Category / Thinking & Musing

by Alexandra Roumbas Goldstein

Work, nursery, separation anxiety, teeth and something having to give…

Something had to give.

Let’s start with the good news. I am loving being back at work. I find that I end up laughing about something every day. And those occasional studies that talk about how mums make great employees have some truth in them, you know; my time management is better than it’s ever been, and even on slow days when the temptation strikes anyone, I’m not inclined to procrastinate (if you procrastinate with a child, you pay for it; puts you off for life). I really enjoy being me again, and I’ve had the luxury of a little time to do some of the really fun stuff, like reigniting our Twitter feed, as well as getting a far more regular content creation schedule in place.

Also, Ramona’s having more good days than bad at nursery. She’s playing outside, painting, pottering over to the book corner, etc. Today she apparently was the only child to have a proper afternoon nap, and when she woke up from it and the staff were busy soothing the others who had fallen asleep later she simply pootled over to some toys and played quietly and happily on her own. One carer said “it was like she knew to be quiet and not disturb the others, and she’s so independent; she didn’t need us!”.

Of course, increased independence can go hand in hand with separation anxiety. Although we were always careful to leave her for longer and longer periods with grandparents and eased her into nursery with half days, she’s now going through an apparently classic case of freak outs when she sees me or Ashley leaving. She’s generally happy but clingy when we get back, and I think that the day time anxiety is likely to ease quite soon.

So I wasn’t expecting it to spill over into night. I’m not even sure it has, exactly. She used to go into the cot drowsy but awake and sleep fine. She still sleeps through the night the vast majority of the time unless she’s sick or, in one case, too hot. Now she howls like a banshee when we pop her in the cot. For three days I attempted a sort of controlled crying; not giving in and picking her up, just soothing her in the cot, then leaving her for a minute or two, then silently popping her back down, etc etc. All it left was a baby who eventually slept out of the sheer exhaustion of being inconsolable. Today I snapped after half an hour of listening to her get more and more distressed, picked her up, let her lie on my tummy for five minutes until she was really sleepy, and then popped her in her cot where, after a brief wail of reproach, she slept like a log.

I feel terribly guilty now. Not because I think controlled crying is bad, because I’m sure it works well for many people. But because I think I picked the wrong time to do it. It can’t be a coincidence that this sleeping issue has appeared right when a tooth is coming through and she’s snotty and stressing out. If it was just the separation anxiety, I’m sure I could be a good What to Expect… girl and be all consistent and have a perfect bedtime routine that doesn’t deviate ever (seriously, who manages that?) and calmly sooth her, etc etc. But I ain’t that woman. I’m a woman who thinks a distressed child is distressed for a reason. She didn’t want to be rocked to bed, or to play or to read a book. She wanted soothing, from me, and she got it.

Most people would be fretting now about creating a new situation; I’m just sorry I didn’t give in earlier.

And speaking of giving in… It’s been forever since I ran. I feel very disappointed in myself and want to start again. I have all the excuses – going back to work, wanting to spend every minute I can with Ramona – and they’re all valid. But I have to find a way to find time for it again, and I know other busy mums do. It was good for me, physically and mentally, and I know I’ll have to start from scratch again, but I want to. Maybe if I start at the long weekend with the extra time I’ll have it’ll kick me into gear again.

Something had to give. And in the end it was the last of my faith in guidebooks and parenting tomes. From now on, I do what I think is right, and I trust myself.

by Alexandra Roumbas Goldstein

Reflections on Ramona: Happy 1st Birthday!

Mummy with Ramona on her birthday

As some of you might have realised from the cake decoration picture I had up as Silent Sunday, we recently passed the incredible milestone of Ramona’s first birthday.

I thought about writing this post to her, but I’ve actually already done that in a way. Ashley and I each wrote a letter to her and put it away, along with her cards from everyone, for her to read when she’s older. We plan to write one each year and give her the whole lot at a milestone birthday like 18 when she can start to appreciate what’s in them. The tone of the letters was quite interestingly different; mine was a waffly description of her birth, and the things she’s learned to do, and what I find amazing about her, whereas Ashley’s was a shorter but beautifully emotional piece all about how he feels about her. The whole of which I think will make a great mixture of stories from childhood and understanding how parents can be just overwhelmed with love.

