Gifting...

I just read this post by Cantaloupes.Amma about a gift she received for her daughter. Really this whole gift thing really gets me sometimes. I wish we could all go easy on the gifting and give a gift when we really want to and also give it only if we want to and can afford it etc etc. For example, we have a fabulously, incredibly rich relative - not a close relation but close because we live in the same area. When I visit them, I really don't feel like getting them anything too expensive because even something very expensive in my budget is of not much value to them. They really just have everything. It is the thought that counts yes but honestly I don't wish to waste my money on that thought. Instead I just take flowers and also cook something good because I know they really enjoy good food. Another relative, on the other hand when she went to visit them, bought something quite expensive. Because they are so wealthy (live like top movie stars) she bought them an expensive gift just while visiting them casually since she was coming from a different state. Some people tend to do that. Get expensive gifts for rich people because they only have expensive stuff at their place. It irks me - although it is not my money - because it is not appreciated much anyway, it doesn't mean too much to them anyway...you might as well donate the money to someone who will appreciate you for eternity for such generosity.

My father-in-law had a good friend who's son happened to be in the same area - so we invited them for lunch to our place soon after X-mas holidays one year. We invited them because his father and my FIL were good friends. They came to our place, chatted , sang, had lunch, coffee - over all a good time. They brought us a big package in a nice gift bag. They were quite friendly and told us we should visit them sometime for lunch and that they had a good time with us. I opened the package soon after they left - I found some tasteless, garish, obvious holiday curio item in the gift bag. I just don't get this sort of thing. Why bother bringing anything. If there is no space in your garage for junk, just trash or donate it to salvation army - may be someone who likes that sort of stuff will use it for X-mas decoration. Don't download your useless holiday gift on us. When we have gone out of our way to cook and invite you over and be hospitable. Not only that - it has been over a year and half now - no sign of them ever inviting us to their place - after all that friendly talk. I bumped into them at some concert when I had gone to drop off my FIL and even then the woman was just making friendly inquiries but there was no sign of any invitation. After all that warm talk when they were at our place. And now the guy emailed me a month back out of the blue asking how we were doing and again said that they would visit us sometime to say hello and see the babies. But this time around I did not bother calling them over for lunch on a specific date or anything. I just told him they could visit us anytime after checking in with us to make sure we were home.

Now with children's party gifts. Once you have two kids the party invites for kid's birthdays start multiplying. Especially if they go to pre-school or if you happen to live in an apartment complex like my cousin does. It is quite a task to go shopping and buy good gifts for every party - and it gets to be very expensive overall. Especially if you want to give the child a good gift not some junk that is on sale. Of course they too give your child a gift at your child's birthday - but really the rigmarole gets to be tiring. Often times the gift turns out to be a waste even if good in quality. And it takes up space and adds to the clutter. Especially when it comes to clothing I feel very bad if they give something and I am unable to use it because it doesn't fit right and I give it to someone else or donate it without ever using it. I feel as if their money and effort just went waste - if they don't give a gift receipt for return. These days with close friends I just ask them what they want and if they don't tell me I gauge what the kids reads/plays with and I get a gift card from the shop that carries that. But gift cards can't be bought on sale and it feels awkward to give a gift card that is not a reasonable amount. And if it is to a rich family it seems so wasteful to give them money literally. When I asked my cousin, a mother of two toddlers how she manages to attend so many birthday parties and how she finds the time/money to shop for gifts - she said "Of course people don't always buy a gift each time. I don't open every gift my child gets. I put it away and give it to some other kid and I know other parents do the same too". This whole farce of gifting seems so unnecessary. Why can't we really have a party to just have fun. Yes children love gifts - the close friends can do the job of pleasing them by giving them something in the privacy of their home after asking the parent what the kid may enjoy. No point passing on useless gifts around. When you don't particularly care to gift either.

Edited to add based on Dotmom's comment: This is another thing I feel about kid's birthday parties. They get so used to getting so many gifts, they begin to expect a lot of gifts and often their joy lasts for two minutes when they open it and then move on the next gift. Of ten gifts, two may be a hit. 5 will be fun for a few days and remaining go waste. Especially if the giver did not put much thought into it. And they all wait for the goody bags to have those 10 seconds of joy. When I was at the cash register at "Party city" after buying a bunch of goody bag items for my valaikappu ceremony (a bunch of kids were invited), a father standing behind me said, "Oh, looks like some kids are going to be happy" and then he grinned and said "for five minutes"!
My BIL has told his daughter that for every new gift she gets she has to give away one toy she already has in her closet. It was hard on her but now she is so used to it. He strictly enforces it. I feel bad sometimes to see her have to make that choice but I think she is learning some invaluable lessons there. I may not be able to be that* strict with my children but I do hope to teach them to give away some of their toys to other children who don't get to enjoy such luxuries.

I read this post by Tharini. I find gift giving also an indulgence for myself. I love to see the happiness on a child's face when I give him/her a gift that they enjoy. Same way for adults. If I were very rich my greatest indulgence would be buying gifts generously for children and for people I am close to. But I feel guilty sometimes. When my very close friend visited me, I gave her son a gift which he already had so I returned it and gave a gift card instead. She is very close to me and I know for sure she would not have minded and in fact would have been happy had I given the same money to a needy person. But I had to get him something. Knowing fully well he doesn't need* anything I give him. Knowing that he gets enough toys and clothes from his own parents. Yet I just had to give him a gift. I am unable to put a ceiling on this desire for sure!

In all this I don't mind getting gifts that are passed on. I would rather you pass on something than waste your money on more useless curio items which may not be to my taste. But I find it only objectionable when people pass on junk like an holiday item soon after the holidays are over. Or when they give gifts without even checking to make sure there are no obvious signs (it happened to my friend - the back of the gift had the name of the original giver and receiver) that it being re-gifted. At least put in that much effort!

I honestly would like to have a gift free party for my child - but then I get into the issue of - is it my right to deny my child gifts from others? I don't believe in asking people to donate to my favorite charity - they then become bound to do something they may not want to do. For example for kutti boy's second birthday (Aug 3) I did not have a formal party - a casual, spontaneous party at 9.30pm - called two of my friends. Had one large helium balloon and a cake. There were two older kids and two babies. My son had a rollicking time with the other two kids running around chasing the balloon. The kids loved the birthday candle that played the birthday song while they sang. It was simple and delightful. I was so content and happy that night that my child enjoyed his birthday (even if he had no idea what it meant). I don't know if he would have enjoyed it as much in a large party.

Anyways. I had all these random thoughts rushing in when I read Cantaloupe.Amma's post. Instead of clogging her comment space I decided to do a post on it.

Mail to a friend...

A close friend wrote to me after a long time and asked me how motherhood felt the second time around. I wrote this:

Howdy, good n bad. Exasperating as well blissful at times. Exasperating when Kutti boy drives me mad refusing to eat while I have to run to nurse baby girl and he delays me for ever. Blissful during moments when he does the most creative things as a child (like when he looked at the stalk of a green pepper and said hexagon because it looked like it was that shape...or like yesterday when B did something with his Lego pieces and kutti boy moved one finger up (as if a person was climbing)and said upstairs "yearu" and brought it down and said "Yerangu"...) and when he just pets baby girl, so graciously accepting her presence despite having to share my attention - never taking it out on her, always being so loving towards her - only a child can be that way I guess. B convinced me we should have a second saying kutti boy needs a sibling and in terms of the work we should push ourselves to the limit - but I seem to be pushed to the limit much more than B is because of the night time nursing also and having very little sleep...

The little adult fights on...

