Tov goes to school

Published on by Sophia LeeLeave a comment

OK, Tov is only 2, so it’s not really school. It’s more like a glorified daycare, except we still pay for his daycare to take loads of time off for every holiday including Columbus Day, spring break, summer break, and winter break.

Clearly, I have progressive ideas for workers’ rights until it inconveniences me. But seriously, we love Tov’s school, Valor Christian Academy. We love everyone who works there. They deserve a pay raise and all the rest they need, because they’ve created an environment in which Tov can really thrive.

David and I were nervous about sending Tov to school. He’s a very affectionate child and has had a hard time being detached from us since he was a baby. For countless Sundays, we’d drop him off at the Kids Ministry only to have a volunteer call us back because he would not stop crying.

The first time we tried to send him to daycare, he got kicked out within two weeks. We were so confident when we dropped him off, too. We had found a small, intimate mother-daughter-run home daycare that had terrific reviews. It seemed like the perfect transition for Tov from nanny to daycare. That first day, as Tov screamed and reached for me, the caretaker assured me that he’d adjust soon enough.

Nope. Every day I had to go pick him up early. The second week, the caretaker messaged us, saying Tov might just not be ready for daycare. He won’t stop crying, he won’t hang out with the other kids, he won’t eat, and because he commandeered all the attention of the one caretaker, the other caretaker had to mind all the other children by herself, and she was getting exhausted. We went back to the nanny. Tov was just not ready.

Now, almost a year later, Tov seems finally ready to fly the coop, at least for seven hours a day.

Before I gave birth to Woori, I had one full week with Tov after I stopped working and we let go of the nanny. That week, Tov was in heaven. I thought he might miss the nanny, but he didn’t seem to with all the omma time he was getting. We baked bread and muffins and cookies together. Walked to the library. Walked to the farmers market. Read tons of books. Went swimming. Had a playdate with the neighbor. Baked some more. He got fiercely attached to me then. One night, when it was David’s turn to put him to bed, he even pushed David out the door, saying, “Bye abba.”

David gaped at him: “You don’t love me anymore?”

“Toddlers his age just randomly do that some days,” I comforted David. (Sure enough, once Woori was born and Tov got a lot more one-on-one time with David, he told me bye too. Traitor.)

Despite my aching back and sciatica, I enjoyed those one-on-one moments with Tov. I knew I won’t get that back once Woori comes, and once Tov goes to school. He will be 26 months for only so long, that tender age when he’s still sweet and cuddly and in awe of me, not yet opinionated and manipulative enough to be called the dreaded three-nager.

That first day, both David and I went to drop him off while my parents, who were visiting to meet Woori, watched Tov’s little sister. Woori was two weeks that day— which means two weeks after one of the biggest changes to Tov’s life, he was about to face another huge transition.

We were both nervous and curious. How would Tov handle it?

We led him into the preschool area, with its big sandbox and playground and countless toys, and Tov sensed something was coming. Something he won’t like. He wanted to go play, but he clung onto us, making sure we were close by him.

OK. Time to split. We hugged him. We told him we love him and have to go, but we’ll be back. “We will always come back,” David told Tov. “Mom and dad will always come back.” Tov looked at David blankly.

“Bye, Tov!” I said.

“Bye, Tov!” David said.

Tears began spilling. Tov grabbed onto us, wailing, salty tears dribbling into his open mouth. He tried chasing us as we walked towards the gate, but one of the teachers came and lifted him up into her arms.

The next morning, we dropped him off together again, and once again, he screamed and cried.

It’s a little heartbreaking, but what can we do, but harden our hearts and walk away while our firstborn’s screams leave our ears and hearts pounding?

That first week, we picked him up a little earlier, right after his nap time. The second week, we picked him up later at our normal pickup time, closer to 4:30 pm, right before dinner time.

One afternoon, I entered the classroom as they were having music time. The children were sitting in a circle around a woman who was singing, with a few kids singing along. Tov didn’t see me, so I stood by the door, watching.

As a parent, I have tunnel vision. I walk into a room full of kids and all I see is our son; every other kid are just faceless, nameless blobs. I spotted Tov right away. He was sitting in a daze, staring into space, looking rather miserable, really, and not following along with the music at all.

Just then, he looked around and spotted me. He burst into tears. “Hi! Hi! Hi!” He yelled, jumped up, and ran towards me, arms stretched out, tears and snot dripping.

