How electrical engineering prepared me for motherhood

"You're majoring in math and electrical engineering? What are you going to do with those?" people asked throughout my college career. I would give some vague answer or a "I'm not sure" response. Deep down, all I really wanted to do with my degrees was "raise happy genius children" as I confided to Kevin at the beginning of our email correspondence before we started dating. (Apparently, he didn't mind that much because we started dating soon afterwards.) I often wondered if all my degrees would come to any use.

But the good news is, I have actually found electrical engineering to be quite useful in being a stay-at-home mom. Oh, I can't do things like execute a MATLAB script to do my laundry for me or perform a Fourier transform on Joseph to make him content in the frequency domain (i.e. actually like being in his swing), nor am I any good at fixing electronics (that's not where I specialized), but nevertheless, it has done me some good. Here are some examples:


-Signal processing: Besides being an adorable blob for the first few months, a baby is also an expert signal generator. His tongue, his arms, and eyes are all busy conveying signals. As are his vocal cords. A lot. A way lot. Luckily, with several signal processing courses under my belt, I've been ready to tackle all of the sounds and movements Joseph makes. Those cute high pitched squeals? My internal spectrum analyzer has processed those and determined those are too high to convey actual discomfort. (Really. They are several octaves above actual distress signals.) Those coughing cries? My subconscious has done a short-time Fourier transform and determined those to signal hunger. My success rate? . . . probably the same as any other mom, plus or minus 10%.

-White noise: All the baby books recommended saying "shhhhh" to calm your upset baby. That's what we normally say to people to get them to be quiet. But if you stop to think about it, your baby doesn't know that. You may as well be speaking Sanskrit to your baby to calm him down. What's so special about "shhhh"?

Here's where electrical engineering comes in. You see, sounds like "shhhh" are classified as white noise, like the blizzard that used to show up on TV screens back when cell phones were bricks. It has a flat power spectral density, which means there's nothing really to focus on. Which makes it a calming sound.

(Or you could just believe the "experts" who say that "shhh" sounds like the sounds of the womb, which is why it's soothing. Pshaw. My bet is on the flat power spectral density.)

-Tunneling: So, one required class for the major was Solid State Physics. In this class, we learned about a concept called "tunneling," which according to my textbook is a phenomenon in which a particle can make it across a barrier even though there's zero probability of finding the particle inside the barrier. (Or something like that. Physics people need not bother to correct me.) That is, there is some bizarre way of finding a quantum particle in a spot which classical physics says is impossible.

I've realized that Joseph's pacifier is a quantum object. How did I come to this conclusion? Often when he's falling asleep, he loses his pacifier and cries for us to put it back in. Sometimes we can hunt for several seconds before finding it in some obscure location such as underneath him or way above him. How on earth did it get there? Tunneling. This realization has probably saved my sanity.

-Tackling a problem: Oh, those were the days. The days I'd walk into the testing center after studying for hours and hours and take a look at the test. Look at the first problem. Turn the page to the second. Then the third. Then bite my lip and realize, I have no clue how to do a single problem on this test! Not a one!

But since I took enough of those tests, I came to expect that. I no longer had the panic attacks of freshman year. Rather, I was able to calm down and just approach the problem from whichever angle I could. As my brain turned back on, I would find myself slowly inching my way to the right answer. And luckily, engineering tests always had lots of partial credit.

Well, guess what? There are some days like that. Sometimes your handsome lab partner and husband is there to tackle the problems with you, like Joseph's gargantuan blowout in the temple parking lot or his vomitrocious display the day we were giving our talks. But then there are the days where you're on your own and you have to handle the screaming baby, spit-up, or blowout all on your own. And you don't know where to start. You don't even know if you can move without making the problem worse. That's when you inch your way slowly to the solution, and count on partial credit.

-The real world: In textbooks, things are straightforward. Breadboards work the way they are supposed to. The voltage at one end of the wire is the same as the voltage on the other end. V = IR.  The central limit theorem works. The coefficients you get for your PID controller fall easily from standard equations.

