“I don’t want to go to bed” (+ goodbye old home, hello new home)

Dear j,

Here we go again. J’s got the bedtime routine down now. But now that you’re two you are starting the “I don’t want to go to bed” thing. To make matters worse, mama’s weaning you off bedtime nursing. That was how you went to sleep since you were born. But we decided it’s time to wean because mama’s surgery is next week. Don’t worry, it’s not a big one. I think she picked laparoscopy so she’ll be out in 2 days but we’re not supposed to let her do much while she recovers. That’s why Abu’s come to help. But this means I have to start taking over putting you to sleep too.

So tonight you fought me. “I want to go to the courtyard. I want to go downstairs. I want mama.” You tried everything you could to fight sleep. No matter what I said, you screamed, “NO! I DON’T WANT TO!” If I said something else, you screamed louder. So I stopped trying to reason with you, you were going to refuse no matter what. I decided to change my strategy. One thing I realized is that you can’t take a kids’ tantrums personally. They can be screaming and destroying everything one minute, but once it passes it’s almost like Jekyl & Hyde amnesia and nothing ever happened — back to being sweet and even laughing and giggling. So I thought if that’s gonna be the case, why not I just ignore the tantruming monster and talk to you as if I’m talking to the sweeter half.

My strategy was to tire you out, while remaining calm and speaking in a low, slow, soothing tone. You screamed. I talked about our day. You screamed. I picked you up. You slapped me and pushed me. I hugged you closer. You kicked and screamed. Soon you realized you couldn’t scream any louder. And all your fighting just got you more tired. I felt your blows weaken. “I don’t want you to carry!” I talked to you about your favorite things. You stopped trying to escape but you kept screaming. I kept talking. It was only a matter of time before your gas tank went empty. With your last few breaths you screamed, “I want mama to carry.” I said mama’s sleeping next to J. If you want me to take you there, you have to stop screaming. You were more open to the idea now that you had little energy left. When we got closer you screamed. I walked away. I said you have to be quiet. You stopped screaming and you started talking. Progress. At last you were listening and talking again. I lowered you to mama’s arms and said, “Here you go. I tired her out for you.” You tried to scream “Mama… carryyyy…” but you just laid on mama’s chest. So you sobbed and pleaded but each murmur got quieter until you dozed off.

Usually I get very angry when you refuse to be reasoned with. Sometimes I want to slap you and say shut up! But for some reason tonight I managed not to let your screams get to me. And I figured might as well give this a try, make a sacrifice / investment in hope that it will make the following nights easier. Ow. I ignored your screaming earlier so I didn’t acknowledge that it was “loud.” But I think it hurt my ears. I have that tingling that you get when you’ve inflicted damage on your hair cells and I feel a little nauseous. Fuck kids. Now that I’m calming down, I don’t really mean that.

Oh, ya. Abu’s here. And as you already know from my last letter, we just bought a house. (Yay!) Well actually, not quiet yet. We just got our offer accepted and we signed a contract. We’re in escrow now but no keys yet. Last week was a tornado of headaches with our lender, trying to build our case for our mortgage application with the bank. They wanted everything on paper, every deposit over $15K paper-trailed to its source. Proof that we paid 24 months of rent without missing a payment. They wanted a letter from our landlord. They wanted letters from my employer. They wanted to journal every cent I made for the past 2 years. And finally I think we are done. Or at least I hope so… they just stopped demanding us for stuff every morning and we’re so happy they stopped that we just let it be. I think we should check to make sure we’re really done with the finances. Because we do have to make sure everything is in order for the escrow to close.

Buying a house is an emotional roller-coaster. We browse listings like personal ads, go visit the house, ask ourselves if we can fall in love with this place over the next 15 years. Then we fall in love with a house and do as much research as we can to make sure we really want it. Then we make an offer. Then we get our heart ripped out when we lose, because of all the dreams you hung on the house. All the late night talks about “how nice would it be if we live here and we can…” And then we are hurt, like after a breakup, and we have to pick up the pieces and try to fall in love with another house.

