Womze - Cross Cultural Parenting

For weeks I’ve been waiting for some big block of time to open up for me to pour out all the great posts I never quite post.  The more time passes, the more I experience indecision when I do have a few moments to work on half a post.  Indecision leads to inaction, few moments disappear, more post ideas accumulate.  In short, the system is clogged.  And I’m hoping this is the post that unclogs the brain/fingers/whereever writing comes from.  So here goes my brain/fingers dump. 

Monopoly and Maths
I recently realized what a great game monopoly is.  I loved playing it as a kid and in December, I picked up a Disney Junior Monopoly from Kohls.  An impulse buy.  Couple of weeks ago, snow day, indoors with the kids, Darling Angel asked me “Can we play the monopoly now?”.  I thought “why not?”.  We tore open the box.  It has little plastic TVs instead of houses - because it’s Disney.  The money is in 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 bill units instead of 1, 5, 10, 20, 50, 100 - because it’s Junior monopoly.

As the game proceeded, I hoped Darling Angel would tire of it quickly so I could escape.  Then we started to have great lessons.  “You owe me $4″, I said.  She was out $1 bills, so she had to figure out that two $2 bills would do.  Yeah, we had great lessons. 

Baby Brother to home daycare
I never realized I could be so happy with a home daycare.  I thought the money savings at a homecare compensated for whatever else.  But we’re saving money (very important in this economy) and happy with the quality of care.  And better yet, the lady who watches him shares my philosophy on potty training - the earlier the better.

Baby Brother on Potty
He’s 15 months, we’ve started potty training.  I’ve been told that is ridiculous, but the lady who watches him is excited to train him along with her son.  No great success story to share yet.  I know it could drag on for possibly years, but that’s no reason not to try.  He know when he’s pooped.  He tells me “poopoo”, unfortunately, he’s not uncomfortable enough to want to change.  He just informs me.  “Poopoo” and he returns to play.  But he sits on the potty, for a little while before he gets up to run around.  A few days ago, I tried the child seat on the toilet and he loved that.  He seemed to understand better what it was all about.  We’ve had a few pees in the toilet.  Every pee is an opportunity to celebrate and let him know the purpose of this potty-sitting activity.

Skipping Kindergarten
Darling Angel spent half a day at a school to get evaluated for first grade.  And she’s in!  She’s currently in a two year kindergarten program, but instead of going from K4 to K5, she’ll go to grade 1 in this other school.  I’m glad that is finally settled - watching my daughter just go through school without being engaged with anything she was learning was frustrating.  I hope the new program works out next school year.  At least, I’m hoping the teachers will be more open to working with kids to make sure the full potential of each is realized. 

Eating too little and eating too much
How do I get each kid to eat just right?  Darling Angel remains a picky eater, improved this year but still picky.  She’s tall for age but so skinny.  Baby Brother on the other hand eats all his food and whatever his sister leaves behind.  He’s chubby.  He’s a baby.  Thankfully he’s active.  Very active.  But I worry that if he keeps eating like he does, he’ll become obese and I’ll have obesity on my hands.  I don’t know how to deal with that.  I don’t know if it’s something I should even be concerned about.

This is all the brain/finger dump I have time for now.  Will catch up some more later.  Bye!

“Tomorrow I’ll be five years old”, Darling Angel declared as she went to bed the night before her birthday.  She woke up the following morning a different person, now a really big girl - a 5 year old.

She gulped down her customary cup of hot milk (that hasn’t changed), but instead of crawling back into bed until I nudge her out, she got up, headed to the bathroom and picked up her toothbrush.

“Wow!”, I was wowed.  “You didn’t wait for mommy to ask you to go to the bathroom”.

“I’m 5 years old.  5 years old can brush their teeth by themselves.”

“Wow!”, I continued, but convinced her that mommies can still help 5 year olds to do some of the brushing.  (Should I just have let her?)

Then she was out of her clothes, waiting for me to turn on the shower.  Without any prompting.

“Wow!”  Usually, she whines about being tired while I try to separate her from her clothes.

“5 year olds can just take off their clothes by themselves.”

When she got out of the shower, she dressed herself while I got Baby Brother ready.  Then I saw her.  Darling Angel had put on not only the clothes that I laid out, but she had gotten her coat, gloves and hat.  She had put on both shoes.  She was holding on to her backpack.  “Wow!”  I was amazed.  “Mommy, you’re the one making us late today”, she said to me looking at me like she had done nothing out of the ordinary.  When I commented on the great job she was doing, she told me nonchanlantly, “five year olds can get ready by themselves”.

We got to her school, and unlike the day before, she was able to hold the door open for me.  “Five year olds are stronger than four year olds”, she told me.