For me, being the mother of a one-year-old is, as I think with most childhood milestones, bittersweet. On the one hand, I’m truly excited at all the amazing things she can do; she walks pretty well, now, and she’s learned to clap at last! I’m very happy that we’re embarking on a journey that will see her gain even more independence and the ability to communicate clearly. She can now understand simple directions and that’s really quite amazing when I compare her to the blinky, waily, confused, wrinkled little pudding I held in my arms a year ago.

On the other hand, she’ll never be that tiny little brand new person ever again. And I find that sad. Maybe it’s the reminder of my own mortality. Maybe it’s the knowledge that, although we have a long way to go (and I’m terrified of teenagerhood), every step she learns to take already takes her further away from me. Although she suffers a little separation anxiety at nursery on and off – though mostly enjoys it – she loves being left with grandparents and doesn’t seem to mind if it’s me or Ashley with her. All of which certainly makes going back to work, which I’m thrilled I did, much easier but at the same time reminds me that although I feel like she’s an extension of me, she’s also very much her own person.

That’s the challenge of parenthood, I think. To you, they are almost literally your own flesh and blood; when they are away from you, something is missing. When they are sad, something in you is broken. When they are happy, something in you flies. When they are learning, exploring, doing, something in you delights with them every step of the way. And yet they are not you, and every move they make is for them, and must be for the them, and will be for them. Until, one day, if they choose to make it so and are lucky enough to fulfil their choice, it will be for their children.

I wish I could say this has made me even nicer to my own mother – not that I’m unpleasant to her, you understand; we are actually very close! – but I don’t think that’s how it works. Once a selfish kid, always a selfish kid.

And once a mother, always a mother.

by Alexandra Roumbas Goldstein

NFPtweetup social and getting back to work

On Thursday, I had a day that felt pretty much like I had never had a baby. Okay, it began with dropping the littleun off at nursery, and I did pick her up and say a quick goodbye, but I spent the morning doing grown up things like, erm, cleaning house. Then I headed into the office to do some catching up, and was answering email queries within five minutes of stepping through the door.

I then headed over to the NFPtweetup social with my manager, Jacqui, but we didn’t end up being all that sociable, at least for the first couple of hours! Though I got to chat babies with the wonderful Rachel, Jacqui and I spent most of the time talking about work… and it was brilliant! We were bouncing around a few ideas, talking about things that have changed in the last year, talking about how we could develop one thing or another. Nothing concrete and certainly nothing I could talk about here, but it just generated this exciting atmosphere of Things To Be Done. And it made me go from happy to be going back to work to itching to get started. I was all set to start brainstorming some ideas for Monday today, but had to remind myself to enjoy my weekend and spend my last few free days soaking up as many Ramona cuddles as possible!

And those cuddles are wonderful. I will miss them. But I know from that swell of positivity and surge of determination that work is exactly where I’m meant to be.

Having said a quick hello to the lovely Steve Bridger and got a chance to meet my husband’s newest colleague, Rochelle, I then got a delicious dinner bought for me at Moshi Moshi (my first visit; quite pricey but excellent – I recommend the soft shell crab).

Thank heaven for grandparents who agree to put a squirmy little baby to bed. And thank heaven for squirmy little babies who start the next morning by giving you a just-beginning-to-be-toothy smile and a hug that melts hearts at fifty paces.

Okay, working world. Make some room: I’m ba-ack!

by Alexandra Roumbas Goldstein

Why I haven’t written an analysis of Google+

In the swirling social media maelstrom, new products, especially from the likes of Google – remember Wave? Launched with fireworks and died like a damp squib -cause a lot of excitement. And busy professionals do need to sometimes make snap judgements about whether these things are going to be worth investing time in.

However, sometimes I think people are driven more by the desire to write the ten-ways-google-plus-will-help-you-make-10-million-dollars-of-sales/donations-OMG article than to actually give the new platform or product a chance.

