Monday, May 30, 2011

Mistakes

I have been feeling that I made a big mistake of starting Winston in daycare at around age 2, ever since he started daycare. Maybe part of the reason is that this place is not exactly that great. Initially the selling point is that it is supposedly bi-lingual. I figured that this way I could ease him into an all-English school later, if necessary.

First of all, he was bored to death at this place, as he is the oldest in his group. Second, the place is so small and the yard so tiny that in terms of physical exercise he is getting perhaps a fraction of what he used to. Third, he has only been able to attend half of the time, because the rest of the time he has been sick at home with either a terrible cold or a severe case of stomach flu, which he still has even at this moment! Now that another preschool has an opening in July, I have decided to switch him there. Of course, even if the hygiene condition there is better, he will still catch more upper respiratory infections there than if he is kept at home.

When I make mistakes, I feel awful. That feeling can in turn cloud my judgment and somehow lead to more mistakes. Today under my watch, Winston fell from the kitchen counter. I should never have allowed him to stand up there, and obviously should have been holding onto him if I did decide to indulge his fascination with kitchen cabinets. All this happened while I was absent-minded due to the search for part-time help.

Should I keep him at home? Or should I continue to send him to daycare? I wish that there could be a right answer out there.

At the end of the day, perhaps as one of my friends said, any of these choices is fine for his sake, while perhaps none of them is perfect. Maybe seeking the "right answer" in reality is a pursuit of perfection, which in itself is a mistake.

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

The Blues

My mom left to go back to Beijing this morning. The sky is gray outside, and it is rainy, windy and chilly. Or maybe the weather is not really that bad, but it just feels so to me.

The two months went by so quickly from the day my mom arrived. At the beginning I was concentrating on getting her familiarized with everything, and getting ready for my business trip. Once I came back, Winston was suffering from a bad cold and it took a whole week for him to recover. Then he had his two weeks of daycare, followed by another two weeks of illness. We took a 3-day trip to Seattle during Michael's conference, and it was utterly exhausting for everyone - maybe with the exception of Winston.

So two months went by quickly, and I don't have any sense of accomplishment over the two months. I am still questioning the wisdom of sending Winston to daycare at such an early age. I am still wondering if I should keep sending him to this place until the end of June, when I will be switching him to another place. The work front is moving slowly, which is frustrating. I still have to find domestic help and I never doing that. All in all, it's as if the past two months went by without serving the purpose of transitioning Winston to daycare where he can learn things that he otherwise cannot easily learn at home. My planning was obviously highly flawed.

Looking out of the window, I am feeling the blues.

Monday, May 23, 2011

Taking Care of Ourselves First

One of my friends once wisely told me, "the only way for us to take good care of others is to take care of ourselves first."

She spoke from personal experience. When I reflect on her words, I think I understand them more than I can communicate with words here. Sometimes, when we do things because we feel we must do them as otherwise we will feel bad, or when we don't do things because we think we should not do them, we end up accumulating stress to a point that we lose perspective on what is most important. We end up losing temper over trifles, which in any case would be a silly thing to do. But had we pampered ourselves without the obvious connection to "preventing a bad outcome that no one had the crystal ball to foresee), we could not possibly defend it with vigorous reasoning in advance.

Hence the vicious cycle. When we finally realized that we should have stuck to our grounds on certain things that would meet our needs, the bad consequence already occurred.

Therefore, no wonder most people don't do it, because it is really difficult to practice it. Guilt, self-doubt, uncertainty or just plain wishful thinking that perhaps things would turn out okay even if the odds were against it make us victims on multiple fronts.

Can I manage to be a slightly wiser woman after listening to my friend, without having to go through the same experience she did to gain that wisdom?

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Teachers

William Arthur Ward once said, "The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires."

For most of us, the teachers in our lives consist of not only teachers from school, but also our family and friends as well as books and other forms of media, as we intuitively and sub-consciously learn from the context in which we live.

It must be difficult to be a parent, as a parent is the single most important teacher to the child. However, as I ponder over the role of teaching, I cannot help but want to modify the observation from Ward. After all, we need teachers who tell as it is when necessary, who explain when we are puzzled, who demonstrate the personal values and principles, and who can inspire us to do great things when we are ready for such inspiration. We need teachers that cover the entire gamut.

Beautiful Days

The weather has been so nice lately. On the drive on HWY 280, I cannot help but admire the rolling green hills. At times like this, I do understand why it is so expensive to live in this area.

Since Winston started daycare, my mom has more time in the day. She will go back to Beijing at the end of this month, and therefore I am trying to take her to various places for sightseeing and for meals. She is not exactly too adventurous when it comes to foreign cuisines, but she likes Italian and Korean food.

