Blog

There are a few mommy-related blogs that I’ve been meaning to type, one of them is on post-partum depression, or PPD. There’s an interesting generational/cultural gap that exists where PPD is concerned- traditionally speaking, in the Pakistani culture, there is no such thing.

(Wateezdiss, pee-pee-dee? After your baby is born you’re supposed to be miserable!)

Yes yes, so after your baby is born you become a sleep deprived, and you worry about whether you’re doing things right, and you desperately wish the baby would sleep, but when the baby does sleep, you have to go check to see if the baby is breathing… Being a new mommy is hard, but is it supposed to make you depressed?

One friend of mine, whose baby is six months younger than Khalid, called me up and very bluntly said- I’m taking a survey about post-partum depression. My mother said there is no such thing, but after Asiya was born, I couldn’t sleep, stopped eating for 36 hours at a time, and felt mentally paralyzed, no one told me about this! How about you?

How about me? Well, I was a sleep-deprived baby-tending robot whose engine ran on caffeine and the terrible fear that my baby was starving all the time. And, this is hard to admit but unfair to hide- I wanted to die. I did. I didn’t want to kill myself, and my contradictory brain was terrified of anything happening to Khalid or to myself (because then who would take care of Khalid?) but we used to live on the sixth floor of our apartment block, and I wondered what it would be like to fall from the balcony. I have never wanted to be in a car accident, but there were times in traffic when near misses disappointed me. I wanted something to happen.

Why? Was I unhappy with my baby? No, I adore bebeface. Was HF unsupportive? Not at all, and he did what he could to support me and make sure I was taking care of myself too. (Also, we snuck out to movies and ice cream and went for drives and walks)

I was constantly tired, but had terrible insomnia. I was completely disinterested in socializing. I stopped answering the doorbell, and I kept it all, the misery, the insomnia, the thoughts of death- all to myself for as long as I could. I dreaded having to feed Khalid, because nursing was, in the beginning, difficult and very painful, and no matter what I did, he always seemed hungry.

(It turns out we had serious latch issues + low supply for nearly two months)

At one point I broke down and told HF. I think it took him by surprise. He asked me what was making me so depressed, and I wasn’t sure what to tell him because I had no idea myself. Nothing specifically was making me unhappy- but I was miserable about everything, and I was sure that I was doing everything wrong- why else was Khalid crying all the time?

When did things get better? Gradually, when Khalid was a few months old, things got better. They didn’t get easier, they just got better. One thing that made a huge difference was HF checking up on me- “How are you feeling? How was your day? Hey, you’re doing good.” It seems like such a small thing now, but HF reassuring me that I was doing good and that Khalid was fine gave me the reassurance to not freak about him starving/ailing/wailing, and it made everything lighter, more bearable.

Alhamdulillah, my experience with PPD was, from what I understand, really mild. I thought about dying, and I had some pretty fantastic crying sprees, but it never got in the way of me caring for Bebeface- I was never incapacitated by it. There are people who have had it far, far worse, and I am grateful to God that I was able to break out of the misery and be alright again, Alhamdulillah.

So yeah, we’re taking a survey- Anyone else out there had PPD? Any advice? We have some new mommies on the block who may benefit from what you can share.

Love to all Mommies!
-Zeba

It’s 10:23, and Bebeface is asleep, Alhamdulillah, Alhamdulillah.

Of course, yesterday he insisted on staying up until 4:30 am, and the night before that, 3, and the days following those long nights tend to be fuzzy and a little disoriented, but hey, SubhanAllah, it’s all good. 🙂

Khalid cruised by the one-year mark a week or so ago, the 19th being an uneventful though especially cute day, MashaAllah. These days, Khalid is working full time on his newest skills- getting around by holding on to the sofa and taking wobbly steps in the direction of the laptop, crawling or something like it, and learning simple games.