But in labs (and probably even more so in real life), things are not so simple. Sometimes the difference between a functional op-amp and a broken op-amp is if you blow on it. Sometimes random numbers aren't random enough. Sometimes you have to completely change your coefficients for the PID controller by a factor of 10. Real life is a lot more complicated than textbooks suggest.

And the same thing goes for babies, believe it or not. Oh, I did what I could to prepare. I watched this video about how babies cry. (Incidentally, did you know that recognizing babies' cries used to be one of 374 Young Women's requirements to get the reward?) I read all the papers the hospital gave me. I read several baby books including Baby Whisperer and took the quiz to see what kind of baby Joseph was.

And guess what? Even though all that information helped, Joseph was still his own person. Each time I took the Baby Whisperer quiz, Joseph fit into a different category. Sometimes his cries didn't fit the cries described in videos or books, which led me to play a lot of guessing games. Real life is complicated.

-Setting the problem aside: Even for problems that were just on paper rather than hands-on, I still found myself struggling a lot. I would find myself wrapped up in the details of a derivation and get wound around the axle so much that I couldn't think. What was the best thing to do? Just walk away from the problem for a minute.When I came back, I would find that it either fixed itself or I figured out another way to solve it. Likewise, when I just had no clue how to soothe Joseph and was at my wits' end, I would just set him down and walk away until I was ready to try again. Lo and behold, half the time that was what he wanted anyway.

-Enjoying the journey: In both school and parenthood, I've found the daily grind is a lot better endured with a sense of humor. After all, it is kind of funny when you're working on a project way past your normal bedtime or when your baby refuses to sleep and you have to keep going back and forth to console him. Or at least they can be funny if you let them be funny.

And then there are the things that are actually funny. (Maybe they're only funny to me. Oh well.)

I heard Kevin say, "Joseph, sometimes you make it hard to sleep" and I had to come investigate. It's blurry because I was laughing.

Talking about tunneling reminded me of this video from when Joseph was 6 weeks old. We are such helpful parents.

He is so talented.

At any rate, electrical engineering is incredibly useful for future mothers. In its own way.

Laborers in the Vineyard

My first thought when the announcement was made that young women could serve a mission at age 19 instead of age 21 was, "I could have gone."

Over the past few days, I've wondered if I in fact would have gone on a mission at age 19. I never really considered serving a mission because, well, I didn't think I would make it to age 21 without getting married.

But what about age 19? If I had had that to look forward to, perhaps my freshman and sophomore years would have been filled with less boy drama because I would have been a pre-mi. I could have said, "I'm going on a mission. We'll see after that," thus evading the awkward DTRs and flustered feelings which led me sometimes to do homework in the girls bathroom just to avoid dealing with guys. (Girls, don't do that. Nursing mothers need those couches more than you do.)

But then I look back to life when I was 19, and I don't know if I could have dared to go until Leslie's cancer was in remission, and by then another semester would have started and maybe I would have fallen for Kevin to the point that a mission wouldn't have happened at all.

And, as Kevin said, if I had gone on a mission, I wouldn't be done with school yet. That made me shudder. What has also weirded me out is that I'm not even old enough yet under last week's standards to be a sister RM til the end of the month. So if I had gone on a mission, my greatest accomplishments so far -- marriage to Kevin, giving birth to Joseph, my bachelor's and master's degrees -- couldn't have even happened yet. So when all is said and done, with my life where it is right now, I'm glad I didn't serve a mission.

That was the consensus other girls came to when I asked about it on Facebook. Some say they would have gone at that younger age, some say they wouldn't have, but all seemed to be happy that life worked out the way it did.

