of kids and kids

Women gather together to wear silly hats, eat dainty food, and forget how
unresponsive their husbands are. Men gather to talk sports, eat heavy
food, and forget how demanding their wives are. Only where children gather
is there any real chance of fun. ~

Yesterday we had gone out for dinner with friends. They have a 3 year old boy Yuhan who is absolutely hyperactive and very sweet. The whole 3 hours that we were there mowgli was totally fascinated with Y. He kept on crawling after Y, looking at him laughing; trying to throw the ball the way Y does and all in all became a one man fan club for Y. It was so nice to see both the kids play together. Mowgli dedicatedly following Y… Clambering up on the bean bag, trying to throw the basketball into the hoop and then clapping his hands himself, delicately licking the ice-cream from the spoon, Y running away from Mowgli, then repenting and giving him his toys with strict instructions “Donot put it in your mouth.” The look on Mowgli’s face, he was sooooo happy and thrilled. When we were about to leave Mowgli crawled up to Yuhan and held his leg tight. He then managed to get Yuhan to bend and planted two lovely bites on his cheeks. A bite is the highest form of adoration that you can get from Mowgli. His physical “I Love you” is pulling the other person’s ears to him and biting the cheeks or the nose. Poor Yuhan sure didn’t like that part!
What I saw yesterday between those two boys just validates the argument that kids need kids to grow up. And it made me think hard about a second baby, sooner so that there will not be much of an age gap between the two and they’ll grow up together and be more of friends.
P.S. I can imagine the heart attack the BH is going to have when he reads this! and i am not thinking about the nappy changing and the 2 hourly night feedings!!! maybe fast before i change my mind!

WATERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

Mowgli’s latest addiction is water. Not to drink, but to play with and splash around. Bath times are mega masti with him putting all his toys into the bucket and splashing the water all around. The moment the tap is opened, he tries to catch the water in his hands and then looks surprised as to why he is not able to. He gets so excited at just the sight of all that water all around him, starts clapping his hand and giggling away to glory. Its truly a sight to behold! His crazy momma joins in the fun pouring water from one bucket to another, creating mini waterfalls and rivers and springs within those four walls
I catch my breath and say a silent prayer that this unadulterated fun will always remain, that he will always have the ability to find joy in the simplest of things and to enjoy each moment as they come. Here mowgli is the teacher and I am just a novice.

BACK!!!!

A looong break…

Nothing happened, just the usual lethargy.. caught up in different things.. net not working when the mood to write came… back pain, so couldn’t sit for long.. and so on and so forth!!!!

What has been happening all this while? A LOT!!!!
Mowgli has been initiated into the adult world of toiletries starting with our very own toothbrush to brush those small pearly whites that have cropped up (at last count four of them!). He seems to enjoy the daily brushing opening his mouth wide and grinning away to glory. Other developments, wellllll… he can stand up now holding onto something for support. This can be translated as everything under 3 ft BEWARE! Dressing tables, corner shelves, knick-knacks everything is at risk from teeny weeny exploring fingers and an adventurous mouth. Nothing is safe anymore. I have to be constantly on the lookout as to what is going into his mouth. While I do the cooking he sits with me on the floor playing with his spoons and plates and making a huge din. Opens the kitchen drawers and stuffs his toys inside them. And once I caught him sitting inside the cupboard while all the utensils were thrown out. (Couldn’t get a picture of that cuteeeeeeeeeee sight!)
Fiercely independent (don’t know whether to feel happy or sad at this).Can charm the clothes off your back with the sweetest smile you ever saw and the worst part, he knows it too! Completely at ease with everybody. Has total strangers eating out of his hands with just a smile. A ball of energy, running around the whole day. Mischievous to the core. Fun loving. That’s my boy.

And I leave you with these taken at his Bua's wedding. Good night folks:

Bringing up Mowgli.

“Mowgli! Mowgli! Mowgli!” The girls scream themselves hoarse. “We want sixer. Mowgli!” Mowgli walks into the stadium, quiet and confident looks at the crowd and points his bat at them. The crowd waits with bated breath. Will he or wont he? The first ball comes, Mowgli slowly strikes it as if warming up. The disappointed crowd boos and the chants increase in fervor. “Mowgli! Mowgli! Mowgli!” The bowler bowls the second ball and Mowgli swipes at it. The ball is up in the air and IT’S A SIX!!! The crowd gets delirious. Mowgli looks at them and says “I play for myself not for the girls”
Oh yeahhhhhhhhhhhhh…
This is what I heard while eavesdropping on a father-son moment. The BH has got Mowgli’s entire career mapped out. He can either become an IPL star so that BH can retire on Mowgli’s earnings or else win any one of those reality singing shows. Please note that nowhere is it mentioned that “you should study well so that you can get a good job”.
Modern dads!!!

