Saving My Marriage from Facebook

Sometimes I absolutely hate Facebook, i-phones, and the prominence of technology in my life and home. The way my husband and I are glued to our phones and the Internet each night, you would never guess that a mere four years ago all we had was dial-up. That was back when we lived in a cabin with a woodstove for heat and a composting toilet on the back porch. That was back when it still felt like a novelty for me to even have a cell phone (which incidentally didn’t happen until 2004).

When Matthew and I lived in the cabin on 50 acres outside of Olympia, our time together was mostly technology-free. We had the occasional DVD night up in the loft where the T.V. lived (that could only be used for movies), but mostly we just hung out, made dinner, listened to music, drank wine, and stared at the stars—both metaphorically and literally. Dial-up was, of course, frustratingly slow, but because of its very slowness, it forced me to get on, do my business, and get off. No mindless surfing, no long detours into someone’s life story or web links, no wasted time online. Sounds ideal.

Of course, I also love the Internet, my i-phone, and Facebook. I would feel cut off and disconnected from the world without them. And without a fast connection, I would never have the motivation to network or do Internet research. I might very well withdraw into my old insular ways.

But what I hate sometimes, and I mean loathe, is the way these devices pull us away from the moment, pull us away from our living room, from our child, from each other, distracting us and eating away at the precious few moments that we have to connect at the end of the day.

When I come out of the bedroom at the end of the night, my son finally asleep, dinner eaten, the house quiet, a feeling of relief washed over me, I want to be able to sit down next to my husband and have him look up at me, put aside his laptop, and ask me how my day was. I don’t want to have to ask him to do this, but if I don’t ask, and instead decide to just go get a glass of wine, sit in the chair across from him, and get online via my I-phone myself, then it might be an hour before we finally look up at each other and attempt to converse. Or, we might just skip that part altogether and decide to watch an episode of Mad Men or what have you, since we only have an hour now before it will be time to go to bed.

To be fair, there are times when my husband comes into the room and I am the one who is engrossed in something online, and not immediately willing to shut it down and tune into him, or us. To be fair, I am sure that I check my email way more than he does his. And to be fair, I am probably every bit if not more addicted to Facebook than he is.        

My excuse: I’m home all day with a toddler. Some days go by where I don’t talk to a single other person besides a few words exchanged with the grocery checker. My days are devoted to meeting the needs of a two-year-old: to feeding, changing, and clothing him, to providing him with enriching, stimulating environments and play. But are these activities stimulating to me? Not very often. Perhaps in a mild, satisfying “that was a fun way to pass the day” kind of way, or in a random intensely delightful moment. But seldom in a way that actively engages my mind and creative longing.

And so? I turn to Facebook and to my email. I check them over and over again, a mindless reach of the fingers, to see if anyone new has written me, if anyone has commented on an update, or posted interesting links. It’s like candy. (Or chips, if you go more for the salty.) It’s little morsels of fluff and occasionally glimmers of opportunity or interest that inject a bit of the outside world into my day. Since I can’t just decide to take a break and go be alone, or sit down and watch a few minutes of t.v. (if I want to be a good parent), or talk much on the phone without my son trying to get my attention, then I turn to Facebook which provides the perfect take it or leave it morsel of a break that I can get away with in between activities throughout my day.

My husband’s laptop sits right next to the couch, right next to the spot where coincidentally one of us is usually planted. We also use the laptop to listen to music and stream videos, so it makes sense that it lives at the center of our living space. But sometimes I wish it weren’t so, because I know that the ease to which I can click the button, scan a few posts, and turn it off, is not always an asset. It’s a distraction. It pulls me away from my son, who is here and wants my full attention. It pulls me away from my husband. It pulls me away from myself.

And with the i-phone, it’s even easier to click on and off, wherever I am—in the bathroom, in the yard, in the car. I never wanted an i-phone, but now I’m addicted to it. Again, it’s like candy, or a cigarette, or anything you might rationalize giving yourself as a little “treat”, a quick fix, because “you work so hard you deserve it”. Never mind that it doesn’t really matter if you read that message now or later at night (when you know you’re going to check your email again anyway). It’s just habit. It’s an addiction.

I know I am hardly the first here to decry the ways in which technology is pulling us apart more than together, but I feel compelled to write about it because, like I said earlier, sometimes I really do hate what it’s done to us, and I mean HATE in capitol letters or italics, whichever you prefer.

I hate it when I realize that one of the reasons why my son probably begs for Elmo so much is because I am constantly getting on the computer, and thus reminding him of Elmo (for we stream it via Netflix). And I hate it when I want to just be with my husband, but it feels like he would rather be with his virtual fishing buddies online.

