Rinkydink Mum

I was told that motherhood changes you, that I would know a different kind of love once I met my baby. How true. The past ten months are at once a blur and also crystal clear and filled with beautiful moments of getting to know my son. 
Dear DK,

I love the way your eyes go wide and your mouth falls open when you experience something new. Smoke swirling around the campsite. Dogs chasing each other around the dog park. Dust drifting through the sunbeams in our living room. 

I love the way you fuss in the car until I turn on some music and then you gaze silently out the window, soaking in the sounds. 

I love the way your little hand reaches up while I’m singing at bedtime to feel the way my lips move. 

I love how you smile whenever I say “zip zip” while doing up your zipper. 

I love how you laugh when you see a dog. 

I love how your eyelashes clump together and your hair plasters to your forehead when you splash yourself in the swimming pool. 

I love how you look at your dad and say “dat”

I love how cautious and deliberate you are – not wanting to make too many sudden movements in case you fall over. 

I love how you look at me with a crumpled forehead of frustration when something is just out of reach. 

I love how you glow with pride when you finally reach it and I say “yay DK!” and clap. 

I love how when you’re upset, all it takes to calm you down is read you a book. 

I love how quickly you melt in my arms and fall asleep when I touch your ear or stroke your hair. 

I love how this is the hardest job in the world but I don’t want to do anything else. 

We made you, but more than that, you made me. I was born to be your mom.

Recently, my husband had to go to London, England for a week of work meetings. I had two choices: stay at home alone with DK, keeping our schedule and routines,or join him in London and throw the schedule and routines out the window. DK is now 8 months old, sits up well, sleeps well and shows all the signs of becoming mobile within a month. So, it was the perfect seize-the-day opportunity to take him on a global adventure. We spent 10 days in London, and 4 days outside of London with a rental car in the Cotswolds. DK impressed me with how adaptable he was – he continued to sleep well, eat well and learned how to pull up to stand while on our trip!  

Here are some things I’m glad we did, and things I wish I had thought of. 

Best things we did:

1. Direct flight. Flying SFO to London Heathrow is a long 10 hour flight with a baby. 5 hours in, we were just passing over New York. I think I would have cried if we had to land in New York and catch a connecting flight. Yes, flying direct is more expensive but there is a much lower chance you will lose your luggage, miss a connection, and end up stranded. 
2. Showing up 3 hours early to check in to make sure we got a bassinet-ready bulkhead seat. Yes, I love snuggling my 8 month old in my reclining laz-y-boy. Plane seats are not that. Holding DK for more than a few hours is back and shoulder torture in those seats! We flew with Virgin Atlantic and booked through a customer service rep on the phone instead of online to make sure we got the bulkhead seats, had DK’s infant reservation all figured out and got tips on when to show up to check in, what kind of luggage we could take etc. 
3. Night-flight. This wasn’t really planned, our direct flight left at 8 pm out of SFO and it was great timing. DK usually goes to sleep around 6:30 pm, so he was awake a little later than normal, but we did his bedtime routine as close as possible in the airport bathroom and waiting lounge and when we got on the plane, he nursed and fell asleep. We transferred him to the waiting bassinet, ate our meal provided by Virgin Atlantic, and attempted to sleep. DK slept better than he has in months on the plane, waking only once in an 8 hour stretch to eat. 
4. Airport Hotel. We weren’t sure if DK would sleep on the plane, but I knew that I for sure would not – as I have never slept on a plane in my life unless heavily sedated and unfortunately sedation and breastfeeding aren’t compatible. Our flight arrived at 2:30 pm London time, or 7:30 am SF time, so I knew when we landed I probably wouldn’t have slept since the night before, getting up with DK at 6:30 am the day of our flight. Therefore, upon landing priority #1 was a bed, any bed. We stayed at the Hilton Garden Inn at Heathrow airport, which was fine and had a great bed,  but see my next section on things I would change for more on this hotel experience. Of course, DK had had a full-nights sleep on landing so he was really only ready for a few short naps –  but we powered through, napped in shifts and attempted to put him to sleep for the night at 9 pm, a time he normally takes his afternoon nap. Bedtime routine worked wonders and he fell asleep for 6 amazing hours, woke to eat and then shockingly fell back to sleep for another 6 hours. It was the best sleep I’ve had since he’s been born. 
5. Brought his playpen. We have a travel mini Graco pack n play that he is almost too big for. If we had waited another month to do this trip I’m convinced he would be too big for this bed and would be crawling around hotel rooms. This was a handy for a sleep space for him. 
6. Got an Airbnb with kitchen and living room. You know what sucks? Eating your room service dinner in the bathroom of your hotel room. Having an extra room to hang in while baby sleeps is the key to a fun vacation when travelling with a baby. Hotel suites in London were so expensive! So we got a 2 bedroom, 1 bathroom, kitchen and living room Airbnb apartment instead for a similar price AND my wonderful in-laws came to London too and stayed in the second bedroom.  What a difference a living room and stove makes! The place we stayed in was family friendly and even came with a high chair!
7. Packed light. You’re probably laughing. Travel light with a baby?! Yeah right! No, I’m serious. We could carry everything we packed multiple blocks. We took two big suitcases: one half a suitcase for each person, and one half of one suitcase held the car seat base. We borrowed a stroller that works with our car seat. We both carried a backpack. I pushed the stroller and rolled a suitcase, my husband rolled a suitcase and carried DK’s bed. It helped that I only brought 8 days worth of clothes for each person and we did laundry at our Airbnb. It also helped that I am nursing and DK eats very little in terms of solid foods or milk from a bottle, which eliminated the need for a breastpump or baby food lugged from home.  

