Toddler Mojo

Regardless of the weather, the weekends are always full of chores. Luckily, today was particularly muggy and on the verge of thunderstorms so we didn’t feel as melancholy to be stuck indoors tending to our domesticity. But bad weather doesn’t absolve us of trying to prevent a good-ol’-fashioned-boredom-triggered-toddler-meltdown. After twenty or so “time-outs” – you figure no matter what is going on with the weather outside – it is now the perfect time to venture to the store to get some “fresh” NYC air.

Toddlers are elusive beings. In one breath they will declare pants unnecessary but to consider leaving the house without their blue velcro Adidas is simply unthinkable. In the spirit of leaving quickly, I playfully wrestle Ismaeel to replace his argyle jammies with carpenter jeans and reassure him that his flip-flops are perfectly fine for a trip to the market. In case the clouds burst into rain, I make him wear his windbreaker. However, he is more than perturbed that this covers his stained but forever beloved race car shirt. He may have cabin fever but he still reluctantly shuffles to the elevator and can’t help but pretend to be glued to the floor when we get to the lobby. The doorman teased him that I would leave him behind but he still wouldn’t budge. I call back that he can pick out a treat from the café and he soon comes running.

We head to Inatteso Cafe Casano and he forgoes his regular choice of a mini cupcake with chocolate ganache to have a fresh-from-the-oven cookie instead. The chocolate chips are soon melting in his hands and even before we leave the store he has a perfect toddler sized cookie beard. Now as a proud underwear-wearing member of society, he gallantly points out every piece of dog excrement along our path. “Mommy, watch out – someone pooped on the floor. That’s dis-gus-thing!” Though I have no explanation as to why the owners don’t clean up after their pets, I still try to reason that a dog doesn’t know how to use a toilet. This hardly seems to satisfy him as he quickly retorts why can’t they just wear diapers and mutters again “dis-gus-thing!”

After chasing each other through the tiny aisles in Gristedes and completing our shopping list, we went back towards home. To avoid the earlier messes of non-diaper-wearing dogs, we decide to lollygag by walking along the water on the South Cove. It wasn’t raining but you could feel the storm brewing nearby. The Hudson River was higher than usual and each wave was spilling onto the boardwalk. The troublesome clouds were darkened but the sun was still trying its damndest to shine through. So, all in all, it really wasn’t your picture postcard day. Nevertheless, my brooding inner poet begged to linger. But this was quickly silenced by the ever-so-practical-reminder of ice-cream soon to melt in my grocery bags. And, oh yeah, my blatant irresponsibility for letting my child be nearly exposed to the elements. Just imagine if he got wet on a summer day. What would the neighbors think !?! Then came along Ismaeel’s mojo…

Even when there are no cars around and he doesn’t have to, Ismaeel still enjoys holding my hand. I like to think it is simply because I am the one he loves most but the reality is he knows that to ask for something while caressing my thumb pretty much always guarantees a yes. And so, when he points to the bench about to be splashed by another choppy wave and says, “Mommy, it’s so nice. Let’s sit...” – I can’t really argue. I know my brown bags will likely tear if they get splashed once more. And I know our wet clothes will have to go straight in the laundry. But as we sit upon that not-so-dry bench, he flashes his china closet grin and tells me he loves me. Is there any greater sound? And all the while squeezing my hand, he snuggles in a little bit tighter, and says, “now let’s look for sharks!”

Sigh, so much love and excitement.

I really can’t think of any better reason than to let milk spoil in the sun…

Guilty Thursday

From his lazy months in utero to his quiet newborn slumbers – Siraj has always been a sweet and gentle baby boy. Even as I texted (from my hospital bed) about his arrival - my first descriptions always included the words “kitten-like”. But this doesn’t mean that he isn’t a fierce and wily one too.

