Nemo's Dad Was Right!

Of course the notion that am modeling myself or identifying with a cartoon character speaks volumes about my MQ (madness quotient) but there's no escaping it...am Nemo's dad through and through. I keep worrying about MLM's safety, other's safety when he's in full swing and also about what would happen if I were to look away for some time.

This evening Red and I took MLM to a play area nearby where the kiddy play site was actually overrun by the bigger kids. Am talking of the 8 years old and above. MLM'll be 4 soon but in the meanwhile he's quite naive. He's protected in school quite a bit..there's a good amount of segregation between the playgroup and nursery kids whereas in a play area open for all, there's a no-holds barred kind of unspoken rule.

Now I admire the fact that my child seems to know no fear. But it scares the crap out of me. He goes and stands in front of other kids swinging fast and high and thinks just the sight of him will make them stop. What he fails to realize is that he's going to get knocked straight off his feet and have boo-boos all over for a good amount to time and be wailing to the Heavens above when someone's foot connects with his face or head or any other part of his anatomy.

Also, the play area (which is nicely done up and basically is as kid-friendly as possible) has these tall posts on top of which are perched a rather large and colorful caterpillar, flowers et al. Now after a few days of going gaga over the swings and the slides et al, MLM suddenly decided that he wanted to conquer the Mt.Butterfly and Mt. Flowers to which there are actually no direct routes.
So he climbs atop the tunnel casing, slipping and losing his footing most of the times and then tries to be Spiderman and jump from one segment of the play area to the other so he can reach the structures on top.

So there I am flitting from pillar to post watching him do everything other kids are not and trying to be this human cushion as and when he falls. And I realize that it's not quite so much him and his curious nature. It's me and my problems with lack of control over situations and a fear of seeing him hurt.

Red was far more pragmatic about all this and said let him learn his boundaries...he'll fall, he'll get hurt and he'll learn. But it seems kinda mean to do that to a child who still doesn't know enough consequences and lives life mainly on the pleasure principle and through avid curiosity. As a parent I should know better...wouldn't it be great if he never had a scraped knee. I've had plenty. Even as an adult but I could understand it better then. As a child it never felt good. Or reasonable to have one.
Shouldn't childhood just be about giggles, good times and a total unawareness of every boo-boo that's awaiting you in the world out there?

The mother in me says so. The adult in me is still fighting it out with the mother.

Talk about growing pains! For us both!

Ode To A Team Lunch

Or what others might call...the Salt'n' Pepper Fiasco!

One of my colleagues is leaving Gymboree and we decided to have a nice leisurely team lunch today as a farewell for her. Yeah right!

MLM has summer camp and is back home just around the time that I get back from work in the afternoons. I came home, picked him up and freshened up a bit and went back to work with the iPad in tow since it's the panacea for all ills. Ever since I've joined Gymboree I've missed out on the team lunches for some or the other reason. Today being a farewell lunch I really couldn't avoid it although am pretty sure that after today, team lunches are something I won't have to be worried about being invited to.

The thing about having a hyperactive child is that if  they have something along the lines of ADHD its still understandable why they can't get their butt to stick on a particular surface for more than a second. But without an excuse of that sort it becomes very tough to understand WHY your child HAS to be THE ONE who's trampling over everything,everyone, emptying salt and pepper into the drinking glasses from the shakers and basically acting like he's a human demolition crew.

I'd like to think that in time he'll quieten down but till that day comes I'll be guzzling my food like it's the Last Supper and I'll perpetually be dodging waiters and other diners in search for that elusive munchkin who wants to peer into the food trays, other peoples' plates and seek out all the damn salt and pepper in the world so he can make them into piles and have his dastardly way with them.

In one word..AAAARRRRRGH!!

Sunny With A Chance of Hailstones

You'd think having a proper weekend with my family would be very good indeed. I work a 6-day week with a full day on Saturdays and that leaves only Sunday for quality time with the spouse and offspring.
 
Well today started out well enough- I got up at 10:30 am a rarest of rare luxuries. Of course I deprived Red of his extended sleep so he could keep an eye on mini hurricane and conked off and had a sybaritic pleasure of having the bed all to myself.
 
After that things still went according to the norm we follow- yell at MLM, put him on at least one time out, kiss and hug it out, bubble bath for MLM, feed him breakfast, bathe and manage to grab his snacks, change of clothes, his music CDs and then out the door for OUR stuff.

Now this is where the fun starts- we ate at a food court in a mall. That went surprisingly well with no major sprints after MLM. Give the child some popcorn chicken and his butt somehow sticks to whatever surface it's currently on.

Then Red went off to get some stuff for himself and MLM and I began to thrash it out over  whether it was right for him to bump into people with his dolphin balloon (oh yes, we bought him a balloon, one of the smaller necessary evils) while he did his 'running amok' routine. He tried to intimidate a toddler who was trying to make a grab for the toys he was playing with in the kiddie area, with his arms on his hips and everything. The kid's parents were looking askance at me, MLM was looking everywhere else but at me and I was looking skywards for divine intervention in the form of Mary Poppins carrying a cold brewski.

After the one rant and the sprint up and down the aisles of a bookstore with me huffing and puffing and MLM dodging me with agility hereto unseen, I finally cornered him and did my routine of bribing-cajoling-threatening-pleading and that did the trick after a while. Well that and my plastic got used up a bit more.

Long story short- after a few irate glances from supermarket salespeople who wondered what kind of mother let her kid open cookies and juice boxes without having paid for them first, the house key getting lost in the melee and the dolphin balloon having got stuck up on our ceiling, I can honestly say that this Sunday's had the power of a few Mondays packed into it and then some!
Cannot wait for the work week to begin.

Did I also mention that MLM also starts summer camp from tomorrow? Thank God for small mercies.

AMEN.

Letter To My Child

I plan to have MLM read this when he can link more than three words together and has attained the attention span of a human instead of a bee buzzing from flower to flower. So essentially I'll have to wait till he hits 30.