Once you’ve developed a ritual where you are used to checking certain sites every day, the process becomes like a litany of sorts, and the day feels incomplete unless you’ve done so. My husband and I both developed our habits in large part during the year and a half that he worked on the road during the week and we were both alone during the evenings. That’s when my love affair with Facebook and my online community of friends really began. Almost every night, I’d sit down with my dinner or my wine and enjoy Facebook. If it happened to be a night where I felt chatty and had posted a status update (or two or three; I tend towards either binge updating or silence), then my chattiness would no doubt be rewarded by that perky little red flag of correspondence, with new comment or ‘likes’ boosting my inner extrovert and desire to connect. Other nights, when I am not feeling that chatty, my time spent online is shorter, although I still loyally scan through the new posts, looking for those few that pop out at me with interest.

Loyalty. If you want to love it, and keep loving it, Facebook demands a degree of loyalty. Leave it for too long and it might feel like no one cares about you, no one cares what you have to say, and you were really just talking to yourself the whole time in the first place. Facebook rewards those who reward Facebook. Leave a bunch of comments, post a bunch of updates, and lo and behold, red flags will abound and your interactions will begin to feel that much more personable, conversational. But if your own interest wanes, if you couldn’t care less or be bothered to comment, then after a while, you might just find that the whole endeavor feels like a giant waste of time.

I’ve only gone on one Facebook purge since I started; it was during the three weeks I spent at Hedgebrook, a writing residency for women on Whidbey Island. I could have still checked it each day in the main farmhouse or “pumphouse” if I’d wanted, but I chose to leave it behind. It was easy. I sunk into my writing mind and the environment around me instead. I didn’t post one thing, and on the one occasion that I did glance at it, everyone’s updates suddenly seemed so… inconsequential. Petty. Striving for something to say. Striving for connection.

I’m not trying to sound all high and mighty, for it didn’t take me long (at all) to get reengaged, but what I recall here is the feeling of what a complete organism the world of Facebook is, the way it sucks you into it’s chatty, interesting, sometimes political, often apolitical, sometimes passionate, often ironic world, and makes you want to be an active part of it, makes you want to stand out and be noticed, makes you want to be followed and liked.

Sometimes, there’s nothing wrong with this. Being ‘liked’ and otherwise encouraged and patted on the back can feel great, especially after a long and difficult day. But if we come to expect this, or go to Facebook for our “quick fixes” of approval, don’t be surprised if Facebook can then also offer the opposite effect. Ever notice what happens when no one comments or likes what you post? It can be a mild let-down-- whatever, Facebook, it’s not that great, you shrug it away. Our own disappointment or delight is fed in accordance with our own expectations. But our addiction for more “positive fixes” keeps us hungry for more.  If suddenly something you write gets twelve likes and nine comments (or adjust your expectations accordingly here)—wowzas! It makes you kind of perky. People like you. Or like what you have to say. People notice you. Or people want you to notice them. Be their friends. Like them back. It’s middle school all over again.

Have you ever noticed how seeing the red flag of correspondence gives you a little zip of anticipation? And how seeing nothing gives you a mildly deflated kind of blah feeling? Of course, it’s often no coincidence that it’s exactly when you’re feeling blah, that your updates are then blah, and therefore so are your comments. And it’s when your feeling all, “Zippity-do-dah, the world is great, and I just won the Pulitzer!” that people love to give you virtual high fives. It makes me wonder how much we unconsciously (or consciously, for those of us who have thought about it) start to post things that are happier or perkier or somehow easier to “like” because we’ve learned that it elicits a response. For me, I often just don’t feel like posting anything unless I’ve got something particularly funny, exciting, quirky, or poignant to share. Or else, be prepared for silence. Mostly though, I’ve just figured out by now that I mostly only care to actively engage with Facebook (as in post on it) when I’m feeling relatively good about my life. Otherwise, all that chatter on Facebook just starts to depress me. And who wants to be a bummer online?

I know I’m never going to swear it off—the benefits of Facebook and the online world in my life are too great. Beyond the distractive qualities, I find that it can and does actually connect me to people in ways that I wouldn’t otherwise have the time or means to do. As a natural introvert (or perhaps an introverted extrovert), I benefit greatly from this way to know more people. I do end up feeling like a part of a greater community—whether that’s across the world or in my own city or amongst my extended family, other writers, or other parents. I have forged and cultivated real, in-person relationships via Facebook that otherwise wouldn’t have come about.

