Reno Wrap Up

We are down to our last weekend in Reno.  It's hard to believe how fast this 6 week leg of the journey went by.  Here are some of the highlights:

• Two trips to Lake Tahoe.  Especially the part where you get over Mt. Rose and see your first glimpse of the big blue lake through the trees.  
• Lots of family dinners.  Anyone who has dined with the Chings knows that the food at these gatherings is delicious and plentiful.  I should list a menu sometime to show that the word "plentiful" really does not do justice to the spread of food at these gatherings.  
• In Virginia, we watch TV using Netflix, so we've enjoyed having full cable this month, especially House Hunters, the NBA Playoffs, So You Think You Can Dance, and Bubble Guppies.  They also have Netflix here, so my mother-in-law and I have been watching Season 6 of West Wing.  
• Attending church while the grandparents babysat our kids.  Normally Kenny and I trade off doing kid duty while the other one attends church, so it was nice to get to go to services together.  
• Joshua and Zoey really got to know and enjoy their grandparents and their cousin / aunt / uncle.  This was the major goal of the trip and it was a big success.
• I met up with some of my former co-workers, enjoyed their company, and in talking about cases, remembered that it's really not so bad to get a few years off from being a lawyer.  

Up next, we drive to Nebraska, arriving just in time for the 4th of July.  Kenny will stay for a week and then head to Strasbourg, France, where he will be teaching a summer course in comparative constitutional law for 3 weeks.  The kids and I will be staying with my parents in Lincoln.  Several people have asked me if I'm disappointed that I'm not going with Kenny to France.  The answer is no, I am relieved.  With two very young kids, my day mostly consists of getting them to eat (especially Joshua) and sleep (especially Zoey), and both of these tasks would be more difficult in France.  Hopefully the opportunity will come up again in the future, because it would be an awesome family trip down the road.  Meanwhile, check back in a month - maybe we can get Kenny to do a guest post about his time in France...

For those in Nebraska, I can't wait to see you soon!

Some thoughts from Henri Nouwen: On Judgment and Gratitude

I just read Henri Nouwen's book "Spiritual Formation" and while the whole book is pretty great, there are two passages that stood out to me.  The first is on judgment:

"Judging others is a heavy load; why not let it go?  Being judged by others is a relatively light load; why worry about it?  Often I have asked myself:  What would it be like if I no longer had any desire to judge another?  Or be controlled by the judgments of others?  I would walk on the earth as a very light person indeed!"  

I 100% agree with this sentiment and it would radically change my life if I could internalize it.  It would be interesting if there was an app that could chart how much of the day I spend judging and feeling judged:  I watch HGTV and judge 20-year-olds for being so entitled and thinking they need stainless steel appliances and granite countertops; I take my kids out to the park and worry that other parents are judging me as the worst mom ever when my toddler starts screeching and my baby starts eating sand; I go to the grocery store and judge the person in the next aisle for the food that's in their cart, but also worry that they are judging me for the very same thing.  And on and on.  How much stress and anguish could be saved if I stopped judging others and worrying about whether they were judging me?  And why is it so hard to cut out all the judging?  Good things to think about.

The second passage I really liked is on gratitude:

"Gratitude is not a simple emotion or an obvious attitude.  It is a difficult discipline in which I constantly reclaim my whole past as the concrete way God has led me to this moment and is sending me into the future. It is hard precisely because it challenges me to face my painful moments -- experiences of rejection and abandonment, feelings of loss and failure -- and gradually to discover in them the pruning hands of God purifying my heart for deeper love, stronger hope, and broader faith."

Nouwen is saying that we should be grateful for the good *and* the bad stuff in our life because God is using all of it to grow you.  I tend to think of gratitude in a much different way - I think of it as being thankful for material blessings, positive experiences, new opportunities, and good things happening to my friends and family.  And let me tell you, I struggle even with this "easy" type of gratitude - it's so easy to let the good things in my life become the status quo and start wanting more.  But I agree with Nouwen's characterization of gratitude, and while I'm not even close to actually feeling grateful for the hard things in my life, it's helpful to read passages like this and reflect on how hard experiences move us towards deeper love, stronger hope, and broader faith.

