Oooh La La

I finally laid hands on bringing up Bebe and flat-out finished reading it in a day and a half. In hindsight, I should have just bought it to read every time I felt like an ogre for making rules and sticking to them. But the retail price of the book was $25.99 and I couldn’t get myself to shell out so much since I knew the local library has a copy that I could get with some advance planning. So, I went with the latter option and finished reading the book a couple of days ago.

A number of things really resonated with me. For instance, I have always spoken to DD. Even when she was a wee little baby and slept through most of the day I’d keep a running commentary going about everything I was doing. I didn’t think she understood much but I wanted her to know the cadence of my voice, to listen to sounds that various words make. DD said her first words at the age of 4 months. Everyone in the family maintains it was due to my incessant chattering. My 12 month old used to converse in complete sentences.

With food too, I never fed her anything other than what we were eating. DD ate sambhar, rasam, daal, sabzi everything as soon as she turned 10 months old. She’s a regular foodie now and loves trying out new cuisines. Some of her favorite veggies are broccoli and avocados. She eats all kinds of fruits, preferring them over candy.For that I have DH to thank, since he’s the fruit fan – the more exotic, the better. We affectionately call her the cheesehead. She goes to the grocery store and hangs out at the cheese counter sampling various types of cheese and offering up opinions. It has become such an important part of our grocery buying experience that the lady that manages the cheese counter actually sets aside some unusual ones for DD to try.

What we messed up on though was her sleep habits. I spent 3 months in India right after DD was born since only my dad was able to make it to the US for her birth, none of her other grandparents were able to get a visa. So, in a bid to introduce her to the family and for some much-needed R&R, I left for home and proceeded to stay there until DD was nearly 7 months old. Prior to us leaving for India, DD would get a bottle at 10:00 PM and proceed to sleep for 6 hours waking up in the wee hours of the morning for her next feed, post which she would sleep another 6 hours. In India, though, her grandmammas, both of them would pick her up when she would whimper in the night and soothe her back to sleep. I was thrilled at the time since it meant, I did not have to wake up. 3 months after birth , I was enjoying 10-11 hours of sleep/night. What’s not to love, right? But, DD got into the habit of being rocked to sleep. It posed quite a problem when we got back and it took me the next 3 months to get her back on a sleep schedule. We had to use the “cry it out method” to teach her to soothe herself at night. I wouldn’t have worried too much about her sleep schedule if not for the fact that she’s a light sleeper and likely to get up at the slightest suggestion of sound. The lack of sleep then started impacting her weight gain as well. It became imperative that she sleep in her crib and preferably in her own room if she wasn’t to be disturbed by DH getting up to get a glass of water or using the restroom. At 10 months, the DD got into a sleep routine that both DH and I were fierce about. We’d happily leave dinner parties, sometimes before dinner was served just to make her 9:00 PM sleep schedule.

Having read the book now, when DD is 8 years old gives me satisfaction and makes me a little annoyed as well. Satisfaction – since, now I know, not everything I did was terribly wrong or detrimental to the well-being of my child. Annoyed – because, had someone said the things that are being said in the book, way back then, I wouldn’t have spent quite so much time feeling guilty or inadequate. Like BEV says, motherhood, to me, is not a calling. It is something I enjoy, immensely. However, I’m also clear-headed enough to see that certain behaviors that are cute now or are easily dismissed because DD’s young will later earn her the label of being a spoilt brat. In addition to being a mom, I am a woman who enjoys her books, her movies and time with her husband. I have never trusted a baby sitter so the latter has suffered to some extent. However, I am making amends for it. As DD grows up, I want her to understand that just being a mom is not the be-all and end-all of life. I am sure DD enjoys a mom who can talk to her about American history, music and Tom and Jerry more than one who schlepps around after her child all day long.

What I am learning about motherhood everyday is, there are no set rules, there is no manual. What works for me may not work for everyone else and vice versa. So I am throwing public opinion out the door. I am going to be guided by instinct and by what I want DD to be when she grows up. A child who’s good, happy, content, compassionate and knows the value of things as opposed to the price.

Hey, I may just write a book about it when this mommy gig is “done”. What say??

 

Presenting Ms.Smart A$$

Last night at dinner, the following conversation unfolds

V (DD’s 8-year-old friend): Meera aunty, have you ever considered having another child?

