Womze – Cross Cultural Parenting

As I got ready to go on maternity leave almost 2 years ago, I thought to myself, this would be a great opportunity to study for this certification exam that I have been thinking about. I went online and ordered the book I would study. The last excuse I needed was not having study material.Baby came. 10 weeks rolled by…very quickly…and it was time to return to work. Then I remembered…”didn’t I get a book in the mail I was supposed to study?!” I pulled it down from the shelf where it had been staring at me unnoticed for weeks and hurriedly browsed the first chapter. “I’ll just have to incorporate the study into my time now, somehow.”Another 18 months rolled by. This time, the exam was not forgotten. Instead, it was a nagging monkey hanging on my back, whispering in my ears every now and then, filling me with guilt. Attempt after attempt to study failed, study groups fell apart as members backed out for various reasons, pushing off exam dates. “I’m going to try for the next one. This one is too close.” But the monkey wouldn’t let go. So I picked a date and announced to the world (i.e. my colleagues and my bosses) that I was taking the exam on that date. I needed them to hold me accountable.But I didn’t figure out how hard studying would be when you have kids, two of them and a full time job. My plan revolved around studying after the kids went to bed except I was often too tired at that time to retain much information. It’s incredible how much a day in the office drains energy.

Getting to work earlier to study for 30 minutes or an hour would have been a great strategy…if I could swing it. As it was, I was barely making it to work on time and I was leaving many things undone just to do that (such as giving my kid a pop tart to eat in the car instead of a good breakfast – not good). Staying later to study was also not a good option because it meant my kids spend even more time at daycare – not acceptable. Hubby’s schedule does not allow him to perform drop-offs and pick-ups except on rare ocassions.

This left trying to cram in some study time during lunch. Which meant eliminating working out at the same time. Which meant my energy level began to dip – counter productive. Which meant it became even more difficult to study at night. Ouch!

But this is not all about complaining. I did do what I could to study, it just turned out to be more challenging than I had imagined. These were the strategies that worked:

1. I put together a study group at work that planned to meet for 2 hours weekly for 17 weeks. Since this group met during work hours, I got my boss’s permission to spend time on this activity. When this group started to fall apart, I kept using that time to study/review practice questions.
2. I purchased audio material that I could listen to while I drive. I drive about 30 minutes each way to and from work so this translated into very valuable study time. I wasn’t always focused on the voice streaming knowledge into my head, but some things got through.
3. I woke up early or in the middle of the night to study. I could do this only if I went to bed as soon as I put the kids in bed. This was most effective when I put the kids in bed at 7:30 and after bedtime stories, they’re asleep by 8pm and I’m asleep shortly after and I wake up at 1am and study for 2 hours. Then I can go back to sleep for a short while before waking up to begin my day. When this worked, it was the most effective study approach. But the problem was that it didn’t work often enough i.e. it was often difficult to fall asleep at 8pm or wake up at 1am. However, I am very grateful for all the times I could do this.
4. When all other strategies were found not be enough, I started taking off days from work…one day each week for the 3 weeks leading up to the exam. Without these, I don’t think I would have ever felt ready to sit for the exam. Actually, that’s an overstatement…I never did feel ready but I would have felt a lot less so.

Last Saturday, I sat for the exam and the monkey is now off my back. And as I await my results, my fervent prayer is that the monkey stays off.

I have suspended blogging for a while but just couldn’t let this go without posting something about it…before she actually walks into the classroom for the first time. In less than12 hours,  Darling Angel will be walking into her grade one class at a new school.  She’s excited and she’s told anyone who cares to listen that “I’m skipping kindergarten” like it’s a badge of honor. 

I’m excited too but I’m also apprehensive, I’ve got butterflies in my tummy.  How well will she cope in grade one?  Well, she demonstrated that she can cope at that grade level before she was admitted so I shouldn’t be worried.  It’s just first day jitters.  Did I miss out anything on her supply list?  Better cross check everything?  Instructions said to label all supplies.  Do I label each crayon?  I decided that was silly (after an internal debate with self) and only labeled the box.  But I did label each pencil.  Hmm, will that get her laughed at?  Ah, perhaps I’m getting to the root of my apprehension?  Perhaps it has nothing to do Darling Angel’s ability to cope?  I’m afraid that I will do (or not do) something to embarass her.  Where did that come from?  I wonder.  Regardless, I will be walking her to her classroom tomorrow morning, camera in hand, taking snapshots of every single move she makes.

