JulieLeung.com: a life told in tidepools

It recently become apparent to me that I needed to teach my children about appropriate physical affection. I needed to teach them that there are different kinds of kisses. Some are shared between friends. Some are for sisters. And some are for mommies and daddies.

Via Ghost Words ( found via Susan Kitchens) Sunday morning I discovered Ayelet Waldman’s New York Times piece describing her relationship with her husband Truly, Madly, Guiltily. Several angles of the article could be explored: differences in libido between individuals, post-partum desires for physical affection, the foreplay of dishwashing, Mommy and Me class attendees (I’ve never had her experiences), and perhaps even the author’s strength in confessional writings (as also noted by Susan Mernit). I do think these are all interesting issues, especially sexuality after children, but for the purpose of this post I will focus on the topic related to my own recent family discussions.

Ayelet Waldman’s theme, simply stated, is that she must be a Bad Mother (title of her former blog) because she loves her husband more than her children.

If a good mother is one who loves her child more than anyone else in the world, I am not a good mother. I am in fact a bad mother. I love my husband more than I love my children.

Even this essence has several angles. I believe many mothers worry they are Bad Mothers and carry guilt for failing to buy the right type of diaper or notice a learning disability. It is a common fear, no matter its manifestation.

Maternal love is different from romantic love. I’ve heard of mothers who bonded with their babies intensely, connecting immediately with their child in ways they couldn’t with a man. Our children are our own flesh and blood: they will always belong to us and represent us, carrying our chromosomes and characteristics. And it can be easier to love a baby who is helpless and needy than a man who may seem demanding or insensitive. Especially if the mother is at home all day with her child, she may feel closer to the baby who shares and schedules her life than to her husband whom she only sees an hour or two a day. It’s easy to be consumed by children and to be caught up in their innocent unconditional affection, to become devoted to their devotion.

I don’t think it is good to compare loves. Measuring one relationship against another is only asking for trouble. Unless of course one is asking a question such as whether I love my blog more than my husband…;-)

Then again, in cases of abuse or other pain, women may have to choose between their children and their partner. Sometimes a good mother will have to make a difficult decision to put her children first (or even herself first) and love them more.

I wish some learned sociologist would publish a definitive study of marriages where the parents are desperately, ardently in love, where the parents love each other even more than they love the children.

But I do believe that the relationship between man and woman, husband and wife, is the center of the family. Although children may add challenges to communicating and enjoying each other, the two should still strive to be one. Ideally, the love between a man and woman endures, beginning before babies and enduring, one hopes, long after the children have left home. Parents desperately, ardently in love is the way it should be, I believe.

There is a love a woman can have for a man. And there is a love a woman will have for her children. They are potentially equally powerful. Both involve her body and her soul. Yet they each take and tug at her heart in unique ways.

There are different kinds of loves. There are different kinds of kisses.

something I didn’t know until my 2-year-old told me…

When Ted’s traveling I enjoy sneaking a peek at his magazines before he does. This week I discovered a copy of Make in the mailbox. During mealtimes I’ve browsed through the magazine. It’s filled with excellent photography, wonderful illustrations with directions that seem clearer to me than other instructions I’ve read, for example, in Sunset magazine projects. The thought of creating a kite with a camera for aerial photography intrigued me, however the list of pages is intimidatingly long and we lack some tools.

The magazine has a masculine feel to it. The ad on the back implies that the Make reader would fantasize about creating a shapely robotic woman. As I had the page of contributors open on the table, my six year old daughter glanced across and declared “Four men and one woman!” But Make doesn’t succumb to Ikea’s failings: there are women featured in some of the photos (even a girl in one?) and female authors such as Dori Smith (her first paragraph is especially good).

The highly-detailed technical sections were difficult for me to understand, especially while supervising three children over lunch, but I enjoyed a number of articles, including Bruce Sterlings’ piece on flintknappers, Merlin Mann and Danny O’Brien on Yak Shaving and Mark Frauenfelder’s description of ecto.

Reading the magazine, I thought it would be fun to do some of the projects with Ted. I like working together with him. Make would make a great date night. 😉

After I wrote this, I read Paul Boutin’s review at Slate.com

There’s been talk of both a camping trip before Gnomedex, as proposed by Robert Scoble, and also a Bowen Island FamilyCon in Canada sometime this summer. I’m not sure if we will be able to go to either of these but we’d like to. We’d need to work out the dates (also prepare for Gnomedex enough in advance) and borrow equipment. Chris and Ponzi have already beat us to shopping for fashionable hiking boots although Don Park posted different recommendations:

If you are just starting to get into camping, my advise would be to get as little as possible. Part of camping fun is learning about what you need for the next trip.

He also shared a list of essentials. This tip I found curious If you enjoy hiking, you would already have the right shoes and cloths. If you don’t, don’t get any so you won’t have to hike. Hmmm. Fortunately the recommended bigger car probably the most expensive item mentioned, we already own…

While flipping through a recent L.L.Bean catalog today I saw something that would be fun to take along on these camping trips: UCO Ice Cream Ball.

Dip into a sweet, cold bowl of homemade ice cream after a long day of hiking or on a hot day at the beach. Fill the bottom of this durable, lightweight Lexan® plastic ball with ice and rock salt, add ice cream ingredients to the top and just shake, pass or roll the ball around your campsite. In 20 minutes, scoop out about a pint of soft serve. Ice cream recipes included.

Ted was less than enthused when I showed him the bright blueberry ball on the catalog pages, but since my lactose-intolerant love can’t eat ice cream, I probably shouldn’t expect a roaring response from him. I wonder why this UCO Ice Cream Ball didn’t make Don’s list. Has anyone tried it?

She speaks of dreams and helps them happen…thanks to Liz Ditz who (in an email conversation following her comment on my Missing my instruction manual blog post) sent me tips and a helpful site where I learned how to put Abigail’s hair in a bun!