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Posted by shiso mama to the shiso mama report at 5/20/2006 03:58:00 AM

baby jams

F is a great many things to a great many people - an extremely smart guy; a reliable and diligent coworker; a loving, thoughtful husband; a fun and caring father. But there is one thing this man is definitely not, and that is a good singer. Sometimes I'll be singing, and F will join me, and no matter how hard I concentrate, his off-key melody or harmony or whatever it is that he's trying to sing, will always totally impair my own ability to sing. I always have to demand that he stop. After we brought Otis home from the hospital, I could often hear F singing to him, trying to calm him. It never worked, and I wonder now if perhaps the singing was upsetting him? One day, F sat next to me and asked, "What if the baby has perfect pitch and I'm totally destroying it?"

Maybe we're getting our answer now. Just in the last couple of days, Otis has started to sing. It started in the car, with Little Aunt Grandma, him singing tunelessly along with her: Da Da Da Da. He loves singing now, and will do so with little prompting, but either he inherited F's singing abilities or F destroyed the kid's perfect pitch. The whole family will sit around him and sing a tuneless Da Da Da Da nonsense song to egg him on.

But he's finding an outlet for his musical talent in other ways. My parents bought him a little plastic cell phone last time they visited us. It has a button that you can push to record a brief message, and it's fun to press it and play the message. One time, I went downstairs to fish something out of my purse late at night, and I nearly peed in my pants when the silence was broken with a very creaky, tinny voice saying, "Oh-tis. Where are you?" The message usually ends up being some version of "Otis, can you come play?" All this afternoon, he kept pushing the button repeatedly so that the voice would say: "O, O, O, Otis, O, Otis, Can you come play? Ot, Ot, Otis, O, O, Otis." Do you get it? My baby was scratching! Jammin', even! He's hip. It's just like that episode of the Cosby Show where the whole family got to visit Stevie Wonder in the recording studio.


Then later on, when I couldn't stand it any longer, I recorded over the message with a tuneless Da Da Da Da and he happily sang along for a long time while he played.

weaning

When we were here in Taiwan last time, we had a little breastfeeding incident. F and I took a 3-day trip to Tokyo (our first time away from The Boy) while my parents (mom) took care of Otis. I thought about him all the time and pumped faithfully to keep up my supply. But when I returned home, Otis refused all my advances. He would get into position and latch on, but whenever he tasted my breastmilk, he made a face and pushed away. I wept. Much perseverance later, he was back to his old breastfeeding ways. We didn't discover until we were packing everything up to go back to California that we discovered that my mother had accidentally been feeding him double concentrated formula. No wonder the kid looked so fat and slept so well - he was so stuffed he couldn't even move! And mystery solved, since my breast milk probably tasted rather watery after that viscous stuff he had been getting.

During pregnancy, I was in denial about everything - birth, taking care of a real live thing, and especially breast feeding. I didn't want to go to breastfeeding class. I wasn't so sure about the whole breast feeding thing. It felt kind of foreign and weird imaging ME doing it. I was amazed when they told me that doctors recommend about a year a breastfeeding.

But like so many other moms, I had a change of heart. I like how it makes me feel close to Otis. I like looking at his sleepy face, squeezing his feet, and feeling him curled up against me. It's comforting for both of us. And lately, I've been wondering when this whole weaning thing will happen. There have been times when he seems ready to wean himself, but then something happens, and he changes his mind.
When friends have asked me how long I plan to breastfeed, I flippantly say, "Oh, until he says to me, "Mother, put that away! You're embarassing me in front of my friends!"" I still don't feel ready, but will I ever? I want to be supportive of extended breastfeeding, but recently I was working with a group of homeschoolers (yes, I know, homeschoolers), and this toddler who was maybe 4? just walked over to her mom, yanked up her shirt and started nursing. Then she pulled her head out and started talking, like nothing unusual happened. The whole thing kinda creeped my out, as well as some of the teenage boys that were sitting next to them when it happened. But in many ways, I can see how you never want to lose that feeling of closeness, of taking care of your child in a way that nobody else can, and not wanting to stop, and then next thing you know, he's having a little nurse before he goes to prom. So, you know, trying not to judge (but kinda am anyways).