Better go to bed, we don’t want to be late.  And a good breakfast is a must, no flying out the door with a pop tart in hand.

Now that school’s out, Darling Angel has joined Baby Brother at our neighbors home daycare.  So convenient.  The risk of home daycare of course lies with dependence on a single individual’s availability.  Hence, I made sure that I kept up both kids registrations at their former group daycare.  If they’re unable to go to our neighbors, I’ll just drop them off at the group daycare.  Great plan!  Except, er…I neglected to confirm what the drop-in rate was.  You see, I thought I knew.  And you know, what you think you know but don’t know can hurt you.  This did.  Well, almost.

Last night, our home daycare provider received some very bad family news.  Her mom had passed away.  My heart goes out to her and her family.  Of course the news meant daycare is suspended until she’s ready. 

Hubby and I discussed how to work around each others schedules.  “I’ll go to work, come back  at 9:30 so you can go to your 10 o’clock meeting.  You’ll be back at noon, right?”.  “That’ll work, but I have to go back for a 2 o’clock meeting.”  “Hmm.”

“You know what”, I say.  “I’ll just drop them at their old daycare.  That should be no problem.”

This morning we get ready as usual, but before hopping into the car, I made the call to the daycare to make sure they had room for both kids. 

“No problem”, they told me.  “But you know for drop-in you’ll have to pay today.” 

“No problem”, I respond.  “It’s 30-what per day?”

“I’ll have to look it up.”  Clock ticks on…tick tock… “Er, the amount due today will be one hundred and twenty-..”

“What!!!”, I cut her off.  “One hundred and twenty-what!?”

She gives me a break down.  “But I thought it was 30-something per day per child”, I wailed.

She tells me something about that rate applying if Darling Angel was a school-ager but she’s not a school-ager yada yada.  Since we’ve been using a home daycare, I’m no longer used to the rates that group daycares charge.

I take a deep breath and tell her that I’m not bringing the kids in anymore.

I log on to my work email, send notes to my manager explaining that I’m taking an impromptu vacation for the day.  I send a note to people I would be meeting with to explain that I’ll not be at the meeting.  I offer reschedule options.

A vacation day.  I had planned to take a few this summer to take the kids to local attractions but hadn’t scheduled any yet.  “Better not waste today”, I say to myself.

It’s pouring rain outside, so a park is out of the question.  Ha, the Childrens Museum of Cleveland.  We’ll be indoors.  I had mentioned to the kids that we would go to the museum sometime.  Darling Angel had looked doubtful.  “Don’t you want to go?”, I asked her as I pulled up my computer and went to their website.  “I want to.  I want to go.”, she squealed.  She said she thought it was a museum of just statues but his one has toys.

“We’re going to the Children’s museum!”.  Darling Angel danced in excitement.  Baby Brother followed suit. 

I felt a twinge of guilt having fun when someone else was going through one of the most distressful times of her life.  It was, is, more than a twinge of guilt…

Guilt aside, we went, the kids had a blast.  I had to do a lot of begging to get Darling Angel to try on an astronaut suit.  It seems she’s scared that pretending to be an astronaut may cause her to launch into space.  As soon as I took my picture, she quickly scrambled out of the suit.  Baby Brother loved the water exhibit most of all.  I’m not sure if that was because it’s one of the few exhibits that he could also put in his mouth, but that was the very reason that I kept pulling him away from their.

I was exhausted from trying to keep my eyes on both of them.  And after two hours, I extracted two reluctant kids from the center and brought them back home. 

“But we’re not done yet”, Darling Angel lamented.

“Then we’ll come back”, I told her.  I spent $70, just over half of what one day at drop-in daycare would have cost, on a one year family membership.  It was money well spent.

Of course we still have to figure out what happens on Monday.