A few days earlier, we were at a birthday party.  Someone asked me how old Darling Angel was.  “She’ll be 5 in a few days”, I said.  The lady replied, “Then she’s 5.  Short story”.  I felt almost silly.  Not quite, just almost.  “Yes she’s 5″, I agreed.  But now I disagree.  Those few days do matter.  The day before she turned 5, she had 4 year old abilities.  Now she’s 5.  What a difference one day makes!

I had written in my last post how I expect 2009 to be easier than this year as my children get older and start to do more things for themselves.  Well, it’s not New Year yet and it’s already happening!  I can only hope that her enthusiasm for age 5 lasts into age 6 when she steps up the game even more.  And to help, I will continue providing many wows of wonder and let her know what a great job she is doing.

“Who’s this handsome boy?” I wondered as I was handed a packet photos.  I knew I was looking at a picture of my son, but…wow!  I agree I may be biased, but still…

Baby Brother had taken his first professional photos and he obviously knows a thing or two about posing.  He’s never posed like that for my camera but seemed to recognize the need to strike a pose for these photos.  I look at each photo, amazed.  And I feel guilty.  Guilty that his first professional photographs came from his daycare’s Picture Day.

Month after month, hubby has asked said “let’s schedule a family photo at Sears”.  I say “yeah yeah” and neither of us do anything about it.  Baby Brother’s one already and I’m still saying “yeah yeah”.  With our first, we visited the studio every 3 months and got family portraits in addition to the Darling Angel’s individual photos.  I remember these were lenghty sessions with the photographer trying to get her to look at the camera.  We would all stand behind the camera rattling noisy toys, clapping, goofing off, to make her look at us and smile.  We would eventually get a nice pose.  I don’t think as much effort went into school photos because those always came back with her looking upset, pouty lips included.  But we always purchased the photos anyway - all of them.

But this, Baby Brother’s photos, were something else.  Calm, regal, he seemed highly aware of his composure, he exhibited great poise.  “I’m sorry I’ve denied you of many previous trips to the photo studio”, I say to the photo in my hand.  “Please forgive me”.

Hubby looks at the photos later that evening.  He utters only one word, “Amazing!”

The following morning, he asks me “Can we enter these pictures in some competition?  Is there some parenting mag that’s running a contest?”  Apparently, he had gone back to look at the photos in the middle of the night and the great idea had struck him. 

Then he added “It’s amazing how much he looks me!”  I agreed.

We just celebrated Baby Brother’s first birthday.  Yay!!!  If you think planning a one year old birthday party would provide plenty to write about, you’re absolutely right.  Except, I don’t feel like writing.  I’m exhausted, I haven’t been exercising and I’ve fallen back into poor eating habits.  Those three things go together - lack of exercise, poor diet and tiredness - they’re a tag team.  Well, I didn’t plan to write about me and my exhaustion (though now that I’ve written about it, I know I’ll deal with it).  I wanted to write about Baby Brother’s birthday. 

“We’ll keep it small” we had decided.  We told a few friends who had little kids.  “We’ll just hang out with friends and eat naija food”.  I’ll do all the cooking, it shouldn’t be a big deal.  Just a few friends.

A few days to the party, I made a list of everyone we had invited.  Just 8.  “Not bad”, I thought.  “Eight couples!”, I realized.  And each one has indicated that they will be there.  No declines.  Guests, plus hubby and me makes 18 adults.  And as it turns out, we average two kids per couple - 18 adults + 18 children, all in our house.  This is where I wish my kids were born in summer so we could spread out into the yard.  But it’s winter and we are stuck indoors.

I won’t bore you with details, but with the help of a friend who stayed over before the party preparing meat pie, chicken, fish, goat meat, shaki and the various parts of meats Nigerians love to eat, we were able to put out a decent spread.  She saw to the jollof rice and fried rice while I attended to minor details like fixing Darling Angel’s hair and picking up the birthday cake.  What would I have done without her help? I had made carrot cake the night from a recipe I found online - simple with great results.

The party wasn’t perfect.  The special party mix CD I had painstakingly put together had mysteriously disappeared.  Darling Angel had taken it up to her room to listen to, and tossed it ’somewhere’ when she was done.  ‘Somewhere’ is yet to be discovered.  Hubby had graciously cleaned up the living room leaving no CD in sight.  My desperate foraging in Darling Angel’s room unearthered fingerprinted and scratched CDs that hurt our guests ears whenever they hit a bump.  “Put that thing off”, Hubby called out.  But I would hit the skip forward button, hoping we had hit the last bump.  After being wrong again and again, I gave up and put the thing off. 

