The Dad 2.0 Experience

I realized that this, being my personal blog, does not always need to talk about AI and programming. Specially when that’s only a part of my life. So here goes my notes from becoming a dad for the second time.

Harder or easier

I have heard from multiple people that handling the first kid is the hardest. It matches with my experience as well. I am way more prepared this time, and I had the necessary skills in muscle memory from 8 years ago. It only took me a day or two for recalling them.

Other factors in my life which make it easier this time around are:

• I am much more used to sleep deprivation, even though I don’t prefer it
• We have a great community of friends and family around us
• My older kid provides a wonderful distraction - I don’t have to obsessively think about one newborn baby’s life
• Technology - a wonderful automatic bassinet which has been adding a few extra hours of sleep to our lives
• Food and grocery delivery - these are so much better in the USA now, or at least in the Boston area

Handling work

This is also easier this time, since I don’t have a day job. I have my own office in my basement where my Mac Mini is always on. Even if I step away a dozen times, I don’t have to set up my laptop every time. Yes, it is true that I don’t earn money and my net worth keeps going down all the time. But thanks to my unique privileges, I need time, flexibility and self-actualization much more than I need money.

Is AI helping me?

It sure is! When I had my first kid, I spent months learning Clojure from reading the documentation on my mobile phone while I was carrying him around. It was months before I could do a side project with it. My mind was spinning wheels continuously, trying to make progress on tech projects. But programming was a laborious task in those days (circa 2018). You had to read the documentation, keep some of it in your mind, and get stuck every few hours and read the documentation again. At least that was my story for any new project.

Fast forward to the AI-enabled era, I have been able to install and use TinyClaw, prototype a project for my business, make YouTube videos using Remotion and even write this blog post. All in under two months. It’s possible because the laborious parts are done by super-intelligent AI tools like Claude Code and AdaL.

Well, this is suffering a bit, as expected. I am surviving by hanging out in a bunch of online communities on X and Discord. I also have a regular check-in friend - we talk at least twice a week, and have been doing this for many years. I am sure things will improve soon in the coming months.

Summary

It’s always fun to be a parent :-)