<a href="https://theperfectmother.wordpress.com/" title="The Perfect Mother" rel="home">The Perfect Mother

This post in Portuguese: E a vida, o que é?

Paths

Dec25

(Ryotiras)
There will always be the moment when we have to decide which is the better way to go

During a research, I found the comic strip above. Beside the metaphor of creating our own alternative paths, I asked myself: when was the last time I walked on the grass?

Doing it with shoes doesn’t count. On high heels, not at all, because they insist on burying themselves, a complete mess. I’m talking about walking barefooted (and not worrying about the mess). I, who used to play marbles, go down ravines on cardboard boxes, climb trees, guide the bike on purpose to mud puddles, became “Miss Choosy”. This, in itself, would be an individual loss; the matter is extending the choosiness to my kids. I’ve already allowed them to walk barefooted, but with the wet wipes in the bag to clean them later…

It may be the reason why I love beaches, the only places in the universe where I sit down and lie on the sand, and touch mud. Maybe because, when dry, the sand falls off easily.

One day, I saw a saw a video about Aelita Andre, a 5-year-old girl, a precocious talent, considered a phenomenon by the art galleries. Her father set up an atelier, in order to give her creational liberty. Well, I live in an apartment, but, even if I had a garage, I would think twice before allowing such a big mess. Add my drama with wasting (see how she spills the paint from the cans!) and, if I were her mother, perhaps I have never revealed this little genius to the world…

I also saw a “welcome sign” with this disclaimer: “Excuse the mess… the children are making memories”. So, I haven’t been preventing my children from making tents with sheets, filling the whole window glass with stickers, extending the territories of the toys to the entire apartment. Then, when they want to work with gouache, why do I make a point of covering the floor with newspapers? I allow them to do it, but why am I uneasy when they don’t clean the brush before submerging it in another paint pot? Why am I afraid they get their clothes dirty?

Last week, during swimming class (yes, the 4 of us do classes at the same time, to optimize the day), suddenly the big sun gave place to a big rain. If it is raining with no lightning bolts, the teachers don’t interrupt the class. I think it was the first time, in decades, that I caught rain. I had forgotten how good it is… The curious thing is: this time might be the first also for my youngest kid (5).Maybe for the other two: the experience of staying in the rain for so much time (and not running from it).

There are 6 days ahead, but one of my New Year resolutions will be: taking the grass path. Preferentially, with rain.

I cried rains over this ad:

____________________

You can also see:

Letter to my children

The World’s best play

This post in Portuguese: Caminhos

The World’s most interesting course

Oct20

From 2003, I’ve been taking a long duration course, which I’ve wanted to do since I was a child. Childhood dream. Everybody says it is the best, and there is nothing similar. International scope.

Initially, I tried to apply in 2002, but unfortunately I wasn’t successful. I was so obstinate that in 2003 I finally got it. The system is really different. Frequently, everything I had learnt falls through during the classes.

The teachers don’t inform when the exams will occur. Sometimes, I still hadn’t comprehended a subject, and it was on a surprise-test. In order to be more exact, so far I haven’t seen one day without an exam.

The contents are hard. I have to conciliate it with my job, renounce a lot of things, spend nights and nights studying or undertaking a project. Even though, all of these are not a guarantee for passing. Often, I must do, redo and redo. Most of the times, I apply to the group work. It flows better.

There is bullying too. Some people say I’m doing it wrong, and I should do it in another way. However, the teachers, subjects, schedules and classrooms are different from the others; how can they want to compare anything? There’s no parameter.

The classes are everyday, including weekends and holidays. Some people prefer the distance learning module, but I think that it isn’t the same of the face-to-face course, far from it. This is unbeatable.

That’s the most transforming experience ever. The more you dedicate to it, the more it is richer and deeper. I bet: every second of it is worth it.

The world’s crazy and awesome course calls “Parenting”. I have the privilege of having three exigent and wonderful teachers.

It’s been two years since I began publishing my class notes on the internet. Second year “Mãe Perfeita” Blog anniversary.

My best wishes to all my schoolmates!

________________________

You can also see:

The World’s best play

The little strategist

School lunch

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Male_lactation

This post in Portuguese: O curso mais interessante do mundo

If men breastfed

Aug11

Visited site:

___________________________

My 3-year-old son asked me:

“Why can’t men breastfeed?”

“Well, because only women have breasts.”

“No. (Showing me his nipple): I have a breast, too.”

Of course, explaining to a little child about mammary glands and more was too much. I laughed but asked myself: why does the male human have nipples, after all?

For my surprise, it wasn’t just a “child’s doubt”. There are people doing serious researches and also publishing books about the theme. I found out, too, that it is actually more a matter of hormones than of mammary structures (fact: due to the maternal hormones during the gestation, boys can be born with milk inside their little breasts, and newborn girls can have a “pseudo-menstruation”).

I even found out cases of men who breastfed their kids. Have you ever thought about what could happen if it becomes commonplace?

If men breastfed…

… the care for the newborns could be shared. Father and mother would take turns nursing. With bigger intervals, the nipple fissures would have more time to recover.

… while one nurses, the other could take care of the oldest kids, attenuating the jealousy among brothers.

… the maternity leave would be for the couple. So, there would be no more discrimination on the labor market, since the conditions would be the same for men and women.

… the exclusive breastfeeding for twins and triplets (so common nowadays) would be easier.

… in case of impediments for the mother, this time would be calmer.

… the milk banks would have more donors.

… breastfeeding in public would be seen as natural, and not as “indecent exposure”. By the way, men usually take their shirts off.

… men would be able to feel more intimately the physical link with their children.

… children could indistinctly call “mom” and “dad”.

That last topic deserves reflection. We women always complain about the overweight and incomprehension from men. Would we mothers, however, be inclined to share that power? the power of being exclusive in the children’s preference?

More: would women approve a legion of such “maternal” men? A quick look at the photos with men breastfeeding automatically causes some discomfort.

Since men don’t breastfeed…

… they literally don’t feel what it is and, because of that, in order to comprehend the dimension of the task, they need to be INCLUDED in the process.

Let’s remember that breastfeeding is a very recent thing in our postwar society. Men just don’t understand the importance of raising this flag. Before the immense disrespect to women, an angry reaction can be natural and the most probable. Although, as my mother says, “don’t worry about the chaos; put in it the missing element.”

Diminishing men, judging them as “Homers Simpsons”, selfish, weak before pain, rowdy, inept, rude or violent people DOES NOT HELP. At least, we stay at a nil-nil draw.

Only observing the current place of men and trying to equal them with truculence and meanness are not the best way for women to find their place. I have two boys and definitely it’s not the legacy I hope to give to this generation. If I keep attached to this imagery and harp on about the same distorted values of a sickly society, what can I expect from my kids? that they become “Homers Simpsons”?

That’s the reason why I believe in a mutual respect posture.

I end this post with the phrase I said to my 3 year-old son:

“You won’t be able to breastfeed, but you will be able to hug your little kid very tight, in order for him to hear your heart. In the same way your Daddy does with you.”

Nivea Baby ad: heart with heart

____________________

You can also see:

A short and bald guy

Love is…

Because we are mammals

This post in Portuguese: Se os homens amamentassem

On Ballet and bullying

Aug4

Some years ago, my sister-in-law, a great ballerina, asked me if I intended to enroll my daughter in ballet classes. I answered I only would do it if it was the meaning of her life, if it was something that she wanted more than everything on the Earth, because my experience wasn’t good. I said that, differently from of my sister-in-law, I didn’t have talent, and faced very humiliating situations.

I started Ballet classes when I was 8. The first teacher was sweet. For the next four years, however, I got a new teacher, more rigid, who was obsessed with forming a corps de ballet.

Image: http://www.5minutesformom.com/4245/perfect-firsts/

I never had the pretension of being a soloist dancer. As I said, I was never a skilled ballerina. I was diligent, obedient and timid. And was excited with the end-of-year festivals.

Once, we performed “Sleeping Beauty”. My class was the “peasants”. It was when I began to feel the pressure. I rehearsed from Sunday to Sunday, but it wasn’t enough. A few days before the spectacle, the teacher took me off of two choreographs. During them, I would sit still in the back of the stage. In the only choreograph which I took part, I, who had more than 5 degrees of myopia, was forced to dance without my glasses, because “peasants didn’t wear glasses”.

In the next year, I was cut off from another choreograph. The allegation was I was very short. A colleague, who was less tall than me (but danced brilliantly), stood up and said: “If it were true, I wouldn’t be in the choreograph.” The teacher only flushed and didn’t say anything. But I understood everything.

In the last of the four years, my class finally was promoted to “corps de ballet”. Except me, who had to go back to the former degree.

In spite of being thin like a stick, I’ve always had a large torso, as well as a little “belly”. So, I always heard: “Contract your belly! Ballerinas do not have bellies! A dry sausage like you must not have a belly!”

I was 13. I wrote a letter to the teacher and left Ballet classes. Nowadays, that kind of approach would be considered as bullying. Curiously, the rivalry didn’t exist among the colleagues (as shown above, with my sweet defender). The bullying I suffered came from an adult, a teacher, an authority.

Frequently, my brothers and sisters and I meet and remember those situations laughing a lot. My mom gets crazy with those stories. “Why didn’t you tell me?” The answer is unanimous: “We didn’t want to bore you with those child’s things”.

We are used to saying that these reunions are a kind of collective catharsis, and we laugh (and cry) because, after all, these situations weren’t individual privileges for none of us: all of us dealt with them. Yet, my husband is not the least patient with what he considers “autocommiseration”. He does not agree with us and says that, since he was a boy, he has always tried to find the fields he was skilled in, and not the opposite.

It happened to my oldest son. He LOVES soccer. He decided to enter a soccer school. I thought it could be a way for him to improve. The teacher was respectful, but in the third championship my son said to me: “I want to leave. I spent most of the time sitting on the bench. I don’t think it is wrong, because I don’t want to trouble the team. So, I will find something that I am good at.” Eight years old.

Now, he does Karate. We did a rigorous investigation to find the adequate karate school, because we were afraid of my son entered the “Cobra Kai DoJo” (Karate Kid, do you remember?). You cannot be careful enough. We could find whom I consider as the “Brazilian Miyagi”. And I let myself be the owl of the owls: less than 1 year passed, he had been approved in four belt exams (white, blue, yellow and red). He is an orange belt. It seems he was born to do it. I get fluffy out of pride.

Karate Kid

Back to Ballet. Behold my daughter entered Ballet classes. It was part of recreation; in fact it was not a Ballet Academy. I thought that, like that, the atmosphere would be lighter. I didn’t want to contaminate the situation with my prejudices. I bought the uniform and the ballet shoes happily. A few months later, she asked me to leave: “It’s boring.”

Her teacher told me that she “didn’t have the discipline required to do Ballet.” That, during the class, there was a kind of “tour” with foam objects to mark the stations, and she had just turned away, my daughter misplaced all of them. Secretly. With the most angelical face of all.

