Strange Machines

Any extended nursing mother will tell you, sometimes the nights are the toughest. Especially when you’re unwell or tired and when baby keeps waking and/or is unconsolable. The latter is the roughest and I am grateful that Jack almost always nurses straight back to slumberland.

I have passed the phase of being envious of my friends going out late, of hubby meeting his friends for a drink, or even playing a game of WoW uninterrupted.

I’ve stemmed the endless nursing nights with reading, surfing, gaming, watching a dvd on my laptop, or sewing cloth dolls for Jack while he is asleep - every one needs some personal time. Mine is spent in our room.

And when he wakes, I go to him quickly, stroke his face gently and tell him Mama is here, steal a sniff of his so-sweet breath, and nurse him even before his eyes open.

When I’m done admiring my baby, I either turn on my book light and read while propped over him on the side, continue watching my dvd, or surf with my Nokia N82.

It is sweet and warm and cuddly. And when I am done, I tuck myself in next to him and go to sleep.

Some nights he wakes up but most nights the waking is done while I am awake. So for the 6 to 8 hours I sleep, it is mostly uninterrupted.

Now that I think about it and write it all down, it doesn’t feel endless but a passage to the next day.

In a few days, my sweet son will be 2. Looking back, he’s achieved so much.

Today he mastered 3-puzzle jigsaws. At the last United Square toy fair, I bought him a wooden box full of lovely animal jigsaws. Only today did he bring it out to play and in a blink, he mastered them all.

His vocabulary is increasing exponentially. Today he learnt the phrase “hold the bar” (while coming down stairs). He can easily say complete sentences by himself, but even with new phrases, I don’t need to say 2-3 words at a time. He can copy half sentences after hearing them once.

It has been frequently commented that he is thin. Let’s just say it is genetic and from my side of the family. With double dominant thin genes from his maternal grandparents, it is a slam dunk. He grows proportionally. Today his Dryper XL seems to be getting tighter so I know he is growing. Just a few months ago he was wearing L!

He is 90th percentile for his age group in terms of height at 88-90cm. At 12kg he is 50th percentile for his weight.

He eats all day and I feed him healthy organic fruit and vegetables. He loves blueberries and can say hello to the nice Aunty Nancy at Why Yogurt over in Great World City there, tell her his favourite 3 berries, and remind me that the blue and pink cups that used to be displayed in the glass case are gone.

He loves playing with his cars, puzzles, reading his books, and most sweetly, is most fond of the stuffed cotton rabbit and cat I made him. He hugs them and tells everyone, “Mama made”.

At the toy store, he is happy to just browse and not buy, a habit formed from early days of “looking trips” and the very rare “buying trip”. He is happy with the toys he has at home. Even for his birthday, he just wants another of his favourite car. I was so proud.

He is loving and affectionate, showing kisses and hugs to his grandma, grandpa, mom, and dad. He is very sociable, and readily waves hello and goodbye to people we meet, lending a smile to those he favours.

He greets me every morning with a grin, saying “Good Morning!” and then “Wake up, Mama!” What a fabulous way to wake up.

It has been a happy, sleepy, and wonderful 2 years with this joyful, sweet, delightful little boy. I am glad I stuck by the tenets of attachment parenting, pretty much the only parenting method supported by science and 30 years of peer-reviewed research.

The breastfeeding, co-sleeping (no cry-it-out), babywearing (no pram; sling or carrier only), and focus on positivity (no “you can’t do that”) and encouragement has been a breeze compared to others who complained about what a hassle it is to go out with so much to carry, disobedient kids. It is instant calm when Jack is nursing and his close bond to me has allowed him the security to be one of the most independent kids I know.

Attachment parenting builds a strong bond between mother and child, and equips a child with confidence, love, security, and a helluva lot of smarts.

First of all, no TV. All the studies agree it is harmful. It is common sense that a child spending one hour playing with his toys or running around in the park is learning more than a child passively watching TV, yes, even the “educational” programs. We, as humans, learn best by example, in the real world.

We choose our battles. By allowing him to win the small battles, such as choosing the clothes he’d like to wear, and what toys to play, he allows us to win the big ones, such as when it is time to go (we rarely have a problem with that, after giving him 5 minutes grace then he waves bye bye) and when it is bedtime.

Today he can readily say he is ready to sleep. With the former, he has grown confident of his choices and truly, he has great taste in clothes.