I suppose turning two heralds the beginning of a child’s first tiny step into becoming a little boy from being a little baby. And it brings with it the tussle between parent and child both trying to estimate the lengths to which each can be pushed to the limit. Neither aware of the process consciously but looking at it in retrospect each day that’s how it seems.
I don’t mean to rant on and on about the food battles that I have been having since the last three days. Even if it doesn’t make for interesting reading, I wanted to put it down for myself to organize the clutter this seems to have created in my mind. What am I doing wrong? Is it me or is it just the stage of development? Should I be working harder in figuring out alternatives? How do I spend the time it takes to keep trying many different alternatives and schedule variations when I have a little one to nurse every two hours? Does he just not like rice/dal anymore? That being our staple, how do I come up with nutritious alternatives at each meal? When he flatly says no for most things! Such questions clutter my head. At the back of my mind I know it is not just about the meal. He just turned two and he is entering a different stage of development. At 21m I felt like a switch had turned on. And once he turned two another new facet of my child emerged. He is increasingly stubborn and fights me fiercely when he wants his way. I give in and let him be his own person rather than crushing his spirit with my adult might. But when it comes to meals I can give in only so much. For if I give in, a few hours later the lingering child who still cannot fully express himself becomes cranky and wants to fill up on junk food like coco puffs. He asks me for that and for “pori” (puffed rice), for “jooch” (Gatorade) every now and then but he does not stuff himself with any of those. But when he is hungry he has the potential to fill up on those. Or so I fear since I have never let it go that far. I am trying now to make changes in his diet – reduce the amount of milk he has (he loves his soy milk – so far) and thus try to increase his solids consumption and also make the process less difficult on me during meal times. Problem is, as of now the milk consumption is going down but the solids consumption has not gone up. He is an active and healthy child but he is thin (not scrawny) and I worry he will get thinner. How does it matter if he is thin – he is the answer to America’s obesity problem – my doctor says. But it matters to me. The proof of my efforts does not stare at me starkly in the face in the form of rolls of fat. Forget the rolls just a little bit of solid flesh. I have come to accept that he will be thin but I cannot be relaxed about compromising on his nutrition. As B aptly put it with the saying, “When you want to go from the top of one mountain to the top of another mountain, the first step is to go down”. I suppose we are in the down phase now. I hope we get there slowly and steadily and start moving up the next mountain and enjoy the peak for a while. I hope the battle I had with him today to get him to eat his lunch – which he eventually did as if it was no problem in the first place – does not happen every day as a regular feature. He used to be a slow eater but these days he fights me hard. Which is why I need to collect myself and stay calm. For the next day.
There is something that is so wonderful in all this. When I see him smile and hug and exude joy when I play silly with him in the evening after having fought him so much, I wish I could be him. To be able to forget entirely what happened a couple of hours back when I had been his opponent in the tussle over his meal. We battled, he ate, we moved on. Now it was time for play and laughter. I suppose there is one reason this works between us – true unconditional love we have for each other. I feel anger and lack of any fond feelings for him the moment he makes me feel like an enemy. But when we cross the difficult road for that day, the gloom clears and the sun shines….the love I feel for him is beyond words.

It happens - 1

As the "Terrible twos" hit around 22m, kutti boy morphed from a gentle (he still is in a lot of ways), no crying, calm baby to this demanding, I stand by my opinion no matter what, scream loudly and I will get what I want child! The switch was both fascinating and exasperating for me. On the one hand I felt like standing back and witnessing my child change from a cuddly sweet baby and take that step into being his own person and express his independence and strong opinions. On the other hand, I just longed for that little child who would never yell or cry, who would/could only at best reject what I give him but not demand in absolute terms exactly what he wanted and wanted NOW!
The new little person in him brought out the impatient side of me. Especially during meal times. I found myself yelling and even getting physical with him - holding both his hands tight so he cannot push the spoon back and shove the spoonful of food into his mouth as he arches his back and faces up while sitting in the high chair.
"You have to eat your mum mum"
"Awwwwnnnnnnn"
Push.
"Come on Kanna please don't fight me Kanna, please eat Kanna"
"AWWWWWnnnnnnnnn"
Stand off.
We look at each other in silence for a few moments.
"Let's read the Big book (as he calls Clifford's school house book) and we can eat then".
He sits calmly while I open the book and ask him "hey, where's the Unicorn?"
He points to the U flap and opens it.
I smartly try to now bring the spoon close to his mouth and he is no little fool - he darts away from the spoon and in a cool tone says "No!"
I look at him sternly.
Tension mounts.
"Please don't fight me Kanna...you have to eat now".
"No!".
That's it. Flare up.
"Are you going to eat now or do you want me to give you a whack now?!".
"AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNnnnnnn".
The yelling match has begun.
I lose it. I hold his hands and now really thrust the spoonful of food in.
Crying ensues.
"WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANNNNNNNNNNNNNN".
It's a lost cause. I ask him what he wants.
"Yogurt"!
"Ok, we will have yogurt once you eat your mum mum"
"No!"
I am ready to cry myself. I look at my mom who is just as annoyed and says "Rendu odhe kudu dee" (give him two!). (if I actually did that she would come and whack me).
Depending on his mood he will suddenly relent - having tasted the first spoonful of food and realizing that he is in fact hungry - will continue to eat and finish the meal without further battling me. But on some days I have to relent and give him yogurt and oatmeal and get it over with.

Last night was one of those battle nights. But it left me feeling miserable. I titled this post "It happens -1" because such incidents keep happening and will continue to happen. The ones that leave you feeling guilty and wrench your heart at night when your child is fast asleep and takes a deep breath and snuggles close to you as you run your finger through his hair.

Kutti boy has taken a fancy to drinking water directly from the Gatorade (which he loves to drink) bottle from which I often drink cold water. Yesterday he kept asking me for more and more water and I didn't keep track of exactly how many times he had me or my mother give him small amounts in that bottle. We have had guests staying with us for a week and the house had been a mad house with three little boys running around trying to expend all their energy. In the middle of this, I lost track of how much water kutti boy was drinking. I gave him his 8oz of milk in the evening and as always at dinner time I started feeding him. It was late and I didn't have the energy or the time to battle him just in case and I decided to give him the easy yogurt meal. He took a few spoonfuls of it and suddenly it turned to battle time again. I lost it. Amidst the noise in the house I just did not have the patience to plead with him. I always manage to give him his meal - something - if not dal rice, at least something that he likes. But his refusal to eat anything made me anxious. Partly also because my husband had told me he would come way past midnight from work because of a deadline. I was worried if Kutti boy went to bed hungry he may wake up and cry and that might wake up the guests as well as baby girl. In my anxiety I fought him real hard. Shoved the food down his throat. He spat it right back. He cried - not in retaliation but more in a manner of someone trapped and feeling helpless. I could not bear it and finally gave up. It is when he also didn't fully drink his night time milk which he normally finishes that I realized that he felt bloated from all that fluid intake. I imagined myself being forced to eat food when my stomach was loaded with a ton of water. I felt so sorry for my little baby who I had fought so hard trying to feed him when he absolutely did not want it. I had let the chaos in the house cloud my understanding of why he was refusing food. Later that night when he went to bed I spent all the time (until my husband got back from work) sleeping right next to his toddler bed (I usually sleep on the side of the crib where baby gir l sleeps) and said a thousand apologies to him even though he had no clue about it.
This morning he woke up and had his morning milk and as always put his little fingers on my cheek and said "Konchi" (meaning petting fondly). My independent little two year old is still a baby after all. No apologies needed Mamma!

Void...