The thing is, it’s not brands that are going to make or break these things. They are not being built, primarily, for us to use professionally (although Google is planning a professional platform, which should be interesting). The proof of the pudding will not be whether we think on first acquaintance, with just a few hesitant conversations going on, we can build as vibrant communities here as we have on Facebook or Twitter.

Suddenly the fact that communities have a very different character depending on the platform gets forgotten. We try to apply what we’ve learned from Facebook because ‘it’s a bit like Facebook’. We try to apply what we’ve learned from Twitter because ‘there are Twitter-like elements’. We forget we have to learn some new things from Google+, if it succeeds, because it is Google+, and not anything else. Sure, tribal human behaviours online are pretty similar wherever you go, but the specific ways they manifest themselves take on quite astonishingly different flavours on different channels. Google+ will have its own.

My first approach to a new tool or platform is always, always to approach it on a personal level, as myself, and learn its etiquette, syntax and possibilities. I have to have this knowledge of this as an ordinary user if I have a hope in hell of understanding it and using it effectively as a marketing professional. Customer services breakdowns and crises happen when brands forget to be human. The basics of marketing stay pretty much the same online and off, but each individual interaction needs to be appropriately tailored.

So, while I’ve read an article or two musing on interesting points of development, I’ve deliberately shelved any premature analyses for later, and held fire on making any. Of course I have ideas about how this might go, but I like to give these things a chance to breathe and grow.

In the meantime, I’m building circles.

by Alexandra Roumbas Goldstein

Settling a child into nursery: the heartbreaking stage

So, as I mentioned in my last post, I’m back at work soon. And I’m all sorts of nervous and excited about this, and rather glad that my line of work is the kind of thing that is a) quite easy to stay involved in as it’s all online and b) quite easy to stay involved with if you’re a blogging, tweeting, possibly-Google-plussing community addict, which you obviously are if you do my job.

The thing about going back to work is that childcare has to be worked out.  Three days a week Ramona will be with grandparents, with whom she’s already happy and comfortable and has been left a few times to get used to the idea. But I also wanted her to go to nursery. Not because I’m itching to spend hundreds of pounds every month (and it is, at this end of the country certainly, a phenomenal though understandable fee), but because otherwise she doesn’t see very many other children.* I also think it can’t hurt to get used to the general routine. Astonishingly, school is just three years away, and becoming accustomed to the coming and going of large groups of kids with various tall people dotted about telling you what to do is no bad thing.

So, we started the process. We were lucky enough to find a nursery we loved on the second attempt (sorry, I won’t be sharing which as it’s just plain creepy to have the interwebs know where your child is spending her days). It’s well-resourced, cheerful and full of really lovely staff who exhibit a natural and boundless affection for their variously dribbling, snotty, wibbling and pooing charges. Lots of hugs and kisses, plenty of toys, books (Ramona’s current Reason for Being is to turn pages in board books) and good food. What else could anyone want? In fact, sign me up. I’ll even go to the loo myself.

But of course Ramona’s used to having mainly me around. The first few sessions, getting gradually longer, involved more and more crying, most of it solved by getting her engrossed in some books, or feeding her, although the last time the books only worked for a little while and she wouldn’t eat or drink milk. It was only on the last one that she actually clung to me and sobbed when we arrived – before that she’d smile at first and take a few minutes to realise I wasn’t there. On the advice of the nursery staff I’m basically going in, sitting her down, handing over her milk and buggering off; in their experience a drawn out goodbye only makes things worse.

It is, absolutely, heartbreaking (I sort of thank God she can’t say ‘mummy’ yet, because I think that would finish me off entirely). I know that she’ll get past it and that tears in the morning will become tears of wanting to stay there in the afternoon; after all, she doesn’t have a sandpit and water table and music area and whole crate full of phone-like toys etc at home. And all those things are, she will discover in due course, way more interesting than having me to poke every ten minutes. But I do wish I’d started this all earlier before separation anxiety had a chance to kick in (on her side – mine started before her head was all the way out), and I would have done if we hadn’t been away. But what’s done is done.

