Tag Archives: family

July 5, 2011 · 5:59 pm

Five Things Motherhood Has Taught Me.

Thanks Forever Mother for tagging me in this and making me think.

What has motherhood taught me? Agh. So much. But, here’s the thing. When I respond to a question like this on my blog, there is, almost immediately, a conflict in my mind – between what I think motherhood has taught me and what it really has. You know, we have a perception about ourselves, which is not always accurate, but we like to believe facts about ourselves anyway! And a question like this makes me stop and think about perception and reality. Agh. The truth is not always good!

Anyway, here’s a sincere attempt:

1. Children are born selfish. The first instinct is of survival and self fulfillment. It is for the parents to teach them about sharing and giving. Ever tried to take a toy away from a two year old? What did that result in? You know what I mean..

2. Having kids has taught me something about my own parents – that people are not perfect and we expect our parents to be. It’s only when you become one you realize that your parents are human too.

3. Children do lie, though they do it without malice. So don’t always believe yours, listen to the other kid too..

4. Every child is different, so comparison is really not a positive thing.

5. And now for some emotion! Above all, motherhood has taught me to thank God for my happy life. No matter how much I rant and rave, I am fortunate. Very fortunate. And I don’t mean only economically. I mean it in every sense of the word…

Has motherhood changed me?

Like hell it has. Some for the better and some for the worse. Honestly.

5 Comments

Filed under mommyrage

Tagged as , , , , , , , , ,

June 2, 2011 · 11:22 am

Perfect Honesty Is Not Always Good For Childen.

Childhood, I believe is about happiness. Children need not know the truth about everything. I think we as parent sometime get too caught up in doing the right thing. What’s the right thing anyway? How do we know that is not better to bend the truth than to tell something to a child that he or she can’t digest?

I’ll tell you why I say this.

A few days after the earthquake in Japan my five year old daughter came to me and asked me what an earthquake was. It was a mama-what-does-this-word-mean kind of question. Now, whenever my daughter asks me a question,  I try and give her a detailed answer. In fact, we play a little game around it,  with the aim that she remembers the answer. It mostly works. So,  when she asked me about the earthquake,  I drew a little diagram, got out the globe, cut an orange to tell her about the earth’s crust and layers etc etc. She loved it.  That was that.

About three days later when I was putting my daughter to bed at night, she sobbed and sobbed and refused to sleep in her bed. She said that an earthquake might come at night. I told her that it won’t. She asked me how I could be so sure. After all, if the tectonic plates could bang into each other under Japan, the same could happen under India! I winced. Great,  I thought,  in my enthusiasm to teach her I’d given her too much information!  I’d gone and scared her.

Damage control, I thought. So, I launched into logic. And zones. India is in a zone that is not really prone to earthquakes, I told her (true) and that there are some countries that are more prone to them and we are not one of them. She seemed a little mollified, though not entirely. Phew!  (Still refused to go back to her bed). I had dodged a tricky question.

Unfortunately, there was more to come.  A few days later she asked me (and this is some sort of a recurrent theme, we’ve talked about this before, in snatches) about death. Agh. Not again, I thought. I was not in the mood for this.  But she was, and her questions were not general, they were specific. “Can babies die?” she queried. I decided to lie. “What about dad?”. I told her that only very old people die (One day, sometime ago, when I’d told her, on one of these bedtime question and answer moments, that mamas can die, she’d wept uncontrollably and clung to me for days) . So I decided to let her believe happy things. Why cloud her little five year old mind with unpalatable truth? Dad will be with you till you are as old as mama, and even after that, I said. “And you?”. Ditto, I said with a straight face. She thought, then she smiled. Not sure if she believed me entirely, but she liked the reassurance.

Like I said, and many may not agree, childhood is about happy things. Truth is for grown ups.

3 Comments

Filed under mommyrage

Tagged as , , , , , , , ,

May 3, 2011 · 9:31 am

The Sibling Factor..

I feel like a tightrope walker. All I seem to be doing, for, well, for a large part of my day, is the balancing act – between the kids that is.

Three kids – one five year old and then twenty month old twins – you can imagine the i-want-this-one kind of fights. To a new entrant in our house, the noise levels can be, well, just a wee bit overwhelming, to put it mildly. I am used to it, though; screaming is part of the general acoustics here. There is always a bone of contention, and that object, for that time, assumes such great importance for all three that nothing else can match its excellence and try as you might the one who has it will not part with it and the other two cannot be persuaded to play with anything else;  distraction tactics are met with flailing of the arms and, of course, some more screaming. No matter how hard I try to be fair and equal, there is always one kid (sometimes two)  screaming, or worse, sulking (this, mostly the older one) feeling betrayed and cheated. The younger ones like to express their discontent, at what they take for unfair treatment,  by prostrating themselves on the floor with shrieks that could pierce the Rock of Gibraltar.

