Christmas Joy

The last two years have been really rough for us. In 2009, my full-time job ended with the year. I continued on half time with that company until they imploded (oh, the stories I could tell) in late summer 2010. Then I went about 6 months without any income at all, then another 9 months or so at half-time employment again. We had pretty much the difficulties you’d expect during that time frame. A tight, tight budget. Our house got foreclosed on. We had to move to find work. We had to rely on student loans and support from friends and family to pay our bills. And even so, we had a couple of weeks when I didn’t know how I was going to feed Primus the following week – and even a couple of spots where I didn’t know how I was going to feed him the next day.

But God, family, and friends watched over us – and hallelujah for that, because Uncle Sam’s Welfare Club sure as hell didn’t. In all that time, the only government help we received, local, state or federal, was about $3000 in Earned Income Tax Credit for tax year 2010. And I can’t tell you how happy we were that it showed up so long after it really would’ve done us the most good.

But I digress. God, family, and friends did watch over us, and with their help we did manage to feed our son, and ourselves, every single day. And now things are picking up. The company I’ve been working part time for this year landed a new contract late in the year. Not only did I get bumped up to full time, but I’m now making 40% more than I did at my last full time job. This was the plan all along (the founders of the company are long time friends and coworkers), but it took longer than expected to get the new contract in place. Still, it did finally happen. Those of you who have missed this blog, well, I miss it too – but I’m happier to be fully employed and paid again, and sometimes that’s the trade you make.

This is the first Christmas in three years that we’ve actually had some spare cash to make it a real Christmas. Maybe we went a little bit overboard for our son, but oh well. He’s 2, he won’t get it. But we feel the joy and celebration, and we’re happy to do it this year. We’re thankful to be where we are, and our thoughts and prayers go out to everyone else out there who’s been hit hard by Great Depression 2.0. Many of you have been hit far, far harder than we have. May God guide you through the tough times as well.

Best of all, we end this year with a new addition to our family. Our baby girl, little Secunda, joined us this week. Despite his young age, Primus has exceeded our highest hopes in how warmly he’s welcomed her into the family. Considering that this hardship for us began with the birth of one child, I can’t think of a more poetic way to bookend it than with the birth of another. Merry Christmas to all, and may you all find the same joy that we have this year.

Roughhousing

Am I the only one who thinks it’s really pathetic that SWPL types have to take classes on roughhousing with their kids? On the other hand, at least there’s “expert support” for it now so maybe it’ll have something of a comeback.

My entire immediate family got together over the Memorial Day holiday for the first time in a number of years. My sister lives almost on the other side of the continent and one of my brothers lives in another state, so we don’t all get together much. I spent a little (and I mean a little) bit of time roughhousing with my two year old niece. The reaction from her mother?

“We’ll see how she reacts to that. She’s not used to roughhousing.”

Sad. My son, who is about 8 months younger, is so used to roughhousing (and loves it so much) that now he’ll climb on top of the couch to throw himself off onto the seat cushion, laughing like a madman the whole time. We took him to the pool for the first time last week. While we were out there, one of the local kids did a cannonball right next to us. My son’s eyes opened wide and he got a huge grin. I have no doubt that he’d have been doing it himself five seconds later if he could swim (not yet; we’re about to sign him up for swimming lessons later this summer).

Don’t let your kid be a pansy. Start roughhousing with them at a young age and don’t stop. Be careful (duh), and keep it age appropriate (double duh). But do it. Mothers and fathers both.

Small Children and Friends

Our unmarried and childless friends are more relaxed and accepting of our small child than our friends who are married with children. This isn’t universally true, but it is a generalization that holds up pretty well. Not sure what it says about society, but there you have it.

Happy Marriages and Children

It’s been a busy week and I’ve found myself stressed at the end of the day and not much inclined to writing blog posts. But tonight I’ve been a bit inspired by Dalrock and his commenters. He asks people to share their happy marriage stories. I was going to do it in the thread with everyone else, but I just feel like I have more to say than that.

