Our New Son: Kaleb

On March 8th our son Kaleb was born. He was born early in the morning after a long night of labor. Peggy will be able to tell you about all the details, she would remember it better than me. It is an experience she won’t forget any time soon.

He is a wonderful addition to our new life and brings us great joy. It took him 3 months to finally sleep through the night and for that we are extremely grateful. Here are some pictures of our wonderful boy. He really does bring some joy to our lives.

To follow in Daddy’s footsteps, Kaleb now has his very own blog.  We will always have more pictures of Kaleb at his blog than here, but since he is our son, I don’t think we can have this blog without pictures of him.

Labor is taking forever…

On Monday we went to see the midwife and at that time Peggy was already 4 cm dilated. This was big news for us because Peggy was already in the second stage of labor and we had no idea that we were in the first. So I took the rest of the day off to get caught up on the last-minute things that I needed to get done before the baby comes. It is now Thursday night and the baby still isn’t here. Her contractions are getting closer and closer together but nothing regular or uncomfortable for her.

This whole waiting game is really killing me. Everywhere I go I’m on edge that Peggy will call or her contractions will spontaneously start becoming stronger and we won’t be able to get to our preferred birth place. I am excited about the whole process and I know that these days are truly exciting knowing that she could go into labor at any time, but the perfectionist in me is pulling his hair out.

I like things to be known and planned for so this whole on-edge feeling wherever I go is uncomfortable. I know Peggy is the one who is pregnant, but I’m the one who is uncomfortable. Once the baby is born, I will definitely look back on these days and laugh at my behavior because I am truly acting like a goof-ball, I even know it now.

Anyway, if there are any other fathers out there who are going through the same thing or have gone through it, any advice or comments are appreciated. Thanks.

Our New Focus at Ryan & Peggy Dot Com

I’ve been thinking about a finding a focus for Ryan & Peggy Dot Com over the last few weeks because without a focues we will just be shooting around in the dark.  Also as long as we don’t have a focus we won’t know when we’ve reached the point where we want to be.  This blog is a place where you will be able to learn about our family as well as grow with us as we go through different stages in our lives.  But I want our blog to be a unique place on the web that makes us different than the millions of other blogs out there.

Our Focus

I have been wracking my brain to discover what makes us unique and how we would be able to focus our blog to give us an edge.  After about a week of thinking about it wherever I went I got an idea of what makes us special from the other 6 billion other people on the planet.  As you may have seen from the pictures on this website, and various home videos that I am Caucasian Canadian and Peggy is Chinese which means our home is a combination of two completely different cultures.

After talking to Peggy about this we decided that our blog will now have a focus on our family but with a special focus on how the Chinese and Canadian cultures impact our marriage and family.  There is no actual way for us to remove our cultures from our marriage and family life because that is the way we grew up so our impression of marriage and family were given to us this way.  So with our website we will accentuate our cultural differences and how they have shaped our marriage and home we’ve made together.  By doing this we will take advantage of our uniqueness to help you learn about our two cultures and what we have done to keep them alive.

A Bonus

Another thing we would like to bring to this website is history and interesting tidbits of each of the cultures to help you understand both cultures better.  I have learned so many things about the Chinese culture since I have been married to Peggy.  I also have learned a lot about myself being married to her and quite a few why and why not’s.  There many things I do that I never knew why, and since Peggy is from another culture she would wonder why so that would challenge me to find out the reason.

I hope you enjoy what we will be bringing to you and if there is anything you would like to know about either culture, please feel free to contact us and we’d love to share.

Do You Have A Life?

On Sunday afternoon I spent the afternoon with a group of friends watching the SuperBowl.  I am not a sports fan but I will get together when others are watching it just for the social atmosphere.  This time was the first time in quite a while that I was able to get out and just hang out with friends in a relaxing atmosphere.  Afterwards, I was very refreshed and felt a way that I hadn’t in many months.