Every day Khalid does something that makes me gasp out of either surprise, amazement, or shock. A few days ago he went from sitting to crawling position by leaning too far back to stare at the ceiling and then turning in mid-fall to land on all fours instead of his head, Alhamdulillah. And then there is the ‘feed momma crackers’ game, where I open my mouth and Khalid pokes whatever soggy edible he has been gnawing on inside. We’ve learned, rather unexpectedly, that this game also applies to other cracker-shaped objects as well, like the business card Khalid pushed into my mouth last week.

And Khalid plays peekaboo with newspapers, and bedsheets, and embarrassingly, with the hem of my skirt at a dinner party. (peeka- No!) And Khalid has discovered that the best things in life have buttons on them, like the cordless phone that he yanked out of my hand and dropped on the floor, or the TV remotes with the tasty rubber buttons, or any of the many mobile phones belonging to the various family members foolish enough to leave the phones where he can demand them. Khalid sent his daddy a blank sms two days ago. We were all impressed.

HF: (checking phone) You sent me an sms just now?
Me: No, what do you mean?

-pause-

HF: Where’s your phone?
Me: Khalid?

And Khalid has turned bath time into a force of nature, specifically, a typhoon. He whirlwinds his arms and legs, churning up furious waves, soaking the floor, the towel, the momma… anything in a five foot radius.

And Khalid is intensely interested in personal grooming, specifically manicures, and any time nail clippers are placed anywhere near his nails, he immediately wants to inspect (as well as taste) whatever it is that they’re doing and why they insist on doing it to him.

And prayer time with Khalid is extra challenging, as there are fewer less distracting things than a baby crawling excitedly over to your feet so he can grab hold of your toes and talk to them.

(bibbibibibib bbbbwwwwwwmmmm)

And I know exactly where the last year has gone, but I can’t believe what was taking so long has passed so fast. SubhanAllah, SubhanAllah, Khalid isn’t really a baby anymore, but he’s not quite a toddler yet. He’s at an in-between stage, he’s an oversized grabby wiggly thing that wants to go for a walk to see the oscillating fan oscillate, but still clings to his momma like a shy koala baby.

Too big to be a baby, too small to be a boy, my little Babysaurus. 🙂

There is no way to describe how hysterically funny as well as deliciously relaxing it is to sit in a showroom massage chair (The OTOCare Deluxe, only 6,500dhs!) with the foot rest up and the remote control in Bebeface’s hands. I laughed until my stomach hurt while being massaged randomly by Khalid’s ham-fisted grip on the remote control.

The salesman in the corner was trying very hard not to be seen laughing. He turned pink. Khalid cooed and growled and mashed at the remote control, turning the chair off a few times and turning the intensity up regularly, until I felt like I was being pummeled by an pair of oompa-loompas who had been paid to hide behind the chair and rhythmically punch me in the back, shoulders, and uummm.. seat.

(oompa, loompa, doompity doo!
yes, we can beat on your tushy-tush too!)

SubhanAllah. 🙂

Last night was another interesting night, rather than nurse Khalid to sleep I tried the ‘crying it out in arms’ approach, which basically involved him screaming his little self tired- in my arms. Someone posted a link to this in the comments of one of the crying it out posts, and I’m not sure who it was, but they should also have posted a link to body building and developing muscle for high-stress baby-rocking. :p Khalid is, MashaAllah, over the 95% percentile for his weight and height, which means me bouncing almost 12 kilos (26 pounds) of angry, screaming, WWF-Wrestling baby in my arms for 20 minutes before he winds down and falls whining to sleep.

Alhamdulillah, he slept, and last night wasn’t too bad, although there were no long sleep stretches over an hour and a half. I think by now I’m so frazzled by the every-forty-minutes schedule that an hour and a half seems good. The other night I put Khalid to sleep and even though I was exhausted, I wandered in to the kitchen and got on to the laptop to do some work. Why not? I thought, he’s just going to wake up in forty minutes, why bother going to sleep?