I thought:

People!!! My daughter is not like me AT ALL!

HOW WONDERFUL!!!

Four years old.

Moral lesson #1:

There are academies and academies. As parents, we must be aware. Children don’t always say us what happens during the classes.

Moral lesson #2: In one of our family “autocommiseration sessions”, my sister-in-law felt comfortable to tell us the nonsensical things she heard from her Ballet teacher. Notice: she was a soloist. Nowadays, she is in the adult classes and lives, for the first time, “Ballet with love” (when she was a child, she lived “Ballet with pain”.

Moral lesson #3: Let’s avoid to project, in our kids, our frustration. Or our dreams.

Moral lesson #4: We must keep in mind they are only children. Now, my daughter does karate too. And is having a lot of fun with the Brazilian Miyagi.

Who had said that she didn’t have discipline, again?

__________________

You can also see:

My son needs glasses

Letter to my children

Where’s the big belly? It’s disappeared

Where’s the big belly? Marusia speaks

This post in Portuguese: Sobre ballet e bullying

The little strategist

May19

“Parents trying to elicit good behavior from children must become amateur strategists (the children are the pros).”

(DIXIT, Avinash K. & NALEBUFF, Barry J. “Thinking strategically”.)

The phrase above is in the preface of a technical book about Game Theory, which intends to teach the principles of strategy reasoning. The authors are wise when they are able to find, in children, the reasoning that we end losing and having to re-learn after being adults. Mainly when we become parents.

One day I went back home and received from my husband a so-so “good evening”. I soon asked what was going on, and he said to me, annoyed:

“I bought a new videogame. I spent a lot of time choosing. I was sure it would be a complete success among the kids, until I inserted the disc inside the device. Only 15 minutes past, and they were already screaming and fighting in the room. I didn’t preach, I didn’t do anything: I just turned off the device and prohibited them from playing for one week.”

In the blink of an eye, I mapped the “atmosphere” which had been installed. The sadness of a father who brings a present hoping for union and seeing the opposite. Adding to my delusion of… Gee, why can’t they play nice? In the room, the little three all blue. The oldest one, writing in a notebook, a kind of diary, feeling so wronged. The fight had begun because he was – under the pretext of teaching the youngest brother how to play – taking off the controller from his hand all the time; the youngest didn’t want to accept “interferences” and then TOOF!! beat the controller on his brother’s head. My daughter was even more frustrated, because she hadn’t taken part in the confusion and was being like so. And the youngest was letting the tears drop with no sound.

My husband said again:

“I didn’t do anything. I just turned off the game.”

This kind of silent action from the parents weighs more than a scolding, you know? It’s when the children realize that they provoked something more serious. I tried to pacify and also give to Caesar what was Caesar’s. With the father’s “OK”, I released the girl from the prohibition for one week. I praised the oldest boy because he just wanted to help, but also asked for patience. To the youngest son, I said that nothing could justify hurting anybody, much less if the person was his brother, even worse because he was trying to teach him. I saw he regretted it, but I couldn’t leave it be, even for the sake of justice.

Later, I saw that he was still shedding tears and, that time, he was dedicating himself to make a drawing (since he didn’t know how to write).

See the drawing:

When I saw it, I couldn’t resist; I squeezed him in my arms and covered him with kisses. I covered all three with kisses. I asked the little boy to apologize to both his brother and sister, and his father too, what he did with a wet face, and also promised that it wouldn’t happen again (uh-huh).

Then, he brought me another drawing:

Comparing the two drawings, it’s possible to notice the spirit of each one; the first of them made in brown crayon, sad, and the second in orange, happy.

Some days later, the girl was playing in the computer, and the little boy began to annoy her, wanting to play too.

Aaaaaaah, the usual confusion…

“Spending my beauty” and all of the daily artifices, typical of a career in Law, to be a judge, a juror, a lawyer and a conciliator, I said to him he wasn’t right and must wait until she left.

It didn’t take 15 seconds, and the boy came to me with one more drawing of a crying-stick-figure. But, that time, it didn’t correspond to the funny and smart smile of who had drawn…

Three years old. Professional strategist.

_______________

You can also see:

The tooth fairy

School lunch

This post in Portuguese: O pequeno estrategista

Where’s my baby?

Apr28

Visited site:

Before they grow up – Affonso Romano de Sant’Anna

________________

Photo: Jynmeyer / stock xchng

The Affonso chronicle reached deep in my heart. Many truths, in such a short space of lines! Texts like that originate antagonistic feelings. At the beginning, something like: “I should enjoy the present moment, because everything goes away very fast.” Then, a look at my parents and grandparents, searching for the connection between who we were when children and our kids.

In other moments, it also brings anger. Remembering the past is done with rose-tinted glasses. Affonso didn’t say that we should face more fits, clean more vomit, spend more sleepless nights, lose our patience more times. It brings guilt, too: those lenses, coming from a voice filled with experience, ask us to forgive those boring facts in order to dedicate ourselves to nice facts. Off the record, day after day, sometimes it requires the posture of a Mother Teresa of Calcutta.

Let me tell a story. When my daughter concluded kindergarten, the school organized a “PJ party”, i.e., she and the other children of her class would do dozens of activities and sleep at the school. On the next day, they would wake up and find messages from their families under their pillows.

(To the insecure moms, I say that two of my kids had PJ parties at school. Up until now, those nights still are, for them, one of the most fantastic things they’ve experienced.)

My family is immense, so I decided to compose the leaves, with all their messages, as a spiral bound notebook. I printed Hello Kitties, angels, fairies, flowers, ballerinas to decorate it. For my message, I wanted to do a retrospective since she was a baby, year by year. Looking at photography albums is frequent here at home, but that time it was different. It was an unequivocal proof that time had passed.

I looked at those photos and thought to myself: where’s this baby? And looked at my daughter trying to find some of her traces. But she had become a little lady, a smart, charming, independent and elegant girl.

It’s not necessary to say that a confused feeling appeared: joy because she became who she is, but also nostalgia, a lot of nostalgia, and perplexity. I had heard many mothers telling that the babies consume such an intense dedication, filling the whole day in each and every second, so the fatigue doesn’t allow them to “enjoy” the children. Thus, when they got aware, the kids had already grown up, and they just hadn’t notice.

Keeping it in mind, I did everything to focus on the present and enjoy each moment. My babies were “enjoyed” a lot. However, it didn’t prevent me from seeing the little clothes and shoes getting smaller and smaller, the diapers and bottles being abandoned, and to try, as in the movie “Mamma Mia”, holding their childhoods like sand slipping through my fingers.

And I wrote in tears my message for her.

At night, I had a dream that my daughter was a baby again. It seemed my guardian angel was giving me another opportunity just for old time’s sake. It was wonderful. Yet I woke up with the angel’s voice: “All right. Now, don’t wait for another six years to ask again: where is my little six year old girl?”

Photo: 38 parrots / stock xchng

__________________

You can also see:

Because we are mammals – analysis

This post in Portuguese: Onde está meu bebê?

Breastfeeding social campaigns: a serious and honest analysis

Feb10

World Breastfeeding Week

Year – Brazilian godmother of the campaign	Slogan
1999 – Luiza Brunet (top model)	Breastfeeding is educating for life. Let’s re-learn!
2000 – Glória Pires (actress)	Breastfeeding. Good for the mother. Better for the baby.
2001 – Isabel Fillardis (actress)	Breastfeeding. A very special way of communication.
2002 – Claudia Rodrigues (actress)	Breastfeeding is giving your baby health in the form of love.
2003 – Luiza Thomé (actress)	Breastfeeding. Health and peace for a better world.
2004 – Maria Paula (actress and writer)	Until your baby is six months old, the shift from the right breast to the left one must be the only change in his/her feeding.
2005 – Vera Viel e Maria Paula (actresses)	Until your baby is six months old, he/she only needs breast milk. After this, offer other foods and keep breastfeeding.
2006 – Cássia Kiss (actress)	Breastfeeding. Assuring this right is everybody’s responsibility.
2007 – Vanessa Lóes (with Thiago Lacerda) (actress and actor)	Breasfeeding in the first hour, protection without delay.
2008 – Dira Paes (and mother) – actress	Nothing is more natural than breastfeeding. Nothing is more important than supporting.
2009 – Claudia Leitte (singer)	Breastfeeding at all moments. More health, love and protection.
2010 – Wanessa Cristina and other mothers	Breastfeed. Give your child the best.

Social campaigns for donation of expressed breast milk – Ministry of Health Services – Brazilian Government

2008 – Camila Pitanga (actress)	Donate expressed milk, life thanks you.
2009 – Samara Fillipo (actress)	Donate expressed breast milk, life thanks you.

Analysis

The posters aim:

Valuing (and even glamourizing) breastfeeding;
Enlightening the benefits for both mother and child;
Emphasizing the advantages of breast milk;
Expressly recommending exclusive breastfeeding until the baby is six months old;
Calling for the responsibility of all of the people involved: father, other relatives, employer.

Important, worthy, opportune, necessary, amazing, inspiring: all of those things were more than revered in those campaigns. However, there are other aspects beyond the UNQUESTIONABLE example of beautiful social marketing campaign, which deserve an analysis.

The poster in 2010 calls for attention because it is the first in a series, for 12 years, that shows mothers who are not celebrities. Also, there is a black person as the central figure. Images of breastfeeding are essentially “white”; the exception is Isabel Fillardis, in 2001.

Another new thing in 2010 is the presence of pregnant women, i.e., breastfeeding is an attitude to be embraced early in gestation.

The third different feature is the breastfeeding mother looking at the baby (even if in the smaller picture). Mostly, mothers are not looking at the babies, but at the spectator, reinforcing the appeal, when they act as spokespeople of the campaign (the exception is the poster with Vanessa Lóes and the ones for milk donation). This behavior also denotes an incisive pose for the photo, an artificial moment as well as the mother’s highlight, the hero who deserves be applauded and followed. Colors, environment, smiles, everything contributes to the atmosphere of serenity and delight, and leads to the understanding that breastfeeding is a natural fact/act since the beginning/always and has no difficulties – even when there are twins (Luiza Tomé) or big children (Maria Paula).

The mother who doesn’t see that atmosphere when she tries to breastfeed (she feels pain, sore nipples, breast engorgement, fissures, fatigue, lack of support, instead) thinks that something is wrong – with her.

Positive changes are a good beginning in the campaigns. Yet what really is absent in all posters is something beyond the phrase “for further information, please call…” with telephone numbers or websites. A crucial recommendation is not explicit on those posters: “In case of difficulties, please call…”

As in all good ads, nobody wants to talk about problems. This analysis intends to focus on the help, the support. The mothers may check the credibility of the campaign, when they cannot reproduce the perfect spirit in the pictures, and even give up, thinking that breastfeeding is only for celebrities (who enjoy a whole universe, which is not accessible for “mortal” women).

