Alot Happens in 9 Years

 

It's been almost nine years since I last posted here. A lot can happen in nine years, thankfully for me, I can say, we are still here. Older, wiser, bigger… perhaps more mature… I don’t know. What I do know is that I still wonder at the magic of being called mommy every day.

The boys no longer have tiny feet that go pitter patter all over the place. Theirs are those of young men. Still all over the place and now carrying more thud than pitter. My parenting stance is more reflective, more deliberate and more intentional.

A few years ago, I did a thing, it was a scary thing, knew the consequences could be disastrous and I did all I could to mitigate the chaos that I thought I foresaw. I blew the lid off the realities of careless parenting by speaking about the uncomfortable realities of my upbringing, something extremely countercultural. I was recognizing the effects of living in what I think, today, to have been a narcissistic-abusive power dynamic between my parents and the reality of bearing the scars of wars that I never should have been privy to as a child. You can listen to that podcast here.

Before getting in front of a mic as I did, we had had conversations with my mother about leveraging our own healing to create a platform where others can also start their healing journeys and that would also have been her entrance into a counselling psychology practice…. Or so I thought.

Little did I know that I was about to blow the lid off a long festering volcano that has completely shifted how I think about family and how I relate with my own and others. The storms and battles that came from that conversation led me to the realization that many among the generations of our parents are sorely devoid of filial love or connection. See how many today, are talking about their toxic parents. See today how many are finally going no contact with parents and siblings who cannot see how their own actions undermine the very notion of family.

In the aftermath of that podcast, I have seen with crystal clear clarity that I had never come out of the abusive system but rather had normalized things that one should never normalize from anybody no matter the relationship. I had normalized being dismissed, I had normalized having my words twisted to fit the agenda of the day, I had gotten used to being blamed for whatever needed blaming to carry the agenda of the day... wueh! so much! But I also got my power back. My power to stop and refuse to be a part of it. So, many years later and vindication looks like relatives coming to say that they also see it now and apologizing for their part to play in the chaos. Careless parenting is a thing, too many of us are products of careless parenting and barely know it and thus risk breaking our own children. Yes, alot has happened in 9 years.

Today I sit here, watching my young men grow and I know that I cannot be the one to clip their wings with careless words or selfish ambition. I watch them fumble and fall; and try to teach them the humble joy of picking oneself up and working to do better next time. I listen to the playground saga’s holding back my own biases and trying to use my words to gently move them towards value-based decision making.

I remember my first pregnancy and the tears with which I swore that the ones I carry would never cry the tears I have cried. As fate would have it, time and circumstance (that I attribute to God and how He moves), have seen to it that I see and understand the entirety of the roots of my tears, that I may burn them away and in those places plant new trees that are sturdy and strong enough to meet the sun with the courage and fortitude required to thrive.

I watched Nyandia Gachagos story on the engage platform and I knew the weight of her words and the weight of her presence on that stage, watch it here. I will close with her words.

I am the mother I am today, the woman I am today because of and in spite of my parents.

Photo by Carlos Quintero on Unsplash

The Joy of Out There

As a child, I never had company outside of my siblings, to play with. I would look at my cousins and wish we lived in an estate in the city where there are lots of other kids to play with. My sister and I even dreamt that when we grew up, we would live in an estate like South C or South B and our children would play play and never lack company.

Well we grew up. And adulthood made me appreciate the up bringing we had, with a lot of space for adventure and growth devoid of the citys’ problems like traffic, concrete heat, impossible dust and the pollution alongside garbage and all that.

We don’t live in the same place my sister and I, I have children she doesn’t. Our outlooks on life are as different and black is to white. But I do live in an estate, where my children now play with other children. Something that as a child I hungered so much for. Weird thing is when we moved into an estate, we were kept away from other kids. I fought really hard for any time I had to socialize outside of school. Even that little was well… awkward.

As a parent now I understand the fears my parents must have had. What kind of people will the children have to interact with, do they have the kind of values we want instilled in the children. As a parent I can control the home environment and anywhere I am at but out there… who knows what the children are exposed to? On the other hand, It is important to socialize and understand social plays and nuances from a young age.

I must admit, I do not get social nuances that easily, and I really do respect people who have the courage to point out to me where I missed out on something. That maybe partly from being heavily sheltered from the world as a kid and also possibly from my character. I am a dreamer, I see things as I want them to be rather that what they really are. Its my default setting. The wholes of trouble I am dealing with out of that are so epic that sometimes I consider hiding for the rest of my life to avoid them.

I don’t want my young men to grow up in a social bubble. I let them out to play with others. The Sudanese kids (surprisingly well-mannered and respectful children, nil for mum for being overly judgemental!!), the horribly mannered boys from up the corner (my gosh I pity their mother… I beat them into following my rules while in my compound, they don’t come often), the little arab kids who have the most thought provoking questions…. Name it, they come into my house for water or juice or whatever there is to fuel their play and I love it!

Of course when the parents hear I let the children out to play in the neighborhood responded with resigned anger (you can hear the unsaid words: gosh this girl just doesn’t do things the way they should be done properly). I have since been bombarded with horror stories of children being stolen or abused in the neighborhood. I do not refute that these things happen... hell, the young mums in my hood chatted about it and how to protect each other’s children… but we cannot lock up our children and expect them to grow into cultured social adults. It a calculated risk with as many stop gap measures as possible.

But the crux of this post? I just fill up with joy when I see my children out there playing and running around to their hearts content and yes I’m the kind of mum who considers a good day marked by how dirty the clothes are, how hungry the kids are and how many little feet pitter pattered themselves into a holy mess in the living room…. Yup, that’s a good day. (until I think of having to clean up!)

Little Rays of Sunshine on A Cloudy Day

I haven’t written here for a long while!! That is not for a lack of stories but rather a lack of time. But I do miss my ‘mamamagic’ space. Being a mummy is still a magical journey that I love to share.


