Mothering

The two first years of being a mother were very difficult for me. More so than I had expected. Fuhani was working for an abusive employer who would frequently make him work double shifts, weekends and occasionally told him to come back to work six hours after he left his shift. I would spend my days alone with the baby and a week could easily go by without Fuhani getting to see her, because he left before she woke up and came home after she went to bed.

That kind of stress aside, being a good mother isn’t something I just became after pushing out the baby. The physical stuff came easy for me, the breastfeeding (17 months, phew!), the changing of diapers, I knew instinctively how to hold her and how to soothe her. What I found hard, and what I’ve had to work hard on, is finding more patience, more compassion and more strength.

I look at Fante and, despite never getting to have me completely to himself, I still often think how lucky he is to have a big sister who taught me so much about being a mother. Because of her I have more patience, I have more compassion and I am much stronger.

Mother’s day is just as much about my children as it is about me.

Lose, win, lose

You lose some, you win some. I was quite optimistic when I got pregnant with Fante, hoping that Farla would love the new baby. I was still pretty optimistic when Fuhani brought her to the hospital to see her new baby brother for the first time, AND, even still, after she gave me the most poisonous look I have ever seen on her pretty little face. How dare you go make (and love) that red monstrosity, and god help you if it touches my stuff!

She is starting to warm up to him, after having spent the first six months of his life pretending he doesn’t exist, telling me to “put the baby back” (meaning, put the baby back in the bouncy seat and give me attention, duh!) except when she says it it’s “putenene baby bah-ck”. Yes, it slays me every time, too.

Anyway. So their siblinghood didn’t exactly start out the way I had hoped to imagine it would. You lose some.

Three and a half months ago we started to look for a way to get Farla into daycare. This is her third week of spending 5 hours a day, 3 days a week at a maximum-four-kids private daycare provider. We spent three agonizing months worrying about how she would cope with daycare. Would the other kids treat her well? Would she treat the other kids well? Would her daycare “mom” be a good fit or would she be a heartless crone who would not be won over by our daughter’s apparent charm? Would she cry? Would we?

Not one single time that we have dropped her off has she run back for a hug, not one single tear shed. She loves to go “wee” (the sound you make when you slide down a slide, dontchaknow!) and she loves the other kids and she loves her daycare mom. You win some.

She has still to eat a meal while away from us. We have a stubborn and very picky eater. (You lose some..)