So call me a diehard fan, and I won’t deny it. But then what are these intense feelings of hatred that Facebook can also evoke in me? I think it comes from the same hunger to connect that draws me to Facebook in the first place. It’s the recognition that no matter how stimulating Facebook might be at times, it can also leave me feeling disappointed, distant, and sad about my lack of real-time, right now, connection. It’s that mild dissatisfaction that almost all of us feel now and then, if not every day, that feeling like, this is it? This is my day? My month? My year? Was there something else I was supposed to be doing with my life? Was there some promise that I made to myself long ago that I’m not fulfilling? When did I forget about how nourishing practices like yoga or sitting meditation can be? When did my husband and I forget that we might actually be able to do some of those important and restorative activities together? Why does it have to be just “my time” (spent writing) and “his time” (spent fishing), and then “our time” sans child, becomes the rare afternoon visit to a pub or the beach, or more like the nightly veg out state on the couch—checking our email and watching T.V.

The ultimate irony is when my husband and I are sitting in the same room at the same time and both on Facebook, and one of us attempts to ‘chat’ with the other or else comments on the other’s post. Sometimes this is humorous, but more often than not, it’s just depressing and a sign that we really need to get offline NOW.

When did we become one of these couples? When we moved to the city? When we had a child? Yes, I could blame it on child rearing, the easiest and most obvious target. But even without children, I think all couples start to sink into these levels of complacency, forgetting all the hard internal work you might have done while you were single and alone, pining for your soul mate, and then sliding comfortably into a lazy space where you don’t push each other to grow—and even more than this, you don’t push yourself to grow as a couple. You do what you can do to keep the peace, stay sane, pay the bills, reward yourself with treats. But couples therapy or retreats? Save that for when the marriage really gets rocky; that’s salvage and reparation time.

Most of all, my husband and I just need more time together. And time that is NOT being interspersed with checking our emails, Facebook, and texts. Because our lives are already marked by a decided shortage of time to do the things we need and want, it is baffling to think of all the time that we both freely give to acquaintances and distant friends online; if we were to add up all of it, I know we would be appalled. I’m quite certain that we give more time to Internet rabbit holes overall than we do to sitting down and chatting about our day. And THAT is truly sad. THAT is what makes me want to institute Facebook or Internet-free moratoriums when together—try for an evening, a weekend, a whole week even! But just as I know my husband would be hard to convince, I know that I too would want to make exceptions. This is called bargaining. This is called an addiction.

So when that familiar feeling of stifled frustration comes over me when I see you sitting there online, and barely looking up to acknowledge my presence walking into the room, I will try to remember that it’s in part my frustration with my own addiction that makes me so resentful of your own. And I will also try to remember that it is in my power to not be angry but simply be honest and forthright.  To tell you what I want and need, even if I feel like I’m repeating myself again and again. And to tell you this because I love you, because I want to be with you, and because it’s our job to keep reminding each other why we are here, together, in the first place.

The Idea of A Dog

Today, I am sad. We made the decision last week that we cannot keep Fergie. I hesitate to even write these words because it still feels like too sensitive a situation, too new a decision to share with the world. But when it comes down to it, this is what I need to write about-- blog or no blog to report to.

Fergie nipped Cedar. I wasn’t home at the time; my friend was watching Cedar, and I guess he turned away for just a few seconds when it happened. I’m quite certain Cedar must have grabbed at Fergie’s face probably, because he’s done this before. Twice now, Cedar got to Fergie before we had a chance to intervene, and Fergie jumped up and barked which alerted me to the fact that there are limits to her tolerance. Ever since those instances, I’ve been extra vigilant in my supervision of the two of them, but inevitably there are going to be instances where I turn my head or step out of the room-- and in a matter of seconds, something unfortunate can happen.

Cedar is fine—he has a faint small bruise on his forehead, along with two tiny scrapes that you wouldn’t even notice if I didn’t point them out. He cried a bit when it happened, but otherwise doesn’t now seem afraid of Fergie or anything. But Fergie is now, clearly, wary of Cedar. She often gets up and goes elsewhere now when Cedar starts heading towards her. She is nervous around him, and that makes me nervous.

Fergie is not an aggressive dog by any means. But she is a sensitive dog, which can more easily bleed into that territory of fearful. I cringe to think what might happen now that this association with Cedar and pain has been established in her, what might happen if Cedar manages to grab at her face again or even just takes her by surprise. Because of this, Matthew and I feel that we have no choice but to give up Fergie. We can’t afford to take the risk of something like this happening again, or possibly worse. Cedar is so young that he still has another year probably before he can learn to not grab at impulse. And as he learns to walk and run around, his “reign of potential terror” will only get worse before it gets better.

I don’t want Fergie to get a bad rap. She is such an awesome dog, so affectionate and intuitive. She is great with Miles, our cat, and has grown up with a young child in the past, although not as young as Cedar. She definitely needs her exercise, but she is also quite calm and mellow. She likes to go after squirrels, as most dogs do, but relatively speaking she is good about not dashing off after distractions, about sticking close to you when off leash, and about coming back when called. She does pull on the leash, but not terribly bad, and these tendencies certainly could be corrected with a committed dose of training. She is not a barker, although she will bark at other dogs passing by when she is tied up outside. And like I said, she is not aggressive. At the dog park, she will mostly run away from other big dogs and try to play with the little ones, who are often afraid of her, at least initially. And, of course, other people are often afraid of her because she is a big, intimidating Doberman with a metal prong collar. Anyone who takes the time to observe her, however, can see that she is a sweetheart.