Me: (Hemming and hawing, this was not what I expected when we sat down to dinner) Umm… beta, it’s like this…………………….

DD: Why does she need another child? I’m the daughter of her dreams.

DH and I sat there wondering when did our sweet, innocent child  turn into a Smarta$$??

Things I wish…

I could learn from DD

to do the backstroke as gracefully as she does. She glides through water while I look like I’m trying to swat the water away with my hands (Why did I spend money on a bathing suit again? Oh yeah… so I could sit by the poolside and look as if I couldn’t be bothered to get into the water)

to giggle with abandon. From the day she first discovered how to laugh, she’s laughed completely and fully. No half measures for her, if she’s happy you’ll know it.

to forgive readily. You can be absolutely mean to her, be unfair, exclude, ignore her. 5 minutes later she’ll treat you like you are one of her best friends. I worry for her gentle heart in this ruthless world.

to be genuinely kind to all living beings and that includes snakes, lizards, icky bugs and spiders.

to believe God comes to celebrate his birthday with us and so it’s only fair we have a cake, candles, balloons and goody bags for the party. The payasam and vadai are all well and good but you can’t cut vadai for your birthday.

to dance like no one’s watching whether it’s at the mall, the middle of the road or home. All she has to do is hear good music and her feet start to move. Sometimes she’s dancing even without music. Ask her she’ll tell you the music’s playing in her head. As a person with 2 left feet, you get why I’d love to dance like her. She’s not particularly graceful or a good dancer. She just has so much fun doing it

to be adventurous. She’ll try everything once – foods she doesn’t like, roller coasters that scare the bejesus out of her, books that she thinks she won’t like. After giving it one good try, she’ll drop it if she doesn’t like it.

for her sense of fashion. She pairs clothes and accessories like a pro. It took me 30 years to figure out what my style is. DD will happily point out at the store what earrings will work with what clothes, why a certain pair of pants is not a good choice. This can be a double-edged sword, though. One time she told me I was too old for a dress I’d set my heart on buying. Told me it would look better on someone who was half my age

for her honesty. The child cannot lie, she’s so bad at it that she gets caught out almost right away (she comes by this trait, genetically. I have to plan my lies if I have to have any hope of them passing muster)

I ardently hope and pray she retains all these qualities as she grows older. That the world does not turn her into a jaded cynic.

Nazar na lage DD ko

 

Jam packed weekend

The title is self-explanatory. We’ve had a jam-packed weekend, actually a jam-packed few days. It all started on Friday. DD had extra music practice since her music class was performing for the first time at the annual day function for the local temple. My BFF’s daughters and DD are in the same music class. We both also needed to do some shopping – she, since she has recently undertaken a weight loss program and has done phenomenally well with it. She needed to update her wardrobe to fit her new size. I needed to shop since I recently threw out clothes that I have owned for over 3 years and have washed so many times that it is difficult to say what color they originally were. So post music class we decided to shop with the girls in tow. We had a super fun time and we ended with dinner at the girls’ favorite restaurant in the mall.

On Saturday morning, I took DD to her last swimming lesson for this session, brought her home and put her down for a nap. Her class was performing at the temple in the evening and I wanted her to get enough rest. On Saturday, my cleaning lady ditched me, too. I have a cleaning lady that comes in once in a while and does the vacuuming, dusting, mopping etc when I am really pressed for time. She was to come on Saturday since I knew I would have no time to clean during the weekend. However, she couldn’t make it due to a personal emergency. My house was filthy and I realized there was no way I could leave it looking like that. So after DD went for a nap, I spent 2 hours scrubbing, mopping, dusting, cleaning and got some quality time with the vacuum. DH was MIA in all of this since he was out picking some supplies for his hiking trip.

Come 4:00 PM, I got DD up, dressed and to the temple. The kids did really well for a first time performance. They’re all between six and eight years of age and performed on stage the first time ever.You can hear them here. Post the performance we went to a friend’s house for dinner. The night went by quickly with good food, music, laughter surrounding us.

