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Author Interview: Ann Douglas on "Sleep Solutions for Your Infant, Toddler and Preschooler"

By Anjali

Many of you probably already know Ann Douglas. She is the acclaimed author of several best-selling parenting books, including "The Mother of All Pregnancy Books" and "The Mother of All Baby Books," and has recently published a new book on a favorite topic of parents –- SLEEP!

The first few sentences of Ann's latest book, "Sleep Solutions for Your Baby, Toddler, and Preschooler," say it all. "Sleep is a lot like sex. If you're not getting it as much as you'd like, it can become a bit of an obsession. Suddenly, all you can think about is when you last had it, how great it felt when you had it, and what you can do to get some again."

What is so unique about Douglas' book is that it doesn't just give parents an agenda for how to fix sleep issues, but it also addresses how weary moms and dads can cope with sleep deprivation until their children are sleeping better. Its parent-centered focus removes the shame and guilt often associated with children who either fight going to sleep or wake up several times a night. As a former member of the Sleep Deprivation Club, I was only too eager to talk with Douglas about her new book.

Anjali: You've written many popular books on parenting. What made you decide to write a book on sleep issues?

Ann: I've been really frustrated by the way the sleep debate has become so polarized in the past, specifically, how choices have become so black and white and how parents have been made to feel so guilty for choosing one sleep option. Just as we've seen babies who sleep well described as "good babies" we've seen parents who fall into a particular sleep training camp judged as "good parents."

Fortunately, I think the really nasty you're-either-with-us-or-you're-against-us thinking about sleep reached its peak about a year ago. That's when Doctors Sears and Ferber began to state publicly what parents have known forever: there's no one-size-fits-all sleep solution. Even the best conceived sleep plans in the world can get messed up a little when real parents and real babies arrive on the scene.

Anjali: What type of sleep issues did you confront with your own four children? Did you try any of the more well-known sleep techniques?

Ann: My firstborn was colicky and she would be so worn out after an evening of marathon crying that, starting from the time she was around three weeks of age, she would sleep through the night (from midnight until 5:30 a.m. or 6:00 a.m.) by the time she went to bed. I was pretty exhausted, too, after spending the previous seven or eight hours walking the floor with her and otherwise trying to soothe her.

The next two babies didn't have particularly noteworthy sleep patterns. In fact, they pretty much followed the "baby sleep book rules" for average sleepers. They would take some daytime naps, sometimes wake in the night, and then at some point during the second half of year one, they started sleeping through the night. Of course, they didn't always sleep through the night. If they were sick, lonely, scared, etc., all bets were off in the sleeping department. That's my definition of "normal."

My youngest took the longest to sleep through the night. I think there were a few factors at play here. For one thing, he has always had a super sensitive temperament and is an extremely restless sleeper to this day. While not getting a solid night's sleep for two and a half years was quite exhausting, I feel fortunate that he was a pretty businesslike night-waker, in that he got up in the night, nursed, and then fell asleep beside me. When he was very young, he slept in our bed. As he got older, he slept in a crib in our room, and I'd transplant him back to his own bed after he fell asleep after nursing. Obviously, every parent has to make their own decisions about what sleeping arrangements will work best for them and their family, taking into account the most current sleep safety recommendations.

In terms of sleep-training with my own kids, I tended to lean toward a "let's wait and see if this is just a developmental stage" approach to a lot of sleep issues. In other words, I did my research to find out if suddenly getting up in the night after a period of previously sleeping through the night was "typical" behavior for an older baby (it was). I then compared notes with other moms to find out how long this stage lasted in their kids and how they stayed sane when they had to cope with sleep deprivation once again after having a period of uninterrupted sleep.

Then, based on what I knew about my child, I'd decide for myself whether or not we actually had a sleep problem or if I just needed to be patient a little while longer while my child worked through this phase. If we did have a sleep problem, I’d decide which sleep training approach was likely to work best with this particular child. When they were babies, I always used sleep-training methods that minimized crying and emphasized soothing and parent presence, but as they moved into the toddler years, I was able to give my kids a little more opportunity to experience more frustration as part of the sleep learning process, even if this meant that they were experiencing some protest crying. I felt that this was developmentally appropriate.