It hurt when we lost our first house. Maybe it hurt more because it was like losing your first love. It was close to the mountains, in the Montevideo area. It had 5 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms. But it was old, sold by original owner moving to a retirement home. She was a widow. Her husband died in the home but we were fine with that. After all, I couldn’t think of a better way to go than peacefully in your own home surrounded by the people you love. It had a massive yard, views of the mountains from every room. It needed lots of work.But it felt like a home. Warm and apple trees in the garden, kitchen overlooking the backyard. The only reason it was within our price range was because it was old and needed lots of work.

J was asleep when we saw that house. j you came with me and I said wanna see the garden? You said “Carry.” I put you down outside and you were cautious at first, because it was a new place. Then you stopped and pointed, “What’s that?” I laughed and said, “That’s a statue. It looks like a boy but it’s just a statue of an angel. It’s just a rock. Someone cut the rock to look like a boy.” You frowned and kept watching it suspiciously. Then you asked, “Can we walk around the rocks?” I said sure, and you stomped and crunched the stones under your feet and explored the benches while I looked around.

When I looked back, you had two fistfulls of rocks. You like to collect rocks. You said, “I’m going to take them back to our house! I told you they didn’t belong to us but you pleaded. So I said okay you can have just one. You stared at all the rocks in your hands and kept the biggest one. “This one?” I said okay. But then you spotted a bigger one by your foot and took that instead. Then you saw some coconut-sized rocks and your eyes lit up… and that’s when I had to carry you back into the house.

The next day, our agent wrote to me after she spoke with the seller. She told us that we might have a chance to make an offer that was within our budget. I’m embarrassed to say that I cried a little for the first time in years. I couldn’t understand what was wrong with me because I don’t cry. Maybe for a moment I felt that I was doing okay as a dad. Or that maybe we’re lucky enough to finally find a home, tucked away in this nice neighborhood… finally away from the train stations and airport… a place we can love and cry and play and grow old in.

It was the first house we had visited in the last 3 months that felt like home. It felt like we were visiting family or a close friend. Other houses might have had fancy kitchens and bathrooms, swimming pools or perfect lawns, but they never felt like a home lived in by a real family. Anyway, we fell in love with it and placed an offer. Like j said about the 4th of July fireworks, “We were a little scared but we were a little excited.”

Over a million dollars! It sounded crazy. Our agent visited us at home and walked us through the paperwork. After she left I paced downstairs for an hour, clicking my knife open and close in my hands. Just letting it sink in. Digesting, thinking. “Can I really afford this?” “What happens after we drain our cash?” “Can we make it through the first few months?” “How about repairs?” “When to sell my stocks for the down payment?” “Geez this is lots of money.” “What will our neighbors be like?” “What about the termite problem?” “Is this really happening?” I was surprised I wasn’t scared. I just had a lot running through my head. Later that night, mama and I wrote our cover letters for the offer package.

From that week on we started imagining everything our family did in our current house, but pictured in the new house. E.g., running around and running into each other in living room. In the new house you would have all the space to run inside and out. Kimi would disappear in the backyard. We could bike around the neighborhood safely. There would be no cars, trains or planes. We could hike to the mountains…

But it was not to be.

After a few weeks, the home buying thing started to affect me. Maybe it was the stress. I was a little sad. When we lost that first offer, it became clear that I didn’t have enough money. And I don’t like to care much about money. But over here, there is almost no other leverage; everyone prays to the money God. I was sad. Some days I felt my chest tightening. It was a familiar feeling. I felt it in grad school. I remembered that breathing deep helped relax. I had to try to stay calm while we waited. I had to try hard to keep my mind empty. No use blending through all the possibilities over and over. Just do what you can, and try to clear your mind. Let time move forward.