But like I said, she is sensitive. And throughout the 4^th of July holiday, Fergie was especially nervous. People started setting off fireworks on Friday, and even a week later, I heard an explosion or two. Of course, Fergie hears them all. And on what level of her being we can only speculate. Like many dogs, she gets shaky and wants to burrow into some dark, enclosed space. In our house, that meant the bedroom, where we temporarily moved her bed and let her lie on our bed when she insisted she wanted to be there. Ever since the 4^th, Fergie has still been a bit nervous. Even the sound of a carboy of beer bubbling in the corner sent her headed to the bedroom. And, perhaps, this made her more jumpy around Cedar, too. I can only speculate.

After Fergie nipped Cedar, my friend put her outside and Fergie’s hunched body and flattened ears showed that she knew she’d done wrong. That night and the next day, she seemed depressed to me, staying on her bed and not coming up to greet me and Cedar in the morning in the way she normally does. I think she has picked up on our feelings. How could she not? Animals are not like humans in the way that we overvalue our eyesight and rational powers at the expense of our intuition, hearing, or ability to pick up on energy. So Fergie undoubtedly has picked up on our sadness, and perhaps the sense that it has something to do with her.

Immediately following the nipping incident I felt a little cold towards her and kept my distance as my instinct to protect and nurture my son above all else surged into the foreground. But I never faulted Fergie, and as I’ve had time to process this whole incident, I’ve felt great surges of love and sadness for her. In a short time (two months), she has bonded with us, and us with her. I know it must be hard to be suddenly moved into a new home, and I feel awful to have to make her go through this process, especially so soon, again. I know it was up to us to make sure that Cedar only touched her gently, no matter how tolerant Fergie may have seemed. I know that many dogs would not tolerate a fraction of what she does. I feel bad that we weren’t more vigilant initially in our supervision of their interactions, but I thought that the little bit of pulling or crawling over her legs or back that slipped through the cracks of supervision would be okay. I do not blame myself, however, for I know I am an observant mother. It’s just unrealistic—not to mention extremely tiring—to stay at Cedar’s side every single second. It defies the point of all the care we take in child-proofing, when the one most important thing to supervise with your child is un-childproofable—short of putting Fergie outside.

I feel like this sadness is going to keep sinking in, in layers, and it will be a while, perhaps not until Fergie has been gone for many days, until I will be able to name what those layers are. Yes, I did go through a period during the first month of adopting her where I seriously questioned the decision, but ever since I got over that particularly tiring couple of weeks, I have committed myself to her and thought of her as a part of our family. Yes, there were still days when I resented my responsibility of making sure that she got enough exercise, but mostly I enjoyed our walks with the three of us, our own little unit. Yes, there were moments where I got frustrated at how she pulled on the leash or got in the way of the stroller, and vowed that I would take her to a training course, but mostly, we walked together fine. She waited patiently when I tied her up outside the store or at the park while Cedar swung, and then she’d happily get up and we’d be on our way again, sometimes with her giving Cedar a jovial lick on the face. I have been grateful to be forced to walk so much more, and I think that this added exercise is what has finally helped my ongoing back strain to get better. And in those rare moments when I have a chance to give Fergie some extra affection without Cedar’s needs trumping hers, I’ve felt only love towards this animal, love for her receptive presence, love for her love of us.

Unfortunately, those moments where I’d get to enjoy Fergie and bond with her one on one were all too rare. Cedar was always number one, and she would get whatever I had left over. I admit, it has been tiring caring for a big, sensitive dog, and a mobile, energetic baby/toddler at the same time. Those who cautioned that this might be the case were right. Although I’d committed myself to Fergie and gotten over my thoughts about giving her back, in the back of my mind I still sometimes wondered if it’d been the best decision right now. But never mind that. Matthew loved her, Cedar delighted in her presence, and I grew more attached to her every day. I knew that she would continue to bring our family joy, not to mention that she’d continue to get older and thus need less exercise, and the idea of how bonded we’d all be by the time she got old and grey warmed my heart—the idea of the ever-loyal, ever-happy, family dog.

It was the idea that seduced me in the beginning, and the idea that kept me committed (not to mention a sense of duty). Even within the blur of new parenthood, I was drawn to the knowledge held dormant inside of me ever since I was a child, that it was a joyful experience to bond with a dog. But here it is, one more confession: I know that once I get past this sadness, there will be a small part of me that is also relieved. My life will become simpler, easier again. We will no doubt try again with another dog, maybe a puppy, but not for a couple years at least. I will know better what the responsibility entails and I will make sure then that I am ready, and not acting out of some impulse for change.