Dear Monkeyboy

1. When I sleep don't stick your fingers up my nose. I do that all by myself and in a far more efficient manner, thank you.
2. The moment I'm lying down don't assume I'm pretending to be a trampoline. The extra fat wasn't piled on keeping in mind your need to bounce.
3. If I bend down to retrieve my slippers or wipe the floor after you've trailed food on it; don't climb on my back thinking it's horsey time. It'll be time for a chiropractor if that continues my friend.
4. STAY ON YOUR SIDE OF THE BED or go in sleep your cot. This body was not meant to be squished into a tiny sliver of a space. If it was, my clothes would be marked XS instead of XL!
5. Don't beg and plead each time you want something. I grow immune. Learn to time your pleading...it's far more effective and you'll be surprised how far a sad face goes when it's used sporadically instead in a drop of a pin.
6. When I'm gesturing wildly on a phone call and don't sound all that perky, it is definitely not the best time to say, "Susu is coming." "Potty is coming is even worse". Use the loo by yourself as you are wont to do when you think am not watching.
7. When I ask you to go to the loo to do your business before we set out in the car, GO! Saying you need to go when am at a red light or in the midst of heavy traffic doesn't magically conjure up Port-a-potties all over the place.
8. Hugs and kisses are fine. In fact they are great! But when given after a calm and steady manner it's even better than attacking me like a herd of stampeding rhinos.
9. The powder either stays in the jar/bottle or goes on your body. Putting it all over the floor where I go careening all over the place is not what Johnson & Johnson made it for. If you really want me to go sliding off somewhere, ask your father to take us to Aspen.
10. You  biting me on the cheeks was fine when you were a drooly baby. Now with teeth like a barracuda, it hurts.
11. Don't chomp down on the toothbrush every time. I have to pry your teeth apart like I use the car's jack and while it gets the job done, I'm in danger of getting a tennis elbow without ever having lifted a racquet!
12. Your father and I like to watch the t.v every now and then you know. And that goes double for us using the iPad. Something about being able to enjoy the stuff we paid through our nose for.
13. My phone is mine. I give it to you when you're in the throes of a major meltdown but it's mine. You asserting ownership over it aint gonna help!
14. The sofas are for sitting on and their backs are not balancing bars. We'll put you in a gymnastics class once you're older. That goes for karate as well so stop chopping at me and swinging your toys like their nunchuks!
15. We have our taste in music when we drive. Dance Gymbo Dance looped for miles on end does nothing for us enjoying the long drive. 
16. The iPad charger, the laptop mouse are not pets. Stop dragging them around the house. We'll get you a pet once your allergies abate.
17. When I make the bed, for once forget the Parachute time from Gymboree. I can't fly the "parachute" for each bed I make.
18. What is this fascination for clothespins? I end up stepping on them or sitting on them at all odd places and can never find them when I'm hanging out the laundry. 
19. Watering the plants are fine. Drowning them is not. And no...they don't want to take a bath like you do for an extended time.
20. Don't take my gripes to heart. You're beautiful but try targeting more sleep time because when you sleep my world is a more serene place.

With Love Always,

Your Deranged Mother

Hold A Mirror Up to Me

Last night during dinner Red saw a side of MLM he hadn't seen before and till date has only heard me speak of. His adult side.

The offspring's speech isn't as clear as many of his peers and often in his hurry to say a lot of things he garbles sounds up and they sound funny.

On many occasions we ( he and I together) have a laugh about it but last night it turned out he was pretty darn serious about what he was trying to say and my laughing at that moment made him quite peeved.

He gave me the look that my mother, father and many a teacher have leveled at me over the years. It's a combination of when-will-you-grow-up-and-act-your-age+I-will-wait-till-you-stop-your-nonsense-and-then-continue-with-what-I-have-to-say-instead-of-lowering-myself-to-your-level.

He gazed at me in a manner so serious that I was actually taken aback and had a glimpse of him as an adult. If he had the vocabulary he'd have told me to stop acting juvenile!

Having the tables turned on me was not much fun. I realized I was being obnoxious- another word he'll eventually learn and that the balance of power had shifted from me to him in an instant.

Yikes!

Scintillating Slumber!

Every now and then things hit me afresh...the early morning chirping of birds, the smell of freshly brewed coffee, the utter rejuvenation after a hot shower....it's really a delight to the senses.

I experienced another delight today. One I don't get to partake in too often. Sleep. Not mine. MLM's.
His sleep has been a bit off recently and he's been getting up almost 2 hours prior to his usual waking time and clambering all over Red and me. He whispers the names of the cartoons he wants to watch in my ears while I'm still in lala land somewhere in land of haziness and snores. He turns does gymnastics on the bed and  bribes us with kisses of giving him everything from milk to dosas- at 5 in the morning!

Well this little bloom of sunshine and joy who for the last few days has been getting the evil eye from his father and I first thing in the morning (well...who wants a bright and chirpy person around when you're still in your eyes wide shut stage?!) came home from school today and had his mandatory bubble bath. He played hide and seek with the soap. Ran about the whole house in his birthday suit and let out war whoops! 
He also played Angry Birds and jubilated over the destruction of the piggies over 4 different versions of the game and then just toppled over and slept! Just like that! He just plonked himself onto the bed and without so much as a word to me, he slept!

Now, while the sight of a child sleeping peacefully is always beautiful to behold today the ensuing silence was lovelier still.
After having my ears ringing with his whoops and hollers the sudden silence that prevailed in the whole house was beyond soothing. It was cathartic. I could hear the soft voices of the people walking downstairs. I heard birds cawing. I heard a plane! Imagine that!!

I luxuriated in walking all over the house and seeing the signs of his existence stamped all over- in the building blocks that would undoubtedly poke me on the butt when I sat down on the couch. The cookie crumbs that felt gritty under my feet. The trail of books, the sticky prints on the door and course the overall look of El Nino having passed through my livingroom.

BUT there was still peace in my mind because there was peace in the house. It was pin drop silence! Even the maids and the security guards who play those god-awful songs at all odd times were content to let silence prevail.