(Actually, that information is available, in the material for health professionals. It was not created for the public at large. Ministry of Health Services – Brazilian Government issued a great, honest and plural primer, with “people like us”; so different from the posters! It’s worth visiting it: Cartilha de Amamentação – in Portuguese.)

_________________

You can also see:

Because we are mammals – Marusia speaks

This post in Portuguese: Campanhas de amamentação – uma análise séria e franca

Letter to my children

Dec24

Dear Kids:

If, in the next year…

… we have to spend a sleepless night, may we enjoy the rare opportunity to watch the sun rising.

…we have to deal with a health problem, may we learn to understand our body signs.

…we cry, may the tears come like the rain that fertilizes dreams.

… we get angry, may we comprehend the immense creative power of that energy, when channeled.

… we are forced to stop, may we know how to wait, like the seed that is never late and is never early to germinate.

… we find obstacles, may we take pride in feeling like students doing a test for an advanced level.

… we have a loss, may we discover strength in faith.

… we face unmannered people, may we remember Francis of Assisi and be instruments of Peace.

… we are instruments of Peace, may dreams, health, happiness, friendship, creativity, patience, victory, earnings and harmony come in addition.

… and may the year be good.

Image: Desktop Nexus

________________

You can also see:

This post in Portuguese: Carta a meus filhos

Things that only those who have three (or more) kids know

Oct28

Only those who have three (or more) kids…

… brush, at least, 32 (yours) + 20 + 20 + 20 (92!) teeth, three times a day;

… cut 80 nails every week;

… hold the hands of two kids to cross the street and ask one of them to hold the hand of the third kid – something that they never accept;

… have to take two taxicabs to carry the whole family;

… buy weekly, at the supermarket, what the others buy monthly;

… realize, as unviable, any carpooling – unless both you and your neighbor have a minibus;

… need two sofas for watching TV;

… in travels, must book two rooms at the hotel, after the youngest kid is 3. And thank God when the hotel has combined rooms;

… have to plan a big logistic operation when traveling with them. And, if it is a trip only for mom and dad, have to leave a big logistic operation for the heroes who will stay with the kids;

… ought to manage three homeworks, three schedules, three exams each bimester, three school supplies, three report cards. And still have to attend three parent teacher meetings at the school. However, also deserve a little discount on the school payments of the youngest kid;

… realize that they are the masters of confusion, in endless combinations: the oldest one x the youngest ones; the youngest one x the oldest ones; the oldest one + the youngest one x the middle one; boys x girls; all x all…

…earn three cute gifts, made by them, and watch three shows for Mother’s Day every year (and cry in all of them);

… find out that 3 is the minimum ideal number for any play: hide-and-seek, tag, games, etc!

… find out that, now, they are the majority at home…

… hear: “Are you a mother of three? You are…” (complete the phrase):

( ) in high spirit

( ) encouraged

( ) busy

( ) determined

( ) inconsequent

( ) a warrior

( ) mature

( ) lucky

( ) a ninja

( ) admirable

( ) happy

( ) crazy

( ) all of the above

And still there are those who ask: “When does the fourth kid come????”

The truth is: people are wrong when they think of applying economies of scale techniques when the matter is children. It’s impossible. Kids need (and we do, too) individual real time. Chronological time.

People are wrong when they think of a mere multiplication by three. I believe that we have to raise it to the third power:

Challenges cubed;
Responsibilities cubed;
Opportunities for growth cubed;
Love cubed – this is really good!!!

___________________

You can also see:

It was so cute when they… yet I miss…

Is your baby as mine?

School Lunch

This post in Portuguese: Coisas que só quem tem três filhos (ou mais) sabe o que são

School Lunch

Sep30

Len Ebert / Picturebook

I was picking my three children up at school. Then, they started having the following conversation, on the back seat of the car:

1. “When I grow up, I wanna be a restaurant.”

2. “You cannot be a restaurant. A restaurant is not a living thing. Living things are people, animals, plants…”

1. “Ok, then I wanna be a tree.”

2. “You look like a bean, that’s it!”

1. “So, I’m gonna grow up to the sky!”

3. “The bean plant cannot reach the sky.”

1. “Yes, it does! The bean plant of Jack and the Beanstalk did!”

3. “It’s a made-up story by the Europeans. They like that kind of tale.”

2. “Things like giant kingdoms don’t exist. The sky is something sacred, Mommy told me.”

1. “You mean, did Jack of the Beanstalk meet God?”

And me driving the car and thinking to myself: what did they put in these kids’ food at school????

Creation: http://www.insanewiches.com

Creation: http://www.watermelon.org

________________________

You can also see:

It was so cute when they…yet I miss…

This post in Portuguese: Merenda

It was so cute when they… yet I miss…

Aug26

It was so cute when they…	… yet I miss…
… started grabbing their little pillows, saying good night and going to bed by themselves…	… seeing them with “combed” squeezed eyes until sleeping in my arms.
… learned how to take a bath by themselves…	…wrapping them with a towel, all perfumed and fresh.
… learned how to read…	… when they would invent the stories only by looking the images.
… started to wake up and play, waiting for us to get up…	… when they would go tiptoeing to call us in our bedroom.
… were promoted to the advanced swimming class…	… when they did the baby swimming class and we would go with them in the pool.
… started using the first little underclothes…	… (A LOT!!!) the diapers when they sprinkle the whole bathroom except the toilet (boys), or when we are out and they ask to poop, and the public WC is the dreaded mess of the eeew of the yuck.

You can also see:

Is your baby as mine?

This post in Portuguese: Achei lindo quando… mas sinto falta de…

Juggling mother? No, thanks

Aug12

Image: Journal Times – Tim Ludwig / The Wichita Eagle / MCT)

The term “the juggled life” suggests an existence characterized by ceaseless activity, awareness, and concentration, in which the real “trick” lies in maintaining the illusion of effortlessness.

[…] The consequences for successful juggling are even worse than the consequences of doing it poorly. The better at it you are, the harder and longer you will work. The more accomplished your performance, the more invisible your efforts become.

(MAUSHART, Susan. “The Mask of Motherhood – how becoming a mother changes our lives and why we never talk about it.” Penguin Books)

I work at the Chamber of Deputies of Brazil (House of Representatives), in the Social Communication sector. On March 31^st, 2011, as part of the celebration for International Women’s Month, the talk show “Woman and her plurality of roles” was presented. The image for publicity was a sequence of illustrations with the same woman in several situations: as a manager, a mother, an athlete, a housewife and so on.

At that time, I had posted on Facebook my discomfort about that image: “not due to the plurality itself, because it can be enriching, but due to the insisting concept that presents the multitasking and perfect woman in all roles. It’s even said it’s an innate feminine brain attribute, meant as natural, with no question. To me, that “pedestal” just leads to a fragmented, exhausting and frustrating life.”

The comments were nice! From the idea that everybody can be manifold, both men and women; the verification that we can assume a tiring madness even when we are aware we don’t need it. And the will of being only “me”, without any role…

My friend Vera Morgado, the event presenter, suggested me to open that reflection in the debate.

My question to the debaters was:

“So much is said about the juggling woman. But the juggler has the plates in the air. She doesn’t appropriate the plates. She doesn’t prioritize any of them in order to avoid them to drop. When a plate falls down, it’s she who breaks. And when she handles the plates, the show is over and nobody pays attention anymore. How can we get rid of this metaphor?”

The answers were very interesting!

The actress Elisa Lucinda talked about the danger for us, when we confound our personality with the tasks we do. She also asked us to not suffer with the dropped plate: “after all, there’s the saying ‘The rings go away, the fingers stay’ (in English, the saying is “Better lose the saddle than the horse.”). I say: ‘the breastpins go away, the breasts stay’.”

The psychologist Carmita Abdo said that we should take advantage of our feminine multitasking features in our own benefit, aggregating, pacifying, for our personal progress.

And the deputy (representative) Janete Pietá summarized, in just one phrase, everything that now I’m looking for:

“Better than being a juggler is being the circus owner.

It’s being the CEO of ourselves.”

_________________

You can also see:

Mothers in animated feature films, TV series and cartoons 3: why do we identify ourselves with them and see them as references?

This post in Portuguese: Mãe Malabarista? Não, obrigada

The World’s best play

May27

Do you remember when you un-learned to play? And now, as a parent with children, what to do? This post is about that.

I can consider myself a lucky person because I played a lot. Not only with typical “girl things”, like dolls, role-playing house or school, but also riding a bike, playing soccer, marbles and all kind of games: hide-and-seek, tag, cops and robbers, capture-the-flag, dodgeball and so on.

When I was home, I would create “movies” with dolls. My brothers would start playing and suddenly there they were, hypnotized, watching me playing. Sometimes, the stories took days, with many “chapters”, in enchanted kingdoms, lost forests, parallel worlds or the Mushroom Family’s quotidian.

When I was 15, I already had a boyfriend. Although I still kept playing with dolls. I would promote Suzi (the Brazilian version of Barbie) fashion contests, those were very competitive among brothers and neighbors. Hilarious recordings with special sound effects (sea waves using the out of air TV; horse trotting on shoe boxes). Or theater plays with cousins. I meant rest for the mothers, mesmerizing all kids, for hours. People used to say: “how good she is with children!”

When I would go to my cousin’s home, who was 1 year older than me, I’d notice she would tidy up the doll house with all furniture, but after that she wouldn’t be in the mood for playing. Later, it happened to me: I loved to organize the scenarios, the characters, but the “movies” didn’t flow anymore.

Time went by. My children were born. I have even been trying to recreate the old plays, but it was in vain. I struggled to find where and when I lost my original spontaneity and enthusiasm. Perhaps it’s because now the stories have been happening in reality: my real home, my profession, my family. I wasn’t “good with children”. Actually, I WAS a child. Now, I’ve been playing being a grown-up, and the act of fantasizing lost its fun a little.

I found out other things. If I want to play with my kids, I choose toy blocks, Lego or wood building bricks, because of my sense of organization. Or table games like domino or memory, to enjoy together and not to only guide the play.

There’s a play, however, which is invincible in my preference: hair-dresser. I divide hair locks equally among the interested kids, spread dozens of hair elastic bands, clips and ribbons, combs and hair brushes and let them invent the coiffure they want. Justice be made, this idea wasn’t mine. They love it. Me too. I deal with a pull here, a stuck ribbon there, but I keep quiet, just enjoying the pampering, sometimes I even have a nap.

It’s also useful during boring-waiting-situations, like at the airport or the doctor’s office. I become a big toy and, even without the ribbons, they spend hours combing, curling, braiding and separating the locks, entertained. I even saw children from other families wanting to play, too.

You can call me a non-imaginative, lazy person, who is misleading my innocent children. I propose a challenge, though. Just try it. Afterwards, those who don’t like those rapid little fingers massaging your head and combing your hair, cast the first hair brush! hahaha

Creation by my little hair-stylists!