   

8. Travelled with grandparents! Aside from DK getting to spend quality time with his grandparents, grandparents are also super helpful travel companions. Need to carry a stroller up or down a flight of stairs? No problem with 3 people! Need someone to watch the baby while I go to the bathroom? No problem! I am so lucky and grateful that my husband’s parents came along with us to sight see. We had a great time together. 

   

9. We went to London. Yes, there are so many places to see in the world, and I’m sure many of them are family friendly – but man, London was top. Change tables in every public bathroom. Free museums. Amazing, creative and totally dangerous looking playgrounds. Pampers diapers and  organic baby foods. Did I mention the abundance of diaper change tables?!

   

   

10. Brought a mesh bag with small toys. We carted this bag with a few toys per day on all of our outings. The bag is small, collapsible, see-through and breathable for all the slobber covered tethers. Toy dropped on the floor of the subway? No problem, put it in the diaper bag (don’t put it back in the mesh bag of clean toys) and wash when you get back to the hotel every day. 

What I would do differently:

1. Stay at a closer airport hotel the first night. I mistakenly assumed that an airport hotel would be near the airport. When we landed and got our bags, the shuttle bus to our hotel was a 40 minute wait and we were exhausted. We opted to take a taxi just to get to a bed faster. It cost £20. And the next morning, we took a taxi from the airport hotel to the airport rental car company…£15. I picked the hotel because of its proximity to the airport and the price – but factoring the extra £35 in taxi fare, we could have stayed at the hotel right at the airport instead of near the airport for the same price and my post-plane bed would have been that much closer. 
2. Rented a car seat with our rental car. We opted to bring our car seat and base because we were more comfortable with installing it, DK was comfortable sleeping in it, we were concerned about taking taxis in London without it, if the bassinet on the plane wasn’t available, maybe an extra seat for the car seat would be, and we needed it to get to the airport anyways. In hindsight, we didn’t really need it – you don’t have to ride with a baby in a car seat in London taxis or transit.  We could have rented it with the car and gotten a friend to drive us to the airport in our car. Our entire time in London the car seat and base sat unused in our Airbnb. 

