Tag Archives: family

February 16, 2008 · 2:53 am

I’ve driven myself crazy with her birthday party..

Maybe because I am new to this birthday stuff, having done it only once before since she’s now two, I am going a little over the top.

First there’s the thing about calling everyone who’s called you – and that’s a long list. Then there are others who you want to invite anyway, so you do. Before I knew it, I had a list of some hundred people – forty-five of them children of varying ages – from 0 to 15!

So there’s the cake, the decorations, the catering, the music, the return gifts (each individually packed for the kids since the ages are so varied I could not just get one thing for everyone)

Then there’s the dress for her to wear. It’s amazing how difficult it is to find something simple you like. If you go for the party dresses, you are confronted with dresses that remind you of layered puddings, and the regular ones are too simple.

Anyway, I was out the whole day yesterday and got most of the work done, also found something nice for her to wear – now she has to wear it, because of late she’s been picky!! It’s a toddler thing I hear..

I returned home in the evening with a throbbing headache and fever. Ugh.

Hopefully, I’ll be better by Sunday.

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February 11, 2008 · 6:09 pm

Getting into shape -2

It took a lot of will power today to do my spot-jogging, but I did it, and some stretches after that too. Felt so much better. I’ve found that watching TV while jogging works quite well for me, the time passes by more quickly and I don’t keep staring at the watch to see how long it’s been, only to find that some three minutes have passed!

Mornings would be ideal, but I’ve learned not to expect anything quite “ideal” when you are the mother of a toddler, so I’ve told myself I’ll do it when I can.

Evening was really the only time, before I fed my daughter dinner. We came back from our walk – she and I – and then I left her with the maid telling her that I had to do something. Sometimes she clings to my leg and pleads me to take her too, and when she does that, I give up all that I was intending to do and stay with her. Don’t know if that’s the right thing to do, but that’s what I do. (And vent here later!)

Today, however, she let me go, and I didn’t push my luck by looking back. I ran. Thirty minutes later I was a happier mommy and wanted her back in my room.

Twenty minutes of spot-jogging or forty minutes of brisk walking they say is a good start. That’s what I am doing, let’s see how much I can shed!

And yes, I’ve been very good about the no-snacking too. Ate some carrots when I wanted a snack, and drank some water – made me feel very full, really worked.

Not sure how long I can be good. But today was great. Now, if only I can repeat this everyday. (Big) Sigh.

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February 10, 2008 · 7:44 am

What have you been doing with your time? No, seriously, the kid stuff aside.

Some one asked me this question the other night. He was an older gentleman, vaguely related to me. We were at this party and he asked me what I’ve been doing for the past two years apart from having “one big holiday”. I bit my tongue and didn’t take the bait. I’ve learned not to, because people love to rile you up and it negatively affects no one but you. But, this gentleman in question refused to relent, he kept asking me, much to the consternation of his poor (and quite lovely) wife.

I still didn’t take the bait. That irritated him and it made me chuckle, which made him madder. But, I did tell him that I thought he had a wonderful wife who, incidentally, had given up work to bring up their kids. That was ok with him, because she was doing what a wife must do!!

So I told him that I intended to enjoy my “holiday” for a long time to come, just like his wife had enjoyed hers.

But, I have to admit, and I hate to, that it affected me, his remark and calling my time away from work and with my daughter a “big holiday”. That’s what men think, most men think it irrespective of what they may say, that being at home is not that much of a big deal, anyone can do it. The mentality is : ya all this house and baby stuff is great, and here pat-pat on your back ; there! makes you feel better? But, come on don’t pretend it’s real work.

It makes me mad, and I try not to think about it, but can’t help wondering why men just don’t get it? They want to have their cake and eat it too..so you want to marry a smart- intelligent-career woman, someone who can look good too with you at social events, but who should be willing to give up everything and bring up your child. And, you don’t want to admit that it’s a big deal, after all you earn the bread and the woman only spends it, so why complain?

That chauvinist thinking, scarily, has not changed much from the last generation. And I wonder when it will, but I am hoping my daughter does not have to put up with this nonsense when she grows up.

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February 8, 2008 · 2:38 pm

That blessed pms

I don’t know which sitcom it was I watched once when I was living in New York, but the woman in it said something that I can never forget: she said, that in a month she was either pre-menstrual, menstrual or post-menstrual and had just about one normal day in a month! I could say the same right now.

See, I was getting very good with the spot-jogging and all that, till, yes, till I got the blues and blues in the winter are bluer than blue, so I went from I-am-going-to-be Cindy-Crawford kind of feeling to I-want-to-eat-all-the-chocolate-in-the-world-who-am-I-kidding-with-the-Cindy-
Crawford-stuff feeling!