________________________

You can also see:

This post in Portuguese: A brincadeira mais gostosa do mundo

Advice I love

Apr29

By Anne Guedes

Pregnant women and first-time mothers (and even the third-time mothers like me) are target for rains of advice. Sometimes, many interventions, from many sources and such varied contents can really cause confusion. But now I want to talk about “winning” advice, the ones that made and keep making the difference to me and I wish to share: advice I love.

From my sister Maria: “Don’t wait for your belly to grow to rub moisturizer.”

The skin must be previously prepared and hydrated, already in the beginning of the pregnancy, when the belly still hasn’t grown yet. So, you prevent sensibility and weakness that origin strias and stains on the skin. Actually, moisturizing is always important, for pregnant and non-pregnant women; we deserve this daily ritual.

From my friend Luciana: “The baby sucks with craving even in the first nursing.”

I had some idea about the difficulties of breastfeeding, mainly in the beginning, but I thought they were due to the nursing frequency, and not because of the suction intensity or the baby’s latch. Luciana’s statement was great and helped me not to be surprised.

From my sister Maria: “Everything goes away.”

In the post-partum, when we feel in the middle of a hurricane, with thousands of hormones under our skin, new incumbencies and never seen before emotions, we can be inclined to doubt that truth. However, if we allow ourselves to accept it, it makes us free. Everything goes away. And goes away fast.

From my friend Daniela, when I was expecting my second child: “When the baby is born, your oldest son will look very big.”

It is correct and valuable. My oldest son was only 2 years old when my daughter was born, but he looked like a giant in comparison to the new-born. The danger, wisely warned by Daniela, is acting as if he were grown-up and mature. The advice was great, to not demand postures and behaviors above his age. After all, he was a baby too, with needs, facing the absolutely new circumstance of his sister’s arrival, with whom he would have to share his parents’ attention.

From my brother Junior: “Children have happiness expiration times.”

Being aware of this wise tip avoids a lot of annoyances. When the “happiness expiration time” is up, it means it’s time to go home and rest. Insisting on doing anything else leads to suffering the consequences of an angry child, who will do everything to drive us crazy, and then the tour loses its purpose. It’s important to remember that, when you take kids to a “grown-up people event”, without activities that include or entertain them, their expiration time is shorter. It partially explains the fits in supermarkets and shopping centers.

From my kids’ pediatrician (who was my own pediatrician, too): “Hug your children.”

Shantala, massage during the bath, the need of being held in the lap, skin-to-skin contact: these things are largely recommended for babies. However, the fondling becomes rare as soon as the child begins to get big. Touching is not only for babies! 8, 9 year-old children, teenagers, even adults need a hug, being taken in the parents’ arms. This is therapeutic, prophylactic. Healing.

From my mother: “If you want to, you can keep your activities, you can work. But it’s very important staying home on your kids’ sleeping time.”

Sleeping time is sacred and has different representations in children’s minds – representations of tenderness, affection, shelter. It’s worth trying it.

And you? Do you have a “winning” advice?

_________________

This post in Portuguese: “Conselhos que amei”

The origami angel

Apr1

Do you know about those bad-hair days? I remember once upon a time… I got some health problems; things were annoying at work; and, to get it worse, I was felling a cramp strong enough to make one bend down. In moments like those, we aren’t so tolerant. The only thing I really wanted was: “may the day end fast.”

Noon, everybody seated to have lunch. Then my daughter, at that time 4 years old, found my hand. I felt a little impatience: “oh, my, I’m not in the mood for anything, not even for these child needs…” In my mind, everything and everybody were demanding from me in a moment when I couldn’t give anything at all… albeit I took out the rest of courage from the deep bottom of me, and reciprocated, holding her little hand. And I could observe that she, all the time, kept looking at her plate, eating normally; she was only taking my hand tightly.

I breathed deeply, closed my eyes and started feeling a special energy invading my body. As a empty bike tire being filled by air, I felt recovering, reinvigorating. I realized that the contact with that soft, warm small hand brought an immense physic and mental well-being to me.

Aside from the instantaneous relief for my stress, I felt ashamed to have thought, in the beginning, she had been demanding attention unnecessarily. Actually, she hadn’t been asking anything; plus, she shared her energy with me. Some people attribute this kind of gesture to one of typical features of the “indigo children”. About them I don’t know much. They can help other people, even not knowing how or why to do it, they just do it, instinctively. Exactly as she did, not realizing anything.

Recently, my daughter gave me another spontaneous and wonderful gift. She was organizing her drawings in a paper case, when she found an origami angel, made at school one year before. Out of nowhere, she left the angel on my bed table. When I saw it, I asked her why she had taken out the little angel from the case. I asked her to keep it, because the angel could get dirty or spoiled if it were exposed.

Later, I noticed the angel remained on the bed table, but now it was in a small, transparent plastic case. It was, she looked for something in order to protect it, but she made a point of leaving it beside my bed. I got very intrigued, and fortunately I managed to decipher the subtle language behind all of these things.

For a year, I was suffering from disconcerting nightmares. The matter is: I couldn’t ever remember the details, only they were very real and tense. I’m very attached to dreams, having already done a lot of researches on the theme, and that lack of definition was driving me worried. Thus, that paper angel reminded of me the importance of trusting in a superior Truth, in the sureness of a permanent care, as long as we connect to it.

I have been concentrated on these thoughts before sleeping, and my sleep has been getting calmer day by day. Of course my daughter couldn’t know anything about it. She wasn’t aware of what she did. She just did. I thank God a lot for having given me an angel in flesh and bone, with my other two angels and all the equally angelical presences He has been putting in my way.

____________________

You can also see:

A short and bald guy – Marusia speaks

This post in Portuguese: O anjo de origami

A short and bald guy

Mar9

(Você nunca imaginou que o grande amor da sua vida seria alguém baixinho e careca)

“You had never imagined that the greatest love of your life would be a short and bald guy

“You had always liked tall and dark-haired guys, until the day when you fell in love with one of them and got married. But, when your son was born, a new feeling came over you. And, nowadays, however much you love your husband, now a new little guy makes you sigh. Having a son changes everything.

Johnson&Johnson”

(Claudia Magazine, Brazil, May 2004)

The Analysis

The ad intends to be funny, associating a son’s arrival with the standards of masculine handsomeness that are already disseminated in the society. It doesn’t “invent” or “propose” these standards. It evocates them, gives them emphasis and solidifies them in the text. It can be seen below:

Short and bald men aren’t part of the imaginary of “the greatest love of your life”. Tall and dark-haired guys are.

The second point is more sensitive and refers to the place of the husband and father in the family. Pregnancy leads mother and son to an earlier attunement. The postpartum period is also a time when the mother-baby pair seems to be a unique person. It naturally creates an unbalance in the former couple structure. The man, as a husband, no matter how he is still “loved”, is no longer “the greatest love” of his wife’s life. And, as a father, he tries to be included in the family. Mostly, he doesn’t have any reference for that, because the fading family model hadn’t considered a father’s presence as they do nowadays.

It’s not in vain that the father figure is absent in the ad. There is a change in the woman’s interest after her son’s birth: “a son changes everything”. It cannot be denied and is also necessary. But it must be understood in its whole extension and be treated with kindness, in order to include – and not to exclude – the man, in the process.

_____________________

You can also see:

Love is…

This post in Portuguese: Baixinho e careca

A short and bald guy – Marusia speaks

Mar9

“You had never imagined that the greatest love of your life would be a short and bald guy.” I didn’t like this wordplay. It’s not because I don’t have a “sense of humor”. I just think the ad is not funny.

I am not talking about “politically correct” things, that are, by the way, hypocrisy or, at least, a bore, to me. I’m talking about the perpetuating of some prejudices only to not “miss an opportunity to joke”.

To avoid somebody saying I’m grumpy, I’m going to transcribe a tweet I saw, also about babies and baldness – that’s really good:

Isabelly (5 years old), with her vast and curly hair, observed the photos taken when she was a baby, virtually bald, and shoot: “Mom, was I born man?”

______________________

You can also see:

Love is…

This post in Portuguese: Baixinho e careca – Marusia fala

My son needs glasses

Feb18

Today, I found out my 8 year-old son must wear glasses. I wear them, my husband wears them, that’s a family thing. It’s so predictable that, since he was 4, we had been doing his eye examinations, which were up to now normal. This year, I have already been suspecting of a little difficulty for him to see well. Now, it is confirmed. Those beautiful and expressive eyes, which are his registered mark, are behind lenses. Just a little myopia; he can even dispense the glasses to play soccer. But suddenly a lot of worries came to my mind!

I wear glasses since I was 6. For a long time, I was the only one in my classroom. As a short, thin, introspective and nerdy girl, I was the perfect target for jokes. As my mom was. Although, just until a little while ago, that kind of joke was considered only a “child thing”, nobody took it seriously, nobody cared much.

At least at home everybody would have to deal with the same troubles. And also with funny situations. When we would go to the beach, for instance, walking out from the sea was complicated. We were dislocated by the waves and simply couldn’t find the family’s parasol on the sand. Meanwhile, the others would be observing from afar, laughing a lot, the “Mister Magoo” brother, lost, tightening the eyes and approaching each and every beach umbrella, looking for a known face!

When I was 12, my mother gave me a pair of contact lenses. It was such a big revolution to me that I ended up abusing them. The result: a keratoconus has formed in my eyes, a problem in my corneas that contraindicates surgery and the use of soft contact lenses.

So, those memories overwhelmed me like in the day my son left the kindergarten to go to a “big school”. I thought to myself: “Oh my, he is going to live so many things there… experiences for his entire life. The first exam, the first date, the gang… The first low test score, the first disappointment… And now, he is going to deal with all of these things wearing glasses…

Associating a person wearing glasses with the “intellectual” is unavoidable. It discourages, in the beginning, the “flirters”. A Brazilian rock band, called “Paralamas do Sucesso”, has the song “Óculos” (“Glasses”). The vocalist, Herbert Vianna, sings about his bad luck with girls: “Por que você não olha pra mim? Atrás dessa lente também bate um coração. Atrás dessa lente tem um cara legal.” (“Why don’t you look at me? Behind these lenses, there’s also a heart that beats. Behind these lenses there’s a cool guy.”). I identify myself instantaneously with this song! All of a tribe, which had also identified themselves, felt betrayed when Vianna finally did the corrective eye surgery.

Thank God the day when I met my husband I had my glasses on! Nobody can say it was misleading propaganda hahaha!

Several things tranquilize me, though. Nowadays, parents and teachers are more aware, and many kids in my son’s school wear glasses, too (he is not the only different boy). Nowadays, the humiliation, formerly considered as a “child thing”, has already received a name: Bullying. Many studies, books and even law projects treat this subject, and the schools are concerned about banning this practice for good – even though I know how kids can be cruel sometimes.