Anyway, this whole announcement has gotten me thinking about two ideas, both of which are related to Elder Holland's address, The Laborers in the Vineyard. The first idea is that timing matters a lot. I've come to the conclusion that  you are born in a specific year, even a specific month, for a very specific reason. (I wrote a big long tangent about how Joseph's birth affected our lives to prove my point, but I don't want to get too sidetracked right now. Maybe some other time.) There is a reason that the girls born in 1993 and 1994 are getting the chance to serve missions right now. And for those of us who were born earlier -- we can be grateful for the different set of opportunities we got. We can be grateful that we got to labor in the vineyard starting at 9 am rather than at the eleventh hour as in Christ's parable, even if we didn't get to go on a mission. As Elder Holland said last conference,

As the householder in the parable tells them (and I paraphrase only slightly): “My friends, I am not being unfair to you. You agreed on the wage for the day, a good wage. You were very happy to get the work, and I am very happy with the way you served. You are paid in full. Take your pay and enjoy the blessing. As for the others, surely I am free to do what I like with my own money.” Then this piercing question to anyone then or now who needs to hear it: “Why should you be jealous because I choose to be kind?"

The other idea I have gotten from this announcement is about the chance to repent. What of those who would have gone on a mission at age 19 and whose lives are bleaker because they didn't? I frequent a few forums where a lot of inactive members participate. They no longer believe most of the Church's precepts and find themselves at odds with many decisions such as the Church's support of Prop 8, their financial assistance with the City Creek mall, and the perceived gender inequality in the church. Yet they admit they were faithful and valiant especially from ages 16-18 and would have definitely gone on a mission at 19. Isn't it a bit unfair that they were denied (albeit by themselves) this wonderful opportunity that could have bolstered their faith simply because they were born too early?

There's no easy answer to that. But I was recently reading Mosiah 27, about Alma the Younger. He was one who was actively "seeking to destroy the church, and to lead astray the people of the Lord" (v. 10). He wasn't just grumbling on obscure little forums or making snarky comments on every Deseret News article about the Church. He was writing the deceptive "I'm a good Mormon even though I disagree with everything the prophets say" anti-Mormon blogs, making the anti pamphlets, and trying to convince people to leave the church his father loved so much.

And what happened to him? An angel came. He recognized his sins. He turned to Christ and repented. He turned his life around. He became a missionary (and arguably the best prophet in the whole Book of Mormon). He and the repentant sons of Mosiah were persecuted by those who they once agreed with.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, if you're one who once loved the Church but then fell away, and if Saturday's announcement reminded you of the excitement you once felt, don't be afraid or too proud to come back. The Church needs you, and you need the Church.

As Elder Holland said,

I do not know who in this vast audience today may need to hear the message of forgiveness inherent in this parable, but however late you think you are, however many chances you think you have missed, however many mistakes you feel you have made or talents you think you don’t have, or however far from home and family and God you feel you have traveled, I testify that you have not traveled beyond the reach of divine love. It is not possible for you to sink lower than the infinite light of Christ’s Atonement shines.

Whether you are not yet of our faith or were with us once and have not remained, there is nothing in either case that you have done that cannot be undone. There is no problem which you cannot overcome. There is no dream that in the unfolding of time and eternity cannot yet be realized. Even if you feel you are the lost and last laborer of the eleventh hour, the Lord of the vineyard still stands beckoning. “Come boldly [to] the throne of grace,”³ and fall at the feet of the Holy One of Israel. Come and feast “without money and without price”⁴ at the table of the Lord.

Pictures from July

Okay, you all have heard way too much from me the past few weeks. So it's time for some pictures! These were taken, oh, middle of July? We went up to my aunt and uncle's house for dinner in Alpine one Sunday afternoon and my uncle Mark was nice enough to take these pictures of us while we were there. Joseph was a bit of a grump that whole afternoon (refusing to nurse, not smiling much, acting touchy) so we didn't get very happy pictures. But they're still cute all the same.

I love his face.

Okay. I have to explain this one. I put him on his tummy but on the way down his head hit my knee. So that made him scream. I don't know why I was smiling, but if you look at the later pictures you'll see that I actually did try to comfort him.