The older one, on the other hand, has mastered the art of touching the raw nerves , of saying what she thinks will get her a reaction, and it does. “You don’t laugh with me the way you do with the twins”, or, “they are small, so you are always giving them my toys”.  She knows she’s being unfair when she says that, because I have been only too careful not to make her feel this way.  In fact, I have neglected the twins if needed, but not her, because I knew that it would be difficult for her to suddenly have to share everything, from her mother to her toys, with two more siblings. But, even then, at some level, she feels that I am not fair, that I treat her and the twins differently.

So, here’s what I think.  It’s a tough balancing act when you are a parent of two or more kids. In your mind you try and be fair, but that does not  necessarily mean that the kids see it that way too. In fact, it’s probably safe to say that they won’t.

I don’t know how my parents did it. I now realize what it means to raise three kids (we are three siblings too) and have them feel equally loved.  It’s a hard thing to do and my hope is that once they are grown up they won’t feel this way. Sibling rivalry can manifest itself in unpleasant ways, and that’s scary for a parent.

My kids are young right now and these are passing, insignificant fights, I know that. But, it makes me think, how will it be in the teenage years? When one of my girls is, say, 16, and the other two 13? Gosh. Imagine that.

These days will, in retrospect, look rosy and wonderful.

2 Comments

Filed under mommyrage

Tagged as , , , , , , , ,

March 15, 2011 · 6:51 pm

The clingy stage, all over again, and this time, it’s double trouble!!

My five year old is just about getting out of the really clingy stage (still demanding, don’t get me wrong, that’s not going to change – mommy must do everything!) But, she’s past that I-am-going-to-stick-to-your-leg-do-what-you-can state. So that’s something of a relief. (She’s developed other somewhat distressing habits, like the sulking and moodiness of a teenager, but, more on that later – another post). For now I am happy that she’s not hanging around me like a rope, on most days.

However, the twins, now one and a half, are right there! Clingy does not quite define their behavior right now. They are gluey to the point that I cannot even escape to the bathroom without them pounding on the door beseeching me to come out.  And that makes me wonder if this is so extreme because I’ve done/am doing something wrong!

The only thing I can think of is that, at night, I don’t put them to bed. I  leave the room because they drink milk (still on the bottle!) before sleeping and I can’t put two of them in my lap and feed them, so I leave them to their maids, something they were OK with till recently, but now they scream and shout and want me in the room. The problem, however, is that if I do try and put them to bed, they fight over who has to be in my lap, pushing the other out. It leads to much shouting and crying, with both of them saying “both babies!!” or “Mama, I want your lap!”.

It’s now kind of become a vicious circle – I flee because they fight each other for me, and no matter which one I pick up, I feel bad for the other. I leave because then, at least, they know that I’ve not picked one over the other. I don’t know if it’s the right thing to do. I do know that, because I leave, they get clingier. I did try once to lie down next to them and pat them both, didn’t work. They both wanted to climb all over me and fought sleep.

Maybe I need to do this a few times to make them believe that I am not going to leave them at sleep time. But then, I get tired by the end of the day and look forward to a little bit of downtime before I go to bed. And that’s what I am going to have to give up if I have to put them to bed too.  I have no time in the evenings to myself, none at all.  My older one has to be fed and put to bed by 8:00 – 8:20, on school nights, so once we come back from the park, I am on a fast track to get her all set for the night. Then we eat dinner (mostly, I eat with the twins taking turns to sit on my lap while I try and eat!). Then I play with them for about forty minutes, till the maids eat and wrap up. So, by the time it’s time for them to sleep, I am out of steam (and patience).  That’s when I want a bit of time to unwind, talk to my husband (seems like that never happens nowadays – a gap’s developing that I don’t like). The kids sleep with us at night, and the twins still wake up a lot, so I don’t get even one uninterrupted night’s sleep – they sometimes wake up at the same time and in their sleep they cry for mommy. That’s the hardest part, because they are sleepy and not in a mood for sharing their mother and I am not my best at that time either.

What am I doing wrong? Do all mothers of twins go through this?

I have so much to write, but, I need to sleep now. It’s late and something keeps telling me to stop blogging and sleep while the kids are sleeping too. Wonder what tonight will be like..

To bed now.

4 Comments

Filed under mommyrage

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

March 10, 2011 · 4:39 pm

Schools. Gosh.

My five year old goes to a good school. OK, a great school. It’s one of the most sought after ones around here (elitist? you bet), with parents bending backwards to get their kids into it. I, actually, didn’t realize, when my daughter got admission, that it was so hot, but it is and getting hotter still.

Hotter and now, unfortunately, a bit arrogant too, with a don’t-like-it-leave-it attitude, which is not good, not good at all.