All in all it was a great trip! DK is still on London time upon returning home, so is waking up to play between 1 am and 3 am. But a small price to pay for how well he adjusted to travel! 

It was a beautiful, sunny day. DK was two months old. My house was a mess, I was a mess. I wasn’t feeling great, so that afternoon DK nursed and snuggled and slept in my arms while I ate chocolate covered raisins and I binge-watched Heartland on Netflix. 

Looking back, it was the best afternoon ever, but I didn’t enjoy it in the moment because I felt guilty about watching 6+ hours of tv on a sunny afternoon. I felt like I should have been doing anything else. Cleaning, eating something healthy, drinking more water, sleeping. “Sleep when baby sleeps” is the advice we new moms get. Yes, good advice – but DK slept best in my arms and I did not want to put him down so that I could rest only to have him wake up a few minutes later crying. It was easier to just watch Heartland and eat raisins. So I worried that he’d never sleep anywhere but my arms and I’d be one of those mothers who turns into a husk of her former self that people whisper, “she’s too attached…” behind my back. 

But time moved on and DK sleeps like a champ in his crib next to my bed. I didn’t need to worry that I was giving him a bad habit of sleeping in my arms. I lost 5 more pounds, so I didn’t need to worry that I would never lose my pregnancy weight because I ate so many chocolate raisins. My husband came home and didn’t even care that the house was a mess. The next day was sunny too, and the next, and the next (a perk of living in sunny California) so I didn’t need to worry about not taking advantage of the nice weather. You can take the girl out of Canada, but you can’t take the Canadian out of the girl. 

Now I look back on that day fondly as a very special time I spent with my son, snuggling him and watching scenes filmed just outside my hometown in the Foothills of Alberta. 

I’m going to stop feeling guilty for feeling guilty about that day. *Sigh*, being a mom is tough! 

As part of my goal to explore more of the Bay Area, I thought I’d check out the Diaper Days showing of Lalaland at Camera Cinemas in Campbell. 

It actually went really well. Lots of moms and lots of babies making baby noises  and toddlers moving around, but it was an enjoyable experience and I will definitely be checking out next month’s show!

I’ll admit, at first the concept of cooking meat in a plastic bag at bathwater temperature grossed me right out. How will I  not get food poisoning? But then my husband asked for a sous-vide cooker for Christmas, and as he is the world’s hardest person to buy for, I bought the Anova Culinary PCB-120US-K1 Bluetooth Precision Cooker from Amazon and hoped for the best.

But now, after trying sous-vide cooked meat, I am a convert – and not just because my husband now cooks dinner. This thing is amazing for busy families.

Basically, it’s a heating element that attaches to the side of a big pot full of water. It heats the water and keeps it at a consistent temperature. You put your food down in the water in an airtight bag (I use ziploc) and set the temperature (for example, 150F for Chicken breast). It takes about an hour to cook chicken breast at that temperature, but it doesn’t overcook it if say, your kid is having a huge temper tantrum and you’re knee deep in tears. You can even cook it ahead of time and then put it in cold water once it is done to hang out and wait until you’re ready to eat it. Once you’re 3 minutes away from eating, all you have to do is pull it out of the bag and sear it in a frying pan or on the grill on under the broiler to crisp it up a bit and voila – delicious, juicy but not stewy meat. I season/marinade the meat right in the bag. So far I’ve made chicken breast, chicken thighs, steak, and eggs and the results have been flawless every time.

In my home, the hours between 4:30 and 7 are chaos. It’s impossible to cook anything, so we are either starting to cook dinner after DK goes to sleep and eating at 8:30 (too late for me) or I’m eating over the sink before I start bedtime routine before my husband is even home. With the sous-vide, it makes it easy to do the prep earlier in the day during naptime, put it in the sous-vide before we start winding DK down for bed, and then finishing the dish off with a sear and a side salad once DK is asleep.