Up till then I’d been pretty stoic, but seeing Tov race towards me as though I’m his savior just shattered my heart. I wrapped him in my arms, kissed his face all over, and scooped him up.

I wasn’t sad because he’s in school, away from me for most of the day. I wasn’t sad because he was crying and having a tough time adjusting at first. I knew school is good for him; I knew he’d adjust soon enough.

My heart broke because I wondered when he’d stop running towards me with his arms out with this kind of desperate childlike need for me. I knew this period is short, and I wanted to engrave these moments into my memory, my heart.

Yet at the same time, my heart also sang because Tov knows me. Just like I had tunnel vision for him, he saw my face and immediately reached out because he recognizes me as his safe space, his home, a place to which he belongs. It is one of the best gifts I can give him as a mother: That our son knows he belongs somewhere, to someone. That he has a home where he can let down his walls and let loose his vulnerabilities.

No wonder God is so attentive to the orphans. We all need that place to call home. And for Tov, David and I are his home.

It’s been five weeks since Tov has been in school, and today, he loves school.

He still cries a bit when I drop him off, but as soon as I’m gone, he’s too busy having fun with his teachers and Big Buddies. He wakes up every morning eager to go to school.

Yesterday I went to pick him up and he was grinning and having a jolly time. He no longer cries when he sees me at pickup time, but— thank God for these sweet moments— he still runs into my arms when I arrive, delighted to see me, knowing home has come.

How nursing with Woori is going (It’s not)

Published on by Sophia LeeLeave a comment

I would love to follow up my last post with a post about how I’ve become calm and collected, gentle and lowly like Jesus, but no. I have been experiencing major mom rage, and a lot of that has to do with how nursing is going with Woori.

Probably because at this stage of infancy, all I ever do is feed this baby. All day long. No sooner have I finished nursing, bottle-feeding, then pumping, do I have to start the process all over again.

Woori is 5 weeks today. Which means we’ve been stuck in this hell cycle of triple feeding for five weeks. I would go five more weeks if there were signs that she’s improving, that one day I can exclusively breastfeed her without worrying if she got enough, worrying about pumping, worrying about my milk supply.

But then I go to a lactation support group, weigh her after a 45-minute nursing session, and find out she had sucked only 1 ounce.

Forty-five minutes, and we get 1 measly freaking ounce. I guess that’s better than 8 ml (0.27 ounce), which was what she ingested the first time I joined the lactation support group. But still. I want my 45 minutes back!!!

“She’s…at least getting better,” the lactation consultant Mary said pityingly. She asked me how much I’m pumping.

Two to 5 ounces, I said, depending on time of day.

“So it’s not your milk supply,” she said. “How many times do you pump a day?”

Eight, I told her. Almost every feeding session.

“Well, I’m worried about you. That’s not sustainable,” Mary said.

Nope, it is not.

Mary suggested going to an occupational therapist. But for some reason, the thought of going to another appointment with a specialist that might not work, that might be another waste of time, money, and hope, felt overwhelming to me.

“I just worry about you,” Mary repeated. “What you’re doing is not sustainable.”

I fought to blink away tears. Up till then, I’d been pretty stoic about this triple feeding process. I complained some, but it was a routine I did, day by day, without thinking too much about it. But it was wearing me down. And when I came to this lactation support group, I had had hope that Woori was finally nursing much better. So to see that number— 1 ounce— felt crushing. I wanted to throw myself on the floor and weep.

“Let’s try again,” Mary suggested.

So I went back to the nursing pillow, and tried to rub Woori awake, but she was drowsy from all the calories she spent nursing without getting much calories in return. We stripped her down. We turned a fan on her to keep her awake. She squirmed and pushed but I kept her plastered on me.

Thirty-five minutes later, we weighed her again. She had just under another ounce of milk.

Two hours, 2 ounces. A baby at her age needs about 20-24 ounces a day. That’s 20 to 24 hours of nursing I have to do to get her what she needs, if I were to exclusively breastfeed.

Unsustainable, indeed.

Two evenings ago, I lost it.

We had just finished eating dinner, and as always, David wanted to go for a walk. That’s been our daily routine since we met, but since we’ve had Woori, more often than not, David has been going out for a walk with Tov while I stay home with Woori, nursing and pumping.

