loser sunk in a La-Z-Boy in front of a TV in mom’s basement. No job and a leech but too lazy to care.

Then I thought that if that was the last time I felt relaxed, maybe she was what made me broken. Maybe I’m angry that I failed at making it work. Maybe I blame myself for not having enough money, or enough freedom. Maybe I am disappointed that I couldn’t get us to be in the same city in time. And so now I’m forever trying. And forever failing.

And I thought I had let her go. Maybe that’s the key to my unhappiness. And the secret to my happiness?

We still write every now and then. And every now and then one of us gets pissed at the other or I get excessively mean and we stop talking for a few months. I didn’t notice it then, but now I’m glad I don’t have to live with the same stupid conversations and topics over and over again.

Well anyway, I got to spend 2 weeks at home with you two. I watched you grow every day. You grow much faster when I’m watching. I realized how much I probably missed when I’m away. Like for example, j, you add new words to your sentences every day. And every day you get more confident.

Not having to think of work also changes things. I’m not in a hurry. I don’t have anywhere to go. So I noticed that I’m not as pissy when you waste my time. Like we went to see Walking with Dinosaurs. It was a 2-hour show. We arrived half an hour early. We waited half an hour after for mama to pick us up. We sat on a wall, talked and ate bean chips. Then later at night it was 1 hour to put J to bed. Another hour to put j to bed. Then J woke up. But I didn’t care. No worries. Nowhere else to be. It was almost fun. It felt like it was always playtime. It was exhausting though. But fun.

Oh yea – Walking with Dinos was awesome. J – you knew all the periods. And when I said which period was up next, you knew which dinos were going to come out. You watched the whole thing with your ears covered; not because of the dinos, but because the music was too loud.

It was just us boys who went. j we didn’t think you were quite ready. But j this holiday you reminded me what a sweet girl you are. You let me tuck your hair behind your ears now. Mama gets upset that you cry for me at night as she tries to put you down. You give me so much love. You never leave me alone, I can’t even eat in peace. I can’t help but love you.

Christmas? Bah Humbug. The night before Christmas, we had a long debate about how many presents we should have.
I was afraid you’d get too excited and we’d be reinforcing a bad expectation if you had a mountain of presents all at once. I think we already spoil you enough. We even thought of ideas like what if we start a new tradition, like maybe spread out all the gifts by giving only one boxx a week. Like Halloween candy – instead of eating it all in one day, you get one piece after each dinner. The idea is to try to dull the intensity so you don’t get the “YAAAY PRESENTS!” followed by the “WHERE’S MORE PRESENTS?” We didn’t want to teach you to expect unearned gifts without any work.

Anyway. We decided we had too many and we took some back and hid them in the closet. After all you already got a bike, a piano, the Dino popup book. On top of that we gave you Legos, magnet tiles, the Little Prince book, Gossie and Friends books and hand puppets. We kept the scooter, expansion train set and who knows what else.

I didn’t take any pictures. We had a great Christmas eve dinner. Arros con gandules, Pernil (mmmm) and yuccha. We had a great time. You made me a gift. Mama suggested it and you said you wanted to do woodworking. But you only got around to doing it the evening before Christmas, after dinner, right before bedtime. The wood mama bought was too hard, the nail was too thick, we didn’t have the right tools and you were too tired. I had to baton some chipboard with a knife and 2×4. But we made it work. You had a grander vision when you started. I think you wanted to make something that had a body and legs like a dino. But after all the difficulties, and you being tired and frustrated, we said how about we finish this tomorrow. You said no. Abu said you came upon a solution that none of us grown ups thought of. You simplified your design. You said, “I want to make a snake”. I looked down and what we had already looked like a snake so we were done.

We went to the Academy of Sciences. It was expensive and far. I snuck you into the planetarium to see Dark Universe. I say snuck because it was supposed to be for kids 4 and up. When mama tried to get the tickets the first time she asked if you were old enough and the guy said no and refused to give her the tickets. I said WHY DID YOU TELL HIM? So I went back while mama hid and just asked for 3 tickets. He was so busy handing out tickets as fast as he didn’t even care. He gave me 3 and said “the line’s over there.” In the line you were much littler than the littlest kid, so I made you walk even though you wanted to be carried. Then we climbed the steps all the way to the free seats at the top. I felt like anyone could just lean over and fall into the rows below.