I had a few quiet moments to myself this evening. My mother had gone to attend an independence day program at the local temple - B had gone with Kutti boy to drop her off. Baby girl was napping in the cradle in front of me. It was a quiet moment. But not a peaceful one. Dusk, as it is brings a feeling of melancholy. I sat there thinking about my father. How he lay there cold and lifeless in the coffin. My father who could not stand feeling cold and would always dress in warm clothes even at home. Him, in an ice box. Frigid. I am unable to come to terms with it.
All the times I have spent with him now seemed like a dream. He lives in my memories, yes. But all the more that makes me long for his physical presence, his response to my thoughts and to my life now. My little girl is here and he has not seen her. Breaks my heart. He looked forward so much to spending time with my son whom he adored. How could he just leave without any goodbye. I cannot get over the fact that I had the chance to spend time with him in Dec'06 during X-mas break (he passed away mid Jan most unexpectedly) - I almost booked the ticket to go visit him at my brother's place but I did not because I had just made two trips to India back to back and I did not want to put my son through yet another change of place/schedule since he had lost a lot of weight from the long trips already. Plus I was pregnant and would have had to travel alone with kutti boy. My mother out of her concern for my son told me "We are any coming there in March (07) - don't come now". Little did I know that was my last chance to see my father. Who has done so much for me. I never got to tell him how much he meant to me. In fact I didn't realize it myself until after he died. I now fear death a lot. Not mine. But those around me. I feel like every normal day with no "incident" is good news. I feel grateful for every normal day. But I am stricken with anxiety every now and then that something may go wrong. Something might be taken away from me. Just like my dad was. Leaving my poor mother alone after so many years of marriage. Both my mother and I talk about him every single day. In some context or the other. When I put away the spoons and forks - how my dad would eat so neatly. How he had style. When my son insists on closing the doors and blinds once it is dark - just like my dad would go around checking on the doors before he went to bed. I think about the times when I was a child just a couple of years older than my son - my father would drop me at school. He would be running late because of some phone call just when we were about to leave. He would feel responsible and would request the old lady who stood guard at the school gates to let me in quickly so I could join in the morning prayer at school. And here I am now with a son at that age - all those years in between - I was his child, in his care. Even the last conversation I had with him on the phone (at the hospital) two days before he died, he asked me about my son and about my health (since I was pregnant). I am unable to come to terms with the finality of his death. If only I had gone to visit him during that X-mas break I may not have felt this terrible void - this desperate urge to see him alive and keep that fresh in my memory. At a theoretical level I am able to understand his death. Every one has to go at some point. They live in our memories. Natural cycle of life. Change is the only constant. Yes, yes. I tell myself all that. I suppose enough time has not passed for this feeling to become numb. It is better than the pain I felt seeing his body in that coffin. But not numb enough yet. I suppose in some strange way life prepared me for this just by the sheer timing of it - when I have two kids to take care of - where there are no excuses to take time off to ponder on this - their demands come first and come all the time. And in my son's musical, carefree laughter and daughter's serene face I do find happiness. And in what now seems like Maya - was my dad ever with me feeling - I want to believe that some how he is still with us and is able to see and enjoy my children like he would have immensely had he been with us now physically.

Brick walls, tiled steps and toddler...

I find myself to be in some state of anxiety pretty much all the time that my twenty three month old son is awake and running around. I was not this way until baby girl (who is now a month old) arrived. I am constantly worried about my little boy's safety. We moved to a two level house early this year - the bedrooms are upstairs and the other rooms are downstairs. There is a fire place with a slightly raised brick platform in front of it and beautiful mantel shelf and large mirror above it. All the rooms down stairs have tiled floors and there are two long tiled steps leading to the small foyer area and outside door. The stairs are carpeted but the floor just below it is tiled.
Every time I sit in the master bedroom to nurse baby girl, my son hangs out talking non stop, bringing things from drawers, jumping up and down the bed, fiddling around with things in the room, throwing baby girl's hat up and down and trying to catch it...and then suddenly he runs out of the room wearing baby girl's blanket over his head saying "Kanume" (peekaboo). And I panic. Right outside the room is the staircase. I tell my mother to keep an eye on my son while I am up in my room nursing baby girl. She waits for some time and sees that my son is busy playing with me inside the room. He is able to open the bedroom door even if I shut it tight or worse still he tries to pull on it and I am afraid he will fall down thud and hurt himself while I am sitting in the bed. So I don't shut the door. I imagine him tumbling down the stair case and landing on the tiled floor below and I feel panic setting in. I scream for my mom and ask her to keep an eye on him. Sometimes if she doesn't hear me I just have to abruptly stop the nursing and run to make sure he is safe and is not wandering around like a little ghost with a blanket over his head.
While he is playing downstairs he runs around the rooms - just runs - round and round - and like Charlie Chaplin goes and rams his big head on the edge of the kitchen cabinet and looks startled and starts crying when he realizes he is in pain. Two days back he ran from one end of the living room to the fire place area screaming "curever, curever" (meaning screw driver) in an excited voice and fell flat on the floor and hit his nose on the brick platform by the fire place. He had three gash marks on his swollen nose for a day - thankfully it has subsided.
I am constantly afraid he will hurt himself badly and I find it stressful to worry about this every time he runs around or when I am upstairs with baby girl unable to fully keep an eye on him. He IS quite careful on the one hand but goes into his own world of thought while climbing up and down the stairs.
Now I must come across as an over protective wimp of a mom. I thought so myself. But the other day a friend, his wife and two children visited us at night. Their son is 16m old and he was running around the house. He was running around playing and suddenly fell down and hit his forehead on the tiled step and was bleeding. They panicked on seeing the deep mark and all that blood. They were ready to go to the ER but the blood flow had stopped and it didn't look serious. My friend was insistent they go to the doctor just in case...his wife was too tired and was worried about the older child having to wait three hours in the ER for a simple cut. It was a simple cut but thankfully so. It could have been something that demanded ER attention. Now my friends say they will not move to a non carpeted house or a bi-level until both their children are a few years old.
This incident has added to my stress levels. I feel as if we are getting lucky each day in escaping with just mild bruises and bumps when kutti boy runs around the house.
When I was a child, the house we were in was a very large house but like a lot of old houses, it was not carefully planned nor child friendly. There were heavy brick steps leading to the dining room and I have had many a fall there.
How do parents in India manage this problem (this is not in any way India bashing - in case it comes across that way!)- or rather this fear? Houses are built of hard bricks and concrete. Much easier for a child to get seriously hurt if he/she bangs on the wall at an angle. No one there seems to be stressed about this issue as much as we here stress out. Are we just being over protective? I am wondering if we should move to another place before baby girl joins her brother in his antics!
I hate this feeling of stress and anxiety all day. I don't seem to be suffering from post partum depression which many people warned me about with both pregnancies. But I was not prepared to feel so anxious about the kid's safety - wondering if all of you go through this also or if am being unduly paranoid?

In response to Moppet's comment:
We do have a gate downstairs for the steps. We cannot have one upstairs - the way the stair case is designed. Even the downstairs gate is not working out a)because if I go up leaving kutti boy downstairs he cries his heart out - makes me feel very bad - especially since I have to nurse every third hour b) he has now started pulling on the gate which is even more dangerous.

Table edges have not been too much of an issue so far - I bought table cushions but it is not fitting into some of the table edges - keeps falling off. We plan to go to Home Depot this weekend and find out if we can carpet the foyer area and the tiled steps alone. Tiled floors are great to keep clean and avoid allergies for the kids.
I am not sure how we can child proof the brick platform near the fire place.

I am really curious how parents deal with this issue in India since you cannot possibly child proof all that brick and stone areas! Of course they learn by falling and it is happening here regardless of my worrying - but I just hope it is stops with minor bruises.

Favorite Indian Writing

Tagged by Swati and Mystic Margarita. Thanks Sawti and MM.
Here are a few of my favorite Indian books...

Small remedies – Sashi Deshpande.

It is a brilliant novel that delves into the lives of two women, Savitribai, a musician and Leela, a communist active in public service, both rebels in their own way. Madhu, Leela’s niece travels to Bai’s home to write her biography. Madhu, who has lost her only son Adit, tries to make sense of her own life by exploring Bai’s life. It has some brilliant lines that are powerful and moving.
Without mentioning the context I will write a couple of lines from the book.

“Not fair to Adit? How can anything be fair to him now? Why do we speak of the dead as if they have any connection with us, our lives, with life itself? It’s all over for them. The finality of death makes nonsense of any idea of their responses”.

The Bachelor of Arts – R.K.Narayanan

I simply love RKN’s writing style. This book is one of my RKN favorites. It is the story of Chandran, a young man who graduates with a Bachelor of Arts and steps into the real world. In typical elegant RKN style, he brings out the charm of simple south Indian life especially in the context of marriage. Chandran falls in love with Malathi and his eagerness to marry her is brought about with such sweet humor, you will become so involved in Chandran’s emotions yourself.
Chandran waits for Malathi’s horoscope to be delivered to his parents but there is more of a delay than Chandran or his parents expected. Chandran offers to actually go and ask the girl’s side for a copy of the horoscope. His mother is afraid he might actually do it and embarrass them. Some of my favorite scenes from the novel:

Father laughed and told it to Mother who became scared and said, “Chandra, please don’t do it. It would be a very curious procedure. They will send the horoscope themselves.”
Father said to Chandran, “Look here, you will never be qualified to marry unless you cultivate a lot of patience. It is the only power that you will be allowed to exercise when you are married”.
Mother looked at Father suspiciously and said, “Will you kindly make your meaning clearer?”

