The Parenting Thread • Page 57

My Mom has said I’ve always been a bit of a sap. I get choked up at the most random of things, including when we had a really nice older pizza delivery guy once. He just really got to me.

I’ve noticed an increase since my wife told me she was pregnant, so I can’t imagine what I’ll be like once the kid is here. Haha.

 

My wife is constantly looking at homes online. We just bought our house 4+ years ago (and it was just built in 2009) and we just finished our basement in October so I’m in no hurry to move. I also fear this is how my kids would react. Hell, we’re trying to have a garage sale in a few weeks and when we box up toys my son hasn’t touched in 2 years, he flips out.

How old is your son? Ultimately I’m sure he’ll be fine. May take a few days/weeks but soon he’ll love the new home, yard, extra space, etc. You may want to get him a new toy or item that maybe he can use in the house/yard that maybe there wasn’t room for in the apartment just to get him more excited about his new room/Home in the short-term. Might give him a sense of ownership of his new space.

 

I want your pizza guy

 

Most definitely. I can relate with the person that was talking about being nostalgic for earlier times.

When my son was younger I used to think “man when he’s like 3/4, this will be so much easier/better. I’ll be able to actually play with him and relate better”. Now I just wish he was an infant again. I miss just being able to hold him all day and lay down with him calm. He’s going to start pre k and all I can think about is how he’s never been to daycare. I know he’s gonna have a blast because he’s so social. He talks to every person he sees. But at the same time I’m like man we aren’t going to be his whole world anymore. He’s gonna have other people that will influence him

 

Honestly though it's not even the nostalgia of it all that gets me, with my son he's been incredibly difficult from day 1 so it's never been "fun" quite yet and I can't say I'll ever wanna go back and revisit all these times.

What really gets me is just seeing all these kids being bullied and stuff and ask the school shootings and such and just being kinda terrified for my own kids and what their experience will be like ya know? Like it's emotional to me that these kids have to worry about this shit and can't just be fucking kids.

 

100% yes.

 

I'm not even a dad for another 5 months but I already feel this way

I've always been very nostalgic (and sure, sappy, why not) and since we found out we would be parents I'm more aware of mortality than I've ever been and it pretty much wrecks me daily

 

I know exactly how you're feeling. We moved to a new house 6 weeks before our second one was born and it was tough those first few weeks of moving in. Our daughter would get frustrated and sad and would start crying saying she wanted to go home. Also, right around that time was when she stopped letting me hold her or lay down with her to get her to fall asleep and I realized then that I most likely never would again and it hit me hard a few times. On the day we moved, when we finished with all the closings and went back to the old house for the last time I couldn't even go inside because I was too sad to be leaving. I was there for 8 years and is where I met my wife, got our 2 dogs, got married, and had our first daughter. There were a lot of great memories. But it does get better and it wasn't too long until the new place felt like home for everyone. No when our oldest sees pictures from before she gets excited and goes "that's our old house!"

 

Update on my post as we heard from the doctor.

She had wanted to test the Hcg levels because if they were too high then that would indicate a possible ectopic pregnancy. We got the results back and they were within the normal range, which was a relief.

However, they are on the lower end which she is saying can also indicate the same thing. I’m frustrated by that because we wanted to be within the right range, and now we’re bejng told that that might be an issue too.

My wife has to have more blood drawn tomorrow to see if they’re increasing at the right pace. All we can do now is wait, but it’s incredibly frustrating. I don’t even understand the ranges. They’re so wide.

I guess this just the start of me worrying about my kid every moment of my life. Haha.

 

Godspeed, try not to stress and worry too much. Gotta stay strong for your wife. Hope everything turns out well!

 

Yeah, it is incredibly frustrating to be told "you're in the good range! but still could be an issue."

Stay strong and keep us updated. Wish you the best. Be there for your wife. It can be very tough.

 

Another update. My wife just called me and said she saw, what she thinks, was some very light light blood. She called the doctor who told her not to worry too much, but was able to get us an appointment with our OB tomorrow at 7am. It’s a rollercoaster.

Thanks for the kind words. I’ll keep you updated.

 

My wife has had four pregnancies (only two of them successful as we only have two kids) so I totally understand the roller-coaster of emotions you and your wife are going through right now. Every pregnancy was challenging and emotional and scary for her and I. These are the things people don't really talk about but it's common. Hoping for the best for you and your wife.

 

Hoping for some good news

 

Thank you both. Going to try and get some sleep now so that the morning can come faster.

