Love Languages

After much thought, I decided to share my experience with a book, The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman, for ScienceGirl's baby shower.  The thesis of the book is that how we give and receive love governs how we function in loving relationships whether that be with our spouse, our parents, or our children.  Basically, we all give and receive love in five main ways: physical touch, words of affirmation, gifts, quality time, and acts of service.  Everyone can experience all five love languages, but most of us have one that is most important, our primary love language. 

Think about this: how did you know your mother loved you?  Was it because she always told you? words of affirmation Or because she packed your lunch every day? acts of service Perhaps you had a morning ritual involving lots of cuddling.  physical touch/quality time You see where I'm going with this.  No love language is better or worse than any other, but we all have one (or maybe two) that we understand best.  It's nice if you and your loved ones share a primary love language, but it's ok if you don't. However, it's good to be cognizant of different love languages and how they can shape our behavior in relationships. Sometimes we are trying to show our love for someone, but that person has trouble feeling it because it's the wrong love language for her.

In addition to a primary love language, we all have an internal "love tank" that can empty and fill depending on circumstances in our lives and the health of our relationships.  Being spoken to in our primary love language is the best way to fill the tank and keep us feeling our best. 

Why I am I writing this for my baby shower post?  This love language concept can be particularly important and useful for raising kids.  In fact, Chapman has a whole book devoted to love languages in parenting.  Typically, an individual's primary language isn't evident until about age four, so it's critical for parents to "speak" in all of them when children are young.  Even after you think you have identified your child's primary love language, you should still use all of them.  But, you may want to emphasize the one that is most important to your child, and you may want to consider it when you invoke punishments.  For instance, a child whose primary love language is quality time will find being sent to her room particularly harsh.  By the same token, keeping a kid's love tank full can promote self confidence, good behavior, and healthy relationships.

There are a series of Five Love Language books targeted to the various types of relationships we encounter, including one specifically about children and one about teenagers.  They have a fair bit of Christian content, e.g. Bible quotes, but that's easy enough to overlook if you want.  Although the language can be a bit cheesy ("love tank"?), I have found the five love languages thesis has been crucial for my relationship with EGM as well as other important relationships in my life.

ScienceGirl, lots of other bloggers have offered their best practical advice - to take of yourself and your marriage so you can be the best possible mom to your little one.  I encourage you to read a FLL book (or visit the related website) to give you another tool to do just that.  Identify your love languages so you and your husband can keep each other's love tanks full throughout the very challenging (and rewarding!) time ahead of you, and you'll be able to keep your daughter's tank full too.   The rest should fall into place.

More burps

I spent two hours on the phone with Belkin (the manufacturer of my wireless router) tech support last night and my internets are still fucking broken.  In fact, it's worse now than before I called them; before I could at least connect using the ethernet cable, but now I can't even do that.  I spoke to two different technicians plus a rep from my ISP.  At last, after nothing worked, the Belkin tech said he was going to transfer me to a senior technician.  I was put on hold, and then I heard a message along the lines of "this is an unauthorized transfer. click".  The fuckers hung up on me!  So today I'm going to buy a new router, throw the Belkin router out the window, and maybe I'll be able to make the baby shower happen. 

Right now I'm breaking my personal rule and posting this from work, but I really don't want to handle the baby shower stuff here.  I'm really sorry for the flakiness.  I know everyone made a big effort to write posts for my deadline, and now I can't follow through.  ScienceGirl, don't have your baby yet, ok?!?!?

Internet burp

Um, I'm having a bit of trouble* with my connection, so the baby shower carnival post (and my post for it!) might be late.  Those of you who emailed me in the last few hours will definitely be in, and any stragglers can still sneak something in too!

* I think it's the same trouble I have every time someone adds a computer to the wireless network.  There's some issue with the computers competing for IP addresses or something, and they end up like, blocking each other.  The only way to fix it seems to be an hour-long call with tech support to completely reset the router or something.  What sucks is that my old computer is the one that has to do the reset, I guess because the network was initially set up on it.  But the reset thing requires plugging in an ethernet cable, and my old computer is literally crumbling around where the ethernet cable plugs in, so it's very difficult to establish a connection that way.  Sigh.  I'm currently sitting behind the tv with my laptop connected to the modem via a short ethernet cable, which just won't do for more than a few minutes, thus the delayed baby shower.  Sorry SG! 

Baby shower reminder

Thanks to everyone who has already written a post for ScienceGirl's virtual baby shower and emailed me the link.  If you intend to contribute to the baby fun, please send me a link to your post in the next 20 hours or so.   I think this "shower" is going to be really neat!

Thanks!



Here is the Wikipedia entry for baby shower if you don't know what one is.  Apologies for my Ameri-centrism.

Buzz totally sucks

I know I'm not the first person to post about the new Buzz app in gmail, but I'm annoyed enough to add to the dialog.  If you have ever emailed me from your gmail account, I can see your name and possibly your photo.  If you have ever emailed me from your pseudonymous bloggy gmail account but had your real name attached to the account, I can see your name and possibly your photo.

I will of course keep this info to myself, but it sucks, huh?  If you have your real name associated with your bloggy gmail account, I recommend changing it to your pseud.

Lame.

Thought of the day

If you have to say, "isn't that funny?!" after you tell a story, your story probably wasn't very funny.

Quiet time

I have taken a few casual personality tests over the years, and every time I come out right on the line between introvert and extrovert.  I think this is very accurate, as I enjoy the company of others but being around too many people or meeting lots of new people really wears me out.

I've met about a dozen new people since I started my new job.  I had actually been introduced to most of these people before, but even still it felt like a lot of effort to interact with them last week.  I had to give a presentation yesterday that I enjoyed, but performing for two hours--even to a friendly audience--wore me out.  To top it off, I'm not settled into my new office yet (necessary furniture isn't all there), so I have been feeling happy but at loose ends.

I had to take care of a critical errand this morning which was going to make me significantly late.  Between that and a major snowstorm, I decided to stay home.  I had a haircut appointment tomorrow evening for which I was going to have to leave a little early, but I was able to reschedule it for this afternoon instead, so now I'll be able to stay late tomorrow to make up some of the lost time today.  I haven't gotten much done today, but I think it will ultimately be a good thing.  I needed a day away from people and my chaotic office so I could recharge a little bit.  I think I'll be in good shape tomorrow to focus on some real work.