So I did what came naturally...I reclaimed the iPad as my own. I played Angry Birds for the first time in ages without a preschooler using my back as a trampoline and loudly telling me to hit the pigs. I checked my mails without having to answer 10 times what I was doing. I caught up with a good friend after ages and just exchanged sms and still felt like I'd communicated something.

I listened to my music without having to barricade myself in a room or having a munchkin impose his choice of CDs over mine and I just revelled in the utter complete, unadulterated, so-beautiful-I-could-kiss-it silence!

And a few hours later, while I was typing out this blog post came the unmistakable signs of chaos and anarchy getting back into my world- in the nicest way possible of course! The slightly puzzled sound of a child who has just woken up from a nap floated into the living room and then started the questions...where are you? Give me juice. Give me milk. Want to wash (watch) t.v. Where Baba gone? Pick up Baba....

And while I greeted the little rabble rouser with hugs and kisses and opened the doors for peace to exit quietly but absolutely I celebrated the moments I'd experienced and looked at him fondly and in my mind sent up a wish for him to start up with his afternoon naps all over again.

AMEN.

The Little Joys Of Life...

During the end of 2012, when the nation was caught in the uproar and upheaval of the December 16th incident there was a little boy who brightened the cold and somber days.

He'd eat jam biscuits, chocolate Oreos and become a messy face and leave little sticky pug marks everywhere but be giggling like a loon and run all day long a bit like a gale.

He gave spontaneous hugs and kisses. Gave high fives when he did something he was happy with and just brightened up every part of the world he was in.

His mother did notice at the time. She was busy with other things and didn't particularly want crumbs, stickiness to be a part of her winter break. But today when he slept she realized exactly how much he adds to the fun factor of her life; even though she spanks him oftener than she would like to.

The best things in life are free...the wind beneath you while you soar higher and higher on a swing and the trust you put in your father who stands behind you to keep pushing you higher into the sky (or so it may seem to a child) and still makes sure you don't fall off your perch...too often.
Here are some facets of this little man full of mirth and unadulterated joy while playing in the park and basically being HIM.

A Music Lesson Turns Into A Lesson In Motherhood

When I was in high school we had an option of learning the sitar. I chose it as the lesser of two evils, CBSE Hindi being something I did NOT want to tangle in for my 12^th Boards.

Anyhow, my parents thought that my tinkering with the piano for a few years while I was younger would make it easier to learn the sitar for me. Erm. Yes and No. Western classical and Eastern classical being the individual behemoths that they are and piano and sitar being two entirely different types of instruments, the going wasn’t easy by a long. It was painfully funny. Wait…it was painful and funny.

Anyhow, that’s another blog post for another day. This is about the sudden recollection of a memory during a riyaaz with my music teacher eons ago. See, whenever I like something or discover I have even a minor aptitude for something; I need to do it faster and faster each time. Somewhere in my mind I equate speed with being better. But we all know the tortoise won in the end so...

Don’t mind my meandering. Somehow I think it adds a touch of my idiosyncrasies to my writing as well. My teacher, one of the best I've ever had in my life, was telling me not to fight for speed so much since it would take time for the arm muscles to get used to the new movements. She said if I sped up too often I’d sacrifice accuracy and cause my muscles to cramp. Right on both counts there. But I kept trying because I wanted to know how it felt to see my hands as a blur on the sitar and hear the tempo become rapid each time I played.

My teacher told me there’d be a time when the muscles on the right hand, just above the elbow would just freeze up and despite my trying my hardest it wouldn't budge. And then suddenly with a popping experience it would just become far more fluid- an obstacle would be crossed forever. That stiffness in the muscles and the fluidity thereafter would be like a bridge I would have crossed and wouldn't have to cross again and again.

Somehow today while coaxing the offspring to clear up the mess of his jigsaw pieces, his Noddy books, the chocolate wrappers and crayons I thought of me playing a sitar. The image came and went in a flash. Then I tried to relax with a cup of tea and sat on a clothes pin (which surprisingly turn up in odd places in my house all the time) and a building block and I just lost my cool. I was seething. The tea in the cup was sloshing and MLM was looking at me VERY warily. He might’ve wondered if his rear end was in for trouble or if he was going to have to spend an extended amount of time facing one of the well-used corners of the apartment.

Suddenly the analogy of the frozen elbow and the fluidity thereafter came to my mind and I just relaxed. I wasn't entirely calm but I wasn’t livid either. 

Call this intellectual masturbation but there is a similarity. Your mind gets stuck at certain junctures and it can’t go forward. You can’t progress from that point and going back isn't an option at all! 

Once you get over that obstacle, scale the wall, cross the hurdle, whatever! you’ll find you’re able to function with a clearer mind and find solutions or at least find space to think instead of reacting blindly.

A realization always brings something good in its wake- acting on it is what gets you the speed to get ahead.

Oh, and did I gain speed in playing the sitar? You betcha! I rocked at it- the tempo, the sounds, the whole shebang! I hope parallel analogies work out in both situations.

Fingers crossed!

The Hanging...

At the risk of a backlash from whoever it is that sits and watches for things to pounce upon, let me be very clear at the onset- I personally don't believe that an eye for an eye suits every situation but neither do I believe that consequences of a behavior can be avoided for long.

Whether that consequence comes in the form of an admonishment, a jail sentence or even a death sentence that was eventually carried out. 

among the books I've read on genocide  (Holocaust, WW I&II et al), movies I've seen, articles I've read; two of the movies I've seen really made me wonder and question human nature,rather specific scenes in the movies did. One was Sean Penn's breaking down and crying in Dead Man Walking while confessing his sins to Susan Sarandon and the other was Djimon Housou's utter disbelief at seeing his son as a part of a gun-wielding militia outfit in Blood Diamond. 

The reason I cite these two references is because in each case, something heinous had either happened or was going to happen and there were people who had been deeply affected by it and with precious little to do.

