My Mom & Sister arrived

They are so happy and upbeat about finally making sure the cute baby in the pics i sent them is really my son (not a rent-a-baby).
It is VERY nice to have joy and happiness in my house once more.
The next week will be VERY full for me.
I'll work then play tourist guide, all while not sleeping at night (My son still does not think sleeping all night is a good idea)...

My sister apparently got all her friends to pitch in with tourist places for her to visit.
I think it’ll take about a year to visit them all… and we have only 2 weeks…
I am just glad they are here. I hope we can have a lot of fun together :)

Sleeping in the dog house...again.

My mother & sister are arriving tomorrow from Brazil to finally meet the baby. The only time my mother came to visit me was when I got married. It took 12 years leaving abroad for her to come. Now it is because of the baby.
She is the one who gave me the money for the down payment of our house. Needless to say that we want to show her it was a good investment and so I’ve spent most of my time during the past weeks fixing up the yard/house. I hope she likes it...
She will also spend her birthday with us.
So I was talking to my wife about present ideas we should give her.
After thinking of a few gifts Ideas, my wife then asks me what should we give to HER mom, since she will be leaving next week (after 4 months with us).
Jokingly, I said I had my heavy winter boots I could put and then give her a hearty kick in her butt out of my house..... Well....needless to say that my wife didn't really like the joke. Oh well...

Changes

Oh well.
I am tired.

Mother In Law is driving me crazy.

I decided to change the format of this blog. from now on, it will be my adventures as a father.

I'll just put my "father's diary" here :)

Take it as you may...

Mother in law.

Beware of bringing your mother in law to help with the baby.
As my mother in law lives in another country, we arranged for her to come and stay with my wife after the baby was born for 4 months.
Well... it seemed a good idea at the time. We are alone in this country (we are both from Brazil and our families are all in Brazil, apart from my wife's 2 sisters), and we thought some wisdom from someone with experience will be important for our son's sake.

Now, I have to say I really appreciate the help. I appreciate her coming and staying with us for so long, giving up whatever life she has in Brazil, and staying stuck here in our house (she does not speak English) for 4 moths (was supposed to be 3 but one of my wife’s sister found a cheap ticket for 4 months instead).

HOWEVER, the trade off is that you loose (in my opinion) a lot more than you gain with it.

I will explain:
First of all, you got someone who has her own ideas on how to create the baby. She will give you her input, weather you asked or not.
Second, she is not about to change her mind about things she's done. Even if the times have changed. Last time she had a baby was almost 30 years ago, but she does not care neither.
Third, you loose your privacy in your own house.
And last, but not the least, the "mother factor".
Since she is my wife's mother, she is used to "shape" my wife. She tells her what to do. Not the opposite.
My wife, being her daughter, listens to her and changes her mind without noticing. Then, all of a sudden, things we spoke about before on how to create our son are changing and you don't know what happened. When you point out we decided beforehand differently, she will negate this, even against all logic.

Now comes the worst part: If you point out that this is your mother in law's doing, your wife will probably explode with "you hate my mother" or will negate she ever changed her mind over her mother's saying (even if they both are stating the exact same opinion).
You cannot win. This is her mother you are talking about.

I will even come to the record and say I do not fall in love with my mother in law. But I do respect her. However, this is MY house, MY son and MY Wife we are talking about. It pisses me off that neither she nor her daughter understands that. I wish she was gone.

4 months is WAY to much, folks. LISTEN TO ME!!!!
The bad offsets the good she brings to the table

men's rights over the baby

ok.Now it's time form some controversy.
Please, do not hold me accountable for not being on a "neutral corner".
Keep this in mind as you read this :)

Times are changing. Women is demanding and getting out more. They have become employees and bosses and demanded equal rights in every aspects of our lives. I have no problems with that.
However, they are very strong headed against men helping creating the baby. It seems sometimes they forget that we, as fathers have THE SAME RIGHTS and also we have some ideas of our own on how to create the baby.

It is not logical. Yet, in my view, they resent if you are willing to change the baby, (bottle)feed them and bathe them. If you disagree as to when the baby should go to sleep, or when to shower the baby, or any little things like that, they will basically let you know in no good terms they do not apreciate your inputs.

They will basically tell you that they are the mothers and they know what is best for the child.
I've read many topics about this, and even women's right groups know that this is true. Women were created up until not long ago, to believe that they were the housewife. They were probably raised (mostly) by their moms and the father was the absent one whom they saw only at nights when he arrived from work. And so their idea is that if her husband is doing something her father never did, something is wrong.

Well, I disagree.

As women move out on the world to study and work, many men also changed, taking care of the family, becoming stay-at-home-dads, and adding to the input and decision-making when it comes to the baby's life.
So get over it.
It is our baby too.

BEFORE the baby is born, TALK !!!!

OK, one thing I I remembered while I was posting the last paragraph on the last post:

BEFORE the baby is born, TALK to your wife about how you wish to take care of your baby
No matter how small the matter is, later it can be a battleground.

Things like:
- What time you think the baby should go to sleep.
- What time you think the baby should take his shower.
- Work an agreement on waking up in the night. Bilieve me, it is better than both fighting for the other to wake up with your baby crying in the background.
- Work an agreement on how to treat the baby when he cries (Some people think that is good for the baby to cry it out, and so they let the baby cry. Others think that they should go see what’s wrong with the baby the second he starts complaining).
- Talk about religion.
- Talk about schedules
- Talk about when to have a time out.
- Talk about visitors.
- Talk about the need (or not) to bring someone to help.

There are many other topics, and you should talk about as many as you can possibly think about.
Later on, it will be so much harder, and so much more aggravating, and the last thing you want is to try to work out your differences when the matter already happened and someone does something the other disapproves.

The most important thing:

I've learned thatthis is the single most important word of all:

PATIENCE !!!

No mater how, no matter when, no matter what happened and even how hopeless the situation is.
Think of one piece of wisdom: everything will pass. It will change, it will move on.

The baby grows way too fast (might not look like it, but believe me, it does). Sleepless nights will occur. The baby will cry fro many reasons, even for no reason at all.
Just don’t take it on you, your wife or your baby. Remember. Things will pass. Take it as a lesson of tolerance you’ll need for later.

Your wife will also be as much on the edge as you (sometimes even more). Try not to take anything badly. It will pass. Later you can look back and you will see that most things were not really THAT important.

Oh well....

I was in hopes of making this blog somewhat chronological, for the sake of those reading it. But I guess it is very hard to keep away things I want to write now only in hopes to remember what happened in the past... :)So from now on, I will try to post whatever comes to mind, and if I have some flash backs, I will note it on the topic ;)