M.S : A life in music – T.J.S George

This is a must read for anyone who is a fan of M.S.Subbulakshmi or for that matter anyone who loves music. The biography of the legendary modern day musical saint – M.S.Subbulakshmi, by T.J.S George reads like a novel.
M.S.Subbulakshmi, the innocent, talented and beautiful girl from Madurai escapes being paired off with a rich chettiar as per the norms of the “Devadasi” traditions and boards a train to Madras and takes refuge in the home of Sadasivam. This marks the birth of the protagonist, Mr. Sadasivam, who weds M.S in a rush, to ward off the handsome and talented musician GNB for whom MSS had developed a soft spot, reading almost unbelievably like the traditional love triangle script from modern day Tamil cinema. Sadasivam transforms the simple girl from who fled home into a film actress and then to a saintly figure of carnatic music accepted and appreciated world over. Mr. George summarizes the relationship between M.S.S and Sadasivam into an unforgettable epiphany “ If M.S made melody, Sadasivam made M.S”.
Like an onion peel, the saintly image of MSS is peeled layer by layer to reveal her human quality and yet her absolute and unflinching dedication to music, her guileless demeanor and humility, her divine voice, natural talent, perfect diction and “Shruthi Suddham”, her life long service to innumerable charitable causes all at once wrap her back into an image of a Bhakti saint. Icons are sometimes best kept cloaked in enigma. Knowing their personal stories often tarnishes and strips away the aura around that image. Mr.T.J.S George however skillfully keeps the balance by revealing the human side of the image yet eliciting a sense of wonder and respect from the reader towards M.S.S. He does this in an erudite fashion from having researched the time and history of events and characters that shaped the world of carnatic music at the time MSS emerged in the scene. His biography of MS stands out as unique because it is not a mere recording of events in her life and career. It is placed in the context of social and cultural history of the times in which her musical career developed.

A fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry

I don’t often cry for novels or movies. I do get moved but this book really left me crying at the end. I finished reading this novel at 2.00 am one morning and I called my husband (we were on opposite coasts then) and bawled on the phone! It may be sleep deprivation that made me that* emotional but it will no doubt move you to tears.
It is an amazing novel really.
Set in 1975, during a state of emergency declared by the government, this novel revolves around the lives of four people, a widow, a student and two tailors who have fled their native town to the city. It is a brilliant narrative and has so much intensity to it that you will actually not mind reading through some 600 pages (I find it hard to get through such long novels unless they are really good and engaging) of it.

Some of my favorite lines:
“I have sad news” he said. “Chachaji had an accident and passed away”.
The tailors were too distraught, however to be able to mourn the loss or fully comprehend it. Yesterday’s events in the market square had merged with all other tragedies in their lives. “Thank you for coming to inform us,” Ishvar kept saying mechanically. “I must attend the funeral and Om will also come, yes he will be better tomorrow”.
When you read this line in the context of the lives of these characters, you will understand how when tragedy strikes again and again, emotions can be numbed out. It is a beautiful novel worth a read.


Harvest – Manjula Padmanabhan

This is probably the only English play I have read by an Indian author. I can’t think of any others that I have read. It reminded me of Samuel Beckett’s play, “Waiting for Godot” in how it made me feel after I read the play.
Harvest is basically a play about the harvesting of human organs from poor people. It revolves around a family of four – Om, his brother, his mother and his wife. It is futuristic and has a vein of dark humor running through it. It leaves you feeling disturbed and anxious about society in general. I don’t enjoy that feeling. Nevertheless, it is a brilliant play that I am glad to have read.

Arangam – Sujatha Vijayaraghavan

This is not a well-known book but it surprises me that it is so because it is an amazing Tamil novel in my opinion. Note, this is not a novel by the famous Tamil novelist Sujatha (who is also one of my favorites). This is by Mrs.Sujatha Vijayaraghavan who is a talented writer, choreographer and musician. She hails from a family of musicians and it shows in the ease and flair with which she has written this novel about an aspiring vocalist in the world of carnatic music. It has enough drama in it to keep your attention and make it “unputdownable”. She describes the emotions of the main character in eloquent Tamil – the language itself flows like music in some of her passages. I thoroughly enjoyed the book. Unfortunately I don’t have the book with me now – one of those “borrowed and may take long long time to come back” book. If not I could have quoted some lines from the book to give an idea.

It looks like most of the bloggers I know have been tagged for this already. In anycase, will ask SS, Terri, Rbdans, UTBT, Agelessbonding, Cantaloupes Amma - please if you don't mind - would be nice to read about your favorite Indian books...

On accepting a new person at home...

Before I had my second child I was very curious to see her. Just imagining how she would look made me very curious to actually see her. Would she be similar to my son in her looks, her temperament? I was also very curious to see how my son would react to her arrival. I was worried sick for months as to how he will handle my being away at the hospital and if he would create a huge fuss and cry loudly at the hospital when he visited me. Miraculously, he behaved so well and accepted my being away for two days despite never having been away from me for more than a few hours. But when he came to visit me at the hospital his reaction to the new baby was cool indifference. He just took a cursory glance at her, was mildly curious but he moved on to focusing on his mamma...he would come and sit right next to me in the bed for the whole hour and half he spent in the hospital room.
The morning after baby girl's birth, the nurse came to check her vitals. A very experienced older nurse, she was pleasant and asked me about my family and how the older one was taking to the arrival of the new baby. When I told her about his reaction and how I worried if he would be violent with her or would be very cranky from the sudden shift in my attention, she told me this: "Well, some one told me, you know - how would you feel if your husband brought home another wife and told you you had to accept it?!". Goodness - I didn't need that analogy to drive home the point. But it certainly did. Is that how bad it feels for him to share my time and attention (or his dad or grandma) with another new baby at home? Every time he gets cranky these days I tell myself I have to be understanding and be patient. I try, I really do. I spend all my free time with him what ever little there is of it. Even when I check my mails quickly or sit down to have my cereal in the morning, I ask him to sit right next to me and I am always engaging him in conversation. I make it a point to take him for a walk or to the park for him to play in the evenings. We make sure to take him on some outing on weekends. Every effort is being made in my opinion to make him feel secure. So when evening time comes and my husband has not yet returned from work, if my son acts cranky and does crazy things (like bring a sippy cup with Gatorade and reach up the crib and drop it in while I am stuck in position nursing the little one) - I just lose it. I feel angry that I am making every effort to not make him feel left out and yet he is demanding more of my attention. For those few seconds when I am driven to the edge I forget that he is still a child and that he is being incredibly generous in fact in how affectionate he is with his little sister and how accepting he is of her. All he wants is my love and attention and a constant reassurance that that hasn't changed. When things have calmed down and dinner has been fed and baby girl has gone to bed, I sit with him for an hour before he goes to bed. He used to run around the house playing kick the ball with his father during that time normally. But these days all he wants to do is to just soak up my free time and sit on my lap and hear me sing his favorite songs and wait me to ask "Appram yenna?" (what next?) and he will tell me the beginning words of the next line in the song. Those moments are just so precious and I feel so much at peace then. Until the next day...
For now I tell myself the only way to deal with all this is day by day....

Kutti boy with baby sister

So how is the kutti boy taking the arrival of his little sister?
Well he loves her really. So far - he has been very affectionate with her. Calls her "KuTTi papa" with a stress on the T's. And grinds his teeth and comes close to her and gently pats her on the cheek.
And then pats her a little more...
Which suddenly grows into an extra dose of affection and the pressure increases on the pat pat...
So far so good. Let's see how long this gentleness lasts in how he treats his little sister...

