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.
Showing posts with label life. Show all posts
Showing posts with label life. Show all posts
06 October, 2012
03 August, 2012
3 going on 30
That's right! Monkeyboy's about to turn 3. That I've grown 3 strands of grey hairs in my own odd mommy- tally system is just another freakish coincident. Or so I try to tell myself again and again.
The little man in question has blossomed from the time he made his grand entry into this mixed up world of ours. Red and I took baby steps ( pun most definitely intended!) into parenting and I for one found that there were aspects of it I wasn't prepared for. It's not merely the kissing-your-sleep-goodbye...actually being a zombie isn't so bad after a while. You find yourself staying up at nights looking at your husband and exchanging looks of utter relief that the monster...darling offspring is finally snoozing in the land of diapers and baby powder and that's a whole different kind of bonding altogether.
It's about knowing the way ahead most of the times, if not all the while. Routines are easy to fall into and easy to follow. The hitches come when the routines go awry (by no fault of yours most of the times) but it's knowing the right time to expose the children to new things, concepts, helping them form habits and also trying to teach them boundaries.
The last bit's got me so all over the place that half the times I just want to lie back and say, "do what you want, you will anyhow...I'll just catch up on my pimply sleep while you wreck the house for the 5th time since morning."
But kids are usually creatures of habits and it takes a lot for them to break one and take up another. And while you try various aspects of conditioning on them the idea of a Skinner's Box takes root in your head where the image of your kid safely ensconced somewhere while you go about your own thing for a change, gives you moments of amused pleasure and you think, "what if" before realizing that you'd be inviting the wrath of the spouse, parents, in-laws and pretty much the neighborhood onto your rapidly-greying head by doing such a thing. However empirical and scientific and helpful in your cognitions.
But what I'm still learning 3 years down the line is that your kids teach you (BY FORCE GODAMMIT!!) about being a better person, a bigger person and also about keeping up appearances among other things. They teach you perseverance, patience; up your endurance, snatch your sleep, relegate you to track pants, bushy eyebrows, oily skin, turn your diet upside down, make the gym a distant dream, make you long for Mary Poppins, the days when you were single or newly married...oops...I think I meandered into another list I had in my head.
Ahem, ahem...back to the scheduled post- my child has taught me forgiveness. No matter how mad you get with them, no matter how many times you put them in the naughty corner, spank their bottoms, take away privileges, let them roll around on the cold floor crying their eyes out- they still love the heck out of you.
They still kiss you goodnight, they let you kiss them bye before they go off to school, they jump off the school van just by seeing a glimpse of your face and the moment there was boo-boos to be kissed they come and search you out in a room full of people because only you can get the job done.
My son, may he not turn out like me in temperament- is a doll. I don't like him all the time but I love him from the top of his head down to his toes (which are usually covered with his doodles). He invokes my creativity (even if it's to get him to get him out of my hair), he makes me laugh when we twirl around the room to jhinkchak songs and he makes me smile at the end of the day no matter how tough it's been throughout just because he sleeps with his mouth open and his lashes almost touching his cheeks.
All in all- toughest job I've ever held down (and I've been exposed to the criminally insane and the plain-vanilla variety of loonies) and I can't think of anything that I'd rather be doing.
Psst!! actually I have a whole big list of other things I could be doing but that's another blog. This is meant to be a feel-good-I-love-my-kid blog post. For a change.
Amen.
The little man in question has blossomed from the time he made his grand entry into this mixed up world of ours. Red and I took baby steps ( pun most definitely intended!) into parenting and I for one found that there were aspects of it I wasn't prepared for. It's not merely the kissing-your-sleep-goodbye...actually being a zombie isn't so bad after a while. You find yourself staying up at nights looking at your husband and exchanging looks of utter relief that the monster...darling offspring is finally snoozing in the land of diapers and baby powder and that's a whole different kind of bonding altogether.
It's about knowing the way ahead most of the times, if not all the while. Routines are easy to fall into and easy to follow. The hitches come when the routines go awry (by no fault of yours most of the times) but it's knowing the right time to expose the children to new things, concepts, helping them form habits and also trying to teach them boundaries.
The last bit's got me so all over the place that half the times I just want to lie back and say, "do what you want, you will anyhow...I'll just catch up on my pimply sleep while you wreck the house for the 5th time since morning."
