Happy Mother’s Day! I hope yours started with a late morning lie in and breakfast in bed! Mine began with a 2:07am wake-up call and an all-lights-on search for fever reducing medicine. I fell back asleep in Manika’s bed with a plastic teddy bear nose digging into the back of my head. Two hours later, Manika declared herself “done sleeping.” No amount of understanding from my husband, or tears, or talking to my mother could raise me out of my foul sleep-deprived mood after that. In fact, it was the lowest I’d felt about being a mother in a long time.
Why so long? Because the past few months of effort finally tipped my life balance from stay-at-home mom frantically chasing after work, to working-mom chasing after time to stay at home (and blog). I haven’t had time to think or be too up or down. As the demands of my life twisted and turned me back and forth between suit-wearing consultant, writing teacher, new bilingual-cookbook promoter, children’s book reader and playground mom, my identity flapped in the wind too. I didn’t stop to digest it all though until I noticed spring was almost gone and I was about to enter summer with some serious holes in my wardrobe.
I went to the Gap. I love the Gap. Since I left the US, Gap Inc has become my anchor, my beacon of Western life and convenience still glistening off in the distant sky. Each time someone comes from America, their suitcase inevitably contains Gap kids clothes for the kids, or a Banana Republic shirt for me. Each time I go home, I pre-shop for hours on all of Gap’s many websites. Now that there is a newly opened outpost here in China, I sometimes fight the blues by popping in to test run a few clothes and balk at the 40% tariff-taxed prices while listening to some good old American-mixed Musak,
So the disappoint was profound on that Tuesday. I went in search of retail peace, but could not find anything I liked. Mind you, it wasn’t because there was nothing likeable in the two-story store, but that I found myself wandering the shelves having no idea what I was in the mood to try on. Some button down shirts and a new trench for the working girl? A don’t-dare-bend-over-to-retrieve-a-sippy-cup sexy mini? A practical pair of nautical inspired shorts? Some baggy t-shirts? A fitted tank top? I found myself completely paralyzed by both the physical and existential crisis. Who was I now? I feel sexier and more in control now than I have during my past three years of motherhood. But I also spend much of my time running around between meetings and playgroups. My wardrobe stopped growing after Manika’s birth in 2007. How to fill the gaps in time, styles, myself?
I pushed Avik onto Uniqlo hoping for some more Asian-cute inspiration. One pair of denim capris later, bought ambitiously tight rather than practically baggy, I was starting to despair. Avik insisted on a steady stream of raisins to keep from fighting for independence from the McLaren, which was definitely killing the mood. I started to walk faster, and then began a sprint through the next five stores down Shanghai’s equivalent of 5th Avenue. It didn’t help that all of China is half my size and boob-less. What I did like didn’t fit right. After Zara’s, I decided to take a break and head off to feed the now truly pissed off kid. He inhaled a bucket of pasta and then set off on foot to flirt with the staff in the next few shops I dared visit. No one paid any attention to me and the day was declared done when he began to stink up Theory with his poop-filled diaper. Despite their admiration of his cuteness, the ladies didn’t look amicable to me using their dressing rooms to change him.
“So let me get this straight, you’re upset because you didn’t spend money today,” my husband said when I called him.
“No, I’m upset because I did not find the perfect five items to inspire and uplift my depressing wardrobe. You work in fashion, you should understand.”
“I do business analysis. It’ s a little different.”
That night, I decided I had to step my up game. My husband came home to find me tossing out three fourths of my closet.
“Um, what are you doing?”
“I hate everything in here. My clothes are either dowdy, old, meant for teenagers or make me feel fat and sloppy.”
“And you’ll wear in their place?”
“That’s the point. If I have nothing to wear, I’ll be forced to branch out.”
“Didn’t we sort of discuss a budget for this?”
“Yeah, about that, I think this is going to take a little more money than I thought.”
