B.A.B.E. Week 16: Raising a baby in the Bahamas

Right after Wilson moved here to the Bahamas, we found out that we were going to have a baby.  And we thought perfect!  Having a baby in paradise should be paradise…right?   Well it hasn’t quite turned out that way.  The first drawback was our time apart.  We were apart for much of the pregnancy because at I was working from DC.  And then after that I had to be in the US while we waited for Elle’s arrival.  Finally, we were apart for 10 or so days after Elle was a month old when Wilson was back to the Bahamas but I remained in the US waiting for Elle’s passport to come through and for both of us to be medically cleared.   Even now that we are finally here in the Bahamas, it has not yet been the idyllic experience that I thought it would be.

That said, Elle seems to be thriving as she would thrive anywhere in the U.S.  She is jabbering, reaching, exploring the world around her from the cool wall by her changing table to tugging on my hair.   She also really enjoys having a blanket on her face (sounds freaky I know) but she also laughs when she pulls the blanket off her face herself.  It is fun to see the motor skills get better and better.

And yes in addition to Elle's thriving, there are wonderful aspects of being here.  For instance, the fact that I work from home and have childcare in my house is pretty great.   And the fact that we have a pool across the street and can walk 500 feet to the beach is also very nice.  However, we are now in hurricane season in another country away from our global community of friends and family.

Hurricane Season

Hurricane season means scary storms (obviously), power outages, and heat.  I will skip talking about scary storms because it scares me to think about it and move right on to the other annoyances that occur even without the hurricane--power outages and heat.  The power goes out frequently here.  Luckily for me, these power outages have not been very long yet...but you can go days without power.  And this past week I spent an hour  trying to get our generator working in the middle of my work day.  Thus, no wifi, no air conditioning and no juice for my laptop and phone without the generator.  So I tried to get the generator going -- filled it with gas, read the directions, moved it to a safe location outside the garage (this thing puts out a lot of fumes) -- and it went for about 5 minutes before it stopped and wouldn't start again -- out of oil.   After I discovered it was out of oil, luckily, the power came back on and "crisis" was averted.  

This past week's power outage has taught me to keep my computer/phone charged (something I struggle with as Wilson blogged about in Daddy ABC's) and to keep the air conditioning going.  I have a habit of turning of the A/C for a while letting the house heat up and then turning it back on.  I just don't prefer the constant cool temp that A/C provides and I can't spend so much time outside either because I am working or with Elle.  So now with the threat of power outages, just got to keep the A/C going so we don't end up in a situation where the power has gone out but the house is already hot because I turned of the A/C.

This brings me to the other point about Hurricane season -- the heat.   It is hot in the Islands and we have been experiencing exceptionally high temperatures for the last couple of weeks.  Not a huge surprise since, with climate change, 2015 is slated to be the hottest year yet.  But the heat is a pain for Elle because she is very sensitive to its effects.  She really hates being hot.  

Having Elle in hot places, first Tennessee and now here, has made me think about the babies in Madagascar.  I was a Peace Corps volunteer in Madagascar for two years and I think about the heat that those babies endure  No wonder that infant mortality is so high there and beyond for many of the world's poorest billion who live on less than a $1.25 per day in mostly really hot places.  I feel so fortunate to have the lifestyle that we have with Elle (even in the A/C), but it is the pits to spend so little time outside because of her sensitivity to the heat.   Babies in Madagascar have to endure the heat but Elle doesn't and so I am going to accept that gift and know that recycled air from air conditioning is better than having ill effects from the heat.

Community

Adding to the aggravation of spending a lot of time inside because of the heat is the fact that I am still trying to build a community here as well as often missing my global community.  Don't get me wrong, the embassy community here in Nassau has been wonderful -- welcoming, social, everything you could ask for.  In fact, we hosted a BBQ at our house on Sunday of 20 or so people and 10 kids.  But the community here is not our family and friends back home.  Also, I am struggling to tap into a community of mom and babies.   I have taken some steps to find the mom/baby community both here and with friends and family in our global community.  Part of that BBQ on Sunday was to meet moms with babies and I am also trying to stay connected via technology to my loved ones who are also moms (and dads).  (And of course, still love childless friends too... :) )

However, staying connected via technology isn't quite the same as having that day to day contact.   But to be honest, even if we hadn't decided on this foreign service lifestyle, we couldn't have that day to day contact with the majority of our loved ones -- so many of you are spread throughout many of the States (or at least most of the Eastern and Western ones) and around the world.  