Anjali: When do you know your child has a sleep problem?

Ann: Tune into the signs of sleepiness vs. overtiredness in your child. There are generic signs that are typical to most babies and young children, such as, being less active, staring into space, getting that reddish look around the eyes followed by yawning and the actual watering of the eyes. You may find that your child has some special mannerisms like twirling his hair around his finger, sucking his thumb, and tapping one leg on the floor, that clue you into the fact that he's about to move from tired to overtired territory and you'd better seize the moment if you want to get him settled down to sleep before he gets totally wired for sound.

Anjali: What are some of the biggest sleep issues that parents grapple with?

Ann: There are so many sleep issues that parents grapple with, including babies and toddlers who don't want to go to sleep or stay asleep, babies and toddlers who get up at the crack of dawn (or earlier), babies and toddlers who are cat-nappers or who won't nap at all. I feel like I'm taking you on a guided tour of some Sleep Deprivation House of Horrors!

And then there are all the ways that sleep deprivation affects life as a parent, such as fuzzy thinking, heightened emotionality, a greater likelihood of fighting with your partner, a sex life that may have gone AWOL, increased odds of falling asleep at the wheel, difficulty solving problems (including your child's sleep problems), increased susceptibility to postpartum depression (there's a link between sleep deprivation and PPD), and increased susceptibility to illness. These are things that most sleep books don't address or, if they do, they only address them in passing. I put these issues at the forefront by talking about them in the first two chapters of my book. I wanted to write the world's first sleep solutions book that truly took into account the needs of the sleep deprived mother and her partner.

Project Momway

By Anjali

To say that I am obsessed with Bravo's "Project Runway" would be the understatement of the century. My crush began, innocently enough, during Season 2. Having sworn off most reality television shows years earlier (though there have been a few indulgent "Sweet Sixteen" episodes, I must confess), I was skeptical of a show where contestants bad-mouthed each other's fabric taste and sewing techniques. But I soon began to appreciate the sheer talent and creativity that each challenge presented. And then I was hooked.

This season (the show's third) my favorite designer is former architect and local Manhattanite, 42-year-old Laura Bennett. I love her style (despite the judges' frequent criticism that her designs are too "old" looking), I love her confidence, and I love that despite having five young children (and a sixth on the way), she refuses to wear jeans and T-shirts. In every episode, Laura is outfitted in smart lipstick and heels, her fire-red mane pulled back in a sophisticated do, and a serious skirt (which we all know means she's actually shaved her legs). Jeans and T-shirts may be my uniform, but I can't help respecting a mom who wants more from life than denim and cotton (even if the end result –- drool- and vomit-soaked clothing -- is the same).

Laura is a "say it like it is" woman. She does not apologize for her opinions, however harsh. She is tough, she is competitive, she has attitude, and she wants to win. And what I admire so much about her is not just her talent for plunging v-necks or her meticulous handwork, but the fact that she's not going to let a house full of children keep her from her realizing her dream: a line of her own clothing.

I must confess, motherhood has made me soft these past five years. I used to be like Laura. As a fresh-out-of-law-school attorney, I was super-career oriented, unapologetic, and ever-devoted to making a perfect work product. I wasn't going to let anything slow me down.

But then I had a child. And I got bored practicing law. And then I had another child. And then I quit my job.

These past two years since I've stopped working were supposed to be the years that I devoted to my new passion: writing. But it's been slow going. Childcare has been sporadic, and the kids got sick, or were teething, and my husband's hours are lousy, and ... well, you get the picture.

I always end up putting someone else's needs first, and my dream on hold.

Laura's success and drive have given me back the hunger and determination I once had. I can choose what to make of my life. I can decide when to fulfill my own goals. I can make a career change. And although it may be hard, sometimes nearly impossible, I can get there eventually and be a good mother.