Going by the Blood Diamond example, it might be understandable how a boy with very little options in life, living in an impoverished (to what extent I don't honestly know) manner in a village of Faridkot can be a perfect candidate for indoctrination. But it's not indoctrination alone that controls a person's actions. There has to be something inherent which also contributes to the things a person is capable of. Or is a person's will so very pliable that anything that is impressive enough can bend it whichever way it chooses?

And when the strength of indoctrination proves too be too powerful to combat whatever inherent sense of right-wrong that a person possesses and they go off on a path that is morally, socially and legally wrong well...then they have to find themselves in the position that Kasab did.

Even if people do repent, it still doesn't make up entirely for the repercussions of their actions. It merely shows an intent to. 

Paroled convicts spend time doing community service, others become religious and have a different attitude about human life, human existence but the life's they've already impacted negatively doesn't get a chance to benefit from their actions. 

And it isn't always about making reparations to the injured either. Sometimes it all comes down to the punishment fitting the crime. And if in the process if people are being made examples of, hard line messages are being sent out to people of a particular ilk, of a certain bent of mind then that's just the fallout.

The main consideration is that someone committed a crime and paid for it according to the severity of their actions.

I hope this hanging at least stops other Kasabs in the making or even gives them pause before thinking of carrying out such an agenda. Look at what befell him. Dead at 25! He might have been poor in Faridkot but would have had a family around, an opportunity to do what all young people do at his age, might have had friends, had some semblance of a life.

Instead he's in an unmarked grave, dead in a truly horrific manner and he never got to live properly and every day since he was caught, he was the target to some of the worst vibes and maledictions from around the world and most certainly from the country and family of his victims.

All in all, doesn't really seem like he made the right choice by himself, does it?

Reality Bites! HARD!

There are some days when it dawns on you, "Damn! I'm really a parent! And one of those parents who I swore never to be like and never to find myself in situations like."

Till now I was relatively close-minded about jinxes. I knew they didn't exist. People told me not to divulge that I was preggers before I completed the 1st trimester; I did anyhow. 

People said don't talk about your child's weight and health because of mal ojo et al; I went right ahead and told everyone who inquired exactly how much he weighed, ate blah blah. 

Then I got screwed. BIG time! I used to always tell whoever was keen to hear out a rambling  mother about how her child does yada yada yada that for all his antics MLM had never thrown a fit at a toy store or a department store and demanded that he be bought a toy or else! Apparently I said it one too many times because last week he did exactly that- threw the mother or all fits and got into a tussle with a bigger boy over ( of all things *rolls eyes*) Play Doh!!

We were out shopping for some winter wear and I happened to have MLM with me while Red finished up some of his own things-to-do and there it happened! Both boys spotted the party pack of Play Doh in the store and the bigger boy reached it although MLM had called dibs on it in his own way. There ensued a battle of epic proportions with MLM chasing the other brat through the store and trying to give him other toys so he'd drop the desired item. 
Although to be fair to my son's tendencies, I think he was actually trying to knock out the box from the kid's hands when he hefted up the cricket bat (foam one folks. No anti-social tendencies; yet). Anyhoo, long story short, the kid ran off to his parents and MLM ran to me with a particularly odious whiny tone that makes me want to Fed-ex him off to a remote country asap! 
On being ignored by his one and only ally (yeah right!!) MLM promptly dropped to his knees and started howling- all fake by the way. The other kid came and pushed him and unfortunately gave MLM the opening to begin to cry in earnest. The drama queen that I gave birth to then plopped himself face down and cried his little eyes out and I was forced to give my 'angry mommy' glare to the other kid who I secretly suspect wanted MLM to shut up with his whining as much as I did!

But 'angry mother glare has its benefits...other parents pick up on it and home into the signal like heat-seeking missiles. In this case, it was the other kid's mother who zeroed in on the situation and seeing my frown she promptly hauled her kid away, only stopping to snatch the Play-Doh from his hand and thrusting it into my brat's hands and gnashing her teeth at her's and saying, " SORRY CHEPPU!" (say you're sorry).

Wonder of wonders, miracles of miracles- the waterworks from MLM's eyes dried up faster than water going down the drain of a bathtub the moment the plug's pulled. He managed a few pitiful sniffs while looking at his savior which led to his opponent getting dragged away faster to a harsher fate- his father being brought into the picture and yet another scolding and glare coming his way.

Now we get to the interesting part of the story- by the time I'd finished with my shopping and was at the payment counter, MLM was already handing over the hard-won prize to the cashier and telling him, "Give Sidaath this one." Of course the cashier was only too happy to ring up the purchase till the 'angry mother' glare was focused his way and he reluctantly stopped scanning the code. MLM thinking it was all done and dusted tried to walk out of the store with the box only to be accosted by his father who pulled a good-cop routine on him. 
Btw, personal experience tell me that good cops don't stand a chance with a kid on the brink of a tantrum. Bring out the bad cop and keep him there till the situation's under control or kid's in a straitjacket!!

So there we were, preparing to make a run for it like a bunch of shoplifters! Red picked up MLM and nearly ran to the car parking while I grabbed all our bags and ran out while telling the befuddled cashier that NO! I didn't want the Play-Doh!

The kicking and screaming continued till the car started and we reached the traffic lights and suddenly there was blessed peace. The monster was out cold.

We fist-bumped and decided that I would continue with my forays into online retail and avoid toy stores unless we definitely wanted to buy something!

Ah! the joys of spending quality time with the family!

Btw, lesson has been learnt- anything good that MLM will do shall NOT be shared in case he feels tempted to retract that behavior and turn into a parent's worst tantrumy nightmare,

Oopsie!

Forget Penelope Pitstop! The Perils of Lil Ol'Moi were sky high. Rather the results of my actions were. I am by nature a quasi-dreamer. Ahh...what the heck is a "quasi-dreamer" you ask?
 Well my father always said I did things halfway so I couldn't accomplish being a full time space cadet and dreamer and was relegated to being a quasi-one. 
I have a habit of thinking something and saying something else-often.It has gone beyond Spoonerism and made me think of getting a psych consult done. 
Knocking over glasses, cups, mugs- usually pretty full of liquids (hot and cold, I do not discriminate). Walking into things. HARD ones-VERY often. VERY ouch.And then I have the unfortunate habit of repeating the clash with hard objects all over again. As if the first impact wasn't fun enough. 