I guess I'll just have to take his lead. I feel like things are turning towards the weaning tide again here in Taiwan. There's new things to explore, the walking to conquer, so many many many people to charm and play with. And I want to give everyone else as much time with him as possible, so I try to encourage his interaction with everyone but me. All of this is turning his attention away from me and the nursing. I feel terribly sad just considering the possibility. No tears yet, but there definitely will be if this is really the end.

the perfect walking tool

My parents have this coffee table. It's got this big round glass top, that's sort of off center, with this narrow stone base and a lacquer tray thing that you can push to rotate around the glass, which also turns, by the way. I've never been a big aesthetic fan of this thing although it has proved itself useful when I've just too lazy to reach for my soda or the remote while watching TV.

But now that I've gotten older, I've developed a new, uh, appreciation for the thing. I still find it a little ugly, but it has revealed its most useful purpose - the best makeshift walker a kid could hope for. Forget the fancy German walker wagon and the foot-powered trike bike that he got for Christmas. He pushes that tray around and around and around for hours. We first discovered its function when we were hanging out in the family room, and Otis saw the TV remote, which he believed to be a telephone (he thinks everything is a telephone these days) and he started reaching for it. The tray moved. He walked with it. And kept reaching for that remote/phone. Another sign that babies are dumb, he was never ever able to catch up with that remote even though he kept walking and walking. We do our exercises every day, several times a day now. There's even a rug beneath a majority of it (unlike the rest of the apartment, which is just hardwood) so he's cushioned if he takes a fall. My mom even bubble wrapped the sharp handles underneath.

Sometimes I chase him around in circles, and he screams as he speeds up. Yesterday, he chased me around the table, and when he finally caught up to me, I collapsed in a heap and pretended to be dead. I peeked at him through the glass as he looked at me, a little amused. Some jibberish words to get my attention. No response from me, I was dead. Slight pause and then nervous laughter. I was still dead. Another pause and then a yelp. Dead and dead. Then a louder yelp. Then outright screaming, with tears streaming down the cheeks, since he had no idea why I was dead. I had to leap up and reassure him that I was just playing. Sorry to traumatize the kid, but it was just too damned funny.

things that maybe only seem important

I'll admit that I'm a pretty strict parent. I think it's important for The Boy to explore the world, develop into his own person, discover his own likes and dislikes, and all that jazz. But I also expect him to be a good citizen. He should not scream, he should learn how to behave in public, and he should have good manners, no matter what he's capable of developmentally at the moment. It bothers me when parents let their children (mis)behave however they wish just because it's "what children do." That seems like lazy parenting to me. And I guess I just generally like and crave order and social politesse, sometimes almost to extreme.

I'm trying to be aware of the fact that I am this way and respond sensitively. It's a challenge being with my family sometimes because I know I need to relax a little and let them have their fun. The kid can't live under dictator rule all the time, can he? Well, maybe he can, but I can't reasonably expect the rest of my family to submit, even if I do sometimes unreasonably ask them to. There are a couple of things that have been bothering me, and I can't decide how to judge my own reactions.

I've been trying to speak Chinese to Otis, and it's a struggle for me because my ChEnglish is so poor. I want him to learn proper Chinese pronunciation, and unfortunately those skills will not be coming from me. So it bothers me that there's quite a bit of Chinese baby talk around here. Words are purposefully mispronounced for some reason I can't really understand (but then again, I don't understand baby talk in general). Can I ask them to cut it out? Where else will he learn how to speak correct Chinese if not from the real Chinese members of the family?

The other issue is food (again). He's back to his normal eating patterns although he's generally staying away from the extremely sweet and tasty tropical fruit. Everyone loves to watch him eat. But they also really badly want to feed him snacks all the time. I understand, it's FUN to feed a baby. I like feeding him. But I don't like the idea of feeding him all the time - when he's not hungry, just before a meal, any old time that he may or may not feel like it. It seems like a bad habit. I am definitely sensitive to this whole thing because of my own food issues, but still.

This morning I went to my grandmother's house, and she and her housekeeper insisted on feeding Otis some lychees. We had just eaten breakfast, so I declined.

"It's only fruit."
No, he's not hungry.
"It doesn't matter if he's hungry. Fruit's OK."
No, plus we've been trying to feed him lychees the past few days, and he won't eat them. He spits them out every time.
"But THESE lychees are really sweet."
There is a lot more back and forth. The housekeeper walks towards the kitchen. I ask her not to. She still wants to walk over and stops very reluctantly only after I address her by name and firmly repeat no. Half an hour later she reappears with that damned bag of lychees and a huge smile on her face. I say no again.
"But it doesn't matter, it's fruit!"
My grandmother pipes in. "Just one!"
No.
"He wants one!"
Of course he wants it. He's curious about this mysterious bag that you've shown up with.
They want to give him one to play with.
No, he'll just put it into his mouth.
They give it to him anyways and he promptly puts it whole into his mouth, peel, stem and everything.
Then the housekeeper peels it and starts feeding him.

