A Tense Equilibrium

When my daughter was about five months old, I was met with the most rewarding welcome one day when I picked her up from her nanny's. She reached out for me to carry her immediately I entered the living room where her playpen was. I was elated. My daughter had missed me. She had noticed I was away and longed for my return and even more importantly, she was learning to express her love to me. I still remember the feeling of elation I experienced that day, over a year ago. In the following months, she continued to spice up her welcome routine. As she mastered sitting, crawling, standing, cruising, and walking, her welcome evolved from a single reach, to reaching with a big toothless smile, to excited screams of ‘mummy’ and warm, strong hugs. I looked forward to picking her up each day because she was always there to make me feel warm and fuzzy.

Imagine my utter dismay the day that I picked my daughter up only to be greeted by a reluctant look, and a deep resolve to run in the opposite direction. She was having fun, playing with another young kid so she wasn't pleased to see me. I could handle that, I thought. After all, I remember countless times during my childhood when I made no secret of my disappointment when my parents arrived to pick me up from some event or outing. However, for a period of time, I began to notice that she showed this disappointment at my arrival on a fairly consistent basis even when she wasn't playing with another young kid. She seemed to have developed a strong bond with her nanny. She always appeared super happy to be dropped off – never any frantic crying in the mornings - and yet was always quite hesitant to leave. She would whine, or cry, or have a complete meltdown. The first time it happened, I was quite annoyed and sad at losing my cherished welcome. I was irritated that I had to physically force my daughter into her car seat after a long hard day at work, and strangely jealous that I might be losing the number one spot in her heart.

It was yet another uncomfortable reminder of the ‘emotional’ sacrifices working mothers make when we choose or have to work full-time while raising young kids. Pursuing a demanding career means that I ‘outsource’ at least 60% of the time I could spend with my daughter to someone else. It means that a lot of the time someone else will dry her tears and comfort her, feed her, and possibly hear her say her first words or take her first steps, stack her first blocks, or solve her first puzzle. As a young mother I am eager to relish in these milestones and soak up all these precious memories directly. However, I have had to improvise by repeatedly texting her nanny while at work, watching videos of her playing during my lunch break, and discussing with her nanny how her food and play preferences evolve over time.

   

I shared my concerns with my dear husband and he encouraged me by first reminding me of the countless benefits of being a career woman – notably, the fact that I am able to work at achieving a sense of purpose for myself and also being able to contribute to provide a good standard of living for our daughter. Then he also highlighted the fact that we should really be grateful that we have a nanny who is doing such a good job that our daughter is obviously happy and thriving - definitely beats the rampant childcare horror stories we hear so often.

My husband couldn't have been more right. While my daughter may not always be perfectly bonded to me 24/7, she definitely knows who her mother is. She calls out my name first thing when she wakes up and will find me wherever I am in our home when she is excited, hungry, sleepy, or hurt. There was never really a question about our bond as mother and daughter necessarily diminishing because I have a full-time job. Still, I do think that it is important to be intentional about creating a bond with your child, especially as a full-time working mother since you don’t spend as much time with your child as you could if you chose to stay at home. To remedy this situation, I take days off occasionally just to spend with her. I take her to the library, or the playground, and recently to the pool just so that I can watch her play and grow. I enjoy witnessing her milestones and get amused by her utterances, without the distraction of work and chores. 

All too often balancing trying to be a great mother, a super wife, and a high–achieving employee,  can get rather stressful and it means I don’t have enough time to simply enjoy my daughter. Given how fast they grow, sometimes, I just need to take a ‘mummy-day’ so that I can relish in those precious bonding moments with my baby girl.

Tough Love

 “If that was my kid….’ I would begin, and then I would proceed with a list of rather harsh punitive measures to set someone else’s kid straight. I would typically preach these self-righteous sermons after witnessing a completely helpless parent try in vain to cajole their kid through an embarrassing tantrum. I was one of those people with no children who still professed to know the best way to discipline a kid acting out in public. I often would look on with irritation, almost scorn, at times, and wonder how on earth a full grown adult could be at the beck and call of a whining infant. How could parents be so weak?

My first year of motherhood didn’t quite cure me of this self-righteous. Our daughter was a well-adjusted, even-tempered, pleasant infant. She didn’t cry in public, she slept through all the sermons at church, contently sucked at her bottle, or would just calmly take in any new environment without a peep. I began to proudly think it was the no-nonsense African genes at work and that my daughter was born to know that crying unnecessarily and other tantrum-like behavior was completely off limits.

Today, I can’t help but chuckle at my delusion. Every parent of a toddler will tell you that the erratic, impulsive, emotional behavior of toddlers has very little to do with no-nonsense genes. Toddlers are at an interesting phase in their life. They are just becoming aware of their independence and ability to assert their own desires and yet do not have the sense or tact to curb their impulses. In other words, it is easily possible for a barely-two-year old child to have an adult at their wits end in a desperate attempt to calm them. Those adults, I’ve learned are not necessarily weak, they are just still figuring things out. Toddlers on the other hand, are innate experts at acting up at the worst possible time.

