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.