Perfect Perception of Possible Scenarios.

As some of you may have noticed, that is you are there to notice (if a person blogs in the forest and there's no one to read it do people even notice?)... I have been writing a bit about me, how I feel and my parents.

It's therapeutic and it does shed some light on things that I see, and live daily.

That's not all there is though, I have been writing to find my centre, my precise spot of comfort, they say that the only way to get good at writing is to do it daily and often, hey no matter how lousy you are, if you can engage just ONE person, you can definitely make a difference; so I am making a habit of writing.

I also write in the off-chance that it will create some sort of enlightening circumstance in my day where something I put here, will actually make me write some more about different things.

Right now, it's mostly thoughts on "paper", I believe on this as a journal, so while I may not put life changing thoughts here, it is indeed a mind-dump of my personal life.

I write in order to make myself a better dad as well, I look back on my experiences with my parents, and I try to gain an insight on what it was that made them such great parents, at least according to my experience of course.

I do this, in order to really make a difference on my son as well.

As some of you may know, I am a first time parent, while I am 33, this whole experience of caring for a little human being is a completely alien and horrifying scenario at times.

So, I want to be better and more than that, the best I can be at it.

I read a few blogs a day, and today, I read this on the Art of Manliness about how "The Child is the Father to the Man", if you have a few minutes, go ahead and give it a read.

So, I've always thought that whatever upbringing you have, whatever choices your parents made, and how you learn to react to them, will mould the person and practical Grown human being you end up being.

With my son, my approach is that of a friendly father figure, I don't know the "stern driver" of a Dad doesn't quite suit with me.

We do things together, and I do things FOR him, while I teach (or try to) how and why I do things and take decisions.

He is 7 though, so following my train of thought is not always that straight forward (that may also be because sometimes I can't even follow where I started or ended up with the idea myself), but it's a fun exercise.

A few days ago, we had our Independence Day celebration, I am not the most nationalist person in this country.  BY FAR not the right person to teach how to love this country.  I like it, don't get me wrong, but I've been exposed to the fallacies of politics and the idiotic behaviour of steadfast nationalist bigots, to know that it's not in me to try and sell that to a child.

But it's also my civic duty to do so, and I may as well do things right for him and future generations.

So, this weekend we made a "farolito".  You know how you get fireworks commemorating the rockets and the fighting that the US went for on their fight for independence?  Well, here we actually make lanterns in remembrance of how hard it was back in the 1800s to get a message through the whole of Central America of independence.  People walked, rode horses, mules or whatever they could find with torches or lanterns to light their way.  So the WHOLE celebration has a runner with the Torch of Independence going through the country, and the kids, well the kids celebrate with their own version of it.

Over the years, it has gotten more and more elaborate, back when I was a child, it was good common place to just have a simple lantern with a candle inside, and we used to march through the street on the 14th of September with our lanterns and sing the national Anthem.

These days schools STILL ask us to make the lanterns (some are even ok with store bought though) and for the family to go to school and celebrate.

So, being the way I am, I dove into it wholeheartedly.  You know, for Jr.

Coffee, cutting mat and materials

Ideally, this would not have been a coffee fueled binge of creativity, but as luck would have it, I though Jr was going away for the weekend and that assistance WAS NOT mandatory.  I was wrong on both accounts and it was all for the better to be honest. 

Deep in the realms of Cutting on board...

I decided to go with an "adobe house" or what people believe was the custom here ages ago (about 192 years ago if you go by independence date).  I like making things with my hands, and I like to believe myself to be meticulous in the undertakings, so I did it to scale, 1:50.  Totally unnecessary as it was just supposed to be lighted up later, but I can't help it, I couldn't just build it haphazardly.

AS such though I didn't want to do it all alone, after all this is a family task, so Jr did the painting and colouring  bit messy, but all his!

Indeed we had a bit of fun on that (to be honest I cringed at the thought of it being less than perfect but I'm learning about this parenting thing as I go as I mentioned).

Light off final house

With our little "torch" light inside

In the end of course it was his face which lit the brightest, I still don't know if I am doing everything right, I actually think I am not going "by the book" on a lot of these things, but I am learning and pushing myself at it.

To do things with our hands is in reality what separates us from animals, our use of tools and our creative ability.  To squander that gift just because stores sell things, I believe is one of our gravest mistakes; and one I hope he doesn't make.  But this is definitely something I need to preach by example, only by doing can I show him the need and the satisfaction of it.

“What a man knows should find its expression in what he does. The value of superior knowledge is chiefly in that it leads to a performing manhood.” –Christian Nestell Bovee

So, if I want for my son to be a great father as a boy to himself as an adult, I must act and perform that way myself, as such he is also, as a boy, a father to me; in a way that I learn from him by performing, and doing myself, and hoping that "my best" is indeed good enough.