Bitch Please...
When people are either tired or hungry, they tend to be bitchy.
I’m sure you notice that yourself whenever you come home from work tired OR when you show up to work – tired.
But as new parents, sleep deprivation is part of the whole journey. Like winter – you know it’s coming, so don’t bitch when it does.
Those are my initial thoughts whenever I feel the urge to bitch–BUT surprisingly, I’m not bitchy.
Perhaps I’m still new to it. Maybe, eventually, I will, if the tiredness happens too often – I don’t know, I’m not there yet.
And when it does happen, the most obvious thing I can do to deal with it is simply to adapt to it.
“Does the baby cry a lot?”, was one of the standard questions I ask friends with newborn babies. It’s really just my way to open up a conversation about how they deal with sleep-deprivation (because you know, I love sleep lol).
Hanging out with Lexi for the past 13 days – I now understand…
Parental Guidance Is Recommended
“It takes a village to raise a child”, says a friend whose ideas are almost always different from mine.
67.25% of the time we get into an intense discussion defending our own view of things. But in this case, she is 110% right – I totally agree with her without any hesitation.
*insert* the grandparents in the picture – the non-certified experts who raised us just fine to educate us on what we should and shouldn’t do.
*insert* medical professionals who educate us with what we should and shouldn’t do based on facts, statistics, and science.
*insert* friends/cousins who’ve been through the same experience. The ones who fully understand what’s it like to be in your position.
*insert* Google, who’s there to address your most pressing confusion *at-the-moment*
All play a big role in raising our little Lexi.
However, with the gazillion amount of advice and information that come to us – it can be overwhelming at times.
And when you’re overwhelmed, you tend to disregard or dismiss some of them. Not because they’re wrong, but because it’s too much.
Then I realize that we, as new parents, will also come up with our own mistakes and failures in raising our baby.
Then later on…join the same group of friends/cousins who would give out advice to new parents.
It’s a cycle – a good one.
***
Side Notes: Did our ancestors in the past deal with postpartum depression?
Is it maybe because they didn’t stay locked up in their hut the whole day?
Having privacy must have been tough back then but in some cases – I think it helped…
Information Diet
When you’re sleep-deprived, it’s a lot harder to focus and retain information.
Which is why I decided to tone-down the time I spend on reading.
I even unsubscribed to some of the valuable e-mails to reduce some of the cognition load.
This is a good thing, as it now forces me to focus more on taking action as opposed to consuming more information – a practice to increase my productivity.
You hear a lot of parents complain about the things they can no longer do now that they’re parents and that they have a demanding narcissistic child who needs their constant attention.
But so far, there is a lot to benefit from it. No, not in terms of relationships/bonding/family or anything along with that context. I’m talking about personal growth.
Below are the things I’m currently learning/developing/practicing now that I’m a parent:
Owning distraction at a higher level – your ability to instantly stop what you’re doing and give your 100% focus to the other thing that demands more immediate attention.
This was challenging at first because when I’m “in the zone” doing my thing, I get bitchy when distracted.
But over time, I learned how to deal with my emotions. I control it as oppose to letting it control me. *KAPOW!!*
Patience on Steroids – a few guessing games I play with Lexi that requires patience…a lot of patience:
“Decipher Me” – decoding the cry as per pitch, intensity, and duration.
“Quick Switch” – how fast can I change her diaper while dodging her flailing arms and legs.
“Wait For It” – waiting for that burp to come out. *Tap tap tap* sometimes it comes up quickly. Other times, it takes forever.
A Year Ago This Week
I wrote about…
- stress – how to recognize and address it.
- sleep – how you know you’re getting enough of it.
*Writing practice behind the blog: I tried to update my writing style to sew different topics together in one flow.
[Check it here]
Goal Update
Personal Projects
I started reading a book on learning how to learn. WHAA?!
Yup – with the sleep deprivation and “distraction” I surround myself with, I need to use that as an opportunity to up my game (on learning). This is Lexi’s way of helping me improve myself 😉
Health
Do more. Read less. Meditate every day. Cold shower every day. With a little bit of anime – yea I started watching anime again while babysitting #win.
Finance
A friend at work said, “1.5 income sucks!”
That explains why he is working overtime to compensate for the extra expenses.
I wanna work overtime as well – but not only because of the extra money but it’s really to allow me to take some time off for Lexi.
This is also an opportunity for me to push myself with making money on the side 😉
Too Personal Note – Hidden
I intentionally turned the text to yellow to hurt your eyes lol. I find this portion to be too personal.
Can you find the secret note?
Holy shit Alexis is on my mind—a lot.
And for some reason, I find Lexi’s mother very attractive lately. What the hell is going on? Hormones? LOL.
I love them 🙂