His artwork is all over our home, the prized ones hung in the bedroom. He loves drawing and we regard each piece as a work of art. Just in 3 months, his work has evolved so much. And he is very proud of it.

We negotiate now. I believe it is an important skill he needs in life. He wants to go out to the park. I say okay, after your meal. He thinks about it then looks at me and says ok. And we eat, then we go out. I keep all my promises to him and so does his dad.

Integrity is something so important and yet so overlooked. I was truly blessed to have a father who keeps his word to me every single time since the day I was born. If he says he will bring the newspaper, yes even something as trivial as that, he will. And he has never forgotten. That is how I learnt integrity.

And so I plan to teach it to Jack. For him to become the man I want him to be, I must become the person I want him to be.

Jack’s been progressing by leaps and bounds. His fave book is a stunning pictorial journey from Earth to the edge of the Cosmos called Universe which I’d bought in Kinokuniya (yes, I finally joined them as a member when I bought the Anazi Anazo books. He impressed my godparents two weeks ago by correctly identifying Earth, Sun, Mars, Io, Europa, Pluto, Charon, and Dark Matter (his faves).

To date, he can correctly and consistently identify Earth, Sun, Mercury, Mars, Europa, Io, Pluto, Charon, Dark Matter, Saturn, Jupiter, and Neptune. He must “read” (he says) the book every night before bed and loves pointing out the objects he knows and is keen to learn the nebulas. Tonight he enunciated Retina Nebula, Helix Nebula, Hourglass Nebula, Eta Carinae, Andromeda, and a few more I can’t remember now because it is past 4am - he remembers better than me.

He can id the letters U, N, I, V, E, R, S, and E on the cover. If he forgets, he’ll guess and flash me a huge grin. We laugh and clap enthusiastically whether or not it is correct. Although I’m sure he can see the pride and joy in my eyes when he does get it correct.

Aside from the Universe, he loves his cars. My Dad bought him all the Ferraris from Shell and the revving sound enthralled him for hours on end. I even managed to doze. He can id without fail Minis, Porsches, Mitsubishis, and BMWs. He can id a car (live or on a pic) from miles away. I am amazed sometimes. There’s a live-sized version of his fave black Porsche Cayman S parked at my sister’s house and we always pay it a visit to say hello.

He’s always buoyant and happy even when sick and has quickly learnt never to admit that he’s got a runny nose or else Dad and Mom will make him take medicine. When he doesn’t know something, he’ll take a guess. That might be because we always laugh together whether or not it is correct so he never fears being wrong.

People around me comment how happy he is, how wonderful it is that he sits with us through dinner, and how polite and friendly he is, saying hello, bye, kissing, hugging, and blowing kisses. Yet they also like to comment how clingy he is to me. That’s all part of the process of the peaceful positive attachment parenting philosophy I adopt.

In the wild, it is normal for children to stay close to their mothers, never to follow strangers as it would mean certain death. We and all other living species now have survived because we follow this code. When the children are taught by their mothers, held and feel secure, they are better equipped emotionally and mentally to cope and thrive and coexist with others in the outside world.

I’ve never regretted giving up my career for my son. Although one of the attachment parenting experts say that the rewards will be reaped when your child grows into a healthy, happy, well-adjusted and responsible adult, I think I am seeing the rewards every day I spend with Jack.

A lovely mention on Mike’s blog (and my mug of our poem The Nightmare Avatar’s Nightmare and my reading on the SFPA’s Halloween page. If you haven’t grabbed a copy of it yet, run run and buy the H.P. Lovecraft’s Magazine of Horror Issue #4 now.

I’m up to 4500 words on The Flame now, a speculative story I am writing. So far I hit 3000 on the first sitting - 6 hours - the ending was rather abrupt, says my kindly readers, so I revised it for expansion during another edit and sitting to 1500 words. As the plot is rather complex, I have had to lie down and poke holes in the plot. It troubles me when a story has glaring plot errors, never mind the factual errors, and I want to ensure I commit none of them.

Since it has been a zillion years since I have worked on a story this long - I got up to 30 pages once for a novel but that has been shelved after I got stuck and bored. The hard copy is still with me. Someday I might just take another look at it. At best it is another Interview with the Vampire, before I even read it. But that is another story.

Got a new mouse today. My fingers are getting friction burn from using the touchpad. And the true reason is I had spilled my honey green tea onto the keyboard causing some keys to stick together. Must Google to find solution. Speaking of which, bought a handful (literally) of Google shares. Glad I have made 5% already. Go Android!