You can imagine my plight when I kept thinking of all the times I probably might drop my kid because I tripped on something or because I stubbed my toes- AGAIN! Saying Oops! when you drop an infant is kind of an anticlimax. Forget what kind of injury you might cause of the baby, it is a fact that kids don't bounce! Not that I repeatedly dropped my kid on various parts of his anatomy to empirically check the issue but each time I saw my kid fall or stumble I could see his surprise (and irritation) that he somehow did not magically pop back up!

Getting back to my rambling- I am also guilty of wide circular movements with my wrists when talking and when making presentations I outright resemble a windmill. Thank GOD Don Quixote did NOT see ME coming!

Imagine this scenario- A group of immaculately dressed individuals seated around a table in a proper conference room with the requisite subdued air that ensues during a presentation. A short, bespectacled, bouncy person who walks up and down the length of the white board and makes increasingly bolder and more forceful marks with the marker suddenly throws her hands out in a gesture of TA DA! post concluding a particularly energetic presentation!
 Aforementioned hand smacks one of aforementioned immaculately garbed individuals present and what happens? TA DA! moment goes up in the air! For all eternity! 

They tend to remember you as the crazy hands lady than the ideating woman. They treat you the way they do bag ladies in Central Park and expect a legion of cats mewling around your ankles.

Orr...maybe in far more realistic circles, they immediately roll their chairs 3 feet away from you at the table and make sure you never get up to make your point with those pretty bright markers and suggest that henceforth you merely mail your presentations and they could probably include you on-call; for everyone's safety.

Oh FISH!!

P.S: for those wondering how many times I dropped my baby or stubbed my toe while he was an infant- the answer is ZERO! I waited till he could walk all by himself, did not have to be carried at all and then promptly walked into the wall!

Why My Child is My Snoogums-Boogums

Remember this little ditty? 

Well I know of plenty of people who went bananas over it! And some who wanted to throw overripe bananas at it because it was gagworthy to them. But all in all I totally agree with the lyrics and they apply to my child in toto!

After all you have to be a pumpy-umpy-umpkin to keep doing these wonderful things:

• locking the neighbors in at every possible opportunity and then forgetting to unlatch their front door.
• leaving bits of Play-Doh in places where they're nicely stuck and difficult to take out.
• chanting for KFC's Popcorn Chicken the second the car leaves the parking area.
• laying claim to everything at home as his own especially MY iPad!
• asking for lip(stick,balm,gel) everytime I open the doors to the dresser.
• taking my wallet out of my handbag and going through every damn thing in there and mixing up my cards.
• howling like a banshee when a favored object is taken away.
• being a drama queen- a really bad drama queen.
• fake crying in public.
• lying down on the in the aisles of shopping malls when ice cream/balloons/escalator rides are denied.
• staying up LATE into the night and keeping me&Red up as well and then promptly refusing to get up at a decent time in the morning.
• getting the bathroom wet, wall-floor each time he has to spend time on the pot.
• digging out bits of styrofoam padding from his carseat and eating it like it's popcorn.
• making a mess and then saying, "LOOK! Chhee-Chhee"!
• playing Angry Birds all wrong and still enjoying it immensely!
• being all full of vim&vigor the moment I'm dead tired on my feet and essentially a zombie!

There are more points to add there I'm sure but these are the main reasons why he's the apple of my eye!!

Calling All Gummy Bears

NOT the creepy green glooby one that wears yellow briefs but these...these beautiful little creatures who you relish biting the heads and limbs off and still get a warm toasty feeling from gobbling up by the handfuls.

Gummybears are a very different kind of candy. They are fun basically. You can't resist giving them a squeeze before popping them in your mouth, you pick out the ones which catch your eyes (kind of like jellybeans) and they are a delight to bite into and chew the heck out of!

Now some benevolent people have decided to make Gummybears nutritional (while doing nothing for the health of our teeth in the long run) by infusing calcium,vitamins in them and lessening the feelings of guilt in people like me a tad bit for eating them by the dozen.

The fun part of it still remains because all sorts of characters find themselves into gummy mode- the last time I went through a bottle it was full of the Flintstones. And let me tell you it was FUN!!

Then there are those BIG gummies which are roughly the size of 10 regular-sized bears clumped together and 10 times for fun.

So where am I going with all this? Well I researched the sourcing of gummies in India a bit and found that I'd end up living on the sidewalk if I had to get them regularly from a set-up like Amazon. So I wrote to one of the companies that manufacture the healthy gummies asked about their retail operations in India.
Long story short, I now have position of 2 bottles of "gummybears". I air quote full of sarcasm because while my child is happily munching on them, those bears are out and out frauds!! They are far more closely linked to the jujube branch of foodstuff than the gummy ones. And everyone knows, jujubes are one thing and gummies are something entirely different!

So while I'm mildly happy (weak YAY) that my child will NOT be fussing about nutritional supplements, I am quite miffed (strong hmmph sound emanating from my throat) that the gummies that were promised aren't what they are supposed to be.

A gummy is a gummy and there're no two ways about it.

While I sit here typing all this out and semi-pout, the one thing I know that would act as a pick-me-up is nothing else but a nice, soft, squishy, blue gummy bear. I'll even take one without the healthy crap and just bite it's beary lil head off and let the happiness flow through my veins.

Everyone's lives need a bit of gumminess!

The Joys of Being the First One..

First one what? Well, the first one in many cases!

Take my current little reason for being happy, cheery at least; I'm the first one up!
I am always the first one up in this house but usually I'd be less inclined to linger and read the paper or even think about blogging. I have some time on my hands and I'm relishing the joys of having the house all to myself.