Each and every morning, Siraj fights me as I try to put a shirt over his head. Pants require me to practically kneel upon his chest to get him to stop rolling over. And please, don’t even ask me about socks or shoes. His little feet are actually two shades tanner than the rest of him because I don’t even bother anymore. He doesn’t cry and he doesn’t scream – he just wiggles and turns to the point you start considering just how necessary infant clothing even is. But I push onward and hold him down tight like I have captured some slippery little alligator. He giggles, Ismaeel guffaws, I sweat, and my husband watches the ticking clock. As Siraj gets a little more mobile - our morning routines take that much longer.

So, when I picked him up from daycare and saw a horrific bruise all over his tiny little wrist – I immediately blamed myself. What is wrong with me and how sleep deprived am I to hold him so tightly? How could I leave such a mark? Am I really this burned out? How did I not notice this in the morning? But wait…how could I hurt him like this and he didn’t even cry? Did he fall and is just bruising too easily? What could that mean? Why didn’t anybody else notice this? Of course, I asked if anything happened to him during the day but nobody saw or heard anything. There was no incident report to fill out so I can only assume this happened “on my watch”.

The whole thing just doesn’t make any sense. I keep re-playing the morning and can’t think of a single time that he could have been hurt. I know he didn’t have this bruise when I bathed him. I know no one would intentionally hurt him and with the exception of my rushed shower I was with Siraj the whole accident-free time. If you were to look at his purple and red wrist – you would think it was broken. And yet, he isn’t bothered when I touch it and is still happily crawling all over the place with full pressure on it.

I scoop him up (before he can hit his head on the glass coffee table) and apologize again for the thousandth time as I put him in his high chair. Even though I am sickened to my stomach I have become this oblivious bullying monster, I still need to make some dinner for Ismaeel.

Despite not having any teeth, Siraj is desperately hankering for food. As a compromise, I give him ice cubes in the mesh safety of a Sassy Teething Feeder. He loves this. He loves to hold it on his aching gums or to simply smash it against his food tray. And lately, he likes to throw it across the room with gusto. And just as my hands are covered in raw egg – he tosses it down to the floor and lets out a happy shriek for it to be returned. I call for Ismaeel to help and before Big Brother can decipher my directions – I catch Siraj taking matters into his own hands. Or should I say his bruised wrists...

Apparently his teething has gotten so bad he has taken to gnawing on his own wrist as if it was an ear of corn on the cob. Oh my poor suffering baby, you have no idea how relieved I am! What a wonderful day it is indeed when you find out that your infant son likes to give himself a hickie.

Phew! At least now my only crime is not having enough teething rings pre-chilled in the freezer. And now that I am not a delusional and abusive mother I can get back to focusing on my regular guilt list...

An Upright World

While everyone around us put on their bathing suits and headed towards the beach, my husband and I were more than happy to spend the day on our couch in the comforts of our AC. That’s not to say that a toddler and an infant let us spend any time relaxing. Still just the thought of lounging around in our pajamas seemed like a perfect way to savor the last bits of a long weekend. We aimed for some quiet cleaning of the house and our emails while we offered Ismaeel a Pixar movie marathon. Bored of his film collection, Ismaeel pleaded with me to Swiffer instead. While I can appreciate his offer, I can’t help but wish his aim under the couch were just a tad more efficient… And so the day was quickly filled with email filtering rules and household cleaning products. You would think it would be an uneventful day. You know, one not worth blogging about. But the boys always know how to keep things interesting.

Siraj refuses to believe he is 7 months old. While he can’t pronounce any recognizable words beyond “dada” and “hey”, he is more than capable of expressing himself in a hodge-podge of giggles, grunts, raspberries, shrieks, and squeals. He is starting to hold his own in territorial exchanges with Ismaeel and is putting away more food than his big brother could keep down at 1 year. So you would think we would see this coming. But we didn’t. And neither did our baby-proofing-to-do-list.

