Weekend Mornings

Now that I'm back at work, as I have mentioned, I am totally exhausted. Even if I sleep 7 hours each night, which is similar to the amount of sleep I got before Sam was born, I am just totally exhausted. On my first few weekends back at work, I found myself getting quite resentful on weekend mornings when I woke up with the baby (which makes sense, since I'm the one who fed her) and Matt (to no fault of his own - I would do the same thing) would sleep. After a few weeks, I decided to try to figure out a solution.

Luckily we live in a country that has a two day weekend - for most people. And there are two of us. Hm...perfect match for splitting the mornings. So, for the last month or so, we have each taken one weekend morning, and it has changed my life. On Matt's morning, he brings her in to eat, and then he sweeps her off to Daddy-land where everything is fun and wonderful. And I stick a pillow over my head so I don't hear the excited voices of Daddy-land, and I sleep. This situation has completely changed my life.

In other news, Sam has developed a new language with lots of new sounds. It's as if she's telling a story - with different tones and sounds - all the time. It's quite cute. She's still totally not interested in eating solids, though yesterday was the first time we have tried in two weeks, and it was a wee bit more successful. This is going to be a slow ride. She watches me eat food like a tennis game. She wants to get her hands on everything on my plate. But the doc said we probably shouldn't give her spicy Indian food until at least ten months. Sorry Sam.

Warning - if you're not into talking about breastfeeding, stop reading.
We also took a big step yesterday and got our first tin of formula. I had planned to go without it for 12 months, but when I made that decision I really didn't know what I was talking about. I had never done this before - it was just from books. Now I know (and everyone else who has a baby knows too) that books aren't exactly always reality, but they give you some interesting guidelines.

It sort of seems like my entire life is pumping (five times a day for 20 minutes each time, plus the cleaning, etc.). At work I don't feel comfortable leaving the office for lunch since I leave three times to pump. At night I still have an hour before I can go to sleep once I decide I need to go to sleep. In the morning I almost wish that Sam doesn't wake up before I go to work, because then I have to feed her and pump which adds another 20 minutes before I can leave for work, and I already wake up at 6:30 (I don't think I can stomach earlier) just to get to work by 8:30 or 8:45. In addition, without providing too much detail - though I'm sorry that probably many of you already think that I provided too much detail - I'm not the most productive pumper, so I'm constantly stressed that I don't have enough for tomorrow, and each day I use about 8oz from the freezer, so I spend weekends and days that I work from home trying to stock up as much as I can. I think and worry about this limited supply all the time, and I'm just not sure it's all worth it. It's been 6.5 months, and I think that's fantastic enough. I am not going cold turkey at all, but I think we will start supplementing just to take some of the pressure off, and I may cut out one pumping session and we'll take it from there.

Get a Little Bit Closer...

The highlight of our day was in the evening. After Sam's bath, we want to make sure all of her fat crevices are dry to prevent diaper rash. Matt was blowing, and I was singing. Matt got a little too close, and WHOOSH! Pee all over the face!

Lots of friends have told us about getting pooped on and peed on, but that hadn't yet happened to us. Not in the bath, not on the way to the bath, not during diaper changing...just a few easy pees on the changing table. This was different. Whoa.

In other news Bubbie and Zaydie just left. We had an eventful ten day visit with lots of playing with Samara, lots of walks and a few other exciting journeys around Singapore. Sam loved spending time with them - reading books, singing songs and just generally cuddling.

Bubbie and Zaydie brought with them a jumperoo, which is Sam's new favourite thing to play with. She jumps and dances and spins all of the spinny things. Sam LOVES that jumperoo.

We had a great weekend with Fran and Tom - fabu Thai food at our favourite Thai place (Yhingthai on Purvis St), botanic gardens strolling and brunch at Halia, resting, veggie moussaka dinner, chocolate buffet at the top of the integrated resort (more in another blog post), tekka market...was fun and relaxing both. Click here for lots of photos (new ones at the bottom. I'll start a new album next upload).

In yet other news, our family happens to be the cover story of the Detroit Jewish News this week. Pretty exciting. It's all about how young people are leaving Detroit - but it's from the perspective of their parents. My mom said some nice quality things, and the photos are beautiful! I didn't realise that I should have taken a shower and put on real clothes for the occasion. I'm in my pajamas.