Over the last few months I have been quite busy and didn’t have much time to get out and often when I had the possibility to go out I avoided it.  This was not deliberate, but since I was busy and spending a lot of time by myself or only with Peggy so I was getting out of touch with my social skills so when I was given the opportunity I declined it.  I began to decline invitations more and more because I was growing afraid of interacting with people.  I really don’t know what I was afraid of because people in general aren’t difficult to interact with but I just knew I was afraid.

Ever since we moved into our house there is a never-ending list of things to do around the house so I have had less time than I did when we lived in the apartment.  Also, since Peggy has been pregnant there is a shrinking list of things she is able to do and so mine grows.  And I have been seriously trying to work on this website on a regular basis I haven’t had much time to get out and relax.  Combining all those things together I haven’t had much time for myself nor spending much time with others.

My friend James usually makes a trip down here to watch the SuperBowl and I don’t get to see him very often so I made sure I left that slot of time open to hang out with him and a bunch of others.  It was very good for me because it made me realize how much spending time with others really helps my spirits.  I have been a bit down and grumpy (Peggy can attest to that) but I felt my spirits lift and I’m much happier in my day-to-day life just because I practiced being social.

Why is Social Media so Popular?

Humans are social creatures.  We cannot help it; we need other human beings to really thrive.  Even in the blogging community you read about groups of bloggers getting together because blogging can be a very isolating job.  That is why social media sites are doing so well.  They capitalize on an essential aspect of our humanness.  If we were not social creatures, then websites like Facebook would not have hundreds of millions of users.

Spending time by yourself certainly has its place (how would we get any work done if we didn’t spend time alone?) but we need time to spend with other human beings to connect and grow.  I’m sure all the extroverts are thinking “Well duh, tell me something I don’t know”, but this may be new to some of us introverts.  Extroverts get their strength from other people, by talking to them, hanging out with them, etc. But us introverts gain strength from being alone.  We “recharge” when we are by ourselves.  Please don’t ask us why because we don’t know why, that’s just the way we are.

But as a human being there is a part of us that needs to “recharge” only by being with other people just like in my case.  I was so out of touch with others I was drained and moody.  I have now recieved a boost of energy from my hang out time on Sunday but I must also remember to spend time with other people on a regular basis because that energy will surely run out if I don’t recharge it.

Blogging Can Be Dangerous For Your Health

Yesterday Michael Arrington at TechCrunch posted about a bad experience he had while at the DLD Conference.  He was deliberatly spat on and before he could determine who it was, got lost in the crowd.  It was undoubtedly a flustered individual who didn’t sell his or her idea to Michael and was bitter because of it. 

He also recounts a time when he was afraid for his life because of threats on his life and how he lived in hiding to avoid them.  TechCrunch is a website that focuses on entrepreneurship and technology so why would Michael need to fear for his life?  That must have been a very frustrated individual but it still does not give him the right to threaten others to get what he wants. 

Are threats a sound business practice?

I’m not an expert in proper business practice but I do know that behavior like that will not get you anywhere.  I’m glad that Michael did not give him exposure and an endorsement for spitting in his face.  You must treat others with respect even if it isn’t the outcome you desired.  People, because they are human, deserve respect and when you don’t give it, it gets noticed.  What would happen if one of his potential customers saw him spit in Michael’s face?  Would they be eager to do business with Mr. Spitter? No, certainly not. Well, unless they are fearful that they would get spit on if they refused.

As a business owner, or at least as a friend, I would like to have respect from anyone I meet.  And I don’t mean wanting something more, I just want to be treated in a way that doesn’t involve spitting, yelling or insulting me, my family or my ethics.  This is not hard to do because all you need to do is maintain a level of no-disrespect and you will likely satisfy 90% of the population, including me.  As long as you refrain from disrespecting someone you will likely get in their good books without much work.  Mr Spitter crossed the line and disrespected Michael.

I really appreciate the work that Michael and the crew at TechCrunch are doing because I am a faithful reader and love the content they deliver.  Because of this incident Michael has decided to take some time off from working for a few weeks so I would like to express my understanding and wish him all the best during his time off. 

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