Today, Siraj decided crawling is for babies and started standing on his pipsqueak legs. I love my sweet baby boy dearly and in my big brown motherly eyes think he is absolutely gorgeous. But weighing in regularly at 10th percentile, Siraj is an itty-bitty one. With the exception of his long legs and mature face, Siraj is tiny enough to be easily mistaken for a 4 month-old. So even I find it disorienting and surreal to see his little thighs holding himself up. My husband even asks if Siraj could stunt his bone development by standing too early. But there he is - smiling and squealing away as he clutches and drools on the glass coffee table. The very same table that I just Windexed. And the very same table that Ismaeel held on to before he spun around and bit through his lip so badly that he needed half a dozen stitches at 13 months. Just as my husband and I start to panic about another accident waiting to happen – we laugh to remember that Siraj doesn’t have any teeth. But we still have plenty of wood floors and sharp corners to worry about. So we start panicking anyway…

We’re thrilled to see Siraj thriving but are completely overwhelmed that he has become so mobile so quickly. I have already spent a morning completely reassembling his high chair since his happy jumping for yogurt routine loosened all of the screws. And what good is a bouncer that holds nearly 30 pounds when at 15 he is able to turn around and use it as a springboard to propel himself towards the couch?

Not to mention, having a toddler in the house means toys with little pieces everywhere. So, should my husband become the LEGO-hunter while I frantically forage for leftover shipping materials to make styrofoam nests on the edges of our furniture? While we hurry to make things safer for Siraj should we ask Ismaeel to take over the cooking? He is after all doing a fairly decent job dusting. Sadly, Ismaeel can’t yet read recipes so we must embrace Siraj’s status as the second child and cling frantically to clichés that anything less than a baby proofed utopia will only make him stronger.

And so to continue our non-traditional celebration of the holiday weekend, we shunned thoughts of BBQ and ordered some Mexican takeout. There’s something about dipping a tortilla chip in guacamole to make you savor the last innocent moments of babyhood. Well maybe not. But we definitely savored the guacamole.

Welcome to the upright world, Siraj !!!

35 Days and Counting

• Just an update, we still have the car rental.

Home Disorganization

(West Elm)

Due to a generous maternity leave policy at work - I was very eager to fulfill many items off my nesting to-do list. One of which was to organize the boys’ closet before Siraj’s arrival. Hmmm. Let’s see… Siraj is about to turn 8 months and I am still working on this. Perhaps I should re-think my project management skills.

In my defense, I think I have made considerable progress. I spent my last trimester assembling shelves and drawer units courtesy of West Elm’s Bergen line. I bought collapsible canvas storage boxes, transparent shoe bins, Baby Buddy Blue Size-It Closet Organizers, and even little infant-toddler sized wooden hangers. And yet my husband is still quick to point out that I can’t seem to get it together. Inside the clothes are intended to be sorted and there is a designated section for blankets and a month’s supply of baby wipes, infant diapers, and toddler Pull-Ups.

But this just isn’t enough. It comes down to having too much stuff. You would think having two boys should make things hand-me-down-easy but it is a bit daunting to manage and rotate the various clothing sizes. Ismaeel is wearing size 4T-5T and Siraj is still waffling between 3-6m and 6-12m clothing. For those of you unfamiliar with baby clothing, here is a list of the sizes I am busy sorting and holding on to: newborn, 0-3m, 3-6m, 6-12m, 12-18m, 18-24m, 2T, 3T, 4T, and 5T. As if 10 different sizes aren’t hairy enough, Big Brother was born in June while Little Brother came along in November so nearly every piece of Ismaeel’s clothing is now out-of-season for Siraj. Let’s just say Siraj is always fashionably layered.

So my current aim is to purge and donate anything “non-core” that doesn’t fit into the canvas box for that particular size. So anything stained, with too much pile, or worn out knees is out. However, this still leaves me with more than I should be keeping. I blame OxiClean for not leaving me with more soiled clothing. But seriously, why is this so hard? Why is it heart-wrenching to consider giving away their itsy-bitsy footie jammies? And so my inner-hoarder keeps trying to hold on to what should just be charitable goods.

