“All relationships ends.”
We have this idea in our society that the perfect relationship starts in your twenties and lasts until you are on your deathbed. Then magically you and your partner die at the exactly same time and no one is left alone to mourn the other person.
This idealized version of a relationship places more value on the length and the way the relationship ends than on the relationship itself. Saying a relationship that lasts a month is not being significant and having a relationship end in betrayal makes us seems like it’s all just wasted time.
Eagles Wasted Time by alfa_blond
For Christmas I got a collection of the Eagles’ studio albums. I know this band from their reunion concert Hell Freezes Over, and I’ve enjoyed their music ever since. I was excited to listen to Hotel California and hear some of my favorite songs in the context of one of the greatest albums in the history of rock music.
While many people (including myself) mock the title track as being a party killer and putting crying babies to sleep (which I swear works for Ollie), “Hotel California” is a beautiful and haunting song. However, the song that really stuck out to me as being truly remarkable was “Wasted Time.”
Like Henley’s later solo song “Heart Of The Matter,” (which I wrote about in this previous post), “Wasted Time,” in an insightful and powerful song that illuminates truths about relationships and the complexities of love.
The song begins with Henley comforting a friend who has recently gone through a breakup. He sings gently “you can’t believe it’s happening again . . . and it looks like the end.” Like a patient friend Henley works to validate his friend's feelings before helping her feel better. The way that Henley sings “you’re afraid it’s all been wasted time” hints at an understanding that he later reveals.
The way this friend’s relationship ended is one of most painful. It’s not that she was betrayed. In some ways she did everything right and it didn’t work out. She simply “loved the boy too well.” Henley shows off the subtle and effortless acrobatics of his voice with line, gently soaring up and resting on the word “well.” As he continues, he reveals that he too is trying to stop worrying if it’s all been wasted time.
Henley then flips around the advice she gave to him “sometimes to keep it together, we got to leave it alone.” By reflecting back her advice at her, he reminds her of her own inner strength. This leads to the resolution “maybe someday we will find, that it wasn’t really wasted time.” While the song starts with lonely piano octaves, it ends with a sweeping rush of strings and Henley’s voice rising like a sunset.
It can't all be wasted time. As painful as things may feel and as bleak as the prospects are in the future you can't forget at the the beginning of the relationship there was a spark or some magical shared experience that brought you together. You can let the way the relationship ends invalidate that moment and all the good times that happened later or you can choose not to. Yes, there's a time for us all when it feels like wasted time, but it's up to ourselves to move past that and see the value beyond the end.
Wednesday, January 15, 2014
Monday, January 13, 2014
Parenthood: Week 33 - Poo
You don’t have to love everything about being a parent to love being a parent. I most definitely do not love changing poopy diapers even though I love Ollie to the moon and back (multiple times).
Diana and I started talking about poo way before Ollie came into our lives. It started with Buffy. I learned that when you are caring for a living creature that can’t talk, besides energy level and the brightness of their eyes, all you got to tell how they are doing is their appetite, how they are sleeping and of course, their poo.
So yes, Buffy’s poo is a topic of daily conversation and when something seems weird about her poo, it’s important that we share with each other the details. Yes, this may seems weird and gross, but hey, that’s part of the gig.
With Buffy’s poo, we pick it up with poo bags, throw it out and once in a while we wipe her butt (there’s a lot of fur down there). Ollie on the other hand requires more intimate butt care.
I have a special relationship with Ollie’s poo. In the first week Ollie was home, he pooed on me (if you’re curious how, I’ll draw you a diagram). While Diana was recovering those first couple weeks, I did the laundry. It seemed like almost every single load had poo stains that I had to scrub out.
When I would complain about this my brother would mock me and say, “Just wait until Ollie starts eating solid foods, it will make you miss the breast milk poo.”
Now that Ollie has started eating solid foods, I don’t miss the exclusively breast milk diet poo. However, I got to admit that solid food poo is pretty nasty.