Snippets

a looooooooooong interval... the net was down for a couple of weeks and with this and that and what not there was no time to blog.
here are some snippets from the weeks gone by...
The BH has gone on a week long trip and Mowgli is acting up. He is on a hunger strike where even the sight of food is enough to make him feel full. Two spoons and the drama begins. Throws everything on the table to the ground, refuses to open his mouth, starts crying, the entire works. I have tried giving him only things that he likes, but of no use. Totally fed up I put him on the floor saying “Go! Do whatever you want!”. The little imp started crawling full speed towards the front door. On reaching the door, he stopped and gave me a look as if to say “ This is it mama, I am leaving!”
I now have to take ATTITUDE from an eight month old????
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The tooth fairy has still not visited us. So we are still gnawing on carrots and beetroots and chappals and dustbins and mama’s weary nerves .
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Last week was an accident prone week. Mowgli fell off the stairs. Yes, we were planning to put a gate and no we didn’t think he would learn to climb them so fast and yes, we should have listened to all of you and done it when he was 3 mths. It happened in a split second. He was playing with his toys pretty far from the staircase and when I turned my back he was on the second step. It was quite a shock to me, though mowgli stopped crying pretty soon. We are taking no more chances, the gate was fixed that night itself.
The next day I burnt his hand!!! We use an electric steamer to steam his nose whenever he gets a cold. He hates it and is almost always crying and flaying his hands and legs. In the process, his finger went too near the nozzle and it got burnt. Quite a bad one. There was a huge blister and it covered almost the whole of his short stubby finger.
And the many falls in the course of daily life.
My ears are steaming from the advices and the admonishments while my bonny baby is happily crawling about without a fear in the world. Alls well that ends well.
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A new development that is tooo sweet for words. Mowgli has gotten intio this habit of sleeping with his head on my tummy or snuggled into my neck. It is so sweet and tender and nice with his nice baby smell lulling me to sleep. The BH is grrrrrrrrrrreeeeeeeeeeeeeeen with envy :-) hahahhaha

Unemployment

Jul 1,08
Finally the curtains have come down. Starting today I am officially “unemployed”. My notice period is over. The promises of being allowed to continue as a part-time consultant didn’t work out. Well, it had to happen someday…
It’s just that till today I never realized how much I identified myself with my job or the institutions where I studied.
It sorts of hurts inside when I meet anybody and they ask me “So what do you do?” I used to feel proud when I mentioned that I am working in XXXX as a XXX. Now I sort of give a whole story about how I was working for the past 4+ years and now my company had closed down and so for the time being I am jobless. But in introspect do I really have to reveal so much? Why cant I just say ‘I am a house wife” and leave it at that. Why do I feel I ought to give others an explanation as to why I’m a house wife? Why is it that people look at you in a different way when you mention that you do not work?
In a way I am glad about this break. I am not constantly worrying myself about what he is doing, what is the maid doing. He is too young for playschools/day care and even when he is older I am not comfortable with the idea of leaving him in day care for 8 hours. On the other hand, I miss working. The daily routines, the mad rush, looking forward to Fridays and most importantly getting a fat paycheck at the end of the month! There is a fear that when I finally start looking out again ( should happen in 3-4 months time) will I get a job that suits me? In terms of flexibility in timings, work form home options etc etc. well, no point breaking my head over the future. As the song goes…
Que Sara Sara,
What will be will be.
The futures’ not ours to say
Que Sara Sara

life and what we make of it

was cleaning my inbox and came upon this old forward. thought i'll share this with you.
Suppose someone gave you a pen - a sealed, solid-coloured pen. You couldn't see how much ink it had. It might run dry after the first few tentative words or last just long enough to create a masterpiece (or several) that would last forever and make a difference in the scheme of things. You don't know before you begin.Under the rules of the game, you really never know. You have to take a chance! Actually, no rule of the game states you must do anything. Instead of picking up and using the pen, you could leave it on a shelf or in a drawer where it will dry up, unused. But if you do decide to use it, what would you do with it? How would you play the game?Would you plan and plan before you ever wrote a word? Would your plans be so extensive that you never even got to the writing? Or would you take the pen in hand, plunge right in and just do it, struggling to keep up with the twists and turns of the torrents of words that take you where they take you? Would you write cautiously and carefully, as if the pen might run dry the next moment, or would you pretend or believe (or pretend to believe) that the pen will write forever and proceed accordingly?And of what would you write: Of love? Hate? Fun? Misery? Life? Death? Nothing? Everything?Would you write to please just yourself? Or others? Or yourself by writing for others? Would your strokes be tremblingly timid or brilliantly bold? Fancy with a flourish or plain? Would you even write? Once you have the pen, no rule says you have to write. Would you sketch? Scribble? Doodle or draw? Would you stay in or on the lines, or see no lines at all, even if they were there? Or are they? There's a lot to think about here, isn't there? Now, suppose someone gave you a life...