Tulika, Author at Obsessivemom

07/07/201808/07/2018

Three is one too many

They must have been about two and a half and it was H and N’s very first fancy dress show at school. They were then in the Jungle Book phase (we watched that film twice a day for almost one whole year) so N was Mowgli and H was Sher Khan. We practiced for days. N singing the song by Gulzar from the television series and H practicing Sher Khan’s roar. N, ever the talker, knew the song to a tee and H could really growl – about the only thing he had mastered when it came to talking. They were good. Of course I might be biased being related to them and all.

Anyway, the day dawned and soon enough there they were up on stage. And they just froze! Both of them. They came off stage and sobbed their little hearts out. N kept saying, ‘I couldn’t do anything,’ as if she couldn’t believe it. And her disappointment in herself was so heart-breaking I could have cried too. H, wasn’t really perturbed, but he cried in sympathy, I suppose.

I don’t remember much of the programme after that. They refused to let me go, refused to be comforted, refused to walk even, crying to be carried. And carry them I did. I remember standing by the side of the road, a huge bag with the fancy dress paraphernalia across my shoulders, one child in each arm, trying to hail an auto.

Of course it was one small fancy dress show and it didn’t really matter but for the twins their perfect world had just collapsed around them. As I looked from one sad face to the other bawling one I was just glad I could hold and hug both of them.

For me, three would definitely have been a crowd.

Three babies crying, three toddlers crawling about, three kindergarteners running around, three children asking for help with homework and then THREE TEEN MOODSWINGS TO LOOK OUT FOR. Lord my God!

If one and one are eleven, three and three would certainly be thirty-three. So thank you very much but I’m happy with my twins.

And if you’re a parent to triplets (or more), I totally bow to thee.

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Picture credit: Juliane Liebermann on Unsplash

I’m taking part in the Bar-A-Thon – the fortnight long Blogging Challenge. It’s Day 3 and I’m keeping it really short for the prompt ‘Three’s a crowd’. Pretty predictable I think.

05/07/201828/05/2026

Five ways in which parents embarrass their teens

The other morning as we were walking to the bus stop I noticed that H’s collar was askew. Without thinking about it I reached out to settle it and he drew back like I was going to bite his head off.

‘What?’ I said surprised
‘Nothing. Just don’t do that,’ he said
‘Do what?’
‘Fiddle with my clothes. It’s embarrassing. I don’t even know why you come down to see us off to school. It’s not like we’d get lost from the building to the gate,’ he said trying to roll his eyes. He still can’t (roll his eyes) by the way, and I caught myself thinking how cute that is and stopped myself right there because apparently a smile that says ‘You’re cute’ is also embarrassing.

Seriously?? After puking on me in a flight, throwing a tantrum in the mall, flaunting underwear before guests, smearing banana mash all over me at a party (on my good top too, and I had to keep wearing it till the end of the party and pose for pictures in it), he has the audacity to say I embarrassed him.

Obviously, the teens are on their way.

Everything I do these days seems to embarrass them – the way I talk (too loud), the way I walk (too slow or too fast), the way I dress (too bright, too strange), the way I laugh (too loud, again), everything. So here’s a list of the top five things that parents (like me) do to embarrass their teens – a sort of ‘do not do’ guide.

1. Fuss over them in public

Make that ‘any physical contact in public’. Do not settle their collars or their hair or tuck in their shirts. Don’t even brush off a speck of dust from their noses. They’re cool leaving it there all day rather than having their mum brush it off. And God forbid you reach out for a hug. They’ll probably not talk to you for a decade. Which might not actually be such a bad thing.

2. Talk loudly

This is such an unfair expectation considering that the only reason I talk loudly is because they refuse to listen any other way. To hold it against me is rather, as I said, unfair. But then who’s listening? When they have friends over, they can scream and shout and that’s okay but it still holds for you. You cannot even hum softly to yourself, not even in your own room.
Once during a football match a mom noticed her son’s shoelace had come undone and shouted for him to tie it up. There was such silence after that you could have heard a pin drop. Mercifully it wasn’t me.
Corollary: Cheering for them during a game is also a no no. Don’t do it. Their friends can, but you cannot. Don’t ask me why, just don’t do it.

3. Correcting them/their friends

I have a few house rules that I’m rather strict about and one of them is the use of proper language. So if I hear a ‘shit’ during a game I protest or if one of their friends asks me for a glass of water without a ‘please’ I point it out. I mean, their friends are like my own kids, right? So if I can correct my children I can correct their friends too, no? However, all I get for my pains are the most eloquent stares and then an earful later on. ‘Everyone says ‘shit’,’ they’ll tell me, ‘even teachers say it.’