This evening, I really wanted to go for a walk too. I had been cooped up at home all day. I had not been able to get my regular workouts in that week because Woori’s naps have shortened to barely half an hour, and when she’s up, she wants to be held. And then of course there’s her feeding schedule.

But come 6:30 pm, I was still stuck in the chair nursing Woori. I had passed out, so I couldn’t tell if Woori had even been sucking or simply suckling.

David stuck his head into the room. “Are we going?”

I opened my bleary eyes. “I don’t think I can go,” I said. I still needed to pump, and it was getting late, and our walks are usually almost an hour long.

So David got ready to go for a walk with Tov without us.

We were alone at home. Again. Man, I really wanted to go out for a walk.

By then I had maybe been nursing for a good 45 minutes. Surely she’s gotten something out of this, I thought.

But no. As I lifted Woori up and walked around the house, she began sucking on her fingers— cues that she’s hungry.

I groaned— a deep, guttural burst of livid frustration. How. HOW! How is she STILL freaking hungry?! Did my milk ducts dry up? What the heck have we been doing for the past 45 minutes?!

In a whoosh, I felt rage boiling out of me like fresh hot lava. I felt resentment that David got to keep all his routine— a 90-minute workout every morning, walks every afternoons and evenings, hot coffees, work and conversations with adults— while I was chained to this never -ending cycle of feeding a baby who had a piss-poor suction. I could feel the hours we spent trying to nurse flattening my butt into a Swedish pancake, all my hard-earned muscles softening like butter. I felt fat. I felt unproductive. I felt utterly demoralized and discouraged and deflated.

I burst into angry tears. And then, because tears were not enough, I picked up the first thing I saw— a big-ass plastic dump truck filled with blocks that a very kind friend had gifted Tov that day— and hurled it across the room. Red and yellow blocks scattered across the floor. That was still not enough, so I kicked his plastic fire truck across the room, too, and it somersaulted in the air and skidded next to the other giant truck.

I calmed down a little then. Or rather, guilt and shame tampered my rage. I felt bad that Tov’s toys had to bear the brunt of my lack of self-control. I checked on them and was relieved they weren’t broken.

Then I warmed up 4 ounces of pumped breastmilk and bottle-fed Woori. Sure enough, she gulped that thing down as though I haven’t just spent the last three-quarters of an hour trying to feed her. I could have cried again.

At that moment, I remembered what a woman had told me after helping watch Woori for an hour: “She’s so easy! All she does is sleep and eat and poop!”

I knew she meant it as a compliment or something. But when I heard it, I felt triggered and irritated. I thought, Of course she’s easy, after you’ve golfed all day and shopped at a farmer’s market and all you do is hold her for an hour in the evening. Of course she’s easy, when that bottle you’ve fed her was squeezed from someone else’s dairy farm. Of course she’s easy, when you get to hand her off so you can go home and sleep when you like, for however long you’d like.

I knew I wasn’t being fair. But I wasn’t in a mood to feel gracious and rational. I felt like my struggles were belittled. And then, on the flip side, I belittled myself: What are you whining about? Why is this so hard? It’s so easy. Just suck it up.

I dried my tears and gulped down my frustrations and picked up Woori and spoke to her gently. Something will have to change, and we’ll figure it out together.

Later, while I was bathing Woori, I heard David and Tov return from their walk. Tov stomped up the stairs to greet his new truck. “Argh! Oh nooo!” I heard him exclaim to see his dump truck turned upside down and all the blocks skittered across the room. I felt guilty, but also tickled at his dramatic reaction. I heard him gather all his blocks again and put them where they belong into the dump truck.

He pushed that truck into the bathroom where I was bathing Woori, and he greeted cheerfully, “Hi!” He had no idea the tantrum I had thrown just 20 minutes before. I pulled him close and kissed his cheeks, penance for throwing his toys, though he had no idea what I had done. If only all the moments of my mom rage could be as easily remedied as picking up plastic blocks.

An hour later, I was back in my nursing chair with Woori, restarting the process again.

Of course, all this could end if I stopped being stubborn and just gave up on breastfeeding. I’m keeping this cycle going because at the end of the day, I still have the privilege of choice. I told myself I’ll keep on going for as long as I can, and maybe that breaking point is coming.

I hired a personal lactation consultant who lives nearby to come visit me. It’ll be the fourth lactation consultant I’ve seen. She’ll visit me next week, and maybe it’ll help, maybe it won’t.

But I need a new plan. Tov’s toys don’t deserve my mom rage.