I won!  I won!!  I won!!!  It’s too early to declare victory but I have a good feeling about this one.  Five and half years after birth and Darling Angel is out of our bed!  Tonight, she’s sleeping in her own bed.  It’s not the first time she’ll sleep in her own bed, but somehow old habits die hard.  But not this time.  Not if I maintain my resolve.  Not if Adoring Father supports the program 100%.  You would think he would, right?  Given that he’s getting back his space on the bed.  Or some of it anyway, considering that we still have Baby Brother to deal with.  That’s another story, but I hope to come back with some happy stories.

A previous attempt
One evening, a few weeks ago when Darling Angel proudly proclaimed (as she frequently does) herself as a big girl, I used the opportunity to broach the topic of her returning to her room.  “Big girls sleep in their own bed”, I told her.  “But I can’t sleep by myself”, she wailed.  I pointed out that she had slept by herself for an extended period when she was 3 years old, but now she wants to act like a baby by sleeping in mommy and daddy’s bed.  “But I’m afraid”, she continued to wail.  “Of what?”, I enquired.  “Monsters”, she claimed.  I laughed, “but there are no monsters.” 

“There are.  There are.” she said emphatically.  “Ok”, I responded.  “But the monster is afraid of daddy and daddy sent the monster away”.  Invoking ‘daddy’ usually works for many things.  And it did, sort of.  She did not respond but looked thoughtful as she imagined daddy chasing the monster away.  I thought we were done.  I talked about how proud I was that she was going to sleep in her room just like a big girl.

But when it was time for bed, she brought up the monster again.  I reminded her about daddy chasing the monster.  But she shrieked, panting heavily (she’s a drama queen), “But I dreamed that the monster ate daddy.  It’s a huge humongous t-rex dinosaur and it ate daddy”.  Tears were streaming down her face as she made herself comfortable on mommy and daddy’s bed once again.

I know that she made up this dream, but she had won this round.  I will wait for another opportunity.

How I did it
Hubby’s away and the kids and I settle to our usual routine.  Dinner, TV while I cleared up, then everyone into bed with mommy.  As we cuddle up to sleep, Darling Angel requests a story.  “A long one this time” she asks, trying to put off bedtime.  I decide to create my opportunity now.  “I can only tell you a story if you’re in your own bed”.

She stares at me.  She still doesn’t get it.  “Big girls sleep in their own bed and I can only tell you story, tuck you in and kiss you goodnight if you’re in your own bed”, I elaborate.  She immediately begins to wail, “But I can’t sleep in my room by myself!  Somebody has to sleep with me.”

“I can think of somebody who can sleep with you”, I say.  “Daddy?”, she asks.  “Oh no, I was thinking of Katie”, that’s her doll.  “But Katie can’t talk”, she continues to wail.  “Do you want me to buy you a talking doll?”  This conversation drags on for a bit when I calmly declare that I know what to do.  Baby Brother gets her room if she doesn’t want it.  “But I don’t want him to have my room”, she screams.  I ignore her and continue thinking out aloud.  She can have Baby Brother’s crib.  I can even move Baby Brother’s crib into our room so that she won’t be sleeping alone.  And we can make Baby Brother’s now old room into a nice playroom.  Or a study?  I ask her. 

“No no no no!”, she’s chanting.  “I don’t want you to give my room to Baby Brother”.  I tell her I can’t think of any other alternative.  Or can she?  It turned out that she could think of an alternative.  “Maybe I’ll sleep in my room”, she whispers.  “Wonderful”, I exclaim.  “And I can tell you a long story too”. 

So she climbs into her own bed, I tuck the covers around her and I tell her a story.  She looks very happy.  No mention of monsters.  I ask her if she wants her bedroom door open.  “Closed”, she says and she goes to sleep.

Back in February, I was very excited when Baby Brother started going to our neighbors home daycare.  His new teacher asked if she could potty train him along with her son who was also one year old and I said “go for it!”  His older sister had potty trained early with some success and I was hoping to have it easier with him, but he wasn’t exhibiting any of the signs his sister had exhibited at 9 months – staying dry overnight and going on a regular schedule.  I pretty much knew what time I had to plop her on the potty.  But with Baby Brother, I couldn’t make any sense of his schedule (or lack of it) and to add to that, a stinky diaper doesn’t seem to bother him.  Left to my own devices, I would not attempt potty training him at this time, but infected with his teachers enthusiasm, I was all ready to go.  And hopeful too.