Conversation flowed among the adults, the kids screeched and screamed while they played with balloons.  The two oldest kids (older than seven) may have been a tad bored though.  One asked if there were any games.  Baby Brother was clueless that the event was for him.  But he’s a social one and seemed comfortable with the crowd and noise.  He cruised around scooping food from unattended plates into his mouth.  Hubby was mortified and a bit embarrassed and kept trying to feed the boy to eliminate any hunger. 

We couldn’t get a decent photo of the birthday boy and his birthday cake as he was all poised to scoop the cake into his mouth.  Perhaps I should have let him have the smash cake but somehow, the image of him digging into all that icing turns my stomach.  The smash cake still sits on the kitchen counter.

Adding the rest of the kids to the picture was even worse as almost every single one of them wanted to dig their fingers into the cake.  One four year old was nice enough to ask “Can I stick my finger in the cake please?”.  Photo attempt was quickly abandoned. 

Despite the glitches and the enormous effort that went into preparing, we were happy with the outcome.  Cleaning up, amazingly enough, wasn’t so bad.  There were no spilled drinks and only one or two carpet stains to remove.  I call that SUCCESS.

“Baby Brother’s walking! He’s walking! He’s walking!”, Darling Angel squealed over and over, as her baby brother took his first independent steps at ten and a half months. 

It’s now been three since Baby Brother started to take more than two steps on his own before crashing on his well padded bottom, but Darling Angel cries out each time as if she’s seeing him take independent steps for the very first time.  “He’s walking! Mommy, daddy, see, he’s walking!!” 

Baby Brother is just as excited as his sister is.  Her squeals inform him that he’s doing something extra special and he throws a big smile on his face as he stretches out his hands for balance and toddles along.

I am excited that I can finally say “he walks” as Hubby and I have been excitedly waiting for this milestone.  He’s teased us with it for too long.  He started to stand and hold on to furniture at six months.  By seven months, he was comfortably furniture walking around the living room.  Everyone who saw him said he’d be walking by eight months.  I wanted him to be walking by 8 months.  Why?  I guess just so I could boast that my son was walking at eight months. 

Eight months came and went and he was still furniture walking.  Nine months came and went and he seemed to be in no hurry.  As I complained to a friend about my son’s lack of desire to let go of the furniture he used for support, she warned me of the risk of babies developing bowed legs when they walk too early…something about softer bones.  I don’t know how valid the warning is but I want him to walk, NOW. 

Ten months came and still furniture walking.  The window of opportunity to boast about an early walker has just about slipped away.  Darling Angel walked at 11 months, or maybe it was 11 and a half.  I’ll have to dig out her walking debut video and check the timestamp.  But I expected Baby Brother, due to his early start, to beat her record hands down.  Now, two weeks away from eleven months, he’s finally done it.  Hardly a significant victory margin.

Am I listening to myself?  In my mind, I’ve turned his walking into a competition.  It is not a competition.  Baby Brother is not in competition with his big sister nor with any other baby (or person who was once a baby).  He is just himself, doing his own thing to the best of his ability (I hope). 

My children are individuals, their personalities are different.  While I can’t help running comparisons in my mind, I pray for wisdom to give each of them the nurturing they need to reach their full potentials.

All week, I’d have a thought in my head I wanted to write about.  But when I finally settle down at night, I’m exhausted, and I’m thinking of how early I need to get out of bed the following morning, and I just knock out.  I’m not awake enough/alert enough to write a proper post, but I decided to get a few things out.

I got some make up sleep Saturday morning with the net result being that laundary has not been sorted out and I just scrambled to make sure Monday’s school uniforms are layed out and ironed.  I also ironed Tuesday’s uniforms knowing that there won’t be time for that Monday night due to Karate class.  And yes, Karate uniform is also ready to go, sans ironing.

I have been lacking quality sleep - the one where you sleep uninterrupted for 6 hours.  Baby’s been keeping me up with his night time snacking.  I broke the habit once and he slept all night (I hadn’t thought it was possible), but it also meant the end of breastfeeding since he only got that at night.  The habit is back and breastfeeding has resumed again and he seems to prefer this at night now to a bottle.  Should I break the habit again?  Regain quality sleep and deny him of breastmilk?  Or should I just hang on in there?  I’ve been erring on the side of hanging on.  The boy is 2 months away from turning 1 year old.  I won’t breastfeed beyond that, that’s my limit (at least, my imaginary limit).  The first time, I planned to continue till Darling Angel turned one but I quit at 9 months.

Darling Angel’s making progress at Karate.  She’s been to three classes - she didn’t cry at the 3rd one even though it was another large class which seemed to intimidate her.  In fact, she was unable to count from 1 to 10 when asked.  She stood static in the middle of the dojo while the other kids ran around punching bags and rolling over mats.  At the end of the class she assured me she wanted to return.  Yay!