It’s been helpful to be able to post here. We’ve only told our parents so it’s nice to have some other people to talk to as well.

 

Thank you for the encouragement, everyone. This is still my favorite thread.

My son, Ephram, is two years, eight months (he’ll be 3 in October) and I just don’t know where the time went. Yesterday I asked my wife to let him stay home with me because I felt like I needed it as much as he did. It was a really good day. Our new house is down the street from a beach and playground so we hung out there for a couple hours while I ran around with him. He kept saying “this is fun!” so I told him we could do this all the time now. I think it helped. My wife and I also decided to take him back to our old apartment to say goodbye because he never got the chance. On the day of the move we had him spend the night at his grandparents’ house so that it would be easier on us. The next morning he suddenly had a new house and the more we thought about it, the more we felt like it was unfair to him. I had that quote from The Life of Pi kicking around in my head:

“I suppose in the end, the whole of life becomes an act of letting go, but what always hurts the most is not taking a moment to say goodbye.“

So we drove him to the apartment lot, unbuckled his car seat and then told him we had to go see our old home one last time to say goodbye. He looked at me and asked “forever?” God that killed me. I said yes, we wouldn’t be coming back here anymore and he hung his head and quietly responded “okaaaay.” We opened the door to the building and asked if he wanted to climb the stairs one more time. At first he wanted to but then he told me he wanted me to carry him. I think he just felt it. So we got to the apartment and I filmed his goodbye. It broke our hearts, but what he says at the end made me feel so much better.

 

Got choked up reading this haha.

It's amazing how quickly they grow up and it's so fucking easy to forget about how they feel about things. My son turns 3 soon and it's weird because he's becoming more of a little....boy now. Not a baby. He's a boy, with thoughts, feelings, frustrations, and so forth. It's really hard to not just brush off their emotions to things we think either won't matter or they'll forget about.

We were in Nashville over the long weekend for a few days and at one point we were heading back to the AirBnb and we said to him we were going to the house and he thought we meant our house in Chicago. Then he just got really said saying he wanted to go home and I'm like "You know what....me too, I'm kind of ready to go home too..."

 

Not really related but I feel like all my son has is frustrations

 

I had a really bad nightmare last night that I went to the mall with my son, my dad and my sister and I lost my son. I spent hours going into dozens of stores looking for him and in my dream I kept seeing little kids running and I kept getting excited that it was my son, but when I'd catch up to them, it wasn't. I went to customer service demanding to see video surveillance and they weren't cooperating. It felt so real and was beyond scary. One of the worst dreams I've ever had.

 

Glad it was only a dream

 

Went to the doctor this morning and everything seems ok right now. Without getting super graphic, the blood was from something else. It’s still early but they did an abdominal ultrasound to see if anything popped up. They are 99% sure what they saw was the sac, but still too early to make out the baby. They did more blood work to check the Hcg levels and rule out the ectopic

We weren’t scheduled for our first OB appointment for another 2 weeks but they want us to come back next week instead as we’ll be in the middle of our 8th week.

So, just waiting to hear on the blood test, but definitely feel a bit better today. Definitely good news so far.

 

Super happy to hear this. Hope the weight is lifted a bit now!

 

Definitely is! Most importantly my wife feels better. She was real nervous last night.

She lost her Mom suddenly last year, which has been hard as she would really turn to her in a time like this.

We also got a call that her brother was back in the hospital yesterday with lung issues. This is fairly common though. He doesn’t take care of himself at all and it’s sad to watch.

All of that combined was just making things more stressful so it was good to get some good news.

 

Oh god, yeah. Lately my kid has been remembering things that surprise me and he’s developing fears and sorrow that break me because I realize that I can’t save him from it. Recently we’ve been really hammering home that he has a little sister coming soon and I can just tell he’s worried about what it means. I sat him down one day and held his face in my hands as I asked him if he understood that just because his little sister was coming it didn’t mean we’d love him any less, that he was still our little boy. He looked at me and just nodded his head and said “okay. I love you, daddy.” I don’t know...I was only telling him that at first because I just wanted to gauge his response to see if it was bothering him at all, but to see an actual understanding on his face and to hear it in his voice...jesus.

Also, I tried uploading the video of him at the empty apartment but I can’t tell if it worked or not so here it is.

 

Totally get this man! During our first pregnancy, there was alot of my family bullshit drama that caused a ton of stress on my wife that was not good.