Monthly Archives: April 2008

April 28, 2008 · 9:19 am

The bottle needs to go..

It’s happened again. She’s got a runny stomach and the pediatrician is livid. She needs to get off the bottle!

I am trying but I can’t do it alone. My husband does not want to hold his ground, or let me hold mine, when my daughter throws a tantrum about the bottle. If one parent gives in, it’s not going to happen, because kids latch on to what suits them and in this case, she pleads to her father and gets away with it!

How do I deal with that? He does not like her to cry, it upsets him. Well, it upsets me too and I understand that it’s not easy to let a child cry, especially when you’ve had a long day at work. But, I have a long day too, so what if it’s not at work. I am at home and do everything hands on for my daughter, even though I have loads of help, so at the end of the day, after I’ve battled with all the things she does not like to do, but has to – brushing her teeth and combing her hair being tow of them – I am tired. There’s only so much you can sing and dance to make games out of things so that she complies happily!

And now she has a bad stomach, so there’ll be fighting over medicines that I have to give her through the day.

Sigh.

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April 18, 2008 · 11:30 am

What do you teach your kids?

I was in the park the other day with my two year old daughter and she was running around playing with her ball, kicking it with a lot of gusto, something that delighted my mother’s heart since I’d like her to be an outdoor girl and I hugely discourage playing with barbies or any such disturbing habits!

Anyway, it was a nice evening, till a little toddler came and snatched her ball and almost punched her in the face. She recoiled and gave up her prized possession and ran to me. I asked her why she had allowed someone so much younger to bully her. She looked up at me, blinked and said :” Mama I was sharing”

I was dumbfounded. It’s something I’d been teaching her – to share and be nice and all that “values” stuff we like to teach our children. But at that moment I wondered if I was making her too soft. Not that I want to teach her to bully, but by telling her that she should always be nice to people, esp to kids, had I made her an easy target for other kids?

I am not sure how I feel. I mean, I certainly do not want her to be scared of kids and run away from situations, but neither do I want her to be aggressive just because the world around her is. So, I told her that it’s nice to share, but when someone snatches or tries to hurt her, she should not allow it and push if need be. But I am not sure she understood.

It made me think. What should one teach one’s children? If I bring her up to be honest, upright and caring – the values my parents taught us – will that lead to her being disillusioned later in life? It’s possible that I may be making too much of one small incident, but it was something that led me to think about parenting issues and the warped, violent world that our children are going to grow up in.

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April 11, 2008 · 9:54 am

The right playschool..

It’s only playschool, for God’s sake, and I am deliberating over it like some would over grad school (so God help me when that happens, but, I may well be insane by then, so it won’t matter!) Anyway, back to the point and to the present, I have been scouting play schools for my two year old and I have not found one that I would jump at. It’s possible, I admit, that I may be looking for too much..

What I wanted was a place that was not like a “school” per say, with classrooms and the rest of it, but a warm environment that the kid would take to. They all have the regular wooden toys, bright walls, brain stimulating games and all that great stuff,  but I feel that they – and by they I mean the better ones where the staff can speak well, at least – all sort of merge into one another, doing everything by the book but lacking in imagination. It’s all good and fun etc etc, but it’s almost like they all went to the same how-to-run-a- playgroup school. And, let me add, that there’s nothing wrong with that. After all, different does not necessarily mean better.

But still, I would have liked to go a place that seemed not to care that much about how they would appear  and cared more about each child and how to interact with them. Putting a child in a room full of posters, paint and toys is fun, but not so much if they do it five days a week!

Also, most people today think nothing of making a one time payment of some 25,000 rupees ($600 odd) (and there are those that are well higher than this) – not counting transport, food, etc etc..and then quarterly payments as well, and all this for a two year old??

Am I insane to think this is a bit much, or has the world finally lost it?

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April 9, 2008 · 10:30 am

All this anger and no where to go..

It’s bad for me to feel this angry, and anger may not even be the right word, it’s more restlessness but I am experiencing it in its extreme form right now. My life seems to be going nowhere, on any front. OK, my delightful daughter is God’s blessing and I am happy about that, but now that she’s two and I’ve spent so much time at home, I am wondering if it’ll just be this way. Will my life melt away as I do one domestic chore or the other?

Professionally its been slow for me, so I thought I’d have another child and get it over with, and that’s not happening, so I am stuck and I feel a lot of angst. The worst is that no one seems to care. My mom in law tells me that I should think about staying at home and being with the toddler because she needs me (while she tells he r own daughter, whose daughter is as old as mine, to never even dream about giving up work!)

Part of the fault is mine, because I’ve sunk into this domestic, complacent life and I need to snap out of it. But what’s upsetting is that no one seems to understand my restlessness, not even those who know me – the fact that I went from living in a foreign country, earning my own living and being very independent to living with my mom-in-law back home, looking after a child and not working, seems to be ok..

All I need is for someone to ask me why I am feeling this way, why, even after all the comforts in the world, I am so anxious and irate. There is a reason, right or wrong, it is what it is and I need someone to simply understand.

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April 7, 2008 · 7:35 pm

Need to see the gynie..

I’ve decided to make a trip to my gynie, much as I’ve been avoiding it, I think I should do it, because I want another child soon and need to find out if all is well. She’s going to scold me, I know, because she had told me after my daughter was born that I should not wait too long and that I should not come asking her what was wrong if I left it too late!

Agh. Anyway, I’ll tell her about all the mommyrage stuff.

Only recently have I regained some sanity, so here I am all ready to lose it again and I am excited about it, don’t ask me why I just am. Maybe because I have not much else to look forward to, so that’s why..that sounds sadder that it is!!

I know life is not that simple, but I want to know, one way or another, what I am going to be doing this year – sitting at home getting bigger, or making my way back to work – and stupidly I am looking at the answer she gives me to help me make a decision.

Silly eh?

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April 1, 2008 · 2:41 pm

All I want is another one..

For the longest time I’ve wondered if I wanted another child, and, after much deliberation, I decided I did. I know there’s all this mommyrage stuff and the obvious thing to ask is, will it push me over the edge??

I thought about it – and came to some interesting conclusions. The main one was that I am standing, and here’s where it gets tricky, quite far from the edge, so, another baby will push me closer to the edge, but not over it (some analysis hah? what can I say, it comes with being a woman who thinks a lot!!)

Now, I know there are those of you reading this saying “mmm, don’t be so sure sister”, and frankly I would have had the same reaction if I’d read this on some other blog, but, you know it’s a bit like watching a speeding car – you are not in control so you wonder if the driver will know when to apply the brakes, but the driver knows what she/he is doing. So, I am, kind of, the driver and I like to think I know what I am doing!

The trouble, however, is that I am not getting pregnant – and it is worrying me. I plan to go see my gynie soon, because I want to start the process now and ideally have the baby by the time my two-year old is three..but each month I get disappointed and crabby. I am on the wrong side of thirty and have little time..

And it’s like a chain reaction: not having baby=biological clock ticking(not crazy about the phrase but it’s relevant)=stress=pressure on them poor eggs who can’t take the stress=more crabbiness=taking out on unsuspecting husband (who does not know how much time I spend thinking)=crabby husband…and it goes on and on, and, this is the TIP of the iceberg. I am not even getting into all the will-anyone-ever-give-me-a-job stuff.

I think I need a cup of coffee. What the heck, at least I can enjoy the coffee since no baby’s on the way yet!

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