A Day in the Life of Winston

Yesterday was a Sunday, and Winston had a blast.

In the morning, we took him to Farmer’s Market on California Avenue in Palo Alto, where he watched the musicians play, the chickens roast, and the crepes being made fresh. He insisted on grabbing one of the small bottles of apple cider, so as indulgent parents, we bought the tiny bottle of cider for $4, and he immediately lost interest. He studied the small Japanese eggplants and other fruits and vegetables and ran around. When I stopped at a café to have a cup of coffee and a croissant, he also had a few bites of the croissant and visibly enjoyed the buttery and sweet taste of it.


Winston kneads the naan


Winston pities the poor chickens

Winston inspects the produce

Winston heads the cider heist

Winston commands the cafe

Then we set out for Alamo to visit a friend with two small boys. We had talked about getting together for months, but one thing or another led to the delay of this get-together for almost a year! I know – it’s completely ridiculous. Even now, winston’s cold has not gone away. But my friend said that she did not mind it, as her two boys had already gone through that rite of passage and are much more robust than before. The drive was overall fine, but I was exhausted at the end, as I had to keep getting new toys out of the bag, read books or do other things to entertain Winston, or else he would whine out of boredom.

After an hour's drive, we arrived in Alamo, which is a really beautiful bedroom community. My friend’s house is full of all kinds of toys. Initially Winston was a bit shy and scared by all those strangers, but he got used to it. He loved eating the shrimps and salmon and rosemary potatoes. And he was roaming around the house happily. My friend commented that he was looking more and more like me. Indeed he’s such a little mommy’s boy. When he saw me from a distance, his mouth would open wide into a huge grin and run towards me. He’s so adorable.


Winston plays with the non-toy

Winston soaks in the scenery

After feeding him milk, we said goodbye to our hosts and started driving back home. He was tired and unhappy and cried a bit because it was too sunny in the car. Then he fell asleep. Poor Winston still coughed a couple of times during his sleep as his nose is still runny and he got woken up by his own cough a couple of times. He slept about an hour in total until he got woken up by my cough – yes I caught his cold and I also have not recovered. Since he did not want to go back to sleep, we took him to Palo A lto Junior Museum and Zoo where he could look at the raccoons, the bobcats, the geese, the ducks, the rats, the mice, the rabbits, the birds and a peacock. He played with some of the gadgets too. Because he fell into a puddle, we had to drive him back home to change his pants and then decided to take him to the Stanford Shopping Center, as it was going to get dark soon.

Winston turns the turbine

At Pottery Barn Kids, he was thrilled by the toys there and was constantly getting into other people’s way to reach the toys he wanted. Because he was so absorbed by the toys, he did not even go after the bathroom door often. My major concern right now is that he seems to be only interested in opening and closing doors whenever he goes to a park. But Pottery Barn Kids clearly has enough distraction for him!

Winston rides the Pottery Barn cow

Winston brews the imaginary coffee

Winston beguiles the baketresses

So that’s a day in Winston’s life. I wish that I could say that he often has such full and exciting days, but in reality I have been too delinquent as a mother to take him to many places. Most of the time he’s with the nanny at the same parks and playgrounds every day, coming home to the same toys and books every day, watching the same TV programs while eating his meals every day.

To Care or Not to Care

The other day, I had an email exchange with a rather cynical friend of mine. He reminded me that he predicted Obama would eventually disappoint, first and foremost because the expectation was so high at the beginning. In other words, he said that Obama did not know the importance of “managing expectations” - a phrase that is often used in corporate America, largely to mean under-promise and over-deliver, as that’s the recipe for staying in power.

I then pointed out that it was impossible for Obama to do that, as he had to get elected president by the people of this country, as opposed to getting appointed CEO of a company by a few board members. Under-promising is surely a suicidal approach when it comes to electoral politics. Perhaps it is the fallacy of the system of democracy.

After all, Winston Churchill said, “democracy is the worst form of government, except that all other forms have been tried and failed.” As for leaving the election of a country’s leader to the general public, he quipped, “The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter.”

My friend remarked that it was admirable for me to still care about politics despite how pointless it all is. Most people consider “caring” a selfless act, as we devote our mental and physical energies to impossible but fundamentally good causes.

Actually I beg to differ - “caring” for anything in itself is crucial to one’s well-being, without which life will feel like death. Therefore, if we care, we live a positive life. If we don’t care, we are just passing time. Of course, often times, we naturally and involuntarily care about a lot of things such as one’s family and friends. The more we care, and the more things we care about, the more we feel connected to the act of living and engaged in the current world.

To care is actually a self-serving act as well.

Winston's 3rd Cold in 2010

Poor Winston threw up his lunch because he was coughing very hard. His nose was so stuffed that he was crying a great deal before finally falling asleep today. I am having an internet discussion with my friend, as I complain to her about the nanny who’s probably neither so efficient at work nor very careful in separating Winston from sick people when they go to the playground. She thinks that I am way too OCD about cleanliness, and that even if it’s the nanny’s fault that Winston gets sick so often, the best approach is to deal with it peacefully, instead of blaming her. I admit that I could be a demanding boss when it comes to Winston.

And as it turned out, I have since caught Winston’s cold, because I have spent the most time taking care of him during his sickness.

Hiring and managing a live-in nanny definitely has been a learning experience for me, and a painful one for that matter. I have leanred to lower my expectations, as Winston grows bigger and less vulnerable. Indeed I wish that I could find a perfect nanny for Winston, but so far I have learned to settle for less. At least, he will be going to daycare next year, in which case I can deal with finding someone else then.

