A Year Later...

Somehow I have let three months go by without writing on this blog. I can certainly blame the busy weeks before I left my job (May and June) and then the intrusion of a month long family vacation.

I also will blame social media, that reason that twice in his short life our son has fallen on his head while I spent just one more second on my Blackberry.

No matter who or what I blame, I've lost the three months of the first year of the guy's life. Granted I wasn't posting weekly by the end, but at least once a month.

A whirlwind recap: in May we went to Italy, our first vacation just us three without any family to toss the child towards and run out the door for our adult fun. Italy was a lovely place to have the baby as Italians love babies (bambino! bambino, they would cry as walked around with the stroller).

As MZ became more mobile, in the US crawling and crawling, we realized how a change of scene while good for us, was essential to this growth. Falling off his grandfather's coffee table was a one time thing; reflexively he learned not to do it again. But his balance -- more worrying to me was the lack of fear of danger -- seemed precarious as he teetered at the end of the fireplace or other sharp edges.

Then suddenly, at his birthday party, he took five steps in a row. A week later, he had that drunken, old man walk, swinging legs from his hips, hands fisted. He was up, and no longer was the speedy crawl going to make do -- unless he was tired.

This while in the background another mother was saying that her children walked at 7 months and 10 months. Or something that caused the beast of envy to rear up from its banishment. Why are we competitive with our children? None of this is a predictor of anything. If someone writes a symphony at age 3 (Beethoven) call me.

Stretching on his tiptoes for hugs, phones, or books, helped develop his thighs, his muscular legs. I know we're talking about a one year old, but his muscle definition beats mine to a pulp (which they are slowly returning from, the sinews just starting to show).

So long formula: milk, milk, milk. Which is easier to get here in Doha than the pre-made formula we raised him on. The solids have been successful as well. Though I have friends who are still breast feeding (there's the competitive streak again).

His mouth is erupting in teeth, seemingly overnight; there is no safe zone to get in and get out without being pinched. (Here's an area where he has the advantage of the walking wonder who has much fewer teeth).

School is two weeks around the corner. I know he will love the people; I just don't think the dropping off and picking up is going to be great for my schedule. (But then the past few days I've felt slightly at sea. Reading, writing, exercising to my heart's content. And then: boredom.)

He's here to stay, God willing, our little guy. And when I see his face, I really can't think of anything else I've done in my life that counts this much.

9 months: a year in review

This time last year I was preparing for the launch of our start up by attending celebrations in two countries: Qatar and the United Kingdom, graced by a visit with the Queen at Windsor Castle no less.

And now here we are on the year anniversary of that and I'm about to walk away from the job that's had very high highs, and very low, lows.

What's remained constant however, is the growth of this little bundle that is our baby.

He now stands, pulls himself up, smiles at Katy Perry on Sesame Street (and her Peacock video!) as well as eats solids. A baby is such an incredible time keeper. He reminds me of how I felt this time last year, waiting for his arrival, unsure of what kind of parents I would be.

The truth is, I am up to my neck in work. There's leaving this job, there are two start-ups I'm involved in as well as pulling together a volunteer taping of a pilot for a web series. Oh and being a wife, trying to lose the weight, write in my journal and remember to eat, sleep, shower, and show up for meetings on time (most of which I failed to do today).

I have such willing hands to help from our nanny; she spends a lot of time with the baby and she's great at it. He adores her but smiles and turns his head when I enter the room so that helps.

I don't feel the guilt that other mothers talk about - particularly working mothers. I don't know if it's because I am literally running on my feet (which is why I haven't posted here in 2 months) or if it's because I always thought motherhood would be somewhat distanced for me, given the way that I grew up.

My parents were not emotionally tied to us - except in the case of negative emotions - until college. Up until then we were a threat to their good names and me particularly, had a vagina that needed strict policing against the amorality of American teenagers.

Watching Glee today and actually most nights of the show, I wonder about this teenager that our rambunctious little one will be become. Will he experiment and self destruct?

Will I force him into staid Christianity as I experience during college and not be very happy -- but be very good?

My husband had riotous upbringing and broke his father's heart on a regular basis.

Will our son do the same?

Always a lover of inclusive groups and lots of people, I suddenly wonder if I'd rather only have one. Where will I find room in my heart for the other kids? How will my body slow down enough? And not to mention on this new self-employed lifestyle can we accommodate another plane ticket?

When people ask, I try to pretend as though money were no object as to how many kids we'd have: 4-6. As I flip through the pages of People magazine, I see lots couples who have adopted or taken in foster or ill children, puppies, you name it.

And I want that.

But I want to be a jetsetting traveler too. So maybe then it will come.

But maybe not now?

One thing is sure: there is a lot of uncertainty but also excitement ahead.

Both for me and the baby.

Seven Months: seven choices

I can hardly believe all the month of February has gone by without my writing down anything about motherhood. Or that our child has now passed the halfway mark into his first year on the planet.

I held him the other day close, whispered about how he was growing up and it was a sad time for me as his mother.

People always go on and on about how fast they grow. And it's not that he's growing up fast: it's that time is fleeting the older I get. Soon he will walk, he will run, he will go off to college, fall in love, make mistakes - in that order or not.