"Project Runway"'s season finale airs on Wednesday, and with four very talented designers remaining, it's anybody's guess who will win. But I sure hope that Laura knocks it out of the park. Because if Laura can do it, maybe, someday, I can do it, too.

Anjali is a stay-at-home mom (and hopeful future bestselling author) who lives in suburban Philadelphia with her husband and two young girls.

The theory of relativity

By Anjali

I used to be quite embarrassed, particularly as a teenager, when at functions with other Indian families, my parents would ask me to address all elders as “Auntie” or “Uncle.” Having not grown up in India myself, I did not understand the purpose of such familial salutations. It made perfect sense for me to call dear, old friends of the family with familiar terms, but even new acquaintances? Even strangers who just so happened to share the same heritage? Why compel such an interconnectedness among people simply because of a common national origin? As a cynical youth, I couldn’t understand the point of such blatant trustworthiness. I found it naïve. Incestual, even.

As it turns out, I had it all wrong. Because now that I am a mother and I have children of my own, what I have learned is that it’s not just a family that creates the terms of endearment, but the terms of endearment that create a family. Our usage of affectionate names to address other adults and elders embraces them, with open arms, into our lives. It forges a community where there wasn’t one before.

We hear the phrase, all the time it seems, “it takes a village to raise a child.” But few cultures in today’s society really practice this. We lead lives, for the most part, filled with suspicion and distrust and separateness. Survival means taking care of one’s own kind, not the old lady next door or the disabled man across the street. Exclusion is the construct of social order. True community is a concept foreign to many young children.

In Indian culture, though there are wars between religions, and cultures, and castes, there are names that bond near strangers together. And in time, such names kindle respect, and responsibility, and in some cases, lifelong relationships.

A few months ago, a young Indian family with children the same age as my own moved next door. At the end of our first play date together, as they were headed back to their own house, Mira said her goodbyes, addressing the mother with her surname.

I was very happy when she was quickly corrected.

“Oh, Mira, just call me Auntie,” our new neighbor gently responded. “That way, we can always be friends.”

Anjali lives in suburban Philadelphia with her husband and two girls.

The stuff of nightmares

By Anjali

After a break in a recent heat wave, the girls and I made a trip to the local playground. They had been running up and down the equipment and when they were spent, joined me on a park bench for a breather. Leela asked for some water, so I headed back to the car, less than 20 feet from the jungle gym, to get some refreshments.

Once I had the drinks, I turned around to walk back, and noticed that neither of the girls was sitting on the bench where I had left them. I immediately spotted Mira, who was heading down the tunnel slide. And then I heard Leela calling me.

She was standing at the top rung of a set of metal monkey bars that starts in the ground, and curves up and around to a high platform on the jungle gym. Leela had successfully made it to the top rung, more than four feet off the ground, but her legs were too short to reach across the wide gap from the last metal rung to the safety of the platform. Immediately, I began to run and scream, “Wait Leela, don’t move, stay there!” My legs felt heavy in the mulch. My heart was racing. Another mom standing near Leela reached out her arms to assist her, but before she could, Leela stepped forward…

I’ve been having a very long spate of bad dreams about the children lately. They are playing in the front yard, when a large white van pulls up. An unidentified person gets out, grabs one of them, and drives off. I am running barefoot (and in place) in the middle of the street, chasing after the van, and crying for help. But I never catch up to the vehicle, and none of the neighbors seem to hear my desperate cries.

Or, I’m in a shopping mall, and turn around, and can’t find either of the girls. I start weaving through racks of clothing panicked, and calling out their names. When I ask a store clerk to help me, she looks at the mess of garments in my trail, and asks me to hang up the clothes first.

One of my scariest dreams is that I wake up, go into the girls’ rooms, and they’re not there. I run around the house searching everywhere for them, and I can’t find them. When I call 911 to report them missing, the operator asks how long they’ve been gone, and I can’t answer her, because I can’t remember the last time I saw them.