I think the struggle of being apart from loved ones is common to almost all of us whether you are in the foreign service or not.   But as the cliche goes -- absence makes the heart grow fonder.  Well, maybe in today's world of long distances, we are all thinking more fondly of the near and dear far away.   I know that I treasure and look forward to the times that I get to be with loved ones in person.  And even saying goodbye isn't so bad when I think of the Dr. Seuss saying -- don't cry because it is over, smile because it happened.  Or maybe the quote is actually from Gabriel García Márquez:  "No llores porque ya se terminó, sonríe porque sucedió."  Either way, I am smiling. 

B.A.B.E Week 15: Schedule...what schedule?

In Elle’s 14^th week of life, she has become more communicative – both with the noises that she makes to try to talk with you and her facial expressions.   Now, we can see when a storm is about to form because her lower lip begins to stick out and quiver.   Or we see lots of smiles for purely pleasure’s sake rather than a mirror of our own smiles.  These communications get a little more sporadic when she has a 1000 mile stare from not getting enough sleep during the day.

I know some babies don’t sleep during the day and get all their 12-15 hours at night but Elle seems to need daytime sleep…so after Elle was a month or so old we tried to get on a 3 hour cycle of sleep/play/eat.  This 3 hour cycle has been mostly aspirational but now with work and a nanny, I am more determined to get that 3 hour cycle going.   This blog post is about creating that structure and then the reality of trying to implement the structure.

I based the below structure on a few key concepts: (1) 3-4 month old babies need roughly around 15 hours per sleep per day; (2) flexibility within the structure in the morning is important because the time that Elle wakes up for her morning feed is variable; and (3) overall flexibility is necessary given other constraints (times of work meetings, can’t control the length of Elle’s sleep, being a baby, etc.)

Here’s our rough structure:

5/5:30  Feed, doze and feed again around 7/7:30. 

8:30ish-10 Elle sleeps

10 ish Feed

11:30-1 Elle sleeps

1 ish Feed

2ish – 3:30 Elle sleeps

3:30 Feed

5-6:30 Elle sleeps

6:30 Feed

Then Elle maybe sleeps around 8 for another hour or so.

8:30-9:30  Elle feeds again (time dependent on whether Elle takes that last evening nap or not.

The above gets us around 15 hours and it somewhat “worked” for 4 days but then here is what actually happened today:

First time "playing" in the water

3:45 am Elle wakes up. I had determined to give her a pacifier/soothe her without milk when she wakes up before 5 am but this morning I didn’t. I didn’t because last night, I felt a blocked duct in my breast. And I didn’t want that duct to turn into mastitis again so I just fed her.

6 am Elle wakes up again and I feed her (because that is the schedule) but she doesn’t eat that much because she ate a bunch two hours earlier.

7:15-7:45 Elle dozes. Elle won’t go back to sleep for her “scheduled” 1.5 hour nap

8:30 I give up and feed her again because I hadn’t fed her that much at 6 am.

8:45 She is a little cranky with the nanny because she seems tired.

9:15 am we decide to give her a little more food (even though this is totally OFF her schedule.) The reason why is that I like to give her a probiotic early in the day to make sure she drinks all of it. Thus, we give her a little bottle with probiotic.

Our probiotic of choice is Jarrodophilus – a probiotic that my brother’s pediatrician recommended and our pediatrician approved.    I much prefer the Jarrodophilus to the Gerber drops that I had been giving Elle because the drops have only one strain of probiotic whereas the Jarro has 6.   Also, we started giving her the Jarro when Elle was having a little bit of bowel issues and those cleared right up.  The only bad part about the Jarro is that we have to mix it with my expressed breast milk – we can’t give it to her directly.

9:30 -10:15  Elle snoozes

10:45  While I am on a call for work, the Nanny gives her more food because she seems hungry.  And then because the Nanny started, I finish up with a complete feed.  Urgh.  We burp her and keep her up for a little while.

11:40- 12:45  decent nap.  Not 1.5 hours but I will take it.   When she wakes up, I think that she will go back to sleep if only I can change her wet dress surreptitiously.  (Her dress is all wet because we have been doing “freetime” sleeping.)  My efforts at surreptitious dress changing fail and she goes for the breast.  I give in to nursing Elle (again off schedule).

