My husband works weekends and is out of the house for more than fourteen hours a day on the days he is working. Sometimes, due to the nature of his job, he is gone from Wednesday through Sunday, on long business trips every week. Essentially, that leaves me at home, like a single mother, but not, to take care of the girls and the home, with the full responsibility of schooling, doctors appointments, cleaning, laundry, feedings, bathing, homework, fighting, and art and science projects. I am the 24/7. I am the rock. I am tired on so many levels that I either complain about everything or am rendered completely unable to speak, too stunned am I to admit that I cannot believe how I've found myself down this rabbit hole when I was once sipping gorgeous roses at the bar, wearing heels, make up, jewelry, some hot outfit, and a smile wide and honest.
A good friend asked me the other day if I got lonely being with the kids so much, er, all the time. She knows that at times when I need a break I will have a sitter come and play, entertain, and watch the girls so I can regain my bearings, but she also knows that all the time, every day, even if there weren't lots of activities and excitement, fights, poos and spills, can be a lot. Sometimes it's too much. Often. Unless you have experienced it, it's nearly impossible to imagine what the constant chatter, "Mommommomuhmommymommommommommy," paper cutting, coloring that gets in the table, the floor, Oops, the wall, *sorry*, spills, pulls, falls, dropsies can do to your psyche. Add this to the basic household responsibilities which entail taking care of absolutely everything, and you only have an inkling what it's like daily. This schedule cannot be broken down in linear time as there are many dimensions and phases that define the stress. One cannot say, for example, "Oh, you have been home with the kids for just six hours after school? My workday is 8, 10, 12 hours long." Uh, yeah. Being at the ready, down for whatever, all the time blows all most other gigs out of the water.
But do I get lonely? The truth is, I have been doing this for years. Our move to Barbados marked so many transitions in our lives. We were newly married, living abroad together for the first time, had a new baby, Lily (then a new three year old) was starting school, and I found myself home. Home. All the time. With postpartum depression and culture shock. I could not work, which I had done all my adult life, and was very uncomfortable giving it up. It made sense at the time because Virginie was a tiny baby and needed me. I told myself it all made sense and that I would be able to study French, maybe even paint, meditate, and swim in the backyard pool. Make discoveries about myself while the baby slept, do light cleaning and housework.
Well that was a bust. In two years I got through the first level of discs in the Rosetta Stone program and my French improved only from my crazy attempts at talking to a French ex-pat who, in trying to encourage my comfort with the language, spoke only French with me. Painting? Never saw a brush. It was impossible to meditate in that heat, swatting mosquitoes, nursing a baby, and pacing the floor. I did take a swim or two in the pool so there were surely some comforts, but I did so most often when baby Virginie fell asleep o,r in the end, was at school. I never stayed too long for fear of some freak accident leaving me stranded or drowned in the pool with no one home to help me or at least call emergency. Thank you, Mom, for suggesting that every time I mentioned possibly going for a swim.
I remember afternoons along the shore, staring at the Caribbean, taking photos that made our life look surreal, unimaginable in its magnificence and beauty. We were tan and covered in sand, looking like the Swiss Family Robinson lost at sea. The waves would lap at our feet and our legs as we sat at the water's edge. It's those stolen moments (and they were indeed stolen from the hubby's crazy work life where he was on call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week) that I recall when I am trying to convince myself that we can do this. We'd raced to the beach as soon as he'd found a moment free, a small reprieve from the Keystone Kitchen he'd been expected to lead, made up of untrained locals and immovable union reps in a small country with big dreams but often without the skill set to make them come true.
Three years later we are doing it all again. The girls are older and somewhat wiser to the game. They know it's all me, but they are also greater manipulators. They knew that I feel terrible that they cannot be with their father, so I overcompensate for this with too much attention, too many small excursions, and too many projects. I have exhausted myself trying to give them the impression that there are two of us here. And that the two of us are secure. And that we are a happy family. I have no turquoise blue sea to distract them or myself. I often wonder how military families do it with deployments of 6, 18, 24 months. How do the stay-at-homes keep it up? I mean, when someone is gone so long, isn't it hard to conjure up those same feelings? Does absence truly make the heart grow fonder? Or is is resentful? Bitter? Indifferent?