Afterwards, I hope he can do the surgery (and a cool technology can be invented in order to resolve my problem, too). Until then, my role as a mother (and an authority on this theme, who lives with it day by day), is to provide my son with such an invincible self-esteem that his glasses become just a mere detail; a useful object to improve his vision sharpness and that’s it.

I came to the following conclusion:

We cannot prevent our children from living some experiences, even the most difficult ones. Better, WE DON’T HAVE THE RIGHT OF preventing them from living some situations which can yield them to grow up.

Everything just depends on the way we prepare them.

Everything just depends on our points of view.

“Behind these lenses there’s a cool guy”, a pretty cool guy, who has a beautiful future ahead.

____________________

You can also see:

This post in Portuguese: “Meu filho vai usar óculos”, originally published on March 11th, 2011.

Love is…

Feb11

Visited site: http://fansofkimcasali.multiply.com/photos

_____________________

Who said that the models of perfection are only related to mothers? Fathers also have to carry them…

Love is… staying beside her while the baby is being born. (Kim Casali)

Love is… holding the new-born carefully. (Kim Casali)

Love is… believing that the first son takes after the father. (Kim Casali)

Love is… getting up when the baby cries. (Kim Casali)

Love is… being proud of your child. (Kim Casali)

Love is… letting the kid play and jump on your belly early in the morning. (Kim Casali)

Love is… sharing the happiness that the baby brings. (Kim Casali)

Love is… changing diapers and… washing them. (Kim Casali)

Love is… saying “our kid”, even when he/she is too difficult. (Kim Casali)

Love is… not being jealous when she pays attention to the children. (Kim Casali)

Love is… making breakfast while she prepares the children to go out.

Love is… tidying up the house for mommy to rest. (Kim Casali)

Love is… saying she is beautiful even when she is a mess. (Kim Casali)

Love is… flirting with your wife even after the sixth child. (Kim Casali)

Free translation of the texts from the “Amar é…” sticker album, published in 1980 in Brazil.

In 1980, Abril Publishing (Brazil) launched the first version of the “Amar é…” sticker album (Love is… – copyright: United Feature Syndicate). It was a huge success.

The naked couple was created by the New Zealander artist Kim Grove Casali. They illustrated the love notes Kim sent to her boyfriend (later her husband) Robert Casali, in the Sixties. In the Seventies, the drawings got a permanent space in the Los Angeles Time newspaper and conquered the world, shown in cartoons, cards and stickers.

I collected the stickers of the “Love is…” album. I was 8. I couldn’t complete it, but I have kept it.

Today, I found a curious thing. When children appear on the stickers, in most cases the message is addressed to the father: changing (and washing) diapers, getting up at night, playing… If we consider that the cards are from the 1960’s, Kim was a revolutionary woman!!! At the same time, a realist one: the father in the cartoons doesn’t deny he is annoyed with some of the new chores! hahaha

HOW CUTE!!!!

________________________

You can also see:

This post in Portuguese: Amar é…

Are your kids as mine?

Feb5

Do they…

… become other people (very impatient people, by the way) when they are sleepy?

… fight to press the elevator button?

… claim the same place on the back seat of the car?

… get instantaneously interested in an once forgotten toy only because another child got interested in it?

… watch Toy Story on TV again, in spite of they have already watched it more than 50 times on DVD? (well, I do the same…)

… finish having lunch and want to stand up from their chairs to run around the restaurant?

… slide their hands on all handrails, walls, fences, shop windows and similar things they find?

… get flurried the most exactly when we are late the most?

… get agitated the most exactly when we are tired the most?

… get stubborn the most exactly when we are impatient the most?

… get very quiet sometimes, and soon we wonder if they are up to something? And actually, they are only preparing a cute surprise, like a drawing or a beautiful little card?

… get unbelievably cute when they are sleeping?

… grow up faster than the needed time for us to enjoy each phase?

Are you as I am?

Are you a mom who drools over them???

__________________

You can also see:

Is you baby as mine?

To my dear moms-to-be

Only mothers are happy- Analysis

This post in Portuguese: São só os meus?…

Is your baby as mine?

Jan7

A post of the series “Is it mine only?”, remembering my babies, as a homage to my dear sisters. And, to my friends Priya and Lesley, a list with some wonders that you are about to feel.

Does your baby…

… have a velvet skin?

… have a nap after nursing and smile with satisfaction?

… close the little hands so tight all the time, that taking off the threads they kept (as souvenir from every piece of clothing they have grabbled) becomes a delight?

…, when changing diapers, straighten the legs and then quickly pull them back, as if they had a spring?

… poop “subtotal” only and do the rest exactly when you take the diaper off? (you can wait any amount of time – the baby calculates the exact moment…)

… hate to change the T-shirt, mainly when the head goes through the collar?

… have a normal belly button (something that was a worry before the birth)?

… make a little noise (“goya, goya, goya”), when sucking the breast / his/her hand / pacifier / baby bottle / teething ring?

… spend more time before burping, after early-morning feedings?

… love mobiles?

… sleep instantaneously with the car movement?

… love to play “where’s the baby?”?

… become another person (a very cute person, by the way) after a bath: relaxed, cool and perfumed? (Before putting the socks, it’s so delightful kissing the little toes, they look like peanuts!)

…, when you arrive home, receive you with a beautiful smile and throw the arms for you to hold him/her?

… in your lap, hang the arms on your shoulder, or grab your clothes?

…, upon seeing an unknown person, bury the head on your shoulders, shyly?

… change totally the standard behavior every time you think you’ve already “got the hang of it”?

Are you as I am?

Do you…

… see yourself standing up, alone, shifting your body weight from left to right, as if the baby was in your lap (force of habit or “auto-rocking”…)?…

Little baby shoes… or jewel cases?

And you? What would you include in this list?

_________________

You can also see:

To my dear moms-to-be

This post in Portuguese: É o só o meu, ou seu bebê também…

To my dear moms-to-be

Dec22

My sister is expecting her third child, happily.

As a homage to her and to my seven coworker friends who are pregnant or have just had their babies (think about the biggest possible demographic density in a same sector!), that’s the first post of the series “Is it mine only?” for moms-to-be.

Did it happen only with me, or with you too?

Did…

… you do a home pregnancy test before the HCG-based test?

… your belly become a public thing – everyone wanted to touch it?

… you answer 15876432 times: if it was your first kid; what was the baby’s gender; if the baby already had a name and what it was; how many months you had been pregnant and when the birth would occur? (I loved all of those questions!)

… everybody have a recipe or a tip to give to you (some of them contradictory suggestions)?

… feel sick a lot and, in those moments, you weren’t in the mood for anything?

… you say (or even think) at least once: “Hi, baby, I love you so much, and it’s not your fault… but mommy is really messy”?

… you, in the beginning, get shy when going to the preferential queues, but afterwards you went proudly?

… you love listening to the amplified sound of the baby’s heart in the obstetrician’s office?

… you feel the baby hiccupping inside your womb, mainly after you ate?

… you pee “softly”?

… the day of an ultrasound day feel like pure expectation? Did you record everything in a DVD, even knowing you would never watch it again, after the birth?

… your jaw drop with the number of details pointed by the doctor during the ultrasound exam?

… you have fun when the baby moved?

… you get apprehensive when the baby moved a lot?

… you get apprehensive when the baby was quiet a lot?

… your belly-button get flat?

… you get surprised by the colostrum in your bra when you were seven months pregnant?

… you feel, in the third trimester, “electrical shocks” in your groin, strong enough for you to bend your knees?

… you no longer manage to tie your shoelaces in the last week of pregnancy?

… you always think the baby would be born before the prediction?

… you get startled in thinking you were in labor and it was only… gas?

… you feel the great mystery of having a person living inside of you?

… you get amazed by looking like a Volkswagen beetle?

Image editing: Marusia. Photos: Bjearwicke e Ale_Paiva - Stock Xchng

And you? What would you include in this list?

___________________________

You can also see:

This post in Portuguese, originally published on February 26th 2011: Para as gravidinhas

Does sacrifice make you a better mother?

Dec14

Complicated pregnancies, complex postpartum periods – these things don’t make me a better mother.

The immense challenge and privilege of breastfeeding my children until they wanted to: that’s not what really matters.

As well as the number of breastfeedings, liters of expressed milk donated to the Breast Milk Bank (an institution that exists in Brazil), sleepless nights.

It doesn’t matter how many times I change diapers; clean piss, poop, vomit; blow noses, cut nails, brush teeth.

Nor the number of hours spent waiting in the office supply store queues; filling labels, identifying school materials; sewing dozens of pants and shorts hems. And, “whatever” if, in the next year, I decide to send those to a seamstress.

The same about the negotiated and compensated hours at work, in order to participate in parent-teacher meetings. Or when I didn’t do something for myself, cancellations, postponements.

Even candies that I forbid or I allow. Fruits and vegetables carefully chosen at the supermarket or milk in feeding bottles and pre-made baby food by Nestlé.

Comings and goings, from here to there: doctor, dentist, vaccination, speech therapist, fitness club, piano classes, school.

Events planned in detail, meant to be fun, that ended annoying.

Never-ending arguments, scoldings, timeouts.

Fevers, diseases or serious syndromes, feelings of powerlessness.

Weariness, discouragement, distemper, doubt, guilt, fear.

None of these things make me a better mother.

None of these things matter at all. What really matters is how we face them and what we convey with every gesture.

The more the sacrifice, the more the expectation. It leads to risks:

Expecting return or wanting to ask for payment later, almost unavoidable;
Creating alibies: I breastfed, looked after them, gave them my all, did my part, and now it’s enough;
Not accepting when someone does something differently. If it is easier, even worse; it’s almost as if this person is committing a crime.

Often people talk about “choices”: “you’d better think about it before having kids”, “there are a lot of contraceptives on market”. But the motherhood idea in vogue is very different from reality. Almost the opposite. Beautiful perfect mothers always smiling, with healthy and cute children, eternalized on the covers of magazines, on advertising panels, on TV, on the cinema and on the internet, all of them show how much everything is magical and sweet. You can observe: NONE of them show mastitis, children fits, school adaptations, diseases. Not counting the discourse that says: women feel fulfilled ONLY when they become mothers.

And, suddenly, we realize that things don’t happen the way we expected; that, theoretically, everything is very simple; that mostly we end up doing things that we criticized before. And there comes the question that drops like a bomb:

“I’m trying so hard, but it’s never enough. What am I doing wrong?”

Well then, the answer is implicit: what you are doing wrong is just thinking that you are TRYING SO HARD. Who said that everything must be this way, that it is only legitimate if it is painful?

As the idealized motherhood is false, the motherhood with supreme subjection also is. One thing is the daily care to the kids that really demands a lot, it’s basic, necessary. Another thing is to base motherhood only on it. It’s very heavy. Not counting that it is reductionist, myopic.