Sunday morning, DD had a music class. We finished that and set off on our drive to Seattle. We were headed to a SONU NIGAM concert. This was our wedding anniversary present to each other for having successfully stayed together for 12 years. We got to Seattle with a couple of breaks at about 6:30 PM. The concert went on till 11:30 PM that night. I can’t say anything about Sonu Nigam that hasn’t been said before. He was phenomenal. Worth every penny we spent and every minute of the back and forth drive. We started driving back at 12:30 AM, got home at about 3:30 AM with DH driving all the way. It was a difficult drive. DH had to try really hard to not fall asleep at the wheel while I tried to stay awake next to him and keep him talking. We got home and bundled a sleeping DD into bed. We were up at 7:30 on Monday morning since DD had a field trip to the local beach. We got her to school and DH chaperoned the trip with a few other parents.

DH and DD came back from the trip looking wet and bedraggled at 3:30 PM in the afternoon. A quick shower and a quicker lunch and we all took a nap on a Monday afternoon. The lack of sleep had finally caught up with all of us. We woke up and went to the temple to seek God’s blessings. We came back and went to dinner with friends and thus ended our 3 days of celebrations.

It feels like quite the accomplishment to have completed 12 years of marriage. When I look at our life, I only find reasons to be thankful. God has been immensely kind to us. I end this with the hope that our life ahead will continue to be full of love, laughter, kindness, lasting friendships and an ever-increasing readership of the blog

P.S: I have found a way to add videos w/o revealing faces, so here’s DD’s school talent show piano recital and here’s my class singing at the local Kalakendra performance

Bunk beds and braces

The last 3 weeks have brought home to me the fact that DD is growing up and quickly. Why this epiphany over the last 3 weeks, you ask. Well, a couple of things happened that made it amply clear that I don’t have a baby anymore. That she is fast turning into an individual – a very opinionated, smart, clear thinking, though not always logical, individual.

Late last month DD got braces. I have always associated getting braces with being a tween or a teen. After all you have to lose all your baby teeth and have your permanent ones come in before you can sport all that metal on your pearly whites. It turns out that with the kind of teeth DD has – chipmunk teeth as we affectionately call them or buck teeth as they are popularly known – the braces need to be put on the front two teeth to push them back and straighten them. So her four top front teeth now have braces – they are the only permanent teeth she has on her upper jaw.

She has to wear these for 6-9 months and then follow this up with a retainer for 4 years and then once all her permanent molars come in, we’ll have to get her braces for the teeth on her lower jaw. This is going to be one long, time-consuming process. Braces come with a lot of responsibility. DD now brushes 3-5 times a day – after every meal. She cannot drink soda, sugary drinks, cannot consume anything that’s hard or pokey like chips, pizza crust and she absolutely can’t have chocolate since all these things may get caught in her braces and soda causes scarring. She’s handled the responsibility and the restrictions like a champ, so much so that she was at her best friend’s birthday today and she refused soda and apple juice of her own volition since both contained loads of sugar. She also refused chocolate cake.

To me, it’s easy to treat DD like a baby since a lot o her behavior is very similar to how it was 2-3 years ago. She still prefers it if I feed her every meal of the day, she loves it when I wash her hair. 3 years ago she chopped her friend’s hair off much to my consternation since they were playing hair dresser (this is grist for a separate post) She cut her bangs off, badly – I might add, a couple of months ago since she couldn’t get the tangles out of her hair when she was brushing the same. She still has the same number, if not more, stuffed toys that accompany her to bed every night. She still manages to make her way to our bed most nights, oftentimes causing either DH or me to sleep on the couch.

However, I have to concede she has matured. She makes a very strong case when she truly believes in something, she’s very articulate, she has started asking for more alone time these days. She has grown up enough to not end up teary-eyed when one of her friends ignores her or is not particularly nice to her. Instead, she tells them that they’re probably having a bad day and that they can play separately until her friend decides to get her act together.

Plus, today DD got her bunk bed. She’s gone from a crib to her Hot Pink toddler/young girl bed to a bunk bed. And today after I finally got the sheets and pillow cases on the mattresses, I stood there for a minute thinking back to the day when we moved into this house and DD’s crib stood where the bunk bed stands today. This, then finally, unequivocally told me that I have a child that’s grown up.

Here are pictures of the braces and the various transformations of her bedroom.

Signed,

Mom to a quickly growing baby girl.

Room transformation

Her crib that she used until she was over 3

 

 

 

 

 

 

The mural on the wall in her room that a very dear friend of mine painted. It’s still on the wall though I am sure she’ll want it gone by the time she’s 10.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The hot pink young girl bed

The Bunk Bed