I’m not saying that our decision to adopt Fergie was pure impulse. We’d talked about wanting a dog for some time. But we hadn’t talked about it recently, in the midst of raising Cedar. Yet in the end, the idea of getting an adult, yet still youthful, dog in which we knew her history, in which we knew—or thought we knew—how good she was with kids, and in which we knew that she’d been cared for by great people was too tempting. It seemed like the ideal situation. Not a puppy that would require boundless energy, and not a dog from the pound with an unknown past, but a big, gentle, smart, and completely vouched for dog. She sounded perfect. Too good to pass up. A gift from the Universe. A leap of faith.

It is always so disappointing when these leaps don’t turn out the way you hoped for. You want to trust in your decisions, your instincts, your impulses. But you can’t control the outcome, only your reaction to it.

In this case, it’s a no-brainer what we have to do. And I am sad. The good news is that there was another couple (also friends of Fergie’s previous owner) who was interested in adopting her, and they are excited to now give it a try. I really hope that Fergie won’t get shuttled around any more after her next stop. She needs a home where she can get lots affection, lots of exercise and ideally, not have to be tied up when outside (we don’t have a fence, so we kept her on a long lead when we let her out, but she was used to being able to roam freely at her old place). She also needs a home with children who have learned not to grab and pull. And she needs a home where someone needs her as much as she needs them.

Fergie is a dog you can quickly fall in love with-- especially if you don’t have a small child who is competing for every ounce of that love himself. She is the kind of dog who feels deeply present, keenly receptive to every noise, smell, word, or emotion. It is a huge gift to be able to share your life with other animals, not human. But it takes work, and the timing has to be right, and sometimes even when you want it to be right, it isn’t.

Almost One

I can’t believe my son is almost one year old. Or, I can. This year has been more full, more ripe, more exhausting, and more wonderful than any that have come before, and so, in that sense, it certainly feels like a year’s worth of experiences have passed. But on the other hand, babies grow and change so fast. At times I’ll pause and stare at my son and try to imprint what he is like right now, for I know that in just another month or two, this current stage will seem like a blur. I can’t recall with any hint of precision the subtleties of any stages that have passed, for this day and what my son needs from me right now commands so much of my attention.

So I’ll say it again: I can’t believe my son is almost one year old, because this phrase is somehow grounding, and because I want, through the act of writing, to will myself to sense what this passage of time feels like: in my body, my heart.

I feel the need to have some sort of ritual to mark this passage—less a birthday party full of presents for Cedar, more a private day for me to meditate on his birth, our birth, not to mention the journey me and his father have been on, all we’ve learned, all the challenges we’ve met, and all the joy that this little being brings to our life.

Joy. So much joy. Never a morning where I don’t delight in waking and hearing Cedar’s first naa. And then a chorusing chant: naa, naa, naa. Or else maas, baas and daas. Never a day where I am not moved anew when hearing his giggles, seeing his hands quiver in excitement, or feeling him bury his head in my shoulder when he hasn’t fully woken or when he’s shyly turning away from someone new. I cannot get enough of my son. I miss him when I’ve been away for only a few hours, which, in truth, is about the most that I ever get away.

Cedar. I feel like I can’t write about you from the depths that I want to; everything feels like some generalization, or like something I’ve already written or heard someone else say before. Maybe it would be better if I sat down and wrote you a letter. Talked to you, and by extension, to me, directly. Because you are still an extension of my body. I still feel that. I hold you as you nap, a stomach gurgles, and I’m not sure if it’s yours or mine. I hear you cry and your call pulls straight from my heart. I wear you close to my body and we keep each other warm, move and bend and sway all day in one essential rhythm.

Cedar. Sometimes I wonder if I’m overly protective, if this kind of mothering is somehow wired into my blood. If I keep you too close to me, if I should let you play on the floor more by yourself, or shouldn’t pick you up so much at your slightest provocation. Maybe I should bring you to more playgroups, maybe if you were around other babies more then you would see the way they move and explore and it would encourage you to learn to crawl. But here we are most days, just me and you at home, playing together on the floor, moving through the house and yard, tending to chores and needs: laundry, dishes, plants, mail, food prep, eating, peeing, shitting, putting on jackets and shoes. We’re a unit, and I talk to you all day long, talk to myself, tell you what we’re doing, where we’re going, point out the doggies and birds. Sometimes it’s also nice to be silent, like when we lie on the bed and nurse, staring out the window at the trees or staring into each others eyes. And we do see other people of course: Popo, Grandpa, Grandma, one Auntie or another. And Papa of course, each evening, who walks through the door to your smiling surprise and throws you high in the air.