Updates

Both little men are walking now! Or should I say running and talking. The stories in this house are now never ending. Mostly funny stories, sometimes stories that you wish you could erase and they came out in the wrong place. Like a few weeks ago one of our relatives was rushed to hospital, I think little man put 2 and 2 together and decided to fill in the rest of the story himself. Weeks later little man goes to his aunty like, ‘Aunteeeeeee, uncle is a bad boy! Uncle beat you and you stayed in hospital? Uncle is a very bad boy…’


Yes I think my bladder almost released at that point because where would a little guy just under years old get that? And express himself so clearly! On the other hand, my baby is so confident and well spoken! My heart swells with pride!


There are many similar stories, they are almost weekly now. Including taking the mouse from the cat and showing it off to all and sundry, gosh you should have seen how their nanny ran, I’ve never seen her move like that!


Jumper on the other hand. Well, he jumps, all day, every day. He eats and jumps and his stories tend to come in a staccato that matches his jumping, ‘Mummy. Daddy. Go. Work. Now. Daddy. Stuck. In. daafik.’it’s a noisy playful house and really, nothing fills me up with joy like working in my workspace while hearing these lively voices play and shout out their stories! Which we can now understand!



Validation

This post is really about validation and encouragement. Life’s been really hard lately and we haven’t been able to treat the boys the way we used to or even want to. So we’ve been cracking under the pressure to keep the family afloat. I’ve been out there hustling like crazy to get a few shillings to the table sometimes clients pay, most times after you’ve done something decent, they decide either that’s not what they wanted or that is not work worth paying for… aki this life… God is seeing you people! Then another time I had 200 shillings between me and poverty… cops took it and I looked that cop in the eye and told him, his greed has denied 2 children their breakfast. Which it had… but well, that’s whats up. Life eh? But I have a God and so far the kids have always had something to eat.


So when that’s the daily hum drum of life, sometimes I hate myself for not being a good enough mum because despite the cold weather I couldn’t afford to buy my little man a fleece jacket, or replace the broken heater, or make him nice treats for school because we can’t afford to fix the oven. The killer for me is that now I’m away so much hustling that on top of the nice things we can’t do for them, mummy isn’t around as often. So when you get home with such clouds over your head and the children rush out to hug you hello, lead you to a seat or the couch and offer to get you water (despite the fact that they are too small to handle the water jug without breaking it…) I feel lifted, motivated, encouraged that my babies aren’t looking at me badly.


But the one that has given me life for days is when their cousins asked them to stay over for 2 or 3 days and the boys, both of them said, no ‘I want to stay with my mummy..!’ That brought tears to my eyes. That despite all the hardness we are going through home is best for them, even when mummy only has 1 or 2 hours a day with them, even if mummy doesn’t make them yummy muffins and smoothies anymore, even if they only have a few broken toys… they still would rather be at home with mummy.


People ask me, what is it like being a mum? Well, I think this post puts it very clearly. There will always be someone who believes that you are the best despite the odds. There will always be someone who motivates you to be that much better simply by being sweet.





Meanwhile, if anyone is looking for a digital online marketer or online digital planner, or content person with a background in journalism and a pretty decent track record as an all-round communications person. Send me a buzz, jumper needs to go to school and right now I don’t even know if they will have milk next week!

Hold Up! What The Huh!?

Some months ago I started noticing some weird things among my age-mates. This may have been noticed by those older than us much earlier but I think my eyes opened fairly recently. The concept of value and responsibility seems to be a conversational concept, and idea or philosophy to be floated around in company just to show how ‘learned’ we are. Many of us however do not seem to actually understand the day to day applicable meaning of these words.

See, for a long time I did not believe in the hoola-baloo around weddings and much less the whole marriage thing. What used to happen is that we go for all these seemingly joyous meetings and ceremonies that lead to the big day then one month, 5 months, 10 months, 1 year, 3 years max there is silence ice and talk of moving on. I heard of a marriage that lasted less than a month in this here Kenya, Nairobi even. And we think it’s only Kim Kardashian and the like who pull such stunts.

We are 28, 29, 30 and I dare say 35 year olds running around town with childish ideas of what life is about. Ho now does a man with children by more than one women, one possibly being an ex-wife who couldn’t live with an overgrown child still find that a conversation with peers about how they romped around Eldoret over the weekend is the highlight of the week! And if you corner the guy and remind him of his paternal responsibility, he might just share his strategy to spend everything he can on himself so that those mean, nasty baby mamas do not see a cent from him. True story.

This is not a man bashing post. There are women, my riika if you may, who all they aim for is to be married upper middle class. First the wedding needs to be of the standard, and must impress all the girls. Then they must live in an apartment in Kilimani, Westy or if things are hard maybe south C. Once the ring is on it and the child has been produced, it’s a competition to see who can Instagram their baby the most in the cutest outfits at all the right places… until you get to the other side of the lens and hear  ‘aki huyu mtoto husumbuuua.’ As the child is put to a corner in the latest fashion stroller as the girls have their wine. This lady might hold down a good job and her money is hers. To spend on looking good and being seen at the ‘right’ places, doing the ‘right’ things.

So I take a step back and mourn for all the things these overgrown children are destroying, I mourn for the old tired and lonely people who just might discover in their 60’s or 70’s that time cannot undo itself. I mourn for a generation that will never know what they are missing out on until they can do nothing about it but get lost in their own sorrow alone.

Real wealth that carries is not in property and fat accounts but in people, the people around you and the relationships we nurture. Relationships are hard and not always about smiles and laughs, there are tears there are fights… but the end goal is worth it.

At the end of the day, parents will try, and they will tire and their time will pass, friends, should there be principled people in your circle, will try until your antics will be too embarrassing for them to associate with you and they will quietly and surely melt away (as you nurse your drink in Malindi begrudging the haters you thought were friends), you will have destroyed the relationships you tried to call family and then what. Like I told someone a few years ago, the cars and the big houses and rental property will not nurse you when you are ill, will not be your companions when age slows you down and will definitely not bury you. So, I’m I talking to you?