I want to emphasize that I understand and respect those who feel better with the sacrifice. Something in our culture endorses it. It is also a paradoxical thing, because it lives with consumerism, hedonism and promises of ready and easy solutions. At last, the fact is that the overcoming of a sacrifice brings a sensation of victory.

I think those who can transform tragedy in concrete attitudes are really fantastic; those who open spaces and endow entities in order to help people. The problem is when the overcoming brings a sensation of arrogance, status, power, superiority. And the irresistible temptation of comparing, labeling and condemning the behavior of others. One thing is feeling better as a mother. Another thing is to believe a mother is better than the other mothers.

This concern is natural: a concern related to the other mothers’ kids, helpless children or potentially problematic adults who will share the world with OUR children (obviously, I’m not talking about police cases). But, then, there’s a risk of adopting another dangerous illusion: the belief that the mother is the sole responsible (and, therefore, the guilty one) for all that her kids will become.

Now, I go back to the initial question:

Does the sacrifice make me a better mother?

In MY CASE, no, never. I think it’s even the opposite: it makes me a worse mother, focused on demands, first to myself, and then to my children.

The best moments of motherhood happen when I am spontaneous. It’s true to me and to my kids. Not thinking if it is from a right or under an obligation. Not thinking if I’m right or wrong. These moments arise when you surrender, let them teach you. When you stop seeing it as a sacrifice and let it flow. When you feel pleasure, love. I confess – they are less frequent than I would like; it’s very difficult for us to allow them to exist in a quotidian that mostly reminds us of a military routine. But they are eternal, unforgettable. Moments when we can really know our kids and let them know us.

What makes me a better mother is the certainty that I do know my children. I hope they don’t think of me considering only the birth, the time spent breastfeeding, the sleepless time, the invested money or any other sacrifice I have done. What I hope the most is that they know they can TRUST ME.

_____________________

You can also see:

This post in Portuguese: O sacrifício faz de você uma mãe melhor?

The Tooth Fairy

Nov29

Visited site: Katmary Gallery – Flickr

____________________________

Teeth replacement is really an interesting phase in childhood. Before the loss of the first milk tooth, the child gets a little apprehensive. They don’t know when it will occur, if the loss will hurt, if the eruption of the permanent tooth will also hurt and so on. In order to ease the process, I think, they invented the Tooth Fairy story, as a little extra incentive.

Image: Katmary / Flickr

I, particularly, only learned about this story a long time after I had grown up; there was no such fantasy tradition as this, in my family. But I thought this approach was nice and decided to use this strategy with my kids.

Teeth replacement has been calm here at home. My children think the loose tooth is cool, they get happy with the Fairy’s monetary reward. But they grow up, don’t they? Then, they start suspecting the stories.

Once, my first-born son (at that time, he was six years old), asked me:

“Mom, does the Tooth Fairy really exist?”

“Why?”

“Because I want to know if she is true or if she is invented.”

I thought, thought, Gee, if I say she does not exist, I pass off as a liar, don’t I? And what’s the problem with one more fantasy? And if he, knowing the truth, ends up destroying the fantasy of his youngest brothers? I solved the question with this:

“Do you want her to exist?”

“I’m not sure, I think I do.”

“Do you want her to exist?” – I insisted.

“I do.”

“So, done: she exists for you, and that’s what matters.”

Image: Katmary / Flickr

Both of us, he and I, were glad with the resolution.

Some days later, one of his foreteeth fell off. He left it under his pillow, as usual, expecting the Fairy’s coming. In the next day, with the tooth in his hand, he said to me:

“Look, Mom, the sheets got in the way of the Fairy.”

“What do you mean?…”

“The sheets are white, Mommy, like the tooth. The Fairy didn’t see the tooth, therefore she didn’t take it and didn’t leave me a coin.”

I looked with “those eyes” to the father, the logistic responsible for leaving the coin (that he had clearly forgotten). He was laughing. I agreed with my son:

“You’re right, let’s leave it again, that Fairy is a little shortsighted.”

In the next morning, the child came again:

“Hey, Mommy, is a broken tooth worth less?”

“Whaaaat????….”

“It is, my tooth was a little broken and this must be the reason why the Fairy, instead of giving me $1, gave me 25 cents…”

Of course somebody was laughing a lot in the room beside ours, who justified to me, later: “I didn’t have another coin in my wallet…”

Image: Katmary / Flickr

(I saw a tweet with a joke, saying that the Tooth Fairy teaches children, in a mercenary way, to sell human body parts, which is forbidden by law hahahahahaha!)

With this episode, I saw only gains:

I realized how clever my son is: doing mathematical calculations, applying financial education fundaments, practicing logical reasoning. The most important, however, was seeing him developing the fantasy, getting highly plausible reasons in order to keep it alive.

Fantasy forever! And, we, grown-up people, are the ones who need it more!

(My kids, up until now, still believe in the Tooth Fairy).

Image: Katmary / Flickr

You can also see: this post in Portuguese: A Fada dos Dentes

Why mothers want to leave their jobs to stay with their children – one side

Why mothers want to leave their jobs to stay with their children – another side

Free translation of a report published in Época magazine, nº 474, on July 18^th 2007 – Globo (Brazil)

Why mothers want to leave their jobs to stay with their children

Celso Masson, Martha Mendonça e Solange Azevedo

Advantages of having a job, according to the report:

For the mother	For the family	Considerations about the labor market
She has professional satisfaction	The mother who has a job doesn’t throw onto her kids the frustrations for interrupting her career	Women are conquering space in the labor market
The woman doesn’t feel isolated or bored (feelings that could cause depression)	The mother’s income keeps the standard of living for the kids	Interrupting a career temporarily, in order to take care of children, affects the professional future
The woman isn’t seen as “unoccupied”	The mother who is self-sufficient economically assures a better quality of life for her kids	Women who stop working are outdated and not able anymore
She doesn’t suffer prejudice at home	The mother who has a job contributes to her family security, if her husband is fired	Employers look for consistent curriculums
As she has financial independence, she doesn’t become vulnerable	The mother who has a job contributes to her family security, if her husband dies	Women are more productive than men
She has emancipation	The husband can help at home (in some countries, maternity leave is a couple’s right)	Women can be creative and look for compensative activities, on the financial and professional satisfaction points of view
Professional ascent is an essential condition for the conquest of equal rights	The father is not only required to take responsibilities at home, but also makes a point of assuming this role
When children grow up, the mother will not feel worthless
If she leaves her job, she can feel as an intruder at home, of which she no longer has control.
The work at home is not paid.

You can also see:

Why mothers want to leave their jobs to stay with their children – Analysis

Why mothers want to leave their jobs to stay with their children – Marusia speaks

This post in Portuguese: Por que as mães querem deixar o emprego para ficar com os filhos – um lado

Why mothers want to leave their jobs to stay with their children – another side

Why mothers want to leave their jobs to stay with their children – one side

Free translation of a report published in Época magazine, nº 474, on July 18^th 2007 – Globo (Brazil)

Why mothers want to leave their jobs to stay with their children

Celso Masson, Martha Mendonça e Solange Azevedo

Advantages of staying home, according to the report:

For the mother	For the family	Considerations about the labor market
She doesn’t feel guilt	There is more dedication to the family	More than half of women want to leave their jobs (Brazilian Survey – Ibope 2006)
The mother who stays home takes care of the children; the mother who has a job doesn’t look after both work and children	More time with kids leads to a true connection between them and the mother; it takes down the “quality time” concept once and for all	5,6 million of American women left their jobs in 2005
Staying home is a symbol of status	Mothers who don’t pick the children up at school and don’t meet the kids’ friends are cruel	Mothers have the option to work at home, without a strict schedule
She doesn’t sacrifice her personal life	Children are not “outsourced”	Even if the work at home isn’t paid, it corresponds to 60% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the USA
She doesn’t suffer with competition	The mother is always at home; she doesn’t arrive after “the children are sleeping”	Women that have a job earn 30% less than men
She doesn’t suffer from work-related stress		The informality of the female labor is bigger
There is intelligent life among “entrance-school-mothers”		The female work is depreciated, because the employers think that mothers concentrate less and produce less
She has more time		Women that carry on with their careers find they are imprisoned inside a management system built for men
		Working women in part-time jobs are not taken seriously and lose opportunities

Advantages for the husband were not listed.

_________________________

You can also see:

Why mothers want to leave their jobs to stay with their children – Analysis

Why mothers want to leave their jobs to stay with their children – Marusia speaks

This post in Portuguese: Por que as mães estão deixando o emprego para ficar com os filhos – outro lado

Why mothers want to leave their jobs to stay with their children – Analysis

Why mothers want to leave their jobs to stay with their children – one side

The report text is very complete, plentiful with as many arguments against mothers who have a job as in favor of them. They present few statistic data and (still) a lot of prejudice, on both sides.

But, whereas the text forwards to impartiality, the images reveal only the good side of staying home (the mothers with their children).

And, at the same time, the bad side of keeping a job. Both the cover of Epoca magazine and on the first page of the report show an unmoving mother seen from a child perspective, from the waistline down, without a face (and, possibly, with much guilt).

Why mothers want to leave their jobs to stay with their children

Época Magazine

This image is recurrent when the matter refers to “mothers who have a job”. According to the Discourse Analysis studies, there is a natural tendency to maintain everything in the same way during the discourse: i.e. a typical paraphrase. In the Interdiscourse (Discursive Memory), a discourse is always related to another one, and it’s easy to see this feedback:

You can also see:

Why mothers want to leave their jobs to stay with their children – another side

Why mothers want to leave their jobs to stay with their children – Marusia speaks

This post in Portuguese: Por que as mães querem deixar o emprego para ficar com os filhos – análise

Why mothers want to leave their jobs to stay with their children – Marusia speaks

Why mothers want to leave their jobs to stay with their children – one side

In the photographs of reports like “Why mothers want to leave their jobs to stay with their children”, it seems like the mothers have (literally) lost their heads. These mothers don’t have hearts, too. So, even if a text values the mother who carries on with her professional career, the images say the opposite, feeding the guilt, tagging the situation as if it was an abandonment.

I have even a guess about who took the photos for those reports:

The Red Queen, of Alice in Wonderland: “Off with their heads!”

I’d rather be:

A full-time professional when I am at work (and my children at school); and
A full-time mother when I am with my kids.
But, above all, I prefer keeping my identity: being Marusia (with a head and a heart), full-time, all the time.

______________________

You can also see:

Why mothers want to leave their jobs to stay with their children – another side

Why mothers want to leave their jobs to stay with their children – Analysis

This post in Portuguese: Por que as mães querem deixar o emprego para ficar com os filhos – Marusia fala

Where’s the big belly? It’s disappeared

Nov11

Free translation of a report published in Veja magazine (Brazil), under “Beauty”

"Where's the big belly? It's disappeared

Where’s the big belly? It’s disappeared

Getting slim quickly is a dream of pregnant women – but an exaggeration is not necessary

Is there a pregnant woman who doesn’t dream about the moment of going back to wearing the “before” clothes and getting her body back after giving birth? It’s a perfectly natural desire, as long as it doesn’t become a unique and a no-parameter concern.