Is it luck?

I recently heard someone comment "Man, guys with children who's moms stay home with the child instead of working are so lucky!". This was said most innocuously. No malice intended really. But it still irks me to hear this or variations of this comment which are in fact quite patronizing or plain insulting. The latter sorts often in fact come from working women...I have heard this from someone " I don't know how you guys do it, I just can't imagine being cooped up at home with my kid all day". Or "You are so lucky - you get to spend so much time with your child".
So is it luck really? Hardly so. It is a choice we all make. Most of the people who make such comments are not in economically underprivileged situations that they have to work. They just chose to work and have their child be dropped off in day care. What is luck is if they have someone young and able that they absolutely trust that can give them the kind of care they would have given themselves had they stayed home with their child. Some people have the grandmother and father come and take care of the child for the first year while they go to work soon after the maternity leave ends. I am okay with their choice but I find it very annoying if they just make it seem like luck played some role in some of us spending more time with our children. When you spend time taking care of two kids and feel completely exhausted you hardly feel like it is "luck" favoring you. It is a difficult and tiring job to do that all day and it is a choice we make. Yes it is probably a lot more chaotic and challenging when both the mother and father are working especially if they have to leave their child in day care. I don't necessarily feel like I am luckier than them nor do I make such comments to them. Somehow I get this feeling that there are some working women who think it is a failure on our part to have put our career on hold and choose to stay home with the children for the first couple of years. Different strokes for different folks. You have to do what works for you and what you feel comfortable with. But to belittle the amount of work it takes to be a stay at home mom and subtly put it down with these kind of comments is plain rude. But how do you respond to such comments when it is made so subtly!
Well - I could go on and on about this - but I have to get going now - the night duty starts now! Two or three cycles of night time feedings and a little sleep every now and then to look forward to! In the meanwhile squeezed in time for a quick rant in my post!

Best feeling right now!

If you asked me now what is the greatest feeling on earth - sorry to say - at a conscious level - I can't say it is when my son comes and pats me on the cheek gently and says "Konchi Konchi" (a fond gesture) or when I see my baby girl smile - it feels absolutely wonderful when at 4.00 am after the second cycle of night time nursing I know both my kids (and of course B) are fast asleep, I come into the room that has cooled down to the right temperature and I rest my head comfortably on the pillow, stretch my legs and just drift off into sleep completely fatigued! That moment feels just amazing! :)
More later! Have a precious half an hour to catch a quick nap now before I have to get up to nurse baby girl and then feed kutti boy his lunch! He refused out of the blue to have his breakfast - fed on bits and pieces of snacks - I cried of course from desperately getting him to eat something - now I am exhausted mentally and am finding respite in a few quite moments when I can do something other than baby care!

The magic moments – birth of baby girl!

First of all, thanks to all of you for your wishes both before and after my delivery. Thanks Poppin’s mom – sweet of you to have given the “Breaking news” to everyone.
As I sit back and think about the tense drive to the hospital and the intense moments leading up to the birth of our baby girl, the feeling is that of an out of body experience. My due date was June 20.07. I was hoping that I would deliver a few days earlier rather than later like it happened for my son for whom I had to be induced since he went past the due date. Also, my sister was due to arrive on June 17 and had planned to stay for a week. I was hoping to maximize the time we would have with my sister after the second baby arrived. This time it was all about practicality. I was most worried about how my son would manage my being away at the hospital for two days never having stayed away from me for more than 2-3 hrs. On Friday night I had indications that labor might start over the weekend (mucus plug). So I called my sister in the morning and told her to come on Saturday night instead of Sunday night as she had planned.
June 17 morning:
I went for a long walk after feeding kutti boy (my 22m old son) his breakfast. It was a long walk considering I was due any time although I just walked down the road along with my sister. I was really hoping to kick start natural labor. I had been feeling some mild contractions during the night. But they were sporadic, some close, some far apart. I had my lunch around 12.30 pm and went upstairs around 1.00pm to make my son go for his afternoon nap. But before that I called the hospital and the doctor on call called me back. I told her that my contractions were about 10 to 12 minutes apart and lasted about 30 to 45 seconds. She asked me if my water broke or was leaking for which I replied no. She asked me about my first delivery – I told her I delivered three hours after I had been induced. That got her concerned and she paused for a bit and told me “I would hate for you to come here all the way and go back. So I would say let’s wait for an hour and see if your contractions start getting more frequent. If they get any closer than 10min, call me and we will have you come over to the hospital”. I told her to make sure that the anesthesiologist was ready to give me the epidural. I always swore that I would never deliver without the epidural since I could not imagine withstanding so much pain. I decided to make my son start his afternoon nap so that I could leave for the hospital while he was napping knowing my contractions would probably start getting more frequent by then. He was wired awake that day and even at 1.30 pm he was playing with me and goofing around. I finally told him sternly that he had to close his eyes and start sleeping. Finally around 1.45pm, he fell asleep. I came downstairs and saw that the hospital bag was ready to be loaded and my husband was ready to leave any time. I could see the tension in my mother’s face. I had told my sister to stay on with my mother and help her when my son woke up from his nap. All of a sudden the pain became intense. Contractions became more and more frequent. Three minutes apart now. I suddenly found myself in tears from the pain. I controlled myself and told my husband to call the labor and delivery unit and tell them that we were coming right away. The answering service asked to talk to me (the patient!) and I could barely answer their questions. I gave the phone to my husband and told him to inform them that we were just coming and we had no time to wait for the doctor to call me back. I could feel the intensity of the labor pains and I felt the pressure of an imminent water break.
Just like a thriller movie there was a twist when I was about to leave. My nephew said that he would drive me and my husband (B) to the hospital instead of having B drive me to the hospital. We were about to get into his car when he said “Oh man, I don’t want to take chance but I am low on fuel”. I was in agony by then not as much in pain but from the anxiety that we were running out of time. Immediately B transferred the bags into his car and I was groaning with pain by then. In a concerned tone I asked my sister who is a pediatrician, “Do you think I will deliver in the car?!!”. She comforted me feebly saying, “No, don’t worry, keep breathing, you will get there”. But she was lying. She was concerned too. Suddenly she exclaimed “You know what, let’s just call the ambulance”. I was too nervous by then to even wait for one second while making phone calls etc. I just screamed to every one “Let’s just GO!!”. My mother insisted that I take my sister along and that she would manage my son by herself. I asked her if she was sure and she just told me to leave and not worry about my son. My sister wanted to get her hand bag just incase she had to drive back but I yelled “Let’s JUST GO!”. She jumped into the car and we left.
June.17.07 – around 2.20pm.
We were driving to the hospital – a twenty min ride from our place. Traffic was smooth since it was a Sunday afternoon. I sat at the back with my sister holding my hand. B was driving as calmly as he could under the circumstances. Those twenty minutes were one of the most intense moments in my life I think. They were in part a thriller and in part a comedy in retrospect. Only in retrospect one can laugh about it. When I was experiencing it I was pale with pain and anxiety written all over my face. I could feel the pressure of the baby pushing its way down and I was worried sick that I would not make it to the hospital in time. I have this habit of reciting “Ram Ram Ram” when I am in pain or when I am afraid. It is more of a meditative prayer than a religious one. So naturally I started reciting loudly “Ram Ram Ram” in a sing song tone and my sister would hold my hand and ask me to breathe slowly in and out. Between contractions I would have a thirty second break from pain and those few seconds I was in some strangely euphoric state. I felt as if I was entering deep sleep in the midst of that pain. As we neared the highway exit for the hospital the road was bumpy and in the same sing song tone I was yelling to my husband “bumpy, bumpy, bumpy” and he just calmly replied “ I can’t do anything about it – the road is that way here”. I was mildly relieved to know that we were near the hospital. The left turn signal to enter the hospital emergency entrance turned to red just when we got to that point. After what seemed like eternity, we then turned into the emergency entrance of the hospital. My sister darted inside and found a lone receptionist sitting at the desk. She told him “We need a wheel chair, my sister is in labor and needs to be taken to her room”. He casually asked her “Oh, when is she due?”.
My sister said “NOW, she is term and is ready to go NOW”. He then got some sense of the urgency but only pointed to the wheel chairs in the corner. She ran to fetch one and shouted to him to get the nurses ready in the labor room. By then he had paged a nurse who came running outside and I managed to climb on to the wheel chair. I huffed and puffed my way through the hallways and finally made it to the labor room.
June.17.07 – 2.44pm.
As soon as we got into the room, I asked the nurses to give me an epidural. It so happened that the labor nurse who was there at my first son’s delivery was on duty when I went in this time too. She recognized me and told me “ Well, you have to get into bed first, we need to check you before giving an epidural”. The height of the bed now seemed like the Himalayas to me. I felt the shooting pain of the contractions and the pressure of a baby ready to push its way down. I somehow managed to climb on to the bed and push back as much as they wanted me to. The nurse checked me and casually said “No, can’t give you the epidural, too late, you are fully dilated”. I felt my heart sink. I was terrified of the pains I might have to endure while pushing the baby out. I was someone who would pop an Aleeve tablet before periods cramps started. How can I endure labor pains and push the baby out! Just as I was mired in these fearful thoughts, I felt the pop of the water breaking. There were three nurses in the room and one of them paged the doctor on call, the other inserted the IV needle, my husband held my hand and kept telling me to breathe. My sister looked on to see how I was progressing. One of the nurses yelled to me “The baby’s head is coming out. Start pushing”. It was a scene from the movies. I barely got myself perched on the hospital bed and suddenly I felt myself giving one big push and there it was, exactly seven minutes after I got on the delivery bed, the much awaited sound of the baby’s first wail! The nurses, my sister and B were just delighted and my sister was in tears. She came to hug and I don’t remember where my husband was at that moment – I think he immediately ran to see his little girl. They lifted the baby up for me to see – I could see her pink face and curly thick mop of hair. They took her away to have her cleaned and weighed and wrapped up. We waited for a few minutes when I was left to myself pretty much since all attention was now on the baby. My sister was cooing to the baby and my husband was busy with the camera capturing the moment. All I felt was relief, relief and more relief. Thank you god for big mercies. One wrong move on our part, any small delay here or there, things would have turned out very differently. I could have delivered in the car – a scene I cannot even imagine. I felt like some divine grace had held me tight and kept me breathing right and hold on until we reached the hospital. The nurses remarked to me “What a perfect way to deliver! You didn’t waste any time. You just got here and you delivered!”. The senior nurse looked at me with a grin and showed me the labor chart and said “This is the shortest chart in my nursing career. Just a strip of paper! For the third one, you better get here as soon as labor starts!”. I turned to her and said “Are you kidding me, no third, this is it!”. She looked at me as if to say “We’ll see!”. The doctor on call arrived a few minutes later and congratulated me and shook her head in disbelief. She told me “Thank god! You made it here on time. You really have a high tolerance for pain. It all happened so quickly from the time you called me!”.
High tolerance for pain? Me? I probably do have it but I just cannot believe it. She then sutured the second degree tears I had suffered while pushing the baby out. When they handed me the baby, all I felt was a deep sense of gratitude to whatever power it was that brought her into this world safely in a secure, clean environment. I could not think of anything else. Suddenly sleep took over me. I just felt my eyes close from sheer fatigue from the intensity of the past half an hour. I just lay down feeling blank and tired.
It is already one week since the birth of baby girl. She is sleeping like an angel all wrapped up in her swaddle blanket and wearing her pink baby cap. On our drive back from the hospital, I was sitting between our two children and my husband drove and my sister followed us in another car. It felt complete. Our little family. So much to look forward to. So many countless joys and so many trying moments in the process of raising them. It was only a fleeting thought. I am a bit too sentimental to think too far into the future. Thank heavens for today. We were returning home safe. I suddenly felt a surge of tears remembering how my mother and father were waiting at the door when we drove home after my first child was born. Now my father is no more. I missed him. I imagined his presence at the door when we entered. I do want to believe that the collective prayers and good wishes of so many people and my father’s blessings got me through this safely. Camera, video, flowers, pink balloons, aarthi at the door when we entered…and here we were now a family of four set for a long journey together!