But going back to the title of this post- Last night, about fifteen minutes into rocking and screaming and wrestling- my arms were burning (you know burning? it’s five minutes past aching and two minutes before dying) and my back was aching and I was getting frustrated and suddenly Khalid stops crying, looks up at me and says, “bap bap bap?” Then he smiles at me and launches into a few minutes of impossibly cute baby-babble, “pibpibpib, bap bap bap, nanagagagaGAK!” He lays relaxed in my arms, just making cute little sounds and smiling at me, and manages to undo all of the anger and frustration that had been piling up onto my shoulders just minutes ago.

SubhanAllah. Standing there in the dark, at 1:30 am, with aching body, aching feet, and 12 kilos of sleep-resistant babyfat in my arms- I laughed out loud. I kissed his soft little cheeks. I remembered that bed time is an ordeal for him too, and he’s not deliberately being difficult, he’s just being what he is- a baby.

We went to the pediatrician last week for his cough, and HF asked the doctor about Khalid’s atrocious sleep habits- waking every forty minutes, not sleeping at night, etc. The doctor patiently listened and then shrugged apologetically. “That’s normal, all children are like this.” We asked her if she was sure. She was. And she had her own kids too.

SubhanAllah, I sometimes forget how much I am blessed. Allah has blessed me with a beautiful, beautiful child, free from disabilities or conditions or any visible defects- ten perfectly chubby, perfectly formed fingers, same number of wiggly little toes, enormous gorgeous eyes, the sweetest, softest cheeks- Khalid is a perfect baby, and it’s my fault for forgetting- he’s a perfect baby. He’s sitting in his high-chair right now, banging a clothes pin against a set of teething keys and periodically chewing on a baby biscuit that he’s also managed to rub into his eyebrows. He’s a baby.

My beautiful little son. 🙂 It was time for his nap about an hour ago now, and he managed to sleep for ten minutes before waking up again with a happy -bapbapbap- He’s starting to rub his eyes and pull his ears (which also have cookie crumbs on them) so I guess it’s time for me to try to put him to sleep again. Please remember us in your duas- I need patience and he needs an off button. :p

Peace & Chikken Grease
Abez & Bebeface

Well, the past three days have been hectic. Picking up where we left off-

Night Before HF gets here- Bebeface cries it out for an hour and forty minutes, only to wake up two hours later and then be up and down all night as usual. That is very discouraging.

Night HF gets home- Bebeface cries for an hour and a half before I go in to rescue him from him own stubborness- it’s midnight, HF and I are both tired and he’s just gotten back from a business trip. I nurse him to sleep, hoping that crying for so long has at least drained his batteries a bit. He sleeps for an hour as usual, and wakes up about six times during the night.

Yesterday Night- I am swamped with two separated freelancing tasks with seriously short deadlines- I put Bebeface down to cry it out for the night, and after an hour of listening to him scream and get not quieter, but louder, I am not able to concentrate at all on my work. I go in to nurse him to sleep. He nurses, and then is up and ready for action until 1:30 am.

Yesterday Night- I do nothing related to crying- I happen to be in the shower when I notice that Bebeface, who HF had been rocking and singing to (I love you HF!) had gone quiet and fallen asleep. And there is much rejoicing. (He wakes up ever hour or so all night. This is usual.)

This evening- Hoping for similar success, I feed, pajama, and soothe Khalid before passing him to HF for a rocking to sleep. Bebeface stubbornly resists. HF passes him back to me after about half an hour, and I nurse Khalid to sleep.

He’s asleep now, my little bundle of impossibility. I must clarify- the bedtime routine of a nice bath and a feed and a kiss and a song- I’ve been doing that for about a week and a half now, and if the purpose of it is to make Khalid rub his eyes with sleep, then it accomplishes its goal. But then, since Khalid wakes up every morning at 9:30 by the latest, regardless of what time he’s gone to sleep, getting him to rub his eyes and yank his ears and pull his hair from tiredness has never been a problem. It’s getting him to close his little eyes that we seem to be doing so badly with.

So now what?

