Approaching two

It’s hard to be believe it’s almost been two years since Helena was born. We've enjoyed all of it for different reasons but would say it’s become more fun and interesting in the past year. It’s also been harder at times as Helena has entered "toddlerdom" for a variety of reasons including (but not limited to) temper tantrums, incredibly stubbornness and unwillingness to cooperate, increased danger with walking and climbing everywhere, smacking us in the face randomly, and social dynamics in and outside of her daycare class. Thankfully I fundamentally believe that Helena is a good child with a good kind heart. Yeah things could change, but I think she has a pretty good foundation and that she’ll turn out alright based on what I’m seeing so far. 

Helena has been going through a hitting phase recently. After she hits us, sometimes quite hard, and in the face, she says “sowy” in the cutest little voice you’ve ever heard and then say’s hug and it really is sweet. But “why can’t you just do the hug part without the hitting” we ask? Toddlers are complicated I guess is the short of it and other parents have talked a lot about the “phases” to us. We've read some articles also that say it's about security and being scared...huh, strange.

A big challenge of raising Helena has been getting on the same page with Maya. The biggest test of a marriage, at least for us so far, has been having a child. There’s many facets of it; agreeing to values and how we want to raise her, safety, bedtime, and all sorts of other standards, and agreeing on who does what and being comfortable with each other’s roles. Figuring out the balance of time spent taking care of our child vs freedom to still pursue and enjoy our individual lives based on our own interests is really hard. On that front I definitely get out more and find that most of my guy dad friends have the same sort of set up and we all deal with resentment and unhappy wives from time to time. Between band (and jamming with neighbors), sports, coaching, school, yelp, and other interests, I have to get better at saying no. 

But having a child means sacrificing certain things to some degree and if it’s annoying to have to text your girlfriend every time you want to stay out a half an hour later to you then fatherhood may not be right for you. I’ve learned that giving up doing something I want to do in favor of spending more time with Helena can be very rewarding and not always so sad. Still, it’s an ongoing daily practice to figure out this balance and not abandon my own life interests and pursuits.

But of course all of this has come with many positive new life changes too not related to sacrifice. Despite not being able to choose when I want to be dad or not, most of the time I spend with Helena is enjoyable and often fun; especially when we are doing activities together. Bad weather days with nothing on the schedule can be long and challenging. I can’t tell if Helena has the same cabin fever that I have or if it’s all toddlers. In thinking about the former, we’ve brought her everywhere with us often whenever we want and she’s adjusted quite flexibility with her nap/bed times and eating schedule. 

Helena continues to take it all in time and thrive from all of her new experiences. She is lucky and I'm beginning to see what intergenerational privilege and opportunity looks like from a 1st hand perspective. It's also fun to re-live those 1st experiences with them, which is something many parents told me before I had her.

Toddlers are innately hilarious and way more interesting than any other human you will ever observe. Helena thinks of things we would never try being so trained by life’s daily routines. She experiments with combinations of foods, caps for containers on other items, shoes on her hands, and brushing her teeth with a razor (less good, we had to stop that one), to dipping just about any food in her milk. 

Toddlers can also be ridiculously sweet and non-judgemental in a way that is refreshing and reminds us all of our common humanity. They will play with anyone anytime and will laugh just like anybody would at a real loud great sounding fart. I know this sounds corny and trite, and maybe it is, but experiencing it all so up front and personally is different and wonderful and I guess, in part, why people have kids.  

Communicating with some one who doesn’t quite have the language yet (even through gestures- we never really tried to teach Helena sign language...maybe with the next one) is also something to get used to. I believe the two year old language explosion has also begun as she begins to parrot us more and more (in whatever language we are speaking) surprise us unprompted with multiple word short sentences that we’ve never heard before. She is always listening and observing even if we don't think she is. When we were recently robbed by our air Bnb guests Helena saw that I was down and kept saying “sawee papa.” This small thing helped me remember about everything I had and what I didn’t lose and to keep things in perspective. When you think about what’s important in life, and why you have kids in the first place, it makes the $3000 loss of electronics and other stuff a little more palatable. I’ll try to look back on this post and remember this when Helena is being a big pain in the a*#.