View From Up Here

So I'm just working near the window that overlooks the yard. Coz I like looking out at the kids

playing as I think. The boys play together and boys being boys, the play is usually rough and one or both always end up crying. Now baby baby is a one year old who thinks he’s bigger than his 3 year old brother. So he bullies little man with no apologies or pretenses. Now, My little man doesn’t like fights so he usually just pushes baby baby away. Sometimes the push is hard enough to make baby baby fall and then he cries. Now this is where things get interesting especially if baby baby lets out less than 3 wails. He gets up and charges at his brother! Who doesn’t get this whole fighting thing so he just stares at this little guy with an expression that says ‘what the heck is he trying?’ By now baby baby has picked up a toy, or a stick or even a stone, yes, I kid you not, a stone! And is now charging waving his weapon and smashing it into a shocked little man. At this point the dog is wise enough to step away and just watch. Now, Little man either hits back and goes tells on his brother to the help, leaving baby baby wailing like the world is crashing down on him for no good reason, or Little man himself starts bawling as he runs off to tell on his brother, who chases his big brother until my help shows up at the scene. Then baby baby drops the said weapon and quickly engages himself in something else for all I can tell trying to look like he knows nothing of what little man is talking about. This happens twice every hour. At first I used to be so worried at every fall, at every shove, at every wail… Now I’ve learned when to stay away and let nature take its course. Now I move only when I see a real possibility of blood or a huge swelling. I also try to remember how it was at home when we were young with the siblings. We eventually grew up, dents, bandages and all. Anyhoo, I do enjoy watching them play, it gives me insight into who they are when mum is not perceived to be around.

Today as I write this, Little man has learnt from his brother. He pushed baby baby down from where they both were and he quickly ran across the yard so that my help found him supposedly too busy and too far from the crying baby…

Ambition much?

Once upon a time, not very long ago, someone told me that his dream is to raise hackers so that by age x, they can navigate any web scenario. I heard him and chuckled, thinking that it might be ambitious, maybe because my own vision was raising children who can play their instruments into college scholarships, this someone with the hacker dreams gave me the eye. Trust me, his eye is THE eye, it can lear at you while striking fear into your bones. Just the eye. One eye. Jicho.

Anyhoo, these ambitious parents seem to have gotten children who are ready to give both ambitions a

run and a half. I’m excited to say my baby’s seem to be getting the point and the joy of making music! Little man recently discovered that he can use his keyboard to make sounds rather than just dancing to the programmed music (we dance alot in this home, all we need now are disco lights to complete the vibe). Baby baby also discovered that drumming is fun, he takes his drums and bang bangs away to his brothers violent chords. They are already getting the band swag! Joy!

Theeeeeen little man has not only figured out how to subscribe to his favorite you-tube channels(I only see notifications of what’s been done in my email), he can make skype calls all by himselof. And while he’s navigating the cursor across the screen, one finger is held up at mummy saying ‘one minute mummy, a finish… one minute,’ children learn from watching us and listening to us… what can I say? Meanwhile his baby brother is having fun on his daddy’s phone sliding the screen and tapping icons as he maps the effect. 

There’s a real possibility that these guys might fulfil both their parents dreams and exceed them. Watching these little people grow is really a joy that nothing else can compare to.

Have a lovely weekend fam.

Instinct: part 2

So my journey to getting little man back to himself continues. Oh the path the Lord has laid out for us! Part 1 is here by the way.

Now we were sent from casualty to a consultant surgeon. So this guy looks at little man and right there asks me the question I’ve been asking all doctors who have looked at little man and I tell him as much. He says something that fit into the puzzle so perfectly. Basically he was reluctant to do this surgery because another problem had not been addressed properly therefore even if he did the surgery the issue that brought us to his office would recur. I almost passed out in joy but I was having such horrid cramps I ran to the loo instead. This guy turned out to be a close relative to one of our close friends (Gosh this our God has a sense of humor in his purpose!) He suggested we go see another doctor about the unresolved issue then call him when that’s sorted. Gosh I respected and fell in love with this guy right there, He has me as a loyal client now. I think I have found a doc worth me and my children’s time and money.

Now we had to find a doctor I could trust with this issue which clearly the guys who did the first surgery either did not see or kept quiet about it on purpose. I’m inclined towards the latter because even hubby knows how I questioned that unusualness in little man. So another doc was necessary but who? How? And how would I know I could trust him?

After sitting down with little man’s grandparents and taking in their insight, we decided to finally call a certain doctor who got their deep respect in the late 80’s. We found him and guess what, he didn’t even get off his seat when he looked at little man (who had decided he is not getting off or letting go of the push car… so he was examined on the push car). He just said, ‘Oh I can see how swollen he is, how soon can you arrange for us to get those things out?’ That’s less than a minute into the consultation. He then says he can ask for an x-ray but that’s more for my benefit than his. Then he went on and explained why an X-ray or CT scan (which we had been sent for then no one accepted to do it because unknown to me then, A CT scan has 9 times more radiation than a chest X-ray, so can you begin to see why I don’t trust these guys in white coats?) was not necessary.

So when we start talking about the necessary action, within minutes he calls the first pediatric surgeon and everything is set. I later find out that these 2 have been walking together for a loooooong time. Note, the first pediatric surgeon did not lead us to the second, my parents did. So really humour and purpose, only one way can they go so well hand in hand. Right there I decided this is the team I am comfortable entrusting my little man to. Now to work the complex issue of insurance verses cash between now and the time little man gets his issues sorted one and for all we hope.

Instinct is a big deal, you don’t have to be a doctor or teacher or any professional to know something is not right with your child. If you are unsettled about it, don’t stop looking, harassing, asking… all that. Just don’t stop until your stomach feels settled about it.

If you haven't read part 1, read it here.

Instinct: part 1

Instinct is a big deal. Value of instinct for a mother cannot be emphasized enough! Infact, the issue of over emphasis doesn’t exist. See, I feel like I have been going round in circles with little man and his constant coughs and alleged colds. We have been in doctors clinics and hospitals so much without getting any real answer or solutions that I started avoiding hospitals and doctors all together. I knew they would give me some bull about what’s going on which was not the truth, but if put to task about what I thought the problem was… I wouldn’t know. So I just started avoiding doctors and hospitals unless it started looking like a do or die. Which it did.