The host gave some tips about nausea.
I said, “You can close your eyes if it’s too much or if there’s anything you don’t want to see.”
You said, “But I like planets.”
I said, “Okay…….”

Later:
J: “What’s it doing?”
Me: “It’s landing on Jupiter.”
J: But the surface is squishy.”
Me: “Maybe it can float.”

Later, as they flew us through the universe:
J: “It’s too loud for me.”
I looked at you and you were swaying in your seat. Your breath stank and you looked pale. I think you were confused about what you felt and you thought that it was the sound that was bothering you.
Me: “Does it help if I close your eyes?” You didn’t say anything. You sat still with my hand over your eyes and covered your ears with your hands. You learned that at Walking with Dinos. I took my hand off and asked, “Do you want me to cover your eyes?”
J: “Daddy. Cover my eyes!”

It was fun. j got too tired though and mama had to help her escape somewhere. She wouldn’t stop crying. Finally the only quiet place she found for napping was an “emergency room”. Meanwhile we got to see the rainforest exhibit (it was warm like home) and an albino crocodile. It stayed still underwater like a statue. You asked me if it was real. I said yes. Then you asked why is it not moving? I said maybe its sleeping. But that’s also how it hunts. It stays very still and when something comes close it SNAPS. Just then his tortoise friend crawled close to investigate with its nose. I was curious to see what would happen next. But you said, “Daddy I’m all done. I want to see something else.” Then you said with more urgency, “I’m all done, I want to go somewhere else.” I think you imagined what was going to happen and you didn’t want to see it. And then we saw the tortoise spin and swim away. You were surprised and you demanded to know why the tortoise is still alive. I said maybe they’re friends, or maybe they feed the crocodile so it’s always full or maybe crocodiles don’t like to mess with tortoises. And then we went home.

I get to know you two more closely each time I stay home. I doubt I’d survive doing it full time. But I’m always surprised each time I spend a whole day with you. I notice things like the following. One night before bed you wanted to follow me to the kitchen to drink water. I said go get your lantern. Downstairs, I said stick it to the fridge so you can hold your cup. You looked at me confused. Stick it to the fridge. That’s a magnet, and that’s metal. “Why does it stick on metal?” I said the oven’s metal. “Why does it not stick on the front?” We looked closer and there was a sheet of plastic. But it stuck on the side of the door. You also tried to stick it on the dishwasher. You were pleased at your discovery. Before we went back upstairs, you said, “The magnet tiles are magnets too…”

The next morning, mama said check this out.

But you know, I need to work. I don’t idle well. The holidays were great but I was slipping on my daily routine. When that happens I get anxious and depressed. For example, last Friday I got a phone call from mama. First thing I heard was j crying. Mama said you locked her in our bedroom. Then you said, “Why is j crying?” I wanted to scream BECAUSE you fucking locked her in the room you moron. But I didn’t. I said try the little keys. Mama was freaking out because j wouldn’t stop crying. “j you have to let go of the handle baby.” “WAAAAA O-snifsnifsnif-KEY WAAAAAA”. Mama said, “What should I do? I don’t know what to do.” I said those are the keys, keep trying. Or call a locksmith. “Should I call the firefighters?” “I don’t know if they have anything to unlock doors. I think all the methods they have involve speed and destroying doors. Call a locksmith.” j kept crying and J kept asking questions and my blood pressure was rising so I said, “I’m coming home.”

