Play-Learn-Grow-Repeat

From Monday Mom – Neetika:
Is it March already? How did that happen? Over Christmas, I was talking with my family about several trips, weddings, etc. we have on our calendar this year. Most of them seemed really far away. Now they are almost here, and I actually have to start getting ready for them! What am I going to wear to this thing? What am I going to buy for those people? I guess life is what happens when you are busy making other plans.

One of my favorite things about special occasions is that it means the three of us are together as a family. I never thought I could be so invested in someone else’s vacation schedule, but when Joe has a day off, I’m not sure if he’s more excited or I am. Vacations take on new meaning when they mean there is another person around who is also responsible for Haley’s welfare.

Joe is great with Haley, and it warms my heart to see them together. Haley completely lights up when she sees him. Of course, it makes me sad that their time together during the week is so fleeting, but it makes the weekends that much more fun. I tease Joe that the childcare is completely up to him and I’m “off duty.” Even though we’re actually parenting in tandem and sharing the demands, Joe says it’s almost a relief to get back to the office on Monday and get a break! I just smile and I say, I told you it wasn’t easy!

I think it’s great that the fathers are so involved in our generation. However I think that in most cases, moms have a natural aptitude for certain skills when it comes to kids, especially babies. Joe loves Haley every bit as much as I do, but I am the one who has an instinct for what she needs, whether it’s an extra nap or a chew toy to soothe sore gums. I’m able to process her current behavior, her general tendencies, what I’ve read, what I’ve heard from other moms, and what I believe is best for her—and spit out a plan to handle any given situation. I’m not always right, but I have more of a knack for this computation than her father does. Because of this, I can’t help but feel that a little more of the weight of responsibility is on my shoulders. And that can feel like a burden.

As Haley grows up, I imagine Joe will continue to be seen as the fun one, while I’m worrying about whether or not she had enough whole grains that day. But it’s okay. It works for our family. I’ll let Da-Da be the one she can be silly with. Their time together is precious.

From Monday Mom – Neetika:
Before I was a stay-at-home mom, I was a consultant. The long-term project I was on ended while I was pregnant, and the timing worked out well for me. I was excited to focus on the baby and leave the demanding nature of my work behind. After a lifetime of striving to achieve academically and professionally, it felt great to focus on my personal life—for my family to be my full-time job.

During the past year of Haley’s infanthood, it became clear to me why women choose to work. For one thing, it’s the rare family that can utterly thrive on one income. Also, making a baby  one’s full time vocation is incredibly trying. While I feel happy to be able to spend this meaningful time with Haley, I think it would be good for all of us if I waded back into the workforce.

Yet it’s not easy. I can’t return to my former career as a consultant right now, because it requires lots of travel. So I’m looking at other projects. I’d love to get some freelance work, but in this economy there is an oversaturated supply, so it’s not something one can really count on.

Recently my friend from college mentioned that his client-load of high school students he tutors is overwhelming, and he asked if I would be interested in taking some of it on. It sounds like a formidable task—we are talking about the SAT’s here—but he assures me I would be prepared in no time. I like the idea of helping these kids, too.

Even though the time commitment would be small, I hesitate to take on the tutoring. On one hand, I’m excited to use my non-mommy skills and get out of the house. On the other hand, I will miss my baby! Even planning to spend just a few hours away from her feels strange. I think it will probably just be a matter of jumping in.

I don’t know what the rest of my career will look like or how I will get there, but I’m proud of the work I am doing right now.

From Monday Mom – Neetika:
If you were to follow me around the house lately, those are the words you would hear most frequently. Haley is mobile, curious and ridiculously grabby. Here is some of my running dialogue (feel free to imagine indignant baby shrieks throughout):

“No. Haley, We can read a book but we don’t have to throw all of them all over the floor.”

“What’s back there on the shelf? Oh, nothing. Stop. Stop it. Yes, you’ve found your vitamin drops. Great, we’ll take these a little later, ok? Ok, we’re putting it back now.”

“Yes, honey that’s where your clothes are, but we’re not opening the drawer right now. No. Stop. Here, look at this singing doll? Isn’t it so cool? Haley, leave the drawer. Stop.”

“Yeah! There’s your buddy Saint! We can pet him—no, Haley. Not the tail. Nice, nice. No!”

