Reading Time: 2 minutesWho You Gonna Call? Not the Turtles! TEN EPISODES! Isn’t that amazing! At double digits now! It’s probably ok to retire now, right? Call it quits after hitting this milestone. Well, for this episode it’s a nostalgic trip to our childhood, as Al and myself …Read More….
Reading Time: < 1 minuteSurvey Says! Two shows in a row! One more, and it’ll probably be some sort of record for me. Also a record, is the amount of shows done by two guys who quit their last show because they could never get together to record. (That’s …Read More….
Ani-mani, and Totally Insaney
Beardy and I are back and we’re tackling the heavy hitting issues of today. Like when is the best time to take down your holiday decorations. How you should decorate for Valentine’s Day. And much more!
We get into the excitement and adventure that is raising boys. It’s a full-of-surprises kind of experience where one minute you can be greeted with a hug, and five minutes later you’re staring down the barrel of a nerf gun listening to the demands of a terrorist. Good times!
Speaking of terrorists, the U.S. Capitol was sieged last week. And while I typically stay far away from such topics, we couldn’t resist touching on this historic event. We shared our thoughts and we both felt like we held back from being more blunt. But bottom line is nothing positive or any understanding reasoning can be taken from the events of that day.
Anyway, topics got away from us and it turned into a 1.5 hour show. Who knew! Hope you enjoy and stay safe till next week.
Links and Info Discussed
Contact The Talking Place
If you’d like to contact the show, say hi, all that jazz, you can do so below!
Voicemail – (407)906-TALK
Twitter – @TheTalkingPlace, @The1llusiveMan
Email – TalkingPlacePod@gmail.com
If you’re looking to join me for an episode, don’t be shy and get at me at the above links and we’ll chat!
Reading Time: 12 minutes—UPDATE BELOW POST— This is going to be a no frills post. No pics, just rambling. Lots has happened and I just want to get it out there. I know this is personal and not really something a lot of people can or will share. …Read More….
Reading Time: 8 minutesIn my last post where I finally officially introduced our daughter to everyone, I mentioned that I was pretty proud of our announcement. Even though we shared it to social media and not to here. We already discussed this, you’re not mad, remember? So I …Read More….
WOW, OK. So, things have changed a bit, huh? Yikes, where do I even start? Not even personally, either. As a whole, the world has gone completely mad. Like if you were to call IT on it, they would tell you to turn it off and turn it back on again. I could go on and on with the insanity we’ve all been dealing with out there the past few months, and don’t even get me started on all the civil unrest going on thanks to social injustices. But that’s for another post. Or podcast. I have a podcast, did you know? Because I completely forgot! I’m such a terrible person to follow for anything. I feel horrible for not keeping up with stuff lately, I truly do. At least I got a few episodes out the past 2 weeks! To be honest, I’m usually ok and feel no remorse for not updating. I used to, but a wise man with a beard once said to just own it. Why apologize every post, just dance like no one is watching. Or something like that. But lately, I’ve been absolutely riddled with guilt and I have no excuse.
Oh wait, I lied.
World, I officially introduce you to our daughter, Liliana Elyse!
As of this writing she’s 4 months young and she couldn’t be more perfect. Unlike daddy, who took 4 months to get off his lazy rump to post this announcement. But hopefully she forgives me. Maybe when she gets older she’ll read the opening to this and google “the world in 2020” and she’ll know why. It’ll be like Leeloo in The Fifth Element when she’s studying human history and gets caught up with all the bad stuff.
It’s crazy to think I haven’t updated this place for that long. I didn’t post anything about the pregnancy which wasn’t our first rodeo but still had us wrangling all new challenges. Like her being breached twice. TWICE! It was absolute craziness. It all went smoothly in the end though. But truth be told, I avoided posting about it here. The fear of the one we lost prior was strong enough to make me hesitant on making an expecting post. I still did it on social media though because.. well, I’ll get into that. But putting her on here felt wrong without first posting about our loss. And I did not want to post about our loss until after Lily was born. It was all very complicated, I know. I wouldn’t expect anything else from this crazy head of mine. I wrote up about our loss if you want to check that out.
Moving onward, that announcement. We were pretty proud! It was all the wife’s idea. She had her plan and of course, I couldn’t stop my creative juices if I wanted to. The goal was to announce at Universal Studios (yeah, NOT Disney, what’s up with that?!) right in front of Hogwarts Castle. Thanks to my sister in NYC who made the letterings for us, we were able to put together a nice little announcement with the boys and their wands. We held up traffic on what is possibly the busiest narrow bridge in the park but honestly I didn’t feel bad.
I’m totally making a follow-up post to this with a little how-to on how I made that sign. Sorry, I’m still ridiculously proud of myself, so yeah, you’re going to hear about it. If you’re reading this now, just check out the next post by date and it’ll be there.
