Tag Archives: Mommy Blogs

April 28, 2012 · 7:08 pm

Have moved the kids to their room..

For some this may seem too late, way too late. Older one is six, younger ones are two, and they are sleeping in their room tonight, for the first time. For me though, it’s come too soon.

But, I’ve done it – for many, not necessarily related reasons. And I feel a bit empty tonight.

I’ve done this out of my own free will (despite the resistance of my older daughter) and even felt excited about getting a bit of my life back – little pleasures of reading in bed, not talking in hushed tones, watching a film after the kids sleep, and of course, “couple time” with the hubby. But, right now, at this moment as I write this and the room is so empty that it almost has en echo, my heart feels heavy. I miss them. Terribly.

They are right across the room from me and I’ve been to their room countless times already – looking at their sleeping, angelic faces, kissing their lovely foreheads and tender cheeks, standing like a shadow staring blankly at the darkness, waiting for my eyes to adjust to the dark so I can see their curled-up forms, adjusting their blankets, checking if the AC is not too cold….I can safely say that I will not get much sleep tonight.

I almost feel guilty for doing this. Try as I might, I cannot shake away that feeling. And I know that this is a bit of a cultural thing. In India, it is perfectly normal for kids to sleep in the same room as their parents till, well, let’s just till very very late into their lives. I have friends (though these are mainly those who have a single child) who’ve not moved out even 10 year old kids yet. And that’s not frowned upon here, in the least.

There is this mad urge I have to bring them back, to admit to them that the experiment has failed miserably! I know I won’t do it, if only for the fact that I’ve moved a lot of furniture around, made many adjustments around the house etc etc. But I now wish I’d waited a little more. Because this is irreversible. This first physical separation is just the beginning of many many separations and I wish I had not hurried it.

I know that I may be over-dramatizing this a bit, but it’s late and I am in a reflectory kind-of mood, the kind that the silence of the night brings on. My mind is in over-drive and I am willingly letting it loose to make all sorts of haphazard connections between this one little change and my issues of not being able to let go. (looked at deeply enough, though, there is a connection, is there not?)

I need a nightcap. But, far from aiding, that runs the risk of letting my thoughts wander into dark corners of my mind and doing some notorious digging. No, I don’t need that. I guess, I should just sleep. Yes, that’s what I need to do, that’s the only way I’ll stop thinking about it, at least consciously.

So, am going to call it a night, with one last peek into the room, one last kiss and to do my bit for the benefit of the tooth-fairy. Yes, she’s going to visit tonight, to take my daughter’s first tooth and leave her a Doraemon bed sheet – for her new bed in her new room..

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April 23, 2012 · 5:48 pm

That Single Friend..

I am not sure how many of you have single friends, but, I do. Not a whole lot, but enough to make me think.

There are those who’ve never been married, while others have and then have moved on and taken to singledom with a vengeance (we all have those I can safely say).

What do you feel when you meet/see that friend on facebook? I mean that friend who does not believe that sweat pants were made to be worn all day, everywhere, who is thin, nattily turned out with a, I-just-threw-this-on kind of look, who works, of course, but finds the time to learn photography, fly to Caymon Islands, Amalfi coast and who knows where else (don’t want to know), who alternates between reading David Mitchell and Murukami with her feet up sipping coconut water in some off-the-beaten-track destination (how many of those are there, just by the way?), who watches every film worth its salt (Ukraninan, French, Algerian – you name it), who wakes up and dances to ‘Here Comes the Sun’ while getting ready for work, who takes holidays with her mum, twice a year? What do you feel? Honestly.

Now, I am not saying that I’d rather be single, my life is full and complete and I know better than to get swept away by impressions of a seemingly perfect life. But, here’s the thing. I am a wee bit jealous. It’s liberating to think about this friend’s life. And if my husband’s reading this (not sure I want him to, though), I am not comparing my life to hers, or saying that I cannot do what she’s doing.

It’s complicated. I am not sure how to explain it and I am not even sure if I want to.

But, since I brought it up, what I will say, by way of some sort of explanation, is that if I really want, I can probably do most of those “single” things even now. So, that’s not the thing. Point is, I don’t want to because they will come at a cost; at a cost of spending time with my family, or doing something for them. So, while I make the decision to do or not do something, that decision is made keeping a lot of factors in mind. And, it’s not as simple as you-decide-no-one-forces-you. Part of me wants to be like that friend, but part of me does not. Like I said, it’s complicated.

But (all these explanations aside) in all honesty, how many of you look at that single friend and feel, sigh? And, this does not have to be the reaction each time, by the way. Just sometimes, at some fleeting moment.

There are also times when I look at pictures of a pristine house with a lot of whites in the furnishings and that image (still talking facebook here) says so much, so much about the emptiness and absence of the comforting mess of children. To someone whose house is full of trails of mixed up puzzles from one room to the other, this picture-perfect image is too quiet; the image almost emits that unsettling sound of silence, that deafening vacuum.

And sometimes, when that friend’s eyes reflect this void, I say to myself – thank God for all I have, and damn that Truffaut film festival. Who needs it?

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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”..

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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..

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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.

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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.

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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.

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