Shopping on a Small Island

Yesterday we needed to get Philadelphia cream cheese (when I say needed - I mean it. Who eats bagels without cream cheese?). Mustafa's usually has it. They had none. Then we went to NTUC across the street. They didn't have it either. It was a Philadelphia cream cheese shortage in Singapore!

We had the same thing with detergent that we were using to wash Sam's clothes. We had bought Dreft at some ex-patty grocery story, and then it was nowhere to be found in all similar shops in Singapore.

A friend told me that when Sam starts eating Cheerios, we should always have a stock at our house. Apparently kids get pretty attached, and there are times where Singapore runs out of Cheerios. The whole country.

Really - it feels like a big city with some suburbs, but when it comes down to it, the country that we call home can be driven across in a half hour. We're on an island country, and when there is no cream cheese, there is no cream cheese.

This reminds me of the time when all of Singapore's Passover supply of Matzah (I think 2006 or 2007 - right before we came) was on a boat that arrived late, just hours before the first seder. It was a near miss of a total disaster and lots of people not able to observe lots of mitzvot.

In other news, Sam has been testing out her new high chair. She explored gravity (check out my video on fb), and she ate avocado and sweet potato (which she still wasn't interested in). A highlight was when she sat down with her food, and rather than bringing the food to her, she put her face in the avocado. Interesting approach. I think she has watched the cat eat more than mommy and daddy...

We had a great day today that consisted of tekka market and a fun afternoon of Ari, Julia and Settlers (with a little yoga thrown in). We told the story of Purim, ate a big meal, and a Jew taught me yoga. Does that count?

America - Come on!

These two topics are way over published, and there's no need to do a literature review, but America, you are so behind. Matt and I would probably move back and be productive in your economy rather than this random country that we have called home for the last four years if you were in a different place with maternity leave and health care.

As part of my job last year, I was working on implementing paternity leave (or "new parent" leave for same sex couples) and adoption leave for all employees across all of my bank's countries. With this, I looked into what policies exist in all of our countries, and I also looked at maternity leave (which we hope to tackle soon, but at least we HAVE it in all of our markets...). Everyone knows that it's the best in Europe. In London you get six months paid and then another six months optional unpaid, in Germany they have to hold your job for THREE YEARS, etc. In Asia, it's touch and go - Obviously in China you only get one maternity leave (but you do have sterilisation leave - isn't that nice?), and in Pakistan and Malaysia you only get four maternity leaves (what happens for your fifth kid?). In Singapore, I got two months plus 8 weeks (ultimately about four months), 100% PAID maternity leave. Put that together with the super low tax rate here, and I'm banking by procreating here. During my childbearing life, what's my incentive to go back to a country where I might get 12 weeks unpaid? At 12 weeks I wasn't even physically recovered (granted my birth was ridiculous, but still!). It was only that last month where I was really able to enjoy maternity leave. My friend (an avid reader) is going back to work next week when her baby is SIX WEEKS OLD. That's just way way way too early (sorry - I know I didn't have such a strong reaction on the phone...). Granted she'll be fine, and the baby will be fine, but we should all have MONTHS to bond with our new babies as they develop and have their first experiences with the world. We should also not have to make a financial sacrifice. It's just so absurd and so behind.

Secondly, it is ridiculous that we are doing research to get extra health insurance so we can come to America this summer. Our work here gives us a certain amount (mine is up to S$80,000) to spend on our medical care, and if we get hurt (god forbid...) or sick in Singapore, we won't run through that too quickly. In America, that's like a day's work. If we get sick or in an accident when we're in America, we're screwed. I can't believe that it's so scary for us to go back to our HOME country.

I don't think I wrote about this, but my insurance (and Matt's) doesn't cover maternity expenses, so everything that we spent on appointments leading up to and the birth (and after...) was out of pocket. If we had been so blessed to have the natural birth we were hoping for, it would have been about USD2,500. Not a biggie. On the other hand, we ended up being there for five days in a private room, we had the labor tub (which we weren't able to use...), we had the epidural, the antibiotics, the vacuum, the emergency c-section at 11:30 at night, then the doctor had to come back around 2 or 3am - we had everything, and it all ended up costing about USD7,000. I don't exactly think this is a steal, but in the US this would have been SO MUCH MORE.