One night little man was just feisty and very irritable. He talks but not so clearly yet. I would ask him if he’s hurting and he would just fold into himself and shrug his shoulders. Very unlike him, he will shout ‘mummy hurting!’ at the slightest hint of discomfort. I thought about taking him to our nearest hospital but shoved that thought away at the thought of hearing the same nonsense. A few hour later I put him to bed and heard him fall asleep. Then the screams started! Oh the boy was in A LOT of pain. So much pain that he refused to cuddle into mummy and nurse (yes I still do every so often). He couldn’t sit, or lie down or stand, t some point he was running in tight circles flaying his hands about in pain. Only God knows how helpless I felt, it was all I could do not to cry with him. His poor brother also started crying inconsolably, possibly because he was scared. Oh thank God for a clear

Any parent has felt like this big cat when it
comes to their child at one point or another

headed daddy, he came in, took in the situation and we went to the hospital we go to when we must – because worst case scenario is that if we smell nonsense we can call in people we know won’t stand by and watch us being lied to (when I don’t trust the hospitals around… I have a grading system that guides my decision on when to take baby where for what, because most of these places are strong in one thing, or two so… yeah, I really do not trust 95% of the doctors anywhere! The 5% is reserved to those who are our friends from before they were doctors to the one in 100 who don’t have time or patience for bull and they are usually closer to retirement than the others).

So we find this really cool and direct young doc who says it like it is, he basically tells us little man’s issue is easily sorted with a simple surgery. But without this surgery the problem will just get worse and cause even more serious problems. Of course a girl has done her reading and since she is still interested in bio sciences, her reading and the doctors’ prognosis made sense. So the guy pushes us to a pediatric surgeon. At this point let me just share that this doc at the pediatric casualty turned out to be related to a friend I had in primary school, somewhere in the midst of tea plantations. So he refers us to a pediatric surgeon.

As a principle I don’t do long blog posts so here is part 2.

Whats not happening?

I’ve been having very interesting conversations with women, mothers, wives, from very different backgrounds in the last 72 hours and I cannot help but feel theres an ugly vein throbbing under all the joys of parenting. This throbbing vein is felt with the men in these womens lives, in our lives, who seem to be doing the dumbest things! Things that make very little sense. Things that make you believe that indeed evil is real!

Conversation 1.

This lady is sitting outside at an open field in my neighbourhood and her face is just misery. It spells misery from the creases on her forehead to the inward downturn of her lips set ablaze by fiery eyes that are not quite seeing whats ahead but seem to be looking for something to torch internally. So I ask her if she’s okay. In polite-nese she says she’s fine. I tell her she looks like she’s just been damned to hell with no hope for redemption. She says she feels like it. Apparently her husband has sent their children to his village saying that he cannot afford to keep them in Nairobi and its cheaper if his mother takes care of them. Apparently this man has been making bad business decisions f or the last two years which  has seen them lose their little land, close down a shop they had and now their home is mortgaged to the bank. This lady feels like he is purposely sabotaging their lives despite advise towards saner ways of making money. So she sits at the open field too afraid that if she goes home she might kill him in his sleep.

Conversation 2

Theres a man I know whose children would prefer not to speak to or even engage with. Not for lack of love but rather for self protection. One of the children recently told me that she would rather send money to his account rather than visit him or talk to him because each conversation ends with her doubting her selfworth after she has been reminded that girls like her don’t amount to much in this world. As much as she says she is lonely and would like to meet a good man, she’s too afraid of being continuously reminded of her miserable place in society so she’d rather learn to embrace her singlehood rather than take a risk with a man who might turn out like her father. To her men are just good for making babies while having fun at it.

Conversation 3

Theres a man I know who seems to have gotten married without knowing why, and cozy’s up to the title daddy while wondering why the baby just can’t shut up and give him peace… He somehow expects a child barely one year old to understand him man-to-man.

I know there are many wonderful men being the best they can be for their families but there re these poor souls who seem not to know that they literally are the bastions of their home and of their families. Is there a way to rescue these men from themselves, or at the very least from women who want to give their all to support the men they believe in and for those poor children who are being wounded by the mans confusion? 

Its easy to blame alcohol, drugs, peer pressure and all that but I think the bottom line is a man needs to understand his place in society, be proud of it and deliver to his family. Otherwise these same men are the guys who will be shouting how women are bullying them out of jobs and out of the home. If you are a man and you are reading this, how now can you help your fellow men rise to their position in society?

They are grown up! Waaah!!

I enjoy listening to that t-thump t-thump t-thump of my 3 year olds feet as they run along my tiny corridor after his shower. I don’t know why he loves staying naked after his shower. This t-thump t-thump t-thump is accompanied by very mini masculine Bhars, aergh, and gaarghs from his little brother who likes his bath as fast as possible so that he can waddle after his brother.

These are the sounds that warm me up after a day of tough self-evaluation, ego grinding phone calls, and other stuff that keep me busy as I try re-organize my life for a better tomorrow. They are happy noises, the sweetest most heartwarming noises any human being can hope to bear witness to.

As they make these sweet noises of life, I can help but be in awe of how far they have both come from, I saw little man when he was a 6 week dot in my belly, the ears haven’t changed much beyond the fact that they are bigger now. I saw baby baby playing hide and seek with the ultra sound, and just a year ago he was so tiny we could hold him in one hand. Last night his daddy held him up over his head and noticed that he doesn’t ‘plank’ naturally anymore. His legs now hang low, he’s too long to stay plank straight when held up like that.

