The Road to 40 Day 195/365: Brunch With A Fellow Housedad

In this day and age, it’s almost difficult to reconnect with old friends because there’s always a lingering feeling that they’re looking to ask something from you.

Personally, I love talking to old friends. If they remember me enough to reach out and talk to me, then I must have done something right during the time that we were acquainted.

One such friend dropped by Singapore, and he reached out to meet up. I haven’t seen Reno since maybe after we graduated in 1998, but thanks to technology, we still somehow keep up with what the other is doing.

When we were in Sydney, I planned on meeting up with him, but the plan fell through. We hoped to catch up someday, and that happened now that he and his family were in Singapore for a bit.

During my early years in the Little Red Dot, I would be disappointed when people came over and didn’t reach out to meet up with me. However, I have come to realize that people have their own things going on, and it’s really difficult to squeeze me in on their plans. As such, I have learned to be patient, and just wait for friends to reach out if they had time for me.

I dropped Vino off in school and headed somewhere near Reno’s hotel.

Knowing he had two daughters, I thought that they might opt not to go out if it was raining. Thankfully, there was just a super light drizzle and we were able to still walk around.

Reno and I didn’t have a real deep connection when we were kids, but we did play basketball and didn’t have any sort of beef. I knew him as a real nice guy, and he was smart as well – he was one of the guys I had to target in the top 10 ranking of our class.

Apart from that, we didn’t keep in touch until Facebook happened. I know that he’s a Nets fan, from New Jersey to Brooklyn. I would sometimes give him crap for it through comments, but it leads to pretty good basketball discussions.

Naturally, we would have a lot of things to talk about. I learned that he’s a housedad like me. He decided to take a step back from the professional world because he thought his wife had a better career trajectory, and they didn’t want the kids to grow up exclusively on day care centers.

We shared our experiences, some of the challenges we face, and the rewards of being a dad. It’s like I met a workmate.

See, when I meet people and they learn that I’m a housedad, it results in a variety of reactions – both positive and negative ones. I do have college friend in JM who is in a similar situation like mine, but he’s in a more advanced stage of parenting as he has teenagers. For Reno, he has a four-year-old and a two-year-old, so it felt closer to the life stage I’m in right now.

His four-year-old was adorable. She’s very talkative, and didn’t really need a lot of time to warm up to me. Like any kid, she’d cut through our discussion, and I would sometimes stop and listen to what she had to say.

There were some rides near the playground of Paragon Plaza, and she kept asking to ride one. Reno didn’t want to me to indulge her, but I’m very easily persuaded by kids who have good energy. The fact that she’s a girl makes it more likely for me to get her the things that she wants.

I buy Vino a lot of things, but I’ve told Che countless times that if we were girl parents, I’d be spending a lot more on our kid.

We talked over brunch while his younger kid slept in her stroller and the other watched something on his phone. I appreciated his perspectives and his stories, and I’m just happy to see that he is genuinely happy being a dad.

He’s tired, but who isn’t, especially with two kids?

I’m thankful that he spared time to see me, despite plenty of other things he could have done here in Singapore.

I walked with them back to their hotel, and I made my way to pick up Vino. Along the way, I passed by Dunkin Donuts, so I got him a couple of his favorites.

When we got home, we set an hour for a bit of studying on his activity book. I seriously want to refresh his academic skills because it feels like he knows more about his games than the multiplication table. Answering these with him helps me understand his way of thinking in problem solving and things.

We agreed on this hour, but he’s a bit strict on the timing, as he set a timer on his tablet for one hour.

I ordered in, because he requested for Ippudo since last night. He waited for me to clean up before retreating to the room. I asked him to unbox a couple of things we bought last weekend just to check if they worked.

Che was having dinner for her last night in Indonesia, so Vino and I slept already. He wants to wake up early again tomorrow, and he asked to be woken up before 7am.

We’ll see if he can get up with this late bedtime.