Four Generations Under One Roof

We have a full house here for this week. My mother and grandmother are visiting which means that we have four generations hanging out at home together all day long. Well, not all day, but we are home for a lot of the time because both Aaron and my grandmother need to nap!

Its already 11pm now and I need to head to bed. The old and young ones may get to nap but I still need to be doing all my daily chores! There isn't much time to blog because there is also so much chatting and laughing going on here.

Here are two photos from a Pempek shop we went to yesterday. The food wasn't all that great but look at all those calendars!

Another Wedding

On 25 February, my post was about the drama surrounding an 18 year old girl that was being forced into marriage. Today, just 18 days later, she's married.

Since the 25th, she had many miserable days crying over the fact that she had to get married. Obviously, she didn't feel ready. She was also a little afraid of living with her in-laws and felt that she would not know how to be a "good wife".

Fortunately, she grew to accept and I think, like the idea of getting married to her boyfriend. At least she didn't have to marry the guy that her father had picked for her.

The ceremony included short speeches by several representatives from both families. The two points that I understood and remembered from today were:

1) There will be times where you don't agree with your in-laws. Do not talk to your own parents about this. Do not talk to your friends. Just keep it all in your own stomach.

2) Specific advice to the groom: The most important job for you now is to ensure that you make enough money to support your new wife. It doesn't matter if you go about this through legal or illegal ways as long as you're earning some cash.

Here are a few of the photos from today. I didn't include many photos of the ceremony because the clothes and setup looked very similar to Iwan's wedding.

This "bridge" was wobbly and full of holes. Very scary to walk across especially when somebody else from the opposite direction pushes past you!



Here's a side view of the house where the wedding was held.



The wedding couple looked a little sad and bored but I did see them share a couple of genuine smiles.



It is sometimes insulting to pity a person but I really can't help feeling sorry for this girl. She has been forced into this situation and while she accepts it now, it probably means a hard life full of struggles to make ends meet. Her high school exams are in two months but I don't think she will be able to concentrate. So that means her chances of getting out of this rut are minimal. My hope for her is that her new husband will be fair, kind and faithful.

Indonesian Language Lesson

The word for today is "Bingung". This is a word that I hear very often over here and it means "confused".

Sometimes, I hear people say "Saya bingung" and it means "I am confused".

I also hear people say "Bingung saya" and I think it also means "I am confused".

Today, I was bingung-ed by this shirt. By the way, there is no past tense to words in Indonesian so the -ed was just me using the English past tense on the Indonesian word. (Not part of the lesson :P)




Hosted by Cecily and MamaGeek

Its Official - We're Closing This Chapter

After nursing for two years and seven months, we have finally weaned. I expected Aaron to put up a big fight to keep the last feed he had. But, it all ended peacefully. I knew he would never have gone along with me explaining why it was time to stop so I opted to use some strategically dabbed echinacea. He said "Thats not nice! Something is wrong." and accepted my explanation that its what happens when milk runs out.

I am glad that I persevered through the misery of the early weeks. And now, I'm proud that I can say Aaron was exclusively breastfed for the first six months. He also never touched a drop of formula milk until he was nearly two years old when I gave him a bit in the morning. He never liked the taste of it. Now, he just drinks regular milk.

He was a small baby and I received constant comments and advice along the lines of me not being able to provide him with enough nutrition. I ignored it all and now, he has caught up and is comfortably around the 70th percentile for height and weight.

So here are some of the good, the bad and the ugly of breastfeeding:

Good
- Obviously, it is the most nutritious and the ideal baby food.
- I estimate that I have avoided spending approximately USD2800 in formula. I don't even know how to estimate the cost of bottles, teats, sterilizing tablet etc
- Fuss free take offs and landings on around twenty plane trips.
- I could put him to sleep anywhere.
- When I accepted Aaron's wakefulness, I nursed him 4-5 times a night without getting out of bed and without fully waking up.
- Tantrums could be put under control within seconds.
- SUPER metabolic rate. I could eat LOTS of ANYTHING and not gain any weight.

Bad
- I was the only person that could put him to sleep.

Ugly
- Blood blisters
- Nursing bras

When you're a first time mother, it is sometimes hard to maintain the "exclusive breastfeeding" and "extended breastfeeding" because of the pain, perceived inconvenience and frequent advice from health professionals/friends/family to supplement.

My advice is to have confidence in yourself.

A Straighforward Person Strikes Again

Back in 2007, I had two posts on how straightforward the people here are. You can re-read them here and here. Throughout 2008, I had mild encounters with people commenting on things like my hair looking a little dehydrated or how tanned I've become. Over here, being tanned is not a good thing.

Anyway, today, I was slapped in the face with some of that straightforwardness again.