Children are a great way to mark the passage of time as my nearly 12 year old neice reminds me of being in college and spending the summer carting her around with me in the Florida heat.

My absence from this blog isn't because I haven't been experiencing or thinking about motherhood and the baby. It's just that during my Saturday writing times I focus on my main blog, articles, or other pieces I'm trying to get done so that my career as an academic or writer doesn't suffer from my day job(s). This plus the meetings that often happen on Saturdays as well mean that every single second of my day is accounted for.

This is the life of the working mother, or indeed a mother's life in general. My hsuband is generally great and does pitch in to help but his hours are not close to mine. And mine are nothing near what our nanny spends with the baby. This is modern parenthood. You have to pick your battles. There is no other way.

Other friends seem to suffer from a lot more guilt and don't have the luxury of help. I also have come to the realization that I don't want to worry about things like sleep schedules and other dilemmas. I'm trying to be a relaxed mom so that our child will get from me a sense of what's important and what's not.

Figuring out how to spend my day is a skill I want to transfer to the baby. Being at work is crazy because I'm still doing all the programs I was before, I just have a reduced number of hours to do them in.

Add in again the fact that social obligations intrude on these hours and you have a receipe for a very hectic day to day. I know I put more pressure on myself than others do and often I now see why they take the easier path of not commiting to as much.

But I would rather have a bit of stress so that I could do more and sleep a bit less. These are the choices I've had to make - going to church 30 minutes late, but going nonetheless. Exercising for 20 instead of 60 minutes, but exercising nevertheless.

I hope the baby realizes that you can have most of what you want but it will come at price. And most days that prices is completely worth it.

Is that your baby?

People seem slightly obessed with the differences in color between me and our baby. He's much lighter than me and a mini version of his father. Which I don't mind because I happen to love his father very much. If things were otherwise, I can see why people get annoyed during divorces or separations, abandonment, etc.

It's generally Phillipino women who seem amazed by this difference. Or in a city where so many families have nannies, people think I'm out with my employer's child.

Hilariously, the East Asians don't think the baby looks Asian at all. I'm not sure if it's because he has large eyes, which are often the central feature of Asians and their ephicantic eyelids. But when we were with the Korean mafia - my nickname name for the close knit group of my husband's college friends - some of them commented that they didn't think he looked Asian.

This was hilarious becuase in nearly all instances, they had each married other Koreans. So their babies were completely unmistakable. And often in photos when they were much younger, I struggled to tell them apart.

Our nanny thinks the baby's face is very cute and she's very glad he's not "dark" like our next door neighboor. This kind of talk of course makes me shiver.

It's been another month since I wrote about breastfeeding. A few weeks after that last post about how much fun it was, I stopped. I got a liquidating stomach virus from my mother in law and realized I was passing it along to the baby. The diapers alone were enough reason to move forward my intention of stopping a few weeks earlier than planned.

While in the US, the readymade formula was easy to find at nearly every drug store or supermarket.

Having the first grandson on both sides with the extended family was a delight for everyone. He was adored, they somehow just turned into silly, babbling babylovers.

And we had willing babysitters for any of the movies, shopping, dinners, errands we wanted to go out on during our first trip back in a year.

I vowed to myself I would exercise 6 out of the 7 days while out on annual leave for over a month. And I nearly did. When I got into the habit of exercising early in the morning when the rest of the house was asleep, it felt great to be cleaned up and ready to go by the time everyone got up.

DC, GA, NV, FL. It was an amazing trip that no one really wanted to end.

I had conflicted feelings about bringing the baby back. While I wanted to be in my house with the nanny at my disposal, I didn't want the negative feelings about work to crowd back in and dominate my day.

The baby and I went on a road trip, our first, just us two. While I had been slightly dreading being left alone with him for a week, and nervous, though never admitting it to all the naysayers who thought the trip unsafe and foolish, I had a great time.

During the day we saw people from my childhoold and college days. At night we snuggled and slept in king size beds between NC and FL. The flight back was even fine - except for the dynamic poop that sent me walking the length of the US Airways cabin back to the bathroom room that had no changing table.

Changing tables, fear of ear infections, and his first serious illness were all a part of this trip.

Thank god my mother came with us to Vegas because the baby's first cold and the mucuous extractor were a little more than the two of us could handle on our own.

What surprised me was the utter love that was showered on him by his paternal uncle.

"He's my blood," he said.

And I renewed my resovle to adopt a child.

This week I'm readying The Unwanted, the story of a family living in Communist Vietnam. And my heart keeps breaking for the "half-breed" children who are half-American and half-Vietnamese during a very dangerous period of history.

It's hard to escape the fact that our baby is blessed in life because of his fortunate birth. Of course, living in a wealthy society, there are many children who are much better off than he is. But then there are also so many children in the world who are so much worse.

It's hard to know which is better and which to celebrate.

I'm giving away his clothes now, clothes that he has already outgrown because he is just shooting up. Now he laughs, he wants to eat our food, and he pulls my hair. He also rolls, cries when he's bored, and is ready for solids.

The solids thing is so interesting because now he has a spoon and a bowl and has to sit up in order to receive food.