Pictures...

Thanks to every one for your kind wishes...I will post about the exciting birth story when I am able to sit down and write about it. In the meanwhile I figured I would post a couple of pictures. It has been crazy since we got home on Tuesday afternoon (I delivered the baby on sunday afternoon). Taking care of my son who cooperated so wonderfully well when I was away at the hospital, making him feel like he is still just as important and spending all the free time with him, getting baby girl to nurse, talking to people who have been calling to congratulate, spending time with my sister and nephew who are visiting...it's been a mad house here. I feel as if I am in a time continuum where day merges into night without any distinction - I am up at all hours. Feel exhuasted at the end of the day but somehow muster the energy to wake up every 3 hours to nurse...all you moms out there know how that is and have been through all of the same things. Things will start settling down in a little while. In the mean time, here are a couple of pictures of kutti girl! And her little brother!

Father's day gift...

I decided to give my husband a "in kind" father's day gift this time. I anyway buy a lot of the things my husband wants/likes so it wouldn't have been too different if I gave it to him as a gift. I gave him a card two days back just in case I went into labor ahead of time and father's day gets sidelined totally because of it. I think he is a great father to our son and gives him unconditional love, never gets annoyed or angry with our son the way I do (well he does not spend as much time either!) and does things that our son thoroughly enjoys. Our son often even calls him by his first name as if he is his friend!
I gave B (husband) a nice card expressing my thoughts about him as a father and I wrote out the gift I was going to give him. As a gift, I gave him my word that I would not get irritated or annoyed with him for anything no matter what for one whole week. And if I broke the rule I set for myself, I would give him a rain check and do that for a month. Well, you can guess what it is going to be - rain check of course.
We were driving to some place yesterday and I was grinning when I asked B "So how is my gift coming along?"...he smiled and said "So you are giving me a rain check I guess!". I said "Well, no, I am thinking of changing the start date to tomorrow and I will be good from then on for a week"! He says "I think you should just aim for one day first"! :) Such confidence. So I get into how he* is not cooperating with me in making my gift happen and how had he done this or that in the morning I would never have gotten annoyed with him! :) He just looked at me as if to say I rest my case! No but seriously he should have cooperated in making it happen! :)) Like last morning, B came along with me for my doc appointment and my son was running around all over the waiting room. Which was fine because he was just happy and enjoying himself. But the door to the waiting room opened to the inside and people were coming in and out. I told B that he should be within arm's distance of our son so he won't be by the door when someone opens it. My excuse - I am fully pregnant, you are here, so you might as well be the one running behind our son. B thinks I am over protective and I should just let our son run around and fall and figure out things for himself. I do agree with letting him be and I don't think I am too protective. Just cautious. And at a public place we cannot let our child be a nuisance to others. Anyway our dear son goes close to the door, someone opens it and B just darts towards the door and grabs him in time. Or he would have been knocked down. It is a carpeted floor but for the person entering it would have been upsetting to think she knocked down a little child like that. So I turned around and showed my annoyance to my husband. He calmly said "What, I caught him on time". Which was not the point in my opinion!
Men are from Mars situation again! :))
Gosh, I should have just gone out and bought him a fancy camera lens and made my life easier! But then that would work against me in other ways by taking his time away from me. Hobby related gifts bring that possibility along. So I refrain from those now. As Poppins wrote to me when I told her about my gift - I guess I am giving him a precious gift - another little child - who may in fact decide to arrive on Father's day afterall!
Happy father's day to all the father's out there in our little blog community!

Shorry...

