Zenbit: Tea Lake

I'm standing in a giant cup of tea. The lake is fed by rainwater that filters through the roots of the tea trees surrounding it, turning the water into tea.

Location: Lake Ainsworth, Australia
Date: January 17, 2006

Working Mum: You'll Work it Out

I've been getting quite a few hits on this blog from people looking for information on "pumping during a business trip" or "first business trip away from baby". Google is directing these women to my post about the business trip I took when Pumpkin was 6 months old. I hope the information in that post was helpful to them, because I remember how stressed I was when I was preparing for that trip, and how desperately I combed the internet looking for information that would help me. In the end, the trip itself was far easier than I had feared. I had the good sense to pack patterned tops and plenty of breast pads, because I didn't get to pump on the schedule my body was used to, but other than a little more leakage than usual and the weirdness of pumping at my seat on the airplane, it wasn't so bad.

I think there is a general lesson in there about being a working mother. The logistics can be tricky, but you'll work it out, you really will. I've never met a woman who has said that she stopped working to stay home with her baby because she couldn't get the logistics to work out. Everyone I know who stays home does so either because they don't want to be away from their baby or because the finances don't work out, due to the cost of day care.

I've met working, pumping mothers in all sorts of professions: teachers, who have to figure out how to pump during a day with very limited breaks; an airplane pilot, with pumping logistics that boggled my mind; people working in retail, some of whom had to remind their employers that California law requires employers to give workers a break to pump; and businesswomen in a variety of work situations, whose pumping dilemmas are as varied as their fields of expertise. We all fretted before we went back to work about how we would make pumping work out, and we all figured it out. (And if you don't want to solve this particular dilemma, and decide to give your baby formula while you work, that is fine, too.)

The "you'll work it out" principle applies to many other working parent quandaries, too. Several months ago, when we were just starting Pumpkin on solid foods, Hubby and I had no idea how we would fit a solid food breakfast into our already hectic morning routine. Yet somehow, we did, and now that is as much a part of our routine as the incredibly cute wave bye-bye routine we do every day. We've muddled through a long list of everyday dilemmas, and every other working parent I know has, as well. We all solve the problems differently, but we all solve the problems.

Personally, I wouldn't have my life any other way. I love the way that Pumpkin grounds me and cheers me up after a tough day at work, and I love the way my work makes me feel competent and intelligent when the mommy thing is kicking my butt. There are definitely things I miss from my pre-Pumpkin life, but on the whole, I think I like the new life.

Well, I like the new life most days. I'm not saying that being a working mother isn't hard, and I definitely suffer from the occasional bout of guilt about it all. I have certainly found that the working mom experience has shown me what my true priorities are, because most weeks, the things that aren't priorities don't get done. I also have bad days (like yesterday!) when I straggle home from a tough day at work, wanting nothing more than to pop open a beer and chill out with Hubby. Early on, that desire was subjugated to my need for sleep, and I just wen to bed hoping that tomorrow would be better- and it usually was. Now that Pumpkin is sleeping a little better, I get my chill out beer- it just has to wait until after Pumpkin is down for the night. And before that, I usually get some quality Pumpkin play time, which frankly takes away the work stress far better than the beer does.

So if you're thinking about joining the ranks of working moms, and feeling a bit nervous about the logistics of how you'll juggle work and home, don't worry, you'll work it out. You're a smart woman, and you'll find solutions to the problems that crop up. Talk to other working parents, but don't be constrained by their solutions. Everyone has to find the It will be hard, and you will get angry at a society that sometimes seems to have stacked the deck against you, but you'll have some really good days and they will keep you going through the bad ones. And remember, you had bad days before the baby was born, too.

Trip Story: Singapore

Cara Mama had a question up earlier this week asking what we miss most about our pre-baby days. My answer in her comments (lazy weekend days spent reading and my yoga class) was true from an everyday perspective. But in the larger sense, I think what Hubby and I are missing most is travel. We used to take one multi-week trip (usually to an overseas destination) and several smaller weekend getaways (usually to domestic destinations) every year. Since Pumpkin was born, we've been to my home state of Arizona- and that is it. We know that travel will get easier after awhile, and would in fact be game to try a domestic trip this year if we don't burn all of our time off on sick days to care for Pumpkin. However, that doesn't stop the itchy feet we get when we hear about other people's vacations.

So we find ourselves reminiscing about our big trip now and then. Earlier in the life of this blog, I used it mainly to write up travel stories. I've decided it is time to write another one. I had been going in chronological order, and I haven't finished writing about all of the fun and interesting things we did in Australia, but I threw out the rules for this blog ages ago, so this post is about Singapore.

We arrived in Singapore a few days before Chinese New Year. We had thought we were going to miss Chinese New Year, but somehow got that entirely wrong. Since Chinese New Year is a bit like Thanksgiving, in that it is a major family-oriented holiday that clogs transportation for the days immediately before and shuts most things on the actual day, we decided to extend our time in Singapore to a week, and not go on to Malaysia until the holiday was over.