Gentle & Lowly as a Viper

Published on by Sophia LeeLeave a comment

I have a necklace that I’ve not taken off since I got it two Christmases ago. It’s a thin gold chain with a circle pendant that says “Gentle & Lowly” and has two heart-shaped tags with David and Tov’s initials on it.

I chose to engrave “Gentle & Lowly” on my pendant in reference to Dane Ortlund’s book Gentle and Lowly: The Heart of Christ for Sinners and Sufferers, which draws from Jesus’s own description of himself as “gentle and lowly in heart” in Matthew 11 to point out the essence of God’s heart for His people. It was written for, in Ortlund’s own words, “the discouraged, the frustrated, the weary, the disenchanted, the cynical, the empty. Those running on fumes. Those whose Christian lives feel like constantly running up a descending escalator. Those of us who find ourselves thinking: ‘How could I mess up that bad– again?'”

Reading Ortlund’s book made me look at Matthew 11:29, a familiar verse– “take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls”— in fresh eyes. Ortlund points out that of the four gospels, this is the only instance in which Jesus describes his own heart— and if that’s the case, we ought to pay attention: Jesus, the Son of God, King of Kings, describes himself as gentle and lowly in heart. His orientation towards us is that of mercy, love, compassion, self-sacrifice. He hates sin, to the point of dying on the cross because of it, but his heart towards the penitent is open, wide, and forgiving. That has profound implications on our relationship with God, and our relationship with others.

I was moved by the heart of Jesus. His gentleness and lowliness taught me what it means to be “Christlike,” to be “the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing, to one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life.” (2 Corinthians 2:15-17)

If the Jesus who lives inside me through his spirit is gentle and lowly, then I too want to be gentle and lowly. I too want that to be the key descriptor of my heart and posture.

There’s just one problem. I’m about as gentle and lowly as a viper. Anyone who knows me would never think to use “gentle” or “lowly” to describe me. In fact, it’s the people who are closest to me who have been bitten most by my viper moments.

Just a week ago, while my parents were visiting us to meet Woori, I had another viper moment. It was the hottest week of the year, but that’s not what turned me into a viper. I actually cannot always explain why I get so snappish and irritable sometimes. I’d like to blame the sleep deprivation, or postpartum hormones. I’d like to blame my frustration with the lack of improvement in nursing Woori. I’d like to blame the increasing meltdowns from Tov, who have been crying and screaming so often his voice is now as hoarse as a chronic smoker’s. But I cannot. Sometimes, I’m just a bitch for no reason.

David had just clambered up mid-afternoon to get a snack, and he asked me what was in the mixing bowl sitting on the kitchen counter.

“Bread,” I said.

He made a face. “Can we not use the oven today? It’s too hot. I don’t want the AC running all day.”

I ignored him.

“Sophia? Sophia?”

I felt a hot flash of irritation. The dough was already rising, and I was so sick of hearing David complaining about the weather. “Whatever,” I snapped. “Just shut up.” Then I walked away.

My mother, who was present at the time, observed the whole interaction. She went up to David later and told him, “Sometimes, she can really stab a dagger into your heart. She does that to me too.”

I only know because David told me later, while I was nursing Woori. “You really need to watch the way you talk,” he said. It’s like a whiplash, he told me. One moment I’m fine and happy, and the next moment— whoosh! The viper strikes.

I felt like such a fraud. I call myself a Christian, yet there’s very little Christlikeness in me. I am a mother who’s thinking and talking about raising my children in the faith, yet my faith does not primarily shape the way I think, speak, and act.

Gentle and lowly I am not. I am not gentle and lowly with my husband when he annoys me or does things that make me feel misunderstood or unappreciated. I am not gentle and lowly with Tov when he is being particularly whiny and screamy, and my nerves are all frayed from over-stimulation.

All the more ironic that I wear that engraved in my necklace 24/7, and also all the more reason why I should wear it constantly as a reminder. During these moments though, long after I had already struck my head out and sunk my fangs into my prey’s heart, I wear that pendant like a scarlet letter, an ugly red brand of shame and regret.

I feel stuck in this cycle of striking and remorsing. I of all people know best that I need to watch the way I talk, to be slow to speak and slow to anger. The consequences of my speech and action get more and more serious as I age. With my parents, I know they’ll always love and accept me, no matter how poisonous my fangs are. With David, I know there’s a limit before the toxins reach the bloodstreams of our marriage. And as for my children, I am terrified of scarring them for life.

