A few moments before that, I was already repeatedly telling him to stop what he was doing because one of his toys might just land right on his forehead. I was quite exhausted by the repetitive request for Rafa to stop; my throat already felt sore because I had to speak loudly and forcefully.

When I heard the sound of broken glass and the voice of his mother reprimanding him for what had happened, I immediately stormed out of the bedroom. I was dressing Miguel after giving him his morning bath.

As I soon figured out what the situation was, I lost my cool and shouted at the top of my lungs. Suffice it to say that my intention was for Rafa to know that I was very angry (as if that wasn't obvious already). During that instance, even though I was angry, I was looking at Rafa and was quite fascinated by how well he was keeping it together.

Save for his big and dazed eyes, I could tell that he didn’t want to be defeated by my booming voice. I mellowed down and realized how hard it must be for a little boy to try his best to appear unfazed, let alone cry. I know I have to be more in control of my emotion and probably the best approach when it comes to a child is to talk to them as calmly as possible. Then again, we are just humans and not machines.

We have our own feelings and we get tired. Still, my conscience was telling me that I hurt my little boy so I made it a point to make it up to him later in the day. I talked to him, played with him, and basically just made him feel loved and secure.

I guess that’s what’s important in fatherhood; we commit blunders along the way but we do our best to move on. We don’t wallow in our mistakes but we try to find a way to make it up to our loved ones. After all, parenting is all about constant learning, especially from our mistakes. There are no parenting rules or hacks, it’s all about trusting our instincts and trying out things to finally figure out what works best for us.

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