A few
weeks ago, I was talking to a friend at Friday night services in Okinawa. He
and his wife have a one-year-old, and they’re very excited that Yoni and I will
soon have a baby of our own. As so often happens after you tell people that
you’re pregnant, conversations with this friend now seem to revolve solely
around pregnancy and babies – but that’s ok. He usually has helpful advice to
offer and funny anecdotes to share. No scary labor stories – yet. Anyway, the
morning after we had that conversation (I think it was about strollers), he
came over to me at shul and apologized. He said that he didn’t want me to think
that we could only talk about babies, and he also didn’t want to overwhelm me with
too much information. Having gone through this process recently himself, he is
very aware that sometimes endless conversation can be the opposite of helpful.
I told him that I didn’t think he needed to apologize; whatever he had been
saying the night before was helpful enough, and certainly not annoying. (I also
told him that, as a rabbi’s daughter, I’m surprisingly used to having the same
conversation over and over again.)
I’ve been
thinking about that interaction a lot over the past week. While we do have
access to all kinds of baby gear in Okinawa (on- and off-base), the selection
is very limited compared to what one might see in the States. And so I decided
that, as long as I was going to be in the States during my pregnancy, I’d do
some shopping. Or at least browsing so I could decide what to order online
later on. But wow – sometimes the options are overwhelming. As much as it’s fun
to have 25 (or more) monitors to choose from as opposed to the 3 different
models they sell on base, having so many options certainly makes the
decision-making process more complicated. And how different could they all be,
really?
This
afternoon I spent some time sitting at the kitchen table with my mom, looking
at different umbrella stroller options. She is a perennial review reader, which
is a great skill, but sometimes prevents her from making a decision when one
needs to be made. There are always more reviews to be read, more options to
research. She asked me today if I have that problem as well, and I told her that
I like to read reviews, but I get overwhelmed and give up more quickly. Or I
outsource the review reading to her! What does Yoni think, you ask? He usually
has opinions, if you ask, but he doesn’t obsess. Plus, he’s currently deployed
on the USS Bonhomme Richard (you might recognize that name from the nightly
news), so he’s not exactly available for baby gear discussions. Hopefully I’ll
be able to find a balance – for soliciting and/or receiving advice, and
review-reading, and all things baby related. Something to strive for, anyway.
Did Yoni lead any Easter services? I saw on youtube a video of a service, but it didn't look like him leading- perhaps there is more than just 1 chaplain on the boat.
ReplyDeletethis is the link
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfVN01UG-Fc&feature=youtu.be