April 10, 2012 · 7:37 am

The Twins Have Started School

The twins have started school and I have mixed feelings about it (they don’t, by the way, they hate it).

I am relieved that they are now out of the house for a few hours, but, I miss them terribly. I am so used to waking up to their combined chatter, non-stop from the time they wake up, to the time they can’t fight sleep anymore and flop down in the night, that now the mornings seem empty and quiet.

Also, I have a confession to make. I cannot take their crying and yelling, as the teachers take them away from me at the school gate. I can hear them (the younger twin especially) pleading for me, and I cave. Yes, I cry. I feel silly, of course, but that does not stop the tears – they keep rolling down and I find it hard to swallow that lump in my throat (it’s coming back now with the memory of that parting)

I dread the mornings, when I have to drop them to school; when I try and create an artificially lively environment in the car by singing and talking about some irrelevant topic as a distraction method. I put on nursery rhymes and ask them to sing along. Needless to say, my completely transparent efforts are met with stoic silence from my otherwise chirpy twins. They look at me with sad eyes and declare that they don’t like school. It makes me want to turn back and take them home. Clearly, my nerves are not exactly made of steel, to put it mildly.

I called my mum when I was at school the other day. She understood, of course, but then she asked me how I’d feel when they’d grow up and go away. I could not imagine it. I don’t like to think of myself as a clingy mother, and I always thought I’d have the strength to let my children go, but now I am having serious doubts on any such abilities I thought I may have had. (God bless my kids!)

These years will pass I know. They’ll pass too soon says my mother, I guess from experience. If she could, she would summon Well’s Time Traveller and go back in time, to when we were little. She does not understand why I want to do just the reverse, to get propelled into the future! I see her point now, though. I cannot imagine how it will be to be old; to see my kids only once in a while; to call them and be told that they were busy- that they would call me back. In theory I know that’s how it will be, but when we are actually there, it’s not like all this reflection would help the reality.

Anyway, I digress. Didn’t mean to write all this. I meant to just pour out some feelings about my “separation anxiety” in child psychology parlance (except that in my case both the kids and the mother suffer from it!!)

I know they’ll settle and I can start to make use of my time. It’s a milestone and I am not sure how I feel about it. When I picked them up from school today, the younger one said “mama, I like home”..

6 Comments

Filed under mommyrage

Tagged as , , , , , , , ,

April 9, 2012 · 11:50 am

Am crabby. Again.

We’ve just returned from a holiday in the hills. It was glorious.

But, what could be more depressing than coming back from a holiday and jumping right into reality?

My mom called. Her hello was enough to make me sit down, I took a deep breath and I knew she had something to say and I also knew it was about my father. He’s had a minor surgery for some “growth” which has been sent for a biopsy. She took him for a routine prostrate check up and they admitted him right away to take the stuff out. She was not even sure if they’d given him a general anesthesia or a local one. I think it’s disgusting how doctors take some special pride in keeping the truth about patients to themselves and treating the caretakers as irritants asking irrelevant questions. While I understand that the constant pestering can test anyone’s patience, they should be a little more considerate and at least give out some information. Here my mom was waiting outside the room, unaware of what “procedure” was going on.

Now my mom is not someone who loses her nerve quickly, but, today she sounded tense. That’s got me so upset. I feel helpless sitting so far away, listing to her say that she would be able to drive him home without a problem. I know that she’s worried. And, at 76, this is not something she should be doing – driving her 80 year old husband home after the surgery (the driver was absconding, again)

I can’t do much, except call. I wish, well, I wish for so much that I won’t even start.

My husband says that the reason why life kind if “hits” you when you turn forty is that you feel the stress from all fronts – your children are young and your parents old, and they both need you. The road ahead looks long, and all your fears begin with – what if?

Today, I am going to try and not think about any what ifs? it’s not going to lead to anywhere good..

3 Comments

Filed under mommyrage

Tagged as , , , , ,

March 20, 2012 · 2:38 pm

Work From Home. Really? How Do You Do That?

I’ve been trying to work from home. It’s a tiny little step, but am trying to take one step at a time and it’s hard. It’s hard not because I am not disciplined enough to do it (OK, that too, but that I can work on) It’s the disciplining of the people around me that’s tough to do. The trouble is that everyone is so used to coming to me with the little problems that I cannot have a moment of peace when I can sit and write (yes, have taken up some writing work). So, a lot of my time is spent in telling everyone to let me be when I am at my desk. And, it’s not the kids alone who need to be told this.