I know this is the way of many modern families. Long distance love affairs, weekend meetings and rendez-vous. Living in different cities, coming together on the weekends, seeing each other at the end of the night on the computer for a cyber-good night. Pictures, photos, promises of tomorrow that cannot be kept today.
We built sand castles every weekend on the shoreline. Elaborate cities with tunnels, and rivers, and turrets. All four of us would work on some part of it either until we were exhausted or the shore took part of our home back to sea. Sometimes we'd rebuild and sometimes we thought best to let it go.
(c) Copyright 2012. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
Wednesday, July 18, 2012
Monday, July 16, 2012
Brown girl in the ring
I grew up in an all-white community in the 70s and 80s. It was surely a different time than now. No one was looking out for me or loving on me. This is before images of beautiful black and brown people were served up as part of the mainstream. Before Naomi Campbell, Alek Wek, Beyonce, and Rihanna. This is before anyone would speak of a black president without nervous laughter or fear that it could never happen. This is a time when blackness was still subversive and underground and though there were some bright spots that poked out, we had ours and they had theirs. I listened to WBLS and 92KTU which played disco and old school black music until it was more than apparent that this was not popular/pop music and that that sound was not going to help me fit in. I realized that the pink tights I wore for ballet were meant to simulate my pink legs and my pink slippers, my pink toes, except that my legs and toes were brown. I'm from Jersey and all that it entails, Springsteen, Bon Jovi, muscle cars, Jersey Freeze, the shore. Girls could fight here and did, while still looking awesome with feathered hair and satin jackets, combs tucked neatly into their back pockets. I watched from far away, hoping, wishing, praying, but that just wasn't me.
I never got to know "black culture" as it was known. Never got my hair did every Saturday and listened to the ladies talk smack and prep for Sunday's chuch. My church was white. I loved the Lord, but he was white and had us singing slow, wack songs . There were no drums or bass guitar played. I didn't get to get LIVE and feel the spirit coursing through me. I never heard people play the dozens or just groove to the cool sounds on a summer night sitting in the car blasting the radio. I never saw a black mayor, police chief, lawyers, doctors, television stars, beauty queens, anyone really. I saw it all on TV. I wanted it. There were other black kids in my community and I saw their longing just like mine. They each tried to fill that space somehow, somewhere.
I write this because I have, for the last four weeks, dropped my girls off at a camp filled with young, 3 to 13 year old African-American kids. I am thrilled for my people to be experiencing the black community in a way they just wouldn't where we live and yet I am highly disturbed by some of the things I see happening around them. Lily and Virginie are being adored like little princesses. It scares and confuses me. In a sea of beautiful black and brown faces, I see few who recognize their own loveliness, their own beauty, their own strength. But when Lily and Virginie enter the room, the girls run to them, want to touch them, brush their hair, hold them (mostly Virginie, but even girls from Lily's own group, which would make them the same age as she, want to carry her around). I have heard them tell my girls how pretty, lovely, whatever it is they are.
My children are young, three and almost six. While we have talked about differences in race, culture, experience, looks, identity, it has been rudimentary at best. They are not at a stage where they could possibly fathom that some people, based on these characteristics, could be and are treated differently. Lily believes everyone has something beautiful about them and I agree with her. She describes her friends by the things they like, the things they do, and the way they make her feel. She loves these little girls at camp and cannot see what I see when I watch the interaction.
My girls are black and French and they know it and feel proud to be both. Though I find them to be stunning, it is certainly not something we stress at home. How they look is surely not more important than the content of their character or that they have good manners and are kind and considerate girls. We stress their achievements and their accomplishments, encouraging them to try things they are afraid of and keep trying until they succeed. I have taught them to trust themselves in new situations and to find the good person, the kind person in the group and Lily has often done just that. Walked into unfamiliar territory and come out with a good, kind soul to befriend. Never has she chosen one or another based on their race or their background.
She has seen many examples of women, black, mixed, Hispanic, Asian, white, straight, lesbian in our community and through the little media she has access to and has accepted our strengths, our power, and our beauty in a way that took me more than half my life to discover. She has never told me that she wished she were white, quite the opposite, hoped that she could be more like me. I am so happy that she, thus far, seems to care little about the outside world's perception of her and yet, there she is. A cute, little, light-skinned baby girl with a bouncy ponytail. I would have adored her had we been contemporaries. Except for Kim Fields who played Tootie on the Facts of Life, there was no one else to show me or believe in my loveliness. That bouncy ponytail alone would have given me a thousand fantasies. But the braids, Afro puffs, twists, and low 'fros I see at camp are just as stunning. I want the girls who sport them to know this too.