But kids are usually creatures of habits and it takes a lot for them to break one and take up another. And while you try various aspects of conditioning on them the idea of a Skinner's Box takes root in your head where the image of your kid safely ensconced somewhere while you go about your own thing for a change, gives you moments of amused pleasure and you think, "what if" before realizing that you'd be inviting the wrath of the spouse, parents, in-laws and pretty much the neighborhood onto your rapidly-greying head by doing such a thing. However empirical and scientific and helpful in your cognitions.
But what I'm still learning 3 years down the line is that your kids teach you (BY FORCE GODAMMIT!!) about being a better person, a bigger person and also about keeping up appearances among other things. They teach you perseverance, patience; up your endurance, snatch your sleep, relegate you to track pants, bushy eyebrows, oily skin, turn your diet upside down, make the gym a distant dream, make you long for Mary Poppins, the days when you were single or newly married...oops...I think I meandered into another list I had in my head.
Ahem, ahem...back to the scheduled post- my child has taught me forgiveness. No matter how mad you get with them, no matter how many times you put them in the naughty corner, spank their bottoms, take away privileges, let them roll around on the cold floor crying their eyes out- they still love the heck out of you.
They still kiss you goodnight, they let you kiss them bye before they go off to school, they jump off the school van just by seeing a glimpse of your face and the moment there was boo-boos to be kissed they come and search you out in a room full of people because only you can get the job done.
My son, may he not turn out like me in temperament- is a doll. I don't like him all the time but I love him from the top of his head down to his toes (which are usually covered with his doodles). He invokes my creativity (even if it's to get him to get him out of my hair), he makes me laugh when we twirl around the room to jhinkchak songs and he makes me smile at the end of the day no matter how tough it's been throughout just because he sleeps with his mouth open and his lashes almost touching his cheeks.
All in all- toughest job I've ever held down (and I've been exposed to the criminally insane and the plain-vanilla variety of loonies) and I can't think of anything that I'd rather be doing.
Psst!! actually I have a whole big list of other things I could be doing but that's another blog. This is meant to be a feel-good-I-love-my-kid blog post. For a change.
Amen.
10 March, 2012
Can't Say No To Comics!
To the funnies that is.
It can't be easy to squeeze out the essence of your funny bone onto a small strip that appears in a fairly smallish size and print in newspapers for people to devour, while they get their daily fix of the printed word.
Whatever else I do go through in the paper, I never miss the comics. It can end up making a difference in a day where otherwise smiles may be hard to come by.
For me, the characters represent a lot of familiarity, fun, memories and of course, the levity's a given. Not that each strip is a rip roaring laugh-inducer. But it does bring with it a host of characters that one can probably associate a lot of other instances in their lives with.
I was in India for the first eight years of my life and was in abroad for the next 4 years after that. And many things in the comics (all the foreign ones are syndicated throughout the world) remind me of my first exposure to aspects which were baffling or alien earlier.
In the late eighties in India, in most cities, a different cuisine would by default be Chinese food. I didn't even know there were different provinces in China, which also influenced the taste of their food. Same as in any country, but when you're 8, life's kind of blinkered with a kid's preoccupation. I remember going for a Mexican food festival with a friend of my father's in Delhi long back. The food was unfamiliar, now I can't recollect if it was cooked in a typical Mexican fashion either; but all I could remember was that I was wishing for noodles. They were and still are the ultimate comfort food.
To get back to the comics- I got introduced to Garfield soon after we landed in US. Whether through the newspapers or the cartoons on t.v but his obsession with sleeping, droll manner and teasing Odie sure appealed to a F.O.T.B (fresh off the boat) Indian kid. The only thing I didn't get was the lasagna (a word which isn't pronounced anywhere near what it reads like!). Once I joined school and actually had a lasagna for lunch I could put an image to Garfield's obsession. And over time my mother made enough of homemade lasagnas to make me appreciate it and drool over it much like Garfield. Although I still can't eat an entire panful like he does :-)
Snoopy or rather Woodstock was well known. But their gang wasn't. When I was a tot, a colleague of my father had come home and brought a wind up Woodstock for me. I don't know when I wound it too tight till the spring snapped and Woodstock stopped hopping about, but he remained a fixture in our home for decades and was unfailingly packed despite all the stuff we discarded during all our transfers to various places.
I went to school I found Peanuts books everywhere! Peanuts had their own Halloween and Christmas special on t.v as well and the characters often were used to endorse good habits children should embody, in various scholastic campaigns et al.