This one is funny because he's so stiff and I'm so relaxed.

Lessons from the pizza delivery guy

Note: this is a continuation of my Proclamation series.

By divine design, fathers are to preside over their families in love and righteousness and are responsible to provide the necessities of life and protection for their families.

-Family Proclamation, 7th paragraph

Things operated a little differently when Mom was gone. Suddenly, lists in her handwriting would show up on the fridge, detailing all the activities we needed to be at. Meals would either be tacos, waffles and scrambled eggs, or pizza pockets -- if we had home-cooked meals at all. (Okay, we kids probably could have cooked, too, but why not let Dad run the whole show?) Normal chores would take lesser priority, replaced by making sure every wooden surface in the home was covered in Orange-glo. "It will be so nice for Mom to come back to this shine," Dad would say as we scrubbed chairs and cupboards. And he would always have us go do something fun. Matinees, swimming at the USU pool, or miniature golfing.

One time when I was 14, my mom was gone for the evening. So, my dad decided to take us miniature golfing.  As we pulled up to the course, we saw a pizza delivery guy getting out of his car with a bunch of pizza boxes, probably for some party at the golf course.

"You know, you'd have to be really strong to carry all those pizza boxes," my sister Kiana remarked.

"Yeah, and smart!" my dad replied. "I mean, you have to know how to find your way around to deliver all those pizzas!"

"And brave," he continued. "For all you know, when you ring the doorbell, the person could just punch you in the face and take the pizza."

"Yeah!" we agreed.

"You know what? I'm going to go tell him what we think of him," my dad said and he walked over to the pizza delivery guy. The rest of us stayed put, laughing in embarrassment.

"Excuse me, sir," he said as he walked up to him. "We (pointing back to us kids) just wanted to let you know that we think you're strong, smart, and brave." I had turned away with my face bright red so I didn't see what the guy's response was. Probably confused but flattered.

After we finished miniature golf, my Dad continued his "fun dad" routine and ordered pizza. When the doorbell rang, I started running to the door to answer it. My dad beat me there.

"Well, if it isn't that same strong, smart, and brave pizza guy!" he said. I was so mortified that I dashed into the kitchen and ducked under my mom's desk until he was gone.

What does all of this have to do with the Family Proclamation? Well, we know that fathers are supposed to preside, provide, and protect. That is, they need to be like the pizza delivery guy -- they need to be strong to preside, smart to provide, and brave to protect. Or maybe it's smart to preside, brave to provide, and strong to protect.

Okay, it doesn't match up perfectly. At any rate, what really matters is the ability to embarrass your kids. But I think that comes naturally.

Mother's love

Note: this is yet another post in my Proclamation series

Mothers are primarily responsible for the nurture of their children.

-Proclamation, 7th paragraph

The other day, I was looking at a blog post I wrote back in February. In that post, I talked about my fears about motherhood and nurturing as well as the conclusion I came to -- nurturing is part of our divine role, even if it isn't part of our personality. We can develop those feelings of love for our children, at least, that's what I hoped.

And what have I found? It's wonderful and complicated. I think I can sum it up like this: Love is a gift, and love is a choice.

What do I mean by that? Well, let's start with "love is a gift." Think back to your first major crush. Do you remember the wonderful, terrible feelings of infatuation that filled you with such joy that you could hardly stand it? Do you remember the thrill of holding hands for the first time with someone you really really liked? Those wonderful feelings -- I think they're a gift. The feelings of romantic love are a gift from God (probably manifested through hormones) to bring us joy and make us want to commit to another person.

And what I've found is that mother's love is the same in several ways. When Joseph first came out, I didn't suddenly love him, nor did I expect to. My thought process was this: Well, whaddya know, someone was in there all along. Then: he's huge! How did he fit in there? Then:  See, I told you all that he'd have hair!

And then they handed him back to me, all clean and tiny and wriggly.

"Here. You should do skin-to-skin and nurse him."