Before I launch into the angst and the rest of it, I feel almost obliged to say something. Which is this: I know I am fortunate to be in a position where I could choose to be at home with the kids. A LOT of women don’t have that option. As a fellow mommy blogger recently pointed out that I didn’t have to leave the kids at home and go to work, something she had to do and hated doing. For all my angst about staying at home, at the end of the day I did it because I wanted to and because I could.

But, having said this, what I will add is that maybe I would’ve gone back to work earlier, if I had a support structure to depend upon, where I could leave the kids and work without worry (not without guilt though, THAT never goes away) . But I didn’t and I decided to become a SAHM (have given in to that word/abbreviation).

So, now that the girls are a little older and there is some semblance of sanity, I have decided to work, a little.

Let me tell you what today was like. The morning started with the pipe of the wash-basin in my bathroom breaking. So I called the plumber, he was busy, his wife’s new-born niece had just got jaundice, so he was at the hospital. I could hardly press him to hurry. As I was talking to him, my maid, unaware of the broken pipe opened the tap. The next twenty minutes were spent mopping the floor. I didn’t have to do it, but had to make sure the kids didn’t go rushing into the bathroom to inspect damages, something they LOVE to do.

After avoiding slipping and breaking a leg, when I was settling into my chair to pound away at my keyboard, the electrician called. There seems to be some grave wiring issue that needs to be looked into urgently. He asked what would be a good time to visit. I gave him a time. Eight hours later, he’s still to show up.

The plumber called as I was ending the call with the electrician. He had decided to resume work in the afternoon. Great I said. But, he would need money for the pipe, so would come in a while to collect that (he asked me if I could get it, which, of course, was not my idea of shopping. Besides I had work to do) So, knowing well that he was going to charge me more than he payed for it, I told him to get it.

OK, I said. Now let’s do some writing. My cook then decided to ask me some irrelevant question about food. I told him to decide, only to have him give me options to pick from. I turned from my desk and reminded him what I’d told him a few days ago when he’d disturbed me while working. “That I should come to you only if the house was on fire” he nodded merrily. I asked him if the house was on fire. He shook his head and informed me that the real reason why he came to me was because there was no oil in the house for cooking.

Now, this seemingly innocuous declaration sent me into a tizzy. I lost it. I know it was an overreaction. Anyway, long story short, I gave him the money and gulped a glass of cold water and sat down to work. This is when the kids decided to invade the room. There had been a fight, of course, and it was impossible for me to decide who did what and when. All three looked upset and had a side of the story to tell. Sigh. I took a deep breath, and tired to solve it, which, needless to say, was impossible. The twins were not in a re conciliatory mood, to say the least. The older one, who has just turned six and reacts to most situations with a sulk, just walked away telling me that I was not being fair (why do schools have spring break, again?)

After the matter was amicably settled, with a bit of television thrown in, I returned to my desk. I’d lost my thread. I stared at my computer blankly. Nothing. So I got up, had a bath and returned to write. Just then the bell rang. The plumber had arrived.

There’s more to this story. But you get the drift. I turned Skype off, didn’t want my editor asking me how much I’d written. He didn’t want to know..

Ah, well. At least I’ll make history for having had the shortest job ever.

8 Comments

Filed under mommyrage

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , ,

February 28, 2012 · 6:53 am

The Big 4.

I am now 40. Yes, it’s happened. It’s not a big deal, I know, except, that it sort of is.

What I mean is, that even though I don’t think it changes much, but, just by the fact that you enter another decade (and that everyone around you does not let you forget that one minor point!!), you are forced to retrospect. Which, of course, I love to do. Give me half a chance to reflect upon my life and my mind kicks into over drive. So, turning forty was hardly going to pass by without a bit of what-am-I-doing-with-my-life kind of thoughts flooding my brain.

I told myself, though, that I was not going to be hard on myself. I will think about the future with a degree of objectiveness, as much as possible. I liked what I thought. I have a lot of angst about not working right now, since I had kids late in life (older one was born when I was 34 and twins when I was 38), but, if you ask me, I would not have done it any other way. This is not to say that I do not see the merits of having kids young, there is a HUGE advantage to that. Some of my friends’ kids are teenagers and they are relatively free to carry on with their own lives, while mine are starting school! But, the big but, is that if I had to turn back the clock I would probably do exactly what I did. I lived up my twenties (which is why at forty I see little excitement in having a drink-till-dawn-dance-to-chamak-chalo party) While I was doing, what I think callow twenties are meant for – living it up, completely- some of my friends were changing diapers. Thirties were domestic, as I stepped on the accelerator big time and got married, had kids and all that.