I try to make up for it with extra snuggly time – we spent ages cuddling in bed, her dozing and snorting on my chest, then beaming at me – but that only seems to make it worse for me.

The funny thing is, I have no doubts whatsoever about going back to work. I always wanted to and even after a break I can’t imagine not doing my job; it would be like not being me. So I’m not sitting here just to justify it to myself. Even if I was a SAHM, I’d send her to nursery for the socialisation and so that she can be taught by someone other than me.

Still, nothing teaches you to handle guilt like parenthood. Indeed, if you can get past the things you ‘should’ do during pregnancy, the things you ‘must’ do after the birth and the routines they ‘ought to’ follow thereafter, you will be TOTALLY INDESTRUCTABLE.

Women weakened by childbirth? Ha! I’ve never been tougher in my life.

 

*One of my friends has a daughter just five weeks older than Ramona. Every single time Ramona sees said mother and daughter coupling, she is having a bad day. The other child is frighteningly well-behaved and perfect. Mine – so cute, able, confident and lovely so much of the time – has a meltdown. And to make matters worse, when we see them as a family she is scared of the father’s voice. It basically means that among our closest friends at least one couple think our child is part-demon. This makes me sad, and also makes me think Ramona must, must, must be around other kids her age!

by Alexandra Roumbas Goldstein

Back home, with a toothy baby, and back to work soon

I’m not, generally speaking, such a fan of writing bullet point posts. However, having been away for the best part of the month I feel like it’s a good way to get us all up to speed so that when I refer to things in later posts I can go “you know, I mentioned it in that bullet point list” rather than have an explanatory aside.

Or, I’m feeling a bit blogging lazy. Here goes.

  • We (by which I mean my mother, with my dad, Ramona and me on board) drove to Greece and back. Ash joined us by plane for the bit in the middle. We went to Athens and Kefallonia. The drive had its high and low points (I’m planning posts on the practical elements for BitchBuzz), but overall it was worth it and we all enjoyed the sun and food!
  • Ramona grew a tooth! It’s still working its way up, but now looks like a large grain of rice has settled on her gum. As if overnight, it solved a lot of her feeding problems and she’s now happily settled on finger foods with three milk feeds a day. Now to switch the milk to cups, which I’m hoping won’t be horrendous as she’s been using her cup independently to drink water since she was seven months.
  • I just had to interrupt this as Ramona had somehow managed to get hold of a bottle of Bio-Oil, open it, and spill it all over herself.
  • Books are her favourite thing ever. She loves Winnie the Pooh and the Trouble with Bees so much I can recite it from memory without the book and she grins at all her favourite bits before they happen. A book will keep her occupied longer than any toy.
  • Oh, actually, Peekaboo is the best, best thing ever. And when I say “Ramona play Peekaboo!” she ducks down and pops up, giggling hysterically and mumbling “pah!” “bah!” or “ee-bah!”.
  • I haven’t run in a month and feel thoroughly guilty. I’m also slightly amazed at how much weight I haven’t gained eating everything and hardly moving. Even in the sea I didn’t exactly do much swimming!
  • And speaking of the sea, Ramona adored it. She cried for about half a minute the first time she went in from the shock of the cold water, but adjusted far more quickly than we did. The second time she just complained for a few seconds. The third and fourth time there wasn’t a peep, just excited leg kicking! After that she started to get a bit irritated by the ring she was in and if we’d had more time I’d have graduated her to arm bands. Time to start taking her swimming. I meant to ages ago, right from when she was born, really, but somehow it just didn’t happen.
  • I’m back at work on 1st August, so I’m starting the process of getting Ramona settled into nursery this week (we have a mixture of nursery and grandparent care set up for her). I think she’ll be fine, but obviously it’s not so easy to detach myself, even if I am raring to get back to doing what I do. Being a community manager is basically aces, and I’ve missed it. I know that once I’m at work I’ll get so wrapped up in things it’ll be like I never went away, and there’s lots of people I’m looking forward to seeing. I’m just a bit bowled over by how quickly it’s all gone!
  • So yes, my ‘baby’ is almost a year old and won’t be a baby for much longer! It’s both slightly sad and very exciting. I’m looking forward to first words, first steps (I don’t think that’s very far off) and lots of other brilliant firsts, but I’m also stunned that I’m months away from being mum to a toddler.

