When we went to see Spider-Man this past long weekend there was a quote in the movie that I really like from Aunt May. “When you help someone, you help everyone.” Every interaction that you have with people will have some sort of impact on them. It is your choice to determine whether that will be positive or negative. Mel and I talk about positive intent all of the time and we differ slightly in the nuances of the situation. She is of the believe that everyone is doing their best in the situation based on circumstances. Xavier and I argued that not every situation leads to positive intent because you may have difficult situations where you may not be doing what you believe is the best situation. I think inherently we believe the same thing, but the difference lies in perceived reasoning for the actions. What we do agree on though is that you should be intentional about helping or impacting others. It takes effort and work. You need to do this without expectation and know that your act extends well beyond that moment. I think that this is important because at times I can be rather grumpy and I get easily annoyed at people. It is easy to help people when you get praise and recognition, but it is much more difficult when your actions go unnoticed. When I can I try and help Mel as much as I can with various cleaning, but it takes quite the toll on me and can drain me. I spent 2.5 hours making burritos for the family because of how particular I am. I will happily spend hours in the kitchen without complaint and while I am in the kitchen working time stands still and things are effortless. Until I crash and I need to sit down because I can not longer stand because of me using all of my energy. This is my way of contributing back to the family though and what the ripple effect has been is that our kids appreciate cooking and food and recognize the effort. Soon we will have them prepare meals for us and I am excited to see what they do. There are a lot of small things that Mel does for me and I am not sure if I always recognize them or acknowledge them to her. The lack of recognition from everyone in the household has an impact because the base sentiment is that it is taken for granted. When we all do a small part to help her out with her chores, it helps everyone in the family as all of the work and responsibilities do not fall on one person. It is the middle of the night and a question to ponder is, “When people leave my presence, do they feel more capable of giving love to the next person?” With our busy lives, Mel always reminds me thatv I need to give time to the kids without them feeling the need to earn it. It is not about grand gestures, but do I remember what is important to them. A couple of years ago, during covid i had run across something on reddit, with a community called because i said I would. There is a website and promise cards associated with it, but the premise was that people do not keep promises and the intent was to inspire to keep their promises. They are a non-profit in the states and they are trying to change intention to action. When Olivier was a kid in school he called out one of his teachers for soemthing that did not happen. He called her a liar and told her that she did not keep her promise. I can not remember what it was about exactly, but the teacher told us about it in amusement at the parent-teacher session. I do believe that Mel and I try to keep our word whenever we tell the kids that we are going to do something. I do not recall us ever breaking our promise, but I could be wrong about it. I think that it is important in building trust with your kids that you follow through. Both kids know that I carry through with my punishments when I give them consequences so they will generally behave. Browsing through some reddit and some of the parenting groups there are some groups that recommend asking your kids whether they feel safe sharing bad news with you or how do they feel when you are angry with them. I try but I do not always succeed, but we try to encourage them to share when they screw up and we work through it together. It is important to us that they know that they are supported and that we will tackle the problem together. I must admit that Mel is better at it than I am.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When I was a teenager and a young adult I excelled at remembering small things said in passing from my friends. In times of need I would help them our or remind them how much they were loved. They felt supported because I noticed what had to be done and did it. An interesting side effect from this was that I would end up breaking up relationships of my female friends because they recognized what they boyfried should be. In these instances I was always a platonic friend and did not have any intentions of starting a relationship with them. Of course as a male I could have and was probably completely oblivious to any advances or romantic gestures that they may have made. I am not sure how Mel and I ended up in a relationship seeing as how bad I am at picking up signals. I cringely remember a time a girl told me that I should ask her out on a date, and I replied that is a fantastic idea and walked away. If that was not a clear sign I do not know what was. The fact was that I was oblivious to this because I was helping them out with positive intent to make their lives better without thinking what I would get out of it. I do not think that my sister liked any of my female friends that I had until she met Mel. Her and Mel are close and they talk and share things that I have no interest in knowing about. Mel will ask me if I know anything about my sister and relationships and I flat out tell her I do not, nor do I have any interest. If and when she introduces me then I will engage with them, otherwise I do not want to know.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I made dinner tonight and I wanted to try a technique that I saw a bunch of chefs online recommend. Mel saw it too, so I figured, why not. Needless to say it did not turn out very well and my method of doing things are much superior. Mel was laughing at me because she knew how annoyed I was about it. The kids were making fun of me for it as well. I do find it entertaining at how much pleasure my friends and family get when I screw up. I do not like making mistakes and Mel and the kids are aware of this, so when I do make them they like to tease me mercilessly about it. They liked the side dishes that I made, but the main dish which was the protein was less than ideal. I think what made them love it is that normally I am always a good cook, but I do screw up at times and they can see that it is not a big deal. They know that I will be mad at myself for it, but I do not throw a fit, nor do we let it derail what we are doing. We ate the meal, critiqued how inedible it was and tried to make the best of it. I think that by Mel teasing me, it showed them that it is ok to make mistakes, and we can make fun of it and there is no need to get emotional about it or defensible. I owned it and said that it sucked and that I would not do that again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The way that we show love and appreciation for each other differs person by person. Olivier said that I am not a robot and that I am human with my mistakes today which entertained me. He shows his affection openly when we are at home and is not shy to come up to us and give us random hugs or burst into our room to show us affection. This is not always great because Mel will sometimes be changing or I will be. They have yet to burst into the room when this has happened, but Mel said that they will be traumatized as soon as they burst in and see us naked. My parents have never vocalized their love to us, but they show it to us through the actions and their sacrifices. It is something that you do not notice until you have matured as you do not necessarily understand it as a kid. My sister is always there when and if I need her and she is selfless and will drop everything to help out. My brother is more quiet and helps out when he cans. He is far more willing to help out Mel or the kids than myself. My friends and I played a lot of tricks on him when he was a child, yet he always helped me out and would spend his own money to do things for me. Tim is quiet and I never know what he is thinking. Xavier is like me and does not show much emotion, but he is silently appreciative and he knows that he is spoiled. As my illness has progressed and he has gotten stronger he has taken on more of a protective role and will always help me out without question when I ask without complaint. It is hard to describe what Mel means to me and our family. What she has undertaken in the last year is beyond what most people must endure in their lifetime and she does it without complaint. I realized that I can try and help her out with little things as much as I can. I am careful of making promises because I can not always deliver depending on how I am doing. She is understanding of it, but if I do promise her something I am going to try and deliver. Because I said I would. I want to prove that I can do it. The small things alleviate pressure on her and she does not feel like she is doing everything on her own. Whenever we did chores she would want to do them at the same time so she does not feel like she is doing it on her own. I would use to do them prior and then she would not always be happy. What we do now is do chores at a family and we do it rapidly and it seems to be working well. I need to document what Mel means to me for my legacy document so she can understand it better. I just need to get around on figuring out how to translate what is in my head onto paper. The issue is that when I lead with my head it sounds so technical and it is missing my heart. It is not a style that I am use to writing in and I will need to practice to get better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Quoc Hao<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When we went to see Spider-Man this past long weekend there was a quote in the movie that I really like from Aunt May. “When you help someone, you help everyone.” Every interaction that you have with people will have some sort of impact on them. It is your choice to determine whether that will…<\/p>\n