1000sandwiches - Tumblr blog

1000sandwiches · 8 months

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Tue, Feb 6, 2024

Lately I have become extremely nostalgic for the Web 1.0 era of the internet. It started with me looking at archived Usenet posts via Google Groups, but has turned into me spending hours on the Wayback Machine looking up sites I used to haunt back in the 90s and early 2000s. Stuff like The Gaming Intelligence Agency (which is still up somehow), Elfwood, Toriyama's World, or various rabbit holes from the Anime Web Turnpike. I really miss the days everyone had their own website (I had several if you're wondering. A Flame of Recca fan site, for example). I want to be one of the cool kids and join Neocities in hopes it'll give me a similar vibe, but I haven't done HTML in years and feel a bit intimidated by it. So for now maybe a Tumblr diary will do. So that's what this is, a rambling online diary like the kind I kept as a teenager. It seemed cheaper than therapy.

Rambling about being a new parent and venting about my in-laws below. It's not particularly interesting. Next time I'll just write about video games I'm playing, probably.

I became a dad in November 2023. My emotions and mental health have been sort of all over the place since the day we checked into the hospital. I had always wanted a family of my own, and my wife and I both felt we would regret not having at least one child. I have a lot of insecurities about being a first time father at my age. I'm 38 now, and I just keep thinking about how I'll be 43 when my son is 5, and worry I won't be able to keep up with him. But here we are.

My wife was induced and spent 30 hours in labor before the doctor finally gave us the option for a C-Section. She didn't even hesitate to say yes, honestly just relieved to get it over with. The operation went fine, but apparently I am a lightweight when it comes to gore. Seeing my partner's blood and guts all over the surgeons had my anxiety screaming. Also, no one will ever believe me, but during the surgery the anesthesiologist, Bob, was playing on his phone. All of a sudden an ad for homemade marinara started playing, and the whole room stopped to stare at him. Surgeons still covered in bloody bits. Bob just mumbled "bad timing" and turned the volume down. What an absolute legend. I love you, Bob!

The experience of holding our son for the first time was just as powerful as I had always heard. So many different feelings washed over me all at once. I'd never even held a baby before then. Seeing my son being held up against my significant other's head made me cry.

Unfortunately, I am a peon at a public library, and my wife works retail, so neither of us are great breadwinners. Oops. Sorry, baby! So now we have super fun medical bills while we also figure out a budget. Currently we are living with my in-laws. Having to adjust to both our newborn and their family routine has been a challenge for us both.

Some days are great. Others are hard. Especially in the first month, where some nights the baby would just scream his head off for hours. I knew I hated loud noises, but I never realized how triggering a baby's cry could be. I'm not suicidal, but I've spent several nights imagining a scenario where I'd jump into my car and driving off a cliff. This has gotten better recently as he now does fairly good job of sleeping through the night. It's a lot easier to be patient with his crying when we are not exhausted.

My wife had a few struggles with post-partum depression. The week after giving birth, her hormones were all over the place and she had frequent panic attacks. One morning she woke up, walked into the living room and saw our son, only to then throw up. She is over this now thankfully, and has put a lot of energy into figuring out how to be a mom. I'm very proud of her.

The In-laws are a huge help, but there are pros and cons to their assistance. There are times where my wife and I really need to learn how to deal with our son's tantrums by ourselves, but the grandparents will insist on taking him. I appreciate the help, but I worry about not being able to handle him myself. In fairness, I might struggle to get him down for an hour, but Grandma can get him to sleep on five minutes. It's like dark magic for grandparents, I swear.

I am also prone to feeling like a burden on the family. I notice a lot of little corrections. Stupid things like say I take some chips from the cupboard and I know I'll put them back in a moment. I might decide to leave the door open for a moment, but Grandma walks in and immediately shuts the cupboard. Other times I might leave a light on which Grandma turns off while I'm still using. I also feel like every interaction I have with my son is being judged. If he's crying and I set him down for a few minutes, someone feels the need to swoop in and take him from me. It's like leaving him be in his bassinet while he's awake his frowned upon.

My In-Laws also have a family culture where everyone hangs out in the living room together all day. This is completely new to me, and I'd rather be alone in my room most of the time. It doesn't help that they are a family that keeps their television on all day and I get very sick of hearing the news cycle repeat over and over. This recently had consequences when Grandpa came home from work sick, and apparently keeping the baby in another room, away from the sick guy, was never even considered.

As you might expect, our baby got sick. I was pissed. I just couldn't believe that I would come home from work to find grandpa coughing just a few feet away from him, and no one thought to keep them separated. Our son then passed his cold onto the rest of the household (not covid or flu, as several of us have tested negative).

So that brings us to now. A week after getting sick, I am still having issues with sinus drainage along with aches and pains. Our son is doing better, and you can't even tell my wife was ever sick. I'm very jealous. I should probably take a few moments to proof read all this, but I've already been typing on my phone for an hour and feel silly about posting this at all.

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