At the End of the Day

Last week the worst thing happened. Our daycare situation suddenly became not so stable. It was upsetting on many levels, the worst of which was that no matter what the end result Azita would have to undergo a pretty big change. She would have to be separated from people and a place she loved for the first 18 months of her life, and I had no chance to ease her into a new situation.

Of course the old adage is true and it poured mightily this last week as we not only went without daycare for a week but also rushed to find a new, quality environment for Azita to spend her days.

Work was insanely busy and stressful. Family was, well the same as it’s always been. I reached a breaking point. I walked through each day so full of stress that I couldn’t eat. I could barely sleep. I couldn’t concentrate on anything. By the end of the week I had a permanent sick feeling in my stomach and a stabbing pain in my chest that irradiated out to every extremity. I looked forward to the weekend, but it was quite the disappointment. What should have been a fun time was made uncomfortable and miserable instantly by the inclusion of someone I was hoping to never deal with again.

And the thing that hung over my head weighed on me more and more heavily. This morning we dropped Azita off at her new daycare. We are already in love with this place, but it was still nerve-wracking to think about it. The drop-off was exactly what I feared. Azita cried. She wailed. She clung to me, her hands around my neck, refusing to let go. I spent the day with more non-stop requests and stress at work, feeling as upset as the first day I dropped Azita off at daycare 16 months ago.

But the day finally came to a close, and when I walked in to the place where my daughter now spends her days, she smiled so joyously and ran to me, a toy clutched in her little hand, yelling “Mama!” as she ran into my arms. Her new daycare provider just about beamed as she told me how happy and playful my daughter was throughout the day. It was the best cap to one of the worst weeks. The thing I needed to make everything better.

I do now realize that if I stick it out and focus on the right things, the positive things, things will always get better. The journey may take longer than I like, but eventually I will reach the destination as long as I keep walking.  And at the end of the day, that’s all that really matters.

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zahra, July 19th 2010 | Tags: , , ,
Posted in Parenthood + Childhood

Work Day, Snow Day, Sick Day

It’s an old story, the struggle between working (outside of the home) and parenting. Certainly I’ve talked about this struggle here on this blog. This week in Arlington has really pushed that struggle to an extreme for me and other mothers in the area, as the area has been pretty incapacitated by a couple feet of snow with more coming down as I write this. That means that getting to work has been pretty hard. Actually, it’s been impossible for me.

Between lack of daycare and the high level of difficulty of getting to the office with a baby, a laptop, and work and baby supplies,  I haven’t been able to make it into the office since last  Thursday. That isn’t to say that I haven’t worked. I’ve been working from home, and actually, I’ve had a very productive few work days. So, why do I feel nervous and guilty?

I know I’m not alone. On one of my favorite discussion boards recently I read a post by a woman whose child had been sick. After a few days of working from home she began to worry about her job. I’ve heard basically the same story from friends and coworkers and family. It’s a fact of life in this country. Even employers who claim to be family friendly value face time over actual work produced.

So, what does a parent do? What do you do when snow shuts down daycare or when your child is sick? Who wins — your child or your job? Both men and women face these stresses and worries, but I think it’s worse for women.

I don’t know the solution to this dilemma, but I think my sister said it best when she said that women’s lib was both the best and worst thing to happen to women. Yes we are now technically equals in the workplace, and we actually have the option to go in to an office and work if that’s what we choose. But, in many ways things are harder now than ever. We are now in a workplace that was designed for men, and a mother just can’t fit in without denying the mother side of them just a little.

I have faith this will change. Mothers are needed in the workplace more than ever. Many countries are waking up to this fact and starting programs that make it more possible for us to have it all (e.g., check out this site). Maybe one day the U.S. will catch up with much of the rest of the world. In the meantime, I’ll be working from home tomorrow like many other people in the area, and I’ll do my best to simultaneously take care of my daughter and not worry myself into an early grave.