Yesterday, after Khalid’s hour and five minute crying jag, he once again slept for five hours. Five lovely, uninterrupted hours, Alhamdulillah. It’s 10:40 right now, and he’s been crying since ten o’clock. He’s definitely winding down, and I peeked in on him a second ago- he’s laying face down on the bed, he raises his head to cry, gets tired and rests it for a few seconds. Then he raises it to cry again. I don’t know if he’ll beat yesterday’s time, and I don’t know if any progress is being made. This is only the second night anyway, so looking for progress right now is a little early I think.

If anything though, I at least don’t feel like I’m dying of guilt pangs. Yesterday was hard, and I felt horrible, but it yielded very real and very encouraging results. Oh wait, he’s gone quiet…

No, he started again. But the pauses between crying spurts are getting longer and the cries are getting softer and more tired-sounding.

But like I was saying, having done this once yesterday and seen really encouraging results, I don’t feel so bad and it’s not as hard for me today as it was yesterday. My child is sobbing his little eyes pink, and I’m ok. Does this make me a bad mother? I hope not, I would like to believe not. He’s not in pain. He laying in a bed, he’s fussing himself to sleep. He’s fine.

I’ve already gone and spent a long time in the shower (with Owlie listening out for me) but I ran out of hot water after ten minutes so I’m back out again. Khalid’s been crying for 45 minutes and I suppose we’ve got another fifteen to go.

10:50- I tell you, this kid could do commercials for energizer.

11:20- The good news is that Khalid is asleep- the bad news is- I caved. At eleven I went to check on him, and found that he had wiggled past the fortress of pillows and bolsters I had surrounded him with and was lying face-down on the cold, hard, floor- crying. (his mattress is on the floor anyway, so it’s only a two-inch roll down, not a fall, Alhamdulillah) But I couldn’t help it. I picked him up and he sighed and shuddered and clung to me. I nursed him to sleep.

I’m sorry and did, and yet I’m not. I feel torn between wanting to do things right and wanting to do right by my son. Why isn’t there a way of putting him to sleep that doesn’t involve making both of us miserable for upwards of an hour? I keep wanting to apologize to him, I feel like this is somehow my fault.

Well, 11:20 is his sleep time, let’s see how many hours he sleeps. I know he’s utterly exhausted, chances are he’ll sleep five hours any.

I feel selfish for putting Khalid through this, and I feel discouraged. 🙁

So once upon a time there was an impossibly cute (MashaAllah) but horribly scheduled son of mine, whose unruly sleep habits have been the only (but rather large) down side to motherhood. He wakes every 40 minutes, night or day, to feed, and drives me rather batty with sleep deprivation.

Everyone and their mother tells me I need to let him cry it out. I know. I know, but it hurts my heart to hear him cry. Really, physically- I can’t explain how it feels to hear him sobbing away. Like how he is now. Sobbing. In the next room.

Last week, after many frustrating and futile attempts to put Khalid to sleep (punctuated by being hit in the face with his flailing arms and being savagely bitten with his pointy little teeth) I put him down and walked out the bedroom. I hadn’t been intending to let him cry it out, but ten minutes into it, I decided what the heck. Let’s go for it.

It took an hour, and I’m sure it was rougher on him than it was on me, but I’m not sure it was by much. In the end, it finally happened. Bebeface cried himself to sleep, and he slept for five hours straight.

Five hours.

Straight.

Five hours, from a kid who’s never slept longer than 2 hours in his entire life.

Fastforward to this evening- HF left for a five-day business trip, and since he won’t be disturbed by Khalid’s ear-shattering (and heart-breaking) wails, I’ve decided that this is the week we’re gonna cry it out.

It’s 11:24 right now, and Khalid has been crying since 11:15. I know he’s exhausted, I left him in the bed with a full stomach, rubbing his eyes and pulling his ears out of exhaustion, but the second I closed the door, the BebeSiren sounded and he’s been wailing away ever since.

I learned from the last time that after half an hour he’ll start to wind down. Everyone I’ve talked to has told me that kids learn fast- let him cry it out two or three times and they’ll learn to soothe themselves to sleep. One woman I know did it over the weekend- she went away for two nights in a row, and the husband volunteered to keep an eye on the baby- and it was a hard weekend but the baby learned in two days, and now she sleeps straight through.

