Black, Never Let Me Down

Other than to share the occasional link or video clip, I rarely update my Facebook status. However, I realize this is one of the fastest and effective digital communication tools at my disposal. And so today, at the height of my motherly and fashionable shortcomings – I felt it appropriate to broadcast the following:

Lesson Learned:  A mother of toddler and infant boys should never wear white. Never.

And here goes the whole sordid story:

Getting dressed in the morning is probably one of my least favorite activities. Truth be told, I miss my smaller sized wardrobe and pre-motherhood privacy to try on enough outfits until I am satisfied with my appearance. Instead, I typically grab whatever is clean and vaguely matches. And I try to look back as little as possible in the mirror. As I am easily bored with this technique, I save aside a few pieces of new clothing for particularly low self-esteem days. And so, today seemed like a wonderful day to bolster my confidence by stepping out in a brand new white cardigan. I remember buying it and thinking I have to remember not to drink cranberry juice in this one. Little did I know that Ismaeel would find a way to get tire grease and toddler fingerprints on my backside or that my poor new summer sweater would fall victim to Siraj’s spontaneous bout of intestinal mayhem.

Before motherhood, I never knew such messes were even possible. We are talking a serious comedy of errors here. And I am sure there are some sort of decency standards that preclude me from going into any further details. Basically, my cardigan was pristine until the world started to move and rumble in slow motion and the words soiled or ruined wouldn’t even come close to describing the aftermath.

Funny enough, I wasn’t really upset about it. While I hope that he stops touching grease to point out how messy tires are, I am pleased Ismaeel still enjoys giving me such heartfelt hugs. And little Siraj looked enormously refreshed after his own incident. What mother wouldn’t be relieved to know their baby shouldn’t be suffering from a tummy ache anymore?

Luckily, I still dress in layers and being in NYC means there are plenty of clothing stores within t-shirt walking distance. I am also particularly grateful that they are open before 10:00AM. I was soon flipping through the sale rack at Gap and was delighted to find several replacement cardigans in my size. However, just as I rejected pastel pink and was about to walk to the cashier holding light baby blue – I realized I didn’t want to watch history repeat itself. At least not today. So, I promptly stepped out of line, past the sale rack, and grabbed a full price sweater in black.

Oh, my sweet slimming, matchable, and stain-camouflaging black, promise me you’ll never let me down. You do, after all, cost twice as much...

Epic Fail

After Picture Day with the boys, I went into the office with my outfit wrinkled and stomach rumbling without breakfast. Along the four block walk I tried to figure out which of my meetings in my triple-booked calendar I should attend in person. I chose the ever popular and anti-social answer of none and decided to dial in to my most problematic brand’s status call from the passive aggressive comforts of my office. While booting up my laptop, I discovered that my burning-hot-clickety-clicking-whirling-dervish-hard-disk decided to commit suicide. Seriously !?! Most unfortunately, yes.

Now I must brace myself for a maddening call to help-desk and think again about that breakfast I didn’t have. My company’s technical support representatives are based in Costa Rica. Their accents and friendly banter make them actually quite charming. And it is always hard not to imagine that the call-center is inside some sort of super-wired grass hut on the middle of the beach. When I am put on hold, I assume they are merely adjusting their towels and sipping their coconut drinks. I pause often to think that I am in the wrong line of work. Unfortunately, calls rarely take less than thirty minutes. And that is just to get the spelling of your user name correct to document your problem. An actual solution will take even far more time. Think days.

So, as something about inefficiencies makes me what to eat my feelings, I always enjoy having something to snack on while I re-spell my last name and first initial for the umpteenth time. And a call like this would be best served with doubleshot caramel macchiatos and a heaping stack of buttery blueberry pancakes. Nothing like a new way to make your emergency box of office Cheerios taste even blander…

And so I repeat, “M as in Mary, A as in Apple, N as in Nancy…” until they finally pull up my account. Most of my data was already backed up but the idea of losing weeks of productivity by leap-frogging between relic loaner laptops makes me want to cry. Since NetMeeting won’t work on a dead computer, Juan-Carlos opened a ticket to page someone local to come and verify that my laptop has indeed expired. Once I receive my digital death certificate – the procurement process can be initiated for my new machine.