What was once liquidity yellow and wiped off easily is now a thick brownish sludge. It does not wipe off easily and it smells, REALLY smells. The smell and the sight of wouldn’t be so bad if not for the quantity. I’m not joking, it seems like Ollie poos half his body weight sometimes.
One reason I would never want to live in another time period is because they wouldn’t have as advanced diapers. Yes we have blow outs but for the most part, the diapers somehow manage to keep this deluge of brown sludge in his diaper. Keeping all of it in means that this stuff gets all over Ollie’s crotch, but hey it’s better than getting it all over his pants . . . and me.
I still volunteer to change diapers because no matter how many diapers I change, it will never make up for the amount of child-care Diana has done and continues to do. Even though I volunteer, there’s a moment of hesitation and a silent prayer that the diaper will just be a pee diaper. Here’s the thing: I want Ollie to have poopy diapers. A constipated baby is NOT a happy baby, but I really don’t want to clean up the poo. There is nothing in my life that I’ve wanted to happen and dread at the exactly same time like a poopy diaper.
In addition to Buffy’s poo, now we talk about Ollie’s poo. My parents even recommended to me that Diana and I tell each other about our poo. Well, I do this in some cases especially since I have Crohn’s disease (read all about it in these posts).
There's always going to be "poopy diapers" to take care of for Ollie. I imagine teaching Ollie to drive and having certain "talks" with him will not be fun for me but will need to happen and in the end will be good for both of us.
Acknowledge the parts of parenting that you don't like. If you say that love everything about being a parent, you're not being honest with yourself. Not enjoying changing poopy diapers doesn't mean you don't care about your kid. Changing them despite the fact that it's disgusting shows how much you love your little one.
Diana and I started talking about poo way before Ollie came into our lives. It started with Buffy. I learned that when you are caring for a living creature that can’t talk, besides energy level and the brightness of their eyes, all you got to tell how they are doing is their appetite, how they are sleeping and of course, their poo.
So yes, Buffy’s poo is a topic of daily conversation and when something seems weird about her poo, it’s important that we share with each other the details. Yes, this may seems weird and gross, but hey, that’s part of the gig.
With Buffy’s poo, we pick it up with poo bags, throw it out and once in a while we wipe her butt (there’s a lot of fur down there). Ollie on the other hand requires more intimate butt care.
I have a special relationship with Ollie’s poo. In the first week Ollie was home, he pooed on me (if you’re curious how, I’ll draw you a diagram). While Diana was recovering those first couple weeks, I did the laundry. It seemed like almost every single load had poo stains that I had to scrub out.
When I would complain about this my brother would mock me and say, “Just wait until Ollie starts eating solid foods, it will make you miss the breast milk poo.”
Now that Ollie has started eating solid foods, I don’t miss the exclusively breast milk diet poo. However, I got to admit that solid food poo is pretty nasty.
What was once liquidity yellow and wiped off easily is now a thick brownish sludge. It does not wipe off easily and it smells, REALLY smells. The smell and the sight of wouldn’t be so bad if not for the quantity. I’m not joking, it seems like Ollie poos half his body weight sometimes.
One reason I would never want to live in another time period is because they wouldn’t have as advanced diapers. Yes we have blow outs but for the most part, the diapers somehow manage to keep this deluge of brown sludge in his diaper. Keeping all of it in means that this stuff gets all over Ollie’s crotch, but hey it’s better than getting it all over his pants . . . and me.
I still volunteer to change diapers because no matter how many diapers I change, it will never make up for the amount of child-care Diana has done and continues to do. Even though I volunteer, there’s a moment of hesitation and a silent prayer that the diaper will just be a pee diaper. Here’s the thing: I want Ollie to have poopy diapers. A constipated baby is NOT a happy baby, but I really don’t want to clean up the poo. There is nothing in my life that I’ve wanted to happen and dread at the exactly same time like a poopy diaper.
In addition to Buffy’s poo, now we talk about Ollie’s poo. My parents even recommended to me that Diana and I tell each other about our poo. Well, I do this in some cases especially since I have Crohn’s disease (read all about it in these posts).