I think those are the highlights. And now, I’m off to another child’s first birthday party. Because that’s what parents do at weekends.

by Alexandra Roumbas Goldstein

Reflections on Ramona: Ten months in

This week is a bit crazy. For one reason or another I haven’t run for over a week (but I DID nail that 25 minute run on the third attempt) plus I’m up to my eyes in packing to go on holiday shortly. I have posts promised for BitchBuzz that I should be writing, but this week also marks ten months since I first met a certain little person, and I have to take this opportunity to mark that.

This is truly the golden bit of babyness, I think, if there is one. Sometimes when you’re on the treadmill of teething and nap schedules gone astray it’s hard to remember how very exciting the bit between six months and toddlerhood is. Each stage has its own joys, but it’s just so lovely to see her burgeoning independence now.

She crawls (yes, she finally got it!) just far enough to be able to pull herself up and cruise the furniture. She then flomps down, deliberately, next to a book, and turns the pages, groaning and grunting the story to herself. She changes her mind from one meal to the next about whether she wants sludge or finger food, and what she’ll deign to chew, and she’s obsessed with her water cup. She wakes up dozy and cute and then pulls herself up to look over the cot at me “like a small rising moon, wearing a wig” to quote her father. She examines her toys minutely, and has taken to stroking a stuffed weasel and groaning at it (the repetitive drone is something of a favourite with her when she’s got something interesting to look at, like, erm, a label). She knows Winnie the Pooh and the Trouble with Bees so well that she knows when I’m quoting it, even if it’s nowhere near her, and she smiles in anticipation of the ‘buzz buzz buzz’ lines.

She is observant and smart. Today a woman in a shop gave her a great compliment: “she’s so alert!”. Sure she’s adorable and cute and precious and all those things, but how much better to be recognised by the sparkle in your eye and the brightness you exude.

I am outstandingly, abundantly, superlatively proud of her. And at the same time as being impatient to look back on her first year, I’m in no hurry to wish these days away (except the teething. Please. God. A tooth. My virtual kingdom for a bloody tooth).

by Alexandra Roumbas Goldstein

Yet more beginners’ running (and some other stuff, too)

So, I have to be honest with you about something, which is not going to be fun to hear if you’re just wavering on the edge of putting your trainers on and getting out there. But I don’t say it to discourage you. On the contrary, I say it because you’re going to hit this patch, just as I did, and you need to know it’s coming and not let yourself get disheartened by it.

Here’s the secret:

Running – or any regular exercise worth doing – never gets easy.

Sure it gets easier to go further. And it’s easier to go faster. But it doesn’t get easy. And as soon as it’s threatening to, you have to dial up the input, and it gets hard again.

I’ve faltered at week six of the C25K. I managed the two interval runs (the second one after two attempts: two intervals of ten minutes are harder than one of twenty). But the 25 minute run has defeated me twice. The first time after 15 minutes – though I was generally not together that morning – and the second time after just over 20, which frankly I still consider a win.

I should do week six again and get my fitness up, but frankly the thought of doing those intervals again is making me want to cry. So I’m going to risk slightly messing this up and do my own deviation from the plan, which is a couple more 20-minute runs, then an attempt at three 25-minute runs and, should that go well I’ll rejoin the plan at week seven and do the three 28-minute runs followed by the three 30-minute runs.

Or, as I pointed out to Ash today: I’m two-thirds of the way to a 5k. A few weeks ago, I was barely a tenth of the way and was refusing to even think “5k” for fear I would totally terrify myself back onto the couch.

Part of the reason for the slow down is that as the runs are getting longer, it’s been harder to fit them in. I can’t run with a stroller, it bugs me, so I have to find time to go alone which means 6am. I’m often too exhausted, which means instead of going on a couple of consecutive days, then having one day off and going back to it, I’m sometimes leaving up to three or four days between runs and my muscles are not up to the next run. But I’ve managed to never let a week go by without at least two runs, preferably three, and I’m going to keep aiming for that.