Tell me, am I overreacting when I say I don’t want to, as a parent, be assigned bus duty? What’s that? Well, it means that parents will be “encouraged”  to offer their services and be open to getting rostered duty on the school buses! Yes, you heard me. Not kidding! When I heard this, I was a bit, well, shocked, so I didn’t quite hold back my reaction and went ! “What the..”  Another parent, however, was open to it. (She said that she really wanted her second kid to get into the school, so she’d do what she could to get into the good books of the staff! ) Oh! come on! This is crazy, I said. She shrugged and informed me that she was part of the parent teacher association and intended to actually push the matter.(Not  a coincidence, I later thought, that her daughter is splattered all over the school magazine looking quite the star kid..hmm..)

Great. So now I pay through my nose (and other orifices!)  to send my kid to a good school only to be “requested” to spare a few hours every now and then to generally ride the school bus with a bunch of tired kiddos. Yup, my idea of a great afternoon. Not only that, what am I supposed to do with my kid on those days, the kid I pick up at the bus stop? I take her (hungry and tired) with me on this joyous ride too?

There is such a dearth of good schools and so many parents desperate for them, that schools get away with any shit these days. No one says a word.  The fee is hiked more regularly than fuel prices, but no one raises an alarm.I don’t exactly storm into the Principal’s room either! I am told they don’t take to well to revolt, and I am afraid my kid will suffer. So, I mutter to feel better and blog to vent  it out!

 

2 Comments

Filed under mommyrage

Tagged as , , , , , , ,

December 13, 2010 · 5:36 pm

When They Think Santa Is Real And Babies Come From Heaven..

All the bratiness and moodiness aside, four-five is one of the sweetest stages in a kid’s (and a parent’s)  life.

My (almost) five year old wants Santa’s number. She says she wants to make sure she’s on the “good-list”.  Her innocence and gullibility actually makes me sad, because, she believes most things she hears, takes the world at face value and thinks Santa is for real.  It’s sad because one day her perception of the world around her will change, and though that change will be gradual, it’ll be heartbreaking nevertheless. That’s growing up I guess. But, I don’t want to shatter it for her.  I don’t know what the right thing (what ever that is) to do is.  And I don’t care. All I know is that this is a wonderful stage in a kid’s life and I am not about to ruin it.

What do parents do? Do they let thier children live in fantasies and let them find out eventually by themselves, or do they start to prepare them to handle truths about life?

She’ll find out one day I know and she’ll ask me point blank, as she does most things, no matter how much I try and gloss over them. She used to ask me about my father-in-law, who passed away before she was born. I used to tell her what I could in a way that I thought she’d  be able to stomach. Then one day, when she was all of three, she came to me and said, “mama, I know grandpa is dead”. I had never used that word around her, but she figured it out. And she’ll figure this out too one day.

Till then, I’ll let her believe that there is a Santa, that the world is a good place, that babies are made in heaven and that her parents will live forever.

Leave a comment

Filed under mommyrage

Tagged as , , , , ,

November 9, 2010 · 9:52 am

Four year olds, and their moods.

My older daughter is a little over four and a half. She is, by and large, a well behaved kid. Or, so she was. Now she’s moody as hell. To the point that I have names for her depending on her moods.  We (she, my husband and I) laugh about this often – she, mostly, likes the fact that I have names for her sulky days, or whiny ones, also the happy ones.

She may wake up happy, but within minutes of opening her eyes, she’s turned into a sulk pot. For no reason. I make it a point to be in the room till she’s up and don’t, as far as I can help it, hold the babies  when she’s waking up, so she does not feel that her mommy has not been in the room while she’s been asleep (she does not like that and has told me this  on several occasions). But try as I might, she’s moody, and whiny. I can see that she wants to play and be happy but something holds her back. One day, when she was in a happy mood (which is not rare either) I asked her why she acts this way. She said that I didn’t play with her anymore and that I was always scolding her. This, obviously, was not the case, though I could see that she meant what she said. So, the point was, she felt this way.

Ok, so she was partly right, but only partly. I do have less patience than I used to and have less time to play/read to her. But I am doing the best I can. I spend as much time with her as I can, I don’t go out much and when I do I, mostly, take her with me, even if I don’t take the twins. but I guess for her four year old mind that’s not good enough. It’s all relative – she’s comparing to the time when the twins were not there and compared to that, of course, it’s different.

My mom tells me that my sister, the eldest,  used to be the same and when my brother was born (they are a year and a half apart) she went through the same thing with her. And now, my sister is the most loving sibling one could have. So I am thinking this will not have long term repercussions and that she’ll learn to accept (which, I can see she has to a large part) the fact that she has to share her mother.

The moods are there and I think they are here to stay for a while. I just have to be patient, because my losing it makes it worse. It’s hard, though, when you’ve woken up eight times at night (between the twins sometimes that’s the case) and then in the morning have to deal patiently with a four year old who is watching your every step and judging you for being “better” to the siblings!

It’ll pass I know. They are a happy bunch together, so when I see them all play and hear the ecstatic screams of the twins as the rush to hug their older sister when she returns from school, and she, in turn, dropping her bag to embrace them, I feel it’s all worth it.  I am happy that (hopefully) they’ll always have each other.

3 Comments

Filed under mommyrage

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