I'm realized something, except for people at work (and when my folks are around), my family doesn't do the whole 'good morning' bit. Red gets up when I call him and is always bleary-eyed and scratches various parts of his anatomy while yawning like those lions from Animal Planet. He curls up on one of the sofas or takes the newspaper and seems to just transitions another awake-sleep.

Definition: awake-sleep- when you are actually awake but for all practically purposes you are sleeping since everything that's happening around you passes you by(especially your wife's comments). You are semi-supine and in a mild-vegetative state.

Red usually doesn't come alive till the first sip of coffee hits his throat- been there, done that, totally sympathize! But in the time that he's quasi-comatose anything I say or do will be met with a blank stare, if at all and would never even make it to his short-term memory.

MLM wakes up with a warbling, whining,grumpy, happy, giggly (take your pick) kind of an attitude and usually rolls around all over the place so I can't pick him up from bed and get him started on his day. Depending upon how much and how well he's slept the previous night, it's either a tug-of-war or some gentle persuasion that gets him out of bed and usually sprinting towards his toys.

So, why am I happy right now? Well...I'm up. Those two are curled up asleep and I get to decide when I wake them up. Am enjoying the sounds of birds chirping, the sights on the road, the smell of coffee awaiting me while I finish this post and most of all because till the bell rings and the maid arrives it's a state of suspended animation for me.
That bell ringing is like the starter gun signaling the mad dash that the morning will assume till I again regain tranquility by sending them both off to work and school and revel in me time.

TGIF indeed!!

Rewind the last 3 week

Well, maybe not rewind, a retrospect more likely but am not at my best at 5 in the morning.
Especially since I haven't been able to sleep courtesy a non-killer but persistent headache nonetheless!

Today marks 3 weeks that I got back to working. Woo hoo! 3 weeks!! Yay! bring on the pension plan already!! Now, now...3 weeks may be miniscule, taken in the backdrop of the whole work cosmos waiting to devour working parents but it's been a BIG 3 weeks for us as a family.

It's helterskelter in the mornings and I fully expect Charles Manson to come in and just add to the riot! The Biodiversity week (everyone clap now that Hyderabad is in the cynosure of all eyes...polite, bored (forced) clapping follows) has lead to heaps of problems for those of us not so bio-diverse.

The traffic jams, the mini-craters in the roads, the constant police vigilance and the mounting road rage just adds that "something" special to your mornings when you drive off to work and try to get reintegrated with the gerbil race. Eh?
We are not rats! Well...this time around am determined not to be a rodent so I will pick cute, fuzzy innocuous critters who can also race. But are gerbils rodents too? Never mind ..too early in the day to get my Darwin groove on!

The mornings are the worst honestly! Breakfast has come to signify getting some solids into the offspring who for some reason feels the time lag between getting up at 8 am rather than 7:30 is massive. And then he MUST have his bubbles! I mean how can we be sure that all the nooks and crannies are clean if they haven't been doused liberally in a bubble bath?
So by the time the school van arrives, at 8:30 no less, we need to get the child up, get him brushed (have you smelt morning breath on a kid! Yikes!!), bathed, fed, clothed, packed for school and out the door in time.

Now adding to the fun of all this newness of my new innings at work was Red's transition to a new org after having worked with his first (and only company till recently) for nearly 10 years. So there we were..all 3 of us with totally 3 things to do and places to go to- me to work, Red to a another place and MLM to daycare.

Here's a breakdown of how it goes:

I rush out the door by 8:15 so I can get to work by 8:45 at the very latest. If I get out at 8:20, I may get to work only by 9:15, yup! The office seems to move further way in those five minutes. I put in a cd (a medley of retro rock for the last 2 days) once I hit the first red light and bring out the eyeliner for the second light. The Gods that Change Traffic Lights are benevolent enough to wait for me to apply it comfortably so I don't end up looking like a raccoon while entering work.
My hair is still in it's bed-hair stage and will submit only once I get into work and not before. I try not to brush my hair in the car. I shed more than a lab these days and all I need is for the hair to mingle with the dark upholstery or for the offspring to get sneezing fits from it.
Note to self: Vacuum car over weekend anyhow.

So I get into work, with trusted coffee mug in tow and take life-altering sips before facing the rest of the world. Then come afternoon I start making calls to the daycare to see if MLM has eaten, how much and what he's currently up to. Then I head out to pick him up while he's semi-snoozing, conked out or chirping like he's high!
These days the new object of his affections is a blimp that's been put up recently and he keeps pointing it out from his car seat till I notice and say, "OOH! NICE!" Not acknowledging aforementioned blimp keeps him repeating it till I look at the damn thing and comment with some amount of life in my voice. It goes something like this- LOOK Mamma, LOOK, LOOK,LOOK,LOOK,LOOK,LOOK,LOOK! Stop it! I can't look I'm driving for Pete's sake! LOOOOOOOOOOOK!!!! BALLOOOOON! Ok, ok...pretty balloon! LOOOK MAMMA LOOK!!! OOOH...Nice balloon...look how it goes side to side (at which juncture he starts singing "Gymbo the clown goes side to side...all day long!"). And finally peace prevails.

We get home and I've barely parked when all sorts of potty-peepee emergencies come to this child's head! So we rush and often leave the school bag, daycare bag, my handbag and sometimes groceries for later. I barely get the door open and he rushes to his toys instead of making a beeline for the loo like I'd have hoped. Any efforts at trying to elicit information about previously stated emergencies only brings out demands (not requests, DEMANDS) for snacks, juice, paints and everything that doesn't belong in a loo.

So, emergency balloon deflated, I lock him at home for 2 minutes, pop back down to the car and haul up everything like a beast of burden and look around for a jumbo mug of coffee. Can you guess what happens when  I finally plonk myself down and take the first sip? Yup! He has to go to the bathroom. This time for good. It's the big stuff now. So on we rush, him telling me to get the toilet seat as if I'm some kind of a newbie mom. Once the deed is done, hands are elaborately washed, not so very subtle signs are given indicating a bubble bath is preferred, yet again, and I finally sit down to my neglected coffee.
And I swear this child waits for me to sip at the drink before unleashing something else on me! And this time it's, " Siddharth eat. AAH!" followed by an open mouth and a finger pointing inside in case I haven't cottoned on to the idea that's being conveyed.
And snack time follows.