Shorry...is how my son says "sorry". He understands when one is supposed to say sorry and is very sweet about saying it. If he is in the play area of a mall and he is running around and some child bangs into him he says "Shorry" casually and walks on but he does say it. But he does not understand that he doesn't have to say sorry if the other person is the one who hurt him or tripped him or whatever.
Last evening I noticed that he had developed a slight diaper rash out of the blue - must be the summer heat...Normally he laughs and plays and asks me to give him some "Kereem" (as in Johnson's baby cream) in his palm - I make a few dots of it and he likes to count the dots randomly saying 2,7 etc. But last eve and night he cried and didn't ask for any cream because of the rash and it was heart breaking for me. What made it even harder was when he cried and kept telling me "Shorry Shorry"....
Just the thing to do to melt a mother's heart. Child in pain saying sorry to the mom for inflicting that pain while cleaning him up. I could not concentrate on anything until he was back to his normal cheerful self. My sister who is a pediatrician happened to call last night to check on my "Labor pains" status and I told her about his diaper rash and how I was feeling so bad about it. We were then talking about other things when she told me about one of her patients, a 12 yr old with cystic fibrosis. This girl is the only child to her parents who dote on her. Her mother has dedicated all her time to taking care of this child. The last time my sister told me about this girl was a couple of months back when she had been admitted to the hospital for breathing difficulties. At that time I believe this girl was very frustrated because she had been studying for some tests to be admitted into some program but could not take the exam since she had to be hospitalized. She apparently said "Whenever I have fun, I end up in the hospital!". Here was a motivated child wanting to learn and live and experience life to the fullest who was being punished with this disease. I put myself in her mother's place and felt such overwhelming sadness. Only child whose condition had worsened so much that she had only a couple of days left. And here I was feeling so bad to even just see my son cry from a diaper rash. Life tests people in different ways at different times - some bearable and some unbearable. Each time my son even experiences a mild cold or when I sulk that he is not a chubby kid like I would have liked him to be I end up hearing about some story like this and it gives me tremendous perspective. It reminds me that part of being a mother is not just basking in the glories of my child but being able to be strong and stand tall when my child is in pain and give him the strength to face the adversities that may come his way in life. I was reminded of my son's pediatrician's comment each time I lament about his weight. Your son, "He is healthy, he is active, why do you worry about his weight. He is the answer to America's obesity problem. You should only worry if he gains weight too easily". I can't deny I still wish for my son to be one stout chubby kid that I can maul and cuddle and pinch but at a serious level I do feel grateful (knock on wood) for big mercies - really, as long as the child is healthy and not in pain - plenty to be grateful for.
On a totally different note Poppins had a very nice post for Father's day in her site. And it again reminds us of the value and importance of maintaining our health at least for the sake of our children.

Is it a girl? Is it a boy? Twins? Due in a week?

As the due date comes closer and closer it is quite amusing to see the reactions from people regarding the (second) baby’s arrival. There is a sense of excitement and anticipation even amongst strangers. It’s a fun game to play – guessing the gender of the baby based on how you are carrying the baby, if you look like you are glowing etc etc. I remember how during my first pregnancy about three or four weeks before due date I would get so many questions about my due date. And because I am petite I guess my tummy showed so much that so many people asked me if I was either due right then or if I was having twins. This time around surprisingly no one has asked me if I am having twins but people have begun asking me if I am due to go very soon. We went to the beach last evening and I had a drink at Starbucks. The clerk made an error and charged me a lower amount for the drink. She called the manager who came to fix the error. He told her “Ahn, it’s ok, she has a baby coming soon anyway” and didn’t charge me the full amount for the drink. He was a tall, plump guy with a rather cherubic face who then cheerfully looked at me and said, “You look like you are ready to go soon”. I said “Yeah, kind of”. And he said “I would say in a week?”! That was a pretty close guess and I could see he had fun guessing and then checking with me to see if he was right.
The other day I was at the grocery store waiting at the cash register and the clerk, an older Chinese woman said “Let me guess what you are having, you are carrying it in front, I think it’s a boy”.
Hmm…as I am writing this post I realize I haven’t really even written about this in my blog – if I am due to have a girl or a boy. So let me leave it at that until the baby arrives!
A friend wrote to me after seeing my recent photo “You look like you are going to have a boy because you are glowing and they say if it is a girl she robs you of all your beauty”. Interestingly the same week, two of my relatives used the same phrase in Tamil to guess the gender of the baby. I find such traditional phrases in any context very cute and interesting. Translation doesn’t do it justice though. They said “Nee Azhagu vittundrukke, unakku ponnu dhan porakka pordhu” – translating literally, it means “ You are emanating beauty, so you must be having a girl” quite the opposite logic of what my friend said about the same thing. I too see a pregnancy glow when I look at pictures of some friends/my sister's during their pregnancy. I do believe though, "Pregnancy glow is in the eye of the beholder!". I don't see any glow when I look at myself in the mirror!
It’s fun to see how people – both known and unknown – love to participate in this guessing game. Something about the arrival of a baby is exciting and makes people want to know more details and want to converse about it. As the due date comes closer, I find myself receiving more calls from people wondering if the baby has arrived. Somehow they think if I haven’t called them it could be because the baby has arrived. A very close friend from India who normally doesn’t email and calls very infrequently (nevertheless is one of my closest friends) suddenly mailed me today asking me if I was in the hospital and if the baby had arrived! He is usually completely preoccupied with his work and on a normal day would casually leave an intentionally rude message "only called to quickly check if you are still alive, not much else, bye!". Another friend who lives very close to our place called me a little while back and said “Haven’t talked to you in two days, was wondering if the baby had arrived”! It is as if every one is eagerly waiting for the grand arrival of the little one. And I totally relate to it because a close friend was due to deliver on May 26 but I did not hear from her till May 31. I was so eagerly waiting for her call but I had already called her on the 25th with the “SO?!!” opening as soon as she picked up the phone. I didn't want her to feel pressured especially since this was her first child and she was already nervous about the labor pains etc. Every evening I would tell my husband “Haven’t heard from N yet, wonder if she is in labor now”. Some people find these sort of questions and guesses annoying but I actually really enjoy it. As long as it is obviously meant in a lighthearted manner which is usually the case. It makes you feel connected as human beings and makes you enjoy the true magic of bringing a new life into this world!

The McCann abduction

You may have read/seen the news about the abduction of Madeline McCann - which apparently has been given widespread attention by the media in Britain.
Articles such as this and this have drawn attention to this case in particular because it leaves room for a lot of thought and discussion at various levels. It also strikes a chord with the fear we have as mothers of such possibilities. But what I find amazing is how many articles about this story have made this an issue about working mothers vs non working mothers. It also truly was a revelation to me that there are a lot of people who do leave their very young children alone in hotel rooms while they go down to get a drink at night or like the McCanns did to get dinner. Supposedly they checked in on their children every half an hour. Every half an hour?! Things can happen in a minute. As someone who feels a pang of fear if we forget to turn the child monitor on if we are downstairs while our little child is sleeping upstairs in our bedroom I find this quite unbelievable. And I worry if I too could end up making some ridiculously stupid mistake like this. I see this as a case of poor judgment on the parents part more than anything. How can you leave three very young children alone in a locked room and go get dinner in a foreign place that too? Abductions are stuff of nightmares and to leave room for such possibilities by being out of sight and away from the children for a duration of half an hour seems so thoughtless to me. These are two educated doctors. They are intelligent people obviously...if they are capable of making such costly mistakes,it makes me worry as to where I could go wrong in my judgment. It may not be of the same sort, but one can panic and make costly errors. Makes me want to think of all possibilities - like what should be my first response in protecting my child say if there is a fire...if he is choking (a friend told me her husband was looking up the Heimlich maneuver on the web while her toddler swallowed a couple of coins - she in her state of panic just ignored him and called 911 not wanting to take any chances which is what I would have done)..if he is missing suddenly in a crowded place etc etc...
Honestly I don't understand why some cases of missing children get such high visibility. I have nothing against it - just feel bad for those that don't - I do understand not all cases can be allocated so much media coverage. But it is most of ten only the children of the rich that get so much visibility. And especially in this particular case, had it happened slightly differently - say had the kid choked while the parents were away they could be charged with neglect. At least here in the US. The People magazine article describes her as a devoted mother who cut down her work hours to spend time with her children - so obviously she does take parenting seriously but how can she and her husband do this - I just don't get it. How can they as parents leave three young children out of your sight and sound and be so far away for a considerable amount of time! Also I find it amazing that in every such case the attack (or support) focuses on the mother mainly. She is a doctor too like her husband but she is the one to scale down her work hours to raise her children well. For all the advancement and progress in women's rights it still is not an equitable distribution of responsibility between the mother and the father. The mother is expected to do more and sacrifice more and any compromise from the father is applauded greatly while automatically expected from the mother. Society is still not geared up to accept fully stay at home dads or dads who really scale down on work and income like it does for mothers. Decisions are not often made by "Who contributes more income to the household?" - even in cases where the mother earns equal or more income than the father, it is the mother who scales down on her career related goals.
The McCann case is reflective in several ways of our current society and where it stands on different issues. Cultural differences in parenting, gender roles, why rich white kids always get more attention in cases of abduction etc etc.
I always feel so sorry for the child that is abducted - it must be extremely traumatic for the child and it is the worst nightmare for a parent - to not know what is happening to the child. I sure do hope and pray they are able to find this child. And so many other missing children who have suffered this horrible fate.