They are growing. Fast and I miss the days when little man had just discovered his legs are part of him and he couldn’t stop playing with his legs. I already miss the times when I could easily carry baby baby in a front carry and go about my business. He is too heavy for that now so back-carry it is. Now they play with each other, roughing and loving it and mummy already feels like an outsider when they are in their zone. Mummy isn’t carrying anyone or asking anyone to treat ‘baby gently’. They are growing and my role is to feed them, and change diapers, and play referee. No longer showing them that they have hands, or that the sun is up and the moon is gone. Little man is already telling baby baby what he learns every day so the teaching cap is on to him… somewhat.

Gosh, look at that, if this is how I’m feeling now, how will I feel when they get older? When they are going off to high-school or college!? I don’t want to know. What I do know is that we need to afford to give them the best in life so that they can go off and do great things as mummy sobs over their baby socks. On that note, a mummy needs to get back into her job hunting manenos. (I know, a different tone from my last post but... hey, life.)

BACK BREAKING CLINGY LOVE

This is a whine post! As I write it, I have a double shot of baileys (didn’t have wine to whine with).

Letting go of the baby is hard! Even through a bad back, a flare up of asthma and my own personal goals I can’t stay away from my little baby baby too long. My gosh, although I nudge my friends to be less clingy with their little ones, I haven’t un-clung myself to baby baby! He is a heavy 10 month-er and his mummy’s back is starting to protest at his weight! This post is primarily about that. BACK-PAIN. All I did before today’s bout of close to crippling pain was walk to the gate while carrying him and back into the house… barely 20 steps with three outdoor stairs, a girl cannot sit up straight or bend without wincing… let alone stand straight.

I do not want to see a chiropractor again and physiotherapy is not an option. My husband thinks my aches and pains are because I got fat. So his solution is losing weight. But see I had an Afro dance session today that wouldn’t have happened for this bloody pain. I gave up training with him because my back couldn’t handle the strain (also his workouts are brutal! Effective, but quite brutal), thus my catch 22. To work out means more pain and possibly injure an already weak back. I do not like pain neither do I want anything more to take me to a doctor. This pain makes me useless to me. Now if I am useless to me, who can I be useful to? There are lots of resources online about how to strengthen ones back especially post pregnancy but I want tried and tested ways from Kenyan or African women, because I am tired of trial and error.

I want to play with my babies and dance my way back to form but yahwah! Mugo-ongo! Talk to me if you have an idea that will not cost me money I don’t have ;). (Brokenness is also the price I pay for being unable to un-cling myself from baby baby too long – Clingy motherly motherhood, hoyeee!)

On the bright side, moving baby baby to share a room with his brother took one night of needy tortured wails, 2 or so nights of wailing protests against his new room and then relative peace and sleeping through the night! So dear moms, my tried and tested method of sleep training is cry-it-out. Steel your nerves for one week and you will have your nights back.

Currently engaged, Can we talk next year?

I’ve just gotten off the phone with a close relative and they have been persuading me for the umpteenth time to get a job. A good job in a reputable organization that will make me look progressive on my CV.

When I was pregnant with my first child life was interesting. The company I was working for were downsizing so me and a couple of other pregnant young girls were shown the door… Which was fine then for me because in my naivety, I had started getting bored. I wanted to try something new, just the timing was off. For many other women however the reality is that once they get pregnant the workplace becomes that place you must tread carefully because your pregnancy makes you vulnerable and it’s easy to get the sack. This is because employers don’t want an employee who is clearly trying to compile all their leave days and merge it with the mandatory 3 months maternity leave, then push every sick leave possible to be away from the workplace with a full salary and not delivering on the job. Then when they have to hire a temp while still paying full salary.

Getting another job while pregnant proved futile so I accepted my fate. In time I got guts again and was  back in the workforce then baby 2 came in coinciding with some strange drama I still don’t fully understand but led to a mutual parting of ways between my then employer and I. Again looking for employment while pregnant… erm, it’s a nasty experience that can ruin any good persons self esteem. From the dubious looks to the snide comments (coming in for the maternity package eh?). Its not fun so I lay that to rest until baby 2 started solids. This time I haven’t been in a hurry to blindly get into the workforce again because the one thing I cannot bear is to be an absent parent, my stomach has refused, so I find myself politely declining really fun and exciting offers because its demands on my time are heavier than I am ready to bear.

This is the point people say ‘toughen up! This is life!’, or ‘women did not fight so hard to be accepted in the workplace to have you changing diapers in the prime of your life’ or ‘nobody will respect you if you don’t hold your own,’ to ‘nothing comes for free… I could go on. I feel like I’ve heard it all.

Do I want to work, make some money and build my career? YES! Do I want to miss the 7 year window I have to instill character and good values to those who will carry my legacy into a future beyond my current conception? YES! Can I do both? So far no. because it means sitting in traffic for at least 4 hours a day to give 8 hours of value time. This practically means leaving the house by 6 am to get to the office by 8 am work then leave work at 5pm to get home past 7 pm, the kids sleep latest 8:30 pm. In your exhausted and confused state what do you have to offer your child but a paycheck? What will your child do with your paycheck? Go to the best schools, wear the best clothes, have the best of everything except you.

There’s a story about a child who worked hard washing dishes, cutting grass for neighbors’ and saved up every penny till he had like say 5,000/-. He went to his daddy with that money in hand and asked ‘daddy, can I have an hour with you? I have enough money for an hour of your time.’

And thus my painful, choice.

Have a good day and if you can make your work place friendlier for mothers, please do, the choice they’ve made is just as painful.

#UPDATE:
the full anecdote is here should you be interested. (Thanks @rogerinc)

Carry the baby already!

‘Mimi siwezi beba mtoto kwa mgongo…’

Nashika mtoto, akilala ndo nitafanya…’

What madness is this? I’ve heard it so many times over the last 3 months that I really had to open my eyes and look at the common practice around going about your business in the house with a baby. At first I thought it was only lazy house-helps who use that excuse to sit and watch telly all day. Then I noticed that many young mothers do not strap their baby’s to their backs.