If the US would just have normal costing health care that was accessible to everyone and paid maternity leave, productive people like me and Matt might even come back!

In other news, Matt's parents have delayed their trip so they don't have to fly through Japan (oy - poor Japan), so they're arriving this Wednesday. Sam can't wait to play with them!

Today Matt and I went to IKEA, and I made peace with the place. The last few times we have gone Matt absolutely had to explore all options of everything before making any decisions (including when I was 9 months pregnant), and I was miserable - I hate shopping anyway, but IKEA is on a different level. It's SO big, and there are a million and one kids. This time was totally different. We made a list and agreed beforehand on exactly where we would look and what we would get. We spent an hour, we got THE high chair, a place for Sam's toys, plus they have a whole bunch of super great kids stuff - bowls and cups for kids plus really fun toys. We even got the Kitty a new mouse. She already batted it all around the house.

Sam tried sweet potatoes. She didn't really like it. She doesn't really like anything (food-wise). We're working on it...No hurry, but we'll keep trying. All of these photos are from today.

Working from Home

I haven't written too much about what I do, but I work in Diversity and Inclusion at Standard Chartered Bank. Our bank has about 80,000 employees, and we do 90% of our business in Asia, Africa and the Middle East (but really mostly Asia). My group works within the company, with customers and in the community. In the company, we focus on gender, nationality and disability (more on that later). With customers we look at accessibility of our products and services (i.e. for those with disabilities or women who can't get collateral for a loan in a place where the government requires it, etc), and in the community we mostly look at financial inclusion, particularly with women and girls. I have to say that it's a pretty cool job, doing really interesting work.

Why am I telling you this now? Well, one of our focuses in the Bank is looking at women. We have to start by understanding that women don't go into finance as much as men, so that will automatically skew our numbers. Generally in this field, women start strongish in the lower positions, and as the opportunity comes to move up, they drop out. In middle management there is mostly good representation, but as you get to senior management positions, it's hard to keep women around. Research says that a big challenge for women is balancing work with their family (duh). So, we look at what we can do to keep quality women in our bank. One of our solutions is flexible working, which we're working on right now. In our bank it's defined as working from home, flexible hours or part time.

While on maternity leave I was trying to think about what might make working and having Sam a bit easier, so I thought it might be a good idea to apply to work from home for a couple of days a week. I started doing this about two weeks ago, and it has vastly improved my quality of life. I personally believe that offering solutions like this WILL keep women in a company. Let me explain.

Before working from home (for about three weeks), my week was so hectic, I could barely keep up, and ALL I was doing was working (about 9.5 - 10 hours a day, which is slacking in my office) and "managing" Sam's care. I woke up at 6:30, ate, pumped, ran to work (usually leaving around 7:30 or so without seeing Sam), worked all day (with lots of pumping thrown in), RAN home so that I could get a quality five minutes with her before I threw her in the bath and nursed her and put her to bed. She was usually in bed around 8, I would eat dinner and have about a half hour to relax and then I would have to start going to bed (shower, pump) in order to be ready to wake up at 4 to feed Sam and not feel like too much of a zombie the next day. (She has started to sleep through the night most nights which has also VASTLY improved my quality of life...). It was like this. Everyday. For five days. Come Friday, I was totally exhausted, and the weekends didn't provide enough relaxation for me. Disastrous.

Now, I have started to work from home on Mondays and Fridays. This means that I only have to dress for work THREE times a week (which is great for a person with limited who's too lazy to buy more work clothes). It means that on Monday and Friday I can sleep until 7:30, as I don't have a commute. I can get up and eat right away and get right online to start going through emails. When Sam wakes up I can actually see her, dress her, and I can take her to go get coffee. I then hand her off to Rose to take care of until she wants to eat. I can then spend about a half hour or 40 minutes with her in the evening (no commute...) before she goes to bed, and she can actually go to bed when she's tired rather than waiting for me to come home.