This decision not only allowed us to see the New Year celebrations, but also gave us time to see more of Singapore than most Western tourists do. Consequently, we got to enjoy not only the terrific Night Zoo (which would have been on my must-see list), but also the Botanical Gardens, which we may have skipped on a shorter stay. These included the National Orchid Garden, which was full of beautiful and fascinating orchids, such as the mini-banana orchid (our own name) shown here. The highlight of the Botanical Garden for me, though, was the Evolution Gardens, which were a sort of open air museum tracing the evolution of plant life on Earth. Like all of the public education sights we visited (including the Asian Civilizations Museum, which was jam-packed with interesting exhibits and really needed more than the afternoon we devoted to it), these were incredibly well done. Public education attractions are something the Singaporeans do well, like running efficient mass transit and working incredibly hard. (Hubby was getting seriously tempted to move to Singapore until he heard about the average work week, which includes long days and at least a half day on Saturday.)

One thing we definitely would not have done during a shorter visit to Singapore was visit East Coast Park, which is a place the locals go to relax. We enjoyed seeing local people enjoying their day at the park/beach, and were really amused by the water-ski machine that is set up on an artificial lake in the park. After watching the attempts of several novices to get going on the machine, we decided that we weren't sorry to have left our swim suits back at the place we were staying. Those who made it past the abrupt start usually wiped out on the first turn, and had to walk back approximately 200 meters to the starting point (with their skis).

There is no question that Singapore can be an expensive place to visit. The price of beer almost sent Hubby into shock, and came close to derailing our budget. However, you certainly don't need to spend much on food if you don't want to. And this doesn't mean eating greasy fast food, although we did sample the localized McDonald's fare- a Fantastic burger, which was stir-fried beef between two rice patties. Our more usual meals were at the food courts and hawker stalls, which serve up excellent food for a very reasonable price. One of my favorite experiences in Singapore came at the Lau Pa Sat Festival Market hawker center. The food was fine, but certainly not the best we sampled. The entertainment made the experience- half way through our meal, (American) country music began to play. We wandered to its source to find a group of local women (and a few men) line dancing. This was made even more surreal by the occasional inclusion of a pop song, during which the group morphed into something akin to a high school pom line, sans fake, plastered on smiles. This lack of giant smiles really threw me for awhile. I couldn't figure out what was not quite right about the performance, because the dance moves were actually pretty good.

We topped this night off with a local dessert called an ice kacang, which was like a giant American shaved ice, albeit with flavors that we couldn't place. We think that the nicest one was probably sweet corn. The syrup-covered ice was perched atop a mix of lychees, jello, and sweet corn, and topped with a slathering of durian custard (or perhaps just durian flesh- we weren't sure what durian flesh looks like). Durian, for those not familiar with it, is the fruit that smells like rotting flesh. I can't say we liked it, but it wasn't as bad as the description might imply. Still, the entire dessert had more unfamiliar flavors than even my usually adventurous Hubby could really enjoy. We didn't finish the dessert, but we were glad that we tried it and that we had enough time in Singapore to see some things off the main tourist path.

The Best Laid Plans

I had planned to go play fiddle tonight, as part of my attempt to find a new normal that includes more of my pre-baby interests. Pumpkin had other ideas, though. She didn't want her final nursing until almost 7:20, which meant that even if I'd left right when she finished, I would have gotten only an hour of fiddle time unless I decided to stay out past my usual bedtime. Some other week, I may have decided to do just that, but I'm pretty tired tonight, due to a particularly wakeful night last night for Pumpkin. She was awake from 3 until almost 5, and I was up with her from 3:30. She nursed a couple of times, but mostly she was just awake, periodically pointing at her bedroom door, trying to convince me to let her go out to play. This is proof of karma, since I apparently did the same thing to my mother when I was Pumpkin's age.

So here I am, writing a blog post instead of playing fiddle tunes. I don't have much to write about. I'll point out that Cara Mama has some very cute stories about her Pumpkin up on her blog today. I'm trying not to be too jealous of the words... we're still limited to "Da!" here, which is applied to anything Pumpkin is curious about. I haven't even heard "Mama" for almost two weeks (although I remain convinced that she really did say it a few times two weeks ago). My Buddy Mimi had a delightful word post last week, too. I'm looking forward to having cute word stories, too, but if I continue to suffer from my baby karma, Pumpkin will soon be talking up a storm but thw words will be incomprehensible until she is almost 4. Maybe we'll get Hubby's karma on this one.

Of course, Pumpkin is still wonderfully cute and a delight to watch. She has recently forsaken her beloved ducks for my plastic measuring cups. This started when I gave her the half cup measure after I made my oatmeal in the morning, in a futile attempt to buy myself a peaceful breakfast. She plays with it for a little while, but quickly wants me to pick her up again. However, on Monday I showed up at day care to find the quarter cup measure in her car seat. I suspect she had refused to give it up when Hubby was getting her ready for day care that morning. She had been pretty much inseparable from that cup for most of Sunday, even crawling around outside with it for awhile.




















If we were more energetic parents, we'd give her two cups at once, to encourage her nascent walking skills. But we're not 100% convinced we want to do that!

Zenbit: Double Helix

It was unclear if this was an intentional representation of DNA.

Location: Cameron Highlands, Malaysia
Date: February 10, 2006