The rest of the week, I internet shopped. I spent hours scrolling through websites, imagining myself wiping a nose in that t-shirt, running off to teach a student in those sandals, going off to date night in that black dress with my husband. My mind began to stress around the edges. What did I really need? Washable practical cotton. What did I really want? A new Armani suit and a pair of platform pink platform heels? Could justify I buying them both? Could I work them both in my life? The clothes began arriving at my mother’s house. Packages started coming to Asia. And yet, I still wasn’t sure. Did that gingham blue shirt look too picnic-y or stylishly casual? Did that navy blue tank dress scream MILF or a mom who has given up on anything other than dark color blocks?
Then Mother’s day arrived and I had nothing to wear to lunch. In an attempt to cheer me up, my husband suggested we all go out but my empty closet filled me with dread. It was my special day and I did not want to wear what a 90-degree sunny day with two sick kids calls for – cotton shorts and a t-shirt. But I also had to realistically plan to be puked on.
I chose a white and blue color striped mini-dress. That was for me. I put a pair of more conservative dark blue Capri leggings underneath it. That was for the kids. I put on red lipstick – for me. I pulled my hair halfway back – them. Finally, the tiebreaker was in the shoes. Orange platform heels. They were old, bought before the kids were born, not meant for walking but painfully stylish. I slid on my Marc Jacobs sunglasses and for a few moments, I thought I’d won.
Then I caught a glance of myself in the restaurant door and I began to realize I looked completely ridiculous – not clothes-wise so much as by the expression on my face. I was trying so hard to look like those kids behind me coughing and screaming were not mine, that with the heels and sunglasses, I had finally managed to rise above it all. I felt like a liar and a joke. All through lunch, I kept catching myself in other reflective surfaces and feeling incredibly uncomfortable with what I saw. I didn’t see me. I saw someone awkwardly trying to be an older version of me, while living in a totally different life.
A few hours later, Suresh and I were taking the kids to the hospital. The coughs and fevers were refusing to abate and we desperately needed to stock up on antibiotics. The time between lunch and the stroller re-load was so frenzied, I just retied my hair back in a ponytail, washed my face, tossed on my flat loafers and ran, forgetting all about my earlier concerns with my appearance. When I did see myself again, it was in the reflection of the hospital doors. Manika was hugging her Dad. I was carrying Avik and I could see pouches of my flabby post-baby belly being pushed out by his thigh resting on it. I didn’t care. I felt purposeful, completely unselfconscious, and beautiful in my own natural way. I felt fully alive in myself.
Of course, that didn’t dead stop the longing for more fashionable times. When I got home, I still glanced at some runway styles after the kids went to sleep. I started to think again about the new swimsuit I wanted to get. But the torment of it all was gone. I could see clearly that I am no longer the twenty-something mini-skirt wearer hoping to get a man to notice me, or the thirty-something career girl dressing to get the world to take me seriously. I am also no longer the baggy-clothes baby-weight carrying stay-at-home mom trying to hide her own insecurities and fears about herself and talents on the playground.
I guess I’m sort of a tight jeans, forgiving looser top, stylish flats, lip-gloss wearing kind of girl. Most importantly, I think I’m okay with that.
So can any of you mom’s out there give me some suggestions on where to go shopping now?
Sunday, May 8, 2011
Friday, January 28, 2011
Tea and chocolate
These past two months have really thrown me off my internal keel. It started with a series of impossible (mostly self-imposed) deadlines before Christmas – finish the next children’s book, write 200 pages of my novel, work on a short story, structure the “Cooking with Mika cookbook, and finish my website – made even more impossible by the early holiday closure of Manika’s school due to two cases of hand food and mouth disease. Pressure started. Christmas gifts nearly fell to the wayside in the process (see last posting!)
Then I had three weeks of guests (my whole family!) over Christmas, which was totally great but really crunched my ability to get anything else done. Just when they left, Manika entered this cranky wintery cycle – sort of tired one day, sort of not well another. She began bouncing in and out of moods (and even missed two days of school) causing lots of night wakings, neediness and general “I want mommy’s” that couldn’t have arrived at a more inconvenient time.