There's always going to be "poopy diapers" to take care of for Ollie. I imagine teaching Ollie to drive and having certain "talks" with him will not be fun for me but will need to happen and in the end will be good for both of us.
Acknowledge the parts of parenting that you don't like. If you say that love everything about being a parent, you're not being honest with yourself. Not enjoying changing poopy diapers doesn't mean you don't care about your kid. Changing them despite the fact that it's disgusting shows how much you love your little one.
Friday, January 10, 2014
Year 4: Week 17 - Lesson Plans
I haven’t written out a formal lesson plan in six years.
It’s not that I don’t plan out the scope and sequence of what I teach, I just don’t write out formal lesson plans. I have various documents and calendars that map out the year. I make notes of what I want to teach and how I want to teach things . . . sometimes. More often than not I teach from objectives that I have written out or have come up with in my head.
In college, I wrote out lesson plans all the time because I had to. I would carefully fill in each box on the form so I would know the materials, how long it would take to teach each thing, the sequences of instructions, assessments and more. Yes, these epic three page lesson plans would often cover a 10-minute teaching experience, but I was really prepared and really thorough.
As much as it was a pain sometimes to write these things out, I think it was good to spend the time to do these things. The probably was trying to actually follow these lesson plans.
During these early years of teaching, instead of reacting to my students, thinking about how they were learning and how I was teaching, my concern was following my lesson plan. Sometimes when you are a new teacher and you are teaching, which is often a terrifying experience, following a lesson plan is all that you got to get you through the lesson and make yourself feel like that you have achieved some level of success.
Great, you’ve followed your lesson plan! Yay! But your students are horribly confused and you didn’t interact with them in a meaningful way, but the lesson plan was completed.
As I got more experienced, my lesson plans became less formal and I began to stop caring that I wasn’t following my plans carefully. Making lesson plans became a mental exercise to help me think through my teacher more than script or a plan of attack. In some ways the most beneficial lesson plans were the ones I thought about for a long time and then proceeded to ignore when it came to actually teaching.
At this point in my teaching, lesson planning happens quickly and mostly in my head. The reason I can do what I do without writing out lesson plans is probably because I had so many years when I did write out detailed plans. Like someone learning how to swim, the life preserver of a lesson plan, something for me to hang onto when things didn’t go as planned, is no longer necessary now that I can swim.
Young teachers: write out formal lesson plans. Use this exercise as a way to teach you how to think. Don’t let these plans tie you down or pull you away from your students. Teaching is not about following a plan. A monkey could do that. Be more than monkey. When you've had a couple years under your belt, try some different ways of organizing yourself and see what works.
Great lesson plans do not guarantee success in the classroom. They help, but if you can still make great things happen in the classroom without formal plans, consider giving them up and spend that time you would have spent writing out plans eating lunch with your students.
It’s not that I don’t plan out the scope and sequence of what I teach, I just don’t write out formal lesson plans. I have various documents and calendars that map out the year. I make notes of what I want to teach and how I want to teach things . . . sometimes. More often than not I teach from objectives that I have written out or have come up with in my head.
In college, I wrote out lesson plans all the time because I had to. I would carefully fill in each box on the form so I would know the materials, how long it would take to teach each thing, the sequences of instructions, assessments and more. Yes, these epic three page lesson plans would often cover a 10-minute teaching experience, but I was really prepared and really thorough.
As much as it was a pain sometimes to write these things out, I think it was good to spend the time to do these things. The probably was trying to actually follow these lesson plans.
During these early years of teaching, instead of reacting to my students, thinking about how they were learning and how I was teaching, my concern was following my lesson plan. Sometimes when you are a new teacher and you are teaching, which is often a terrifying experience, following a lesson plan is all that you got to get you through the lesson and make yourself feel like that you have achieved some level of success.
Great, you’ve followed your lesson plan! Yay! But your students are horribly confused and you didn’t interact with them in a meaningful way, but the lesson plan was completed.