All I’ll say is ‘My house my rules’.

4. Talking about baby stuff

This one is big. You see a toddler walking towards you and suddenly you remember yours when they were little. And you get all emotional and misty eyed and you strike up a conversation with the toddler’s mum, ‘When H and N were babies…,’ you begin enthusiastically until you catch sight of your not-a-young-one-any-longer giving you the daggers. So no baby stories, no baby poetry, no tales of cute antics or cute pronunciations, nothing. No nicknames too, please.

Note to self: Destroy blog before they turn thirteen.

5. Wear anything different

Once I went to pick them up from school and I wore a salwar suit, which is different from my regular jeans/trousers. And I got a, ‘What are you wearing? It looks funny.’ Funny? A salwar suit? I mean half of India wears it. Then one day I wore a dress and got the very same reaction. The thing is you’re not allowed to stand out. If you don’t normally wear makeup, you need to continue not wearing it, if you don’t normally wear heels, you cannot begin to do so now.

Basically you shouldn’t be heard or seen. You’ve to become invisible till they tide over their teens. Find a rock and get beneath it.

Here’s a better plan, though – This is the time for delicious revenge. So do your own thing and totally enjoy it. Suddenly we have the power. Between them embarrassing me and I embarrassing them, the latter is definitely the lesser of two evils, from my perspective of course. Moreso since I had all that practice as a mom to toddler twins.

PS: I have a good mind to fish out a wedding sari and appear in all my finery for one of their PTMs. Wouldn’t that be just priceless?

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03/07/2018

Gratitude this June

June is a month of settling down for all of us here, as the new session begins. It is a tough month which is why I keep my targets easy and expectations low.

In the beginning of the month the focus was on getting the children’s schedules in order. We had to figure out what co-curriculars they’d opt for and how that would fit in with their school day.

The trouble is, both H and N tend to cram in a lot in their days. Then they get overwhelmed with it all and give it all up. Personally, I’d be happy if they stuck to school and, later in the evening, played with their friends.

I keep telling them that having one too many things on their plate will tire them out. In typical tween tradition they refuse to listen and we end up having long arguments ending with, ‘You never let us do what we want to do.’

This year I thought I’d let them be, that they were old enough to decide for themselves. As a result of their over enthusiasm, the schedule is chock-a-block between chess and guitar class, handball and skating and drama. A lot of it is taken care of at school but for the rest, I need to be available for pickups and drops and that is a little crazy. I seem to zipping in and out of home all evening. This whole thing is like a jigsaw puzzle of their time slots and mine, where if one piece is disturbed the whole thing goes for a toss!

I’m not sure any longer whether this was such a good idea. But then parenting is about hits and misses, trial and error. I am hoping they’ll see sense soon. Also I do realise that they have just this year and maybe another one, to try out whatever they want after which they’ll have to settle down.

That said, I am grateful they such have such a choice of activities they want to try out and also that everything is within easy reach – a five or ten minute drive is all it takes me to ferry them around. We have a wonderful neighbourhood and I’m so glad of that.

Through all this running around there have been things that have kept a smile on my face:

The weather has been a dream with the rains setting in.
I’m grateful I don’t have to step out much and that I can work from the comfort of home. I get to enjoy the monsoon with my cup of tea without needing to see its messy side.
Fitness has been a win this month. I finally went to see a nutritionist and am sticking out with the exercise/diet routine she prescribed.
We (I and my girl gang) discovered a fabulous new restaurant with a menu full of smoothies and salads and we’re so excited we’ve planned weekly lunches. The best bit – it’s right next to our apartment complex.
I took up the #WriteTribeFestivalofWords of seven-days-seven-posts on my book blog and was pretty happy I could complete it despite having guests over. A special thank you to the super-organised Shilpa who never fails to lend a hand when I panic and reach out for help.

Linking up with Vidya’s Gratitude Circle

With this post I also kick off the Bar-A-Thon – the fortnight long Blogging Challenge. I’ve kept it simple today because the gratitude post needed to be done and I know it’s a lousy use of a prompt but I’m hoping I’ll come up with something better next time.

The prompt for today was ‘One too many’.

19/06/201819/06/2018

The truth about love and growing up

A few days ago N came to me one night with a comb and a bunch of rubber bands. She said she’d seen a ‘hack’ on Youtube and that if she tied her hair up in tiny ponytails she’d have curly hair by morning. It was a bit nostalgic for me because I remembered my mom doing the same for me, although my hair used to be way shorter and we didn’t call it a ‘hack’ back then. I sat her down and I rolled her hair into tiny ‘bunlets’ (for want of a better word) and fixed them with rubber bands.