I really began to wonder why I had children, and then I began to wonder why I was wondering that, and that of course led me to feeling like a horrible mother.
So, like any good guilt-ridden mother, I sped up and tried to do more. I booked play dates on top of yoga classes, hauled Manika off with me to an afternoon of test cooking recipes, scheduled time to specifically play with Avik. I eventually booked myself out solid every day, weekends included, up until the start of Chinese New Year (today).
The result was sheer hyper-productivity in a way that I haven’t experienced since my investment banking days, when sun up and sun down seemed to be two fingers touching in the sky. In some ways, it was incredibly rewarding. My illustrator and I will be featured in the Shanghai Literary Festival this year (a big deal out here!), we’ve got some really big book readings coming up, our next titles are humming along and the biggest English bookstore in Shanghai has “Mika the Picky Eater” front and center. It’s amazing.
But the byproduct (and there always is one, particularly of an overheated engine) has been too much hot steam. I decided to exercise more to balance myself out. No luck. I built sleep back into my schedule. Didn’t happen. I tried to cram less into a day, focus more on the kids. That never works for me. I tried to find a new tv serial to distract me at night (used to be Mad Men – oh where or where are they?) but to no avail.
And so the imbalance continued, causing me to become a rather cranky unhappy person all over again, this time because I have too much work. Same refrain, different song title. I think I will never ever be happy.
I began to bounce around more dramatically than Manika, mostly to my husband.
One crunched morning to Suresh: “This is crazy. I should just stay home with the kids. What the hell am I doing? And I’m sure you would like that better too, your barefoot pajama-clad wife packing lunches for you again.”
Suresh, looking down at his feet while heading towards the bathroom: “Whatever makes you happy honey.”
One afternoon (same week) with a sick Manika: “If I don’t get out of here and do something, like RUN A COMPANY, I am going to go crazy.
Suresh: “Whatever makes you happy honey.”
One weekend day (with sick Manika sleeping in the stroller while I test cooked tahini noodles): “This is awesome! Look at all the strands of my life coming together! Cooking, writing, family!”
Suresh: “I’m very glad you’re happy.”
One morning after sleeping with Manika all night, listening to her cough: “I am the most selfish mother in the world because I really want to just leave her at a doctor’s office and pick her up when she’s better. Social services needs to call me up.”
Suresh: “You’re a very good mother. You’re just frustrated now. Wait it out, and take an hour to do something that makes you happy.”
Smart man, right?
It started to make me crazy – his immoveable responses to my pinball psyche. In yoga, I chastised myself for not having a “present mind” by stretching farther than my muscles deemed necessary. Two days later, I threw out my back.
At home, I cleaned obsessively, tearing out all of my now apparently toxic kids floor tiles and running all around Shanghai to find the only formamide-free replacements – imported Playspot. I checked all other toys and foods for toxicity while I was at it, and spent two days in a cold sweat dwelling on how I was basically feeding my kids cancer.
I made enormously long and incongruous checklists: buy milk, show ayi a baby cpr video, call Mr. Chen on next book shipment, order a chicken, pay mortgage, finish due diligence report, yoga. I checked through them, ignoring breakfast, ignoring lunch, giving myself an equally enormously long headache.
Then last night, I finally crashed, angry with myself for not being smart enough to break a life long pattern – burnout, followed by inactivity, followed by general bumminess at said inactivity, followed by hyperactive burnout to make up for down period. I closed my eyes in a big sigh of depression and sent a text message to Suresh: “I’m exhausted.”
Well, you’d think I’d launched an SOS in white lights from the top of the building because that guy sprung into action as if he’d been waiting for this moment all month. 12pm, he took care of Manika’s fever medicine without waking me up. 6am, he was up with Avik. 7am, he let in the yogurt delivery guy and when I finally emerged from bed at 7:15am, he was waiting for me with a chocolate truffle and a cup of tea. If Manika didn’t need her nose wiped every two minutes, she and Avik would’ve gotten a “Blues Clues” and my husband would’ve been very late for work!