This is a complicated issue, weighed heavily by the racism and perceptions of beauty, importance, and relevance of people of color that have marred this country from its inception. I don't have an answer here, don't know how to show these beautiful, intelligent brown girls their value. I know that since she was a baby, I used to sing the song, "Brown Girl in the Ring" to Lily and she knew that she was that brown girl. So did Virginie when I sang it to her. So do I feel the connection when I hear it now. It took a lifetime for me to learn to love myself, not to compare myself to a standard that wasn't even considering me, in which I had no chance of being beautiful or special.
I'd hoped these little brown girls had started to find role models, at least people who looked like them, talked like them, shared their dreams with them, to make them feel proud of who they are. I look into their warm, brown eyes and see my little self feeling less than and hope they feel, when I put my hand on their cheeks or cup their chins in my hand to tilt their heads to mine that I can see they are special. Don't get me wrong. I love, love, love my beautiful babies. Don't consider them less than or greater than, just beautiful brown babes navigating this craziness. They will have a guide through this mucky muck. But I pray the same for all the brown girls too.
(c) Copyright 2012. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
I never got to know "black culture" as it was known. Never got my hair did every Saturday and listened to the ladies talk smack and prep for Sunday's chuch. My church was white. I loved the Lord, but he was white and had us singing slow, wack songs . There were no drums or bass guitar played. I didn't get to get LIVE and feel the spirit coursing through me. I never heard people play the dozens or just groove to the cool sounds on a summer night sitting in the car blasting the radio. I never saw a black mayor, police chief, lawyers, doctors, television stars, beauty queens, anyone really. I saw it all on TV. I wanted it. There were other black kids in my community and I saw their longing just like mine. They each tried to fill that space somehow, somewhere.
I write this because I have, for the last four weeks, dropped my girls off at a camp filled with young, 3 to 13 year old African-American kids. I am thrilled for my people to be experiencing the black community in a way they just wouldn't where we live and yet I am highly disturbed by some of the things I see happening around them. Lily and Virginie are being adored like little princesses. It scares and confuses me. In a sea of beautiful black and brown faces, I see few who recognize their own loveliness, their own beauty, their own strength. But when Lily and Virginie enter the room, the girls run to them, want to touch them, brush their hair, hold them (mostly Virginie, but even girls from Lily's own group, which would make them the same age as she, want to carry her around). I have heard them tell my girls how pretty, lovely, whatever it is they are.
My children are young, three and almost six. While we have talked about differences in race, culture, experience, looks, identity, it has been rudimentary at best. They are not at a stage where they could possibly fathom that some people, based on these characteristics, could be and are treated differently. Lily believes everyone has something beautiful about them and I agree with her. She describes her friends by the things they like, the things they do, and the way they make her feel. She loves these little girls at camp and cannot see what I see when I watch the interaction.
My girls are black and French and they know it and feel proud to be both. Though I find them to be stunning, it is certainly not something we stress at home. How they look is surely not more important than the content of their character or that they have good manners and are kind and considerate girls. We stress their achievements and their accomplishments, encouraging them to try things they are afraid of and keep trying until they succeed. I have taught them to trust themselves in new situations and to find the good person, the kind person in the group and Lily has often done just that. Walked into unfamiliar territory and come out with a good, kind soul to befriend. Never has she chosen one or another based on their race or their background.
She has seen many examples of women, black, mixed, Hispanic, Asian, white, straight, lesbian in our community and through the little media she has access to and has accepted our strengths, our power, and our beauty in a way that took me more than half my life to discover. She has never told me that she wished she were white, quite the opposite, hoped that she could be more like me. I am so happy that she, thus far, seems to care little about the outside world's perception of her and yet, there she is. A cute, little, light-skinned baby girl with a bouncy ponytail. I would have adored her had we been contemporaries. Except for Kim Fields who played Tootie on the Facts of Life, there was no one else to show me or believe in my loveliness. That bouncy ponytail alone would have given me a thousand fantasies. But the braids, Afro puffs, twists, and low 'fros I see at camp are just as stunning. I want the girls who sport them to know this too.