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zahra, February 9th 2010 | Tags: , , ,
Posted in Parenthood + Childhood

A Few of My Favorite Things

Every day as Azita grows older, she grows a personality that amazes me. My little girl has personality in spades, and she’s funny. Seriously. She has a sense of humor. It’s hard to describe, but it’s a look in her eyes when she does something amusing. It’s the way she smiles kind of crooked. You can tell she knows she’s funny and the power that gives her.

So, with that said, here are a few things that make me laugh. My favorite things. The things that make it impossible for me to not pinch her cheeks and smother her with kisses.

  1. Azita coughs a lot. It turns out she may actually have asthma, which isn’t funny. What is funny is that she passes gas every time she coughs. Loudly. And the best part is that she smiles her toothless smile and toddles along as if she didn’t just make the funniest sound ever.
  2. Azita loves to dance, and she does it all the time. It’s cute, but you know what’s funny? When Azita does something new or something she’s a little proud of, she dances a little jig. And it’s the funniest jig you’ve ever seen. She stands up on her tippy toes and starts stamping her right foot to an imaginary beat as her torso kind of jerks to and fro.
  3. Azita is as clumsy as she is daring, so she falls a lot. When she first became mobile, I was a wreck. Then I realized that I imagined it hurt far more than it actually hurt her. How do I know this? Because when she falls or has some other accident she says “Whoooooaaaaa”, laughs, and gets right back up, usually bolting across the room. It’s adorable, and not just because she says “Whooooooaaaaa”, but also because she falls with the comedic style and timing of Lucille Ball.
  4. Azita’s appetite can be pretty spotty, but when she gets hungry boy does she get hungry. Have I mentioned that she inherited her mother’s propensity for sporting a food baby. And she really, really sports it. When she gets up from her booster chair she thrusts her belly out and wobbles around, clearly off balance from the drastic change in her center of gravity. When I’m at work and missing her or just having a bad day, I close my eyes and picture her with her little belly pregnant with food and I can’t help but laugh.

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zahra, February 8th 2010 | Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Parenthood + Childhood

Inventing My Past

I was talking to my mom this weekend and like every other conversation I’ve had with my mother she went on at some length about the fact that I was a colicky baby and did nothing but cry for the first 6 months of my life.  I am not exaggerating when I say “every other conversation.” Seriously. Ever. Single. Conversation. This is especially true now that I am also a mother.

Somehow, I think my mother thinks I can sympathize with her now. In a way I can. After all, these past few days the existing agony of teething has been compounded by the cold that Azita has been suffering through. Like most of the colds she’s caught in her short life this one has come with a hoarse, rattling cough and a touch of wheezing. Our nights have been sleepless, and the daytime hours we spend with her are marked with plenty of crying and fussing and demands to be held constantly.  It’s not the most pleasant moment in the annals of our parenting history to say the least.

But don’t get me wrong. I do not mind this. In fact, I almost like it.

I may have mentioned this before, but when Azita was first born Roger and I spent many weeknights walking the warm hallways of one of our local malls. We desperately needed to get out of the house, but we couldn’t walk outside in sub-zero temperatures with a newborn. So, off to the mall we went. Mostly we window-shopped and talked, but occasionally we stopped in a store that captured our interest. One of these nights we stumbled upon the nicest salesman while we were admiring an armoire at his store. He was a father of 5 children, ranging from 7  to 25 years of age, and he reminisced so fondly of the days when they were babies like our little one. And, he shared the best piece of wisdom ever shared with me by another parent (especially a random one I had just met). He told me to savor every moment of that time with her.

It is true that others have told me this, but it was what he said afterwards that really rang true for me. “Even when I was up all night with my children, I felt like that was my special time with them. Time I wouldn’t have otherwise.” He is so right.