But for the most part, it’s just you and me, babe. And because of this, no one else knows how to care for you like I do. I can’t help but want to supervise when others are in charge and make sure that you have enough clothes on, that your food or bath water are not too hot, that your creams and lotions have been applied in all the crucial spots, and that you are not left by yourself for too long while adults try to get other things done. Yes, I am an attentive mama. And yes, who knows, maybe if I wasn’t always there ready to pick you up when you are frustrated, or to put a new toy in front of you when you get bored, then maybe you might have learned to move more on your own. Or maybe not. Maybe this is just who you are, and how you are wired to develop. Maybe I need to banish all thoughts of blaming myself for this one. Probably the last thing in the world I need to feel bad about is being too attentive. And yet, I can’t help but wonder if I am too sensitive at times—too sensitive to your every cry.

Now, eleven months after your birth, my body still tenses when I hear you cry out at night, and my heart still yearns for you with a hint of anxiety as I make my way back to you after a few-hour break. Not as much as in the beginning of course, not like those early months where my body was constantly poised, on alert, ready to spring out of the chair to your side.  I have changed, as have you. You’re becoming more your own person every day, less a little ball of helpless dependency.  You now survive on more than just mama’s milk. And you can protest, request, make yourself known with gestures and sounds and silliness. I love your silliness. I love our spontaneous jokes that emerge out of mama doing something random that you find hilarious, like tearing off a piece of beef jerky with my teeth, then doing it over and over with more ferocity to hear you laugh in hysterics.  I love discovering what excites you, intrigues you, makes your eyes widen in surprise.

Yet beneath these small delights, our daily routine, and sometimes, yes, tedium, there is an undercurrent. A tugging place where my heart is wide and gaping. Sometimes strained and aching. An invisible, malleable force binds us together, and the farther or longer we are stretched apart, the greater a tension that eventually snaps us back together with a whooshing embrace.

Cedar. My child. Hush now. Here I am. Mama will always be here. My need for you is as strong as your need for me. We are connected in ways that I can barely grasp with these words.

My Blond-Haired, Blue-Eyed (Part) Chinese Boy

Cedar, 9 months

I never expected to give birth to a blond-haired, blue-eyed boy. Especially since my husband and I both have brown hair and brown eyes. But my husband was blond when he was a young boy, and the blue eyes probably came from somewhere on his side, too. They most definitely did not come from my mom’s side of the family, a.k.a. the Chinese half of my blood.

Cedar is one-quarter Chinese. Some insist that they can see the Chinese in him, and in certain pictures his Asian features do come across real strong. But most of the time when people look at him, I seriously doubt that they would guess he is part Chinese unless they saw me and knew I was his mom. 

I want Cedar to learn Chinese, but I seldom speak to him in Chinese. Here and there, every now and then, but probably not enough to make a big difference.
Instead, I’m half-heartedly counting on my mom, his Popo, who watches him once or twice a week for a few hours, to be the influencing factor. The time they spend together is not a lot, but nevertheless a couple of the words that he knows the best are ones that she taught him. The first is ‘xiao niao’, little birds, which he likes to watch out of my parents’ big picture window—the chickadees that flit to and from their feeder, the crows that make their daily migrations across the sky. The second word is, ‘deng’ or light—“Kai deng deng”—turn on the light. Or kan deng, or guan deng—look at or shut off the light. 

Since I know that Cedar is learning these phrases from my mom, then I reinforce them myself so that now these words have become the very words that he recognizes the most. It helps that they are associated with daily occurrences that are interesting to him. Cedar loves to watch birds and we see them often on our walks to the pond. Sometimes when we look at books together and I point out the ‘xiao niao’ on the page, his head will whip around to look out the window. And when I say something about the ‘deng’, his head automatically turns to wait for me to turn on the light. Watching him learn is so incredibly satisfying.

But it’s hard for me to use Chinese with Cedar more often. English is my dominant tongue, and thus the most natural language for me to chatter in with him throughout the day. I’m not in a phase of life when I’m using Chinese often, like when I lived in China or when I studied Chinese at the UW, and so it can feel a little forced to me at times to say things to him in Chinese. Even though you’d think that talking to a baby would be simple enough, sometimes I still stumble upon words that I don’t know and I’m just not fluent enough, at least not right now, to keep up the constant dialogue. It takes too much effort—and any extra effort right now is in short supply. It helps to hear my mom talk to him, and to thus be inspired to repeat the phrases that he’s already hearing elsewhere. But on my own, I often don’t do much more than point out a few words in a picture book.