Admittedly, I feel horrible right now. Khalid is now hiccuping as well as wailing- and I can hear the little gasps and shudders between cries, but he is winding down.

I wish it didn’t have to be like this. I wish he came with a ‘sleep’ button. I can’t really sit and listen to him cry, I need to find something else to do- like take a shower or something. I didn’t turn the water heater on though, so the water’s too cold to be any sort of pleasant distraction.

11:31- Still wailing. Oh wait, there was a pause. Ok, now he’s gotten a second wind and seems to have hit a higher pitch. I’m going to go wash dishes or something.

11:53- Well, there are longer and longer pauses between the crying fits now- I know that these silent moments are spent in rubbing his eyes or pulling his hair, and I know he must be exhausted. The crying is getting tireder, the pauses longer- I think the water might be warm enough. I wonder- if I take a ten minute shower- will he be asleep by the time I come out? Let’s see. I need to relax, I feel wound up and tense.

12:21- Asleep. All quiet. Alhamdulillah, Alhamdulillah. It took Khalid an hour and five minutes- which is five minutes longer than his previous time, but maybe tomorrow will be better InshaAllah. And let’s see how long he sleeps now InshaAllah. I spent the last fifteen min taking the longest, hottest shower I’ve had in months, and I’m ready to pray and hit the sack. I’m really looking forward to five beautiful hours of gorgeous lovely sleep.

(Many thanks to everyone who’s kept pushing me to just do this- to retrain Khalid no matter how hard it is. Taubah, my Momma, and especially HF– who’s been nagging me to do this- even volunteered to take Khalid for a weekend, and has been so patient with my foolish refusal to do so until this point. It could only last so long. You can only run so long on sleep deprivation, and not letting Khalid learn how to fall asleep on his own doesn’t do him any favors. Also, much love to Owlie– who’s been the Abez Distraction Committee these past two times I’ve let Khalid cry it out. >>>hugs<<< )

JazakAllah

As I sit at this computer desk with all the wires taped securely to the legs and all the peripherals moved away from the edge of table, I wonder where the time has gone. Bebeface, whose misbehavior was once limited to wiggling alot and peeing on me, has morphed into something else entirely. He has become- Cap’n DangerIsMyMiddleName. Two days ago he unplugged the laptop. The day before that he pulled the wireless signal repeater out of the wall. Last week he reached up to this desk and got hold of the electric drill and very narrowly avoided dropping it onto his head. Yesterday, he woke me up by falling off the bed.

It was a different sort of alarm. Instead of beep beep beep the noise went waanh waanh wannh. I woke up in a panic- I could hear Khalid crying but couldn’t find him in the bed. He was on the floor in an untidy heap of baby, his head down and his legs propped against the leg of the crib, looking very offended and somewhat more compact than usual. I scooped him up and went to the kitchen, where immediately, I turned on the microwave. Khalid likes the microwave. In a few seconds, the wails turned to whimpers. Then the whimpers were replaced with the silent hyper-vigilance of Khalid watching the plate in the microwave go around in circles. Then he giggled. All was well and the mighty fall from the bed was forgotten.

(Oh, and the other day he pitched himself off the sofa head-first and was caught in mid-air by Knicq. Many thanks Knicq Bhai.)

Khalid is now a little human. Officially. He used to be a little blob, and before that he was a jellybean of some sort. Now he’s a little person who likes chicken, doesn’t want his nose cleaned, laughs at the pictures in his baby books, follows you around with upheld arms, pulls my pant legs when I’m doing dishes, tastes absolutely everything, and plays peekaboo. Really, he plays peekaboo. He will hold things in front of his eyes, wait, and then peek out and smile. Then he’ll do it again. And again and again. Alhamdulillah, SubhanAllah. He’s growing, he’s learning, he’s developing sneakiness. Combine a desire to pull the phone cord with the knowledge that he shouldn’t be, and you get a baby who drops the phone and runs smiling up to me when he’s caught, as if he’s never pulled a phone cord to within an inch of its life before. Oh no. Not me momma, would this face lie?

