To Work or not to...

is it a dilemma for all?
I have always wanted to be at home till my kids grew up and went to school. But at the same time I also wanted to be financially independent.
After mowgli has come, the feeling that I ought to be at home with him is increasing day by day. i want to be there when he smiles, when he cries, when he sits up, when he takes his first steps.. I dont want to hear them secondhand from another person- be it a maid or a grand parent! I want to talk to him the whole day, read books to him, play with him and rest assured that yes, i am helping him in being a better person ( at this point, I digress to add, i am not saying that children of working mothers are less in any way). i want to be confident that we have done something fruitful the entire day and not just been watching tv ( with the maid, who knows!) or being towed around the whole day by adoring grand parents.
and wats killing me right now is that we are in no position financially to take this step! we have a housing loan whose emi's are eating into most of our salary. we dont splurge unnecessarily, no fancy holidays, extravagant purchases. we are just an ordinary middle class family trying to save something for the future.
and to top it all, i dont see myself sitting simply at home. i need to have some money i can call my own. not much, just enough for me to buy a book or two monthly, to send a gift to someody if i feel like. just enough for me to feel secure. maybe 5/10k monthly...
ever since we have started leaving mowgli with a maid, i am having these huge complexes.. whether will he get more attached to the maid.. will she look after him properly. will she plonk him in front of the tv while i am gone.. will she know wat to do if he starts crying.. and more important, will mowgli understand that shes only a maid and i'm his momma.. will he come to me when he is sick or will he go to the maid and wat not.. and to top it all, the maid has started advising me on how to look after him and even complains that i'm very careless with him.. what the hell! my baby and i'll look after him the way I please!
all in all, as you must have gathered by now, i'm in a murderous mood right now! somebody kill me!
what do I do God??? show me some way ahead. If I could do some free lancing at least... i want to cry.. i just want to leave everything and just be with my baby. the rest of the world can go drown themselves!!!

P.S. As i read this two days later, i realize that i've been quite hysterical about this. I have got a job that allows me to work part-time from home, a reasonably good servant who looks after mowgli well when i'm not there. Grandparents will be grandparents. They will adore and pamper and generally spoil their grandchildren especially more if he happens to be the first.

I am not deleting this post, but keeping it as a reminder of how hysterical and insecure and paranoid i can get at time when it comes to Mowgli!!!

can i have something other than milk?

Tomorrow Mowgli starts his first bite of semi solids...
The first step on the path towards growing up... From tomorrow, he is no longer dependent on me for a feed. For the last five months, I have been his sole source of nourishment. Now he will start one one small bite of porridge and slowly increase the spoonfuls and then graduate to solids and pretty soon my baby will be atoddler eating 4 meals a day... school will follow.. college... and then he'll fly away ...
I cant imagine how the time has flown by. From grumbling about breast feeding 24hrs a day, now i want to stretch that moment.. to push it a little more further.. to delay that first mealfor at least a month more.. to feel my baby near me, one hand on my chest two small feet pressed against my tummy... to smell his baby smell.. to plant kisses innumerable on his bald head.. to just feel him and hug him close... to have him to myself and not share him with anybody else... to enjoy this time alone with him...
From tomorrow, i need not worry about running back home because he might get hungry... from tomorrow onwards i can take 10 minutes more for my bath without fear of somebody crying their lungs out... from tomorrow i'm free from my self imposed house arrest... from tomorrow somebody is on their first step towards surviving in this big world.. .
and
from tomorrow mama is taking her first step towards learning to let go..to let mowgli live his life in his own way and learn from his own mistakes.. from tomorrow mama should be proud and happy that her son is growing up.. but dont know why, there is this catch in her throat and a small tear falls down for her baby... for from tomorrow mama will taste the first touch of sweetness and sadness mingled into one...
God bless you my little one...

goody goody morning...

its the time to get up..
one baby leg slowly makes its way outside the blanket... one tiny finger gently pokes at the adult next door... slowly the other fingers follow suit.. the bemused adult looks at this tiny froggy slowly unravelling each part of its body...baby legs and hands stretched to the maximum possible. ..a tiny pink body twists and turns with the grace of a gymnast and as a culmination to the getting up ritual , one loooong fart and an "oooooooooooooooooooooooooooo" to the tribals in the painting hung beside the bed and v r ready to rock the day!!!!

abstract words...