When I go away I’ll be in the car for three days and I don’t think I’ll get to run. I’m also not sure if I’ll manage it around Athens, but I’m determined to get in some good walking and as much running and swimming on the island as I can for the week I’m there. Especially as I’ll probably eat my body weight in whitebait, octopus and fried courgette while I’m there, too.

That’s where you can stop reading if you were just here for the running. If you’re here for babies too – or just to read my ramblings – then you’re in luck…

I don’t want to speak too soon, but I think I’ve managed to make a shortlist of the things that were affecting Ramona and making her screech. As I’ve begun to address them – in as much as I can – I think I’ve made some headway and we’ve had a couple of much less deafening days. In addition, I feel a lot more in control of my parenting, or at least I have a far more convincing pretence of that.

So, the screech inducers are:

  • Me talking to anyone that’s not her. Especially if they’re on the phone.
  • Feeding frustrations.

The talking to thing I’m having to address with a bit of ignoring. Putting her down with toys and walking out of the room, or simply not acknowledging it and carrying on with my conversation. This one is clearly a long war, and it’s going to be fought battle by battle. And actually ever time I ignore her she learns something new, like how to stand up alone, or try to push herself upright, so bit by bit I’m learning to stop the rotor blades a bit and be less of a helicopter parent.

The feeding thing took me a few days to cotton onto fully. Because she weaned quite early, we didn’t go to baby led weaning route, but she came off purees quite happily a couple of months ago onto more chunky stuff. She had pretty much got to the stage where she could just feed herself finger food, and all was well. And then, a couple of weeks ago, just as the screeching reappeared, she started to bite, chew and then spit out her food rather than actually eating it.

For a couple of days I reasoned that it was a phase as she was examining textures. Though I fretted about the amount she was taking in, she wasn’t sluggish, drinking more milk or losing weight. She could – can – still eat bread and loves toast with cream cheese (just as well, as she refuses to eat anything else at breakfast, apart from yogurt). But gradually, she started spitting more and more things out unless they were in really tiny pieces. Soft ripe pear sticks that she used to enjoy were being sucked and spat; so was the odd baby cookie I gave her. The only things staying down were bread, sauces, yogurts, really overcooked pasta, strawberries and those carrot puff snack things which I occasionally give her one or two of.

So as I realised she must be hungry and frustrated and I didn’t want mealtimes to be reduced to hours of me feeding her tiny tidbits, I began reluctantly to reintroduce the stage we left a while ago: lumpy mash. I was scared to go backwards, as I thought it might be an eating phase and that I’d be stuck with a child still eating purees when she turns fifteen. But as she gratefully nommed it all, I realised this was very likely not a battle of wills or a preference or phases, since she actually really enjoys feeding herself (although doesn’t try to grab the spoon when it’s not quite solid stuff, weirdly!). It’s her teeth – or lack of them.

She’s been chewing her fingers like there’s no tomorrow, and even bit my chin with frustration the other day. She’s dribbling like a demon. After nine and a half months – six and a half of which have been spent showing signs of teething and full of frustrated gnawing – she still doesn’t have a single damn tooth. I didn’t either until I was about 11 months, so I think I might have sadly passed that on to her (though I’ll blame Ashley as he was a late teether too). So I’ve come to the conclusion that her gums are now just too sensitive to chew bigger lumps down unless it’s gooey, chewy stuff like bread or soothingly cold and smushy fare like strawberries.

It’s not an entire backwards step, as she’s still having some finger food, but she’s eating about three times as much and seems much more content. She’s sleeping as well as ever – if not better – and is happy with three hearty milk feeds a day, as well as producing several more grim nappies. She seems more content to play and surf the furniture with about a quarter as many bloodcurdling screams.

So there we have it. Why does my baby scream? Attention-seeking, hunger and teething.

The first I’m learning to take care of, the second is sorted and the third is being managed until it takes care of itself.

I’d call that a win… wouldn’t you?