I See Now

Breast feeding has finally settled down into being fun. When I first started going back to work, I was on a mad dash to be at home and make sure the baby didn't have formula but my milk (as our nanny calls it).

This meant I often felt as though I couldn't win at work or at home -- I was always losing. But for the first four months or so this period of time was a welcome buffer between the morning at work and the afternoon at home.

I would feed him, climb the stairs, and we'd take a 2 hour nap together. I knew the dangers of this much sleep having encountered a similar pattern a few years ago when working at the national university. I was depressed and my waistline, energy level, and overall outlook on life reflected this.

But I couldn't seem to shake it. When I finally talked myself into working out, it would be just before we had to go out, so rushed, and short. Half though I would always regret not having started earlier. Right now I'm trying to just get up in the morning and get to it. My gym is right outside our bedroom door on the second floor of our house.

To my surprise, I love breast feeding. I'm amazed my body can do this for our baby. I am sustaining him with something I am producing. No one else can do it: not his father, not grandparents, not our nanny, who dotes on him.

Imagine my horror when I started my period. I thought this signaled the end of my milk. I called the lactation consultant in a panic.

"How do I know?" I asked, driving through town.
"Remember the diapers," she said.

Yes, those diapers. The explosion he had while we were at a poker party last Friday proved that my milk is still coursing through him.

And I've almost made it twice as long as I thought I ever would. My original goal was 3 months! We're in month 5 and I hope we can go even further.

You're Pregnant

"Not any more," I told the gushing acquaintance last night whom I hadn't seen in some time.

"Oh," she said and I just kept going to help her recover her embarrassment.

The fact is our son is now five months old and I was hoping that breast feeding was going to melt away the pounds as it had for one of my husband's colleague's wives. The fact that she is a nosy busy body and walking around the size of a toothpick doesn't engender any warm feelings either.

My disappointment at the myth of breast feeding is only eclipsed by the horror of having to see photos of myself in the newspaper and other places.

In order to motivate me to lose weight, I struck up a competition with a co-worker who was also trying to lose weight. He is a 6 foot plus South African and we both had the same goal: lose 20 pounds.

At the end of two months he beat be, barely, by losing one kil (2 pounds). I had lost none but maintained 140, the weight I basically came home from the hospital with.

Happily I was kicked out of the office because I had too many unused vacation days. Every day since the start of this 'staycation' I've exercised first thing in the morning.

I realize why rich people look so good. Looking good takes time. By the time I've exercised, showered, and am ready to do anything, it's usually 12:00 pm. Half the day has gone by.

I'm trying to be gentle to myself and take these two weeks to create this sustainable habit of exercising four times a week. I've never been able to do it even when working out with a personal trainer, going to the gym to private classes, or using the compound's bike, elliptical, treadmill.

Three days, three nearly 1 hour work outs. Let's hope I can keep it going even during the upcoming holiday season.

He is so white

This is a comment that I've heard often enough to make me pause when out with our baby.

I am South Asian and brown; not dark or light. My skin is my skin. After growing up in suburban Florida, I've learned to be completely comfortable in it, despite being aware of the fact that lighter is always better.

Unless you're white. Then it's tan that people spend a fortune and put their health at risk to seek (will NEVER figure that one out). Yet racism still exists because people think those with different skin color are in fact different from them.

The first time it happened I was in the spa with my son. One of the staffer's I'm not really fond of - she told me at 8 months pregnant I was really big - came to stay hello and coo at the baby.

"Oh, he's so white," she said.

I let it go because she has been pushing my buttons since we became members and now I didn't have the excuse of hormones to blow up at her.

A few days later, I was at the frame shop, picking up a few items with my Sudanese American neighbor's son. He is perhaps the most precious child I've seen outside my family (the nieces have a firm place in my heart).

"He's so white," one of the women said.

Again, the first time I let it go. But she had to say it again.

And then: "Not like his brother."

I realized she was talking about our neighbor who is clearly of African descent.

"That's not his brother," I found myself saying, though it was none of her business.

Multiple comments about our baby's color makes me realize that he is in fact a child of mixed races.

This may sound odd, but my husband and I are both children of Asian immigrants who grew up in emotionally reserved families with demanding fathers. We both work harder than we should at our jobs and enjoy traveling in style.

In short: we have more in common than in differences. If we were to list the differences they would be in the area of personality: he's an extreme introvert and I'm so extroverted, I wish I could run electricity off my energy to save on the power bill.

I've never thought about our different appearances. Though everyone kept saying "we can't wait to see what combination your genes will produce," I didn't really equate that with old fashioned notions of race or color.

At least for our son's sake, he was lucky and got the favorable color: whiteness.