This is a complicated issue, weighed heavily by the racism and perceptions of beauty, importance, and relevance of people of color that have marred this country from its inception. I don't have an answer here, don't know how to show these beautiful, intelligent brown girls their value. I know that since she was a baby, I used to sing the song, "Brown Girl in the Ring" to Lily and she knew that she was that brown girl. So did Virginie when I sang it to her. So do I feel the connection when I hear it now. It took a lifetime for me to learn to love myself, not to compare myself to a standard that wasn't even considering me, in which I had no chance of being beautiful or special.
I'd hoped these little brown girls had started to find role models, at least people who looked like them, talked like them, shared their dreams with them, to make them feel proud of who they are. I look into their warm, brown eyes and see my little self feeling less than and hope they feel, when I put my hand on their cheeks or cup their chins in my hand to tilt their heads to mine that I can see they are special. Don't get me wrong. I love, love, love my beautiful babies. Don't consider them less than or greater than, just beautiful brown babes navigating this craziness. They will have a guide through this mucky muck. But I pray the same for all the brown girls too.
(c) Copyright 2012. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
Thursday, July 12, 2012
Back to the Suburban Grind: Camping!
Back to the Suburban Grind: Camping!: OK so they are not really camping. Not out in the wild with tents and mess kits, tying knots and roasting marshmallows, but the people have...
Camping!
OK so they are not really camping. Not out in the wild with tents and mess kits, tying knots and roasting marshmallows, but the people have been and will continue to be enrolled in camp. I took the liberty of not typing this in all caps, but you can best believe that I am shouting! Because from 9 am until 4 pm, both girls find themselves having a little enrichment in their reading and math skills, learning to cheer and dance, making some kind of ridiculous project, doing sport, watching movies, and not being at home. Every day! Alas, next week is their final week of this heavenly excursion as I will start carting them on weekend jaunts to the Hamptons to enjoy the summer house given us by my husband's employer and taking full advantage of the local pool for which I paid over $400 for the summer.
The camp is not my favorite but it doesn't have to be; I'm not going there. A little unorganized with too many teenagers in roles that they are surely not capable of handling in between all the texting, ogling, flirting, and tickling, it is a pretty makeshift operation in the basement of a church. Each morning, Lily and her group of 5 to 8 year olds reinforce their reading and writing skills and work on various K through 2nd grade math problems. There is snack, free lunch, extracurriculars, swimming twice a week, and field trips on Fridays. She has learned to do a cartwheel and various Disney-grade, tween cheerleading moves, and has made friends with kids outside of her school and neighborhood. I am not really loving the field trips as they cost additional money and are often not age appropriate but thus far I have let Lily go (She will not, however, go on the trip to a massive water park tomorrow billed as having 18 water slides. Not quite ready for that.). Virginie has stayed home with me because while I am desperate for some free time, not at the expense of a three year old being forced to endure forty minute bus rides and guided tours of the museum. Lest you think I have sacrificed Lily, she loves camp, is kind of out of her mind about it, and I have checked in on the field trip chaperones and called in to make sure all is OK. Yes, I am still that mom.
Most of the children at this camp are African-American with a few others interspersed. It is exactly the opposite of her school's make up, which while pretty diverse for largely segregated New Jersey still shows the children of color as little dots in a sea of pinks and peaches. This is not judgment, just the truth. I feel good to see Lily in the mix with all these lovely brown-skinned, chocolate-hued children feeling comfortable and accepted. Much like our time in Barbados, I am happy to have Lily and Virginie see the varying shades of our community with love and acceptance. It's funny, in the largely white town that we live in, the white children come to the discovery that I am Lily's mother with surprise, the black children with pride. Lily has met them both with the same response, "Yup. That's my mom. She's the best mom ever." We have begun the slow turning, layered conversation about race with both the people, and I am happy to report that they feel comfortable with themselves and everyone else.