Being a parent is hard. Everyone knows this whether they are a parent or not. Maybe we don’t realize just how hard it is until we become one ourselves. But we have to remember we signed up for the task. Yes, there are times when I want to complain about Azita. She can be the biggest pain in the ass. I won’t lie. But, she is also the best thing to happen to me and my favorite person in the entire world. No matter what, the good she brings into my life outweighs any of the annoyances that come with it.

Maybe my mother doesn’t feel the same way about me. I don’t know, and I really don’t feel like asking her. Some things are best left unknown. But when I hear my mother complain, 36 years after the fact, of how incessant my crying was or of how I gave her permanent back pains because I wanted to be held so much or of any of the many other annoying things I’m sure I, like every other person, did when I was a baby, I get just the shot in the arm I need. 30 years from now, I want to remember all the wonderful things about this time. Just like the fellow I met at the mall, I want to feel nostalgic and happy about this part of my life. To get that, I need the right attitude now.

I’m convinced that our view of the past is always informed by how we viewed it when it was the present. If I focus on the negative aspects of my life right now, that will be what I remember in my old age. And I don’t want that. I want to live in a haze of rose-colored history when I’m ripened and wizened, and the good thing is, it’s completely within my power right now to make that happen.

P.S. I am once again participating in NaBloPoMo , so expect to read a lot more from me in the coming weeks.

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zahra, February 1st 2010 | Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Parenthood + Childhood

Stop Touching Me!

I can still vividly remember my childhood spats with my sisters. As is the case with many siblings, our worst fights were in the car. I especially had some issues with personal space. My sister still laughs at my nearly constant stream of “Stop touching me”, “Mom, she’s touching me.”, “Get away”, and repeat. Mostly she laughs because it turns out her eldest son has inherited my fierce protection of the invisible bubble that marks my personal territory.  I still don’t like it when people get closer than a couple feet from me — not if I know them (i.e., I’m not talking about all the family and friends who are reading this). I can’t help it. A need for space is ingrained in the very fiber of my being.

I know it used to annoy my mother. She probably still breaks into a cold sweat when she gets in her car. But this is just how kids are. I see my nephews and niece acting out in the same way whenever I ride in the same car with them. Kids are just not as good at handling conflicts with each other. They haven’t learned the ropes yet. (Who am I kidding? Adults really aren’t much better, are they?)

One of the few bright points to Azita being in daycare is that she is every day thrown into an environment with a bunch of kids, and she is therefore forced to start learning how to resolve conflicts with her peers. She’s clearly not there yet, since I hear daily reports of face slapping, hair pulling, shoving, and so on — not just by Azita, but also directed at her. I figure she’ll gradually get better as her verbal skills develop and she learns how to deal with situations using words.  But I know that kids will be kids, and anytime she’s in a room with another child she is likely to have a spat.

Every once in a while, though, she surprises me with a demonstration of love and kindness.

Azita and her cousin, Ali

Azita and her cousin, Ali

And the feeling I get from these moments could sustain me for days.

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zahra, January 12th 2010 | Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in Parenthood + Childhood

Hi Ho Hi Ho

It’s been a while since I’ve posted. I wish I could say that it’s because I’ve been busy celebrating the Thanksgiving holiday and being thankful for everything in my life.  But that’s not true, unfortunately. I mean I have been thankful and thought a lot about what I am thankful for. And, I do plan on finishing the declarations of thanks I started last week. However, the point is that I spent the entire weekend working, with a little family time thrown in here and there, and I’m really unhappy about it. That is, with the working, not the family time.

In the current economy, I am certainly grateful to have a job that pays me a paycheck that pays my bills and allows me to buy my daughter some nice things here and there. Don’t get me wrong. I am grateful, and I am not whining. But allow me to whine just a little. I actually like what I do. For a long time, my career was the most important thing to me. In fact, my career was the most important thing to me next to my brand-spanking new marriage about 6 years ago when I first started my job at Blackboard. So, it shouldn’t surprise me that since my current boss was also my boss at Blackboard, he might expect the same undying devotion to my job.

