I feel horrible that my niece’s and nephew’s holiday break with us turned into a terror. I was planning on taking them around DC this week to visit the museums after the crazy holiday weekend, but they decided to leave early. They were terribly irritated and annoyed by their cousins who are my kids.

What hurts me the most is that these two little kids really love their older cousins. They always excited to see them and wanted to play with them. Đán was thrilled to come with me to pick up their cousins when he heard they were coming.

I did not expect my niece and nephew to babysit my kids. My wife and I did our best to feed them and take them out, but none of that mattered. I understand that my kids are not in their best behavior, but they are kids. I know that Đán makes up some of the craziest things at times, but he is just four years old.

I am disappointed with what they had done, but I am glad that my nephew expresses his frustration. Now I know how he feels about the kids that look up to him and want to spend time with him. I was thinking of visiting them this weekend for New Year, but I don’t want to be a pain in the ass.

There’s a scene in Mad Men where Don Draper talked on the phone with his ex-wife Betty about their daughter Sally who got into some trouble. Betty said to Don, “She’s from a broken home.”

As a parent, this is something that I am concern the most about divorce. It has a huge impact on the kids. It is so much easier to move on when no kids are involved. Then again, is it worth sacrificing your own happiness if you are miserable in your relationship for the sake of the kids?

I like to think so, but what the hell do I know?

There’s a scene in Mad Men where Don Draper and his ex-wife Betty reconnected at their son’s camp. After they made love, Betty said to Don about his current wife: “She doesn’t know that loving you is the worst way to get to you.”

What a great line. It does feel like the more you love someone the further you are from that person. When you are not so madly in love, you are more likely to be closer to that person. Loving someone else is hard when you don’t—or you think you don’t—get the same love back.

Love is such a fragile thing. One moment you could be madly in love, but the next moment you could just fall completely out of it. When love dies, it just disappears. We just keep moving on to the next things risking everything we have built together. It’s sad.

There’s a scene in Mad Men where Pete Campbell tried to make love to his wife, but she refused. With humiliation and embarrassment, he said something along this line: “You want to throw away the one thing that matters the most in this relationship?”

Glad to hear I am not the only one thinking this way. Love, kids, money, companionship, and everything else matter in a relationship, but that also is a major part of the package. I am not saying Pete should have done that with another married woman in his neighborhood, but I understand why he did it.

Within just a week at home, the boys drove everyone around them insane. My niece and nephew cut their staying with us short because they could not tolerate the boys, particularly the four years old.

They are not the most respectful kids. They don’t listen more than half of the time. They break down quite easily. They don’t like to share. They have tons of energy.

Most (if not all) of their misbehaves are my fault and responsibility. I fail to discipline my kids properly. I fail to control my emotions when they push my button. Đạo drives me to the wall every time he doesn’t get what wanted, and yet he is such a sweet boy.

Being a father, I want to give my kids the good times and childhood memories, something I never had with my dad. But each day I feel like a failure and with many regrets. At the end of the day, I tell myself to try again the next day. Tomorrow will be a better day. The only failure I am not making is stop trying. I get a third shot at this parenthood thing when the new boy is born.

After writing about the fiasco yesterday, I went to bed. I thought about it today and realized that I was overreacting. I apologized for my behavior.

I am not going to delete that post because I don’t want to sensor myself. What makes blogging so great is that there’s no gatekeeper. I blog whatever I feel at that particular moment, but it doesn’t mean that I always hold on that view. I am always changing and the thoughts on this blog should reflect that. I want to express the vulnerable side of me and how I am continuing to grow.

What I write today doesn’t mean that’s how I feel tomorrow. As a personal journal, I should not have to be restricted. So what you are reading on here is my raw opinion and opinion changes constantly.

In the past month, I had successfully uninstalled Twitter and Facebook apps on the iPhone. In the next few days (before the new year), I will deactivate Facebook as well. I will need to activate it occasionally for work, but other than that I will be off Facebook for a while or maybe for good.

I am not anti-Facebook. I don’t have a problem with the social media network. It gives me a chance to keep up with family members, friends, and colleagues. I just need to cut back on it to be more with the people around me, especially my kids. I haven’t checked Facebook much and haven’t written any update status. I thought of keeping it that way, but when people mentioned me or messaged me on Facebook, I have to response. Otherwise, it feels rule. So the best solution for now is just deactivate it.

As for Twitter, I use it mostly to keep up with the web industry; therefore, I don’t need to be engaged. I just weed through what I need to do when I get a few minutes at work or at lunchtime. I no longer have the app on my phone so it should not be a big deal.

I will keep this blog running. I will write everything on here and not on Medium or LinkedIn. I will write more about this in the future. For now, the best place to find out what I am up to is here.

1. Làm ăn
2. Làm tình
3. Làm thinh

K took D’s brand new toy without asking. D wanted it back. The kids got into a fight. The parents pulled the kids out and explained to them the important of sharing.

K’s mom opened a brand new toy for K. It’s the toy that D also loved. D asked to play, but K said no and K’s mom said that it is K’s toy and he can’t play with it because he didn’t share his toy. D went crazy.

Instead of teaching the valuable lesson on playing together, the adult took the revenge on the kid.

Spent the entire rainy morning cleaning up the house and listening to some holiday music. Here are the three albums I am enjoying:

Big Band Holidays by Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis: Classic holiday songs orchestrated in big band jazz led by Marsalis and joined by Cécile McLorin Salvant, Gregory Porter, and René Marie. What more can you ask for?

Believe by David Benoit Trio with Jane Monheit holding down the vocals: The David Benoit Trio crafted a beautiful album for the holidays. Their rendition of “Believe,” which comes from The Polar Express, gives me so much memories of the kids. They used to love this movie.

Seasons of Love by Bích Vân & Vân Anh: Although this is not specific for the holidays, the broadway tunes and the classical and jazz arrangements made it an exceptional album for this time of the year.

Check these albums out if you have a chance and happy holidays.