Early this year I had a rough day with my then house-help as I tried to make ‘working-at-home’ work. Since I could not do any serious work with the baby I wanted her to take baby and work as it I was away from work. so at 7:30 am she says, give me an hour, I’ll be ready for baby, so I give her the hour… cutting a long story short, at 11 am she finally finished the laundry and wanted to start cleaning the sitting room and thus was not ready for baby. I strapped baby to my back and cleaned the sitting room, cleaned the kitchen, made lunch, picked and sorted the dry laundry and then asked her what other work does she have that she cannot do with baby so that I can get on with my work. She was a mother of 2 and this was her first time in Nairobi. You can see why she had to go.

My current house-help says she finds it hard to work while carrying baby because she’s afraid baby will fall off as she carries on with her duties. But the reason she is still with me is that she has found a way of doing her chores while actively engaging baby so that baby is more company than a hindrance.

As I grew up, I was carried on the back as mum and the help went about their business, I saw my sister carried the same way and my brother. Laundry was done, shopping was done, cooking was done, hell even gardening and construction supervision. That is one of the most amazing and quintessential quality of African motherhood! My grandma told me, in their day they dug a hole in a nice spot in the shamba, lined it with hides and created a hedge/fence with dry sticks to keep away wild animals and when baby was sleepy or the work to be done was not friendly to baby carrying, baby would be put into this hole in the ground to sleep and play.

You can't deny how elemental this is!

Today baby carrying is fancy and even fashionable… I don’t get it. I just don’t get it. I see one too many young mothers frustrated that they can’t do anything with baby.

So while you try and ponder the weight of my sentiments just know  that bougie Tindi here is proud to say she once helped her mama cook for guests and arrange for the visit all with little baby strapped to her, suckling at his pleasure. Carrying baby while you work is inbuilt and natural. Try it.

This is a toto sling, I love it! loook at more here

Oh yeah, thats not me! I picked that off a sight that sells slings coz I dont know how to tie the traditional one. and also to show you there are other ways of carrying baby if you are like me and can't hack the lesso. So check out Toto Wraps. (Sijalipwa, ni ukweli tu)

Juggle for who?

I am a young mother, with 2 little children whom I love dearly. I’ve been a stay at home mum (of sorts) since the first one was born. The reason for this is pretty simple, the career I had started in media not friendly for my motherly ambitions. I had to make a choice between building a public media brand and making some money of my own and being an available and involved mother. I made the latter choice much to the disapproval of a good number of people around me.

See the script says that a successful woman is one who has a good job, has solid professional standing and can afford not only to take care of herself but to be in a position to take care of her family should her partner be incapacitated. Yet all through my fairly short adulthood, I see living breathing evidence of the huge role an available and involved parent plays in moulding solid human beings. Let’s face it, under the surface of this new and exciting world where more women are occupying the workspace in more definite ways, where the conversation in the board room is preparing for an all female corporatescape, there are children  in fncy suits, big cars living big dreams who always wonder whats missing in their lives. I have seen women in their 40’s at the top of their careers start slowly unraveling at the fact that they have everything but their own child, or they have everything but a solid life companion. I listen to people in their 60’s panic at the idea of retirement because, ‘what else is there? The children are grown and gone, I don’t know the person I sleep next to.’ I’ve also heard some one in their 70’s wonder out loud who they are leaving their lifes work to because he does not know the people he apparently raised and trusts no one around him to carry on what he built. The point? Family is legacy. Broken families create broken people who look greata on the inside but are quite damaged on the inside. How can we hope for a better tomorrow if the drtivers of tomorrow are more comfortable spending their afterwork hours getting drunk or laid indiscriminately just so that they can have a crazy story to share with the peers the next day?

I want to be around my sons until they are about 5 years old. I want to ground them in a strong value and belief system. I want to personally be the one to note their milestones, cheer when they score and discipline when they err. I want to be the one who teaches them to say please and thank you. Nairobi work life has no space for mum. Being in traffic for 6 hours (3 to and 3 from) to be a present and valuable employee for at least 6 hours means the average Nairobi woman with homely aspirations has 12 hours to take care of domestic affairs, catch up with the kids, organize meals be a wife, keep her friends and family close and somewhere in between take care of herself and get a good nights rest.

Is it no wonder then that the number of children being abused sexually and otherwise by domestic abuse is rising? Is it a wonder then than cases of rickets and other childhood conditions tht had faded away are making a strong comeback? Is it a wonder then that we have children committing sucide after scoring less than they expected of themselves in exams?

As the public conversation moves to the boychild… I want to scout the next conversation we will be having 10 years from today. Who is spending time, quality time raising our children. Is the system good enough to nurture human beings who can be trusted to ensure the ‘better tomorrow?’

Baby in my hand, hustle on my mind...

Meanwhile, I’ll go back to cracking how me and my non-existent business savvy self can remain relevant in my field, making enough money to take care of me and help the hubz ease some pressure but most importantly be an available and present mum for two young men whom I know will be game changers in their prime.

Culture Shock

So I am Kenyan married to a Kenyan… then I am Kamba ish married to a Kamba who’s more Kamba than me but less Kamba than me still. You’d think we wouldn’t have cultural shocks so often. I feel like I have a new cultural shock to deal with every other week! From small things to how I prefer to spend my before bed hours with the kids… that shock their daddy to big things like the ‘respectful’ distance around our family that I am told I should be thankful for but it makes me feel lonely and on the border of taking it as proof of high dislike, which gets complicated. See, in my mother’s house, we were physically, emotionally, mentally, socially and any other ‘-ally’ loved in very present, in-your-face, tangible way. There was never any space for doubt. From my mother and my aunties and their friends… I got married to a place where I think people like their space and there is pride in how good they are because of the space they give each other. I hate it. I try to get it, but I don’t really get it. The closest ‘getting it’ I get is that this is just what they know and that possibly my very present, tangible everyday attempts at building something might be seen as needy and nosey. Thank God for my University’s insistence on cultural studies for all undergrads! Who knew a day would come when Mrs Ng’ang’as lectures would ring so clearly in my ears.