Abject terror. What were they thinking, handing me something so precious and fragile?

Luckily, we both survived the encounter. Over the next few hours and days, I really grew to love this little guy. When we got a few minutes alone at the hospital, I would tenderly pick him up (still somewhat terrified that I would drop him) and whisper, "Hi baby . . . I love you." (We didn't have a name for him yet.) I didn't really feel like those tender feelings came from me -- they seemed more like they were bestowed from an outside source.

Joseph at about 5 hours old.

And they grew. Even though I was incredibly sore for the first little while, I still looked forward to nursing Joseph because I knew that I would get a sudden rush of oxytocin that would fill my body and fill me with this overwhelming love for my baby and for everyone. I feel like that sort of love is a gift  from God, given to make us happy and to encourage us.

But love is also a choice. A few weeks ago, a lot of people were asking "So, what's it like being a new mom?" and I was having a hard time answering. "It's . . . hard. It's . . . fun."

We were past the zombie days and nights, the 15 dirty diapers a day, the 5 outfits a day, the arc de triomphes, and the worst of the crying. Why did it seem so much harder now?

There are a few obvious reasons. I moved across the country, away from all of my family. Suddenly Kevin had a bit more of a schedule so he wasn't there to help. And Joseph had a few colds which made life no fun.

But there was something else that made it hard -- the high from being a new mom had worn off. Although the mother instincts and hormones are still there, I feel left to my own devices a bit. That is, I feel like loving Joseph is more of a choice.

It surprised me. Goodness knows how many times I had heard from parents and church leaders and books that romance fades in marriage and that love becomes an action word. I hadn't realized how it would be the same for parenthood. But you know what? I'm grateful it is. I'm grateful that it doesn't always come as naturally and easily as I anticipated. It makes it so much more personal. It makes me comprehend that my capacity to love is indeed growing each time I consciously choose to love. And it makes me realize how much we need to choose to turn to God to "borrow" His love.  I believe that one of the major reasons we are set up in families is to experience that transformation from instinctive love to Christ-love.

As C. S. Lewis said in The Great Divorce:

"He wanted your merely instinctive love for your child (tigresses share that, you know!) to turn into something better. . . . You cannot love a fellow-creature fully till you love God."

Wholesome recreational activities

Note: This is a continuation of my proclamation series.

Successful marriages and families are established and maintained on principles of faith, prayer, repentance, forgiveness, respect, love, compassion, work, and wholesome recreational activities.

Proclamation, 7th paragraph

Don't get me wrong, I had a lot of fun growing up. We went to Bear Lake a lot. We floated down rivers and canals a lot. We would go mini golfing and sledding and cross-country skiing and see the occasional matinee.

But there were lots of wholesome recreational activities my parents put us through which focused a lot more on the "wholesome" than the "recreational." Like the death marches we went on, bushwhacking through the mountains behind our house, or the terribly long car rides we went on where my parents would choose the "scenic" route on the way to southern Utah.

But what first came to mind when I thought of "wholesome recreational activities" was the games we would play together. Board games and running games and hide and seek games.

Most every Monday night, we would have what we called Family Night. Each of us would be assigned something to do to participate. At one point, I remember the sequence to be opening song, opening prayer, business, talent, scriptures, lesson, activity, closing prayer, and treat.

The activity we chose most often was a game my dad called Gadianton robbers. It consisted of one of us (usually him) hiding somewhere in the house as if he were a Gadianton robber hiding in the mountains of Central America. Then the rest of us would be the righteous Nephites hunting down the robber. So, kind of a reverse hide-and-seek.

But there was a catch. You didn't always want to find the Gadianton robber, especially if it was Dad. It wasn't good for your heart.

I remember one time looking for my dad. I checked the pantry. Not there. I checked in the hall closet. Not there. I slowly opened the bathroom door and tiptoed in. I carefully pulled back the shower curtain and

"AAAAAARRRRRRGGHHH!" my dad roared as he lunged at me from the bathtub.