Recently at church, my daughter rudely reminded us that she had fully transitioned into toddlerhood. We had gone to church much earlier that day than normal because of church-related responsibilities. The timing threw our daughter’s routine and nap off schedule and she ensured that we paid dearly for it. She couldn’t decide if she wanted to sleep or eat, get off our laps and the pew and run around, talk at the top of her voice, ran laps around the church or dash through the corridors…she was exhausted, restless, and irritable. We were shocked, clueless, and helpless.

A simple ‘shush’ didn’t work because she would get louder and draw more attention to herself and us. A quick but decisive spank would normally set things right back on track at home but church service wasn’t quite the scene for that – this is what I mean by toddlers are ‘experts at acting up’. It’s as if they know that in public, you don’t’ have the power to do all you could do to discipline them and so they have more leeway to drive your nuts without suffering any drastic consequences.

In the end, we had to make a dash for home before the end of service, with our tails between our legs, exhausted and completely baffled about what had just happened. I was finally cured of my self-righteousness toward parents of tantrum-throwing toddlers. I wish I could swallow back all my judgment-riddled suggestions on how to set a child straight and replace them with more caring  phrases like,  ‘I hear you, I understand, it’s going to be ok.’

I remember that when we were quite young, my parents only needed to  shoot a ‘dangerous’ glance our way when we were in public and my brother and I would stop dead in our tracks and begin to pray fervently to God to save us from the impending punishment those dangerous glances foretold. I plan to master that skill  someday but unfortunately our daughter is not old enough for those ‘dangerous looks to work and when I have desperately tried them anyway, she finds my furrowed brow really quite amusing.

The need to discipline our child caught me by surprise because I was and still am not quite over how adorable and angelic she is. I’ve struggled to find that fine but necessary balance between the love, care, and affection I shower her with and the need to be a firm and consistent disciplinarian even this early in her life.

I keep learning that parenting is serious business. At first, it’s mostly just physically demanding because of the lack of sleep and catering to the constant needs of a demanding infant. However, as children grow, parents need to develop the mental and psychological prowess to nurture and prune their characters. This necessitates tough love – the realization that enforcing discipline is in fact a huge testament to the love that you have for your child.

It is after all, easier to do nothing; to just watch on, to coddle and cajole, than to embrace the thoroughly unpleasant job of disciplinarian. I remember my father explaining to us as kids that whenever he had to punish us, it really hurt him but he had to do it because he loved us. At that time, his words sounded oxymoronic and if I hadn’t been taught to behave, I probably would have rolled my eyes at him. Today his words ring so true. I don’t like to see my daughter unhappy, least of all because I’ve given her a spanking or shown my disapproval of her behavior in other ways - the way she curls her lip in dismay, or simply cries her eyes out,  is heartbreaking.

However, I’m learning that because I love her more than life itself, I’ll do whatever I need to do to ensure that she will grow up into a well-adjusted, happy, and accomplished woman who will be a blessing to our world

Breastfeeding-on-the-go and the Magic of Mamava

“No,” she said emphatically with a look partly of surprise and condescension. It was as if I had two horns on my head, or had asked a ridiculously stupid question. I walked away wondering what to do with the soreness and tightness in my chest and thinking about the dwindling stash of pumped breast milk in the freezer at home.

I had asked this airport attendant whether there was a breastfeeding or pumping room. It was my first business trip after my daughter was born and nothing could have prepared me for this aspect of the tug-of-war that is motherhood and full-time work, especially full-time work laced with frequent travel. I had started my day in the wee hours of the morning with the obligatory morning pump and in between presentations; I had made use of the spacious and only restroom in a Chipotle nearby, much to the chagrin of restaurant patrons who needed ‘to go’. 

I don’t know why I imagined that when I finally got to the airport, I would find an oasis for lactating mothers, where I could pump several hours worth of breast milk before boarding my final flight back home. Surely, many lactating mothers must fly through Laguardia Airport daily without their babies? What on earth do they do? 

After asking and searching the terminal, in vain, I thought of my dwindling alternative locations to pump, cringing at the only option I had left – a bathroom stall. I scoured the terminal to find the cleanest possible stall. After about thirty minutes of standing with my nose scrunched in disgust, making painstaking efforts to ensure that my pump and bottles had no actual contact with the bathroom stall, and finally collecting and storing several ounces of ‘liquid gold’, I made my way out of  the stall, washed my hands, and marched in frustration to my gate. 

Airport bathrooms are gross and no mother should have to pump in a bathroom.  In today’s day and age, when the benefits of breastfeeding are well-publicized and documented you would think that there would be ample provision made for mothers who need to provide food for their babies and keep their milk supply up while travelling.