Yesterday we walked from home to the Stanford Dish, and we both enjoyed the panoramic view from the top of the hill. Today we are going to get Korean food. Sometimes when I wake up before dawn because Winston made some noises, I would suddenly have all the fears in my life rush into my brain at the same time, one of which would be about my mom. She is getting old, with lower energy level, less physical and mental capacity overall. One of my fears would be the tremendous guilt I would feel after my mother's death, to think that I have not done enough for her, and to recall the times when I could have made her really happy with just a little more effort.

Is it possible to live a life without any regret or guilt?

Monday, May 2, 2011

Favorites

One of my friends wrote me out of the blue on how desperately in love she was with her younger son. I asked her what happened, and it was just a look that the little boy gave her when she dropped him off at school.

I met both her boys, and the older one is just as cute. She said that the little one just was more attached to her and love was a two-way street after all. She knew that it was not a good idea for parents to have favorites, but she just could not help it.

Indeed as far as I can see, I do not know of a family with multiple kids that did not struggle with the issue of "favorites", perceived or real. It is certainly impossible for a perfect fairness to be established, for that criterion itself is an arbitrary one.

I recall reading about the Chinese writer Qian Zhongshu telling his wife how they should just not have more kids after their daughter as they might like the younger ones more, which would hurt their daughter's feelings.

When I mentioned to my mom how there were so many needy orphans in China and if it were not too much trouble (indeed I blush to admit that I am no Mother Teresa) I would adopt one, she immediately told me that she would only pay attention to Winston. She already jokingly refers to him as "a little prince", and I can only imagine how much more she would favor him to another "adopted" kid.

Peace

Like others, I was thrilled to hear about the news on Bin Laden's death. But as of this morning, my excitement was already gone. In its place is a sense of uncertainty. Will his death lead to a decrease of terrorist activities? Or will it actually galvanize the extremist group?

I used to be an avid follower of politics, discussing and even debating sometimes on various political candidates. But not any more - I can see how difficult it is to change things, and I do admire people who not only talk but also do. My own impatience makes me want to focus on things that I could change as opposed to things that I could not. At least that is how I think about myself.

There is always rationale behind any political argument - even terrorist ones. I am sure that in the Arab world, the American policy was to blame for many of its societal ills. Not an Arab or a Muslim myself, I probably should not pass judgment on how they should feel. The only way I can pass judgment is to say that obviously terrorist activities do not benefit anyone, with the exception of providing a sense of vindication to those with hatred. But who knows - perhaps for those people with nothing to lose, that sense of vindication is what they want more than anything else in the world.

The entire history of human beings has been fraught with various wars, religious or secular. I was flipping through New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd's book "Are Men Necessary", in which she half-jokingly talked about how the world will be so much better and more peaceful were it run by women instead of men. Sure - women can be vicious in their attacks of each other, but often in words only and rarely with guns.

Indeed world peace might be the best argument for female power - catty bickering is at least better than bloody wars.

Boring School

Winston has proven to be a resilient and adaptive kid, but he did not exactly like daycare in the first week. From what I could observe, it was rather boring for him, with its crowded rooms, small yards, unattentive teachers and uncommunicative kids (the other kids in his class seem to be rather slow in their language development).

I found myself questioning my judgment of sending him to daycare before the age of two. Why did I do it? - I asked myself. While I found myself besieged by well-meaning family and friends urging me to send him to daycare before, now that he is attending daycare, I seem to discover that anyone who can afford to keep their kids at home until the age of three are keeping their kids at home until the age of three - with very few exceptions.

He's learning to speak so much that he can rattle off a complete nursery rhyme in one breath. He can sing "Happy Birthday" now. He can sing the alphabet from beginning to end. He loves to repeat and imitate. At daycare, there is simply not that much attention on his education.

And of course, I find the daycare hygiene to be extremely poor. Those with robust immune systems would get sick often in such an environment, let alone him who has not been exposed to many nasty pathogens. But mostly my disappointment with the daycare center is its lack of excitement.

Over the weekend, I had to indulge Winston with different parks and playgrounds, and just playing in my car (climbing up and down and from front seat to back seat) offered him tremendous joy.

Yesterday around dawn, when I was woken up by the noise from the baby monitor of Winston turning in his crib, I suddenly remembered that he would have to go to daycare today. That thought elicited in me a feeling that I had long since forgotten - how on Sunday evening I dreaded going to school the next morning. The only difference is that this time I am dreading the school for my son!