The Art of Family

Date Up Again

I have a million tabs (ok, 13) open, some of which I wanted to post about so in order to keep Firefox from crashing, here ya goes. Also goes you with some other stuff.

1. I am looking forward to reading this series on Findings about the future of Reading and Publishing. Also, Findings is kinda like Pinterest for intellectuals.

2. The Dangers of Crying It Out. Look, I get it. The Internet is this endless buffet that makes no sense- like a New York Bodega. You go in there and next to the cobb salad is pad thai next to stale, old chicken wings, next to sushi from God-knows-where, next to string beans. You can basically find anything you want but the quality is suspect, is what I’m getting at here.

However, I severely dislike the Cry It Out method as well as all this strict, parent-led training. If a baby is crying, it’s for a reason. It has a need and as the baby’s parent, you ought to meet that need. Do you want to sleep alone? Do you want to feel like no one is there for you? Do you want to think that if you cry out for help, no one will come to you?

Babies are also pretty smart. They eat when they’re hungry and stop when they’re full. They don’t like having a diaper full of poo or piss and would like you to change it. They get frustrated when they can’t get to a toy or roll over and they need your help.

For some reason, we think crying is a nuisance and a problem. It’s the only way babies can communicate! And I think it’s part of our job as parents to listen and respond.

3. Interviews with J. R. R. Tolkien and some Oxford Students. I totally geeked out to these and watched almost all of the two-part interview. Those Oxford students are unbearably snobby though for the most part. Those accents are so high and mighty! All very interesting and definitely worth the watch.

I also found it incredibly interesting to see the American promo and kind of underground campaigns that went along with LOTR at the time. FRODO LIVES and buttons and signs and things that I would consider fairly modern.

4. You should be following Humans of New York. It’s like a primer in character study.

5. The National Theatre, London on iTunes U. iTunes U is so freakin’ awesome it makes me depressed that I can’t find the time right now to really delve. However, The National Theatre has some great short videos that are well worth the watch if you’re an actor. I love the two on Voice and Shakespeare, particularly Jeanette Nelson’s observation/statement that vowels carry the emotion whereas consonants carry the intellect. Is there anything quite so fine as hearing a true Brit actor perform Hamlet?

6. In my desperate need to get more art in my life, I’m hoping to go to these two upcoming events:

- Steve Lambert lecture at CAFK+A, with whom I volunteer, less so since I had C. He’s a pretty fun, interesting artist and it would just be nice to see the local art crowd again. Plus, he’s American, so, REPRESENT!

From CAFK+A:

Steve Lambert is an American artist who works in a variety of media, commonly using print and communication vehicles as a means of developing a dialogue with his audience. He has produced interactive scoreboards, letterpress posters, signage and postcards. One of Lambert’s best known projects is TheNew YorkTimes “Special Edition”, which announced the end of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan following the 2008 American election.

(He has a Firefox add-on that changes all your ads to ART and a MAC program called SelfControl that blocks distracting websites so you can be more productive. I need both of these things.)

- Music Man at The Community Players. I have never seen the show live and have yet to see anything this theatre has put on. It’s about 1/2 hour away and I’m thinking of going alone as a little treat for MOI. They just won an award out of Toronto for their production of AIDA so that’s something, I guess. It may be an organization I want to get involved with but I definitely need to see some of the major local theatre.

Well, I wanted to get to bed before 2am but I’m not that tired because I passed out after I put C to sleep tonight. I should at least get in bed and maybe read this David Foster Wallace essay I bought from the iTunes Bookstore yesterday for 1.99

;)

The Key to Happiness: Part 2

The best friend I mentioned in my previous Happiness post, left me a comment and since she’s backseat editing I guess I have to update this.

We’d also spoken about this midweek group D and I attended for 10 weeks at our church. A family, to be specific the parents, were giving their perspective on Building a Strong Family. It was a great, interesting, insightful series and I’m so glad we did it.

They started it off with what you might call their family motto:

Wisdom is Long-Term Thinking.

Helpful, no? When you face any sort of situation, ask yourself what will be best in the long run. That’s wisdom.

Similar to something D’s grandfather, who passed some years ago and whose Honorable Discharge from the Navy we have hanging in our living room, said to D that has always stuck with him:

In ten years, is this going to matter?

We can get so caught up in a Microwave Mindset. We want it now and we only want to think about “the moment”. And while there’s definitely benefits to living in the “now” (Even Jesus thinks so!) we have to balance it with thinking long-term, especially when it comes to our families.

Is being a little late to church in the morning because someone took too long in the bathroom really going to matter in ten years? Then maybe don’t give that person a hard time. There’s no sense in letting it ruin the day - they probably feel bad about it anyway.

Is it going to benefit your relationship to fix a wrong immediately rather than stew and hold a grudge? Then don’t let your pride keep you from nurturing your relationships.

On another note, I have been doing a terrible job at choosing happiness today. I hate being cooped up. All I want in the world is just to get out of the house and DO something, ANYthing. But I’m stuck at home because D is working an event and we only have one car.

Now that I’m writing this though, I’m going to work harder at it!

Hey! This Tumblr is good for something afterall :)

Mornings

The past few mornings have been rrrrrough!

C woke up with painful diarrhea (from her antibiotic, we assume) two mornings in a row.

This morning, during the wee hours while I was 85% asleep and nursing, I thought I smelled a dirty diaper but then also thought I was hallucinating. She fell back to sleep and I remember thinking “I’ll change it when she wakes up in a few hours. NO sense waking her up.”

Well, turns out there was some sense in it: she’d had diarrhea which had filled up her diaper and the following pee had no where to go but out through, well, everything. Nothing like having to strip a bed and do laundry at 7 AM in an apartment.

(Sorry to put you on blast, C. If, one day, when you’re a teenager, and you see this, maybe it will help to know that you were still the cutest little thing when you had chicken pox!)

On the bright side, she’s really settled into a routine, even while ill. She wakes up for the day around 7:30/8. If she’s really tired, she’ll nurse and go back to sleep for an hour or so but usually she’s ready to go.

We get up, have breakfast, play, etc etc then she goes down around 11 for an hour or two. Then she goes down for another, shorter nap around 4. Dinner is usually around 6:30/7 then its bath, stories, songs and bedtime. She’s typically asleep between 8 and 9pm.

I tried to put her to sleep earlier last night and ended up just spending over and hour trying to wear her down. We’ll see how it goes tonight.