And then we placed our second offer and won it. We went aggressive and we were okay overpaying a little because we had enough of that. We were happy to be done. It took too much energy to keep falling in love with silly houses. But you know what mama said after? “Wanna know how I know we’ve found the right house? Because I haven’t even been tempted to look at new house listings.” Usually after she’s bought something, she keeps looking because she’s not sure. But she felt good about this one. Since we “bought” it, she keeps a browser tab open with its pictures so she can look at them and smile.

Goodbye Santa Clara I tipped my haircut lady $10 on a $12 haircut. Usually I tip $5. She took extra care to do a good job this Wednesday since no one else was there. Strange how I’ve been going there for 7 years. And we don’t know each other any better than the first day. I think on the last day she finally remembered how I like my hair cut. But I didn’t tell her I was leaving. I got the usual cleaning at the Dentist. He asked me how I was. I said we just bought a house! He smiled and then I realized that it meant he won’t be my dentist any more. The rest of the visit was a little gray.

You finally made good friends with a few neighbors your age. Every evening you run out and ask to check if they’re outside so you can play with them. When they’re not out, you keep checking til the sun goes down and you get sad and don’t want to go in and you don’t want to have dinner. You’ll be sad to say goodbye. I tried sharing with you about how I left my friends when we all graduated from school and went to different countries.

Goodbye fibroid. Mama is out of surgery and recovering. I took 2 days off to take care of you two. The first full day was all by myself. I am still amazed at how mama does it. I barely survived but it felt like a big accomplishment. I had pscyhed msyelf up for the 2nd day alone but mama and Abu were back at 9 am (it was a surprise). It’s been 2 weeks now and I think we made it. Mama was in pain and trapped in bed for most of the first week. She was back on her feet on the 2nd week. Stanford is awesome. It made me think, “This is what medicine in the 21st century should be.” In many practices the doctors only have training to perform certain procedures. At Stanford the doctors are also scientists, and their procedure is their life research or area of expertise. 2 doctors operated on mama through her arteries. They had a giant wall-to-wall screen in the OR. They asked mama what music she liked and they streamed jazz. There were 4 nurses, 3 on scratching duty because mama was itchy. She was allergic to something and they couldn’t get her to stay still.

We went on an adventure while mama was at the hospital. J biked, I ran the stroller. Legs died.

Then I managed to nap you.

Jardy 1st year online class anniversary. “Wow, so I didn’t think much about it until right now, but this past week has been pretty eventful. I just wanted to thank everyone who wished me a happy birthday – I still have to get around to reading them all. Also, I noticed that my friends from India like to wish HBDs through messenger, which was pretty sweet and personal. Thanks for that. It snuck up on me, but I reached 35,000 subscribers on my YouTube, which is nice. Last and definitely not least, I’ve been able to maintain my Online Classes for a year and have raised some pretty damn capable students along the way! I’m grateful.”

New developments

J you got a haircut! You look much better.

Bad behavior. Abu thinks you’re unconsciously realizing what it means to move to a new house. You’re feeling something but you don’t know what it means. It could mean you’re discovering what it feels like to miss a friend. As a result you’ve been acting out, hurting your sister, breaking things, making your sister cry. A couple of times when we asked you what’s up you said you feel angry. Mama said to you, “Anger is a strong word. Are you sure you’re angry, or are you upset?” You said you are angry. But you don’t know why you are angry. Every evening you want to check if your friends are outside. After we go back inside, you ask again if we can check outside. One night I humored you and said, “Well, you know what he does at this time. We eat dinner, then have our bath and go to bed. But if you want we can check one last time very fast.” But you said, “No it’s okay. I’m sure he’s not outside.” But that’s the struggle. We as parents stress so much to make big things happen for our family (like buy a house to set you up for schools). But meanwhile all you see as a kid is you might never see your friends again and you hate us for it. Mama drove by the house today because the discovery museum was 10 minutes away and you guys were there. It was just around the time school started letting out. She really wanted to show you your new school and all the happy kids, but you fell asleep in the backseat.