What happens at the camp, as long as my children are safe, is fine with me. I am most excited about 6 1/2 hours of unscheduled, unstructured time for myself where I can and do whatever I want. The first two weeks, as I was new to this free time thing, I did lots of housecleaning and laundry, dinner prep, and once all that was done would sit down and read or watch a little TV before going to get the people. And then I got hip to the game. I could write! Go for a walk! Go to the movies! Listen to the deafening, glorious silence or the hum of the central air conditioning! I could take a shower and have no one, nobody, come and ask me something! I took a nap, read old magazines that I have not been able to keep up with, chatted on the phone with long lost friends, and wrote to my heart's content.
Summer offers freedom and new experiences for these little kiddies and I am so happy to share this idyllic time with them. But I am also so happy to find the time to camp out myself, doing things that I want to do by myself...and being able to do them.
(c) Copyright 2012. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
The camp is not my favorite but it doesn't have to be; I'm not going there. A little unorganized with too many teenagers in roles that they are surely not capable of handling in between all the texting, ogling, flirting, and tickling, it is a pretty makeshift operation in the basement of a church. Each morning, Lily and her group of 5 to 8 year olds reinforce their reading and writing skills and work on various K through 2nd grade math problems. There is snack, free lunch, extracurriculars, swimming twice a week, and field trips on Fridays. She has learned to do a cartwheel and various Disney-grade, tween cheerleading moves, and has made friends with kids outside of her school and neighborhood. I am not really loving the field trips as they cost additional money and are often not age appropriate but thus far I have let Lily go (She will not, however, go on the trip to a massive water park tomorrow billed as having 18 water slides. Not quite ready for that.). Virginie has stayed home with me because while I am desperate for some free time, not at the expense of a three year old being forced to endure forty minute bus rides and guided tours of the museum. Lest you think I have sacrificed Lily, she loves camp, is kind of out of her mind about it, and I have checked in on the field trip chaperones and called in to make sure all is OK. Yes, I am still that mom.
Most of the children at this camp are African-American with a few others interspersed. It is exactly the opposite of her school's make up, which while pretty diverse for largely segregated New Jersey still shows the children of color as little dots in a sea of pinks and peaches. This is not judgment, just the truth. I feel good to see Lily in the mix with all these lovely brown-skinned, chocolate-hued children feeling comfortable and accepted. Much like our time in Barbados, I am happy to have Lily and Virginie see the varying shades of our community with love and acceptance. It's funny, in the largely white town that we live in, the white children come to the discovery that I am Lily's mother with surprise, the black children with pride. Lily has met them both with the same response, "Yup. That's my mom. She's the best mom ever." We have begun the slow turning, layered conversation about race with both the people, and I am happy to report that they feel comfortable with themselves and everyone else.
What happens at the camp, as long as my children are safe, is fine with me. I am most excited about 6 1/2 hours of unscheduled, unstructured time for myself where I can and do whatever I want. The first two weeks, as I was new to this free time thing, I did lots of housecleaning and laundry, dinner prep, and once all that was done would sit down and read or watch a little TV before going to get the people. And then I got hip to the game. I could write! Go for a walk! Go to the movies! Listen to the deafening, glorious silence or the hum of the central air conditioning! I could take a shower and have no one, nobody, come and ask me something! I took a nap, read old magazines that I have not been able to keep up with, chatted on the phone with long lost friends, and wrote to my heart's content.
Summer offers freedom and new experiences for these little kiddies and I am so happy to share this idyllic time with them. But I am also so happy to find the time to camp out myself, doing things that I want to do by myself...and being able to do them.
(c) Copyright 2012. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
Monday, July 9, 2012
Back to the Suburban Grind: The Weaning
Back to the Suburban Grind: The Weaning: Time Magazine was working hard to increase readership by choosing a supermodel nursing her enormous three year old son in a somewhat pervers...
The Weaning
Time Magazine was working hard to increase readership by choosing a supermodel nursing her enormous three year old son in a somewhat perverse photo meant to provoke and entice as its cover photo months ago. The photo serves as an entree into an article on attachment parenting. I would hope that all parents are in many ways attached to their children, working hard at forming bonds, considering the needs and development of the children in most decision-making. But I know what really gets people's goat. And that is the breastfeeding of big kids. I was not turned off by the photo for the same reason that many others were. I didn't think nursing a three year old was such a big deal but I did think it was a private, even secret act. You see, I had been harboring such a secret. I was still nursing my three year old.