So Charlie Brown's good grief, Lucy's counselling for a nickel and Linus' blanket all became a part of my life. So much so, that when I first started taking piano lessons, I thought of Schroeder. He was the only person I knew of who did the same.
Over the years more comics have got added to my list- Hagar the Horrible (who I still associate with the awful root beer that the character used to advertise on tv), Beau Peep (the mad cook Egon who's indefatigable and is a lovable slovenly slob and whose creativity I crave in the kitchen!!), Dennis the Menace (like whom my son gets timeouts where he has to face the wall) and many more.
I remember the boys in my class passing around their Marvel Comics and I asked for one and was given the Wolverine issue. Love it to this day! Hugh Jackman just made him even more flesh and blood over time.
The thing with growing up with a particular thing; in this case a comic strip is far more meaningful than just the familiarity aspect. I can chart out my life and many milestones once I think back on the entry of comics in my life. And now with the entry of Noddy and Oswald I have new memories with MLM and in time I'll introduce him to a food-loving fat cat, a baseball playing gang which never wins, a Viking who hates housework and a school going boy with a fantastic image of himself (which only he's privy too) and have him go down this road too.
But till then, it's the funny papers and a cuppa joe for me.
It can't be easy to squeeze out the essence of your funny bone onto a small strip that appears in a fairly smallish size and print in newspapers for people to devour, while they get their daily fix of the printed word.
Whatever else I do go through in the paper, I never miss the comics. It can end up making a difference in a day where otherwise smiles may be hard to come by.
For me, the characters represent a lot of familiarity, fun, memories and of course, the levity's a given. Not that each strip is a rip roaring laugh-inducer. But it does bring with it a host of characters that one can probably associate a lot of other instances in their lives with.
I was in India for the first eight years of my life and was in abroad for the next 4 years after that. And many things in the comics (all the foreign ones are syndicated throughout the world) remind me of my first exposure to aspects which were baffling or alien earlier.
In the late eighties in India, in most cities, a different cuisine would by default be Chinese food. I didn't even know there were different provinces in China, which also influenced the taste of their food. Same as in any country, but when you're 8, life's kind of blinkered with a kid's preoccupation. I remember going for a Mexican food festival with a friend of my father's in Delhi long back. The food was unfamiliar, now I can't recollect if it was cooked in a typical Mexican fashion either; but all I could remember was that I was wishing for noodles. They were and still are the ultimate comfort food.
To get back to the comics- I got introduced to Garfield soon after we landed in US. Whether through the newspapers or the cartoons on t.v but his obsession with sleeping, droll manner and teasing Odie sure appealed to a F.O.T.B (fresh off the boat) Indian kid. The only thing I didn't get was the lasagna (a word which isn't pronounced anywhere near what it reads like!). Once I joined school and actually had a lasagna for lunch I could put an image to Garfield's obsession. And over time my mother made enough of homemade lasagnas to make me appreciate it and drool over it much like Garfield. Although I still can't eat an entire panful like he does :-)
Snoopy or rather Woodstock was well known. But their gang wasn't. When I was a tot, a colleague of my father had come home and brought a wind up Woodstock for me. I don't know when I wound it too tight till the spring snapped and Woodstock stopped hopping about, but he remained a fixture in our home for decades and was unfailingly packed despite all the stuff we discarded during all our transfers to various places.
I went to school I found Peanuts books everywhere! Peanuts had their own Halloween and Christmas special on t.v as well and the characters often were used to endorse good habits children should embody, in various scholastic campaigns et al.
So Charlie Brown's good grief, Lucy's counselling for a nickel and Linus' blanket all became a part of my life. So much so, that when I first started taking piano lessons, I thought of Schroeder. He was the only person I knew of who did the same.
Over the years more comics have got added to my list- Hagar the Horrible (who I still associate with the awful root beer that the character used to advertise on tv), Beau Peep (the mad cook Egon who's indefatigable and is a lovable slovenly slob and whose creativity I crave in the kitchen!!), Dennis the Menace (like whom my son gets timeouts where he has to face the wall) and many more.
I remember the boys in my class passing around their Marvel Comics and I asked for one and was given the Wolverine issue. Love it to this day! Hugh Jackman just made him even more flesh and blood over time.
The thing with growing up with a particular thing; in this case a comic strip is far more meaningful than just the familiarity aspect. I can chart out my life and many milestones once I think back on the entry of comics in my life. And now with the entry of Noddy and Oswald I have new memories with MLM and in time I'll introduce him to a food-loving fat cat, a baseball playing gang which never wins, a Viking who hates housework and a school going boy with a fantastic image of himself (which only he's privy too) and have him go down this road too.