Starting potty training was exciting.  For all of us.  Baby Brother learned to sit on the potty and very patiently too.  Everyday I would exchange notes with his teacher about how he did at home and how he did at school.  He seemed to be cooperating and we were just waiting for the breakthrough.

One day, the first pee was caught in the potty to great fanfare.  His teacher took a picture.  We celebrated.  Baby Brother seemed happy and accomplished.  Every so often we would catch some pee in the potty and celebrate.  But more often than not (at least, at home), he would get up from the potty to play before the long-awaiting pee came rushing out.  After many accident mop ups, I moved him to the toilet seat.  “Gotcha!”, I thought.  He can’t get down by himself.  So he stayed put on the toilet.  He also got unhappy about his lack of freedom.  And I also suspect we may have missed some opportunities to celebrate pee trickles.  But we kept at it.  For a while.  During this time, poop in the bathtub became the routine.  Perhaps it was his way of punishing me for keeping him stranded on the toilet seat.  “Ah poopoo”, he would call out excitedly seconds after I move him from the toilet seat to the bathtub!

While all this was going on, getting ready for work in the morning was taking longer than usual.  So one day, I just didn’t bother.  No potty, no toilet seat.  I’ve had enough.  I want all messes to be contained within diapers.

Now he’s almost 18 months old, his teacher who’s been searching for solutions to the boys potty-training dilemmas says now’s the time to grab the issue by the horns.  She had success with her older son and is confounded by her younger son and Baby Brother’s resistance to the program.  “We have to be on the same page” she reminds me.  I agree as images of frenzied weekday mornings compounded with floor mopping and mess cleaning flashed across my mind.  But if she’s willing to do, if she can do it, then I will do whatever it takes.

So the potty has come back out.  All I need to do is say the word “potty” and Baby Brother marches right over and plops on it.  I’m proud of him.  But so far, not one drop of anything.  That frustrates me.  So until I have the ’strategy’ conversation with his teacher to put us on the same page (in 2 weeks), I’m not going to bother doing anything.  Except leave the potty right out within sight.  And maybe Baby Brother will just voluntarily walk over, sit and do the business I’ve been looking forward to.  That’s my dream.

As I left work on the Friday before mother’s day, I chatted with a colleague about mother’s day gifts from the kids.  Last year, Darling Angel had made a poster with her picture and a sweet poem that was cut out and glued to it.  It still sits in my cubicle. 

The year before when she was three and a half, she had decorated a flower vase with felt letters that read “mom”.  The vase had soil in it with a budding plant.  Darling Angel held on tightly to the vase on the drive home.  At home, she proudly showed me the letters she had stuck on the vase.  I hugged her and thanked her and tried to take the vase but she would not be separated from it.  “It’s mine!”, she screamed.  “I made it.  It’s mine!”  A tug of war ensued.  Not because I wanted to lay claim to what should be mine but because I didn’t want her playing with the soil in the vase.  I won.  And I placed the vase out of reach on the kitchen counter.  Whenever she saw it, she would renew her cries of “It’s mine!”, so I placed the vase out of sight.  The poor plant eventually died.

Fast forward two years.  My girl is older and more mature and actually wants to give me a mother’s day gift.  I picked her up and proceeded to look in her school bag.  “No! Don’t”, she screamed.  “There’s a surprise in there.  You shouldn’t see it.  It’s a surprise”.  She clutched her bag tightly and we went into the car.  As I drove, she pulled out the contents of her bag.  I glanced back.  “Don’t look!” she screamed.  Later on she asks me, “do you want to smell something?”.  I say “ok”.  She passes me a teabag.  It smells like tea.  I pass it back.  She presses it on her nose and sniffs.  I file a mental note to remember not to drink my ’surprise teabag’.

She stuffs the teabag back into it’s package and asks me to pass my bag.  I asked her why.  She says she wants to put my surprise in my bag.  I pass my bag to the back.  She stuffs something into it and warns me not to look into my bag until Mothers day.  I say “ok”.