1:45 – 3:40 She sleeps again.  Close to 2 hours!  We are almost back on schedule.

3:40 Feeds

5:15  Elle falls asleep again. 5:45 wakes up and she fitfully dozes for the next hour with her pacifier and beloved snuggle bunny on our bed and with me working on my computer by her side.

6:45  feeds, we hang out and then go for a walk on the beach.  We have taken less beach walks then I would like to admit so it was good to get one in.

8:15  Elle feeds

8:45 falls asleep, hopefully for the night. 

Counting her nighttime sleeping from the last night and the fitful dozing complete with smiles, Elle got roughly 14 or so hours. And for me, my work time in this haphazard scheduled day? I tried to start reading work stuff on my computer at 8 am (later than usual because I was working on doing house stuff before that) and didn’t sign off of work until 9 pm but yet just barely made 7.5 hours for the day.  11 hours signed in and only 7.5 hours of work to show for it. Not great. 

But even though I didn't get my 8 hours of work and so that aspect of B.A.B.E.dom fell short, I am still planking and I got in a 5.5 mile run at 4 pm after the 3:40 pm feed.  Yea for a nanny and work flexibility!   Just got get in those 8.5 hours tomorrow...

B.A.B.E. Week 14: Rolling, rolling, rolling

 Elle and I have been rolling over both literally and figuratively.   Elle rolled from her stomach to her back for the first time this past week.   And I have rolled into my new life as a working, exercising mom.  My maternity leave ended last week on Monday August 3^rd -- just before Elle turned 3 months on August 5^th.

Rolling back into my old life has been hectic.  My first week back was in DC (away from home and our own baby infrastructure).   Hard.  But luckily Wilson’s parents came to DC to help us.   This meant the world to all of us. Elle loved cooing and talking to her grandparents.   She showed off her newfound skills of grabbing everything (toys, shirts, hair).   This girl loves to hold on (and cuddle).

So returning to work – well Wilson’s parents made it much easier to leave Elle for 9 or so hours per day (35 minute commute each way and then 6-9 hours at work depending on the day).   And my work is super flexible about working remotely so I could head out early on some days so that also made it easier for the first week.   

But the logistics of babycare while breastfeeding are daunting.  First, you have to teach the caregiver all your “systems”.  As in this is how you put together the bottle for the milk, warm up the milk, this is how she likes to go to sleep, etc.   Second, you have to plan how you are going to pump and store all the milk for the bambino.  This one sounds easy but its not.  For example, what about washing breast pump parts in between pumping?  Where/how will I wash them? Or have I brought enough bottles/bags to store the milk in?  Is my cooler cold enough? Is it big enough?  Do I have a secure place to pump?  Can I “exit” an all day meeting for 30 minutes (at least) at a time to pump and clean the pump parts?  Can I exit said meeting multiple times?  And finally, missing (and worrying about) the snuggling baby is hard even when you know she is happily cooing at her grandparents.

I survived the week in DC and now am back to work remotely.   It is SO much easier.  We have a nanny who comes to our house for 8 hours per day.  And since I can sneak in work in the morning and the evening as well, I don’t feel like I have to work the entire 8 hours that help is at the house. This allows time to feed and see Elle, which relieves so much pressure and logistics.  So I may be back at work full-time but thus far, my two days of remote work are head and shoulders better as a new mom then my first week back in the office.

Even though remote work seems to be working quite well (in the 2 days I have been doing it), I am still struggling to B.A.B.E. it up on the health and fitness aspect of things.   I am not exercising as much as I would like but I am doing something that I am very excited about – logging exercise with a friend.  For the past 20 or so days, my friend and I have been using google sheets to log our planking, runs, yogaing, rowing (a new sport for me), climbing (not doing this in the Bahamas), pull-ups, push-ups and squats.   This log has been incredibly motivating.  I love seeing her efforts and logging my own.

One aspect of the log that has been especially fulfilling is the fact that she and I have committed to doing planks twice a day every day.   We decided to do planks everyday because as new moms, it is so easy to injure yourself with a weak core.  I haven't followed through every single time but have gotten very close and that feels good both physically and emotionally.  Physically, it is tightening the still-dynamic (read-sagging) portion of my body.   And emotionally, doing the planks frees me up to not stress that some of my other exercise sometimes falls to the wayside.   Getting rid of some exercise anxiety is helpful as I deal with all the other stresses in “B.A.B.E.”dom.