No more periods?

You may have heard about this new pill. Essentially if a woman takes this pill she can stop her period entirely...
I personally would not feel comfortable taking this pill much as I hate going through "that time of the month" and all the joys that come with it. But it could just be mental conditioning. May be the next generation of girls will find this a perfectly normal thing to do and a matter of their choice. A young girl may just say "hey - I am busy preparing for SAT's, applying for college - I don't want to deal with periods now!" and casually go about doing what she needs to do. I guess parents of the next generation will have a host of new issues such as this to contend with based on their own personal preferences. They may not be used to this idea but if the young teen wants it and if it is widely used (remains to be seen if this pill can really succeed) then it may not be easy to refuse. I do wonder how many women will feel comfortable with the idea of not having a period for a whole decade. No matter what scientific explanations say about the period, it is something that is considered so much a part of womanhood. I had gone to a wedding a few years back and I met some woman who told me she just takes the pill all the time so as to not get her period - at that time I found it so strange. Now with an FDA approved pill like this I wonder if more and more women will choose to avoid all the discomfort associated with the period. Curious to know if you would take this pill to avoid periods for a long time...

8 things tag...or 9 ?

1) I just hate the wet feeling...I tell my husband to also dry his hands soon after washing his hands...and I can't continue working if my hands are wet - even when I cook I keep drying my hands in between...

2) I want to be able to speak Hindi fluently...I can read and write Hindi but my grammar is so bad that I never dare to speak any Hindi...

3) I was on a early morning flight back after visiting my (now) husband (he was my good friend then)and somewhere up in the clouds I decided I would marry him. I emailed him saying so that night after I got back to my place...

4) I so wish I had dimple cheeks!

5) I sing a few carnatic songs that I picked up from listening to people sing (though I formally learned to play an instrument) and dream of having the time to really learn vocal music enough to give a concert!

6) I get into laughing fits and just can't stop...and my son seems to have taken after me in that!

7) Much as I don't really believe in Zodiac (No really Geminians don't believe in Zodiac signs you know!) I think I am a typical Geminian - as extroverted as I am introverted...as friendly as I can be distant (as I have been told at times) etc etc...

8) Bad as it sounds I want both my children to be more like my husband than like me - except may be for the laughter bit! :) He is calmer than I am and I want that for my children - I don't want them to worry like I do.

Mm... I don't know who has already been tagged from the list of people I have in my links and visit...Terri? Kodi? Aqua, Mommyoftwo, itchingtowrite, Orchid, rdbans, Rohini (if you have a blog), RanjaniSatish...If you guys happen to read this please do the honor and post on this tag subject. Consider yourself tagged!

Stopping at one or...

This post by Rohini inspired me to write this. Her words “Zero or two” kids made me smile because those are the exact words I used in the context of having children. Nice feeling when you see others having a similar perspective. That said, I have to say I would have chickened out of the whole process of going for a second child had my husband not been absolutely sure that we should have two children and not just one. Any doubt on his part and I might have convinced myself to cop out of this even though I felt it was the right thing to do – have two children so they will have each other. In my opinion fear of the unknown can be strong unless you feel confident and absolutely convinced that you can do it and do it well. I did not feel that and I still feel anxious as to how I will get through the first year with two little ones (my second one is due end of June). My mother is here to help me out, but she is going through her own silent grief right now after the loss of my father. Also, she is much older now than she was when she helped all my other siblings with this whole process – I am her youngest child born much after the first five were born, clearly an accident as they say! Unless I hire a nanny full time (good part time nannies are almost impossible to find here because they are dedicated and want to do it full time) which is very expensive and not worth it if I plan to be stay home for the first two years of raising the child considering I am doing that for my first child. So I did find it daunting to think of being a stay at home mom for another couple of years and do child rearing full time with very little help at least during week days. It is not even the work, but the mental drain one feels on some days that prove to be very trying...I can believe people find it daunting enough to just not want “to do it all over again”.
Two of my brothers and one sister have only one child each respectively. And two of my sisters have two children each. Having seen those children grow up, I don’t see any difference in how fit they are, how mature or intelligent they are. The single children are all very smart, mature and well adjusted socially as much as the ones with siblings. Although I cannot deny that the single children would have been great as siblings and would have doted on their younger brother or sister had their parents decided to go for one more child. Interestingly of my two brothers, one tried to convince me not to go for a second while the other was trying to convince me “not the make the same mistake” they made in having just one child. A friend with a single child who is about to enter college, recently told me “You know, when I was your age people used to try to convince me that I should go for second child. I felt annoyed that they were advising me…now I find myself doing the same thing. It would have been nice if I had had two children”. Some people come to regret their decision to stop with one whereas some others (like my brother) are so sure of it that they even try to convince others as to why it is a good idea to stop with one.
I think if one is not mentally ready to have two children it is almost impossible to be bold enough to go for it. It is not easy to bring a life into this world unless you feel you can do it. Speaking for myself I went into this with much trepidation despite strongly feeling that it would be good for my children to have each other. When I see bickering siblings (as adults) who are not close or don’t care much for each other I wonder why they turned out that way – if it has to do with the parenting or really sometimes people just don’t get along with each other. I dread such an outcome for my children and I sincerely keep praying that they will always be friends. I feel like I am going through this “all over again” just for that one reason – they should have each other. Another friend who’s father recently died of Alzheimer’s disease told me – “ I was so sure that we would only have one child. But after what I went through with my father I realized that if I had been the only child it would have been impossible and devastating to bear it all on my own. That’s when I felt I had to do it for my daughter’s sake – she needs a sibling”. Similar thoughts were echoed by someone who lost her father recently and said that she had no one to share her grief with – what her mother was going through was different from what she was going through. She really missed having a sibling at that moment of loss.
On the other hand another friend told me a while back that she just could not imagine going through it all over again because she really did have an extremely difficult pregnancy. She also felt it was not in her to jeopardize her career by going for yet another child. My friend who’s father had Alzheimer’s also had a very difficult pregnancy but she still went ahead with the second and having somehow got through pregnancy and the first year after, she feels it has been absolutely worth it. It is a matter of finding the activation energy it takes to just bite the bullet and go for it – once it sets in motion, there is no going back and one somehow gets through the difficult years for a life time of joy – at least one hopes! Having a sibling is not just about having someone to share the burden of grief in life situations, but also having someone to celebrate with, someone who knows you through childhood and through all that your family has gone through, both the good and the bad. It’s about that bonding that comes with growing up together and having the liberty to call and laugh or cry about something that you know a sibling and only someone that close will understand. I feel strongly that it is a great gift that a parent can give to a child. You can have a fall out more easily with even the closest of friends and suddenly be left alone but it is very hard for siblings to not be there for each other no matter how many arguments or difference of opinion they may have with each other. As far as the single child, knowing my nieces and nephews who are single children, I don’t see any difference in how accomplished or happy they are compared to those with siblings. I only feel bad sometimes that they missed out on the joys of having a sibling, of growing up together and knowing there will be someone with a shared history and a sense of family for a long time to come. As I said in my previous post (about what my mother tells us), I imagine it is every parent’s wish that their children be united as siblings and always be there for each other. I too pray for that for my two children.