Saturday morning, she relaxes her rule.  I can tell she’s very excited about the surprise gift that I must not see yet.  “Mommy, if you need to get something from the middle part of your bag, just close your eyes.  Ok?  Because you’re not supposed to see your surprise.  Ok?”.  I say “ok”.

Sunday morning, Darling Angel woke me up with “Happy Mother’s day”, bearing gifts purchased by daddy and cards purchased by daddy.  Dumped them on me and made for my bag to get her surprise.  Her handiwork included a flower drawn by Darling Angel with her photo in the center, a teapot colored by her and a teabag in a package that said “a cup of tea for mommy and me” all in a beautiful handmade envelop.  Thanks Darling Angel.

I also got my first Mothers day gift from Baby Brother who’s hand was traced for cut-outs that were glued to his picture to create some type of tree.  I can’t wait for his surprise gifts.

I have had a very valid excuse for not writing…not writing any blog posts, not writing in my journal.  I’m studing for an exam.  I have tons of material to read.   And if I need a second excuse, of course there’s always the house to be cleaned, tidied etc.  What about meals to cook or preprepare.

Today as I reflected on the progress (or lack of) that I have made in my study, I realize that my excuse for not writing is not as valid as I thought it was.  The real truth is that I have been lazy.  Very lazy.  And very unmotivated.  I have used “studying for an exam” as a crutch to indulge my laziness as I peruse (and reperuse) the same reading material night after night because I didn’t ‘get’ the material the night before.  And I didn’t ‘get’ the material the night before because I wasn’t concentrating on the material.  I was thinking of all the other things I would rather be doing such as sleeping.

So I’m back.  And hopefully will find my way back to being motivated…to study.

In the meantime, the kids have been providing plenty of blogging material which I neglected to capture but I’ll try to catch up on a few posts…and on Baby Brother’s potty training (lack of) progress as he nears his 18 month mark.

Relaxing after a busy Saturday morning filled with kids Easter festivities, hubby lugged Baby Brother’s high chair up the stairs into the bathroom.  He also handed me his electric shaver, then took it back to demonstrate how to turn it on and off.  It’s time to cut baby brother’s hair.  And I’m going to do it.

I said I could do it.  I said I would do it.  Hubby said he could do it but would prefer a pro.  Everyone said we should do it.  By everyone, I mean our Nigerian friends in church.  Nigerians are a group of very concerned people and they have spent Sunday after Sunday attempting to diagnose the root cause of Baby Brothers uncut hair.  After all, he’s 5 months past the one year old mark.  And his head is not full of soft curly shiny hair either.  And his fro is not even evenly distributed – he’s got a big heap at the top of his head.  But I like it.  Hubby does too.  But after too many concerned expressions which yielded to dismay whenever we joked that we were keeping his hair so it could be braided, we succumed to peer pressure and decided “off with his hair”.

Back to the hair cut.  The task fell to me.  Hubby couldn’t bear to watch.  Well, he didn’t say so, but why else would he disappear after giving me a short demo on how to use the shaver?

I couldn’t control the shaver – it’s too quick.  The boy wouldn’t hold his head still.  A disastrous combination.  After creating two bald spots, I threw the shaver aside and grabbed my pair of hair scissors.  This I could control.  Instead of the rapid, vrooom, I snipped snipped snipped.  I wasn’t doing too bad, but if only the boy would hold his head still…  He wasn’t disagreeable, in fact he hummed “twinkle twinkle little star” happily as he rocked his head from side to side.  But I needed to create a smooth finish.

I rushed out to find a lollipop stick.  I found one stick.  Just one.  It did the trick.  I carefully did micro snip, micro snip, micro snips as I leveled off his hair.  But the lollilop was gone before I was finished.  And he was back to rocking his head from side to side.  Well, I guess we’re done.  Almost level  is better than not at all.

I looked into his face, and my baby was gone.  In his place was a more mature looking little boy.  “I want my baby back!” I thought.  But over the last 48 hours, I’ve gotten used to the new face.  And I can only expect the next cut to be better anyway, I’ve gotten my practice in.