I just scratched the surface with my reflections on both of these quotes, so I would love to hear your thoughts and experiences with these ideas.

Top 10 reasons i love (but also sometimes hate) Facebook

Facebook has been getting a bad rap lately.  Criticisms include that it makes us feel bad about ourselves, that it causes people to have less real connection with each other, and that it causes people to waste too much time.  I'm not suggesting that you should completely ditch your real life friends and family in order to spend all day on Facebook, but I think there are some really great things you can do with Facebook (as well as things that I sometimes love and sometimes hate, listed at the bottom).  Without further ado...

Things I love about Facebook:

1.  Sharing important information -- When I have a big announcement to make, Facebook is a very convenient one stop place to announce to everyone, all at once.  You don't have to compile a big email list or make phone calls one by one - you can just post your news and everyone will see it.  For us, this was especially convenient when Joshua was having lots of surgeries and we wanted to get news out about it right away, but didn't have time to make contact beyond a Facebook post.
2.  Allowing you to be social even when you're isolated -- Right now, I spend most of my day at home with J and Z.  I love them very much, but it gets lonely to spend the day with kids who aren't able to have a conversation with you.  Facebook allows you to interact with others.  It may be more shallow than a real life interaction, but it's way better than nothing, which is what the alternative often is if you're caring for young kids around the clock.  
3.  Hearing other people's important information -- I love hearing when people got engaged, had a baby, took a new job, etc.  I know that for some of my Facebook friends, I wouldn't be hearing about these things (at least not in a timely way) if it wasn't for Facebook.  It's like all the stuff you would hear at a class reunion, only you get to see it happening in real time.
4.  Crowdsourcing information --  You can post a question and very quickly get recommendations for a good HVAC repairman, how to administer medicine to a baby, what's a good book to read, etc.
5.  Connecting with long lost friends and staying in touch with friends who are far away -- I've moved around a lot in the last 10 years:  I've lived in 6 states for at least a year, and 3 more for at least a month.  I've made friendships that were fiercely close in that time and place, but that have been hard to maintain once we move into different time zones and life stages.  Facebook allows you to stay in casual contact with people who were at one time your BFFs and who you still care about.
6.  Celebrating people's occasions --  It's helpful to have a website remind you when it's someone's birthday, or wedding day, or graduation day.  And it's fun to get a flood of well wishers when it's your special day.
7.  Connecting with a support group --  This has been the biggest one for me.  Facebook has allowed me to connect with other parents of kids who have Pierre Robin Sequence and other parents of kids who have feeding tubes.  I don't know other parents in real life whose kids have these things, and it has been enormously helpful to get practical and emotional support from other parents who are going through the same thing.  It's also gratifying to be able to give other parents support.

Things I love / hate about Facebook:

8.  Hearing other people's info, small  - I might be in the minority here, but I like hearing what people ate for lunch.  It is my Input (from the Gallup Strengths profile) - the more information, the better, and it doesn't have to be particularly consequential to be interesting to me.  BUT, there is definitely a "TMI" line where things get a little too mundane, too personal, or too gross to belong on Facebook.  It's hard to define, but it's like the obscenity standard - you know it when you see it.
9.  Getting in debates / sharing political ideas - It used to be the case that it wasn't polite to talk about religion or politics, but this is not the case on Facebook.  For the most part, I love to see where people stand on politics, even when I disagree with them.  But sometimes, either the original post or the ensuing debate becomes nasty, and this is what I hate.  Also, I've found that I usually regret it when I get into a political debate on Facebook because it's just not the right format to discuss complicated ideas and it doesn't allow you to convey non-verbals like tone to the other person, which in real life might keep the conversation more civil.
10.  Seeing people's travel pictures --  I love this because I get to live vicariously through you fabulous world travelers.  I hate it because it makes me jealous :).

What would you add?

Reno Update

We are two weeks into our summer vacation, so I'm posting a family update.  The short version:  so far, so good!  The grandparents have been very generous about babysitting, so Kenny and I have been able to spend tons of alone time together, which is something that we rarely get to do in Virginia.  We have done activities ranging from the practical (car seat shopping) to the romantic (anniversary date) to the hipster (brunch).