As I got more experienced, my lesson plans became less formal and I began to stop caring that I wasn’t following my plans carefully. Making lesson plans became a mental exercise to help me think through my teacher more than script or a plan of attack. In some ways the most beneficial lesson plans were the ones I thought about for a long time and then proceeded to ignore when it came to actually teaching.
At this point in my teaching, lesson planning happens quickly and mostly in my head. The reason I can do what I do without writing out lesson plans is probably because I had so many years when I did write out detailed plans. Like someone learning how to swim, the life preserver of a lesson plan, something for me to hang onto when things didn’t go as planned, is no longer necessary now that I can swim.
Young teachers: write out formal lesson plans. Use this exercise as a way to teach you how to think. Don’t let these plans tie you down or pull you away from your students. Teaching is not about following a plan. A monkey could do that. Be more than monkey. When you've had a couple years under your belt, try some different ways of organizing yourself and see what works.
Great lesson plans do not guarantee success in the classroom. They help, but if you can still make great things happen in the classroom without formal plans, consider giving them up and spend that time you would have spent writing out plans eating lunch with your students.
Wednesday, January 8, 2014
Overlooking Buffy
I’ve always known that Buffy was a good dog.From the day I met her, she has enriched our lives with meaning and joy. She’s a family member, a partner and one of the most important living creatures in my life.
Sometimes we take the people in our lives for granted. When people do great things for us everyday we get used to these things. While it’s good to expect great things out of the people around us, we can’t forget to show gratitude for who they are and their presence in our life.
Like with other people in life, there are times that I have overlooked great things that Buffy has done. Especially in the past year with Diana’s pregnancy and Ollie entering our lives, Buffy's greatness has sometimes been overlooked.
Even when she didn’t get as long walks as she should or wasn't played with as much as she deserved, she was always there with us and for us through the past year. This was clearly displayed over and over again on our recent trip to visit my parents in Seattle.
We took Buffy and Ollie with us to visit my family in Seattle for the week of New Years. With all of the stress of taking a baby on a plane, Buffy did exactly what we needed her to do. In the past she has had issues being settled during take off and landing. Also, right before going to the airport sometimes she didn’t understand that she really had to do her business because she wouldn’t get another chance for hours. All of these issues that we had with her on past plane flights weren’t there. Somehow she knew that we needed to focus on Ollie.
Buffy continued to be great with Ollie when we were at my parents’ house. Now that Ollie is scooting around he moves towards Buffy, grabs handfuls of hair and often swats at her. Buffy is very patient with him and lets him do this and when she is tired of him, instead of growling she simply walks away. What I didn’t expect is how great Buffy was with my niece.
My niece is about one and half, so when the idea came up that she would walk Buffy I wasn’t sure how this would go. Buffy in general does a great job walking on a leash but if there’s a squirrel or another dog, she will let you know that she wants to move in that direction. So I was a little nervous when this toddler held Buffy’s leash and started walking down the street.
Buffy was being completely selfless and patient with my niece. I’ll never forget the smile my niece had on her face when she held Buffy’s leash and I’ll never forget the way that Buffy stood there like a mother looking after her puppies. Buffy is amazing every day but this moment reminded me of this in a way that I never thought about before.
My mom always told me that it was important to fill my life with people that I admire, people that I want to be like. I admire Buffy and one day when I grow up I want to be just like her. Buffy is smart and caring. She is giving but she’s not a doormat. She stands up for herself and lets you know what she’s thinking. Buffy believes that every person or dog has the same warmth that she does. She’s amazing with children and lives only to bring comfort into people’s lives.
I hesitate to tell people that Buffy is my dog, because she’s so much more than an animal I own. I don’t even know how to describe what she means to be me because no label fits.
Buffy is and always will be one of the most beautiful souls I've been blessed to share my life with.
Monday, January 6, 2014
Parenthood: Week 32 - Bringing Ollie Home
After I graduated from high school I left my home in Bellevue, a suburb of Seattle, and went to Northwestern University in Evanston, just north of Chicago. For the past thirteen years, I've brought things home to share with my family. There were stories, books, pictures, videos, Diana, Buffy and now Ollie.