“Haley, no. That’s a plant. We don’t pull off the leaves. No, that’s not good. Okay, come over here. Stop it.”

“We don’t need to go into that cabinet. And we certainly don’t need to pull off the rubber band that’s securing it shut. Stop. Stop.”

All of this begs the question of why hasn’t there been more baby-proofing, and it’s a valid one. The answer is two-fold. My approach to baby proofing was that we would take it as it comes. I did not expect Haley’s motor skills, or her natural inclination toward defiance, to develop so quickly. I also feel that some parents baby proof to the extreme, so they can actually under-parent. It’s easier to take another look at your iPad or read a few more pages on your Kindle if your child is in what amounts to a padded cell. I did not want to be that way. It was important to me to be fully engaged.

And boy did I get what I asked for! Now that Haley is a more confident walker, I’m feeling like a boxing referee, and my job is to keep Haley from pummeling everything we own. Except I can’t blow a whistle to put an end to the melee.

Maybe since Haley reached the stage at which she’s getting into everything before age one, she’ll develop emotional maturity faster, too! Perhaps very soon, she’ll be done with the constant exploring and understand limits and obedience? Right, guys? That’s totally going to happen any day now. Right? Stop laughing.

At the end of last summer, my grandmother passed away. I was upset to lose her, but she had a long, happy life. Most importantly, she got to spend time with Haley. I’ll always be grateful that I have pictures of the two of them together.

Tomorrow, my parents are taking off for a trip to India. They are going to visit with family and settle some of my grandmother’s affairs. I haven’t been to India in a long time, but I decided Haley was too young for us to take this trip. I am really looking forward to showing her the country one day.

This trip will have a huge impact on me – even though I am not going – because we currently live with my parents. And to say that they “sometimes help out” with Haley would be somewhat of an understatement.

When we moved in with my parents to facilitate a sudden job change and move, I was nervous about raising Haley under the same roof as them, even temporarily. I knew there would be benefits to the arrangement as well as clashes, but what I worried about most was the feeling that I might not fully feel like her primary caretaker—too many cooks in the kitchen, so to speak. I now know that was pointless.

My parents watch Haley in the mornings while I drive Joe to the train station, and they enjoy helping out with evening bath time, but they also work full time. Day in and day out, I’m faced with the reality of stay-at-home-parenthood. It’s extremely challenging, but I feel proud ownership of it. It’s hard to entertain a baby all day, especially one as active as Haley. And sometimes, you just want to be able to go to the bathroom! But at least I’m doing it.

And it’s mostly on my terms. Of course, my parents are from a different generation, and they can’t understand some of my decisions. No crib bumpers or blankets, making all of my own baby food, letting the baby cry, back sleeping- it’s all foreign to them. They love her so much, I’m sure it’s difficult for them to see me make what they perceive as mistakes. I know it’s hard for me to see her getting a little spoiled by all of their attention.

Overall, though, it’s been great. Even though the times they relieve me from baby duty are sporadic and intermittent, I have come to rely on them. Getting out the door in the morning and wrangling a slippery baby in the bath should be interesting for the next few weeks. And I’ll finally know what it feels like to be doing it entirely and unequivocally on my own. Wish me luck.

From Monday Mom – Neetika:
I’ve written before about how fast time goes by when you are a parent. We all know this. But last week at the doctor, I was simply stunned at how far along Haley has come. The doctor said that next month I could start giving Haley cow’s milk and begin the process of weaning, if I want. Weaning. From Breastfeeding. How did this happen? It seems like it was last week, I was stressing about how to “achieve a proper latch” and how much milk she was getting. There were days when I couldn’t wait until this moment. Now the idea of giving up nursing makes me feel incredibly bittersweet.

There are many reasons I enjoy breastfeeding. First of all, the bonding aspect is really nice. A baby’s instinct is that his mother will provide him with milk from her breast. It’s so primal, so natural. As Haley has grown and started to understand the concept of me as her caretaker, I can feel that feeding from the breast means something to her as much as it does to me. Breastfeeding is also incredibly convenient. You’re always ready to go, no extra equipment needed! You don’t just nurse for nutrition either. It’s been a lifesaver for getting Haley to sleep, soothing her when she’s teething, and calming her when she’s fussy. There have been times Haley has clunked her head and wailed, and the only fix was a little nursing. Minutes later, she’s ready to play!