The first thing that really hit me was in the original post:

Every night I put our son to bed;  no matter what is going on he always makes me laugh.  Actually I make him laugh first by tickling him and he makes me laugh by being so contagious with his wide mouthed grin.

There are an awful lot of men in the manosphere who don’t have children. Some of them are betas or omegas who never had the chance. Some of them are PUAs who refuse to settle down. Some of them are MGTOWs who have consciously chosen to stay away from it. And some of them just haven’t gotten to it yet.

To all of those who have consciously chosen not to do so I just have to say that you’re missing out on one of the most amazing experiences you can possibly have. Yes, it’s cliche to say it. Yes, it’s a hell of a lot of work. Yes, children will “put a crimp on your style” (but nowhere near as much as you might think). Yes, it’ll cost you money (but again, you don’t have to spend anywhere near as much as people will make you think).

But then you have the moments like Dalrock describes, and they more than make up for it. There’s just no way to explain it to somebody who hasn’t felt it. If my marriage went to shit tomorrow and my wife took me to the cleaners I’d be pretty pissed, sure, and more than a little depressed. And I’d still consider it worthwhile every time I looked at the little guy. The conventional wisdom of our age is that pregnancy and/or wanting to have kids is a terrible reason to get married. I disagree. I think having children is the best reason to get married.

I can only imagine how much more excitement the new little one that’s on the way will bring.

I was also struck by this comment that Paige left.

My marriage has had a lot of hills and valleys. The valleys include: extreme poverty, job loss, homelessness, many cross-country moves to find jobs, cancer and chemotherapy, debilitating back injury and subsequent surgeries, frequent unexpected pregnancies, giving birth (twice) with husband overseas, homelessness, war, PTSD, trouble-making family members, drug-addiction (to subscribed pain meds), severe depression, bankruptcy, etc etc etc.

My own marriage hasn’t been perfect. Anybody who’s read this blog for any length of time knows that – if it had been perfect, this blog wouldn’t exist. But here are some things that have happened in the last two years that I haven’t talked about much on this blog:

• I got laid off.
• Our house got foreclosed on.
• I had to sell my sports car to pay the bills.
• I had to accept money from my parents to pay the bills.
• Despite all of the above, we’ve had a couple of weeks when I wasn’t sure we had the money for groceries.
• We moved twice within a 6 month span, both times more because we had to than because we wanted to.

Through all of this, my wife has had to watch all of the other undergrads (including some of her family) collecting nice clothes, nice phones, iPads, video game systems and more that we simply can’t afford right now. It hasn’t been easy for either one of us, but there’s no doubt that all of this has played hell with the typical female hypergamous instincts.

Yet despite all of this we’re generally closer and happier now than we were a year ago. This is not our first bout with adversity. Before we were married we watched her family implode all around her, leaving a wake of destruction that almost destroyed my career along with the wreckage. That, too, only brought us closer.

Now that we’re getting our feet under us again things are continuing to get better. Things are going pretty well at my new job, and as soon as a few contract issues are sorted out (between my company and others), our income will be higher than ever. It’s been a long and rocky road, but we made it together.

The irony is that after learning Game I probably could “trade up” for a younger and hotter wife. I’d even say that I’ve had a couple of opportunities to do so. Well, one at least who was younger and hotter. Another who was younger and significantly less hot. But would they have stayed with me through everything listed above? Or would they have bailed like most modern American women would? I picked a woman who would stay through it, and I’d choose her again. You might say that I do choose her again every day.

I don’t go around trumpeting it to everybody I know, but yes, I have a happy marriage.

Permanent PMS is Over

I know this because I just had sex with a pregnant woman.

A while back I mentioned that my wife had been stuck in permanent PMS mode due to our transition (again) from a Standard American Diet (SAD) to a paleo style diet. My wife had a positive ovulation prediction test about two weeks ago. As has been mentioned, the fertile period of the month is a great one for the libido. Let’s just say, ahem, that it was a damn good weekend – but then, the results speak for themselves.

Update: Whoops, I almost forgot the most important part:

Do ya’ll see what I did? Oh yeah!