My parents have been amazing grandparents and have done a great job overcoming the distance between Bellevue and Evanston to be a part of Ollie's life. They came out right after Ollie was born and again in July. My mom also came out by herself in September and early November to visit.
Diana and I decided that for Thanksgiving we would bring Ollie home to my parents house for the first time. As I discussed in this previous post, there were a lot of concerns about taking Ollie on a plane.
It's difficult for Ollie to be comfortable in a new place so we all tried our best to help him be feel settled. My parents setup a crib in my dad's office, Diana and I carefully packed bringing things to make him feel comfortable like his sleep sack and we made sure not to schedule too many things during his trip so that Ollie could get his naps in and not feel too overwhelmed by the experience.
Whenever my parents have visited us to help with Ollie, it's been amazing. It's like there's another two people are added to the partnership that me and Diana have developed to take care of Ollie. Being at my parents house with Ollie is like that but even better because it feels like we are surrounded by that support all of the time.
I will forever be grateful for the effort and care that my parents have put forth to take care of Ollie. my mom cooked a bunch of baby food that was frozen and ready for him to eat. My dad adjusted his work so that he could be available to help with Ollie and they were always ready to do whatever we ask of them to help with Ollie.
The house my parents currently live in is not the house I grew up in. My senior year of high school my parents moved into a new house. At the time, I wasn't very happy about this. Because of this move I had to commute to high school and I felt uprooted right before I knew that the transition to college was ahead of me. My dad told me that a building does not make a home, the people do.
It's not that simple though.
Presence of a family contributes to making a house feel like a home, but it's the effort that the family in the house makes to take care of each other that makes it truly a home. Bringing Ollie home, watching the energy and love that my parents direct towards Ollie has made this house feel like a home in a profound way. Ollie is beginning to sense this as well. The more time Ollie spends in this home, the more he feels safe to explore the house, the faster he goes to bed and the more he smiles.
My parents' house is not my childhood home but it has become something even more special. This house is not filled with memories fragmented by time gone by, but rather by times that are not so far in the past. We are looking forward to bringing Ollie back to this home. With the care we all share with each other in this house, moments in the future will continue to make this house a home.
My parents have been amazing grandparents and have done a great job overcoming the distance between Bellevue and Evanston to be a part of Ollie's life. They came out right after Ollie was born and again in July. My mom also came out by herself in September and early November to visit.
Diana and I decided that for Thanksgiving we would bring Ollie home to my parents house for the first time. As I discussed in this previous post, there were a lot of concerns about taking Ollie on a plane.
It's difficult for Ollie to be comfortable in a new place so we all tried our best to help him be feel settled. My parents setup a crib in my dad's office, Diana and I carefully packed bringing things to make him feel comfortable like his sleep sack and we made sure not to schedule too many things during his trip so that Ollie could get his naps in and not feel too overwhelmed by the experience.
Whenever my parents have visited us to help with Ollie, it's been amazing. It's like there's another two people are added to the partnership that me and Diana have developed to take care of Ollie. Being at my parents house with Ollie is like that but even better because it feels like we are surrounded by that support all of the time.
I will forever be grateful for the effort and care that my parents have put forth to take care of Ollie. my mom cooked a bunch of baby food that was frozen and ready for him to eat. My dad adjusted his work so that he could be available to help with Ollie and they were always ready to do whatever we ask of them to help with Ollie.
The house my parents currently live in is not the house I grew up in. My senior year of high school my parents moved into a new house. At the time, I wasn't very happy about this. Because of this move I had to commute to high school and I felt uprooted right before I knew that the transition to college was ahead of me. My dad told me that a building does not make a home, the people do.
It's not that simple though.