*Warning, this post is a bit contentious – and I’m firmly in the attachment parenting camp.*

It seems like I have two choices: sleep train using the cry it out method or co-sleep. Parents who have tried it all claim that those are the only two options that work.

I’m a new mom, so maybe in six more months, I’ll also be trumpeting the “those are the only things that work” mantra – but surely they can’t be the only things that work? Right? (*cue cricket chirp*)

Right now DK is 6 months old and he sleeps in his own crib a few feet from our bed in our room. I like it this way. He’s close enough to see and I think we both feel more secure this way. It’s not exactly co-sleeping (I love my pillow and blankets too much to co-sleep safely), but he’s also not alone in his own room.

We have a bedtime routine, ending most nights with me snuggling him until he’s asleep, at which time I transfer him to his crib. He sleeps from about 6:30 pm to 11:30 pm, gets up to breastfeed and then most nights he goes back to sleep until 5:30 am. It works for me, I can’t complain. And yet I have this nagging feeling that I need to teach him how to put himself to sleep and self-soothe and if I don’t, bad sleep regressions will happen. Maybe it’s because all of my friends sleep train their kids, so I feel like I need to follow the crowd and do it too…but I just want to take a moment to stand up and say NO. I don’t want to let my baby cry it out.  And here’s why:

• DK is just now discovering the joys of peek-a-boo. He doesn’t understand that when I cover my face with a towel that I am just behind the towel. He doesn’t understand that when I leave the room, I’m just next door and will come back. He sees me gone and thinks I am gone. Letting him cry it out alone in his crib isn’t teaching him to self-soothe. It’s teaching him that no one is coming for him. That he is all alone. What a heartbreaking thing for anyone, not just a baby, to learn.
• Neuroscience research has taught us that infant brains have very few neural connections but that by age two they have thousands of neural connections (Narvaez, 2011). I love taking Devon out to experience the world, see new things. I want to raise a child who is curious about the world. Even though he won’t remember the trip we took to the aquarium, his brain is growing and making connections and I believe the experience at the aquarium is a formative experience that will impact how he interacts with the  world. Sleep training is the same – sure the sleep training gurus say that he won’t remember being sleep trained, but the experience of being left alone in a room, crying with no one coming to help him or comfort him is a formative experience that impacts how DK will interact and trust others throughout his life. If I said “no, sleep training is fine, it’s not a formative experience”, then I might as well also say that going outside, playing with toys or seeing my smile are also non-formative experiences for DK and that therefore I shouldn’t bother since he won’t remember. The logic just doesn’t follow.
• There’s a reason that it is so difficult to hear your child cry and not respond…it’s not part of our innate human biology. When you think that for most of human history we lived in the bushes and had to worry about predators, it makes no survival sense to let an infant cry, alerting all the lions, tigers and bears (oh my!) to the location of a delicious meal.
• Remember when we thought second-hand smoke was just fine? Now we know better but that can’t undo the damage second-hand smoke caused. That’s how I feel about sleep training. The studies that have been done aren’t very scientifically reliable (Narvaez, 2014). We don’t know enough yet about the long term effects of sleep training, but the experience can’t be undone. It may be long-term pain for short-term gain and I’m not willing to take that chance with my son’s mental health. I’m by no means a perfect mom, and I’m sure there are a lot of ways  I will  unintentionally  traumatize my child…but I’m not going to do it intentionally through sleep training.
• Why do we have kids? I had DK for many reasons but one is to put a responsible, caring, curious human being on this planet. Sometimes the world is so dark, I wonder why bring a perfect little light into it only to have it extinguished by greed, hatred, violence etc. But maybe my little light is going to be the light that solves poverty. Or brings peace. Or finds a cure. I want DK to grow up feeling that he matters. That his actions influence others and that others influence him. I don’t want him to ever feel like he can only count on himself, that he can’t rely on the support of his family, his friends, his community. But I worry that sleep training teaches him that he is alone and he can only rely on himself. That no one out there will comfort him. What a terrible and unnecessary lesson to learn.
• I look to the example set by the parents of adults I admire. They didn’t sleep train and their kids turned out to be wonderful, kind, caring, generous, ambitious, independent, curious, loving adults. Case closed.