I’m trying to put these dreams into context. Why am I having them? Am I afraid that I don’t watch my kids carefully enough? Am I afraid that I’m not teaching them about dangers in life? Then it occurred to me that perhaps these dreams represent a different kind of fear – the fear I have of my children separating from me and growing more independent each day.

Recently, I realized that everywhere I take the children lately, playgrounds, play dates, or storytime, Mira, at 4.5 years, is now one of the oldest children. It seems just like yesterday that she was one of the youngest. Perhaps this, in itself, is upsetting my psyche. I’ve also been thinking a lot about her birthday later this year, when she’ll turn five, an age that really is as old as it sounds.

Leela, at two, has grown into her own person. There are days where she hardly seems to want or need me, and often, she prefers her sister’s company to mine. I feel sometimes that she is growing up far quicker than Mira did at the same age, perhaps her more rapid maturity the result of having an older sibling. But it’s painfully obvious that each day, her babyness fades more quickly.

… As I ran toward the jungle gym, reliving in reality one of the many nightmares I’ve had, I helplessly watched it happen. Leela slipped between the top rung and the platform, the side of her head slammed into one of the metal bars, and she dropped four feet to the ground.

When I finally reached Leela, sweating and traumatized from the scene I had just witnessed, I picked her up carefully and examined her. Her ear was the color of an overripe tomato, and a large purple bruise was forming just behind it. I held her tightly as she cried for the next 10 minutes. And after she calmed down, she had some water, and ran off to play with the other children.

Children get older. They grow up. They change, and so do our relationships with them. I’ve always known this to be true, but perhaps my dreams are a sign that I’m having a hard time accepting it It can be the stuff of nightmares, for us parents, when we realize our children don’t need us in the same, intense ways they once did. But most of the time, we moms and dads will cope just fine, even if we do walk away with a few cuts and bruises.

Anjali lives in suburban Philadelphia with her husband and two girls.

The silent treatment

By Anjali

When Leela was 2-months-old, her newborn fussiness subsided, and she began sleeping seven-hour stretches at night. I was amazed at my good fortune, and proud of the relative ease at which I made the transition from mothering one child to mothering two.

Then at around the three-month mark, Leela began fussing again. And fussing, and fussing, and fussing. At first I suspected a growth spurt, so I continued to nurse her on demand, and when she began waking again every one to two hours, I concluded that it would only be temporary. After all, I could handle a few months of sleep deprivation.

Soon thereafter, Leela’s fusses turned to cries of pain accompanied by a frustrated sort of grunting. And they began first thing in the morning, and lasted all day, and all night. By the time Leela was 4-months-old, I was averaging four hours of sleep in twenty-minute increments a night, and attempting to care for two children under three during the day.

Needless to say, I was Misery Incarnate. I consulted my pediatrician with Leela’s issues, and was essentially brushed off. I became edgy, angry, and overly exhausted. I could never seem to bank enough sleep to make me feel normal. My husband woke in the night with Leela, and tried rocking her, singing to her, bouncing her, and nothing would work. And even though Leela was, for the most part, awake all night, she didn’t sleep much during the day either.

It was a very dark period for me, the darkest I have ever experienced as a mother. I was beginning to lose my mind. And worse, I was beginning to feel that I was not going to ever like this cranky, grumpy, unpleasant child.

What strikes me about this very difficult time in my life, is how few people I told about it. Whenever I was about to spill my guts about my utter exhaustion to my mother-friends, my throat got dry and my voice disappeared. I was too ashamed and embarrassed to admit my inability to understand Leela’s crying.

A few weeks later, I was, essentially, saved. A specialist gave us a diagnosis and recommended course of treatment to ease Leela’s discomfort. Once I understood what was going on, and why Leela was acting the way she was, my heart flooded with empathy. I no longer had trouble functioning with no sleep and a constantly crying baby. And I now knew that it wasn’t Leela’s personality that caused her endless hours of fussing, but a very real, and thankfully, temporary medical condition. The sun began to shine again.