It’s still crazy to think or even say that we have a daughter now. Or to tell the boys something about their sister. Usually it’s “your sister is SLEEPING!” because they’re constantly home now and couldn’t be quiet if you paid them. Trust me, I tried. But having a daughter now is an absolute blessing. Either way, boy or girl, would’ve been a blessing. But you know, being able to “complete the set” was something we were really hoping on doing. Oh yeah, I didn’t mention that we never find out what we’re having. We have a ton of fun watching everyone who cares about knowing the gender suffer because they want to know more than we do. But we love the surprise. Like a Christmas gift that comes out of the wife’s… you know, where christmas gifts come from. So the entire pregnancy the wife was doing everything short of building a shrine of bows and Barbie dolls to pray to in order to have a girl. Well who knows, maybe she did have a secret shrine somewhere because it worked. Our Pokédex is complete.
It’s only been a few months but we’re embracing everything we can with having a girl. Trying to buy as much pink stuff as possible, the wife going absolutely mad with clothes, and… no, wait, you know what, let’s focus on that for a sec.
A long time ago, before kids, my wife was set on the thought that if we had a daughter, she would never, EVER, dress her in this “stupid girly girl” stuff. Froo-froo ruffles, bows as big as the baby’s head, she was all against it, that “she won’t be that type of mother.” But now? Now it’s like a monster has been awoken. We already have an entire closet just for Lily’s clothes. An entire closet.. for a 4 month old. And then some, too, because that’s just the nice stuff. It’s madness! Her BFF from work put her onto this boutique thing and she almost exclusively got all her clothes from there. Nice, unique looking stuff too. She described it to me one day, and said it’s unique enough to differentiate from the “Carter’s kids,” as her nose subconsciously pointed itself up towards the sky. But then she discovered this other boutique type store that focuses more on Disney themes with the occasional non-Disney cartoon or franchise thrown in there. R.I.P. bank account, I hardly knew thee.
It’s real entertaining to watch too, seeing her get excited for new releases, try and plan to see what can be resold, trying to get a good spread of clothes in various sizes. I’ll tell her I like this one style she bought and she’ll try to contain her excitement as she tells me she bought one just like it for when Lily is a year old. She tells me about women who would post to the group saying they have to sell off all the clothes they bought their kid because their husband just found out how much money they spent on it all. Honestly, I hope she doesn’t stop. Why? Because she’s happy. You have no idea. I’ve waited YEARS for the wife to find something that makes her happy. I’ve tried getting her into crocheting, and that lasted about 6 minutes. Tried to have my love for LEGO and video games rub off on her, and nothing even comes close to pique her interest. She’s not the type to have a ridic amount of hobbies like me. But seeing her collect and get excited and plan what Lily will be wearing, it all reminds me of me. And I’m glad she gets to experience all that excitement for herself. And the best part? I get to get excited over a new record or LEGO set or game, and I know she’ll understand my struggle now. I’ve waited years for this.
We’ve all waited years for this it seems. It’s all exciting for everyone. The boys love Lily, which is good, because you never know how siblings will react. And just like them, the dog wants to do nothing but play with her and lick and smell her feet. We always have to keep his distance though because we’ve seen what he does with that tongue.
All in all, the past 4 months have been a blessing, and God willing, we’ll continue to be blessed. The one thing that we’re really bummed out about is that thanks to the pandemic, who knows when we’ll be able to go to Disney again. Whenever we do feel comfortable going – because even when they open we’re not going near there for a while – we’re excited to finally have an excuse to meet and take pictures with all the Princesses. I know, we say that now, not thinking ahead a few years when she’s wanting full replica gowns and all the other crazy expensive girly stuff. Oh man, this kid is going to be so spoiled, it’s not even funny.
Bwahaha, “going to be.” As if she’s not already spoiled.
Oh, I can’t believe I almost forgot the game system picture!
See, way back in 2010, when our first was born, I was playing the role of superdork and I sent in a picture to PlayStation The Official Magazine with my PSP. At the time, they had a ongoing thing where people posted pictures of all the random places they brought their PSP. The picture won me Letter of the Month!
Fast forward to 2013, I took another picture with my second, this time with my PS Vita. No magazine this time to send it in to, but I figured why not since it was something I did before because, you know, nerd. So of course, here we are. Third kid and now I feel like I’m obligated to be this geek father. So I snapped one with Lily and my Nintendo Switch. In hindsight, it’s a great way to show how the technology evolved with time. The wife also pointed out that it fits how it’s the Switch and we switched from boys to a girl. Took her long enough to start coming out with the mom jokes.
Anyway, I’m sure you’ll see plenty of her on social media. Funny, we told ourselves we weren’t going to be posting our new baby’s pictures everywhere. That lasted about 15 minutes into her life. At least now I have the guilt off my chest of not dedicating a post to Lily!