Of course there are things I won’t miss. Feeling tied down because I can’t leave her for long stretches, for starters. And there’s the biting, which as you can imagine or may know yourself, is not very pleasant. In some sense, I’m getting my body back to myself—so small thing.

Weaning is a part of Haley getting older, and that’s the hardest thing about it. I don’t know when that magical day will be, but I know I won’t be ready for it.

From Monday Mom – Neetika:
I never thought that much about what Haley’s personality would be like when I was pregnant. My thoughts were more like, “Is the baby okay? Will the baby be healthy? Are there any problems? And also, how’s the baby doing?” I’m sure most mothers are that way. All I wanted to know is that the baby would be healthy and delivered safely. The rest would work itself out.

What I knew about babies’ personalities was mostly from my friends, books I’d read, and blogs about motherhood. As much as you hear that every baby is different, you also hear a lot about babies following particular patterns. Some are colicky for three months and then completely calm. Some nap twice a day until 18 months. Some babies love to take the bottle. Some like a little chunkiness to their purées. Some always roll over in their sleep. Even though it’s an accepted idea that each child is an individual, there is also an impulse to lump them into categories. Whenever I encounter another mom, I inevitably get asked something like, “So does she just love her jumper?” or “Is she crawling everywhere?” No matter what I say, it seems the person’s best friend or cousin or old college roommate had a baby who did exactly the same thing. But Haley, and I think most babies, defy these generalizations.

For example, I’m often asked if Haley sleeps through the night. The answer, currently, is yes. Haley sleeps from 7 PM to 7 AM, waking up once to eat briefly at 5 AM. This wasn’t always the case. Trips, teething, illnesses, and other disruptions have placed her sleeping habits in a constant state of flux. It’s like that with everything. She once adored avocados, now it’s a miss, or a hit. Depending on what, I don’t know. The phase of the moon? She used to nap reliably at 9 AM, now I’m rolling the dice whenever I try to put her down. Everything is always, always changing.

It leaves me amazed, then, when parents tell me about their kids’ tendencies as if they’re hard and fast rules. Perhaps it is like that for some families. Perhaps not, but pretending that it is helps the adults maintain some semblance of control. With Haley, I can count on almost nothing, except that I need to be prepared for anything.

From Monday Mom – Neetika:
We’ve got a walker. This is a tough stage. Haley is not yet confident enough to take off on her own, though with a little more patience and concentration, she could. She wants to go, go, go all the time, and you have to take her! Either she’ll “creep”—moving around by grabbing onto furniture, or she expects to use your hands for support. She’s not content to sit in her jumper or hang out in her playpen for very long. If I let her, I think she would keep moving all day with no breaks. She’s quite the explorer!

The last time Haley was weighed, I noticed that she had only gained four ounces in five weeks. This is the slowest growth since she’s had since she was born. According to my girlfriend, this is age-appropriate and the same was true for her kids, but I find it disconcerting. It seems nearly impossible for her to gain much weight given the current conditions. She eats decently well—three solids meals (purees and some “adult” food, too!) and has four to five nursings a day—but she is always burning up the calories! The mealtimes when she sits in her high chair are some of the few moments each day she’s not moving. Sometimes she even wanders around while taking a bite here and there! Energy in, energy out.

I look forward to Haley’s next check-up when I can see if she’s gained much more and ask the doctor about it all. And I am also anxious to reach a stage at which she’s a little more independent in her movements. How funny that I thought it was challenging when she was unable to move and was mostly just nursing and napping. At least then, I could sit with her, and maybe watch a little TV. The requirement to always be with her physically, yet constantly moving, is a whole new ballgame! I don’t know what the next chapter will hold, but hopefully it will be somewhat less physically exhausting.

From Monday Mom – Neetika:
I have been reading to Haley since she was fairly young. For a while, it seemed pointless. Then just frustrating. She didn’t seem to care about the activity, batting at the books and flinging them when given the opportunity. Over time, though, she has started to really enjoy story time. I read to her twice a day, before her naps. We have a routine going. I change her diaper, rub baby lotion on her legs, put her wearable sleep blanket on her, and show her which book we’re going to read. Her face always lights up!