When Leela hit the six-month mark, her suffering had all but ended. What emerged was a delightful, laid back, and playful infant. Any fears we had of her being a difficult baby, quieted. I began focusing on the beautiful bright smile that stretched from ear to ear. I began studying her toes, and searching for ticklish spots. And I began enjoying the silences during the day, when she was down for a quiet, blissful nap. Even the night wakenings no longer bothered me, as Leela would only arise to nurse, and then peacefully, easily, drift back off to sleep.

What I’ve realized since then, is that although us mothers have made very big strides with respect to communicating the real stories of childrearing, we still don’t dare talk about the big hurdles, the darkest periods, until they are over, until the verbs we use to describe them are in the past tense. Our painful stories serve as lead-ins or background to successful anecdotes, not as the actual plot itself. We discuss our worst moments in the aftermath of lessons learned, not when we need to lean on each other’s shoulders the most.

Why is this? I believe it’s because when we’re in the thick of it, and questioning whether we are good mothers, or whether we even like our children, we are still too afraid of the judgment. It’s still too shameful, so we’d rather wrestle with those feelings alone. We think to ourselves, “just get through it, then you can talk about how horrible it was afterwards.” Because afterwards, once we’ve cleared the hurdle, the judgment evaporates.

A dear friend of mine recently shared with me a very difficult period she went thought with her toddler. She was overwhelmed, and frustrated, as many of us are, yet she was too embarrassed to share her feelings with others. She felt incompetent, and afraid that her child was not normal. Only now, two years later, was she willing to finally open up and talk about it. I was humbled by her honesty with me, and in exchange, shared with her my feelings during that difficult period with Leela. Together, we mothers buried the shame forever.

When I drove home later that afternoon, it dawned on me that my friend was going through her tortuous time with her daughter, at the exact time I was going through mine with Leela. We were both suffering terribly with feelings of exasperation and isolation, concurrently, just a few miles down the road from one another. And I wonder now, if I had the courage to share my feelings with her while I was going through them, and she had then done the same, whether the heavy burdens we were carrying wouldn’t have become significantly lighter.

Anjali lives in suburban Philadelphia with her husband and two girls.

Author Interview: Andrea Buchanan on "It's a Girl: Women Writers on Raising Daughters"

By: Anjali

When I became a first time mother, I remember reading an endless amount of parenting books about the very rudimentary elements of caretaking for infants: feeding, bathing, sleeping, and eating. All of these books left me with a wealth of knowledge about the mechanics of childcare, but did nothing to relieve the isolation and confusion I felt as a new mother.

And then I read Andrea Buchanan’s first book, and realized that every other mother probably felt the same way I did. Andrea was one of the first mother-writers to initiate a much-needed open and honest dialogue about the reality of motherhood in MotherShock, Loving Every (Other Minute of It), 2003. She has continued to provide a forum for the emotions and feelings brought about by motherhood as editor of two recent anthologies, It’s a Boy: Women Writers on Raising Sons, and It’s a Girl: Women Writers on Raising Daughters. (A third anthology, Literary Mama: Reading for the Maternally Inclined, is a collection of pieces from the website for which she is managing editor, www.literarymama.com.)

In It’s a Girl: Women Writers on Raising Daughters, Buchanan intricately weaves tales from mother-writers about the joys, fears, and frustrations inherent in raising a child of the same gender. As a mother of two girls myself, I couldn’t wait to read It’s a Girl and talk with Andrea about her own personal experiences raising a girl.

Anjali: What was different in your experience of reading, compiling and editing essays written by mother-writers about girls, versus essays about boys? 

Andrea: The most striking difference, to me, in these essays by mothers of sons and mothers of daughters was how although both sets of writers expressed anxiety about gender, the Boy writers were apprehensive because they felt they had no idea what they were getting themselves into, and the Girl writers were nervous because they knew exactly what they were getting into.