I remember my own nanny, who took care of me until I was about four years old. I remember being closer to her than my mother, as my mother would chase after me to force me to go to school when I did not understand anything that was taught in school. After all I was not even four years old then! My mother probably thought that it was good for me to be exposed to a classroom, and I simply did not want to sit there. My most distinctive memory from that period is watching my mom across the vegetable field as she was chasing after me around the field, with my nanny at my side, frantically helping me to escape my mother. I suppose that my mother was not too pleased with the nanny aiding in my escape.

When we moved back to Beijing, she came to visit me once, and I was elated to see her. I wanted her to stay, but eventually she went back to the countryside of Shanxi. She died very lonely. I think about her still.

Halloween

Many people have asked me if I am planning to do anything special for Halloween and my answer has been no. Sure, I am a rather lazy mother in that I try not to plan things which Winston might be too young to appreciate anyways. But in all honesty, I have always been a bit anti-Halloween.

There are 3 aspects to Halloween that I don’t like:

First, it encourages kids to eat candies. I was unlucky to have been born in the austere Mao-era of China, but I was lucky to have not been exposed to sweets often in my childhood. As a result, to this day, I don’t eat candies or sweet things in general. In a country with abundant access to candies, it will be hard enough for me to keep Winston away from such junk food. And I certainly don’t want Halloween’s help....

Second, I hate horror films, and I genuinely think that it is not a good idea for little kids to be exposed to scary things. And Halloween is all about scary costumes and masks. Americans’ fascination with horror does baffle me. Doesn’t everyone want to sleep soundly without waking up in a nightmare?

Third, I dislike holidays that encourage comparisons. Who has better costumes? What are you going to be this year? How much candy did you get? Etc, etc. There is enough peer pressure already!

London

I went to London for a business conference. Since the conference started on Monday morning, I flew in on Sunday morning. I have always loved London and certainly could not pass up the chance to see a bit of London with a few extra hours. A friend of mine who works at Schlumberger near Oxford came up to London and we visited the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square, had a fusion Indian lunch and then a light Japanese dinner. The hotel (City Inn Westminster) is only a few minutes from Westminster Abbey and Parliament, and the conference took place at Queen Elizabeth II conference center which is next to the Abbey. While I missed Winston and worried about him a little bit, I did enjoy the few days in London despite a very hectic conference schedule meeting with over 30 companies in two days.

One of the observations my friend made after living in the UK for a while was that “there are many more doors”. I said that I had not noticed it. Then I started noticing it! I think it is due to the British sense of propriety that they have so many more doors, especially in publich bathrooms. I would open one door, only to realize that it was leading to another door. I suppose this type of arrangement would ensure that no one would be caught in an embarrassing state!

Winston Got Sick Again!

Winston got sick again! Maybe he was healthy for about 5 days after he recovered from the last cold. I could not believe my own eyes when I saw him with a runny nose. Because of the stuffy nose, he did not sleep much during his nap and went to sleep at 7:30 pm. Then around 9:30 pm he suddenly got up from his crib, started coughing, and when I opened the door, I saw him holding onto the crib railing throwing up his dinner. Throughout all this, he hardly cried. I felt so sorry for him. He’s still just a baby.

After we cleaned up his crib, I put him down and he immediately closed his eyes and went back to sleep. He was so exhausted. I told a friend of mine about it, and she said that she really felt for me. She has 3 boys, and with each one of them having to build up an immune system, I imagine that the mother must by necessity develop a heroic personality. I guess I ought not to complain about my own suffering seeing my son sick with a cold.

If a toddler gets sick 12 times on average every year, does it mean that I have another 10 to look forward to until September 2011?

Revisit "Anna Karenina"

I watched the BBC adaptation of Leo Tolstoy’s “Anna Karenina” when I was a kid. I don’t remember much except that my grandmother and mother both found Anna unbearable and Karenin likable. Their comments were, “What’s wrong with Anna? Karenin is such a nice guy. And that Count Vronsky is a rascal for sure.”

Somehow, I thought of watching it again when I found it on Netflix. No wonder I did not remember a thing from before –I could not have possibly possessed the intellect or experience to truly understand it. Tolstoy’s ability to understand human emotions is truly astounding. It is almost as if he lived through Anna’s experience. Maybe it has to do with the fact that he was gay after all, which made it possible for him to get a pulse on a woman’s feelings.

Yes, indeed I can see why my grandmother and my mother could not stand Anna. She was after all impetuous, impossible and unstable in the end. Yet at the same time, as a grown woman, I can also understand Anna and truly feel sorry for her, as her fate was inevitable. Nicola Pagett’s portrayal of Anna was terrific. Interestingly, I remember my mother telling me that she flipped through all the sections on Levin when she was reading the book. And here I was, fast-forwarding all the sections on Levin when I was watching the TV series. I really found him tedious. I suppose that he represented an individual with political ideals, whereas Anna was just an individual struggling with her personal happiness. However, ultimately what touches me is not abstract lofty ideals – it is always intensely personal and individualized feelings.

That is why we live – to experience a whole gamut of emotions through our experiences on earth. Perhaps I used to fool myself into thinking that our human existence is meant to make a big difference to the world, to the planet and to the whole universe. But now I realize that fundamentally the only thing that ever touches me viscerally is palpable and understandable human emotion. And Tolstoy was a master in capturing it with his masterpiece “Anna Karenina”.