Forties, now, will be different. While my kids are not going to grow up overnight, it will get better. I already find that I have more time. Also, I feel that I am forced to stay young – if you have three little kids you better stay in shape, both medically and mentally. So I spend my days trying to do a bit of work (have started my own web content consulting, a tiny tiny step) and alternating between playing jingle bells and Lady Antebellum on youtube for the kids (sometimes I manage to get “my song” in and play Lay Down Sally and we all jive to it). It’s a glorious time. And I wish I could silence that voice in my head and enjoy it fully. I can’t, no matter how hard I try. I have this nagging voice that says do-something-now, life’s slipping by and all that scary stuff.

So, I’ve embraced fortydom as I always thought I would – positive realism mixed with some trepidation. I like my life, and this may not be apparent to people around me (that angst tends to soar its ugly head). But I am, and maybe I keep saying it because I want to freeze these moments in a way, to enjoy the childhood of my kids and not worry too much about the future – it will get sorted out, in time. I hope.

And then there are resolutions:

I will:

Spend more quality time with the love of my life, my husband, my best friend.
Get Back to work
Listen to more music
Kiss my kids more
Not yell
Be patient with my parents
Visit them more often
Get my hair straightened
Dress better
Organize my papers
De-clutter my drawers
Learn to bake
Bake
Lose weight (how can that not be on the list?)
Do regular health check-ups
Read more
Write that book.

Here’s to the next decade. 40s, I embrace you.

7 Comments

Filed under mommyrage

Tagged as , , , , , , ,

December 6, 2011 · 3:07 pm

The Weight Loss

We all know it’s hard. So, that I am not going to say.

What I will say is that what’s harder than losing weight, is keeping it off.

The weird thing is, and I am not sure if this is true of other women too, but it is for me, that once I am past that one week where I’ve been to the gym and eaten right, I seem to be on a roll and it gets easy from there. You need to see that initial 500 gram loss on your machine to feel, “gosh this is working, so am not going to slip back this time”. But, you do. Of course, you do. You take a break from the gym and somehow, and this is the really weird part, you even start to eat wrong again. So, it’s a double whammy. No exercise, more food – bam! the inches are back. Aaaggghhhh.

So, what you have to accept, first, before you even start to lose the weight, is that losing weight is like marriage, it needs constant work, you slip a little and the effects start to be visible almost right away.

Earlier this year I told myself that enough was enough, I had to get the lard off. And, I also told myself that nothing comes easy in life, nothing, so stop trying to look for magic and move your ass, literally. I did.

I can tell you, it’s a glorious feeling. You fit back into your old jeans (ok it’s not hanging around your waist like it used to) but you can stuff yourself into them, even that is an amazing feeling. Before long, that too changes; they start to fit better. Then come the compliments. “How did you do this?” asks someone and you feel like you’ve climbed the Everest and start to narrate the ordeals of the gym and eating right.

So far so good. The trouble, however, is to keep this going. That, truly, is the most challenging part. Not impossible, though, far from it. But you need to work on yourself, your mind especially.

For most women this is how it goes:

You put on the inches over the years.
You hide behind loose clothes.
You go on like this for a while. A long while
Your mother tells you to get hold of yourself.
That’s never going to make you do it. You eat more.
Then, one day, something, on its own, snaps.
You wake up with this I-am-going-to-catch-the-bull-by-its-horns feeling. And you do.
Food does not matter the way it did before.
You put yourself on auto-pilot and hit the gym
You loose weight.
People notice and comment.
All goes well, for a while.
Then, you take a break from the daily gym routine. Maybe a holiday.
Routine broken. Domino effect.
You tell yourself – I need a break.
Comfort food again.
Bang, the weight is back.

This has happened with me a few times before, so how am I so sure that this time it’s different. Not sure, actually. Just taking one day at a time and not thinking about the future too much.

I feel good. Am not the size I really want to be yet, but, hopefully, I’ll get there. Am not in a tearing hurry. And that’s the other thing, you can’t, and shouldn’t rush it. Don’t look for magical solutions. It takes time, but you should do this the right way. I am not one for diets, never worked for me and know many friends who got into them, only gain more when they stopped. And you do stop, unless you’re Gandhi.