As I mentioned above, a lot of my friends believe in the power of sleep training. And they have been in the trenches a lot longer than me. I do not mean for this blog post to upset them. These women are wonderful mothers and I respect them a lot for all the love they give their kids. Motherhood is not easy and we each know our kids best. I just know that sleep training is not for me and it’s not for Devon. And if any other mothers out there feel similarly, reach out to me. We can encourage one another and together find workable solutions that don’t involve crying it out.

I recently finished reading Happier at Home by Gretchen Rubin. It was a well-timed read as I have a 6-month-old son and after 2.5 years out of the workforce waiting for my green card as an H4 visa spouse, I am soon going to earn my work permit. But I’m not going back to work.

The Lean-In lover in me is like “What?! Not going back to work?! You rocked at work. You took the work world by storm. You would kick ass at work in the culture in Silicon Valley.”

But I don’t want to go back to work and I’m fortunate enough that our financial situation allows me to make that choice. I never in a million years thought that I’d be so invested in or dedicated to another person. I didn’t go through 9 months of pregnancy, 17 hours of labour, 90 minutes of pushing, 6 stitches and 6+ months of breastfeeding so that someone else could find out the kind of things he finds funny or see the look of disgust on his face when he tries a new food only to open his mouth and beg for more a few bites later. I want to be there for all his moments – the good, the bad and the ugly.

I am happy at home, but I enjoyed reading Rubin’s memoir of her second happiness project and making her home a happier place.

One thing that stuck with me is the idea of assigning a theme to the year. Since moving to the Bay Area 2 and a half years ago, I’ve explored very little of it without my husband. I don’t know why…I used to check out new things by myself in my hometown of Calgary all the time. I went out to dinner alone to try a new restaurant, I took a tour of an old cemetery alone, I went to a weekend festival alone. Maybe it’s because I had lived in Calgary my whole life and I knew it like the back of my hand; There weren’t an overwhelming number of places left to explore, so when something new came along, I wanted to check it out. When I moved to the Bay Area, living away for the first time in my life – everything was new. Every time I left my apartment I was exploring something new…and it was just exhausting. I don’t consider myself a very adventurous person. Sure, I like novelty sometimes, but I’d rather re-watch Gilmore Girls for the hundredth time then go see a new movie in the theaters.

Inspired by Rubin’s example, I decided to explore more of my environment and assigned the theme of Adventure to 2017. I want my son to experience so many things in the world, and I am energized to explore the world with him because he’s seeing it all for the first time.

Some specific goals to bring about this theme of adventure in my life include:

• Check out one new place in the Bay Area each week. It might just be driving a different route home, shopping at a different grocery store, or taking DK to a different playground.But I also want to check out some of the local tourist attractions that I haven’t seen yet and be a tourist:
  • Ano Nuevo state park
  • Big Basin Redwoods Park
  • Happy Hollow
  • Winchester Mystery House
  • The Lace Museum, Sunnyvale
  • Emma Prusch Farm
  • San Jose flea market
  • Ed R. Levin County Park
  • Alameda Quicksilver County Park
  • Ardenwood Historic Farm, Fremont
• Try a new recipe or cooking technique at least once per month. This month we’ve bought a sous-vide cooker and have been experimenting cooking meat with it. I will never bake a chicken breast again.
• Check out TACO, the Terrible Adult Chamber Orchestra. I’ve been meaning to attend their monthly gathering for a while now. I’ve been playing violin since I was a child and I miss having a reason to play it, but I’ve been so hesitant to show up at TACO because what if it’s terrible? But that’s the point – it’s supposed to be terrible. A fun, casual relaxing place to play music together – being perfect isn’t the point. So yes, I’m going to do it. Their first session is January 29th, so check back for an update on how that goes!