Presence of a family contributes to making a house feel like a home, but it's the effort that the family in the house makes to take care of each other that makes it truly a home. Bringing Ollie home, watching the energy and love that my parents direct towards Ollie has made this house feel like a home in a profound way. Ollie is beginning to sense this as well. The more time Ollie spends in this home, the more he feels safe to explore the house, the faster he goes to bed and the more he smiles.
My parents' house is not my childhood home but it has become something even more special. This house is not filled with memories fragmented by time gone by, but rather by times that are not so far in the past. We are looking forward to bringing Ollie back to this home. With the care we all share with each other in this house, moments in the future will continue to make this house a home.
Friday, January 3, 2014
Parenthood: Week 31.5 - Parenting By The Book Vs. Parenting With Your Instincts
The first time that I watched this sketch, I thought it was funny but I didn't really get it. After seeing the piles of parenting books and the significant pile of books that just were about getting your kids to sleep this sketch no longer seemed funny. Suddenly, it all started to feel way too real.
Diana read a quite a few parenting books. Bear in mind that Diana is a very fast reader and has an amazing ability to synthesize and analyze knowledge she acquires from the written word. So for her reading a lot of books about parenting wasn't a huge chore and this was a significant help for myself being a much slower reader. We've always read books about children and their development for fun as we are both fascinated with children and issues related to them. It seemed natural that we would read books about parenting.
The amount of parenting books on the market is intimidating and some people react by simply ignoring all of these books and going with their instincts. The other extreme is only going with what you read in a book and ignoring your instincts. The reality is that you need some of the knowledge that comes from these books and without using your instincts you will not know how to temper this knowledge to best serve your child's needs.
There is an enormous amount of knowledge that is out there about parenting. I don't use the term "wealth of knowledge" because a lot of this knowledge is useless and unfortunately some of it can be detrimental. You can't let the overwhelming amount of books deter you from familiarizing yourself with material written by doctors and health professionals that is backed up by sound research. When Dr. Weissbluth suggest that you put your child to sleep earlier in the evening, it's because it reflects his own research and practice as a doctor.
Ignoring this kind of advice puts parents in situations where they are reinventing the wheel. While discovering how to be a parent is a great part of parenting, building upon the experience of previous generations, which parents have done throughout human history is vital to your sanity as a parent. Even with reading a lot of books, there will be new things that you will discover, trust me.
You can't go simply with what you read in a book even if it is well-researched. Being a parent is a combination of finding the parenting approach that fits your child's needs and your own personality as a parent. It's less about being the type of parent that you want to be, but rather being the parent that your child needs you to be. This is where instincts come into play.
No book can tell you how to read a child's mood or to tell you exactly when he or she are satiated after a meal. Every kid has different sleep signals and learn how to interact with the world in different ways. When you spend as much time with your child as parents do, you learn how to distinguish between dirty diaper cries and I'm hungry cries. Your instincts as a parent are a product of millennia of evolutionary biology that should not be ignored.
Most of the time.
When your child gets a vaccination (which I wrote about in this previous post), your instincts as a parent will be to punch the nurse that makes your kids scream but the knowledge you learn will tell your instincts to chill out so that your baby doesn't die a horrible death from rotavirus.
This balancing act isn't easy, but it's necessary. Sifting through all of the information in books and online is difficult. Especially online, there is a lot of crazy out there. Just because something works for one child doesn't mean it will work for yours, no matter how much you may want it to. Focus of researched material and books that give clear explanations. Read books that other parents you respect recommend and when there's serious issue don't look on message boards, call your pediatrician.
Embrace the tension between what your instincts as a parent tell you and what your are told to do by society and by books. Like in most parts of your life, a little tension is a good thing. Tension product of being conscientious, intelligent, well-read and in touch with your feelings. This tension will drive you crazy sometimes but leaning into this struggle may be the best thing for your child.
Here are the parenting books we found most helpful:
Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child by Marc Weissbluth M.D.
The Baby Whisperer Solves All Your Problems: Sleeping, Feeding, and Behavior by Tracy Hogg
The Girlfriends' Guide to Surviving 1st year Mother by Vicki Iovine
Wednesday, January 1, 2014
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