Bump to baby on the beaten expat track
‘Tis the season. What do you do with all the sticks and rocks and pine cones that the kids drag in throughout the year? And the toys they’ve outgrown but have a special place in your memory? Repurpose and get creative with the Christmas decor, that’s what.
Welcome to the April 2014 Carnival of Natural Parenting: Family Pastimes
This post was written for inclusion in the monthly Carnival of Natural Parenting hosted by Code Name: Mama and Hobo Mama. This month our participants have shared stories and wisdom about family pastimes.
Our preschooler tried a bite of vindaloo. He’s trying to like it, but his face blanched and he tried to wipe the heat off his tongue with a napkin. I slid a glass of mango lassi his way. Eating out remains a treat we indulge in, and we regularly bring the kids. It entails lots of advance notice and build-up (reward system). Our older one loves the novelty of a restaurant meal so we use that. Our agreement? He can join us on these special nights out if he will try every dish that comes to the table. It’s ok to dislike something, but only after trying it. (Luckily we work and live in a region – outside the West! – whose cultures are extremely kid-friendly; when they were babies waitstaff even held them so we could eat, and gave them back with the bill!)
Photo: Khmer breakfast foods (L-R) chicken rice, rice porridge and beef stew with noodle. The plate of greens is for the stew.
Before kids, we were perpetually exploring – touring our city, traveling, trying different cuisines and experimenting with new recipes and pairings.
But those days of discovery have downshifted, because predictability is key to keeping the peace. Itchy feet are grounded, spontaneity’s swapped for routines, and flavors are kicked down a notch. Further, one child is a bit spirited, and with the territory comes high sensitivity to change. There are some slow years ahead.
Kids adopt the level of open-mindedness and worldview they’re exposed to by environment and hands-on parenting. But what else can we do to cultivate curiosity for the unfamiliar and nurture a passion for travel, especially at very young ages?
For us, food’s the ticket for cultural exposure. It started with transitioning to solids. The standard advice wasn’t easy. Making and hauling jars of pureed food around Cambodia in this tropical heat took too much effort. So the kids went from breast milk to gumming chunks of fruit and vegetable, whatever was in season, like the local kids do. They were exposed to a variety of unusual produce this way, and their palate for freshness was established early. It’s a start.
But developing that nomadic palate?
Thankfully, one of the kids is an indiscriminate nibbler and game to try anything she sees her parents eating. But her sibling? He loves carbs, with everything scraped clean off – sauces, toppings, and spreads. So he trained us well in sneaking things into these staples for subtle flavor – turmeric, melted brie, pureed eggplant. Sometimes it works.
We make an effort to bring the little boy on market or grocery shopping trips. He chooses some vegetables and then he’s enlisted in meal prep. He gets simple tasks like cutting the vegetables. It’s slow, and it gets messy, but because they’re involved in the process, both kids chow on the raw ingredients. And since they “help” make it they’re more inclined to try the finished dish even if it’s “strange”. It’s been effective.
There are also big successes with eating out. The little boy was suspicious of the Moroccan harira and tagine, so he filled up on couscous and kefta. He gave the traditional Mexican dish chilaquiles a pass, but devoured the freshly-made tortillas with salsa and drank horchata in between bites of tres leches. He likes Filipino adobo and kare-kare, and Singapore’s trademark pepper crab. We’ve even gotten him to try if not appreciate ugali, mohinga and durian. And when there’s good wine or beer he gets to dip a finger in it.
These are small steps, and immature palates seem to be growing adaptable. The great thing about food is that it’s a foot in the door to broader exploration as they grow. Food is a cultural expression, and a great topic for the dinner table.
It helps to have toy airplanes, maps and globes around. It isn’t much effort to chat up our meal’s geography, especially for their level of understanding. Like why stews (like borscht) or preserved meats (like lutefisk) are popular in cold climates. And why sashimi is common in an island country. We talk about fiery Thai dishes, and how its signature chili originated on the other side of the planet in the Americas.
These discussions seem sophisticated, but there’s context for countries that family and friends are from, or that they’ve been to, or cultures they read about in their books. Even at such a young age, the dots connect – including ones we hadn’t thought of. We’re frequently reminded to stop treating our precocious preschooler like a kid. So recently we’ve embarked on a project with him to write and publish a dual-language picture book of his favorite Khmer foods, for his little sister. We’ll see how this project goes…
It’s a struggle to fit travel in these days. Food exposure pushes their limits and fosters curiosity and a sense of adventure. Someday we’ll hit the road again. But for now the journey begins with modest steps. Besides, a good relationship with food ultimately has lifetime benefits aside from facilitating cultural exposure – for everyone in the family.
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On this theme of food as a cultural experience for kids – check out this great post and carnival blogging series, Around the World with Pancakes: Apfelpfannkuchen (German Apple Pancakes: To Bake or Not to Bake). The blog carnival is Around the World in 12 Dishes.
And food-themed books that we’ve enjoyed (links to Goodreads reviews): 
Cora Cooks Pancit
How to Make an Apple Pie and See the World
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Visit Code Name: Mama and Hobo Mama to find out how you can participate in the next Carnival of Natural Parenting!