J – you’re into Roald Dahl books. We bought a box of them for a good price. You are often found sprawled among the heap of books, quietly reading. And every now and then you shout random Dahl gibberish into regular conversations. You disappear into your books. We can hardly tear you away and you turn your ears off so you don’t hear us trying to get your attention.

The library by our house found mama. “They just called me to do a presentation in Sept and asked me what my speaking fee was! Ha! Caught me totally off guard but hopefully they’ll call me to confirm later this week and if not, this is a good chance to think about a speaking fee. On the other hand the kids are just not letting me clean today. I’ll try to speed clean once you’re back home. Auntie L was going to help me but she’s currently MIA lol. The are having a mom/baby fair type thing in Sept. They are currently looking for speakers. They found me on yelp and liked my reviews and since I’m local they called me! Even if they don’t call back this is very exciting!”

Curious convos

j: daddy I really like you
Me: I love you
j: I like my cheddar

Me: you can paint at Bing
j: I don’t want to paint. I want to play with mama.

J: When I read these books, they make me think many things. It makes me go CRAAAZY!

Abu: “1 2 3 4 5 6 7. All the children go to heaven…” [Beatles song]
J: all the Julie’s go to heaven
j: No! I’m not goingto heaven. I’m just going with daddy.
[J built a tall tower with magnet tiles]
J: j, this us you I put you up in heaven.
j: No I don’t want to! *snatch* CRASH
J: *CRY*
[fighting ensues]

j: [squirming] Sometimes when you kiss me it prickles
Me: I can give you soft kisses too
j: What are those? [pointing]
Me: They are hairs that give you prickly kisses. Do you like prickly kisses?
j: Ya
Me: You do?

Me: Why are you hiding
[j turtling in bed]
j: I’m hiding from your kiss
Me: Why, is it because it prickles?
j: Ya
Me: I can kiss you with no prickles
j: I don’t want a kiss
Me: I’m going to give you a soft kiss, not a prickly one
j: I want a prickly one
Me: you want a prickly one?
j: ya
[kiss]
j: hehehe

j: daddy spin
Me: OK. Now I’m dizzy
j: one last time
Me: OK one last time and I’m done
j: ok
Me: Done
j: another time!
Me: “Last time” means you’re done!
j: can we ring-a ring-a ring-a?
Me: No I’m dizzy
j: how about on your back. one last time
Me: you can’t keep saying one last time

getting sticky j
curios about my teeth
poke poke
so shiny
what’s that red thing
my gums
spin
climb back
ring around rosie

j: I want mosa mosa mosa.
Me: It’s a Sa-mo-sa
j: I want some mosaaaaaa.
Me: x

This week in pictures

After pool

You’re finally strong enough to spin the Airplane

Cooperative bedtime story making

Baseball

Sleepy J

Brosis courtyard

Climbing

Drawing

Bao returns

Bedtime stories

Saturday adventure

“My dream”

Balance scooter

Row row

Interesting things
Aerial CA550 million years of evolution. Ronda Rousey on her body. Great dane. Kepler-452b: Earth’s bigger, Older cousin. “Oregon Trail” generation – mine and mama’s generation. Chuck Jones on storytelling – Build an assumption, prove it wrong. Vital factor in all comedy/drama: discipline. Dancing T-handle in space. FPS chatroulette. Ladybug flying.

Quote of the day:
“Physics is like sex: sure, it may give some practical results, but that’s not why we do it.”
– Richard Feynman

Love,

Dad

P.S. Mama and Abu have started packing. I’m still in disbelief about whether we’ll actually own a house. Everything’s just been paperwork so far. I’ll believe it when the deed/title are signed over to me and the keys are in my hands and I am running naked through the house and jumping into the pool.

P.P.S. – Buying a house here has liberated me from price tags. Nothing feels expensive to me anymore. I’ve noticed myself tipping more freely. I think less about money when I buy things.

P.P.P.S. – The moment in history when House music was introduced to the world for the first time. As you know, mama and I met outside a House music event in San Jose. If House didn’t exist, you might not have either. How’s that for Butterfly Effect?