So, in short, what worked for me was gym four days a week and a little control in eating, meaning, not snacking, staying off the fried goodies, stuff like that.

Weekends, by the way are not for any of this. You gotta have a life! Don’t be too hard on yourself, because if you are, chances are you’ll have a reaction someday and go into reverse gear.

1 Comment

Filed under mommyrage

Tagged as , , , , , , ,

December 5, 2011 · 7:24 pm

A confused mind.

I think it’s mid life (no, not going to say crisis, yet). It must be something to do with mid life, because I am confused, stressed, angry, frustrated, and yet, quite happy with life, in general I mean. It’s possible. Didn’t think these mix of emotions can go together, but, apparently, they can!

I think about getting back to work, or to some sort of work. The twins will start school this spring and my older one will have a full day at school. So, I probably can do something, not a whole lot (what between picking, dropping, tennis, homework and the doctor visits thrown in for good measure) But, I can, if I try hard (and I do want to) have some sort of a work, freelance life.

The trouble is, what do I do? One day I wake up, ready to write that book that I’ve been writing in my head for the last ten years, or longer. My thoughts are lucid and I get a high thinking about it. This usually happens when I’ve had little sleep and returned from the gym, all charged up. By mid-day I run out of steam and my who-am-I-kidding mood drapes itself over me like a wet blanket. By the evening, I’ve given up that plan altogether.

Till, another day arrives with optimism, and I think about a neat business idea that I would love to work on and in my mind it all gets worked out – do-able I feel. I think about all the women who took the off beaten path and then made it somehow, against all odds, et all. Again, I get all excited about it, but, after the initial giddy excitement of having found what I want to do wanes a little, I start to see the holes in my so-called great idea and before long, poof! that’s abandoned too.

This happens over and over again. One day I am all set to go be a teacher at my daughter’s school. The other day I want to write, then I want to start a small business. Gosh. This is mid life, it better to be. Either that, or I am losing it, finally.

Between all these spasms I manage, and don’t ask me how, to actually do some freelance work. Some writing here, some design there, etc etc. A friend wants something done, I oblige; like that.

What I , however, do regularly, and this I am proud of, is go to the gym. Yup, started it earlier this year. Not crazy about it, but I do it and it’s shown results. A good feeling.

More on this in my next post..

2 Comments

Filed under mommyrage

Tagged as , , , , , , , ,

December 1, 2011 · 6:07 pm

Been busy. And still not doing all that I want to do..

Is it me? Is it me who has no (real) answer to the question “what’s up?” or “What’ve you been up to?”. I seem to not have a moment in the day (my sister is livid with me that I don’t answer my phone, ever). And I am not working, yet. And still when I think about what it is I’ve been doing, I have to wonder. I know I am busy with the kids, (the plumber, the electrician, et all) but that’s pretty much it. So how do I answer that question? “Been good, busy, you know with the kids”. I get a nod, mostly a I-hear-ya kind of one. One (almost) six year old and two two year olds. That’s enough to take up my day.

Then, I talk to my mom. Now she had three kids too, and not half the help that I have, and of course she achieved much more than I have! Humph. She still works. And I spend my day in pajamas (ok, tracks) running after the kids. Double humph.

I am not organized enough, I don’t manage my time well, it seems (mother says). True, maybe, but does one like to hear that? Not really. So I tell my mum, come help me with my kids and I’ll get back to work, be the super mom et all. Right, she says.

So my point is, how will I ever have the time to do all that I think I will – I mean I do believe that one day I will work, that I’ll organize all the photographs that’ve ever been clicked and put them chronologically in custom made albums, that I will sort out all my papers and have everything filed away in impressive formats, that I will organize my drawers, that I will read to my kids and play games with them that add inches to their grey matter, that I will take time and visit my parents (and not lose patience with them), that I will read the books I buy, or the one’s sitting on my bookshelf bleating at me, that I will have a perfect garden with seasonal plants planted well in time, that I will watch all the films I want, that I will go for the occasional play or book reading . And yes, one more thing, that I will bake (well).

When will I do this all? I don’t know. But I know I will . Oh, one more thing, that book I want to write (now it’s a script, btw) that’s got to squeeze its way into my life too.

Someone give me more hours in the day. I could use them.

Leave a comment

Filed under mommyrage

Tagged as , , , , , ,