Haley is really good at turning the pages and likes to stare at all of the pictures. We have one book called Baby’s Best Friend, which contains Anne Geddes-style photographs of babies with animals. Haley seems to stare at these pages the longest, and sometimes lets out a giggle. It’s really adorable. She also paws her hands over the appropriate areas of the touch-and-feel books. Earlier today, she was doing a sort of humming-thing while I was reading to her. She does that sometimes when I sing to her, as if she’s joining in. Maybe she’s starting to remember the rhythm of the sounds of the story and is trying to replicate it- how cool! Clearly, she is getting something out of it.

According to researchers at the University of Michigan, reading to an infant is an essential building block of phonemic awareness (being able to hear, identify and play with sounds in spoken words), phonics (connecting written language to verbal language), vocabulary and fluency. Hearing and seeing many different words helps them become better speakers. It’s a great way for babies to learn concepts like colors, shapes, numbers and letters. More generally, it’s important to instill in children a love of books so they are successful in their education.

It’s great to know that an activity that I enjoy for bonding and establishing a routine for Haley is having such a positive impact on her future. Once again, I’m seeing how my focus is shifting from simply ensuring she’s cared for to encouraging her to thrive and exceed her potential. Good thing, too. Helping her develop new skills is a lot more fun than disinfecting baby bottles.

From Monday Mom – Neetika:
Haley’s doctor said that she only needs to come in for one “well” visit between her eight month and eleven month appointments. So she could come in at nine months or ten months, or some time in between. I opted to just skip a month and come in at ten months and resume the normal schedule.

Last week, Haley turned nine months old and I found myself wondering some things about what she can eat. Rather than wait another month to ask the doctor my questions and delay the introduction of those foods, I gave her a call and left a message. When she called back, she answered my questions (about whether Haley can have yogurt, eggs, and cheese: yes!), but she seemed kind of annoyed! Maybe I was being sensitive, or maybe she was annoyed about something else, or she was distracted in general. Whenever we’re in the office, she treats us great. Anyway, it did bother me. After all, patients should feel comfortable calling their doctors any time concerns arise! And this is my first time calling to ask a random question since Haley was a newborn.

The day after I spoke with the doctor, Haley developed a runny nose and a wet cough- her first cold! I knew I should take her to the doctor right away, but I hesitated, I hate to admit. I figured oh, she’s not doing too badly. Kids get colds. It will clear up. I had the cynical thought, “why bring her in and give them money when she’s fine!” By the following morning, the cold escalated and it was obvious I should bring her in. I did, and the visit went well. The doctor was very nice. She said Haley probably doesn’t have anything serious, but since she maybe heard a little “something” in her chest, better to be safe and take some antibiotics. I’m so glad I went ahead and brought her in!

And I have to admit I’m a little ashamed that I let the doctor’s attitude affect my decision, even a little. (I probably would have waited a day either way.) As adults we sometimes hesitate to do things because we don’t want to be uncomfortable or in an unpleasant situation. When it comes to our kids, it’s important do what’s best for them—and to heck with everything and everyone else! I will learn from this experience and hopefully, do better in the future.

From Monday Mom – Neetika:
I cannot believe it’s 2012! I remember when London bid for the Olympics and how it seemed so far away. And now here we are.

I once loved considering New Year’s Resolutions, not that I ever stuck to them or remembered what they were a few weeks in! Now it seems silly to make a pledge to live my life a certain way. I can’t anticipate how I will feel a few months from now, because I will be the mother of a child I don’t recognize.

What’s fascinating about the first few years of life is how rapidly we change. First, you’re delighted by a helpless newborn. A few weeks later, she smiles. A month later, she’s holding her head up confidently. A few more weeks, she’s rolling over. Eating solids, crawling, and waving bye-bye all follow. The developments are fast and furious!

A year from now, Haley will be about 21 months. I think she’s a big girl now, but by then she truly be a fully realized person who can do SO much more than she can now. I’m really looking forward to all of the changes that take place until then, but since she’s my first, it’s hard to imagine what they are.

Since I stay at home with Haley, I don’t know what my daily schedule will resemble as she departs the baby stage and moves on to more advanced activities. So I don’t feel like I can make specific plans for things I want to do on a regular basis. But to be more general about it… I resolve to have fun. I resolve to enjoy my growing daughter. I resolve to appreciate every moment, even the frustrating ones. I resolve to become a better parent with each day of the New Year.