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13/02/201422/07/2023

E is for Embarrassment!

Having kids is great therapy. They are free souls and ensure you become one too, whether you like it or not. It’s quite a journey – this transformation from a self-conscious person to a free soul.

Along the way there are scores of moments when you crave Harry Potter’s invisibility cloak, when you wish you were anywhere but there, when you wish you were anyone but their mum.. But does that happen? Nah never. So you grin and bear it.

That’s what I did.

From my early days as a parent, here are my top five may-the-earth-open-up-and-swallow-me moments.

1. When N was barely two she got into a brawl with a shopkeeper. She tottered into a shoe shop and took a fancy to one of their footstools. Without so much as a ‘May I’ (she could barely talk.. so one may consider that as an excuse) she decided she had to have it. When I reached the crime scene the gentle shopkeeper was trying to wrest it out of her grasp, while she hung on, babbling profanities (I presume). It took some serious persuasion before she let go.

2. Then there was the time she had a tantrum in a mall. She lay down on the floor screaming. I was trying to wean her out of her tantrum throwing so I pretended to walk off, then stood at a distance watching the drama. Within minutes a crowd gathered. Before I could go claim her there were about 20 people looking on and wondering which heartless mother had abandoned her thus. Yeah.. this round went to her completely!

3. Then once H started craving pineapple. What with my crazy schedule, I kept putting him off. One day he spotted it at a juice stall. Before I could say ‘pineapple’ he had picked up the huge fruit and sprinted off followed by the stall owner, followed by me with all my post pregnancy weight, followed by N who thought I was deserting her. Phew! Quite a race that was.

4. Another time at the mall while playing hide and seek among the clothes, H discovered the accessories stand. I presume he took it to be a tiny merry go round of sorts with girly jewellery as its boring occupants. So he decided to perk things a bit and give them a memorable ride. He spun it so hard hairbands and earrings went flying out in all directions. That was perhaps the last nail in the coffin of my self-consciousness.

5. Oops did I say last? Correction! The last nail was the day they discovered the lingerie section. See the possibilities? That day the kids, all of three, discovered more ways to work with those wares than you and I can ever imagine. Trying to figure out how/where they were worn, coolly discussing which was a better colour – Turquoise or pink – and even calling out to my sister.. Masi which colour do you want? My sister vowed never to go out with them.

They scarred me for life. For years ‘MALLS’ meant ‘DANGER’. Read the whole story of me being mauled at the mall here. Not that they needed to be in a mall to embarrass us. They were pretty flexible that way and could work with any situation.

And I’m not even counting everyday stuff like peeking under changing rooms (Mama do you need help?) or holding conversations while you’re in a public loo (What are you doing Mama? Mama how long will you take? Mama come out now. Mama we’re getting bored… all in the space of two minutes), or kicking co-passengers’ seats during flights (Don’t even get me started on that one).

However, this is in no way meant to deter my yet kid-less friends. Learn from them, I say. Keep an arsenal of apology and a winning smile at the ready even if in your head you’re going ‘oh shit, oh shit oh shit’. (Nope you CANNOT say that aloud, kids are listening, remember?)

One thing I can promise, you never will have a dull moment.

*********

Linking to ABC Wednesday. For more Exciting Entries go here.

10/02/201415/04/2017

A wandering mind!

I had a
medical checkup recently and its report time! I’ve been putting it off, yet it’s
been on my mind .. a lot. Oh I know I’m in decent enough health, yet the
thought that something may not be just right is scary.

All day I
hear a constant stream of — “Mama I’m hungry”, “Mama may we watch TV?”, “Mama she’s
teasing me”, “Mama where are my clothes?” …. on and on.

I rarely
allow myself to think about this, but it is my secret dread – that we won’t be
around long enough to look after the kids forever.

***********

And now I feel all melodramatic and sad and worried. That’s what happens when you let your mind wander, all thanks to this prompt from Write tribe which asked us to ‘Write a hundred words without thinking – just free your mind!’

For a peek into more wandering minds look here here.

09/02/201415/04/2017

100 Happy Days – Week 5

Welcome to Week 5 of my 100 Happy Days Challenge.. that’s 35 days of positivity. I’m getting used to this.

Now for a WARNING: The kids have been home almost all this week so this is going to be pretty much a child-centric post. They had their annual day and that culminated in a long weekend. There was a time I’d dread them being home five days at a stretch.. yeah I do love them but their boisterousness can get a bit much specially if I bar them from the TV and the Computer! However as they’re growing older I find them much more fun. They’re at that stage when they do things on their own yet expect me to be around to sort their squabbles (which there are PLENTY).

Happiness is..

1. … watching the little ones on stage

There’s something very heartwarming about watching your children perform even if they are tucked in that far far corner. I couldn’t help but seek mine out (doesn’t every parent?) and watched them through the show. N danced to Saxobeat and J Lo’s ‘On the dance floor..’ both my favourite numbers (how the girl loves to dance!) and H very diligently sang ‘It’s a beautiful day..’. Perfect song for a happiness post, isn’t it? Check it out..