The trainers in the gym usually leave me alone. I don't really like chatting while I'm panting away. They're still friendly and make some sort of small talk when I move to the free weights area. I don't say much so they leave me alone after that.

I go in the afternoon and more often than not, its the most chatty of the trainers on duty. His name is easy to remember because it sounds a little like "towel" in Indonesian. Anyhow, as I was there, doing my squats, he comes up and says "Your legs are good. They're the hottest part of your body! Calf, thighs, behind...GOOD." I'm not kidding! That is a direct translation of what he said in Indonesian. I was a little uncomfortable but he said it like it was the most normal thing to say. Anyway, I took it as a compliment. Why not, eh?

Immediately after that, he launched into something like this:
"Its your upper body that needs work. Its way too skinny. You've got absolutely nothing there. You need to work on your chest. You should pull your shoulders back more, stick your chest out." He then tries to show me a series of exercises that will help in that department.

OK. OK. I get it. So I'm no Pamela Anderson. No amount of exercising or sticking my chest out is going to change that!

I wasn't insulted though. This is just the way people here sometimes talk. They mean no harm and he was trying to be helpful I suppose.

Raising Boys

I've just finished reading "Raising Boys" by Steve Biddulph. Its a thin book, only 203 pages, and very easy to read. The last 3 books I have read were all "instructional parenting" books so this one was refreshing. Instead of giving step by step instructions on how to deal with situations A, B and C, it focused more on the issues that boys faced growing. I was getting a bit tired of those books with various strategies to try out (and fail at). This book was a little more high level and I enjoyed it.

I bought off Amazon.com and the shipment here cost as much as the book itself but it was worth it. People always talk about how having a boy is different from having a girl and this book describes it all in detail. From the physical differences in the brain, to hearing (boys supposedly don't hear as well), and to how boys relate to women and each other.

The book broke down development into 3 stages:
Birth to Six - when they are learning to love. Mom is the major player here.
Six to Fourteen - when they start wanting to learn to be a man. Dads count most here.
Fourteen to adulthood - when mentors, in addition to parents, are needed.

I've always felt good about devoting my time to Aaron at home but now I feel even better. Supposedly, its best that a boy stays home with a parent or close relative until about age three. Thats good ammunition for me to answer the people that like to imply I'm wasting my time at home.

In certain ways, this book has given me the impression that little boys are 'fragile'. Y'know, all hard on the outside but soft on the inside. I've seen this in Aaron occasionally when he's outwardly defiant but I see his heart breaking on the inside because he knows I'm disappointed in him.

As a mother, obviously female, there are so many aspects of little boys that I didn't think to think about. There is an entire chapter devoted to testosterone and its role in each stage of a boys life. Lots of stuff I didn't know about there! Its not my intention to give a summary of the book here. I just wanted to let other parents know about this book.

Thats Mine! And Thats Mine Too!

Just like us, Aaron has been socializing a lot more this year. And, the recurring theme seems to be "Sharing". I'm finding it easier to teach him to read than to teach him the concept of sharing!

I have been trying to understand his little mind and I do see him making some progress but nothing soothed my mind more than Googling the topic tonight.

The Dr. Spock website says :
A two-year-old is just beginning to understand about possessions. That's why everything is "mine." It takes years to understand that you could own something, but still have to share it. It is as unlikely for a toddler to learn how to share at age two as it is for him to learn how to read when he first picks up a book.

A Babycenter article has this to offer:
As exasperating as these episodes can be, try to be philosophical about them. Your child is acting in perfect keeping with a 2-year-old's view of the world, in which her own things (or anything that strikes her fancy, for that matter) are an extension of herself.....Sharing is a learned activity, and mastering it takes some time....

In another Babycenter article:
When your toddler refuses to share his favorite truck (or even his least favorite truck), he isn't really being selfish — he's just acting his age. Sharing is a skill he'll develop over several years. In the meantime, struggles over toys will be common.

PHEW! Why didn't I do the Googling earlier? And why is it that I don't remember this from all those parenting books? This whole issue (non-issue) about sharing has been gnawing at me for a few weeks now. Its been a little embarrassing when Aaron just goes about claiming toys that may or may not be his.

A couple of the articles also mentioned not to punish a 2 year old for not sharing. Well, I did that before I read the articles so, its a bit late. I told him that I was too tired to read or tell him any stories before bed because I was all worn out from telling him to share. He was upset, of course, but I think he understood.

I did observe that he has an easier time sharing if the other child is older than him. Perhaps its because they have already learned how to share with him.

Well, the more chances he gets to practice his sharing skills, the faster he'll learn I suppose. Just like the more I read to him, the more words he recognizes.

Note to self: It will come with time. Hopefully.