Please take time to read the submissions by the other carnival participants:
Welcome to the March 2014 Carnival of Natural Parenting: Everyday Superheroes
This post was written for inclusion in the monthly Carnival of Natural Parenting hosted by Hobo Mama and Code Name: Mama. This month our participants have talked about the remarkable people and characteristics that have touched their lives. Please read to the end to find a list of links to the other carnival participants…
Nothing against workdays at the office. There’s something to be said for air-conditioned comfort when the blistering sun and uneven roads await activities that donors have pledged tax dollars for. Besides, all the preparatory, follow-up and administrative work is necessary.
But fieldwork is where the action is – where meaningful interactions happen and that flash of inspiration hits, giving you hope that what you’re doing in the bulk of your waking hours matter. So I look forward to these jaunts to the countryside.
Out on the national roads, rice fields stretch into the distance, peppered by swaying palms and coconut trees, and the occasional thatched hut on stilts. Small figures dot the landscape. Through the planting and harvest seasons these fields are full of activity. I instinctively zero in on the women – mothers, some of them pregnant or with a baby slung on their back (or both!) – toiling in the fields. The moment you become a mother you’re initiated into a global kinship that transcends the range of social constructs. We have something big in common. And like each of us surviving our own realities, that mom in the field has her own unique angle on motherhood.
Three years ago, my ten hours of labor ended in an emergency cesarean. I have no complaints. Ours was the most purpose driven pregnancy. My husband and I took birthing courses (plural). I tried yoga and meditation sessions, continued running until I was well over 5 months then kept to an exercise regimen, and ate a balanced, chemical-free diet. My body was in good shape by the time we came to term. Giving birth in Cambodia was out of the question for reasons following, and there were few birthing centers reasonably accessible, so off we flew to Bangkok for the best nearby hospital (baby-friendly!) and obstetrician (low cesarean rate!). We even hired a doula and pre-booked the premier birthing suite equipped with yoga balls, ladders and swings, a birthing pool and Beethoven on the playlist. We did what we could to ensure a smooth delivery, but the medical safety net was in place in case of complications.
It was an ordeal, and when I think of courage, I think back to this time and what all mothers go through. (On this note – how did the tradition of celebrating the child in birthdays start? Isn’t mom the hero on this anniversary?)
Contrast my experience with the birthing reality of the women in those rice paddies. A decade ago, maternal deaths were so common that everyone knew someone who died in childbirth. Most births weren’t even attended by skilled attendants. “Giving birth is like crossing a river,” goes an old Khmer proverb; it was so dangerous that families prepared for the likelihood of losing the mother, the baby, or both.
With concerted effort, significant gains were made in decreasing maternal mortality, but the proverb still holds. The country is recovering from decades of war, so the building blocks of a functional medical system are still being laid. Maternal care in the capital is improving, but standards are generally low in rural areas.
Imagine bouncing over unpaved country roads in a steel wagon pulled by a motorbike – while in labor – to get to the one health facility in tens of miles. When you arrive, the facility might not have sufficient drugs (like anesthesia), supplies (like soap, water, a sterile delivery kit), or power (because electricity is at a premium). You assume the health staff can handle a normal birth (at least), but the likelihood of her being current in emergency obstetric and newborn care is abysmal (clinical training is poor). Not only is income for health staff so low it doesn’t cover her family’s basic needs but, worse, salaries are routinely months behind in payment. This means staff rely on multiple income generating activities (will there even be anyone at the facility when you arrive, in labor?).
With every delivery I witness here, I’m left deeply impressed at how women – not just Khmer, but all over the developing world – enter motherhood in full realization it might literally be the death of them. The possibility of death from obstetric complications or from a vaccine-preventable illness before baby’s first birthday never crossed my mind. My biggest worries were sore nipples, how to keep the baby latched during takeoffs and landings, and finding spare parts for my Medela Pump-in-Style here in Southeast Asia.
Most pregnancies end in a natural process with a healthy mama and baby. Through factors beyond our control, our first birth happened to be in the small percentage that resulted in complication. What would have been our outcome had I been one of these women, whose odds of surviving childbirth (or baby surviving the first year) can be like rolling dice?
There are no bounds to the strength of motherhood. We all put our heroic best forward. But I am deeply humbled by the courage and heroism of mothers in the figurative global “South”. In this day and age, that childbirth is so dangerous for millions of women is a remarkable commentary on humanity and the idea of progress. Born in a developing country myself, I count my blessings every day. Courage? It’s all relative, and sometimes I feel like I know little about it.
Photos from the field
Facilities are open air, so animals routinely wander into health centers and hospitals. Infection control standards were introduced in the health sector only as recently as 2010.
Few health professionals were left after the wars, so cadres of youth were hastily trained to fill demand. Training was applied with little coordination by the government and aid community, with each donor using their own curriculum, training materials, and value system for interventions (cultural approaches to health and medicine differ by region eg Spanish vs French colonies, Europe vs Asia, etc). To be fair, it can take years of collaboration across sectors to agree on protocols and regulation – a luxury Cambodia didn’t have immediately following the wars.