My sister gave Cedar a book of images from nature for Christmas, and perhaps because I know how to say all the words in Chinese, I’ve deemed that the book to be the one that I read to Cedar in Chinese. So when we read that book, the banana is a ‘xiangjiao’, the flower a ‘hua’, the cat a ‘mao mi’ and the dog a ‘xiao gou’. But then, in other contexts, mixed in with the natural flow and chatter of our day, the dog mostly goes back to being a doggie, the cat a kitty, and the banana a banana. 

It’s hard to switch back and forth between languages. I don’t want to switch mid-sentence because that seems confusing, yet I don’t have enough discipline to declare certain times of day or contexts “Chinese immersion times.” If I were really serious about Cedar learning Chinese, I should use Chinese with him exclusively-- that’s the only way that it would have a shot in hell at competing with English which will eventually be reinforced for him everywhere. But I just don’t see that happening. Mothering is too hard as it is to want to impose one more challenge on myself. And since I’m the person who is with him ALL the time and I mostly speak to him in English, it’s only natural that I want to glean the satisfaction of seeing him recognize those first words that in English too.

They say that kids who grow up bilingual are usually a little slower at first to master new words and phrases, but by age four or so their dual vocabularies take off and then they can easily speak two languages. This is what happened with me I suppose, and I think it is also why I was so shy when I first entered preschool—all these people, speaking in English, a language I understood perfectly, but not one I used all the time. 

Cedar, in a more "Asian moment."

It’s not going to be this way for Cedar though, and I know I needn’t over-think this whole process. I should just speak Chinese to him as much as I can so that, first and foremost, he’ll become familiar with the sounds and tones and therefore make it easier for him to pick it up later in life if he should choose to study it (or if I should choose to make him study it before he’s old enough to protest). 

Easier said than done though, of course. What I’m encountering here, is a three decade old pattern of resistance to speaking Chinese that I’ve built up—and broken down—and built up—and broken down, over and over again, in myself. As a child, I understood and spoke Chinese with fluency, yet the older I got the less comfortable I grew in speaking it. It took moving to China for three years in my twenties and cohabitating with a Chinese boyfriend for my Chinese to finally attain a level of fluency that I could be proud of. Yet now, I’m back in a ‘haven’t spoken Chinese regularly for WAY too long’ phase in my life. 

But Chinese is still important enough to me that I can easily imagine putting on those annoying Chinese children’s c.d.s, and maybe even eventually starting my own Chinese class for kids in my living room when Cedar’s a bit older (in which he can be the star pupil)—after all, if the Caucasian neighbor kids are learning Chinese, Cedar better be too!  My ability to speak Chinese—and my desire to stay fluent—is a vital part of who I am. And by extension, I’d love to pass this language on to my son.

Not only could Chinese be an incredibly useful asset to his life, but more importantly, I want Cedar to know that, like mama, he is also part Chinese in more than a “this is what we sometimes eat” or in a census-form kind of way. I would love for the sounds and rhythms of Mandarin to infuse Cedar’s childhood memories as they did for me. I would love for this language to be one more thing that we share-- even if he may not remember it.

Claiming Pieces of the Whole

Every Tuesday morning, Cedar and I jump in the car and drive to our PEPS meeting. PEPS is a non-profit here in Seattle that matches new mothers with other new moms who live near their neighborhood. The meetings are facilitated by an experienced mom who gets the discussions going, and for twelve weeks, we take turns hosting the two-hour meetings in our living rooms. We start by checking in and sharing the highs and lows of our week, and then we delve in and discuss the chosen topic, be it sleep or breastfeeding or going back to work and childcare. All the while, we hold and bounce and feed and rock our babies, and slowly learn to trust each other and share that much more.

Last week the topic was “Looking Good, Feeling Good” or, in other words, taking care of ourselves, our health, and our needs. Megan, our facilitator, had us do an exercise where we drew on paper plates. First, we divided one plate into segments of how our time is currently spent. “I’m sorry, what were the other choices besides parenting?” one member asked in complete seriousness, because she hadn’t heard the examples Megan had given. The irony was not missed. What else do we do now besides parenting? How can there be any part of our life now that is separate from the incessant attention, worry, and love that we now direct towards our babies? Is there ever a moment, even when I am alone, writing, that I am not aware of my child and my role as mother-- even if my awareness might be of the fact that I am currently “escaping” this role, taking a breath and rejuvenating so I can go home and give of myself anew?

Not surprisingly, a quick glance at my neighbor’s plate revealed that for her too and probably for all of us, the “parenting” piece of the pie took over the majority—at least two-thirds. On mine, there were other categories like “outings with Cedar” or “walks with Cedar” or “visits with mom and dad,” which, in truth, all could have been included in the parenting category. The largest other category I had was “chores,” which often are hurriedly done while Cedar naps or with him strapped to my body in a carrier, so this can’t really be separated from parenting either. Then came a smaller slice of the pie for “zoning” which I define to mean things like television, drinking wine, listening to music, and checking Facebook—my main activities when I am exhausted at the end of the night-- and on second thought, I made this category a little bigger. “Relationship with Matthew” got a smaller sliver, since he is traveling for work four days a week, and when he’s here we barely get to spend any time together alone. And even smaller slices were delegated to writing, reading, and yard work. 