“Ten years ago, a fat woman breastfeeding was seen as healthy. For six weeks after the birth, nothing was demanded from a woman, even beauty. She used to stay there, “hatching”, Wladimir Taborda, the Gynecology and Obstetrics coordinator of the Albert Einstein Hospital in São Paulo (Brazil), says. “It’s different nowadays. Six hours after the birth, women are already walking. In the next day, the beautification process starts”, he complements. There’s no lack of examples – bad examples. […] Actresses, singers and models, that are already esthetically privileged, leave the maternity with their bodies virtually back to form.

For a new mother, it’s not easy (or recommended) to follow those examples, those exaggerations committed by the stars. “The celebrities reach the desired result with the help of a specialized team (that includes nannies, personal trainers and nutritionists). The majority of women don’t have the time or the professionals required for that effort”, the obstetrician Yehudi Gordon, who took care of the ex-models Jerry Hall (the mother of Mick Jagger’s 4 children), and Elle MacPherson (who has 2 boys), warns.

[…] “Sixty years ago, pregnant women had gained weight without any control, and it had been seen as cute. Nowadays, when we see a fat pregnant woman, the first thing that we think is: she isn’t taking care of herself”, the gynecologist Rubens Paulo Gonçalves, the author of “Pregnancy for pregnant women”, comments.

Subtitle of the photos of Kate Hudson:

Kate, still enormous 26 days after giving birth, and then three months later: goodbye to 30 kilos with a strict diet and a lot of gymnastics.

Analysis

The report brings a big paradox: although it classifies as an exaggeration what celebrities do to get thin after giving birth and though it intends to emphasize health and not shape, it brings citations of gynecologists and a lot of expressions that strongly disqualify the bodies of pregnant women during the postpartum period. At the same time, it uses many eulogist words to those who auto impose the goal of returning to their good physical shapes:

Pregnant women, according to the report	Goals, according to the report
Big Belly	Beautification
Fat	Excellent physical shape
“Hatching”	Small body
Enormous	Tall, thin and pretty
Immense	Perfect shape
They had gained weight without any control	Slimness and glamour
They didn’t take care of themselves	Splendorous
Fat-belly woman	Beautiful figure

___________________________

You can also see:

Where’s the big belly? Marusia speaks

This post in Portuguese: Cadê o barrigão? Sumiu

Where’s the big belly? Marusia speaks

Nov11

It’s curious: all the gynecologists mentioned in the report “Where’s the big belly?” are men. What caught my attention above all else was this statement:

“Ten years ago, a fat woman breastfeeding was seen as healthy. For six weeks after the birth, nothing was demanded from a woman, even beauty. She used to stay there, ‘hatching’ “, Wladimir Taborda, the Gynecology and Obstetrics coordinator of the Albert Einstein Hospital in São Paulo (Brazil), says.

He talks as if taking care of a new-born is “nothing”. Well, what nature spent 9 months to do is not undone in the next day. And it’s impressive how returning to being in shape at any cost is becoming a real obsession for both the celebrities and mortal women.

Respect your body, your rhythm, your health and your welfare. And, to those who say the opposite, tell them to go “hatch” a coconut (by the way, coconut water is very good for women in the postpartum period).

_________________________

You can also see:

Where’s the big belly? It’s disappeared

This post in Portuguese: Cadê o barrigão? Marusia fala

Because we are mammals

Nov6

"Because we are mammals".

In 1996, the Brazilian company Parmalat, that sells dairy products, launched an adorable advertising campaign with children dressed like little animals. The slogan was: “Because we are mammals”.

The advertising power drove Parmalat to the top, as never reached before. The campaign was succeeded by a promotion to give away plush mammals and that made history in the marketing world. Everything was supported by the images of these very cute small children.

Plush mammals of the Parmalat's promotion

Ten years later, Parmalat promoted another campaign, with the same children, in order to tell us how much they had grown up since then.

The mammals grew up!!

The campaign slogan intrigues. Well, mammals nurse, they don’t drink milk from a package.

A question is opened: if this advertising appeal was so irresistible, would the same ads, with the same kids, but announcing breastfeeding, result in the same effect?

__________________________

You can also see:

Because we are mammals – Marusia speaks

This post in Portuguese: Porque nós somos mamíferos

Because we are mammals – Marusia speaks

Nov6

Before being a mother, I used to ask myself about the need of making advertising campaigns to encourage breastfeeding. Well, if it’s so super-duper-hyper-ultra-mega good, the perfect food, that is already warm, ready and sterilized, with all the nutrients and antibodies, free, and it also strengthens the mother-baby connection, helps one to get thinner and lots more, who wouldn’t want to breastfeed?

I got all of the answers when I tried to breastfeed my oldest son for the first time after his birth, and he bit me WITH REAL CRAVING. For me, it was succeeded by fever, sore nipples, fissures, shells, banana peels, naked sunbathing, massages, expressing by hand and a mastitis. After 8 + 10 + 11 (3 kids, remember?) months breastfeeding (being 5 + 5 + 5 exclusively, because my “cuties” wouldn’t accept anything else), I think I’m schooled enough to confirm what my sister used to say: “after the first 15 days, it starts to be good.”

It’s really good, but it’s HARD. I don’t agree with any radicalism. And I also think that we should receive an incentive, as the promotion of Parmalat gave: breastfeed and earn a plush mammal. Better yet: earn a cruise to the Caribbeans.

Dolphin in the Caribbeans!

_______________

You can also see:

Because we are mammals

This post in Portuguese: Porque nós somos mamíferos – Marusia fala

Only mothers are happy – Analysis

Oct29

Free translation of an article published in “Crescer” magazine, nº 138, on May 2005 (Brazil)

"Only mothers are happy"

Ten reasons why we become much better after our kids are born (Malu Echeverria)

Forget sleepless nights, the guilt of leaving your kids at home to go work, the lack of time for taking care of yourself. Ignore the credit card account, the mess around the house, the being tired. At least for some moments, stop demanding too much from yourself for not being a perfect mother. On Mother’s Day, enjoy the happy moments brought by motherhood. […]

1. You get new friends

At the school entrance, in parental meetings and in children parties, you meet the parents of your kids’ friends. They become your friends, too, increasing and diversifying your network. After all, there’s no lack of things in common.

2. You become a healthy person

Even those who don’t like walking, after becoming mothers, find how much riding a bike or playing with a ball is cool. The concern is pertinent: you want to be well in order to see your kid growing up.

3. Your time becomes more productive

“The capacity that women have to think and do a lot of things at the same time is increased after motherhood, because the demands also increase”, the psychoanalyst Ana Paula Pires explains. Have you ever imagined that you would manage to dress, talk on the phone and carry a baby, everything at the same time? […]

4. You are powerful

You find that your body has a nobler mission than only enchanting men […]. The discovery that your body is able to create a human being really gives you a sensation of power.

5. You want a better world

As all of good mothers, you want the planet to be a better place for living.

6. You find you are a well of patience

You ignore child’s in-public-fits, the complaints at bath time, the crying in the early morning. “When we are in love, we bear almost everything […]”, the family therapist Marília de Freitas Pereira compares.

7. The choosiness is let go

[…] Nowadays, if a problem appears (yes, you don’t look for it anymore!), soon you find a solution and that’s it!

8. You feel the greatest love

The love that exists in the relationship with children compensates any difficulty […].

9. Other talents arise

Maybe you had some abilities before being a mother. But, certainly, you have never used them with so much pleasure as you do nowadays. […]

10. You go back to playing

The psychoanalyst Ana Paula sums up why being a mother is so good: “Motherhood brings a lighter way of living.” Enjoy!

Analysis

At first sight, this report is an acknowledgement: see all the happiness that is a privilege only to mothers!

At second sight, this report is a eulogy: be proud for all the qualities that only motherhood gives.

At third sight, this article is an invitation: be conscious of all the wonders that are within mothers’ reach and enjoy them.

At fourth sight, it’s a consolation (or a reprehension): problems are irrelevant in face of so many gifts that mothers receive!

Although, there is a fifth truth: the acknowledgement, the eulogy, the invitation to pleasure and the consolation are presented under so many conditions, that in the end the homage becomes an obligation. And every imposition can become guilt.

Reasons to be happy, according to the report:	Conditions presented on this report:
Only mothers are happy	If you aren’t happy, you are not a good mother
At least for some moments, stop demanding from yourself for not being a perfect mother	After these moments, you can go back to demanding from yourself. A list follows:
New friends	If you don’t become a friend of the parents of your kids’ friends, you are not a good mother
A more productive time	If you cannot dress, talk on the phone and carry the baby at the same time, you are not a good mother
Power	Women’s bodies are only good for men [!!!] and, after them, for children. The report discards everything that a woman can access by her own body as an extension of her individual consciousness
A better world	If you don’t get involved in ecology, Human Rights and World Peace, you are not a good mother
Well of patience	If you don’t have more than enough patience with children’s fits, complaints and crying, you are not a good mother. If you don’t bear everything, you are not in love with your kids
No choosiness	If you don’t find a solution for the problems soon, you are choosy and you don’t prioritize what really matters – the children
The greatest love	If the unlimited love doesn’t show up at first sight, you are not a good mother
New talents	If you aren’t creative, you are not a good mother
Playing	If you didn’t go back to playing and if you don’t lead a lighter kind of life, you are not a good mother

The whole text is written in the Present Tense: you do, you become, you define, you find, you want, take, feel, believe, you are. This affirmative approach, with the testimonies and photos of six mothers delighted with their children and the comments of four psychologists, contributes to reinforce that “being happy” is not a realization. It’s a duty for mothers.

______________________

You can also see:

This post in Portuguese: Só as mães são felizes

Only mothers are happy – Marusia speaks

Oct29

I think that in the “Only Mothers are Happy” Course, I missed the classes when they taught the “Find you are a well of patience” Module. I flunked with honors.

In the “Choosiness is let go” Module, a kind of transference occurred: I started to have a lot of choosiness with my children, mainly when they were still babies, like: boiling Lego (to sterilize it) and not changing the wristwatch to daylight saving time on trips (to keep the routine intact).

I don’t like parent-teacher meetings either (I only like individual meetings with the teacher); I’ve been risking myself doing rappel around; I’ve been using disposable diapers, to environmentalists’ dismay; and sometimes I’m not in the mood for creative games.

I don’t think that only mothers are happy. I do believe that everybody can be happy if they do not waste time in wanting to be perfect (and not only “for some moments”, as this report affirms).

