Category: Day to day life

Updates on what’s going on with us

Over There

NPR aired an interview with Steven Bochco, the executive producer of a new show on FX, “Over There“. The interview got me interested enough to want to at least check out the show.

Days later, I’d completely forgotten about the interview, but somehow I stumbled upon the show anyway one night. It was the rerun of the premiere. The show follows the lives of a small combat unit in Iraq. Though none of actors in the series are well known, their acting is fantastic. The show focuses on the human aspects of the war from the perspectives of the soldiers as well as their family members. Al though the show takes no political stance on the war, the intense story telling and “Saving Private Ryan” type filming of combats take the audience on a roller coaster ride they grow more and more attached to the soldiers.

All I have to say is, it sucks to be in a war, combat or anything that involves killing or to be killed. I wonder had George W. Bush been in Vietnam instead of hiding in Texas behind his daddy’s political might, would he have waged the wars as he did?

What a jackass.

Cry Babies

Before there was science and logic, “old school” parents have this deeply rooted belief that babies, even the newborns, are the masters of mind manipulations. Those are the parents who are self-proclaimed life-experience childrearing experts, such as my mother (and countless others).

They swear by the ingeniousness and cunningness of babies and how they are all conspired to manipulate us adults. Well, there may be some truth in what they believe in as it turns out. They think they babies cry to manipulate adults to hold them so that the babies don’t have to be alone. To remedy this and to teach them to be more independent (read: lazy parenting), the solution, they argue, is to let them cry themselves to sleep. This way, they don’t get spoiled at a very young age.

What a load of crap. (No offense, moms of the old tradition.)

Every single one of early childhood development and education books I have owned and read (published after my birthday) states this simple fact: infants and young toddlers don’t have the cognitive means to comprehend the meaning of “manipulation”, let alone actually doing it. The only way to explain why babies cry (and why they stop crying as soon as you react to their cries) is just asking for help. Birgit puts it best:

If you didn’t speak any language and you wanted someone to help you, what would you do? If you were really hungry, you’d cry too!

Yeah, no shit. There are only three reasons as to why pre-lingual babies cry:
1. Hunger.
2. Discomfort (wet/soiled diaper, fever, stomach ache… etc).
3. Companionship and love.

Many modern studies show that babies who’s needs are attended to will grow up with more self-esteem, self-confidence and a more positive view of the environment around them (even NPR says so). But having their needs met immediately, they grow up believing that the world is a safe place. This probably has to do with why most of my American and European friends (whose parents most likely subscribe to the more infant-friendly philosophy) have way more self-esteem and confidence over most of my Asian friends (whose parents subscribe to the don’t-spoil-them philosophy). This is not to say that culture and traditions have nothing to do with it though.

Unfortunately, to much of my dismay, the “let-them-cry” practice is still widely accepted among much of the Asian community. I wonder why they aren’t more educated about the latter method. Even some immediate friends around me still believe in the practice.

Wrap your mind around some new ideas, people. Attend to your babies and don’t just let them cry for hours and on. They can’t talk; they cry for a reason!

UPDATE: Ironically, my mom thinks the infant-friendly practices are just theories; they are not practical. When I brought up the logics behind the infant-friendly practices, backed by countless research and experiments by researchers/authors who are also parents, she brushed them off and said my arguing with her is what happens when one becomes too academic and book smart. Coming from someone who’s whole life has been trying to put more education under our belts is a little confusing and alarming. I have also tried to use similar points and strategies arguing about my sister’s behavioral problems and how the family should deal with them (long story). Her sentiments are the same. Sometimes I do think experience can be a burden to one’s attitude towards learning.

Here’s a list of sites that support the theory:
http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/depts/fcs/human/pubs/infant.html
http://www.humsci.auburn.edu/abell/beeprogram/links/resourceupdates/infants/crying/crying.htm
http://www.vtaide.com/png/ERIK1.htm
http://babiestoday.com/resources/articles/cry.htm
http://www.brandnewdad.com/monthbymonth/three-months-old/teachyourbabytotrust.asp
http://www.childdevelopmentinfo.com/parenting/crying_baby.shtml
http://www.selfhelpmagazine.com/articles/parenting/cfspoil.html
http://www.bbc.co.uk/parenting/your_kids/babies_crying.shtml
http://www.drgreene.com/21_5.html
http://www.bchealthguide.org/healthfiles/hfile92b.stm
http://target.com/target_baby/ii_article_07_e.jhtml
http://www.maternitymall.com/homeMInfo.asp?SelectCase=Article&CategoryId=1&PageLp=1&ArticleId=353&SubCategoryId=1

In fact, I challenge anyone to produce a credible study that shows attending to crying infants can indeed spoil them and that they are just manipulative bastards.

Breath Taking

I have been noticing some interesting things about Bryan’s breath patterns when he’s a sleep (which is most of the time). Newborns and infants have short and very quick breathing patterns, almost as if an adult is short of breath. But I discovered that sometimes he’d stop breathing for a very brief moment (simply a short gap between his very rapid quick breathes) before the pattern returns to normal again (not to mention he’s pretty loud when he breathes).

I asked Brian about this, but he couldn’t recall of Laura went through the same phase. Sometimes I worry about the possibilities of SIDS. Although nobody really knows why SIDS happens to some babies, Brian and Birgit believe that it’s possible that some newborns may still think they are inside their mothers’ wounds and forget to actually breathe. I think that theory is plausible. I mean, I remember times when even I couldn’t distinguish between reality and being in a dream and forgot to breathe for long enough moments that I woke myself up. If infants aren’t equipped with the cognitive and physical ability to wake from dreams, they can get themselves into trouble.

