Kiddo waxings

Alden at the Doc



We had a bit of a worry the other night. Alden has been having a little trouble feeding, and the other day he was choking on his milk and seemed to have trouble breathing. We took him to the doctor in the evening, he got checked out but they didn't find anything obviously wrong. Most likely Ilana's milk is coming in more regularly and possibly overwhelming the little sprout. I think things are fine now, we are cautiously observing.

To drop a little insight as a recent parent. For me, having a child is like having a part of my body detached from the rest of me. It's out there in the world and stuff is going to happen to it - and by proxy me, and I'm pretty well powerless. It's a lot to adjust to... this relational shift.

The same kind of shift happened when I got married. With marriage however, the relation shifted from my identity as an individual to my identity as part of a team (the Ilana and Kerstin team). I was already part of the family-I-was-born-into-team, but individualism developed and I kind of see the Ilana Kerstin team as the team I chose myself (we chose ourselves together honey). On a side note this is the major value I see in weddings, because you get all the family and friends around and
explicitly tell everyone about the new team being made, and they implicitly (by showing up and gifting you a blender) support the new team and everyone has a big party celebrating the relational shift. Marriage creates a new relationship with family and friends as well as society (humanity) as a whole.

I would say that marriage redefined my relationship with humanity, and having a kid
redefined my relationship with the universe. Any remnant of individualism I had was lost to the effects of random chance. It really makes apparent the limits of ones abilities. Not only in having a healthy child born, but even the limits of my own energy at the 3am feeding (helping). A child is a physical manifestation of powerlessness. It is a scary thing, but also enlightening... at least I tell myself it's enlightening. I think enlightenment and fear must be very similar.