Had I been chosen as TIME's cover model, I think the outrage/interest/press would have been much different. Firstly, I am a 40-something, black woman, hardly a subject to get everyone's hair standing on end. Images of brown people nursing their babies have been prevalent in National Geographic, and other anthropological stories for years, and have clearly been deemed not as enticing, intriguing, or seductive as a twenty-something, leggy blond with a big boy hanging from her breast. Secondly, I have a little girl, so the sexualizing of this act would be completely negated. And there wouldn't be, as there has never been, a moment where my dear Virginie would be standing on a stool reaching up for my open breast. She nursed at night as a way to fall asleep, to feel comforted and secure. She did not nurse in the day time and certainly not in public.
For years living in Barbados, I would talk to people in different mommy groups about weaning the peanut. So much so that one woman would always ask upon seeing me if "she was off yet." I don't know why I offered it up, why I continued to engage in the dialogue as I cannot say with any conviction that I was actually trying that hard to get her off. I talked to her doctor about putting aloe, which grew in abundance in our garden, on my nipples as a deterrent. Apparently it is non-toxic but the taste is bitter and offensive which would leave my baby feeling disgusted by my breasts and force her to stop nursing. Vinegar and soy sauce were also recommended. I didn't want Virginie to find me disgusting and therefore turn from a true, tangible representation of nurturing.
I was offered "scientific" data by my landlord in Barbados that breastmilk actually wasn't so great for babies after all, with all the toxins and airborne particles and chemicals I'd breathed in and then passed on to the wee one. I'd heard that her teeth would be misshapen if she ever fell asleep still nursing and that I would never get a good night's sleep until she stopped. (This last one might be true as I cannot recall having a good night's sleep since 2005, before the first person arrived!)
Perhaps I was too sensitive to the feeling of neglect and the need for children to feel nurtured, cared for or maybe I just really felt she would move on when she was ready, but I just didn't push it. It was private, personal, and unless I mentioned it or someone spent the night, no one would ever have known. I cannot say that it did not drive my husband insane, feeling like his boob time was being taken over by a toddler or fearing that somehow this attachment would make her, well, too attached. But anyone who has met Virginie will attest to the fact that she pretty much runs her own and everyone else's show for that matter. There was some concern that we couldn't ever go anywhere or be away for too long as she would only fall asleep with me, but we really hadn't gotten there yet. To the leaving them with other people place, I mean.
There were plenty of people, mostly, well, only mothers, who discovered our little secret and wished me well, congratulated me, cheered me on for my choice. I was often told that "I wish I could still nurse. I wish I'd had the stamina. It's so good for them." And I felt good. The shame and embarrassment subsiding and the pride of taking good care, being seen as a good mother for my "sacrifice" flushing my cheeks.
I wasn't making a political choice, did not push my methods on anyone else, never lectured about how good the breast is for kids, or quoted statistics about the good health of kids who were nursed longer than one year. I couldn't know if these statements were true and actually didn't care. I know that Virginie was not ready to stop. I was too tired to sit up with her for the days required to break her. (I did actually try for one two-night period to just deny her and offer juice or water. After the five hour stand off on the second night I figured she could nurse the tatas to my knees, I just could not spend another night like that.)
We would reach milestones--eighteen months, two years, two and a half years--and I would say, I am going to stop nursing this child. She is fully conversant for goodness sake! She will eat a slice of pizza and then ask for boo boo's. At her daycare center, the teachers convinced Virginie to give up the paci by telling her that she was now a big girl and no longer needed it. I am grateful for their help, truly, but I'd hoped to let the paci placate her as I moved her off the boobs. Once the paci was gone, it was just a question of willpower, and though I consider myself pretty strong, a warrior-mama even, I am no match for this thing.
And then came the antibiotics. I needed to take them for an infection and nursed Virginie one night without even thinking. She called me in the middle of the night and asked me "not to see her" which is a euphemism for "I am pooing, please give me some privacy." It was 2 AM. By 2:50, she had gone and been changed four more times. I could not figure out what the heck was up with this child as she'd eaten as she did every day, had not complained of a stomachache or any pain or discomfort, but was here with diarrhea in the middle of the night. I gave her some Pedialyte which, believe me, is nearly impossible to administer as it is miserably disgusting to drink, and some Cheerios and tucked her back into bed. She finally went to sleep without another episode. In the morning, my stomach felt as hers had all night and I remembered my reaction to antibiotics. Ahhhh. The upset stomach, pain, cramping, diarrhea. Then the light went off.