Workwise, I go in the office/extra bedroom, I shut the door, put on Michigan Radio (which is mostly the BBC at these hours) and I can plow through work. The day flies. I'm so much more comfortable, and it's totally productive, AND I get to not feel like I'm a terrible mom. Working from home rocks so far.

In other news, my parents left a few weeks ago, and Matt's parents are coming this week.

In yet other news, we have been trying food with Sam - trying about once per day. We have tried rice cereal, bananas, rice cereal + bananas, carrots...she's not so into it. She sometimes appeases me, but I think we'll take it easy on the eating front. She does, on the other hand, love drinking water. I think she mostly likes it because we give it to her in a different bottle/cup, and it has handles, so she can feed herself. She's already asserting her independence.

She's starting to get a bit of a stranger/new person fear, which isn't too cool. She gets a little pout when she gets scared and if we don't take her back she will have a small flip out. The Baby Center said that we just need to take it slow with new people. This made us go to a really nice Purim party yesterday and also take her to the mall today. I want to push her on this one, but I know it's a stage.

She is still a super singer/talker. She spends most days screeching and singing (the neighbors commented that they didn't hear her for her first four months...). She also loves playing with just about anything. She moves all over the place but isn't crawling (somehow she does MOVE, but it's like a snail - you can't see it happening, but then you realize she's in a different place than she started). She's pretty darn cute, if I may say so myself. Click here for her 3-6 month photo album.

Back to Work

The dreaded day of 9 February finally came, and I went back to work. The truth is that it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I was dreading this day from before I even had the baby, just because I had no idea what it would be like, how it would work, how I would feel, how the baby would do...everything was unknown.

Now, I get it. I get that she needs six bottles of about four ounces each (just in case - she usually drinks four or five). I know where the "mummy's room" is at work, and I know what times I need to go. I can't believe how long it takes and how much I'm away from my desk, but now I know how it works.

I know that Samara will be fine without me. Her very complicated schedule of wake, play, eat, sleep, wake, play, eat, sleep (and repeat four times in one day) continues. She even rolls over and does new tricks when I'm not around. Surprisingly, I am not TOO sad to leave her - I don't mind the time away - but I wish that I got a bit more than one hour with her per day (including feeding). As the time goes on, and I miss her growing up, other than on the weekends, I think I will be sadder about that piece, but as of now, that's not too bad.

I wasn't away from work long enough for my brain to turn to mush, so that's not too bad either. I remember my projects, most of my contacts, how excel and power point work, etc. We did move to a new office (more on that in another post), so I have to negotiate a new coffee place, a new commute (with 26 escalators - not 24. I was mistaken), new printing, new food options, etc, but that was conquered in about two days. No problem.

The brutal part is the sleep. We never did that whole sleep deprivation thing when Sam was born. She slept for long stretches at night, and so did I. When I wasn't ready to get up in the morning, I pulled her into bed, and we slept until 8:30 or 9...everyday. Now, I have to wake up by 6:40 in order to shower, prepare her food, prepare my food (I feel guilty getting lunch out, since I'm away from my desk pumping so much!), eat breakfast, pump, get dressed and leave for work before the commute is so heavy that I can't fit on the MRT (must leave by 8:10, but preferably around 7:45). In addition to needing to get up super early, Sam has decided to start not sleeping. Before she would sleep until somewhere between 2 and 4. Now she wakes up at 10, 11, 12, 2, 4, 5, 6...I only get her twice (usually between 1 and 2 and between 4 and 5). The doctor warned that she might do this in order to get more calories (I have told my mom to STUFF her during the day!) or mommy time. I let her cry if I don't get her, and she goes back to sleep, but I still wake up. Then I feel anxious that I'm not sleeping, and then I can't fall back asleep. If this would happen before I was working, I would just sleep, but doing this FIVE DAYS in a row is just plain brutal. This is the first time in my life (possibly during finals or major projects at INSEAD and maybe other times at school too, but I don't remember) where I am totally and utterly sleep deprived, and there just isn't anything I can do about it. Just get through until the weekend and SLEEP SLEEP SLEEP!

Lombok #2

While the world was:
Rioting in Egypt
Pushing through snow in the mid-west
Celebrating Chinese New Year...