As for the “shortness of breathes” and Bryan’s irregular breathing patterns (even the times when he sounds like an old man who needs to be on a oxygen mask), they’re supposed to be normal:

Irregular breathing and short apnoeic pauses are normal in young babies and have no adverse effects.

If not for the Internet (and broadband), I’d be calling our pediatrician quite regularly with the tinniest oddities in Bryan’s behaviors. There’s really no reason why there isn’t a “manual” for small things like “irregular breathings” and frequent hiccups.

Live and learn.

Baby Season

Unha contacted me via Friendster today. She heard from Moto about Bryan and said she’s also expecting one herself.

hey!
how’s is it!
i heard about the baby from moto.
congratulations!

i have a little one coming soon myself.
one more month! 🙂

She also started baby blogging. Babies and blogs are in!

Unha worked with me when I was still in New York at my last job. She’s one awesome programmer with a very high spirit. Unfortunately the company didn’t have the foresight to keep her around though. 🙁

More Safari Extensions

Came across this while reading old blogs from Gizmodo. Saft is an app that bundles a good collection of features that are currently missing in Safari. Just to name one I can’t live without — crash protection. Safari has serious issues with performance when opened for an extended period of time, and sometimes it crashes without warning. What crash protection in Saft does is it saves the current tabs and their URLs at the time Safari crashes and gives user the ability to retrieve those URLs upon relaunch.

Another cool feature is the ability to manually shuffle the tabs and rearrange the order; something that’s in existence in Firefox already.

Pimp My Safari has more stuff on improving features that Safari currently lacks.

Also, OpenDarwin keeps a webkit blog (the core technology in Safari) with interesting updates from time to time. This particular entry deals with memory leaks, which Safari is notoriously known for.

via [Gizmodo]

Sneaky Pees

Diaper changes for Bryan haven’t been too terrible. His poops don’t stink all that much and he’s fairly easy to change diapers with. But I was warned as babies move on to solid food, the stink level on their crap will go off the chart. Yeah, like I don’t have enough to look forward to already, jerks!

One thing I think is really funny (though I should be annoyed) is how Bryan ALWAYS picks the worst times to pee during diaper changes. Here are a couple of scenarios:

1. Completely wiped his butt clean, ready to put on the new diaper and off it goes with the power fountain. A few more dimes down the drain on a pee pad.

2. As the new diaper is ready to be fastened, he decides that was the best time to “let go”. That’s a completely brand new diaper plus a peed pad down the drain.

So far I haven’t been surprised with any in-th-face splashes yet. But I have heard crazy stories about them; and I don’t like it. I have learned that Bryan gets particularly quite, as if he’s contemplating the best time to do his deeds, before he pulls those tricks on me. So I have been able to catch a couple of sneak attacks before the old diaper was completely removed.

Got any interesting diaper change stories to share? I have a feeling it’s not too hard to make a sleep-deprived man laugh out loud in front of his laptop. Go ahead. Make me laugh.

UPDATE: No less than 10 minutes after I posted this entry. a routine diaper change again turned into a circus. I got hit again with #1. He’s rapidly perfecting his art.

Come and Gone

My brother, Mark, came by for a few days to see Bryan (as well as mom). While he was here, I suppose he’s learned a few things about having a baby — mostly that they are noisy, don’t sleep at night and poop a lot. Hah hah… Since Bryan’s birth, there’s been a slew of people visiting (or attempting to visit). But it’s no fun seeing the baby now since Bryan spends most of his time sleeping (or going in and out of his sleep mode with eyes half open).

Mark and Bryan

Mark and Bryan

Hiccups

I didn’t even realize it’s been a couple of days since I last blogged. Time flies when there’s a baby around.

Murdza, now I understand why it took you so long to install that bad ass new PowerBook hard drive around the time when Savannah was born. I can’t imagine adding house renovation projects to the mix….

Bryan has been having hiccups since he was in Grace’s tummy. It’s really funny to feel the tummy tremor in an interval. And now that he’s here, almost every other meal he hiccups for a few minutes (despite gentle pats on his back). Sometimes I give him some water, and that seemed to have helped. But other times it doesn’t.

It’s worthy to note that scientists still don’t know exactly why hiccups happen though there are some interesting theories involving the diaphragm.

I do have a couple of home remedies that usually stop the hiccups immediately.

1. Take a deep breathe and hold it. Wait 30 seconds and exhale. (Usually this takes care of the hiccups.

2. Take a deep breathe and hold it. Drink a big glass of water while holding the breathe. Usually it is followed by a slight burp and the hiccup stops.

Immigrant Overflow?

While some Americans complaint about foreign workers taking jobs they say is rightfully theirs, it is perfectly ok for the medical and health system to be flooded with immigrant nurses and assistants. And I can understand why.

Other than the doctors themselves, virtually every single one of Grace’s nurse has been an immigrant from elsewhere, but more frequently, Philippinos. Considering Philippines used to be a U.S. “territory” (and the fact that English is their official language), perhaps it’s somehow easier for them to be infused into mainstream America.

But strangely, at the labor and delivery department, there were very few immigrant nurses there. I wonder why the discrepancy.

Some nursing institutes advertises a quick nursing or doctor’s assistant degree in less than two years. And with the supposedly severe shortage of nurses in the U.S., it’s said they get their own Green Card process of less than six months (compare that to 3 years for tech workers). And depending on the hours and the nature of the job, they get paid $80k or more a year.

Am I really in the wrong profession? Damn it.

But I still love computers. And I don’t like blood… either seeing, drawing or being drawn… So stuck with being poor and Green Card-less, it is.