Computer-less, I went from meeting to meeting trying desperately to follow email chains on my BlackBerry. But with six brands this is nearly impossible. I have class tonight with a midnight deadline. My husband will be out of town for the next three days and Ismaeel’s 3rd birthday party is less than a week away. Wow, who knew all of this could bubble up so quickly !?! The day hit an excruciating new low point as I needed to actually talk to people in person to keep my projects moving. I had no idea technology had become such a crutch for my hermitic tendencies.

In the afternoon, the local technician came around to certify that my laptop has passed on and drop off a loaner. It was old and full of crumbs but I still embraced the behemoth, knowing that the night ahead would be spent together chasing emails.

If not, I would have to talk to more people live tomorrow. The horror!

Royal Flush

And so the cliché’s say, “motherhood is its own reward” and in general this is true. But after successfully potty training a defiant toddler, I think I deserve something more than just a pat on the back. I’m not looking for anything expensive. Just a mere token to tell the world that I am a survivor. Perhaps an embroidered toilet badge that I can wear proudly on my sleeve or a jeweled brooch in the shape of toilet paper. And, funny enough, if you google it – it exists.

("Toilet Paper" by LiciaBeads)

Surely, I should be given something like this (or this) to let people know that I have lived through so many months of torment.

Thankfully, Ismaeel has always preferred to wear a clean diaper and around 12-18 months he was definitely self-aware and able to communicate when he needed to change. But it was always after the fact. We bought board books and a BabyBjorn Potty Chair but he only liked to sit on it with his diaper and pretend to read. If you tried to get him to actually use it – he would burst into a fit of giggles and “no no no’s”. We took this as a clue that he was not quite ready.

So we spent the next few months reading up on other potty training techniques and trying to explain to concerned relatives that we were confident he will get the hang of it over time. But in reply, we just kept receiving (albeit well-intentioned) stories of so-and-so's child mastering elimination communication before the age of 1. It was hard to graciously smile and thank people for their “advice” while repeatedly hearing that we were failures or imagining that Ismaeel would go to college psychologically scarred and wearing Depends. And as we became pregnant with Siraj, there was an even louder urgency and extended family pressure to get our toddler out his diapers. Not to mention, Ismaeel was already wearing the largest available size of Pampers. The crux of the argument was that it would be easier on me to not have to change two children in diapers. Perhaps this was true but I don’t know if anyone could appreciate how many times a day I was already kneeling down on the tile floor with nausea. Did I really want to spend another minute in the bathroom trying to build up the merits of flushing with my toddler?

I just simply couldn’t do it. Maybe if I wasn’t pregnant it wouldn’t have seemed like such an uphill battle - but I was and it did. Even though daycare tries to introduce potty time around the age of 2 – neither Ismaeel nor his friends seemed to have grasped the concept yet. I felt daunted to spend energy on something that would unravel during the day because there was no peer pressure or consistency. After a long day of work and school, I just couldn’t ignore the need to make dinner or start the laundry to be yelling about bodily functions and bathroom habits. I just tried to relax and let his friends take the lead.

Within a few months, the girls were considered potty trained. At this point, Ismaeel was now embracing his “individuality” and a new state of radical defiance. We felt we definitely missed a sweet spot but also knew we couldn’t have done anything more or earlier. And once Siraj was born and settled into a manageable routine - we began “no mercy potty training boot camp” at home.

It started with a loud declaration from my husband that “we don’t change poopy diapers anymore”. Ismaeel and I were both stunned by his serious tone while my husband tried not to giggle over his out-of-character stance. We also enlisted the help of Mitchell, a Build-a-Bear Friendly Frog wearing his own white briefs. Productive moments on the toilet received a new sticker to be placed on Ismaeel’s calendar. And while we bought backup supplies of Pull-Ups and Kandoo Flushable Wipes, Ismaeel was especially thrilled to receive his first pack of big boy underwear and use the bidet. We didn’t leave or enter the house without using the toilet first. Once we repeated the routine a few times, the stickers seem to multiply, and it became just another comforting toddler ritual. So far, so good.

Indeed, there were a few moments of horrific non-compliance and a lot of Resolve but we made it to “officially potty trained” before Ismaeel’s 3rd birthday. Granted, having only one child in diapers is definitely helping with the family budget but the issue of convenience is debatable. Absolutely, it is more hygienic for Ismaeel to use the toilet but the amount of time it takes to assist him only aids the years of my youth from circling the drain of our porcelain throne. Likewise, the whole netherworld of navigating public restrooms in NYC provides enough fodder for an entirely different blog post.

But today, I’ll just bask in the long-awaited success of telling people he’s gloriously out of diapers. Consider my back patted.