2. … a hot n cheesy pizza.

The Husband was travelling so to cheer us all up we ordered pizza. I’d had two deliciously wonderful slices before I remembered my weightloss target. I have to admit part of me was glad I remembered late heh! heh! The pizza was wonderful and the forty minute walk after that with the cool breeze on my face was even better. Now that’s what I call a win-win situation.

3 … shopping for books

I quite dislike this trend of having toys and books together in a shop because we always end up in a tug of war – me pulling the children to the books and they running off to the toys! Anyway since challenges are not something a mum is scared of I took them to Landmark with a budget of Rs 500 each ‘only for books’.
Here’s what they picked… H is a Geronimo fan (pure peer pressure I suspect) and trust N to pick a book that’s not a book!

And we rounded it off with a pure junk lunch at Mc Donalds. And I’m proud to report.. I stuck to my coffee. Yay!

4 … finding a partner in weightloss

This gets better and better. The Husband has joined me in my weightloss plans. I so couldn’t believe him because he’s a pretty finicky foodie. After I made him promise he’d have any soup I made (No saying.. this is too sour, this ones too sweet, this ones spicy till I go Aargh!) and he agreed I’m beginning to believe we’ll do it. Yeah.. this is what we hope we’ll look like by the end of the month. ‘Hope’, I said. (Besides, the Net just doesn’t put up pictures of overweight couples exercising).

5. … Watching the kids create ‘Toyland’

while I happily caught up with my reading in peace. They were so busy designing and planning there were no fights and no disagreements. I love it when they do things together.

That’s a slide that leads to a pool in the park.
The rest is still under construction.. stay tuned!

6. .. crafting with the kids

I’ve been missing this for some time now. The holidays gave us a chance to sit together and make some book marks for N’s friends for Valentine’s Day.

7. This last one is a bit much. And if we hadn’t had so much fun I would have struck this one off my list out of pure embarrassment.. but then happiness can be cheesy right? So here goes..

dancing with the kids to ‘Tune maari entriyaan’.

How I dig these boys!!!!

08/02/201415/04/2017

Shades of love

From the
moment I set eyes on her she became the most important woman in my life. It was love at first sight. For years there was no other.

Then I met you, my soulmate. And fell in love…. again. This is love too.. different, yet just as deep,
just as pure.

How do I
tell her about you?

Will she
feel abandoned? Or will she understand?

But why do I
doubt her? She will understand. She
will learn to love you just like I do, for she loves me like no other, after all
she is my mother.

***********

Linking to Write Tribes 100 Words on Saturday for the prompt ‘How do I tell her about you’

04/02/201415/04/2017

D is for Dogs.. stray dogs

I’m not a dog person, not even an animal person at all. They’re
messy and smelly and hairy and so demanding. And I’m talking about pets.

Add to all of that, a basketful of fleas, a bucket of
grime and a bunch of scabs and wounds and you have the strays. They really have
no chance of making a case for themselves.

So why am I doing a post on them?

Well that’s precisely why.

Nope this is not a sympathy post, though of course they
deserve that and much more. However this is not as much about them as us. In our country, we find them everywhere, right?

So what do we do about them?
– We can ignore them (for how long, though?)

– Chase them away (they’ll only come back)

– Wait for the municipal corporation to do something (which
may take ages or not happen at all).

Even if the corporation does step in, all they can do is get
them sterilised and vaccinated and release them back. They cannot be killed unless they have rabies. At least that’s my
understanding of the law. If I’m wrong please do correct me, dear readers. There just aren’t enough dog shelters to take care of them all.

Dog lovers might suggest we adopt a stray. Not being
one myself I can understand how that might not be an option for all of us.

However,
here’s someone who found a humane yet practical option. Meet Kalpana. She
runs a library close to where I live. I’d watched her feeding these dogs and
hated the thought of navigating my way through a bunch of them to get to my books.
However, over the years I’ve learnt to see her point and their’s too.

Another friend takes a snooze

That’s Kalpana with ‘Tipu’

Kalpana looks after some eight dogs of our locality. She got
them sterilised and vaccinated. She feeds them everyday. The vaccination and sterilization is way more important than the feeding.

The canine friends have become an integral
part of the library and can be found snoozing among the books or happily
welcoming book lovers who drop by.

Once they know they have a regular supply of food they
turn less aggressive and more friendly. Come to think of it I’ve never as much
as heard a growl from any of those at the library.

What a compassionate solution, this is! Don’t you think?

In parts of Delhi the stray population went down drastically due to similar initiatives taken up by animal loving citizens. Go here for that story.

PS: If you’re a regular here this post might sound familiar. Yeah.. a piece of fiction I did recently was inspired by strays like Tipu.

This post is done for ABC Wednesday – a fun initiative for bloggers.