Granted things are no longer an indistinguishable heap on the closet floor but if you look closely there are still micro-collections of laundry spill-over throughout the house. And so today was the perfect opportunity to avoid the NYC heat wave by hiding inside the air conditioned comforts of home organization. Ismaeel was very eager to “help” which created all sorts of new nap-less tantrums. Still I let him assist by throwing away an unnecessary collection of extra plastic hangers. But after a bit, we got hungry and decided the afternoon would be better spent cuddling over lunch and watching “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs”.

In the meantime, the closet is still not quite Better Homes and Gardens perfect.

And to the boys’ closet, I say...

“I know. It’s not you, it’s me. I’m trying to make this right. I really am. Tomorrow, that is...”

Mourning Glory

For years, I worked in retail. Every two weeks, I would enjoy the thrills and late nights of setting up the visual displays and store windows with new merchandise. I knew the body details of each mannequin (whom ironically have plenty of their own “flaws”). And I couldn’t help but snicker at competitors’ windows filled with poorly styled, wrinkled, or minimally layered outfits. The following mornings would always be a flurry of markdowns and my employee discount was greatly appreciated. So, you can imagine when I left retail I had more clothes and shoes than I had occasions to wear them.

With my first “desk” job, I quickly lost some of the vanity that came along with trying to maintain my fashion sense and size zero figure. I was enthusiastically heading towards a new sense of practicality and professionalism. Some outfit choices started to fade entirely and I no longer feared the occasional chocolate malted milkshake (with a dill pickle on the side, of course). Still I tried to hold on to some of my hipster elements. I never left the house with less than three layers, my trousers were still crimson red, and my shoes were always at least four inches tall.

So, even though it would have been perfectly acceptable to wear sandals on a particularly sunny September morning – I was excited to wear a new pair of olive leather Kenneth Cole boots instead. I didn’t know planes would be crashing into towers or that I would need to walk nearly twelve miles back to Harlem. And I didn’t know my feet and ankles were covered in blood until my cousin told me.

Some days just rattle you to the core.

In the weeks that followed, I needed to work from home. I had just moved into my apartment so there were boxes everywhere. I found my desk and chair and left the television unplugged. I worked endlessly because there was no more commute. No mid-day urge to take a walk to the Square Dinner. And there was no rush to end the workday just to get back home. Horribly and lonely, I was already there.

The novelty of working in your pajamas fades quickly and I considered it an accomplishment to maintain a somewhat decent sense of basic personal hygiene. It was hard to look at some of the items in my closet. There were my stained boots and the many hangers of the frivolous. It is questionable whether it was a matter of respectful utility or simple laziness but I started to commit to a daily uniform of flip-flops, jeans, t-shirt, and cardigan sweater (note: only two layers).

And boy, did I commit. Shoes and socks became an artifice that I had absolutely no interest in. In fact, my current employer maintains a policy of “business appropriate attire” which means I can never ever wear my flip-flops to meetings (or even in my own office). In protest, I have been known to let my Halloween socks peak out from my shoes wildly and inappropriately during the off-season. The minute Friday becomes the weekend – I reach for my flip-flops and have them handy until Monday rears her ugly head.

Today, nearly ten years later, I finally said goodbye to those J-Crew skinny wedge flip-flops. Their plastic began to loosen to the point they would disassemble. Still, it felt odd to throw out a relic from my pre-marriage and pre-motherhood days. I begrudgingly started to cut the tag off my not-quite-identical replacement pair and realized I didn’t really want to wear them. While my habit may (or may not) have sprung from a place of depth - it would require only shallowness at this point to maintain it. Perhaps the time has finally come to reopen the closets and indulge in some frivolity…

The Meaning of Art

(An Original Ismaeel Creation.)

For years, I struggled whether to pursue an artist’s journey or a career in law. Somewhere along the way, I dabbled in mysticism and documentary film but settled upon specialty pharmaceutical promotions. Don’t ask...

However, that doesn’t mean that I cannot color my heart out with Ismaeel or fiercely debate (and win) why he needs to wear pants before leaving the house. So, you can imagine I take great pleasure in seeing his artwork and channel my inner hoarder by refusing to throw away any of his perfectly deliberate and meaningful “scribbles”.