Read this somewhere :
"Sometimes the laughter in mothering is the recognition of the ironies
and absurdities. Sometime, though, it's just pure, unthinking delight. ~
"
So true...

weekend update

well.. had a loooong weekend .. pretty relaxing. got to complete quite a lot of housework. made a souffle. plenty of people around... my sister and the BH's sister, then one of our friends J was also staying over. lots of good food... loads of love and laughter... plenty of good natured fights between the sisters and the brother and my mowgli being completely squashed with all the attention :-) this guy is getting so used to people around him, he starts crying if there is nobody to talk to!!!

went to church on good friday.. made me realize that i should go more often. i get so lazy at times. should start goin for the sat service at least...

easter sunday P's parents had come home. And as usual Mowgli was the center of attraction . I think people are no more interested in talking to us. We are just the wallpaper or else just Mowgli's parents :-)

Each time i see uncle and aunty i make a silent promise to myself that when i have kids we'll try to be like them... in most households that i have seen, the kids are close to either the father or the mother and there is always this divide where you are not able to discuss things with ur parents for fear of them getting all judgemental and hyper... but his parents are so open with both their children. they discuss everything together, more importantly they talk! most families donot talk with each other.. also there is a lot of mutual respect between the parents which sorts of trickles down to all their relationships...

when we were going through a troubled phase soon after our marriage with both our parents refusing to accept us, P's parents treated us as their own. talking to us ..comforting us ..even willing to come and speak to our parents if needed. they are not the cuddly cuddly kind of parents where the kids are pampered, and there is a lot of show of affection. They are more of the quiet kind where the kids know that whatever happens they can talk to their parents about it and even if the parents donot agree, they will at least get a fair hearing...

We hope to be like this to mowgli. Easier said than done, i know...

Also P's mom was working when the kids were born. Seeing how P and his sister have turned out, it gives me hope that even if I work and cannot spend 24 hours with Mowgli, he will still love me and he'll not feel neglected. ( btw this is one of my major guilts .. that Mowgli will feel that I am neglecting him. but more about that in another post).

Before signing off, in the words of Brian Tracy

"If you raise your children to feel that they can accomplish any goal or task they decide upon, you will have succeeded as a parent and you will have given your children the greatest of all blessings."

oh.. the travails of fatherhood...

Scene: Lunch time at a hotel.
The Better Half to waiter: " Can you get me a nappy?"
Bewildered waiter: Huh!!!!
Embarassed Better Half : errrrr.. I meant napkin
:-)

Fly away

I love planes....
Just to see them up close, soaring above your head cant describe how i feel but very very happy..
When you see a plane on the ground you cant even imagine how that thing will actually manage to lift itself and ly above the clouds! when I was young , I used to wish whenever I saw a plane. had this wierd notion that planes were flying so close to heaven, so there was a better chance of my prayers being answered! am full of such crazy ideas..
I want to live like that.. Not to be encumbered by anything.. to fly free wherever I want to go... whenever I want.
And in this respect I admire the Better Half a lot. Bcoz till date he has never told me a single thing that I csnnot do.. No restrictions whatsoever.
And I hope that we will be such parents to you. Give you the freedom to explore and live your own life, but at the same time be near enough so that whenever you need us we will be there. Always there.

This sums up what I feel...

In the words of Kahlil Gibran..
Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you, And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts. For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls, For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.

For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as he loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.

4 months old already???

how fast time flies.. last year this time, we had just found out that I was pregnant. it was a pretty confusing time for me. Wondering how will we manage.. the housing loan... the job... was I ready for this... myriads of questions in my mind.. unspoken fears. but now a year later as i look at mowgli, i ask myself " how could I have been so dumb!!!!"
Tiny fingers that curl around my hand, the sweetest toothless smile, the look of complete adoration( if he is in the mood for it).. how could i have thought i dont need this?
We'll manage was my hubby's ( henceforth will be known as the Better Half) motto.. and we are managing now.. living in the moment.. enjoying each day as it comes :-)
There are days when Mowgli behaves just like his namesake, howling without a reason.. days when i feel like giving him up for adoption.. days when I am ready to strangle the BH's fat neck for getting me into this in the first place... and there are days when i smell the baby smell and bury my nose in his neck... days when i squeeze him so hard that he yells.. days when I just want to be with him... days when i see my BH struggle with the nappies and love him a little more...
Life is beautiful!

alpha???

this is for you, my son... to record all the ups and downs in your life and to note how our lives are entertwined with each other.
for my mowgli....