B.A.B.E. Week 13: Daddy ABC's

Elle and Mu were in NYC as I wrote this from the plane on my own way up to the City. We went to a great wedding and had a fun weekend and now Mu is back at work. So we decided that this week would be a good week for me to do a guest B.A.B.E. Blog. Mu has done such an impressive job on B.A.B.E., so I feel a bit of pressure here.

For my guest post, I thought it would be good to share a bit of my own parental experience, in the form of what we affectionately call my ABC’s – “Always be calm, always be cleaning, always be cooking”. I started with this idea back in Nashville when we were nascent parents, like maybe day 4. And now I try to embody the “Daddy ABC’s” wherever I may be parenting. Some of them come easier than others, as my lovely bride can attest.

Always Be Calm

This is the first, and by far, the most important dad ABC. So much of parenthood is stressful, starting with the inherent uncertainty of doing something for the first time. Then there is the love and care we seek to give our little baby girl. Being so little, she is totally dependent on our care and actions and wisdom. We know that we will not always get it right, but we have to come damn close. Thus far we have found that there is a motherhood biology that makes Mu more reactive to elle’s distress. If elle is upset, it creates extreme mental and physical distress for Mu. Also, as she has written about here, there is a significant increase in the anxiety Mu feels overall which is directly tied to motherhood.

These are natural and biologic. I too can upset and exhausted when elle is upset, but it is just different. So what we have found is that the dad plays a VERY important role in remaining, and injecting, calm into situations that are fraught with tension. This is extremely important, and in theory deflates some of the tension and anxiety. Does it work every time? Of course not. But it works most of the time and that is a huge contribution from daddy.

Always Be Cleaning

Now on to some more mundane roles – the first is cleaning. On thing about caring for a baby is that you have much less capacity to clean up through the transition from one activity to another. Some of this is a math issue, less hands. Some of it is prioritization, who care about a mess left behind when you are taking care of your little baby girl? Not me!

Since Mu has been doing more of the childcare with me at work, I think my role in this area is to pick up the mess that is left behind from childcare. And perhaps most importantly, to do that cleaning up without judgment. That last part is the hardest one, because as a millennial couple we took an equalitarian approach to cleaning. You make it, you fix it. But that just doesn’t apply to a household with a baby. Dad has to do more.

Always Be Cooking

This one stems more from our time in Tennessee, when neither of us were working. Since I love cooking, it was a nice daddy duty. And we ate well that month. If we were going to have a nice meal, I was so much more likely to make it. The time allocation for cooking is similar to cleaning, and honestly after Mu got back to the Bahamas this has inverted with all the meals she has made during the day while I am work.

But it is a great dad role, especially if your baby needs to get her meals from mom. Since it is much harder for mom to do anything else, you got to step up and make some food. I feel like we have eaten really well these first 3 months of elle’s life, lots of fresh and delicious meals. We shall see if that can continue once elle is eating more than breast milk.

Always Be Connecting (Devices)

This one is related to the prior 2 ABC’s. When you are focused on childcare, the mundane task of connecting a device to its charger seems pretty trivial. But then all of the devices are perpetually out of juice. An ipad or laptop or phone is a pretty stupendous piece of technology. But without power, it is a fragile, useless mass. Not a great combo. So it is my job to go around plugging in our many electronic devices and keeping the digital train going.

Lastly, this one might only apply to the Korol household –

Always Be Closing (Doors)

Sometimes it seems like Mu is constitutionally unable to close a door behind her. Who cares - she is great in pretty much every other regard.

Would also be remiss if I didn’t include the one related mantra that applies to Mu. It is not an ABC, rather ABS.

Always be Spending

Baby’s need a ton of stuff. Parents need a ton of stuff to take care of the baby. There are literally billions of dollars of baby things for sale on the internet. So I get it, your spending rate is going to go up with a baby. And it sure has! Seemingly everyday I come home and my lovely wife tells me either a) what we need to get or b) what we got online that day. Since all of the purchases are routed through my work I get a package most everyday (two today in fact!). These tools have been enormously successful in caring for elle and she has great taste. It kind of feels like the piranha approach, no single purchase is that large but in totality it is a lot.

But that is why we work – taking caring of elle is our first priority. Whatever that costs is worth it.