_________________

You can also see:

Only mothers are happy – Analysis

This post in Portuguese: Só as mães são felizes – Marusia fala

From daughter to mother

Today, October 22^nd, is my birthday. Every year, my mother reminds everybody she knows of the day when I was born, the going to the maternity… She has even kept the dress that she had worn at that date. In that time, in the colored and hippie seventies, pregnant women en vogue used to wear a very short trapeze dress, made of the same cloth as their panties – the idea was to show them!

A birthday is a day to remember a lot of things, indeed. It includes things that didn’t happen specifically at that day. And, the same way that my mother remembers my birth, I also remember the birth of my children and the things that we have been experiencing since I became a mother.

But today I’m going to talk about a particular aspect: the mother-daughter link.

A month ago, I woke up in the early morning. I had had a clear impression of hearing my five-year old daughter crying. I went to her bed, but she was sleeping calmly. In the next day, I woke up again. This time, she was sitting on the TV room sofa, in the darkness. When I got closer, I noticed she was crying softly, because of an earache. The dream of the night before had been a presage. I was surprised and said to her: “You can ALWAYS call mom, always.” She hadn’t wanted to wake me up. And I automatically remembered that I had done the same thing, the same way, when I was her age. I had had earaches in the early morning and had been crying inaudibly in the darkness of the corridor, beside my parents’ room door. EVERY TIME, my mother had opened the door. She had heard my crying with her heart ears.

So, I remembered another early-morning episode. My daughter was seven months old. My husband was travelling. I jumped out of bed, in dread. No sound. But, when I got closer to the cradle, I saw my daughter having a respiratory crisis. It was 1:30 A.M. I took her, wrapped her in a blanket and went quickly to the hospital’s emergency room. There, a doctor diagnosed her with stridulous laryngitis, a disease that usually scares parents because of the shortness of breath that the child has. She prescribed a bronchodilator. I didn’t dare to nebulize a baby so young. I decided to call my pediatrician, who is a homeopath, at 3 o’clock A.M. He asked me if I could stay awake the rest of the morning in order to give homeopathic medicines to my daughter every 30 minutes. It was what I did. In the next day, still in the morning, she hadn’t suffered from shortness of breath anymore.

Then, a new connection is created. On October 22^nd 1972, my mother’s obstetrician was late and I was born 3 hours beyond the prediction. I needed to stay inside an incubator. In the early morning, my mother couldn’t sleep. She called a nurse and said that something was wrong. The nurse didn’t pay her attention, but the incubator had actually interrupted the oxygen flow. The nurse reestablished the flow and recommended that my mother slept. But who can rest, this way? Later, she called the nurse again, who replied saying that she had already solved the problem, and my mother was worried for nothing. For the second time, however, the incubator had stopped sending oxygen.

What can explain these facts? What does this link mean? I don’t know, I just feel. And, the more we give ourselves to this sensibility, the more accurate it is. This is a certainty that comes from inside. From God. From mother to child, from father to child, from a brother, from a friend, from people linked by ties as tenuous as they are powerful.

After my children were born, I wished to receive the same lap that I had been giving them. The same lap my mother gave me. I wished to go back to being a little girl, living with her again; I wanted her to be more than a visit. I wanted to prolong the image of perfection of her presence in my childhood that I nourish even now. But, if I look forward to getting rid of the pressure of being a perfect mother nowadays, I found that I also must liberate her from the same demand. It’s a great exercise of comprehension, of self-forgiveness. As she is used to saying: “forgive me if sometimes I failed, because I didn’t know how to do it, because I couldn’t do it. It’s because half of me is love… and the other half, too.”

Today, on my birthday, I want to reinforce all of these links and repeat what I heard in a beautiful pre-birth ceremony:

“I want to honor the womb from where I came. The womb where I am. And the womb that exists inside of me.”

___________________

You can also see:

This post in Portuguese: De mãe para filha, originally published on October 22^nd2010

New-born

“The moment a child is born, the mother is also born. She never existed before. The woman existed, but the mother, never. A mother is something absolutely new.”

(Rajneesh)

The wisdom that can only be acquired at 2 years old

Free translation of the chronicle published on October 11^th 2009, in “Revista do Correio” magazine, Brazil, written by Maria Paula

A few months ago, I received a text written by Rodrigo Leão, a dear friend who was a VJ on MTV with me. Nowadays, he’s an advertising professional, a writer and a father! As soon as I read it, I thought of offering this space in order to publish it on Children’s Day [celebrated on October 12^th in Brazil], as a homage to the kids that exist inside of me and inside of you!

Here’s the text:

A very crazy guy lives in my house with me and my wife. He’s 2 years old and keeps saying to everybody that he is my son. He’s always happy. Pretty happy. So much happy that I decided to adopt his habits and behaviors. I have prepared a list with the things I intend to follow with discipline and rigor in order to be much happier:

Whenever possible, run naked all around the house shouting: I’m naked! Yaaaaaaaaaay!
Never lose the chance of giving a little kiss or a hug to anybody who might be moping around.
Don’t be afraid of starting a conversation with an interesting person. Point to the sky and say: “Look! A big plane!” Continue talking naturally.
Take a nap after lunch wherever you are (note: except when you are driving).
Draw with your finger on the bathroom box, covered by the steam. After the conclusion of each drawing, or even just leaving the mark of your hand, say: Yaaaaaaaaay!
Do somersaults. At least, three a week. Say: “ Yaaaaaaay!” after each revolution.
Bounce on the bed. But not near the edge. Say repeatedly: “Yaaay! Yaaaaaay – Yaaaaaaaaay!”
Lie through your teeth a lot. But never for your own cause.
Invite everybody for everything: “Let’s lay down on the floor, guys?” “Let’s drink fruit juice, guys?” “Let’s sleep, guys?”
Wake up very early and scream continuously, from the top of your lungs. Stop only when somebody comes to hug you.
Be afraid of your food.
Believe in alternative versions of things. For example: that a thunder can perfectly be a giant flying elephant breaking wind.
Always say “Thanks” and “Please”, even out of context.
Use the internet to make a videoconference with your grandparents, and during that, dance, run, do somersaults and identify interesting parts of your body, like the nose and the butt.
Show your foot to the guests. Look at the extremity with attention and full of curiosity and comment: “Look… the foot.” After a few seconds of respectful silence, suggest a guest to show his or her foot to you.
Invite your mother to go sightseeing when she is least expecting.
Find hidden shapes in things: a toast looks like a heart, a folded napkin looks like a duck or a glove looks like a horse. Say “Yaaaaaaay!” every time it happens.
When you do something funny that everybody likes, repeat it.
Cry fast, and forget the reason why you cried even faster.
Be proud of things that you can do by yourself, but never be ashamed of asking somebody you love for help.
YAAAAAAAAAAY!

___________________

You can also see:

This post in Portuguese: A sabedoria que só se conquista aos dois anos

The first baby adventure – analysis

The first baby adventure – Marusia speaks

The following texts are a free translation of parts of a report, originally published in Claudia Magazine, number 5, year 42, on May 2003, Abril Publishing Company, Brazil

The apartment of the Brazilian producer Priscila Borgonovi (24 years old) and the actor Fabio Assunção, 31, reveals who is the king of this space. In the entrance hall, there is a poster with this message: “Welcome, João”, which was put up by the godparents of the baby, who was born on January 21^st, in São Paulo [Brazil].

“On the day after the birth, I woke up calm. I was feeling everything was different and I was seeing things differently, as I was turning into a mother.”

The truth is: the newborn baby contributes, like no other baby does, for the family’s peace. He doesn’t have colics, he only cries when he is hungry, he has not choked or scared the proud mother yet, and sleeps tight straight through the night. “The last time I breastfeed him every day is at midnight, so he only wakes up at six in the morning. Even sleeping less that I would like to, I can rest just fine”, Priscila reveals. She is conscious she is privileged. “He’s calm, strong, gives us security. He’s never made us stay awake at night.”

When she was pregnant, she led a normal life: she did hydro gym up until the seventh month and worked until close to the delivery. “I felt great, beautiful, loved, with a great energy”. So, she managed to beat thefear of the natural birth. “It went fine, in spite of the five hours at labour, and the induction, due to the water breaking. At that moment, I did three pushes, and João was born, in four minutes.”

Fabio watched the birth and also was deeply moved. “I felt like in a trance, as if not knowing where I was. How can such a normal event be so extraordinary? You try to see yourself in the baby and you can’t… he is another new, unique person. It’s beautiful to see the mix of yourself with the woman you love.”

Slowly, Priscila had established a new routine. […] But slowly everything is returning to its axis. “We were once again in contact with the world, with the normal life […] and recovering our libido, too. It’s important and amazing to feel beautiful and like a woman again, to remember how it is to be with your husband.”

[…] When the baby completed one month, she had lost all the weight she had gained during her pregnancy, and soon was fitting into tight pants and jeans. At 1,75 metro high, she weighs now 53 kilos. “Less than before”, she affirms, proudly.

Fabio agrees that the couple’s life changed a lot, but not as people used to say. “Everybody used to say: ‘you know, man, when the baby is born, your life will end, etc, etc.’ João didn’t limit us in anyway, he opened a new way.” A great father, the actor changes diapers, gives the baby baths, helps in everything and loves being with his son.

The analysis

According to the text, we can elaborate a list of things that contribute to a happy motherhood start:

A secure and calm mother;
A baby that doesn’t cry, doesn’t have colics, nurses well and sleeps tight straight through the night;
A calm pregnancy, with the mother working, going to hydro gym classes and feeling beautiful and loved;
A natural and calm delivery;
A father who’s always there;
A life returning to its axis;
The return of the libido;
A quick return to being in shape.

__________________

You can also see:

This post in Portuguese: A aventura do primeiro bebê

The first baby adventure – Marusia speaks

The first baby adventure – analysis

My first son was born the same day João was: January 21^st, 2003. But my “first baby adventure” was totally different. When I tried to mark the items on the “check-list” presented in the analysis of this report, four months later (the report was published in May 2003), I almost died:

A little edgy and exhausted mother;
A baby who cries, nurses every and each hour and doesn’t sleep all night long;
An apprehensive pregnancy, morning (and afternoon, and evening, and night and early morning) sickness, but even then feeling beautiful and loved;
A terrible C-section and even more terrible postpartum;
A father who’s always there;
A life very distant from its axis;
Libido?
Shape?

Although it could be worse, you know? Can you imagine “none of the above”…?

And this horoscope thing is also flexible: how can two babies with the very same birthday be so different from each other? Well, the report hadn’t mentioned the exact time of João’s birth; perhaps it is a matter of ascendant astral sign, with the Moon who knows where…

Jokes apart, fortunately, I slowly had realized that trying to compare or reproduce these examples was a crazy idea. Examples, by the way, that I had begun to recognize in other reports, in other magazines… Then, the will to research this subject arised, with a need to “unstress”: everybody, on to “the Unstressing Manifesto”!

_______________

You can also see:

This post in Portuguese: A aventura do primeiro bebê – Marusia fala

Perfect Mother?