As an infant, he would crane his neck to marvel at ornate ceilings and tall skyscrapers. We were so pleased to be living in NYC knowing that we were doing our very real-estate best to nurture his budding architect self. Then came the finger paints that just screamed super-genius. Even the paste on his craft was thicker and gloppier than his peers’. Before he was even crawling, I could always proudly pick out his passionate work.

That said, every once in a while a piece of his makes me wonder if this is a good thing.

One of my favorites is a two-color stamp collage. Most of his friends chose two bright colors and complementary shapes. There were pink hearts with purple butterflies. Next to that were blue stars with yellow moons. Down the line were white ducks with green umbrellas. And then there was Ismaeel’s. Sometimes I don’t know why they bother writing his name in the corner. Could any other parent mistake the orange houses being trampled by tar-like black dinosaurs as their child’s work !?! Surely, this is my solitary glory.

Sometimes, the children are allowed to “freestyle” their art and the teachers will write the intended subject in the corner of the piece. For example, a collection of red frantic lines labeled “fast car” shared a similar style to the wobbly green circles titled “big bugs”. Today’s artwork was even more wonderfully warm than usual and I immediately tried to picture where I should hang it in my office. That is, until I noticed the caption in the corner...

“Flames of Fire.”

Oh boy. Why didn’t they just write “Cry For Help” next to his name !?!

As I was about to talk to his teacher - I noticed many other activities regarding fire safety hanging on the walls. Phew. Hopefully, as long as I can keep the killer-home-crushing-dinosaurs at a distance then art can remain a healthy outlet for Ismaeel.

In the meantime, I think I’ll keep “Flames of Fire” at home on the refrigerator. Some conversation pieces are just a little too high-brow for Corporate America.

Quadrants of Insanity

(Photo courtesy of Lunch in a Box)

There are times when my husband hints that I have taken on too much. When he says this – I typically don’t reply other than to exchange a bewildered look. After 11+ years, he knows me right !?! What exactly on my Type-A plate is optional !?! But here is the brief summary of my plate: I am a wife of one, a mommy of two under three, a promotions manager of six brands, and a grad student of one mere class per each semester. I don’t even dare put amateur photographer or wistful poet on this list. So in my defense, culling myself down to four states of being is quite conservative. Right !?!

“Wife” and “Mommy” are clearly requisite roles. “Manager” and “Student” could be debatable until the moment we realize how questionable (psychologically rather than financially) my offering as “Wife” or “Mommy” would be without them. Beyond any grand ideas of self-fulfillment - it is very important my boys know what work ethic is and have examples of educated women in their lives. And so it seems, I remain fully committed to my quadrants of insanity.

So, at what point do I need to recognize that I am “falling short”? And what help is appropriate to ask for? It is a lot easier at work to identify the things that fall outside the scope and value of my role and simply outsource those tasks. Is it because I have a clearly defined job description? Or does it matter that I have an objective criteria that my job performance rating and compensation is based upon? Or is it simply having access to resources that I can delegate certain items to?

At home it is safe to say that I am not as aware of the nuances of my job description. That’s if there even is one. And as for job performance – whose evaluation matters most? My own? My husband’s? My kids? Anyone else’s? And I think this is the very crux where I begin to fall short.

You would think my own evaluation would be the most compassionate but I have always been my own worst critic. So yes, while each morning I prep fresh bottles and lunches for the boys – I sometimes feel badly that I am not packing them into fun little bento boxes with radishes shaped like mice. I think about how the house should be cleaner or better decorated. Rather than takeout, I think about the elaborate dinners and homemade desserts that I should be planning for the week ahead instead. I think about how if I were only exercising more, I would be slimmer, better dressed, and healthy enough to keep up with my life. I think about how much better my school assignments could have been if I only started earlier. And despite being in an Ivy League graduate program, every once in a while I pause to consider if I am failure for not pursuing my MBA. But I quickly comfort myself that there is still time to look into that Yale program after graduation. And as for work, am I even where I am supposed to be? Is this a career I simply fell into or one that I truly choose? Is this the best work that only I can do? And most often than not these answers fall on the shoulders of no.