Right now Khalid is laying in my bed (surrounded by a wall of pillows) and drumming his heels on the mattress, growling, and playing with a rubberband simultaneously. In a minute we’ll head to the kitchen for lunch, maybe scoot around the house in the walker later, and then we’re off to Ikea for yet more adventures, so I guess I’ll just finish this blog later.

Bebeface & I, over and out!

Alhamdulillah, Bebeface is seven and a half months old now, and the rate at which he’s developing dangerous and cunning new skills is amazing. This week alone has seen several developmental firsts- several key skills he has obtained and now uses to threaten all of humanity with.

So Eye See… Glasses are not part of a person’s face, and can be removed with one quick yank of the gooey, wet fingers and then dropped on the floor. Khalid now knows that glasses are both removable and edible, and there seems to be no turning back, regardless of how we threaten to withdraw damages from his college fund.

Take that, HA! Khalid now has the ability to, but not necessarily the proper licensing to, drive his walker all over the kitchen, into my ankles, against the dining chairs, etc. Up until just two days ago, he just sat in the walker and if he moved his feet it was out of excitement or frustration, but not with any direction or purpose. At some point though, he seems to have had an epiphany, and one morning surprised me by very purposefully steering himself towards the garbage can and then proceeding to worry said garbage can from one of the kitchen to the other, and then back. This kid can drive.

Take That, CHOMP! Teef. Alhamdulillah, Bebeface has two little bottom-teeth about half-way out now and the two on either side of them are just starting to appear beneath his gums. So now what used to be a cute little gnaw on peoples’ fingers is now a life-threatening, needle-sharp brush with dismemberment. Khalid likes to chew, and he likes to chew HARD.

Hello there, Handsome. Khalid has long, meaningful conversations with the handsome baby in our bedroom mirror, and spends tens of minutes (which is hours in baby-time) cooing, squealing, and wiggling his eyebrows at the baby on the other side. And, he does this all sitting up. Khalid started sitting up about a month ago, but only now is he getting really stable enough to stay upright for long periods of time, and without toppling over.

Mine, all mine! Khalid is no longer my computer buddy. It used to be that I could sit him in my lap and operate the lappy easily. Now, I sit Khalid in my lap, turn towards the computer and then frantically push everything away that he’s trying to grab and cram in his mouth- mouse, headphone wire, tea cup, hair clips, pen, cell phone, digicam… anything on the table is fair game and very likely to be scooped towards Khalid with both of his outstretched little arms and then slobbered on. Even when I have moved everything out of his reach, he still cranes forward to slap at the power-indicator and wireless modem switch (those pretty blue and yellow lights) on the front of the laptop and gives them a good beating.

You gonna eat that? Cuz if not, Khalid will try. It doesn’t matter that Khalid has never had soup before in his entire like, he still wants it, and yesterday he managed to grab a spoonful of it as it was headed towards my mouth, splattering chikken noodle in my lap and down his arm. On top of that, he wouldn’t let go of the spoon. He saw me drinking a cup of tea earlier today, and zoomed towards me in his walker, came to a crashing halt against my knees and then started smacking his lips and looking deprived. I’m sorry kid, you are years away from caffeine.

Hey, whose feet are these? Khalid has discovered his feet, and day by day he is learning that they can go closer and closer to his mouth. He holds one foot in each hand, and in a gesture that would be rude if it weren’t so impossibly cute, he grins at you over the full-moon he’s pointing in your direction. (When he does that without a diaper on, I get scared.)

So yeah, MashaAllah. SubhanAllah. Bebeface gets more and more beautiful and unpredictable and alive every day. He has wants and needs and even a sense of humor, and has a beautiful little laugh that lights up everything- his face, the room, the people around him. I laugh at him sometimes and he looks at me and just laughs back, my crazy beautiful little kid.