We went back to Lombok! You may recall that this was our last pre-Sam trip (when we were still sure she was a boy) in July. We loved it so much, we have been thinking about going back ever since. So, we made it back for Sam's third holiday (and her 5-8th flights), her second trip to Indonesia, and my last maternity leave hurrah. We went with Holly and Jeff, who you may remember from a trip to Bali in late 2009. They love Samara, so it was great to travel with them and utilise their help and entertainment for the baby. And, we love them, so conversation was great, and whoever wasn't staying with a sleeping Sam got to have adult socialising (and the other got to read). All in all, a fabulous trip.

In general, we traveled for two days (we had a connection in Jakarta) and we had three days in Lombok itself. We sat around the hotel for two days and we went around to some villages and shops on the middle day. Samara was fabulous - even when she didn't get her all-important sleep, and I was mostly not too stressed out. I will share some highlights.

The first night, we decided that we could put Samara to sleep in the room and use the baby monitor while in the restaurant. I remembered that two kids were taken from some hotel in some other country, so I was not a fan, but after some convincing, we did it. All was fine and good until the big boss came up to us and said, "excuse me, are you in room 34? Your baby is asleep in your room." Um, yeah, we know. Why do you know that?! It turns out that his staff went in for "turn down" service and found the baby asleep in her crib. Yeah - someone went in, turned on all the lights (and left them on!), did whatever they needed to do, then at some point probably saw the baby and left. And we had no idea. Matt convinced me that they love babies so much in Indonesia that no one would even think of hurting her or taking her, but I was freaked!

We had heard that in SE Asia the restaurant staff (or anyone else) will take your baby from you and just return them later. This had not happened to us yet. On Saturday, Matt, Jeff and Holly went to a temple and to get a meal in town. I was at the hotel with the babes. I waited for her to wake up and then took her to the restaurant and ordered my nasi goreng. The waitress said, "I will watch your baby while you eat." Stubborn me said, "no - it's okay. She'll just hang here." When I was eating, though, Samara got a bit cranky and wanted to eat too. So I was struggling with holding her and eating. The waitress came back and held her two arms up to take the baby. Well, why not. She took the baby away, behind the counter, and all of the staff were playing with her. I ate my nasi goreng. It was hilarious. This also happened when we were at a pottery shop. Our taxi driver insisted on holding the baby while we shopped. Why not. He has young kids and held her the way she likes to be held. She was happy. We shopped.

In typical Melanie fashion, I HATED that we were driving around with no seatbelts/carseat. As I looked at all of the babies going by as fourth and fifth passengers on motorcycles, though, I realised that Sam actually had it pretty good. I also recognised that we were going really slowly the entire time. And, being in a car, there was almost nothing that could touch us - if we came across a person on a bike, we would win. If we came across a motorcyle (even with five people on it...), we would win. So, I relaxed a bit, and just made sure that we were holding her neck unless there were any sudden motions. She basically just sat in our laps...which she did not especially like (she just doesn't like the car), and I even fed her in a moving car. Yup - you can judge me, but if you've been to SE Asia (especially with a baby!), you'll totally understand.

One other highlight was one afternoon when I put Sam in bed for a nap, and she was crying. A little baby kitten came out of nowhere and was running around our porch, going crazy. She could clearly hear Samara crying, and she was trying to figure out what to do (Kitty also sits by her door when she cries and we don't get her - she's always like, "Mom! Dad! The baby's crying! What's wrong with you!?!"). When that kitten was running around, I felt like there was some pact between all babies of the world to help each other. Different language? No problem. Different species? No problem.

We are just waiting to go back to this hotel - we just love it so much. If anyone is looking for a nice holiday - take a Silk Air flight direct to Lombok (transferring in Jakarta was terrible), and stay at Quncivillas. Wow - we might do it every six months!

In other news, my mom was supposed to arrive in Singapore on Saturday night. She went to the airport on Friday and was all ready to go...and then they cancelled her flight. She got re-booked on the same flight the next day. But that flight was super delayed and she missed her connection in Japan. So she spent the night in Japan and she should finally be on her way to Singapore now. She is arriving nearly 48 hours after she was supposed to - and now we only have one day to care for Sam together before I go back to work. Good news is that our new helper seems to be getting the hang of things, so I'm sure the baby will be fine (it's me that I'm worried about!).