Anjali: Many of the authors in It's a Girl, struggle with how to shelter their daughters from damaging feminine stereotypes. Miriam Peskowitz, in "Cheerleader," confronts teachers at her daughter's school when she discovers that in gym class, the boys are actively engaging in sports while the girls stand at the sidelines to cheer the boys on. Kim Fischer in "Shining, Shimmering, Splendor," grapples with the fact that her triplet girls enjoy dressing up as princesses. Do you find that this need for mothers to redefine femininity is a big part of the mother-daughter relationship in the post-women's movement era?

Andrea: I think it's a part of it, certainly. I think what all of these writers wrestle with is their own conflicting feelings about femininity and gender -- seeing their daughters enter a world that still markets a certain way to girls and women, that still compensates females differently, that still is weighted against girls and women in a sense, forces them to examine their own experience as young girls and now contemporary women in our society.

Anjali: Along the same lines, many of the authors in the book are former tomboys who are shocked when their daughters end up preferring pink, lace, and ballet shoes over blue jeans, cleats, and sports. What, if anything, do you think this says about the nature versus nurture arguments when it comes to raising girls verses raising boys?

Andrea: I think it's another great example of how our children come to us as they are. When they are born we have all kinds of big plans and ideas about the kind of people they'll be eventually, but the truth is a lot of who they are is already there, right from the start. (And as anyone who has parented a toddler knows first-hand, they can be pretty vocal about their preferences!)

Anjali: Another complex issue the writers confront is the how their own body images affect their relationships with their daughters. Ann Douglas, in her essay, "The Food Rules," touchingly writes "I had to learn to forgive myself for passing along genes that may have contributed to my daughter's eating disorder, for being a less-than-perfect parent, and for not being able to protect my daughter from a culture that sends girls some seriously messed up messages about food and what it means to look good and feel good about yourself." How do we as mothers resolve our insecurities about our own bodies in order to teach our girls to be secure about their bodies?

Andrea: I think all of the writers who tackle this subject in one way or another in the book speak to it as a kind of work-in-progress. Catherine Newman looks at her roly-poly toddler's "chubalicious" belly and sees it as an opportunity to resolve to be kinder to herself and her own body. Ann Douglas's shock at discovering her daughter's eating disorder is a wake-up call for her to look at the "food rules" in her own life and how she's thought about body image and size. It's such a huge and complicated issue -- the insecurities and conflicts we have about our bodies -- that I think it's a constant effort, a constant practice to work towards some kind of resolution. Having a younger, more impressionable version of ourselves there to watch us grimace at ourselves in a swimsuit or overhear us talking about the Shangri-La Diet on the phone is a good motivator for checking in with ourselves about where we are with all of this, so that we can do a better job of mentoring our girls.

Anjali: In "Park-Bench Epiphany," Kelly Johnson admits, "It is so hard not to superimpose my own childhood struggles onto my daughter. And later, "But it has proven impossible to resist the sway of gender, its siren song that calls to mind my own experience as my daughter makes her way on the path to womanhood." Do you think many of the challenges in raising daughters stem from the fact that it causes us to confront our most painful memories as children, and, in a sense, re-raise ourselves? Do you think this makes raising girls easier or harder than raising boys?

Andrea: Absolutely. I think the main difference I learned from putting these books together in regards to mothering sons versus mothering daughters is that in mothering girls, we are forced, in a way, to revisit parts of our own girlhood we thought we had safely left behind. Our past lives on in the experience of our daughters, and as Kelly Johnson writes, it's very difficult to separate our own childhood issues from those our daughters face. I think this, combined with the specter of our relationship with our own mother looming over the relationship we have with our daughters, makes the experience of raising girls a little more intense than raising boys.

Anjali: In your piece, "Learning to Write," you talk about how your daughter, Emi, uses her newfound ability to write words as a means to understand her emotional relationship with you. Do you think that this is a common rite of passage in the evolution of mother-daughter relationships?

Andrea: I think the common rite of passage at the heart of the essay is the delicate balance between attachment and separation -- the daughter's need to enmesh and her need for independence, and the way those needs compete with each other.

Anjali: When you realized you were having a girl, did you have any fears about mothering a daughter?