Well, I can tell you that devotion no longer exists. I still love what I do, but I love Azita more. And, when I spend a four-day weekend that is supposed to be about thankfulness and family and friends working until 2am while my daughter cries for my attention, I start to get pretty damn annoyed with what I do. Heck, I start to get pretty angry. I’m angry that my boss expects me to ignore my daughter and work nearly 24 hours a day just to make a minute dent in my workload. I’m mostly angry that I just did it. I should have explained it wouldn’t be possible and that my family comes first.

But I didn’t. I didn’t because I’m afraid that I’ll lose my job if I don’t lose myself to it. It’s an irrational fear at first glance, but it really isn’t if you live in the D.C. area where nearly everyone is married to their jobs. It’s easy to look at the employment landscape and to fear that unless you also give your job everything you have, including a relationship with your daughter, that you won’t be able to continue earning.

I have to say that this is one reason it is becoming more and more tempting for me to get up and move somewhere where life is a little slower and family is a little more important. For now, I’m off to the mines every weekday morning, but I need a change. Azita needs me to change, and I’ve decided that I need to start taking the steps I need to take to make that change happen.

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zahra, November 30th 2009 | Tags: , , , , , ,
Posted in Family + Friends, Parenthood + Childhood

Crossing my Fingers and Knocking on Wood

I believe in science and mathematics. If I have a question about why something is the way it is, I know science holds the answer. I’ll admit that I have a problem with faith in that I need a scientific explanation for everything, and I’ve just never been able to reconcile faith and science.  I’m definitely not the superstitious type.

So explain to me why motherhood has completely knocked the pragmatism out of me? Explain to me why I actually really believe that if Azita eats breakfast one morning when I happen to be wearing my blue pajamas with the red apples on them and I’m holding a squeaky toy with my left hand, then the way to get her to eat breakfast the next day is to wear the same pajamas and hold the same squeaky toy. With my left hand. At the same exact time as the day before.

Why has parenthood made me so superstitious? I really think it’s the desperation of being so utterly out of control over just about everything in your life just about every day of your life. Especially when it comes to getting Azita to eat or sleep or do any of the other things that, you know, keep humans, specifically my little human, alive.  It’s not that I really believe that any of these superstitious rituals will work. It’s just that it’s 11:30 on a Monday night, and I really, really need Azita to fall asleep so I can go to bed because I have to wake up at 5:30 in the morning tomorrow damn it. Or maybe Azita has refused to eat anything for 3 days, and I just know that next time she goes to the doctor they’ll tell me she actually lost weight and somehow grew shorter. Or Azita will not let me buckle her in to her car seat and I’m late for work but I obviously can’t drive her to daycare until she is safely protected against all the crazy drivers out there. Or she’s doing any of the fifty other things she does that I fear will damage her for life, and there is nothing I can do to make her stop.

I read the books. Books based on science. I know all of these things are completely normal. I know how to handle most of them, and I know that sometimes just riding these situations out is the only way to handle them. Still, what I wouldn’t give for some kind of ritual that would actually get Azita to eat or sleep.

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zahra, November 19th 2009 | Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in Parenthood + Childhood

Golden Slumbers

I seriously could watch Azita sleep all night.  Her eyelashes seem impossibly long, creating a feathery shadow on her cheek. Her eyebrows furrow a little as if she is concentrating deeply. Her mouth opens ever so slightly in a dainty pout, which also puffs her cheeks out just enough to create the most beautiful curves and shadows on her face.  I haven’t seen many things that I find more beautiful. Don’t believe me?

I present Exhibit A:

9Months 047

I mean, look at that mouth:

9Months 051

And if you think her head is spectacular, check out her feet:

9Months 034

Yup. I love her from her head to her toes.

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zahra, October 22nd 2009 | Tags: , , ,
Posted in Parenthood + Childhood

Iron and Oil

Azita had her 9-month well baby visit on Monday. I went in to this appointment fully expecting the doctor to say she’s growing really well and oh look, she’s crawling and cruising and doing all sorts of other things a little ahead of schedule. Great!