Despite the ability to understand the dynamics at play. I do feel very lonely at times where what I know and expect is a very warm and bustl-ey presence. My littlest, whom we will call Ovals (look for my mother and ask her where that came from, I don’t know), was born when my mummy and the main mother-hen in my life. I was an emotional wreck alone, in an atmosphere where I got courteous love and I had no choice but to deal with it. Mummy was too far away to run to.

Now my mummy, half-way around the world picked up on this feeling and was huffing and puffing her indignation at her baby girl being treated less than she was used to. (In the time she was away a new respect for maternal intuition grew, woman read me like a book through less than 2 minutes on the phone!) Oh she was mad. See my mama in law is a rule stickler so she takes the in law part seriously and graciously (it would be nice to drop the in-law part but to each their own in love). My mother, where a relationship is concerned… rules are as foreign as pea-soup at the bottom of the sea on a sharks banqueting table. Can you see the potential for all out war?

Making love... 

So again I thank Daystar for forcing us all to go through INS because without that basic appreciation and understanding of different cultures from micro to macro levels. I think I’d be one of the women on facebook forever whining about horrible in-laws. Thanks to INS though, I’ve been able to step back and appreciate the differences. I can’t say I’ve figured out a way to graciously maneuver through them beyond keeping away when my anger and hurt blinds my rationality (there’s only one person who can handle THAT storm) to the point that my tongue bypasses the brain, but I just thank God for a patient husband who’s teaching me how to swim these strange waters.

Before I finish, I just have to say. I think this is why marriage is such a big deal to God. God wants us to learn to forever get over ourselves, as individuals, as families, as communities, as populations… to just get over ourselves and learn to constantly appreciate the differences that define us. When god finished with his work of creation he said, ‘It is good.’ We need to get to that level where we see Gods creation in totality, enough to say it is good.

Myths of womanhood

I’ve been falling apart over the last few weeks. Recently, at a place where I should have been engaged and serious, I started feeling my body parts floating away. I had to spend that whole meeting focusing on someone’s nose so that I can ‘force myself together long enough to get home. Why was I falling apart?

I think I tried to be superwoman. Fun wife, supportive daughter, sister, and friend; a fully hands on mum and house management. Well I think I managed it for a while, but I started falling apart. It started by losing sleep. Getting so tired that the body refuses to sleep, or forgets how to sleep. Then zoning out right left and center… then getting uber forgetful. In one day, I forgot to carry fare, was zoned out all through the days meetings, lost my precious cables (USB, Earphones, Computer charger), lost all the money I had withdrawn from MPESA, then to cap it off, took the wrong matatu home with barely enough fare to find the right matatu home.

Super woman is a myth. We love portraying ourselves in public spaces as women who have everything together. Then we pressure other women around us to be as together as we work so hard to portray. When one woman asks for help from another, its usually leads to some patronizing conversation about organization. IT’S A LIE! ALL OF IT. There is no way one woman, can cook, feed the little ones, make sure the husbands clothes are good enough for work, listen to or chat with the husband, keep the house clean or get a disorganized house-help to get the house clean attempt to make an extra buck to get home in time to pick little one from school, feed him while engaging baby for all the hours gone, make dinner, make sure the kids are clean and fed and still have energy to be a good wife. Yes, so some-how I managed to live in that whirlwind for about 3 months, but it all fell apart royally in the last few weeks. Now lazy help is gone, I unapologetically lock both kids out to give me space to be productive. I am also working on delegating all household duties apart from making dinner to an organized and driven house manager.

Maybe I can try find pieces of myself that floated away and put them back in place.

Dog Food and No Househelp

My son, he finally ate dog food today. I say finally because if I was totally honest with myself, it was only a matter of time before he discovered that the dog food is actually yummy in an off way. I know from experience. 

But how did Little Man aka The Rioter get to eating dog food in the first place? 

My house-help decided she must go today. She called me after I had just started my work in the office, 2 highways and a major road away, she had to leave by 1 pm today. Now this my current help has been the most annoying help I've had. She says she can't manage the housework because of the baby. This baby is 7 months old, sits up on his own and is comfortable with being carried on the back. Anyhoo, so she decides she has to go on leave today! So I say fine, she can go, after the baby sitter comes. Sometimes she has a lot of work to, so for the days where I know it really is a lot of work a sitter comes in for the baby and all things baby related. The sitter then decided to come in at 10 am and God knows what happened she too decided she cannot be left alone with the baby! So its just past 10 am and I’m getting calls from these two women to come take the baby they need to go.

A girl (me) has been a hands on mom and has been working sporadically from home for some time now. There are times I had no help with a baby barely 3 months old. I cleaned, washed and fed people. So when some-one comes and tells me that a 7 month-er is too much work, that floors cannot be cleaned and my living room dusted (she is not cooking, I cook in my house) or the laundry done… I do not understand her language.

So on the way back home from an aborted day at the office. I start calling agents I have used looking for a replacement. One agent says she has a girl ready to be interviewed. It’s on my way home so I go. The girl looks very shy, and looks like a hard worker. Then I ask her if she can manage a house with a 2 year old and a baby. She says she can manage the 2 year old but not the baby. So I ask her why, is she scared of handling a baby? Is it that she has never handled a child? Why is it hard to work with a baby? She says, the baby will take too much of her time and some babies don’t sleep enough to allow for housework.

Now when I was growing up I remember people used to tie baby on the back and work. What happened? Or is it that I am a country child and city people don’t tie babies on their back? The house-help who has ‘gone on leave’ refused to even try putting baby on her back! One I interviewed looked at me strangely for even suggesting it. What’s happening?

To cut a long story short, I am looking for a house-help who appreciates what work is. I think I’ve been hosting people in my house and they help with chores and get paid. No, I really need a worker.

Scar Tissue, Legacies and Sleep Crawling

This is for my mummy when I was a little girl, this is for my girlfriend whose struggle so mirror those of another woman 30 odd years ago in another Africa, Kenya, another town. This is for me on those nights I completely and absolutely hate my husband and the Saturday mornings when it’s all I can do to reign in my anger and not throw a stone or two at hubby dearest. This is for the deep hurt that women have carried because their men are just men.