But as it was, I was left to be stunned by the fact that my husband, words unspoken, sight unseen (I went to sleep before he even got home) knew me enough to jump into my washing cycle right when I was heading for spin. It was humbling to say the least.
It also made me realize that things in my family were finally changing. Four months ago, this entrance into the morning wouldn’t have been necessary because four months ago, I was waking up at 5am to pack my husband’s lunch and bake carrot apple breakfast muffins. My hyperactivity was geared towards the ubiquitous them, everyone outside my own being.
Now, because I am building a life for myself, everyone has had to step back. Manika eats breakfast out of a box or not at all if she’s too fussy, Suresh buys his lunch, Avik gets a little extra time in the playtime some mornings. Shockingly, I saw this morning that everyone is actually, in some ways, growing faster without me. Suresh has learned how much Tylenol to give Manika when she’s fevery, Manika has actually learned to occupy herself for ten to twenty minutes, and Avik can pick up strawberries with his own two fingers.
Amazing. I should’ve done all this so much sooner apparently.
Suddenly, I didn’t feel off balance anymore, and I realized that what was really throwing me off was guilt, this constant sensation that everyone was suffering due to my lack of attention. But that isn’t the case now, I see.
Knowing this fully renewed my energy and concentration, I went to the gym and exercised with a single-minded focus that I haven’t felt since this craziness started. When I came home, I made phone calls, answered emails, read a business plan, checked on my son and, did almost everything I’d been doing all the other days.
The only difference: for the first time in months, I could give myself permission to actually enjoy it. I felt generally at peace, and safe in the new knowledge that people can adapt, especially those that love you, to make space for you to be.
Then I had three weeks of guests (my whole family!) over Christmas, which was totally great but really crunched my ability to get anything else done. Just when they left, Manika entered this cranky wintery cycle – sort of tired one day, sort of not well another. She began bouncing in and out of moods (and even missed two days of school) causing lots of night wakings, neediness and general “I want mommy’s” that couldn’t have arrived at a more inconvenient time.
I really began to wonder why I had children, and then I began to wonder why I was wondering that, and that of course led me to feeling like a horrible mother.
So, like any good guilt-ridden mother, I sped up and tried to do more. I booked play dates on top of yoga classes, hauled Manika off with me to an afternoon of test cooking recipes, scheduled time to specifically play with Avik. I eventually booked myself out solid every day, weekends included, up until the start of Chinese New Year (today).
The result was sheer hyper-productivity in a way that I haven’t experienced since my investment banking days, when sun up and sun down seemed to be two fingers touching in the sky. In some ways, it was incredibly rewarding. My illustrator and I will be featured in the Shanghai Literary Festival this year (a big deal out here!), we’ve got some really big book readings coming up, our next titles are humming along and the biggest English bookstore in Shanghai has “Mika the Picky Eater” front and center. It’s amazing.
But the byproduct (and there always is one, particularly of an overheated engine) has been too much hot steam. I decided to exercise more to balance myself out. No luck. I built sleep back into my schedule. Didn’t happen. I tried to cram less into a day, focus more on the kids. That never works for me. I tried to find a new tv serial to distract me at night (used to be Mad Men – oh where or where are they?) but to no avail.
And so the imbalance continued, causing me to become a rather cranky unhappy person all over again, this time because I have too much work. Same refrain, different song title. I think I will never ever be happy.
I began to bounce around more dramatically than Manika, mostly to my husband.
One crunched morning to Suresh: “This is crazy. I should just stay home with the kids. What the hell am I doing? And I’m sure you would like that better too, your barefoot pajama-clad wife packing lunches for you again.”
Suresh, looking down at his feet while heading towards the bathroom: “Whatever makes you happy honey.”