Laguardia wasn’t the only airport that disappointed me. I had searched in vain for pumping places in several major airports on the east coast and south-west of the country while travelling for work. So you can imagine that the tiny Burlington airport in Vermont completely knocked my socks off, when I discovered it had a designated pumping location. I asked customer service attendants again about a pumping room, while in Burlington on business and waited to hear the usual ‘no’.

‘Yes we do have a place where you can pump,' the customer service agent replied.
Wide-eyed with surprise, I asked for further clarification in total disbelief, ‘Where?” With an empathetic smile, the agent I asked pointed to an odd-looking kiosk neatly stashed away in the main airport lobby.  Honestly, I initially doubted that the closed kiosk was roomy enough to fit me, my pumping gear, and travel bags. On entering it, I realized, to my relief and amazement that there was more than enough room.

I promptly learned from the posters inside the kiosk that this wonderful contraption was called a ‘Mamava Lactation Station’. It had no shortage of electric outlets, a place to sit, and enough room for my travelling bags. It was such a retreat from the hustle and bustle of travelling and I wish, for the sake of all lactating mothers, that there were more of such stations installed in airports across the country.

The Mamava Laction Station at the airport in Burlington,VT
http://mamava.com/the-mamava-lactation-station/ 

Of all places to find this treasure who would have thought it would be in a tiny regional airport in Vermont, when several major airports still had no such provisions. Indeed, it looks like smaller regional airports may be establishing a trend in being more compassionate to travelling mothers. I was in for another treat at a small airport on a later business trip to New York. I had opted to fly into the smaller McArthur airport instead of JFK or Laguardia because of its proximity to my client, and again, there was a little haven tucked away in that airport for travelling lactating mums. This time, it was a very pleasant nursing room, complete with a rocking chair and changing tables. Indeed, a one-stop shop for a travelling mum’s needs whether she’s travelling alone and needs to pump, or has her baby in tow.

In today’s world mothers shouldn't have to crouch or stand in an unsanitary bathroom to provide food for their babies just because their jobs or lives necessitate travel. The Mamava station in Burlington, Vermont seems to be the only of such stations installed and nursing rooms at airports are still few and far between – this needs to change.

If you are reading this post and know of any examples of airports with nursing or pumping rooms please leave a comment with this information. It would be useful to publish a list of such places for mothers in need.

Memories are for Keeps

Sometime during labor, when my contractions had become quite unbearable, I remember being genuinely perplexed about mothers who had multiple children. In the heat of my huffing and puffing, the thought that any human being would put themselves through childbirth more than once seemed masochistic at best. Surely the adage ‘once bitten twice shy,’ had to count for something… Maybe I really should have been chastising myself for opting to be one of those ‘annoying natural-is-best’ mothers who choose the noble road of pain, rather than the blissful mostly painless birth experience now available to womankind through the epidural. Nevertheless, experienced mothers are right when they say you forget the pain.

The truth is, while you may not actually forget the fact that it was a painful experience, you don’t really remember the specifics of the pain. The pain of childbirth, however, is probably the only thing about motherhood you really want to forget. Children grow so incredibly fast that parents spend much of parenthood, especially the first few years, finding a way to record those precious memories. From the moment you receive your adorable bundle in your arms, each milestone is recorded with relish, making ‘breaking news’ the norm in your home.

If I had any journalistic or photography skills they are now exclusively applied to recording my daughter’s journey through life. Sometimes I’m quite amused at myself and the frequency with which I update close family and friends about my daughter’s feats: her first smile, the first time she rolled over, the first time she held her head up, her first tooth, first step, first utterance of ‘Dada’ and ‘Mama’. I have literally inundated my family and close friends with our baby’s firsts. Indeed motherhood is a special journey of milestone celebrations.

Milestones are duly recognized as such cherished treasures that there’s a plethora of ideas and products out there to help you safeguard precious memories of your child. There’s the tried-and-true ‘baby book’ concept that you can use as an album of pictures and souvenirs. Baby books range from basic affordable photo albums of under $20 to fancy deluxe leather-bound record books that cost over $100. People also make hand and foot print casts as cute baby keep sakes. Then we have our DIY magician moms whose creativity puts me in awe with the cute little treasures they find time to create for their children. I personally really take to the baby book idea and I always tell myself I will eventually get around to creating a really good one for my daughter but with balancing work, motherhood, and wife-hood, finding the time to do so has been like pulling teeth.

You can imagine how grateful I was to receive the ‘Memory Can’ - a truly innovative gift from a good friend to help me record my daughter’s milestones in a quick efficient way. This container, which my friend creatively decorated, came with a sticky-note pad as pictured below:

Whenever my daughter meets a milestone, I quickly jot down a note with the date and her age and throw it in the can. This way, I have been able to record all her amazing feats thus far without spending hours putting a baby book together, or worse, missing out on recording those special moments because I can never find the time. This can could eventually help me create a baby book, if I do finally find the time, but I believe that even as a standalone safeguard of memories, it is pretty awesome. I can’t wait to read through the collection of memories with my daughter one day to show her how far she’s come!