Virginie, like most of us, hates having diarrhea and like most little ones, too much "going" gives a little rash which made her feel worse. When she asked why she had to feel this way I told her that I feared it was Mommy's medicine making her feel badly. She asked, "How am I getting Mommy's medicine?" to which I replied, "From Mommy's boo boo's." And then I knew. We were going to stop here. I felt a real sadness for her and for myself. We were close. I had this one comfort to offer her that no one else could offer. She could fall asleep, have her fears allayed when she was with Mommy. Then I wondered, is she healthier because I have been nursing her? Am I throwing her out into germ-infested territory without her armor? My heart broke. But I knew that she would have to stop one day and this seemed like the perfect time.
The first nights were tough. The poor soul just didn't know where to go, what to do to fall asleep. We would snuggle, Lily, Virginie, and I, huddled together in their bed. I would pet Virginie's cheek and she would hold my hair. With my free hand, I would reach behind me and hug Lily. Lily would tell Virginie, "You are a big girl. You don't need boo boo's." And we would not break the chain until they had fallen asleep.
It has been nine days. Early this morning, Virginie asked for boo boo's as she groggily rolled over. (Yes, I was in the bed with them, having gotten up and out, up and out about three times, I finally decided to just stay put.) I told her, "No, girl baby, you are a big girl. Would you like your water?" She took that, drank mightily and snuggled into my arms where she slept until Lily kissed us both awake.
The weaning is complete. She won't go back and my body is reclaiming itself. My breasts are tight and sore as the milk dries up. When I am able I put cold compresses on them to give some relief. I feel like Virginie has suddenly embraced going to the potty with gusto and has been empowered to be her own big girl. I don't really know though. It's my job to lead her through these moments and to keep her close until she can stand on her own and then stay nearby to steady her. She might not take my milk, but everything else I have to give is hers. I have two big girls now and Mommy's sense of self is returning as well.
(c) Copyright 2012. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
Had I been chosen as TIME's cover model, I think the outrage/interest/press would have been much different. Firstly, I am a 40-something, black woman, hardly a subject to get everyone's hair standing on end. Images of brown people nursing their babies have been prevalent in National Geographic, and other anthropological stories for years, and have clearly been deemed not as enticing, intriguing, or seductive as a twenty-something, leggy blond with a big boy hanging from her breast. Secondly, I have a little girl, so the sexualizing of this act would be completely negated. And there wouldn't be, as there has never been, a moment where my dear Virginie would be standing on a stool reaching up for my open breast. She nursed at night as a way to fall asleep, to feel comforted and secure. She did not nurse in the day time and certainly not in public.
For years living in Barbados, I would talk to people in different mommy groups about weaning the peanut. So much so that one woman would always ask upon seeing me if "she was off yet." I don't know why I offered it up, why I continued to engage in the dialogue as I cannot say with any conviction that I was actually trying that hard to get her off. I talked to her doctor about putting aloe, which grew in abundance in our garden, on my nipples as a deterrent. Apparently it is non-toxic but the taste is bitter and offensive which would leave my baby feeling disgusted by my breasts and force her to stop nursing. Vinegar and soy sauce were also recommended. I didn't want Virginie to find me disgusting and therefore turn from a true, tangible representation of nurturing.
I was offered "scientific" data by my landlord in Barbados that breastmilk actually wasn't so great for babies after all, with all the toxins and airborne particles and chemicals I'd breathed in and then passed on to the wee one. I'd heard that her teeth would be misshapen if she ever fell asleep still nursing and that I would never get a good night's sleep until she stopped. (This last one might be true as I cannot recall having a good night's sleep since 2005, before the first person arrived!)
Perhaps I was too sensitive to the feeling of neglect and the need for children to feel nurtured, cared for or maybe I just really felt she would move on when she was ready, but I just didn't push it. It was private, personal, and unless I mentioned it or someone spent the night, no one would ever have known. I cannot say that it did not drive my husband insane, feeling like his boob time was being taken over by a toddler or fearing that somehow this attachment would make her, well, too attached. But anyone who has met Virginie will attest to the fact that she pretty much runs her own and everyone else's show for that matter. There was some concern that we couldn't ever go anywhere or be away for too long as she would only fall asleep with me, but we really hadn't gotten there yet. To the leaving them with other people place, I mean.