Note: Just after I pressed Publish, the hubby signalled me that Jack woke up. He turned on the sidelight and true enough my little munchkin was sitting up rubbing his eyes. I walked to him, waving and said hey. To our delight, he waved back. It was the cutest thing!

We took Jack to Kinokuniya today where there’s a 20% storewide sale. I find that in general, Kino prices books cheaper than Borders and in the case of one parenting book, it proved to be true. Despite a 25% off Borders’ price of $39.95, I still saved with a 20% off $35.33.

His Dad and I had to take turns watching him as now that he’s mobile, he’s off exploring. Of course, he wouldn’t go far without either of us, so we’d follow him as he totters around the store, much like to him, I am sure, a series of catacombs.

What an adventure! He had a wonderful time.

Moxie’s post on unintentional words reminded me of a promise I made myself that I would never be negative towards Jack, in particular, using negative words such as calling him a “bad boy” or “naughty boy”. And I have not.

What I had not realised was that calling myself “silly Mommy” on occasion, for forgetting something, can be detrimental too. After all, I am his first love and his world. If I am silly and so flawed, then how can he trust me?

The emphasis should be on the positive. The constant encouragement in his achievements and positive cheerleading has made him a happy and confident boy. His trust in me though, can be improved. He still doesn’t trust me to return from the bathroom or kitchen 90% of the time. Could it be because of my negative labelling of myself?

Regardless, it is now time to work positively on Mommy’s image. What an inspired and wise Mommy!

Jack just recovered from a bout of gastro he caught from his Dad. Three days and nights of fever and nasty poop but he smiled through the whole ordeal. Meanwhile I am so overdosed on caffeine that I can’t sleep now.

Since his first birthday, he’s been standing a lot and walking. He took 5 steps the other day and clapped in delight after.

One of the controversies about fever in babies is whether to sponge. Hubby reckons it is just to make the parents feel useful but it does bring down the temperature. I felt useful while sponging but Jack just got upset.

It is three days I would rather not revisit. In fact I’d rather go through labour again!

I can’t sleep again. After a hectic day, one would expect to see me crashing to bed. But an innocent remark kept me up and after having a supper of blue cheese (bad idea), I am awake and pickled from the salt in the cheese.

Jack woke just a few minutes ago, cried once. I went to him and found him sitting on the bed. He called “Mama” and I swear I felt my heart melt. I hugged him gently, stroked his hair, and nursed him back to sleep. As I edged out of his embrace, his arm gingerly reached out and touched his stuffed Humpty Sitting on the Wall which is tied to the crib, and back to the Sandman he went.

There I should head too. Soon… soon…

I couldn’t resist buying Jack this bear suit from Target when we were in Melbourne. He loved it and so did we!

Over the last week, his development accelerated at almost lightspeed. He started standing, walking confidently with a push cart, and waving bye bye.

Last night he read my Best Friends magazine very gently turning each page on his own.

Interestingly, the same day he was happy to tear away a page with Brangelina out of one of my goss mags. :p

He also had his first 3 bites of chocolate cake and loved it! More competition for Mom!

Till one month ago, I would say I had some help caring for Jack. Time off to work was still time off after all. But since April, I became a full-time stay-home mom and the wheels of change turned. Things would never be the same again.

For one, it was wonderful not to worry about deadlines and meeting the budget anymore. The loveliest thing was to be able to give all my time and attention completely to Jack. It shows in his delight when I read to him and play with him.

On the downside, personal time has become somewhat of a myth. Sure, I get an hour or so when he naps (once or twice a day) and that time is usually used to complete chores, spend some time with the cats, or greedily devouring a novel while carrying Jack in a sling.

Breakfast takes an hour, lunch another hour, of feeding and entertaining him on his highchair. The rest is cooking, washing dishes, cleaning up, all rather alien tasks to me. Our routine at home rarely varies and I think we both take comfort in that. They are serene and relaxing.

But at night after putting Jack to bed, I am wasted. Only now, after a month of change I am getting into the swing of things. Most recently I started reading again - a pleasurable activity especially coupled with blue cheese and milk. Now I am getting online again, after hours of course.

Day time I have promised to my son. And what a ball we have had. Shopping cart racing, tree spotting at the park, bath time fun, holding his hand as we walk together, when he sleeps, playing with the cats, and lots of laughter together.

It is all worth it.