She woke up next morning and opened out her hair. Instead of falling down to her shoulders it stood out in a short wavy mass upto her ears. She pranced around for joy exclaiming ‘Oh I love it, I love it, I love it,’ and ended up with a, ‘It looks so good na, just like yours.’

And I couldn’t help but laugh.

I have to explain here that I have rather weird hair, neither straight nor curly. It’s kind of flyaway thin and wavy, impossible to keep in check. N’s on the other hand is nice and straight. But there she was, thrilled because her hair looked like mine!

This reminded me of a quote from the film The Truth About Cats and Dogs:

You know how someone’s appearance can change the longer you know them? How a really attractive person, if you don’t like them, can become more and more ugly; whereas someone you might not have even have noticed… that you wouldn’t look at more than once, if you love them, can become the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen.

Although spoken in an entirely different context it does hold true. Doesn’t it?

N’s teens are round the corner and the day is not far when she’ll want to be and do all things ‘not me’, but for now I revelled in her guileless affection.

And then there’s H. For all his grown up ways, his continuous (but failed) attempts at mastering the eye roll and his ‘don’t hug me in public’ he still seeks me out (probably on his way to the refrigerator) and gives me a hug or tweaks my cheek, the way I used to when he was a toddler.

They turned twelve this summer and yet I continue to see them for the babies they once were. I can now somewhat understand the very cliched comment that kids never really grow up for their parents. At times like these I do want them never to grow up, for the days to just stop so I can keep them close.

Of course I know that’s not possible and when this wave of sentimentality has blown over I will want them out of my way just as much as they want me out of their’s but until then, I’m going to savour the feeling.

Linking up with #MondayMusings at Everydaygyan

11/06/2018

A time for family and friends

This last month, the month of May, has been filled with so many blessings that I’ve lost count. It is by far my favourite month of the year. It’s the time I am truly home, among extended family and childhood friends. The days are about reunions and getaways, about reinforcing age-old bonds and rediscovering the flavours of childhood, of leafing through photo albums and laughing at our tiny ponytails and large bell-bottoms.

There wasn’t a single morning, afternoon or evening when I didn’t have someone around, when I wasn’t planning a meet up, a movie or a dinner. Many an evening, my plans would dissolve into nothing because someone would drop by with the ease and comfort born of years of familiarity, the kind that needs no phone call, no appointment.

The children oscillated constantly between the various homes. The FIL took upon himself to tutor them in Math during the mornings, a family tradition of sorts. Their older cousins have all had to put up with his tenacious love for teaching Math. Despite plenty of good-natured ribbing and calls of ‘It’s your turn to get caught now’, he persevered and surprisingly enough, the children complied without a murmur. That there was a constant supply of laddoos and pedas might have helped.

The children also developed a severe case of ice-cream insecurity. The moment the tubs showed signs of finishing they’d sound an alert and sure enough, one doting elder or the other would order out another.

One night they were carried off to a wedding by my sister, their first ever. I stayed home enjoying a chat with the in-laws. They came back tired and completely overwhelmed, yet thrilled at the colour and the crowd, the food and the festivities and the excitement of it all. ‘The bride was epic,’ pronounced N. She had never seen such finery except in films. Meanwhile, H said the buffet was the best.

I had set myself some tasks for the month including blogging and figuring out some technical concepts which I normally do not get time for. None of them got done. I have to admit the first few days I was a trifle unnerved with this total lack of order, something I normally strive hard for in my routine. It was strange not to be worrying about the children, their food and their studies, specially after a rather stressful year. Bad habits stick on so hard, isn’t it?

Then somewhere along the way I let go and decided to go with the flow. Then on, I had the best time ever.

Sometimes it's best to go with the flow. Share on X

We went off to spend a weekend at my cousin’s farm and then in the middle of all the craziness, we managed a two-day trip to Agra. The six-lane Yamuna Expressway meant that we could travel the distance in about four hours. Everyone had cautioned us that it would be too hot, that the children wouldn’t be able to handle it, unused to such high temperatures. We decided to go on anyway and I’m glad we did. We spent the mornings and evenings visiting the absolutely stunning monuments and stuck to our hotel room during the hot afternoons while the children took to the pool. It was as idyllic as it could get.

I often talk about how much I love my hometown but it’s the connections and warmth of relationships that continue to make it special – a place where friends are family and family are friends.

Linking up with Vidya’s Gratitude Circle