But till then, it's the funny papers and a cuppa joe for me.
06 August, 2011
Of advice and applicability...
A slight variation on the chorus of the song by T.A.T.U-
"All the things they said (2x)
Running through my head (3x)
This is not enough..."
Ain't that the bleepin' truth!!
Get an education they said- mandated actually. I don't know when was the last time I used fractions- mixed or otherwise. The main help of being "educated" is that I can read books and express myself via written words; electronic and otherwise.
Go see the world they said- and took me to certain parts. But Monaco, Paris at 12 years is a con job. You can do BUPKISS! And not much more.Later on when you travel in your 20s, it's a much better experience although you end up doing half the number of places as compared to your first trip.
Have some coffee they said- and you did. And got hooked to the extent that while it no longer acts as a stimulant, you still can't do without it. You turn into this from this unless you have caffeine pumped into you at regular intervals.
Study a subject like Psychology they said- after I brought it up in the first place. What happened? I ended up understanding people even lesser than before. Unless they had disorders which were beautifully explained in the DSM or ICD...everyday people were quite a trial from time to time. I imagine I am too.
Get a job they said- and so you applied. It changed very quickly from a novelty and came out with it's hidden fangs and claws. It paid for the booboos it gave you but it still...
Get married they said. Oh boy..it started out as only fun and then routine set in. Lots of things came to the rescue but nothing quite binds like marriage.It nurtures, savors, aggravates, empowers and what you have left with at the end of the day is a realization that you will never have the bed ALL to yourself again.
Have a child they said- and you did. And then you wondered from time to time...is that demonic creature screaming with contorted features really me? Is that person making goofy faces and cleaning up Gods-knows-what from God-knows-where still me? Is that imp in human clothes with red cheeks running towards me with actual joy?
Sit back and relax they said at the end- and so you did. With a cup of coffee, the blog post taking shape steadily and making you look around and think- Yes..this IS my life. Those ARE my people. And I do LOVE them, quirks and all. Not because they reciprocate but because they made me to become the multifaceted person I am with my chipped halo that I've been trying to hold onto since I turned 10 and the horns which never seem to be hidden too well.
All in all...not a bad situation to be in but only if you have some good music and munchies for the rest of the voyage.
"All the things they said (2x)
Running through my head (3x)
This is not enough..."
Ain't that the bleepin' truth!!
Get an education they said- mandated actually. I don't know when was the last time I used fractions- mixed or otherwise. The main help of being "educated" is that I can read books and express myself via written words; electronic and otherwise.
Go see the world they said- and took me to certain parts. But Monaco, Paris at 12 years is a con job. You can do BUPKISS! And not much more.Later on when you travel in your 20s, it's a much better experience although you end up doing half the number of places as compared to your first trip.
Have some coffee they said- and you did. And got hooked to the extent that while it no longer acts as a stimulant, you still can't do without it. You turn into this from this unless you have caffeine pumped into you at regular intervals.
Study a subject like Psychology they said- after I brought it up in the first place. What happened? I ended up understanding people even lesser than before. Unless they had disorders which were beautifully explained in the DSM or ICD...everyday people were quite a trial from time to time. I imagine I am too.
Get a job they said- and so you applied. It changed very quickly from a novelty and came out with it's hidden fangs and claws. It paid for the booboos it gave you but it still...
Get married they said. Oh boy..it started out as only fun and then routine set in. Lots of things came to the rescue but nothing quite binds like marriage.It nurtures, savors, aggravates, empowers and what you have left with at the end of the day is a realization that you will never have the bed ALL to yourself again.
Have a child they said- and you did. And then you wondered from time to time...is that demonic creature screaming with contorted features really me? Is that person making goofy faces and cleaning up Gods-knows-what from God-knows-where still me? Is that imp in human clothes with red cheeks running towards me with actual joy?
Sit back and relax they said at the end- and so you did. With a cup of coffee, the blog post taking shape steadily and making you look around and think- Yes..this IS my life. Those ARE my people. And I do LOVE them, quirks and all. Not because they reciprocate but because they made me to become the multifaceted person I am with my chipped halo that I've been trying to hold onto since I turned 10 and the horns which never seem to be hidden too well.
All in all...not a bad situation to be in but only if you have some good music and munchies for the rest of the voyage.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)