There were plenty of people, mostly, well, only mothers, who discovered our little secret and wished me well, congratulated me, cheered me on for my choice. I was often told that "I wish I could still nurse. I wish I'd had the stamina. It's so good for them." And I felt good. The shame and embarrassment subsiding and the pride of taking good care, being seen as a good mother for my "sacrifice" flushing my cheeks.
I wasn't making a political choice, did not push my methods on anyone else, never lectured about how good the breast is for kids, or quoted statistics about the good health of kids who were nursed longer than one year. I couldn't know if these statements were true and actually didn't care. I know that Virginie was not ready to stop. I was too tired to sit up with her for the days required to break her. (I did actually try for one two-night period to just deny her and offer juice or water. After the five hour stand off on the second night I figured she could nurse the tatas to my knees, I just could not spend another night like that.)
We would reach milestones--eighteen months, two years, two and a half years--and I would say, I am going to stop nursing this child. She is fully conversant for goodness sake! She will eat a slice of pizza and then ask for boo boo's. At her daycare center, the teachers convinced Virginie to give up the paci by telling her that she was now a big girl and no longer needed it. I am grateful for their help, truly, but I'd hoped to let the paci placate her as I moved her off the boobs. Once the paci was gone, it was just a question of willpower, and though I consider myself pretty strong, a warrior-mama even, I am no match for this thing.
And then came the antibiotics. I needed to take them for an infection and nursed Virginie one night without even thinking. She called me in the middle of the night and asked me "not to see her" which is a euphemism for "I am pooing, please give me some privacy." It was 2 AM. By 2:50, she had gone and been changed four more times. I could not figure out what the heck was up with this child as she'd eaten as she did every day, had not complained of a stomachache or any pain or discomfort, but was here with diarrhea in the middle of the night. I gave her some Pedialyte which, believe me, is nearly impossible to administer as it is miserably disgusting to drink, and some Cheerios and tucked her back into bed. She finally went to sleep without another episode. In the morning, my stomach felt as hers had all night and I remembered my reaction to antibiotics. Ahhhh. The upset stomach, pain, cramping, diarrhea. Then the light went off.
Virginie, like most of us, hates having diarrhea and like most little ones, too much "going" gives a little rash which made her feel worse. When she asked why she had to feel this way I told her that I feared it was Mommy's medicine making her feel badly. She asked, "How am I getting Mommy's medicine?" to which I replied, "From Mommy's boo boo's." And then I knew. We were going to stop here. I felt a real sadness for her and for myself. We were close. I had this one comfort to offer her that no one else could offer. She could fall asleep, have her fears allayed when she was with Mommy. Then I wondered, is she healthier because I have been nursing her? Am I throwing her out into germ-infested territory without her armor? My heart broke. But I knew that she would have to stop one day and this seemed like the perfect time.
The first nights were tough. The poor soul just didn't know where to go, what to do to fall asleep. We would snuggle, Lily, Virginie, and I, huddled together in their bed. I would pet Virginie's cheek and she would hold my hair. With my free hand, I would reach behind me and hug Lily. Lily would tell Virginie, "You are a big girl. You don't need boo boo's." And we would not break the chain until they had fallen asleep.
It has been nine days. Early this morning, Virginie asked for boo boo's as she groggily rolled over. (Yes, I was in the bed with them, having gotten up and out, up and out about three times, I finally decided to just stay put.) I told her, "No, girl baby, you are a big girl. Would you like your water?" She took that, drank mightily and snuggled into my arms where she slept until Lily kissed us both awake.
The weaning is complete. She won't go back and my body is reclaiming itself. My breasts are tight and sore as the milk dries up. When I am able I put cold compresses on them to give some relief. I feel like Virginie has suddenly embraced going to the potty with gusto and has been empowered to be her own big girl. I don't really know though. It's my job to lead her through these moments and to keep her close until she can stand on her own and then stay nearby to steady her. She might not take my milk, but everything else I have to give is hers. I have two big girls now and Mommy's sense of self is returning as well.
(c) Copyright 2012. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
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