Yikes. But none of this was surprising. The next step in the exercise was to draw on another plate how we would ideally like our time to be divided. With only a tiny sense of guilt, my parenting category became much smaller, and now took up only a third of my pie; on top of that, I no longer named it “parenting,” but instead called it “Cedar.” This wasn’t a conscious decision to rename it, but it seems fitting in the sense that if I were able to have more time in my life for other activities, then I would not end up looking at “parenting” as this overarching, all-consuming entity, but rather, special individual time that I get to have with my baby. Also, not surprisingly, “writing” got a much bigger piece of the pie, as did a new category called “yoga/exercise,” and another called “Matthew/intimacy.” “Friends and family” also got a bigger piece, “chores/yard” still had a decent-sized chunk (since some things must get done no matter what), and, lo and behold, a new category appeared called “editing/publishing/classes,” or, in other words, my former writing-related “career” which I currently have no time for; if I have any extra time, I’m going to write, not worry about teaching or publishing, for writing is my lifeline. “Zoning” disappeared from the pie altogether, even though I know that this is a lie and I still need my zoning time; but what its omission reflected, rather, was its lack of relative value.  

I left these plates on the dining room table, and later that week Matthew told me he snuck a peek. “It’s good to see that I got as much of the pie as exercise/yoga,” he said with a grin. He was joking, but I still felt obliged to explain to him how the I did this exercise quickly, balancing a baby on one knee with one hand, writing with the other, without time to think about it or be precise, and how my relationship with him was also included within other categories, such as, well, parenting and chores. The “Matthew/intimacy” category referred to intentional, one-on-one time that we get to have together, doing things like going out to dinner, or cuddling in bed. Considering that we’ve had a whole two date nights since Cedar was born, and that on the nights that Matthew is actually home we mostly go to sleep exhausted with a baby lying in between us, I thought I was already giving us a pretty idealistic chunk. But still, being able to see visually how my time is divided helped to put things in perspective. Any way you look at it, we are not getting enough time together-- especially time where we can step outside of our demanding new role as parents. 

What can we do about it? Not a whole lot, it seems, with the exception of learning to make the most out of the time we do have, and taking care to be present with each other, to be loving, compassionate, and aware. Maybe eventually we can enlist more childcare and build in more rituals together so that our “relationship/intimacy” category does not completely disappear some weeks before we’ve even had a chance to realize it. But for now, I think we are doing the best we can. 

I have also been learning, week by week, how much time I need to write, to do yoga, and to otherwise feed myself. And I have been learning that I need to ask for it, and we need to plan for it, put it on the mental calendar, or else it won’t happen. We talked about this at PEPS last week—how we, as mothers, need to plan and ask for the “me time” that we need. Otherwise, if we are just hanging out at home on the weekends or in the evenings with our partners and babes, the mother always ends up being the default caregiver. Sure, it may be “easier” for us to comfort our babies because we spend more time with our child each day, and because we possess the magic boob, but that doesn’t make the cumulative effect of nonstop childcare any less exhausting. 

It was comforting to see how universal were many of the things we were all struggling with as new moms, and each of us made a commitment to plan and ask for more of what we needed. For me, I committed to asking for time on the weekends to write and to do yoga, not just one or the other which is all I can usually get away with in my one designated break. But it is also important to me that Matthew and I have more intimacy and time together. I can’t pick just one thing. It’s all important, and I want it all. 

So far, my asking seems to be paying off; I am progressively getting more time to myself, even if it still doesn’t feel like enough. But as long as Matthew and I keep our lines of communication open, and keep talking and acknowledging that parenting is a fluid, ever-changing endeavor, I think things will only get better and we’ll be able to find a more sustainable rhythm that works for both of us. 

For example, this weekend Matthew is watching Cedar both mornings (which is doubly helpful because we still need to get Cedar more used to the bottle). And then, when I come home, I feel refreshed, with newfound delight at holding my baby again, and with more energy at the end of the night to do anything with Matthew besides mutually “zone out” on our respective computers. It’s an ever-looping cycle, and it is so important that we, as moms who never get to fully leave the parenting role behind (it’s how we’re wired), get that “me time,” whether that means exercise or time with friends or writing or getting a pedicure-- whatever that means to each of us, however we have learned to feel good and rejuvenate—we need to honor it, and to ask for it. To know that asking is not a sign of selfishness, weakness, or greed, but rather the opposite. Our happiness affects our child’s and partner’s happiness in a direct correlation that isn’t that hard to trace.