Spill hot chocolate all over your desk.  Or coffee, if that’s your preferred drink.  Hot chocolate is mine.

Week after week, I had been telling myself to get rid of the clutter on my desk.  Late last year, I had the clutter trimmed down but it’s beginning to grow again.  Week after week, I put off addressing the clutter and instead, feed it a little.

Fortunately, before it became a monstrosity, I spilled a huge mug of hot chocolate all over my desk.  Ordinarily, this is not a good thing to do but my first reaction was to be thankful that my laptop was spared since it sat atop a notebook raiser.  Colleagues dashed over offering paper towels, grabbing some of the documents off my desk.  I gathered all the papers and dumped them on the floor under my desk while I finished cleaning up my desk.  Then I made another cup of hot chocolate (I really needed it) and finished it before I was ready to tackle the unfortunate stack of papers.

With a shredder bin within reach, I reviewed each document.  These documents, most of which I had planned to review (at some future time) looked less attractive with brown stains around their edges.  So one by one, they all went into the shredder bin.  Until I had just two bits of information I needed to act upon.  I had nothing that I also didn’t have in electronic format if I was suddenly hit by a need to read it. 

As I took in my clean desk with appreciation, I wondered WHY I had all those documents sitting on my desk in the first place.  A colleague stopped by.  “Having a bad morning?”, she asked. 

“Oh no!  It’s a good morning.  I’ve got a clean desk.”

At 15 months, Baby Brother started potty training in earnest.  The decision to begin was mostly driven by the desire of the lady who watches him (I’ll call her Ann).  Ann was new to home childcare, was full of enthusiasm and couldn’t wait to get the little boys (hers and mine) out of diapers.  This desire sat very well with my own philosophy.  Darling Angel started potty training at 9 months and by 11 months would tell me if she needed to poop.  Even though progress slid in later months, looking back now, it was still a huge success.

“Boys are harder to train”, people told me whenever I shared my previous potty training success.  I refused to listen to stereotypes, but gradually I began to accept it.  Afterall, this boy seemed a lot more comfortable in his mess than his sister did.  He also didn’t have a routine like his sister did.  Nor did he give off any indication of oncoming business – he did is his business without pausing whatever activity he was involved in.  When Ann asked me whether I minded having my son potty trained, I said “go for it”.  And at home, I dug out Darling Angels trusty Little Potty.

It turned out that he likes to sit on the potty.  He also likes to get up and run around like he’s discovered some new found freedom, running around butt naked.  And in the short time since we started potty training, we have had our fair share of incidents (within minutes, heck, seconds of getting off the potty).

Why won’t he sit patiently on the potty until he’s completed his business?

I have been presented with two opposing ideas.  One is that he’s potty training too early, the other is that he’s potty training too late.

Too early
“It is physiologically impossible to potty train boys this early”, a colleague explained to me.  “Both boys and girls need to be old enough to understand what you’re trying to accomplish”, another chimed in.  A child should be potty trained when the child is ready, willing and interested.  Once a child is ready to be potty trained, the process is effortless and can be completed within a week.  To force potty training on a child that is not ready is to incur headaches on oneself. 

Too late
I talked to my sister in Nigeria.  My nephew is just over 9 months old, so I ask when my sister plans to begin potty training.  “He’s not really potty trained yet”, she started to say doubtfully.  “I just put him on the potty every morning and he sits there until he poops.”  She explained that he also goes on the potty at his daycare.  I’m astounded to learn that he does his business in the potty every morning, after all, he’s a hard-to-potty-train-boy.  I share how unsuccessful we’ve been with Baby Brother because he gets up and runs around.  My nephew can’t walk yet, so there is no running around.

“That’s it!”  I say.  I needed to have started early enough to control the sitting on the potty.

My very Nigerian aunt reinforced this idea when I later shared our potty training challenges with her.  “Perhaps you didn’t start early enough?”, she asked, trying to identify the root cause of those challenges.

The solution?
Since I already missed the “early enough” potty training window, I will plan to catch the “late enough” window as early as possible.  In the meantime, since the potty is already out of storage, we will continue to use it as long as Baby Brother is happy to use sit on it.  And maybe, just maybe I will be surprised and potty training will just happen.