Well, things didn’t turn out so great. I mean, true, Azita is hitting all her milestones ahead of schedule. But, I’ll admit that it took me by surprise when I found out that Azita had gained just under a pound total in the past three months and has suddenly dropped from the 50th percentile in weight to the 10-25th percentile in weight within such a short time. Honestly, I’m still reeling a little from all of this. What did I do wrong?

I know Azita has been a bit finicky lately. She usually refuses food and sometimes refuses a bottle. I just didn’t know she wasn’t gaining weight. But now that I think about it, it should have struck me as a little weird that the newest member of her daycare — a 4 month old — is bigger than her.  And that’s where the guilt is really coming from.  How could I not notice this?

In the end it’s not really that big of a deal. I’m adding some formula powder and a little bit of oil to all of Azita’s food, and I’m taking the 45 minutes it takes for every meal to make sure she actually eats something. Really, it does take that long. She is a master of elusion, this one. So, I know she will be ok, and I’ll pay a little more attention to her growth from now on.

But then last night I come home to a message from her doctor. It turns out Azita’s CBC on Monday wasn’t normal either. My baby is anemic. Seriously. What happened to the doctor’s appointments where she got her vaccines and the doctor checked off all the good boxes? I know that anemia can be serious, but I also know that it isn’t really a huge deal if you treat it. After all, I was also anemic as a baby, and I grew up to be perfectly healthy.

It’s just that now I have to spend my days trying to get my baby girl to ingest iron and oil. Not exactly what I thought I’d be doing at this stage of her life. Boo hoo. Woe is me.

But enough whining already.  She’ll be all right, and it’s worth it. I mean, I get to come home to this every day:

Azita_playpen

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zahra, October 15th 2009 | Tags: , , , , , , ,
Posted in Parenthood + Childhood

Elizabeth Mitchell Saves Our World

This past weekend I had one of those moments where I felt like there would never be a time in my life where I wasn’t suffering a setback.  I’ve had a lot of good times in my life, but like just about everyone else I’ve had a lot of bad times too.  Lately I’ve been thinking that things are so great. Then last Saturday morning happens, and it was clear that Roger and I had another major setback in our journey towards our goals. It sucked. It really really sucked all kinds of unsavory things, and I’ll admit that I cried.

And I felt really down and sorry for myself. Down enough so that we canceled all our plans for Saturday, and instead we did the one thing that usually makes us feel better when life isn’t going our way — worked really hard. We cleared out our storage unit. We did loads and loads of laundry. We cooked. We cleaned. We rolled our sleeves up and exhausted ourselves, but I still stayed up all night worrying myself awake.

Then Sunday rolled around. We had tickets to take Azita to her first show — Elizabeth Mitchell live at Jammin Java. Azita loves Elizabeth Mitchell. While she can’t really voice her musical preferences yet, I assume she loves her because whenever she’s crying we just need to pop in some Elizabeth Mitchell and she’s suddenly smiling and cooing. The sudden turnaround is really miraculous actually. Turns out that a little Elizabeth Mitchell is good for Azita’s parents also.

As we sat there at Jammin Java worrying about life as we waited for the show to start, kids were running up and down the aisles. They were laughing and screaming and crying and singing, and Azita stared in wonder. Her head flipped back and forth trying to take it all in. Her eyes were giant saucers. Her mouth was fixed in a big grin. She giggled. She cooed. She shrieked with delight. And then  Elizabeth Mitchell got on stage and started singing.

And Azita began to wave her hands and smack them on her leg to the beat of the music. It was then that I knew it would all be ok. There really are few things that can be a setback now. Azita is in my life, and that means that I will always be exactly where I want to be.

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zahra, October 13th 2009 | Tags: , , , , , ,
Posted in Parenthood + Childhood
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