And yet. There are those viper moments, when my fangs rear up before my brain even recognizes what I’m doing. If Jesus’s essence is gentleness and lowliness, my essence seems to be sharpness and haughtiness. It is what spills out of me the instant I’m poked and punctured. It’s hard for me to even ask David for forgiveness then, or pray, when I’d rather tuck my head into a hole and hide, or worse, root around the dirt looking for justifications for my behavior.

There was a time when I wanted to go to seminary to study theology. I read Wayne Grudem’s Systemic Theology for fun. I loved gathering knowledge and understanding, like picking fruits into a basket, and debating things like predestination and complementarianism. I am by nature a nerd and love learning new things, but all that knowledge also puffed me up, deceiving me into mistaking education for sanctification. The fruits of knowledge I gathered in my basket, hoarded but unused, rotted into brown, putrid mush. What’s the use of learning about the fruits of the Spirit— gentleness and self-control in particular— when I don’t manifest them in my own life? So much of my theology has become like my necklace— it’s there, and I’ve gotten so used to it being there, that I no longer put any consciousness into why it’s there, what it’s for. It’s become little more than a pretty decoration, like the wedding ring of an adulterer.

These days, Woori likes to grab at my necklace. She’s still too young to intentionally grasp at objects, but she can wrap her tiny fingers around the chain and tug at it with a firm grip. I’ll have to untangle her fingers, gently removing each finger, careful not to hurt her delicate pink skin. And that’s how I remembered: Oh yeah. The necklace. Gentle & Lowly. With the initials of the two people with whom I’m the least gentle and lowly.

It’s not so much that I’ve forgotten to be gentle and lowly. It’s that I’ve forgotten Jesus, forgotten his heart for me, forgotten to fall in love with his heart over and over again.

Last Sunday, I sat in the church’s nursing room with Woori and listened to a sermon about the historical reliability of the gospels. It was more a lecture than a sermon, the nerdy kind I love, with lots of historical facts and intellectual stimulation. It was an engaging sermon, but I was half-distracted. I listened while struggling to nurse Woori, getting frustrated and discouraged by her lack of improvement, and then fumbling hot and bothered underneath a nursing cover trying to pump as discreetly as I could, silently cursing the men present in the nursing room.

The sermon ended, and worship started. The worship band sang “King of Kings” by Hillsong, a 5-year-old song I’ve heard and sang many times. In fact, I remember grousing internally, Ugh, another Hillsong song. I want old hymns! They’re so much richer and deeper than these contemporary Christian music.

They started singing:

In the darkness we were waiting
Without hope, without light
‘Til from Heaven You came running
There was mercy in Your eyes…

And then the chorus:

Praise the Father, praise the Son
Praise the Spirit, three in one
God of glory, Majesty
Praise forever to the King of Kings

I don’t know why. But I started weeping.

It wasn’t the beautiful melody. It wasn’t just the lyrics. It was just, at that moment, so spiritually parched, I felt the first drop of a light rain, and man, it felt so sweet. So sweet it broke me.

It was the power of worship. Praise the Father. Praise the Son. Praise the Spirit, three in one. Praise forever the King of Kings. A simple praise. A simple reminder of the majesty and glory of God. And I remembered, then, how awesome, how incredibly freeing it is, to simply lift my head up and worship Him, not just for what He’s done, but who He is.

Even when I chose the engraving for the necklace, I was more fixated with what I must become. When I failed, I berated myself, excused myself, hid myself. If I counted all the ways I failed as a wife and a mother and a daughter and a human being, I would get too overwhelmed to do anything about it. I can’t will my heart to change. I need a whole new heart. I need the heart of Jesus.

There is a time to study the Bible like a theologian, to analyze verse by verse with commentaries and highlighters. I don’t have that time right now. Much of my day is spent nursing Woori round the clock, pumping while trying to keep her from fussing and crying, dealing with Tov’s tantrums and antics, cooking and cleaning and oh God, endless loads of laundry stained with pee and poop and breastmilk, a domestic potpourri of sourness, pungency, and sticky sweetness.

But then in the midst of my hurry Woori grabs my necklace, and I think not of what I’m not, but who Jesus is.

This is a time to just think about Jesus, and fall in love with his heart, and worship him, because we become what we worship, and the one I worship is gentle and lowly.