Joshua is enjoying spending time with both grandparents and with his cousin Lewis.  We had some concerns about his shyness, but he quickly became comfortable with all the relatives here.  Lewis and Joshua enjoy throwing rocks together, Grandpa Keith and Joshua jam out to the ukelele, and Grandma Betty and Joshua run laps around the house together.  Joshua's speech and eating don't seem to be suffering from the break in therapy.  His speech continues to improve, probably from getting bombarded with new people and experiences.  His eating is about the same- he still eats a limited range of foods, limited volume, supplemented daily with tube feeds - but we haven't seen any eating setbacks since we've been on the road, so that's positive.  We are having some trouble with Joshua not wanting to share toys with Zoey, so if anyone has tips on how to work on sharing, I am all ears!

Zoey is at that end of baby / beginning of toddler stage where it seems like she is developing new skills and getting more interactive every day.  Since we arrived, she has learned to pull up to standing, do motions that sort of look like waving and blowing kisses, and start to make sounds that are more like words (like "ba" for ball).  It is really interesting to watch a typically developing baby grow, because these new skills come so fast and so easily.  You don't have to do anything except let them loose on the floor and they basically figure it out on their own!  Since Joshua had all the medical interventions at the beginning, he missed some early development, so we had to work really hard with weekly therapies and daily exercises to get him caught up to the point where he could do things like crawl and pull up to stand, so it's astounding to watch the difference.  Zoey is also at the stage where she will stick her finger in a light socket, pull dishes off the table, rip pages out of books, etc., so we are keeping a close eye on her.

We have about four weeks left in Reno, so we are looking forward to more family time, a trip to Tahoe, and whatever other unknown adventures await this month.

Dating is to Marriage as Campaigning is to Governing

Kenny and I celebrated our 7th wedding anniversary this week, so I've been reflecting on marriage.  And I've also been watching lots of West Wing this spring.  So, combining those two things, I came up with this analogy:  Dating is to Marriage as Campaigning is to Governing.  Here's how:

1.  You put on your best face at the beginning and paint things in a very rosy light.  If you are dating, you talk about things like who's your favorite band and where's your favorite vacation spot.  If you are campaigning, you spend lots of time shaking hands and kissing babies and little time discussing substantive policy.  Either way, you focus on things that are positive and light and not likely to offend.  In either case, you spend a LOT of energy trying to be charming and witty and attractive, you are very attentive to the needs and wishes of your date / voter, and you take care to say and do things that will be appealing to them.

2.  The things you talk about during dating / campaigning will probably have very little to do with the things that turn out to be most important during your marriage / governing term.  Kenny and I spent plenty of time while we were dating talking about where we would like to live and the possibility of of raising a family.  But it never even occurred to us that we might move to Virginia (which will soon be the place we've lived the longest), or that one of our children might have serious medical needs - and those have been two of the things that have had the most major impact on our lives in the last seven years.  And that is just seven years in - who knows what life has in store for the next fifty years.  Likewise, every president has major things come up, both foreign and domestic, that could not have been (specifically) foreseen during campaign season.  Often, these are the things that define their presidency.

3.  BUT, that doesn't mean that the dating / campaigning is all for nothing.  The dating / campaign season gives you a chance to see what the person values and what their character is like, even though it might be buried beneath witty repartee or vague campaign slogans.  In dating Kenny, I got to see that he loves his family and is very generous with his time and energy towards those he loves, and sure enough, that has translated into him being a loving and involved father - for example, giving Joshua late night g-tube feeds and working with him every day on speech practice.  I also got to see that Kenny loves to think, loves to write, and is gifted at teaching - so when a job came up in Virginia that incorporated all those things, I knew it would be wise for us to take that opportunity.  It's the same with politicians.  You don't know specifically what's going to come up during their term, but you get some sense of how they will govern based on how they have lived their life up to that point, what they names as their top priorities, and how they respond to issues that are currently in the news.

So what conclusions can be drawn from this?  For me, it's to thank God that I ended up with a great partner even though I had no clue what marriage would be like when we were dating, and to pay more attention to a politicians' character and less to their specific policy promises (except to the extent that those reveal values and character).

I would love to hear how others fill in the blanks.  (Dating is to Marriage as ____ is to _____.)