All this while my coffee seethes, simmers and fizzles out but I drink it anyway because I need caffeine more than oxygen!

But hectic as some parts of life have become- it's been pretty damn good to clean the cobwebs from my head. Thinking again, thinking on things pertaining to more than child care and child rearing, what to make for the lunch and dinner. I still do all that but earlier I'd got hemmed in by these things and wasn't able to stretch my mental muscles. That process has now started. And boy! are those muscles tired.

And it's largely due to the fact that the daycare demon has been conquered. Not that daycare is preferred by MLM but he's not fighting it the way he used to earlier. He's marked his territory there I guess :) and the morning rush leaves me a bit winded but I get enough time to unwind in the afternoon and all through dinner leading up to bedtime. That I'm a total, complete zombie if I don't conk off by 10:30 and once I sleep I need a hydrogen bomb exploding to get me to ask, "huh..whahappan, is everything okkk...zzzzz".

Red usually laughs about these things the next morning, that is until I try to shoo him into leaving the paper behind and going for his bath, not to leave the house without eating anything and not leaving the wet towel on the bed!

Such is our life. But it's a nice little life and we're all surviving. So far.
AMEN.

New Beginnings....

After three years of tending to home, hearth, hubby and child (darn! the alliteration ended with hubby) I've got back to work. YAY! Open champagne bottles, get drunk all around? Erm no. This place is quite sanitized from that standpoint.

I work for Gymboree. Red and I took MLM there 2.5 years ago after friends recommended the place. And over a point of time it became the de facto weekend destination for us. MLM learnt about clowns, lap rides, cleaning up his toys after play time and most importantly, about BUBBLES!! To this date it's tough to get him distracted from bubbles whether it's those hawkers at the traffic signals, the bubble bath that he insists upon or just any ol' foamy stuff. That boy's serious about his bubbles!!

But the going's not been easy so far. It hasn't been a Herculean effort either but I realized that for all my whining to Red about having cabin fever, it was very difficult for me to swallow the idea of leaving my child in a daycare at the mercy of perfect strangers! Sounds very melodramatic but there's no dearth of drama in a mother's head anyhow so...

We looked at daycare centers which would not only be at a doable distance but also the kinds where he would feel comfortable. Children are creatures of habits as Red never fails to remind me and once they get used to a particular kind of ambiance, any kind of change in it affects them quite a bit.
And it wasn't just about the hygiene. It was also about the dimensions of the place, how well ventilated it was, how well light and how spacious. I finally found one that satisfied me to some extent and that's saying a lot because somewhere in my head I was waiting for the place to miraculously look like my house and the caretaker to resemble me somewhat so MLM's transition would be smooth.

But it hasn't been smooth. It hasn't been too choppy either but it's been a bit painful on all sides. The first few days he howled. The next few days he simpered and then he clung to me like a limpet when I came to pick him up. There were some territory issues between him and a few other boys (testosterone city!!) who were there before him and had a few years and pounds on him. To add to it, the van driver from his school who drops him at the daycare after school gets over was also melancholic because 'babu roya'.

I was beginning to feel that between my son's somber face, my husband's gloomier than ever countenance and my parents' anxiety over MLM's adjustment, I had no business at all feeling even the slightest bit of satisfaction in getting up in the morning, contemplating on what I was going to wear that day (with ACCESSORIES!!) and heading off to work with the music blasting!

But my employers being pretty damn considerate all things considered, gave me the freedom to work fairly flexible timings and now I leave in the mornings before MLM heads off for school and pick him up from daycare and am back home by a little bit post 2 pm. That's a total of just over 2 hours in daycare on most days of the week. And I have to say at the arrangement is working great! Either because he's also getting acclimatized to the place, or because he's spending lesser time there, our man's been happier in the last few days. I've yet to see him sulk and he's actually taking time to say bye to the kids and the staff there, which in his world means some amount of connections are getting established.

Of course he would still has to be dragged away from his school whereas he's quite free about waving everyone off at daycare as soon as he sees either Red or I have come to pick him up. But today I saw him totally at ease there and it really soothed my anxiety imps. Of course it's a rare (read oddball) child who will leave crayons, papers to scribble upon and just up and leave because his mother's come to pick him up!

Once we're back home he has the added advantage of taking YET another bath (again with bubbles) and takes his time race-walking through the house, touching all his things to reaffirm that they are indeed all there. And by the time the evening dawns we're busy with the newly discovered game of Crennis or Croccer.
Let me explain-

Crennis was discovered in circa 2012 by a bored and yet imaginative child who found that if he used both a cricket bat and a tennis racquet to hit a ball, he'd be able to strike with more force, make more noise and possibly make the ball go further each time if not entirely beat the living daylights out of it!

The game is played with a parent on one side whose primary job is to NEVER get tired of pitching the ball to the offspring or hitting it when the offspring chucks it at them-even if it's actually going towards the fridge or the sofa or another object which is at a tangent from where the parent is actually positioned.

When the child is thrown the ball, the child always has an option of kicking it when they feel like it, bopping it with the tennis racquet or just sweeping it with the cricket bat a la broom-ishtyle.

The game is typically played till the child grows tired. Parents' fatigue is nonexistent anyhow and therefore not in the equation. The points are scored usually in favor of the child (which activity the child has taken up- batting/kicking or pitching) and occasionally parents score when child is feeling magnanimous.

The outcome of the game is to make the parents sweat and feel like they're finally losing weight doing something intensely physical( since the damn gym membership is languishing anyhow) and the child happy, tired and most importantly hungry enough to eat what and as much as the parents think they ought to snarf down at dinner.