While my husband can respect at least what I try to do everyday – I think he is still baffled that I do things a certain way. He says I need to stop aiming for perfection and I ask where the corners I can cut are. We talk about how to make my load easier but we never find anything too ripe for dropping. Is the only solution to adopt lower standards? Yes, Ismaeel and Siraj seem to have their basic needs fulfilled but do they feel their allotment of playtime is adequate? Or are my days too long or filled with more emails than time for “angry dinosaurs”. Would they even notice shorter and less fragrant bubble baths?

As for anyone else’s assessment – the relevance of judgment becomes pretty murky pretty fast. On one hand, it is nice to sound off and get advice on structuring your days or how cooking every night is even manageable. But what does it even matter when the things someone else does well are simply because those are the areas that are most important to them? It is very easy to not understand why something is on your plate. Or to assume that the buckets of your life are nothing more than selfish pursuits. Perhaps I don’t need to give myself a glowing evaluation each day but at least I can commit to knowing what is on my plate and the reason it is there. And hell, maybe a cleaning service isn't such a bad idea to look into after all...

28 Days and Counting

• Just an update, we still have the car rental.

Loveless Motherhood

Before motherhood, I had no clue what to do with a baby. As the youngest of my immediate and extended family, I was never really around anyone littler than myself. I have never babysat nor held one without wincing or from the safe (but socially awkward) distance of a long-arm extension. I didn’t even know where to begin making those ridiculous googling noises in return. And their wobbly bobbly heads… I wondered why parents didn’t simply keep them home until their little necks were strong enough.

Thankfully, there was a wealth of resources to get up to speed during my pregnancy. My parents showed me how to place a diaper on Mitchell, my Fabulous Frog, with the warning that my own baby would not be as compliant nor still when changed. And essentially everything else came online. BabyCenter provided me with pregnancy tips long before I had to search for bathing instructions, growth charts, or vaccination debates. How to nurse and store my milk came from Medela. And scattered far and wide across the web, were endless product reviews to inform me about the various gear my baby simply couldn’t live without.

I was appreciative that so much information was available. I couldn’t imagine if I had to shamefully ask each and every one of my queries out loud. I took immense comfort in anonymously trolling through the messages of advice, exhaustion, pride, and even rage. I figured if I only read enough - I could muster the confidence to at least not drop my baby. The only lingering question was: would I be able to love him? Despite already relishing every little kick along my pregnant way, I feared that if I were to need a c-section I wouldn’t release enough oxytocin to properly bond. I feverishly worried I would be a cold and mechanical mother.

These ideas made my husband think I was insane. He thought it wasn’t possible to not love your own child. And he seriously couldn’t understand why I would waste energy fretting about this. I didn’t think it was so far-fetched. You feel a connection or you don’t. And even more frightening, if you don’t, there is no online tutorial to help. I imagine plenty of women suffering from post-partum depression (PPD) struggle to feel closer to their babies. How many of them would admit this to themselves let alone their families? Would I? Would I simply pretend to be a great and loving mother until the day I snap?

On June 14, 2007, Ismaeel was born on a sunny afternoon in NYC (without the help of an epidural or c-section). It was uncanny how much he resembled my own baby photos. We couldn’t stop staring into our matching brown eyes and as he clutched onto my pinkie with his entire little hand, I had no doubt that I deeply and truly loved him. I was relieved to see the same feisty moves from his ultrasound days and laughed that I didn’t realize I have known and adored him all along.

Still, I don’t regret my pre-natal paranoia. While I didn’t suffer from PPD or a lack of bonding with my son, I now realize motherhood will require me to put my ego aside, often and without hesitation. Even though there is plenty of online support, it doesn’t absolve me from asking for help or speaking to my partner about the things I fear and struggle with. I can only hope that embracing this newfound accountability will strengthen my marriage as much as the bonds between me and my sons.

And yes, even on the days I snap, I love them all without question.