I sped back with wheels chirping here and there, on high alert for cops. When I got home j you were nursing and J was on a different couch. You looked away when I looked at you. j Mama said you had soaked your diaper and you were drenched with sweat, and that the locksmith had just left. I was relieved but pissed. I said for future reference this isn’t an emergency. If you can handle it just handle it. I went upstairs to try to get back to work. I think I was pissed because I had been working on a frustrating and urgent problem for a whole week, and I was looking forward to wrapping it up that Friday. But now that I was interrupted and at home, I couldn’t finish it and leave it at work. And even though I was trying to hide upstairs, somehow being home mama thought it was okay to keep interrupting me to do this or that or keep an eye on one of you while she did some chores. Each interruption just kept pissing me off more. I’m like please I just need you to stop interrupting me so I can finish this. The last straw was Kimi barking for some reason or other, probably being prissy and whining to get out and nest at the top of our couch. I tried to be patient but I gave up and tossed her out and tossed her crate out after her. Finally the house was quiet but my blood was still boiling.

I couldn’t shake it for the rest of the night. It must’ve been a trigger because I was depressed all Friday night. And all Saturday. I didn’t laugh at your silly antics, I didn’t respond the 1000 times you called daddy daddy daddy daddy daddy daddy daddy-, I didn’t answer any of your questions, I didn’t read any books. I just sat around, quietly sulking. I hated myself for it. I knew I was wasting my precious evening and weekend time with you but I just couldn’t shake the funk.

On Saturday mama noticed I was still an asshole, so she saved the two of you by taking you to buy groceries. Meanwhile, I sulked and I caught up on some reading. One of the things I read was, “36 questions that increase intimacy among strangers.” Or you can see it as “36 conversation starters when dating” or “36 ice-breaker topics.”

I realized I was in bad shape by my answers to various questions. For eaxmple:

Q 13: If a crystal ball could tell you the truth about yourself, your life, the future or anything else, what would you want to know?
A: I don’t know. What’s there to look forward to?

Q 14: Is there something that you’ve dreamed of doing for a long time? Why haven’t you done it?
A: Because I’m a failure.

Q 15: What is the greatest accomplishment of your life?
A: Nothing. I’m a failure.

Q 16: What do you value most in a friendship?
A: I don’t have any friends.

Q 20. What does friendship mean to you?
A: I don’t have any friends.

But Question 33 was a splash of cold water:
If you were to die this evening with no opportunity to communicate with anyone, what would you most regret not having told someone? Why haven’t you told them yet?
I was going to answer that with “I don’t have any friends.” And I don’t have anything to say to my mom and dad. But then I thought about you guys. I would regret not being able to watch you grow up and teach you everything useful I learned. Some things that changed my life. And I haven’t told you yet because I can’t. You’re only 4 and 2.

So that snapped me back to the land of the living. And it also made me realize that I’ve been slacking.

Not enough teaching. I remembered my original purpose of writing these letters. And I noticed that lately I have been whining too much and not teaching enough. So let’s try to fix that and be useful for once.

First, here are those 36 questions. I think they are interesting questions if you are alone with someone you like and you want to get to him/her better.

Set I
1. Given the choice of anyone in the world, whom would you want as a dinner guest?
2. Would you like to be famous? In what way?
3. Before making a telephone call, do you ever rehearse what you are going to say? Why?
4. What would constitute a ‘perfect’ day for you?
5. When did you last sing to yourself? To someone else?
6. If you were able to live to the age of 90 and retain either the mind or body of a 30-year-old for the last 60 years of your life, which would you want?
7. Do you have a secret hunch about how you will die?
8. Name three things you and your partner appear to have in common.
9. For what in your life do you feel most grateful?
10. If you could change anything about the way you were raised, what would it be?
11. Take four minutes and tell your partner your life story in as much detail as possible.
12. If you could wake up tomorrow having gained any one quality or ability, what would it be?

Set II
13. If a crystal ball could tell you the truth about yourself, your life, the future or anything else, what would you want to know?
14. Is there something that you’ve dreamed of doing for a long time? Why haven’t you done it?
15. What is the greatest accomplishment of your life?
16. What do you value most in a friendship?
17. What is your most treasured memory?
18. What is your most terrible memory?
19. If you knew that in one year you would die suddenly, would you change anything about the way you are now living? Why?
20. What does friendship mean to you?
21. What roles do love and affection play in your life?
22. Alternate sharing something you consider a positive characteristic of your partner. Share a total of five items.
23. How close and warm is your family? Do you feel your childhood was happier than most other people’s?
24. How do you feel about your relationship with your mother?