The challenge today (and bulk of development work) is in the ongoing training of these clinicians while they’re in their post. It’s an inefficient use of resources but a necessary task for the Ministry of Health and its partners.
Transportation through provincial roads are by motorbike or “rumorque-moto” – essentially a wagon pulled by a motorbike. With unpaved roads continually molded by flooding and heavy rains, traveling by rumorque-moto or motorbike is not comfortable in the best of circumstances.
Many complications can be managed through simple, low-tech interventions, but staff are poorly trained to recognize the signs and act quickly on them.
Cambodia and Laos have the highest infant mortality rates in the region, due to illnesses easily preventable through better nutrition, immunization and proper sanitation.
Malnutrition is also prevalent, making growth monitoring very important. This is possible because, with high immunization coverage, every contact provides opportunity for health staff to check the child’s growth (eg measuring and charting height/length and weight). But this woman is lucky if the nurse in charge of vaccination bothers to take the baby’s measurements, or gives advice on proper nutrition and growth.
(This topic on Khmer mothers was chosen to commemorate International Women’s Day 2014, whose official theme is “Equality for women is progress for all.” Thanks for reading..)
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Visit Hobo Mama and Code Name: Mama to find out how you can participate in the next Carnival of Natural Parenting!
Please take time to read the submissions by the other carnival participants:
(This list will be updated by afternoon March 11 with all the carnival links.)
We’ve been to Phnom Tamao Wildlife Rescue Center several times and I’m always impressed with it. The grounds are large – it’s certainly possible to walk from one exhibit to the next, but a vehicle would be useful. They have many exhibits. I still haven’t seen all of them. Most animals have a fairly wide area to roam (they aren’t confined to small concrete cages as I expected). They’re rescued from accidents or illegal wildlife trade, and rehabilitated. Those that can’t be released back to the wild stay on the grounds. The center is staffed by dedicated conservationists, and they’re routinely visited by experts in specific species.
Our little boy and his friend celebrated their birthday together, so we took them to the Rescue Center with their closest friends. Our friend who’s Cambodia’s very own ‘Steve Irwin Crocodile Hunter’ organized a fantastic day – we brought 20kg of meat for the crocodiles and tigers so we can see them up close. We ran into Lucky the elephant who was taking a stroll with her handler, so we fed her some of her favorite treats, coconuts and sugar cane. These huge creatures would crush the coconuts under their foot like it was an egg!
We also stopped by the breeding pen for Siamese crocodiles that continually releases juveniles back to the wild. Siamese are rare, as most of them have been hunted or are bred with other species of crocodiles to make better handbags. (Adam is a conservationist and as a crocodile expert made it an informative outing for all of us.)
This is the first time the kids ever saw a piñata too, so that was quite entertaining! They’re pretty lucky they have parents who’ll spend quite a bit of time making piñatas for them, one a stegosaurus and the other a chicken.
This little monkey is a a terror in the tuk-tuk. Thankfully the tuk tuk driver, Rithy, drives fairly slowly and cautiously, occasionally watching the boy from the rearview mirrors to make sure he hadn’t fallen out (which is sadly his only use of these implements that we can determine). But luckily he fell asleep after we let him use the vehicle as a jungle gym for 20 minutes. A sleeping boy makes for a happy Papa!
The above image is from the 21 May 2012 issue of TIME magazine. “Are you mom enough?” – That headline just grabs you, doesn’t it, questioning your values and your parenting.
One thing we didn’t anticipate, in all the planning and discussions about attachment parenting, is the difficulties in teaching our son to put himself to sleep, and to soothe himself back to sleep when he twitches awake in the night – without me.
For the past 16 months I was perfectly happy to oblige his every request. I’m quite fortunate to work for an employer who’s flexible to the needs of new mothers. There’s a nursery at the office so you can nurse or pump during the workday, and until the child is a year old s/he and the nanny can be taken on work trips to the provinces.
Plus, the boy is not a cuddler, so the time together -even when he wants to use me as a pacifier for extended periods of time- is precious to me.
Hubby and I just assumed he would eventually begin nursing less at night. But he hasn’t, and now it’s starting to feel like a chain. We’ve tried all the “gentle” ways to teach our son to sleep (we bought all the Pantley books). And after trying for six months, none of the recommendations worked. We’d like to once in a while have a quiet night in, watching a movie after he falls asleep. Instead, every night starting around seven (I get home from work around 530-6pm), we begin his bedtime routine and he falls asleep anywhere between 2-3 hours later!, nursing!
So today is Day One of detachment parenting, where I’ll sleep at our neighbor’s every night until our son can (hopefully!) put himself to sleep with just Papa in the house. There’ll be a lot of crying and temper tantrums from this high-need little baby, but hopefully there’s sanity at the end of the tunnel. This isn’t to say we don’t recommend attachment parenting, just that we’d probably attack the sleep issue early on and not let it become a problem.