A month ago, I had worried about Baby Brother’s seeming inability to feed himself small bits of food such as cheerios.  This was while he was home with uncle and aunty from Nigeria.  Before that, his grandma had been watching him for months, then he went to daycare for 2 weeks before aunty and uncle took over.  The boy was pampered and would refuse to use his own fingers to feed himself.  He could pick up the food, but he would cry until someone took it from his fingers and put it in his mouth.  Two days after returning to daycare, he started to demonstrate proficiency at self-feeding.  Now, I’m worried by his floor-foraging.  He seems to prefer picking and eating scraps off the floor than being fed from a plate.  I’m trying to keep the floor clean but he’s adept at finding stuff.  I need many eyes on him at all times.  I’m grateful for Darling Angel’s now frequent chime, “Baby Brother has put something in his mouth” which brings me running to prise his mouth open.

I’m trying to eat mindfully.  I now write down everything I eat.  I didn’t do it today, and my eating was not so mindful.  Back to being mindful tomorrow.  I’m hoping it’ll help me shed my remaining post-pregnancy weight.

At 10 months, Darling Angel was already one month into potty training and making good progress.  I can’t even imagine putting Baby Brother on a potty unless there’s a model that can be attached to his bum so it goes with him as he moves around.  Oh yes, there is - it’s called a diaper.

Talking of diaper, we’ve (I mean Baby Brother, but I feel so strongly about saying ‘we’) had a diaper rash, turned dryness or irritated skin for months that just won’t go away despite doctors prescriptions.  Doctor said to air his bum.  Air his bum?  I tried it last weekend, and quickly threw a pair of shorts on him but no diaper.   Went through many pairs of shorts.  Drove me nuts trying to keep him off the couch and anything that might be hard to clean. 

Darling Angel wants straight hair.  I guess there’s something burnt into the subconscious of women and girls about the desirability of straight hair for a majority of Africans and African Americans chemically straighten their hair or wear straight weaves.  In fact, I did the same until not too long ago.  Darling Angel insists all I have to do is brush her hair a lot until it gets straight.  I explained to her that she has extremely curly just like mine.  “Is that the opposite of straight?”, she asked.  That’s right.

This week Baby Brother did not seem overly interested in his dinners, whether cereal or the varieties of jarred stage 2 dinners.  We even tried stage 3 mushy dinners with tiny floating chunks but his response was the same.  Perhaps it’s because he’s teething.  He’s had a fever, maybe he’s fighting off something and is experiencing a loss of appetite. But even before then, his interest in food seemed to have decreased.  He still drank his milk so I wasn’t worried.

When I sat him in his seat at the dinner table and cooed and cooed, trying to get him to eat some mixed cereal and fruit combo and he stubbornly resisted by averting his mouth from the spoon, I concluded that he was not hungry, that he had no appetite.   So when Adoring Father joined us at the table with a plate of ogbonno (a West African soup) and Baby Brother practically leaped out of his seat towards daddy’s plate, I was surprised.  “Could he want that?”, I wondered aloud.  Adoring Father gave him a chunk of something from the soup and the boy mashed it down with his gums and two teeths and called for more.  I was shocked.  Not because I can’t stand ogbonno (it has a strong odor aroma) but because I didn’t realize an 8 month old baby could be that selective.

Could he be bored with baby food?  Could he be ready for bigger-boy culinary delights?  Could I really serve him from our dinner plate?  I hadn’t experienced this with his older sister as she ate within my dictated guidelines till age one when I removed all restrictions and fed her from anything we ate.  I remember she was very delighted to join us at dinner but she was one year old.  I didn’t have to worry about sharing an omelet with her since egg whites were now okay.  And I was a lot less worried about her choking on food bits.

Now that I know that baby’s not “not hungry” when he turns his mouth away from his chicken noodle dinner, macaroni and cheese (which was a favorite), sweet pototoes in pureed form, I’m trying to cook baby-friendly meals that he can eat.  I found a baby food guide at WholesomeBabyFood.com and I improvised with foods I have at hand.

So far he’s done very well with my home cooked meals.  He’s cleaned up his bowls and ‘asked’ for seconds.  We’ve had:

• Spinach rice - very soft boiled rice, added a dash of leftover stew (tomatoes, onions and peppers), crumbled spinach into it and crumbled in a boiled egg yolk.
• Egg noodles - Noodles boiled very soft, added dash of leftover stew, added a crumbled egg yolk.
• Cheesy egg noodles - Noodles boiled very soft, added mozarella cheese

I need to go grocery shopping with baby in mind and expand our food repertoir while he’s very interested lest he grows up to be a picky eater like his sister is (or like I was once).