Drawbacks to the game are simply this- it can seem to be unending. It's looped till the child says so and the child is the only referee. Bats, racquets are often flung when the parent inadvertently scores or wants to call time out and it has a habit of popping up whenever the parent is least inclined to run and sweat like they've been mining ore.

Speaking of which, it's Crennis time again. I'd better go and set up the equipment if I have any hope of it finishing before Masterchef comes on.

Ye Gods!

Moral Turpitude aka Boo Hoo! I'm Frail!

I've been noticing the scrolling message and  numbers from the Information and Broadcasting (IB) on the bottom of the TV screen whenever any programs are aired. The idea behind it is to understand what viewers find objectionable. Which is a good thought in itself because it acquaints one with the mindset of the viewers and also gives a clear indication into what kind of programs make the cut and which don't but at the end of the day, no matter how many watch dogs one sets up to monitor programs, the ultimate responsibility rests with the viewers themselves.

I was reading this in the TOI Hyderabad Times supplement and it made me think that it's just a futile exercise without any viable resolution in the offing.

The way I see it, people are roughly of two kinds when it comes to temptation:
a) the kinds who look at temptation as a challenge to beat and feel righteous, virtuous and maybe even downright evangelical when that happens.

b) the kind who wish there was no temptation to begin with because it tests them unnecessarily. They would prefer that they not be put to the test to begin with since that will ensure that they don't succumb. Ergo they are the loudest ones in protesting, in making noise about things which could be handled far more smoothly and basically without drawing attention to their own inability to withstand temptation.

Think about a dieter who wants to lose weight and rather than focusing more energies on eating well and abstaining from the stuff that piles on the pounds, they bemoan the existence of donuts and cupcakes to no end!

What I fail to understand is why people are unnecessarily coy about the kind of stuff they watch on TV and possibly get a kick out of? Sunny Leone became a bigger deal in India due to the objections people had against her rather than her actual presence and acting skills. If her being in Bigg Boss is such an eyesore then change the channel...why peek at the television and still raise a ruckus?

Programs which show marital discord, violence against women, violent crimes overall don't HAVE to be shown but they most certainly don't HAVE to be watched either. It's not like an all-day free hardcore porn channel being aired. These segments can always be moved to another time slot wherein the kids are usually safely out of range when they're aired but the responsibility for what a child watches is solely the parents' responsibility.

And given that by the time a child grows up a bit and learns to read the papers more than half the news items will be about violence against women, racism, casteism and basically negative tensions in the world; how will protesting against an enacted version on television help them?

If you can't say no to the donut (substitute "unsavory programs") then be prepared to live with those can either say no or eat it without guilt.

Deliver us from evil is a mantra and mantra alone. If it needs to be effective, we need to do the delivering ourselves rather than waiting for the IB messiahs to intervene.

Amen!

Book Review completed

Yesterday I'd written this but I was able to finish it last night and wanted to write the rest of the review while it's still fresh in my mind and the offspring is otherwise engaged with Chhota Bheem and Krishna :-/

The book is captivating. I still stick by the lack of adakaari and many literary embellishments that many authors draw upon but there's a simplicity in the narrative that just flows right through and yet doesn't take anything away from the potential of the story line.

Of course there are aspects that made me smirk- the italicized thoughts of the characters which really don't sit well with their situation or their way of life but who am I to criticize? with this blog being the loftiest of my "literary achievements" so far. And since we'll never know for sure either ways, it's entirely possible that Shiva could've been the back-slapping guy who was maha into brodom and said "ditto" in response of sensitive sentiments expressed from his fellow man :o)

But am quite agog about the second book- The Secret of the Nagas
 and once I finished with the first installment I made Red place an order for the second one on flipkart asap!!

I hope Amish Tripathi's love with Indian mythology gives rise to more such books because he does have a gift of story telling and our lores are rich with characters waiting for a modern rendition to bring them out from obscurity.

Partial Book Review

I've been reading reviews of Amish Tripathi's 'The Immortals of Meluha' on FB and in the publications and felt a wee bit curious. But not curious enough to let go of my regular fodder of psychological-mystery-police procedural paperbacks.

While travelling back home recently in a train, I found the space constraints making me very fidgety mentally and the iPad being in near-permanent possession of MLM, I had simply nothing to do to pass my time. Along came my savior in the guise a railways book-magazine vendor carrying the knock-offs (or publication-rejects) of various best sellers. Lo and behold! The scarred back and trishul of Shiva caught my eye like never before.

The slightly rhombus-like book is actually very simply written and entirely non-pretentious. It possesses very little flair or pizzazz. But the nearly-bland style of writing is the main USP of this novel methinks. Well that and delving into the Shivpuran and Hindu religious mythology is something that most Indians would stop and look into for a more detailed viewing.

I mainly read British and American crime fiction and my fantasy quota has been nearly filled to the brim courtesy J.K Rowling. But of late the only other (fantasy) author (Indian or otherwise) whose works I really sunk my teeth into was Samit Basu. He has a very engaging, tongue-in-cheek, witty style of writing as well as a very fluid prose.

Amish Tripathi's prose is just that- it's a prose. It has very little 'adaakari' to it but at the same time it's engaging enough for my curiosity to pique and wonder what happens in the next page. And while I am hardly a very discerning reading, the sheer popularity of his trilogy bears testimony to his writing skills.

Except an addendum to this post via a new one once the book is finished.

cheers!

Choo-choo!!

I was tempted to make this an entirely pictorial post but I wanted to write about the things I couldn't capture while the train sped by.

We took a short trip to Bombay recently and were imminently fortunate to traverse the best part of the journey during the day. To say that it was scenic would be a gross over-simplification.

It WAS scenic. But it was scenic because it was verdant, it was fresh, it was sparkling and it was pristine as far as the eyes could see.

And the eyes saw this-

I was a happy shutterbug that day. Although Red told me to take more pictures with my mind rather than with the lens but it was inevitable. You see green below, blue-grey above and clotted cream-like poofy clouds in the sky and you must go into crazy paparazzi mode!

Here's to more train journeys across India in the months to come.