One afternoon (same week) with a sick Manika: “If I don’t get out of here and do something, like RUN A COMPANY, I am going to go crazy.
Suresh: “Whatever makes you happy honey.”
One weekend day (with sick Manika sleeping in the stroller while I test cooked tahini noodles): “This is awesome! Look at all the strands of my life coming together! Cooking, writing, family!”
Suresh: “I’m very glad you’re happy.”
One morning after sleeping with Manika all night, listening to her cough: “I am the most selfish mother in the world because I really want to just leave her at a doctor’s office and pick her up when she’s better. Social services needs to call me up.”
Suresh: “You’re a very good mother. You’re just frustrated now. Wait it out, and take an hour to do something that makes you happy.”
Smart man, right?
It started to make me crazy – his immoveable responses to my pinball psyche. In yoga, I chastised myself for not having a “present mind” by stretching farther than my muscles deemed necessary. Two days later, I threw out my back.
At home, I cleaned obsessively, tearing out all of my now apparently toxic kids floor tiles and running all around Shanghai to find the only formamide-free replacements – imported Playspot. I checked all other toys and foods for toxicity while I was at it, and spent two days in a cold sweat dwelling on how I was basically feeding my kids cancer.
I made enormously long and incongruous checklists: buy milk, show ayi a baby cpr video, call Mr. Chen on next book shipment, order a chicken, pay mortgage, finish due diligence report, yoga. I checked through them, ignoring breakfast, ignoring lunch, giving myself an equally enormously long headache.
Then last night, I finally crashed, angry with myself for not being smart enough to break a life long pattern – burnout, followed by inactivity, followed by general bumminess at said inactivity, followed by hyperactive burnout to make up for down period. I closed my eyes in a big sigh of depression and sent a text message to Suresh: “I’m exhausted.”
Well, you’d think I’d launched an SOS in white lights from the top of the building because that guy sprung into action as if he’d been waiting for this moment all month. 12pm, he took care of Manika’s fever medicine without waking me up. 6am, he was up with Avik. 7am, he let in the yogurt delivery guy and when I finally emerged from bed at 7:15am, he was waiting for me with a chocolate truffle and a cup of tea. If Manika didn’t need her nose wiped every two minutes, she and Avik would’ve gotten a “Blues Clues” and my husband would’ve been very late for work!
But as it was, I was left to be stunned by the fact that my husband, words unspoken, sight unseen (I went to sleep before he even got home) knew me enough to jump into my washing cycle right when I was heading for spin. It was humbling to say the least.
It also made me realize that things in my family were finally changing. Four months ago, this entrance into the morning wouldn’t have been necessary because four months ago, I was waking up at 5am to pack my husband’s lunch and bake carrot apple breakfast muffins. My hyperactivity was geared towards the ubiquitous them, everyone outside my own being.
Now, because I am building a life for myself, everyone has had to step back. Manika eats breakfast out of a box or not at all if she’s too fussy, Suresh buys his lunch, Avik gets a little extra time in the playtime some mornings. Shockingly, I saw this morning that everyone is actually, in some ways, growing faster without me. Suresh has learned how much Tylenol to give Manika when she’s fevery, Manika has actually learned to occupy herself for ten to twenty minutes, and Avik can pick up strawberries with his own two fingers.
Amazing. I should’ve done all this so much sooner apparently.
Suddenly, I didn’t feel off balance anymore, and I realized that what was really throwing me off was guilt, this constant sensation that everyone was suffering due to my lack of attention. But that isn’t the case now, I see.
Knowing this fully renewed my energy and concentration, I went to the gym and exercised with a single-minded focus that I haven’t felt since this craziness started. When I came home, I made phone calls, answered emails, read a business plan, checked on my son and, did almost everything I’d been doing all the other days.
The only difference: for the first time in months, I could give myself permission to actually enjoy it. I felt generally at peace, and safe in the new knowledge that people can adapt, especially those that love you, to make space for you to be.
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