I crave sweets when I get my period, no wait, I crave sweets, before and after too. And the spot-jogging kind of stops too. So, you’re back to ignoring the weighing scale like it’s some monster in your bathroom, daring you to stand on it. Sigh.

You know what else I read the other day? that in some women, the pre-menopause stress starts twenty years in advance! Ok, so that was good to know. In short, if you’re looking forward to menopause, you may well be insane by the time you get there.

So, my bone to pick with God would be this (when I meet him/her): Surely there was another way to do all this baby stuff?? I mean look at it: you brood, you bleed, you ache, you feel unexplained depression, then you have a baby and it tears your vagina apart, (I didn’t take an epidural by the way, don’t ask me why) then you finally, after years of turmoil, get to menopause, but, wait, it ain’t over, because now start the hot flashes and God knows what else. By the time it’s all over, you’re sixty.

Again, surely there was another way!

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February 3, 2008 · 6:11 pm

Birthdays and the waste of it..someone stop it!

Sundays are not what they used to be – lazy days in pajamas with the kids; pouring over the papers over endless cups of tea; radio playing merry songs – no, not even close. Sundays are now hurried days when you get up, get dressed, dress the kid/s, and head off for a birthday party, wondering on the way weather the gift you decided to buy was appropriate enough, because some people give return gifts that are more expensive than the one you took them!

At one level, I want to say “lump it”, I’ll do what I can and not worry about how elaborate people want to make their kids’ parties. And I do do that. I usually don’t worry too much about it. But then you get to the party and you see the effort that’s been put in (not to mention the money) – electric trains, cars, big bouncies, catered food, tattoo artists..etc etc..and your daughter looks at you and says, “mama I want a big train at my birthday too”. Then you wonder why you came? Or, rather, you wish someone would stop this madness.

I want to go back to the days when a birthday meant some chocolate cake and playing treasure hunt at home.

Where are all the sane people? Someone stop this. Maybe I should.

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February 2, 2008 · 7:56 pm

A man just does not have it in him, or does he?

Is it that men, well, men in general, are made differently and so when it comes to childcare they do it in a way that makes moms say “I’d rather do that myself”. Or is that just a really clever way of getting out of something? I mean, just do it badly, and you’re on the couch watching TV while the mommy feeds the screaming baby!

I think it’s a combination. Men don’t have the patience. It takes me one hour to feed my daughter, and I do it patiently because her eating is something I am kind of very particular about, like most moms.

But, for my husband, if she resists, then he cannot cajole her, he just does not have it in him. But there’s another thing, that he does not think it’s necessary..and that’s where I differ. I think it is.

Apart from everything else, look at the chain reaction it starts: no dinner = hungry baby= waking up in the middle of the night for milk = sleep deprived mommy = crabby mommy.

And crabby not so much because she woke up, but because she woke up since she ate no dinner, because the one day that the mommy had something to do, the daddy could not try and feed her!

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February 2, 2008 · 2:10 pm

Getting into shape

When I was twenty, I told myself I’d never look like a sloppy mom. And though I still am not sloppy, I am not what I’d like to be either. I am not fat, but I am not thin. I pretty much look like the mom who has to constantly wear the right clothes to look thinner than she is, and the day a lot of her blacks and other favorite clothes are in the laundry, that’s the day she would rather be in her pajamas at home.

But, I now want to move beyond dependency on the wardrobe. I want to be thin, so anything I wear would pass the am-I-looking-fat test. I mean, I want to be at the stage where there is no need for that side view test. I want to be thin, and I am going to work for it.

Yes,I’ve said it before, we all have. But then I’ve done it too. I just let go a little in all the post-pregnancy period, which is normal I guess for a lot of women. But now, as my daughter turns two this month, I am going to take a few baby steps into weight loss. At this point I have to say that there was one reason why I didn’t really try this before, and that was wanting a second baby. I felt, I’d really get into shape after the second – once and for all!

But, it does not work that way.I do want a second and it probably will still happen, but I am not putting things on hold anymore.

I’ve been working out a little, twenty-minutes spot-jogging. The last time I did this I lost a lot of weight. Once you start, it’s not that tough, twenty minutes a day for the first week and then up up to forty later, with the stretching etc.  I don’t even want to tell myself that I will do it everyday, just when I can – four days a week is good enough to start.

It’s important to set realistic targets and what happens then is that once you lose a little, you  get encouraged and try to be more regular.

So  now I start, will keep you all posted.

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