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The Writing Life of a Tadpole

My view from the lilypads

The Writing Life of a Tadpole
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Being Jacob’s Dad, Part 13: 2 to 3 years

The Writing Life of a Tadpole
February 28 2017

June 2011 marked a new beginning for me as a father, at least in some ways. It was somewhere around then that I realized that things had changed, and it was so gradual, I hadn’t even realized it. I had gone from being terrified at times, wondering “Is he going to live?” to a more nagging worry of “what kind of quality of life will he have”. This is the year, spoiler alert (!), that I transitioned to more “I think he’ll figure it out”. I hadn’t quite reached that point, but this was the year when the transition happened for me as a dad.

Not that the previous worry was “wasted”, as some people like to claim with superficial comments. Worrying about your kids in these situations is not a waste, it ensures you are thinking about options, considerations, asking the right questions. It is no more a waste than having had fire insurance and not having had a fire.  » Read the rest

Posted in Family, To Be Updated | Tagged fatherhood, Jacob, kids, parenting, personal, wife | Leave a reply
Family image, 2 pandas 1 penguin

Being Jacob’s Dad, Part 12: 1 to 2 years

The Writing Life of a Tadpole
February 22 2017

Jacob turning one year old was a bit of a formal “page-turner” for me. Before that, it was undeniably the hardest thing I had ever been through in my life as a person, not just “as a dad”. The first two weeks in the NICU were about survival of all three of us…him physically, us emotionally and mentally. The next three months were less acute, obviously, but still some panics with failure to thrive, etc. Then there was the eye surgery and lots of other specialists. I regularly tried to make light of the fact that we saw almost every specialist in the hospital except a vet (a gross exaggeration), and I couldn’t be sure there wasn’t one in there somewhere.

But I felt like the year was a state of constant tension. I mentioned in the last post that there was the “relief” of January — the first time we made it through an entire month without a visit to the Children’s Hospital emergency.  » Read the rest

Posted in Family, To Be Updated | Tagged fatherhood, Jacob, kids, parenting, personal, wife | 3 Replies
Family image, 2 pandas 1 penguin

Being Jacob’s Dad, Part 11: 6 mths to 1 year

The Writing Life of a Tadpole
February 21 2017

Back when I started writing these posts (Becoming Jacob’s Dad, Part 1: The early days), I was excited to tell the story. It was 2015, Jacob was just turning six, and I thought, “Okay, I’m ready to share.” Turns out that I wasn’t, not really. The stories of the NICU, surgeries, stress, coming home, failure to thrive, all of it…I thought at least I was ready, at best it would be cathartic. Nope, it was traumatic to write the stories, to relive the moments whose rawness ripped at my soul as I typed the words. Not a single post made it to the screen without tears running down my face. Sometimes good tears, tears of relief. Mostly tears from remembered trauma, the fear coming back to me. When I left off the previous post (Being Jacob’s Dad, Part 10: Months 4, 5 and 6), we had managed to do the eye surgery and learned to put Jacob’s lenses in, and I felt I could start to breathe again.  » Read the rest

Posted in Family, To Be Updated | Tagged fatherhood, Jacob, kids, parenting, personal, wife | Leave a reply
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Goals – Weekly roundup (#2017-03)

The Writing Life of a Tadpole
January 23 2017

Some highlights from the last week:

  1. Reading – Fiction: 10 books: Finished Cassandra Clare’s City of Ashes and Jeff Lindsey’s Darkly Dreaming Dexter;
  2. Reviews (Books): Posted two new book reviews (old reads, new reviews);
  3. Reviews (TV): 5 new reviews;
  4. Organize: Fixed ebook setup, including backup of all Amazon downloads;
  5. Cyber: Completed 1 backup of docs and pictures;
  6. Writing (new, other): 3 new posts (not including book reviews, quotes, etc.) takes me to 22, passing the goal of 20 — LEVEL ONE GOAL ACHIEVED;
  7. Baking: I’ve been testing various setups with the bread machine, and FINALLY achieved a decent loaf this weekend!;
  8. Career: Organized, moving ahead with studying for written;
  9. Health maintenance: I completed my sedation dentistry appointment (Fun with the dentist…) — LEVEL ONE GOAL ACHIEVED;

Looks like I’m going to have to start thinking about my Level 2 goals sooner than I thought…four of the 29 are already achieved, and some of the others are ones I can’t complete until much later in the year (one will take until June at the earliest).  » Read the rest

Posted in Goals, To Be Updated | Tagged 2017, development, goals, needle, nudge, personal | Leave a reply
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Goals – Weekly roundup (#2017-02)

The Writing Life of a Tadpole
January 16 2017

Some highlights from the last week:

  1. Reading – Fiction: 10 books: Have read just over half of Cassandra Clare’s City of Ashes;
  2. Reviews (Books): I had committed to 15 old book reviews + 5 new ones, but turns out I only had 9 old ones not yet posted…so I’ll change it to 20 BRs to be posted, of which I have done 10 so far, including all the old ones, an additional 4 this week, plus I’m not counting that I did a really good reorg of my ebook files earlier and a tweaking update this week;
  3. Reviews (TV): 12 tweets of shows this week;
  4. Andrea: One NAC outing this week, plus several “conversation” dates where we just hang out in the house and chat…I know, total craziness!;
  5. Jacob: Finished Disney Infinity together, he is over the moon excited — INITIAL LEVEL ONE GOAL ACHIEVED FOR FINISHING ONE GAME WITH HIM;
  6. Writing (new, other): 4 new posts;
  7. Astrophotography: While I haven’t “achieved” anything this week on it, I did have a good exchange with an outreach organizer for the local astronomy group, and he is looking into ideas of how to setup some 1:1 mentoring type actions, including possible AP mentor(s) for me!;
  » Read the rest
Posted in Goals, To Be Updated | Tagged 2017, development, goals, needle, nudge, personal | Leave a reply

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