Set III
25. Make three true ‘we’ statements each. For instance, ‘We are both in this room feeling…’
26. Complete this sentence: ‘I wish I had someone with whom I could share…’
27. If you were going to become a close friend with your partner, please share what would be important for him or her to know.
28. Tell your partner what you like about them; be very honest this time, saying things that you might not say to someone you’ve just met.
29. Share with your partner an embarrassing moment in your life.
30. When did you last cry in front of another person? By yourself?
31. Tell your partner something that you like about them already.
32. What, if anything, is too serious to be joked about?
33. If you were to die this evening with no opportunity to communicate with anyone, what would you most regret not having told someone? Why haven’t you told them yet?
34. Your house, containing everything you own, catches fire. After saving your loved ones and pets, you have time to safely make a final dash to save any one item. What would it be? Why?
35. Of all the people in your family, whose death would you find most disturbing? Why?
36. Share a personal problem and ask your partner’s advice on how he or she might handle it. Also, ask your partner to reflect back to you how you seem to be feeling about the problem you have chosen.

OK. Next useful piece of info. While getting ready to get a home loan, I found out that I have a 826 credit score. WOO HOO! Personal best. Now here’s the useful part – how to get a high credit score. Here are the factors that contributed to my high score. It seems that ~30% of that score comes from the ratio of my total revolving credit, vs my total credit available. This means using your credit cards but not maxing them out is a good thing. Another ~30% of the score comes from how good you are with payments. I always autopay my bills on time so I’m sure that portion is maxed out. Then, ~15% of the score comes from the length of your loans and credit history. Making your payments on time consistently for many years shows that you are a trustworthy borrower. Another 10% or so comes from how many different types of credit you have. From what I can tell, it’s a pretty reasonable meta-scoring function to try to capture how credit-trustworthy someone is. I think if you wanted to try to design your own scoring function, it wouldn’t be much different from this. Except maybe you might want to consider more factors like income. So I guess the takeaway for this by the time you read this is use your credit card, but not too much, and always make your payments on time. Don’t forget that if you accidentally miss a payment by a few days, you can almost always call them up to settle the payment and politely ask them take away the late charge. This works for all kinds of missed payments like for credit cards, bank overdrafts, and late phone bills.

Class over. Now back to our regular programming…

New developments

Mama taught you how to play Tic Tac Toe.

j – remember how you would never say “yes”, but you could only say OK? Your latest thing is “OK YA” while nodding. Then just a week ago you started saying “Ya?” while raising your eyebrows. You’re almost talking like a person! BTW you can have your own sitcom and play all the characters.

I taught you your first sorting algorithm. You wanted to build your number train. You dumped all the cards out and they went from 1-100. At first your algorithm was N^2. Because you would start with 1, then hunt through N-1 cards for 2, then through N-2 cards for 3, and so on. I looked at the clock and took a deep breath and showed you a different way. We changed it to a linear-time algorithm by making a matrix. Rows and columns. Every card would have a pre-determined spot in the matrix. You didn’t have to hunt for the right card anymore, you just had to pick any card from the heap, and put it in the right spot in the matrix. At first you didn’t see the pattern, but that was because you were too occupied with stopping your sister from messing it up. But when she went upstairs for bath, you started to get it. I could see your brain getting tickled by the new concepts. There were a couple. For example, every row of 10 made a different color train. The first digit of the number determined the row (which color train), and the second digit of the number determined which car in the train. You said, “First I started by myself, then you told me your idea.” After about 50 cards, you started speeding up. I showed Abu the psychology prof the following video. She watched it over and over, giggling to herself. I don’t know what she was seeing that I didn’t. She asked me how long you took. I said about 30 minutes. She said for that age it’s fast. I didn’t know about that. Yes it was fast, but I don’t know if she understood that we used a O(N) algorithm instead of O(N^2) one, which probably had a lot to do with it.

j – Mama says you sound like a milk addict. She was trying to help you sleep without nursing:
j: “Me sleepy… Me need leche… Me need it… MAMA… ME NEED IT!”

