{"id":136,"date":"2006-07-16T11:00:51","date_gmt":"2006-07-16T18:00:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/archives\/2006\/07\/16\/slow-learning\/"},"modified":"2006-07-16T11:00:51","modified_gmt":"2006-07-16T18:00:51","slug":"slow-learning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/2006\/07\/slow-learning\/","title":{"rendered":"Slow Learning"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hav\u00ading a new\u00adborn is a les\u00adson in many things \u2014 in fact, one could prob\u00adably write one of those \u201cEverything I Needed to Know About ABC<\/span> I Learned From DEF<\/span>\u201d (try typ\u00ading that into Amazon, there are some inter\u00adest\u00ading titles in the res\u00adults that show up, includ\u00ading \u201cEverything I Needed to Know about Busi\u00adness\u2013 I Learned from a Cana\u00addian\u201d and \u201cEverything I Know About Women I Learned From My Tractor\u201d).<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. The top les\u00adson would have to be patience \u2014 when you think that almost 6 weeks after being born, the baby is still not in much of a routine (well, she some\u00adtimes has a nap in the morn\u00adings, and she inev\u00adit\u00adably wakes up and wants to be fed just as we put food on the table for us, no mat\u00adter what time that is, unless I wake her up to feed her first). Even\u00adtu\u00adally babies can get to a routine of sorts, but it can take a long time. So you just keep try\u00ading. Even if it takes weeks.<\/li>\n
  2. The next would be just how much you can get done when sleep-deprived, and when to recog\u00adnise that you really do need a break. Doing some\u00adthing when you\u2019re sleep-deprived is fine when the qual\u00adity of the end res\u00adult isn\u2019t import\u00adant, or it\u2019s easy to do (it\u2019s hard to really go wrong put\u00adting laun\u00addry in the wash\u00ading machine) but hav\u00ading to redo things because you mucked up the first time is annoy\u00ading. Sleep depriva\u00adtion often equals not think\u00ading prop\u00aderly, or for\u00adget\u00adting import\u00adant aspects, or over\u00adweight\u00ading unim\u00adport\u00adant aspects, of any\u00adthing you\u2019re think\u00ading about. And drink\u00ading cof\u00adfee only helps a little if you\u2019re really sleep-deprived (and too much cof\u00adfee just makes the baby fussy any\u00adway, so it\u2019s self-defeat\u00ading). I keep lists for lots of things, it\u2019s the only way to make sure noth\u00ading import\u00adant is forgotten.<\/li>\n
  3. Which leads me to effi\u00adciency \u2014 when the baby only naps for short peri\u00adods, and you need to get things done (blog post\u00ading, shower\u00ading), you can\u00ad\u2019t pro\u00adcras\u00adtin\u00adate or muck about. If it needs to be done, you need to do it in the few minutes you have, oth\u00ader\u00adwise you may not have anoth\u00ader chance until tomor\u00adrow. Or next week. Or next month. And you really need to pri\u00ador\u00adit\u00adise (which explains why I haven\u2019t been post\u00ading much, showers take pri\u00ador\u00adity if I only have time for one of those in a day).<\/li>\n
  4. Break\u00ading action items into steps is also neces\u00adsary. Since the naps might be short, which will only give you a few minutes at any giv\u00aden time, you need to have stop\u00adping points all the way along and a sys\u00adtem to remem\u00adber quickly where you were. Unfor\u00adtu\u00adnately this does\u00adn\u2019t work when you need to think deeply about some\u00adthing, but there\u2019s the think\u00ading time you get while nurs\u00ading, which you can try to use, assum\u00ading sleep depriva\u00adtion, see (a), does\u00adn\u2019t make it a waste of time. Or you don\u2019t nod out while nurs\u00ading (I haven\u2019t yet, but I\u2019ve come awfully close). And you have to fig\u00adure out how many items you can stand to have going at any one time, so the house or com\u00adputer isn\u2019t overly littered with items in vari\u00adous stages of completion.<\/li>\n
  5. And finally, the need for bal\u00adance. I take walks to the corner to clear my mind and get me out of the house, with or without the baby depend\u00ading on wheth\u00ader someone at home can mind her; this gives me some bal\u00adance and a chance to be a per\u00adson in my own right rather than solely \u201cmoth\u00ader\u201d. Being a per\u00adson and not solely a whatever-your-job-is, no mat\u00adter how inter\u00adest\u00ading or import\u00adant or ful\u00adfilling that job, is equally import\u00adant to life\u2019s bal\u00adance in the work life. It seems to me that every\u00adone I know is busier than they were a few years ago (maybe it\u2019s just the people I know) and they\u2019re hav\u00ading to work harder at find\u00ading that elu\u00adsive bal\u00adance, while at the same time real\u00adising more how import\u00adant it is.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Time is mov\u00ading slowly right now, like mov\u00ading through treacle or molasses. I\u2019m blam\u00ading it on the sleep depriva\u00adtion; I have to be care\u00adful what I do and how I do it and think\u00ading straight isn\u2019t all that easy. Once the baby starts sleep\u00ading for longer at nights it\u2019ll be easi\u00ader. In the mean\u00adtime, I\u2019m learn\u00ading patience. Slowly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Hav\u00ading a new\u00adborn is a les\u00adson in many things \u2014 in fact, one could prob\u00adably write one of those \u201cEverything I Needed to Know About ABC<\/span> I Learned From DEF<\/span>\u201d (try typ\u00ading that into Amazon, there are some inter\u00adest\u00ading titles in the res\u00adults that show up, includ\u00ading \u201cEverything I Needed to Know about Busi\u00adness\u2013 I \u2026 Con\u00adtin\u00adue read\u00ading \u201cSlow Learning\u201d<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-136","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-family"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=136"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}