I woke up extremely late and extremely tired. I had no energy to be apologetic or make the calls I needed to make to realign my day. Baby baby AKA Ovals is very active in his sleep in ways that are less than safe. He wants to crawl so bad that he actually crawls in his sleep! He crawls off the moses basket that’s his sleep space next to my side of the bed. Twice I dared to sleep and found the guy a second away from a face first drop to the floor. So yeah I haven’t slept at night in a while. We need to move him to a cot I know… but but but… many buts. I digress though. So I looked at this smiling sleeping lump of cuteness and I wondered how many hearts he will break. How many he will break intentionally, how many he will break that he never knew he had, how many he will break out of his manly foolishness… that he will break hearts among other things like glasses and doors is a given. He will as surely break a woman as he will break a glass. This is because breaking is what men do. Breaking their women, breaking their womens spirits, break the work of their womens hands… just breaking. But must men break?

I look at this little lump of lovely mooshness that is my baby boy and I realize that as his mother I have a responsibility to him and to his father to do my best and try limit the number of animate things he might break. I need to have the wisdom to know when to speak and when to feign ignorance to give this my boy boy the space he needs to grow and the knowledge that his parents have his back. I need to remind his daddy how important he is as a role model to his boys. In today’s world, men get lost in the rat race because that’s how the bills get paid, that’s how the kids go to school, that’s how he makes his name in the world. Many men forget that their legacy rests with these young ones that wait for him to come home and listen to their escapades for the day.

There are many broken children who are now becoming parents. Broken as their homes broke as they were growing up, broken as morals and values in the home were swept under the carpet to ensure they get premium education. We have broken children in designer suits driving shiny big cars living in big houses in the leafy burbs… who are now parents. They hide in the clubs ‘networking’. They hide their children in playschool with the nanny at 10 months and spend time in the spa ‘centering’. Behind these plausible lifestyle stories are kids, broken… trying not to break their progeny like they were broken.

This picture reminds me of my Rioter when he was a baby... my guns were on fire

My mother, my friend, me. We were broken for the scar tissue to toughen us up to be the parents we need to be to unbreak the world that was broken in our childhood. We hold the memory of brokenness to create a legacy of strength. Take heart when you want to kill him. Remember you are the healer and not the breaker. Make the choice that will be best for you and your legacy and if its worth it… his legacy too. Never forget however that you, woman, broken as you are, you are the only one who can heal your world.

When my Rioter (Little Man) and Ovals (baby baby) grow up to read this. I want them to know that their choices are the difference between leaving a legacy and leaving broken fragments of a dream.

Infectious Brotherhoods

Wow! It’s been a while since my last post. It’s been a wild set of weeks. First the babies got sick with colds that morphed into chest infections, then they got infected with the coxsackie virus (hand foot and mouth disease) for which they were misdiagnosed at first and thanks to lovely fellow mums and persistence the doctor admitted to having being flummoxed by the symptoms (thank God I did not give the steroid treatments). Then my mummy came home from a double knee surgery and all in the middle on that I am trying to work on a very yummy project.

this is a familiar scene... on good days

All through the storms of the last few weeks one thing has come out clear. Brotherhood is a very tight and intimate relationship that starts very early. Lately, little man wants to share all his food with his baby brother. He bites into a grape and offers the other half to his 4 month old brother. He gnaws one end of a bone and offers the other to his little brother. Baby baby is now able to reach out and grab so I have to be uber alert incase he grabs onto the stuff his brother is offering and puts it in his mouth like he did with his brothers Monkey aka ‘ankii’. Clearly the sharing is more than just food and toys… its infections too, I have learnt that whatever infection little man has, I should be ready to handle baby baby as well. Yes I can do the whole pediatrician trip and process with my eyes closed. Even my taxi guy is known to the parking attendants, they thought the kids were his.

That takes me to another thing, what happened to doctors who can give you advice over the phone? Any little thing is ‘bring the child in’ then they force issues on at least 1 lab procedure, usually blood, then tell you ‘oh it’s just a common cold, we will treat it symptomatically and …. ‘by then I’ve zoned out in anger. Kwani a lab test is needed to diagnose a cold? So I got into a cab, sat in traffic with 2 sick kids for at least 2 hours, for them to be pricked for blood, and then told its just a cold!? I think I am shopping for a new pediatrician coz my current seems more interested in tormenting my kids for the pay than ensuring their health and comfort.

Of Stretched Babies

When little man was born, my grandmother was at home and spent the first few months with little man and I. There were a lot of little nuggets and jewels of advice and information dropped here and there but one story stands out for me until today.

One day I left little man with her for a few minutes and when I came back she had quite the long face. I asked her ‘Mwaitu (a respectful term for mother in Kamba) why the long face?’

She responded in Kamba (I don’t remember the exact words in Kamba) ‘my baby doesn’t have good clothes for growing!’

I dress my babies in growers, you know the overalls that are like body stockings? They cover from the neck down to the foot with a zip or those clip-ish buttons all the way down. Now grandma’s problem was that the feet were enclosed and therefore they had no space to grow. A valid problem. I tried to tell her that there are bigger outfits that the baby will fit into when he outgrows what he was currently wearing. She just got angrier and threatened to cut off the bootee part of the grower. She was really concerned. She elaborated that I was making her child uncomfortable when growing itself is such painful and hard business.

She said ‘you know there are special times when God comes and stretches the baby, it's a painful affair so God doesn’t do it all the time.’

I laughed it off.

9 months later, I have a slightly feverish boy, cranky and no other signs of sickness. His blood work comes out clean. His pediatrician tells me, ‘it must be growing pains that come with growth spurts.’

Apparently at 2 weeks, 3 months, 6, months, 9 months, 12 months, 18 months, 24 months… and so on children literally grow taller overnight and this can be painful. (Growth Spurts)

Shock on me!

My grandmother told me when little man was 3 months old and I laughed it off.