Andrea: I was really excited to have a girl, so I didn't have specific fears due to concerns about gender. I saw having a girl as a chance to "do it right," a chance at having a good mother-daughter relationship. 

Anjali: The writers in It's a Girl are simply trying to raise happy, strong, and self-confident women. Why, at times, does this seem like such an impossible task? What can we as mothers, or as a society, do to make this easier?

Andrea: I think it's really important to be able to respond to your child, in the moment. To give them what they need when they need it. If we're responding to our ideas of what's frightening about femininity or gender roles, then maybe we're missing the point of what our actual children are experiencing.  I remember when Emi was three, she was trying to jump from our low coffee table to the couch, and after a couple of failed attempts, she sighed and said, "Mommy, I can't do it! I'm just a girl."  I immediately went into “Girls Can Do Anything Boys Can Do” mode, launching into what I hoped was an empowering lecture -- only to have Emi tell me, with a confused look on her face, "Mommy, I just meant I'm not a CAT." I think all you can do is respond to them in the moment, and take it a day at a time, a moment at a time, and make your choices based on what's needed in that moment.  That is, parent where you are.

Anjali: I've had the privilege of attending a few of the MotherTalk salons that you organize with fellow author Miriam Peskowitz, where mothers discuss the emotional, physical, and political aspects of being a mother in today's world. And I have to ask, when Emi is older, do you think you'll ever hold MotherTalk salons for mothers and their grown up daughters?

Andrea: I think that's an excellent idea. Actually, there's a mother-daughter team that has already started doing that called MotherU-- their aim is to bridge the distance between mothers and daughters, especially once those daughters have become mothers themselves. They have what's called a "diablog" where women of different generations can talk about these kinds of things.  There are also real-time discussion groups.  Also, mamazine did something they called a Grand(Mama) Mother Talk featuring women and their mothers. So it's definitely an idea that's out there right now!

Anjali: Thanks so much, Andrea. We look forward to reading more of your writing in the future!

It’s a Girl: Women Writers on Raising Daughters was provided free to DotMoms for review. This interview took place via email and was edited for space and clarity.

Anjali lives in suburban Philadelphia with her husband and two girls.

Monkey See, Monkey Do

I am a self-proclaimed book worm. Even as a child, I devoured every book I could get a hold of. I breezed through Nancy Drew and Trixie Belden, and read Judy Blume over and over again, until the yellowed, crinkled pages fell from the binding. In high school, I couldn't get enough of Jane Austen, and, unlike my classmates, I looked forward to reading Shakespeare. I love the smell of new books. I love their crisp, shiny exteriors. I love how the sturdy, sharp pages smell. I love how the pages sound after I lick the tips of my fingers, and flip them.

Libraries were important places for me growing up, and I still seek refuge in them as an adult. The girls and I visit our local library once a week for storytime and stock up on books. Leela toddles straight to the case housing board books, chanting "I wan books, I wan books" and then, when she's plowed through them like a wrecking ball, darts to the toys. Mira veers in another direction to the picture books, picking up anything with an animal on the cover, flipping through, then discarding, pulling out, flipping through, then discarding. A few books later, she stacks up those worthy enough for her attention.

Earlier this week in the children's section, I spotted a book from afar that piqued my interest. I could tell from the bright colors on the cover that it would make a great selection for our family. The book was The Road to Mumbai, by Ruth Jeyaveeran. In it, Shoba, an Indian girl, and her pet monkey Fuzzy Patel, fly in the middle of the night, in their bed, to India to go to a wedding. Along the way, they meet a boy and his camel, a group of monks, elephants decorated in fine costumes, a snake charmer and his snake, and a group of women dressed in saris. After they arrive to the wedding, they realize that all of the travelers they met along the way have followed them to the festivities.

As I read through the book, memories flooded to me. During my childhood, I took several trips with my family to India. I've stood in awe before the Taj Mahal, perhaps the most beautiful structure in the world. I've ridden an elephant up the side of a mountain to an ancient palace. I've tasted delicious, home-cooked meals made by my dear grandmother. I've worn beautiful silk salwar kameez and saris. It's been well over a decade since I've seen the sights that Shoba and Fuzzy visited, but when reminded, it feels like yesterday.