It just doesn't matter what I want. There's nothing new about that fact where the baby's concerned. I can (reluctantly) live with that. But they're developing a bad habit, which I'll have to break him of as soon as they develop. And between two grandparents, three great grandparents, five aunt grandmas plus two rather affectionate housekeepers, where can I draw the line? We'll be home in four weeks, but that's not a short amount of time. Tell me, do I care too much?

playing with the grown-ups

I grew up sitting at my grandmother's elbow, watching her play mahjong. When I was much younger, my grandparents would occasionally host mahjong parties, where multiple tables of friends would come over to play, break for lunch, and then continue playing late into the afternoon. Even if you didn't play mahjong, it was like a big party, with many of the ladies hanging out in the kitchen, and kids hovering about watchfully. Occasionally, during lunch break or later on after the adults went home, the kids would jump into the empty seats and pretend to play. We were usually shooed away because kids didn't play mahjong.

My grandparents haven't really hosted or attended a real mahjong party in years. My grandmother still enjoys playing, although her back starts to bother her after sitting too long, so she'll usually play only when enough of my mother's sisters are around. That's one great advantage to having a family of six kids that my grandparents probably never considered - it's not too difficult to pull together a rousing game of mahjong. I still sit at my grandmother's elbow watching her play, and over the years, whenever I've asked to play, the answer has always a resounding NO. I was always still the kid, not old enough to play, and too pesky to teach.

Ah, but the tides are changing. I can't remember the last time I was with my mother and all five of her sisters at the same time. There have been games of mahjong every day since we've been back that start before we arrive, and continue long after we leave. And for the first time ever, I have been repeatedly ASKED to play. Of course I know it's not because they're enjoying what they're discovering to be my surprising skill at the game, but because each player wants a short-term substitute so that they can go and play with Otis while the others are busy. Even if there are ulterior motives, I gotta say I'm my long-awaited entree into the adult world.

otis fever

We have arrived (barely) in one piece. All those years of sitting on the plane, stewing in annoyance when somebody's baby was crying miserably came back to bite me in the ass. What was I? A monster? Obviously, those other babies were sweet, loving children, only whimpering with pain and excessive fatigue. In fact, it was probably my negative energy that was making them cry. Luckily, he slept for most of the quiet time when the lights were out, so hopefully we were not the recipients of too many evil death stares.

The schedule has been frantic and crazy since we arrived. We left San Francisco at 1AM, arrived in Taipei at 4:30AM local time, and then our first scheduled activity was at 11:30 that same morning, for a big fancy, multi-course pre-Mama's Day lunch. Otis was pretty miserable all morning, but he magically perked up at lunch, just in time to cast his spell on everyone there.

Every pair of eyes was focused on him. His every move was narrated, just in case somebody missed the slightest gesture. He really knew how to play to his audience. Coy looks. Little giggles. Cocking his head to one side while looking at people through his eyelashes. Flashing his excessively large front teeth at everyone. And the fists of fury. He would look at each person individually, make eye contact and then flirt with each one. Little Aunt Grandma was sitting on his other side, and he kept leaning over to kiss her repeatedly. Many jealous glares would ensue from all the other grandma aunts on the other side of the table. They demand that there be a lottery system instituted so that they all get their turns sitting next to him. At one point, he even started directly his attention to the waitstaff, charming them. Where did this kid pick this stuff up? Certainly not from me or F, we don't even like people. He loves people. He's absolutely shameless. I'm almost embarassed for him.

They talked about nothing else the entire meal. My family couldn't even spare the energy to complain about the food, and that's epic. One time, Second Aunt Grandma CF, embarassedly said, "We can't even think about anything else! Uh, so F is still pretty busy, huh?" Yeah, I said, he's always busy. I was thinking about elaborating when she jumped in, "Did you see what Otis just did?" So much for that thought.

We hear they spent all of dinner rehashing everything that The Boy did at lunch. It'll be crazy and busy jettisoning him from one house to the next, from one grandparent's house to the next. He's exhibiting some very curious separation anxiety whenever I turn away, but hopefully he'll get over that soon, and I'll just be able to pass him off from one grandma aunt to the next. Even sitting here at my computer at my grandmother's house, I can hear collective laughter and oohs every few minutes coming from his general direction, and narration from others sitting next to me. Maybe it'll even be a nice break. How wonderful that would be.

Here's Otis from breakfast this morning, after my mom fed him some black sesame paste that she spreads on toast.