Thoughts on "Gift from the Sea"

I just finished reading "Gift from the Sea" by Anne Morrow Lindbergh, which I've been wanting to read for awhile because it's my Grandma's favorite book.  It's a double win to read the favorite book of a person you love and respect because it helps you understand them better and it's guaranteed to be a good read.  This book did not disappoint.  It's a tiny book packed with practical wisdom and beautiful prose.  Lindbergh encourages readers to simplify their lives and to make space for solitude, and she describes how marriage changes over time and why this is a good thing.  Her thoughts on simplicity and solitude made me think further --

Simplicity:  Lindbergh says that the more stuff you have, the more time / energy / money you will spend tending to your stuff, and at some point this is going to decrease your happiness.  I've been thinking about this lately because along with parenting comes an explosion of new stuff.  For example, we are now a five stroller family. Why in the world do we need *five* strollers?  Short answer:  for highly specialized purposes.  It's great to have a skinny little stroller that fits in the car for shopping trips, a sturdy jogging stroller for walks, a double stroller that can tote both kids at once, etc.;  But it also means that we need a living space big enough to store all these strollers, that we need to keep track of cleaning and maintaining 5 strollers (2 of them are now semi-busted), and that we need to think about which one goes where at any given time.  In some ways, it would be a lot easier to just pick the one most useful stroller and get rid of the others - it would certainly clear up physical space and it would probably clear up some mental space as well.  I'm not sure that strollers are the place where I'm actually going to apply this simplicity principle, but it's good to remember that having a bunch of material possessions can create mental drag as well as physical clutter.

Solitude:  The book encourages readers to regularly carve out time, free of people or distraction, where you can pursue creative / intellectual / spiritual projects.  As a shy introvert, I have no problem avoiding people (and in fact would like to do a lot less of that).  But I have a really hard time eliminating distractions.  When I get in the car, I immediately turn on the radio.  When I have a few minutes to myself, I usually spend it on Facebook.  (I'm not looking to trash Facebook here - sometime I will write a post about all the things I love about Facebook, since it seems to be getting a bad rap lately.)  It is so hard to sit in silence, or even to just focus intensely on one task without popping over to check e-mail, immediately reading the text that just came in, etc.  I have unintentionally bought into the idea that I need to be entertained every second, and I think it really fragments my mind and makes me more shallow.  So it was good to think about carving out space away from all the distractions.

Those were my main take-away points from "Gift from the Sea" and I would encourage anyone who's looking for a good book to check it out.  So now I'm looking for another good book to read.  Any favorite books that you want to share?

Road Trip, Part One

We made it to Reno!  And it feels soooo good to be done with the car for awhile.  Here are some observations and anecdotes from the trip:

• Wyoming - has the trifecta of being the prettiest state we drove through, the least populated, and the craziest weather (hail storm).  
• Names can be deceptive - the bleakest place we stopped was called Sweet Springs.  We were hoping to stop at a cute, down-home diner, but all the storefronts on the main street were boarded up, so we ended up getting pizza from the gas station.  The nicest place we stopped was called Coalville, which was beautiful, green, and extremely pleasant.  
• Traveling with a Toddler - We got to experience the range of human emotions every time we saw a bridge or a train.  Great excitement and happiness when it was spotted; great sadness and despair when we drove by without stopping to get a good look.  Lots of "moos" and "neighs" from the back seat as we drove past cows and horses.  
• How I learned to love Walmart - Early on Sunday morning, we wanted to let Joshua burn some energy before we got back in the car, but it was too cold to walk around outside and almost everything was closed.  So we turned to the one place that is always open, where there is no judgment if your entire family walks in looking like a hot mess, and where you can loiter in a temperature controlled environment without anyone even noticing.  We pretended to be at the park by walking slowly through the garden section; we had an impromptu dance party in automotive; we did some speech practice in the produce section.  I don't love everything about Walmart, but they helped us out in a pinch.  

Overall, the trip went very well.  The kids did (mostly) great, we managed to avoid speeding tickets and terrible traffic and car trouble, and both hotels we stayed at lived up to their Expedia reviews.  So now we get to spend 6 weeks with friends and family in the Biggest Little City in the World.  Good times!