It will be some time before we have the means to take the girls to India. So it's these rare chances, children's cultural events in the City, visits to a local temple, and children's books, that bring a little bit of India to our girls. It's all we can offer them now. And I hope it's enough, until we can replicate Shoba and Fuzzy's journey, across the Atlantic, over Europe, the Middle East, and into South Asia.

At the end of the story, there is a map of India, which retraces the journey that Shoba and Fuzzy Patel make to the wedding. The path twists and turns and circles, until it reaches Mumbai on India's western border. After I'd read the book several times, Mira traced the dashed route with her left index finger, lingering at the star representing Mumbai. I then promised Mira that when she was older, we'd take her and her younger sister to India. "Great Mommy," she explained, "I can't wait to go to the wedding!"

Anjali lives in suburban Philadelphia with her husband and two daughters.

Separation Anxiety

by Anjali

When Mira picked up the photo box, dozens of pictures spilled out, all of them taken before my husband and I had either children or a digital camera. Mira sifted through, delighted to recognize so many faces, though many of them lacked the creases of crows feet and stray bits of gray hair they have today. My daughter stopped short at one picture of a young couple dancing under a large, white tent, surrounded by white Christmas lights and spherical lanterns.

The woman, with her young, fresh, friendly face, was in the middle of an awkward dance move. The man, his body facing hers, was my cousin. His face was a bright, almost cartoonish red, the result of either too much sun earlier that day, or the sheer embarrassment at having his picture taken. Despite the discomfited moment, it was evident that the happy couple was enjoying themselves immensely. But a few years after the picture was taken, my cousin and his wife called it quits and divorced.

Since making my own wedding vows nearly nine years ago, I’ve learned the truth about all that stuff that comes after the wedding cake is cut, and the DJ has played the last song, and the limo has driven away with streamers flowing back in the wind, and the honeymoon is over. No marriages are immune to disruption. No relationships are foolproof. Rare is the love that is wholly unconditional. And, in many cases when a couple has split, no one is entirely to blame.

Most importantly, I’ve learned that the arrival of children, though wonderful and positively life-changing, puts a stress on a marriage that no one tells you about when you are registering for the Diaper Genie, or knitting booties, or wallpapering that “cow jumps over the moon” border in the perfectly pale yellow nursery. No one warns you that when you are up all night with a colicky baby, that you will, in fact, hate the person that you used to eagerly share showers with. Or that you will someday loathe looking your partner in the eye after he or she returns from a productive and rewarding day at work, while you wore a shirt soaked in vomit and cried from exhaustion. Or that when the baby you labored with for 36 hours is born, and isn’t quite as beautiful as you imagined, you wonder whether you should have married someone with different DNA.

My friends’ divorces have been, if anything, humbling for me. Their separations are not the result of too little love or affection or too little patience, a lack of values (whatever that might mean), or the inability to “stick it out” long enough. Rather, my marriage, above all, has been one of good fortune. When it comes to many of life’s greatest pains, the ones that put the highest amounts of stress on a long-term relationship. My husband and I have simply been damn lucky enough to avoid many of them altogether. I wish the couples that have meant so much to us in our lives could have been even half as lucky.

Once Mira was through her dumping, sifting, and sorting of photographs and skipped out of the room, I sat myself on the hardwood floor surrounded by the scattered images of our loved ones. I found the picture of my cousin and his former wife and tried to glean from it any signs indicating a future disintegration of their marriage. I then remembered what inspired me to take that particular shot on that stifling hot summer day in the first place -- the hope that a framed photograph of the pure, unadulterated silliness of their poses, the sparkling happiness that lit their eyes, and the deep affection for one another evident in their laughing smiles, would make a good wedding anniversary gift for them some day.

Anjali lives in suburban Philadelphia with her husband and two daughters.