One night, we let Abu put you to bed. You read Little Prince with her. 1 hour later, she was still trying to answer all your questions. We laughed at her for falling for it. She said, “What could I do? He asks difficult questions!”

A small change in bedtime routne
Usually I try to wear you down. You always ask me to sleep next to you. But I have been avoiding it because when we used to do that, sometimes we could end up laying in the dark next to you for 1-2 hours and you still wouldn’t sleep. So I’ve been trying to wean you with less and less contact. But still, it’s like playing whack-a-mole. You’ll keep popping out asking for a hug or water or another hug. One night when I didn’t have work I tried the opposite out of curiousity. I thought maybe you just need help winding down. So I hugged you and stroked your hair. Three yawns and two sighs later, you were out in about two minutes. I guess you just didn’t want to sleep alone. Who does?

Another small change. Mama has been encouraging me to be gentler. So one night you said, “I want j’s socks.” You kept pulling and didn’t let go. Mama was getting upset and you threatened to cry and throw a tantrum. Abu tried to offer you an alternative. She gave you your train socks. She said but you are a big boy, you need big socks. It didn’t work. You wanted j’s. Normally I would get pissed off with you always taking what j uses. But that time I asked, “Want to try my socks?” Abu looked at me funny. I had your attention. I said here. You smiled with excitement and pulled them on. I said they’ll go up to your knees. Mama said your thighs. She was right. You loved it, everyone laughed and no one cried. I guess it works sometimes, if you can put aside your anger at kids being assholes.

New bed. You complained that your bed was too cramped. So we took it apart and we moved the full mattress from the guest room into your room. For the last 3 days mama has been putting you two to sleep together. It’s the first nights in forever that no one’s in our bed. We could actually turn the lights on when we showered.

Little prince book – you didn’t know the words but you read it like you did. You read it every night until the Little Prince flew home.

Interesting things

Tiger jumps to catch meat. Bottle rocket fired under ice. Face tracking and projection. Legos are a black market currency. Infinite food.

Oh one last thing. I sent my dad a quadcopter for Christmas. The shipping was extremely slow so I tried to tease him with weekly hints to build anticipation:

1) I sent him a picture of us playing with my first RC car (my birthday present).
Thanks Son,
Waiting excitedly.
Bless your kind heart.
love,
dad

2) I sent him a picture of a propeller.
Wow ….I will be in the skies with remote control. First time! I never had one in my life. Now waiting for it from Germany : (
But the anxiety is being relished.
Thanks Son!!!
A very Merry X’mas to you, Melissa and my beautiful grandchildren. Miss not being with you all.
Must try to be with you all as soon as possible. Just to remember with our fun X’mas days back home
Now I am sleeping well and keep monitoring signs of seizure. So far ok. The machine helps by giving me quality sleep. You have taken that good care on me. Thanks.
Love you all so much,
dad

3) I sent him a shadow of a quadcopter.
Wow!!!!!! A helicopter!
Nice to have something to feel young again and ALIVE!
Waiting patiently
Suspense with a lovely feeling,
dad

4) I saw that it had arrived, so I said, “There should be TWO boxes waiting for you at the post office. One box for you, and one box for your wingman.”
SERIOUS! its getting too much to try to bear .
Mum my wingman (woman)
Will rampage the Post Office for it tomorrow!
Thanks again Son,
Love,
Dad

I thought getting him a flying partner would be good for the support. But turns out my mom didn’t fly it, and my dad has no friends. Oh well. He seems to be excited but intimidated by it. I am not sure if he will stick with it. So I get excited whenever he sends updates because that means he hasn’t given up.

Love,

Dad

P.S. Quote to start the year:

A person with good health has a thousand dreams. A person without has only one.

You could expand that to say a person who has his basic needs met has a thousand dreams. He has the chance to complain about how hard it is to choose from all the opportunities he has. But someone with more urgent problems like poverty or sickness doesn’t.

P.P.S. It was hard to get back in the groove to write this first letter of the year. It took longer than usual but I did it!