This little Nephite warrior screamed and jumped about three feet and ran back to the safety of Zarahemla before the Gadianton robber could catch her.

And yet week after week we would want to play this game, and we would always want Dad to be the Gadianton robber since he was a lot more fun to find than the rest of us. At any rate, it beat the activity Mom always chose when it was her turn -- laundry. Now that is not a wholesome recreational activity if you ask me.

(To be fair, maybe that was her way of making up for the lackluster lessons us kids would give when it was our turn -- boring lessons we put together in Primary or the bizarre lessons I made up. For the record, I still think my lesson on 3 Nephi 8:8-10 was one of my best. I spent the afternoon making construction paper replicas of the cities Zarahemla, Moroni, and Moronihah. When it came time for my lesson, we put a match to Zarahemla, drowned Moroni in the sink, and had my baby brother sit on Moronihah. I don't know that we learned much that night but it sure was fun. And probably followed by laundry.)

The missing word

Note: This post continues my Proclamation series

True or false: The word "communication" shows up in the Family Proclamation.

Answer: False! It doesn't show up once!

You might be thinking, what? Surely it shows up as one of the principles on which successful families are established! Nope:

Successful marriages and families are established and maintained on principles of faith, prayer, repentance, forgiveness, respect, love, compassion, work, and wholesome recreational activities.

How could this be? Every lesson I have ever heard about happy marriages talks about communication. Without it marriages crumble. What were they thinking?

I've thought about this the past few days, and here are my conclusions.

1. That list isn't exhaustive. I think communication would be a nice addition to that list, as would trust, kindness, and a sense of humor. We don't have to be told everything that we ought to do.

2. That said . . . perhaps communication isn't the golden key to happiness that we sometimes credit it to be. Let's suppose that the definition of communication is expressing feelings and words to another person so that they understand exactly what you are trying to say. (That seems to be the definition given by marriage books.) Well, what if what you were communicating was, "I don't like you anymore. You are dumb and ugly and lazy. I am constantly disappointed in you." Yeah, you've just been an effective communicator, but that's not going to heal any marriages any time soon.

More important to a happy marriage, I believe, is respect and compassion. If you have this as a basis for your marriage, then I feel like a marriage can withstand a bit of miscommunication.

Story time. That silly story in my last post reminded me of another time that I didn't enunciate very well. It was soon after we got married since I remember that the living room was full of boxes. I don't remember what I said, but I think Kevin gave me a courtesy laugh. Then I thought about what I said and how dumb it actually was. In disgust, I said, "You've got a weird wife," and then stomped over to the other side of the room to unpack another box. Kevin didn't say a word but instead sat there in cold silence with a shocked look on his face. Because he didn't say anything to make me feel better, I felt like he secretly thought I was weird, so I felt a little hurt. We spent the rest of the evening uneasy around each other.

That night in bed, he spoke carefully. "So . . . you think I've got a weird laugh?"
"What? No! I love your laugh. Why would you think that?" I responded.

Then I realized that "laugh" sounded like "wife" and that he must have misheard me when I snarled, "you've got a weird wife."  No wonder he seemed so hurt all evening -- he thought I had made fun of him! When we both realized our mistakes and misperceptions, the hardness in the room dissipated. We both laugh now every time one of us brings it up.

On the surface, this is a story about communication. And it is. If I had spoken more clearly or if he had asked for clarification, we could have enjoyed that evening a lot more. But I think the real problem was that we didn't yet have foundations of respect and compassion. Since we hadn't been married long, he didn't yet know that I would never have spoken so cruelly about his laugh, or anything about him. Likewise, I didn't know that had he actually understood me, he wouldn't have let me sulk in silence and self-pity.

What am I getting at? Communication is important, but just spouting words back and forth isn't going to lead to a successful marriage. They need to be kind words and backed up with kind actions and feelings. They need to be words of repentance and forgiveness. They need to be words of love.