Reading Time: 2 minutesEpisode 006 | LEGO Loving Fools It’s been over a year in post-production but I’m finally getting this episode out! Once again, apologies to Mr. Ve6a5 for slacking so much. But hey, if you’re a fan of LEGO, this one’s for you! Matt has been …Read More….
Reading Time: 2 minutesEpisode 005 | As Long As We Got Each Other WELCOME to episode 5! FIVE! That’s so exciting and so sad at the same time. It’s ok though, because as long as we got each other, we got the world spinnin’ right in our hands. …Read More….
I said in the last post that maybe writing about our family dog passing would probably help me build up the strength to write about something harder. I wasn’t going to do them back to back. I was going to space it with better news in between, but I guess ripping the bandaid off would be the best way to do it.
And that’s what the point of this is. To show that it’s ok for the father to hurt too.
To be clear before we go any further, like I said, I’m writing this with my wife’s blessing. Matter of fact, she’s the one that brought it up that I should do it. She knows the therapeutic ability writing has for me and knew this would probably be the best way for me to get out what I need to get out. I tend to keep to myself when things bother me. Which you may or may not know, is the absolute worst thing you can do. Keeping things bottled up for the sake of being strong, even if you’re doing it for those around you, is a good way to explode into a catastrophic mess. But hey, we all have our faults.
I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t some sort of guilt. Like clapping for someone who just gave a speech about why it’s hard to live with one hand.
And that’s where we’re stuck.
Because we did our part in the process and everything else after is basically emotional support. Sadly, it’s not always a straight shot from start to finish where everything is great. The path you were both ready to venture on can deviate and put you on a dark road. And it’s beyond anyone’s control. No prevention could’ve been taken, no preparation for that abrupt stop in your journey. You’re thrown into a dark and scary forest and you’re forced to find the road back to town again. There’s a million different emotions and thoughts going on and it’s the woman who has to go through it all. As a man, what is there to do besides console and hold and try your damndest to comfort?
Keeping things bottled up for the sake of being strong, even if you’re doing it for those around you, is a good way to explode into a catastrophic mess.
I’m not saying you can’t feel terrible. It’s a loss for you all the same. But with it not being our body dealing with everything happening, it’s hard to put yourself on the same level and easy to forget you have a right for feeling loss too. I tried to stay strong. I listened and held and reassured. But I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t some sort of guilt. Like clapping for someone who just gave a speech about why it’s hard to live with one hand. You can’t put yourself in that mindset though. It has the potential to be one of the hardest things you and your partner go through, and disconnecting yourself may do more harm than good. You need to be there. You need to feel it too, and most importantly, it’s OK to feel it too.
Be strong, be that stone your wife needs to rest upon. Just don’t forget it’s ok to need a stone yourself.
Because generally, you don’t hear or read about many men who are going through this. It’s a woman’s body and mind in that battle, not ours. Who are we to discuss and feel and share feelings about losing a child. About saying goodbye to an unknown piece of you. About never knowing this person that never had a chance, that you know you would’ve given your life to protect. Who are we to feel pain, despite having no physical wound that needs healing?
Yes, that’s right. We’re the fathers.
We don’t birth and nurse children. We don’t carry for 9 months, living a life for two people. But we are integral to their creation. Half of the reason why that miracle occurs. No, we cannot fathom what mothers are going through during a loss, but that doesn’t mean we can’t feel the pain. And don’t let anyone tell you or make you feel otherwise. Be strong, be that stone your wife needs to rest upon. Just don’t forget it’s ok to need a stone yourself.
So much is happening so fast, and as a man, it’s hard to think about what you should or shouldn’t be feeling.
I can only hope I cleared some fog, because I know when that storm was overhead, it was hard to see straight. So much is happening so fast, and as a man, it’s hard to think about what you should or shouldn’t be feeling. What you are and aren’t allowed to respond to. Well, don’t let that cloud you anymore. The time you’re going through is dark, but you don’t need to navigate it that way. Cast your light and hold your partner tight as you move forward down the path you’re taking. For as long as you both agree and share that mutual connection, the bond will be enough to carry you to the sunshine again.
And just to close out on something positive. Remember, this all happened in April of 2019. Well, as of the end of January 2020, we are about 2 weeks away from welcoming our 3rd child. We were on the fence as to whether or not we were going to have a third for a long time. Like… a long time. But we finally decided to just do it and go for it. And then, after the miscarriage, we were almost destroyed enough to not try. Taking it as a sign to not have a third. We let a few months pass before we agreed we would try one more time. We in no way had the strength to go through this multiple times. And I cannot commend enough those who suffer through numerous losses, trying to bring a child into the world. We are aware how blessed we are and know how easy it could have gone a different direction. We cannot wait to meet number 3, but we currently, and always will remember the one we lost. In the back of our minds, that child will always be there with us.