Should I say "Keep your hands off!"?

Aaru is down with a cold. He is slightly warm to touch and his voice has also changed a bit. Courtesy - my maid! She had fever, cough and throat pain but couldn't keep her hands off Aaru. She loves both the kids a lot and I didn't want her to feel bad. So, I tried not to say anything much to her. Since she never kisses the kids or anything, I thought it would be okay but I was wrong! He has caught it now!

Surprisingly, this time, my hubby demanded why I hadn't asked her to 'keep her hands off the baby'when she had a cold. I am surprised because when the source is the maid, he reacts so but when the source of infection might be a friend, neighbour or relative, his reaction immediately changes. He asks me not to offend them!!!

This poor maid who toils all day in my house so that I can have some peace to look after the kids, who loves the kids so, accompanies us to doctor visits and gives me a hand when I need help with the baby seems to me to be a far more important person than everyone else put together. In fact, I am sure right in not offending her by asking her to not pick up Aaru.

Its okay, Aaru, put up with your cold. T-minic syrup will save the day. If it gets worse, there is Ascovent and our Dr. Potnis. (And to visit him, once again, we need our maid. Dad's too busy in office!)

An endnote: Folks who read this... please keep your hands off any baby whenever you have a cold or any other sickness. Also, don't handle baby without washing your hands or using a sanitiser. And, please don't get offended when someone suggests that you use one before handling their child.

Life's Questions...

In the death camps of Nazi Germany, Victor Frankyl learned to ask himself the question,
'what is it that life is asking of me?'
instead of
'what is it I want from life?'

As I read these words in the book, 'Living the 7 Habits' by Stephen R. Covey, my mind paused a second and I wondered upon this question. I could think of a few things that life has asked of me - most of which I ignored, blaming the circumstances.

Then my phone beeped. It was an sms,
'An Essential Writing Trait: Perseverance. Maintain a purpose in spite of difficulty, obstacles, or discouragement.'

Sounds good! Ok! But what is it that life is asking of me? The first thing that popped to my mind was 'rearing my two sons in such a way that they are physically cherished, mentally fit, emotionally nurtured and socially skilled'. Not an easy job for any mother. Still somehow, I have never felt satisfied with only that single role of 'mother'. I have always wanted to do something else too. But what?I know I will go to a job in another 3 years. What should that job be? Lets see the options:

1. Should I join as a CA in some company? Or
2. Shall I start my own firm? Or
3. What about trying to crack the civil services? (a long-term dream) or
4. How about a career in marketing/copywriting? (I have a few years experience in this and love the job).

As I pondered on all this, the thought nagged me - 'why don't you continue with what you are doing now - writing?' and then the questions start,

Am I any good in what I am doing?
Will I earn anything via this?
Isn't this good only as a hobby?
What right do I have to call myself as a writer without having even a single published book to my name?

Then slowly a voice hushes all my concerns. "You write because you want to do it. It is not for the money, fame or status. It is just an urgent need to talk out loud about what is going on in your head. Just do what you want to and everything else will follow in its own time," it says.

Anyways, I have another 3 years before I take the decision. Till then, I can only write...

Emotional Blackmail

Yesterday, Sanju watched too much television. I lost my patience and punished him – “no TV for a day!”

Obviously, he was upset…he tried to reason with me to no avail. So, he decided to try some emotional blackmail, “You don’t love me anymore! You love only Aaru.”

For a fraction of a second, I became disturbed but quickly I turned around and told him, “That is not going to work with me. I know and you know that I love you lots but that doesn’t mean I am not going to correct your faults. And just because you make such statements, I am not going to get upset.”

And you know what he did? He grinned impishly. He understood these emotional tricks are not going to work with me anymore.

Kids! OMG!

A Little Summary of the Last Month

Aaru

Lots of thrilling happenings...

25.10.2010 Rolled over for the first time
30.10.2010 Attended a party for the first time (Vineesh's Bday party). Seemed to actually enjoy the proceedings. Was not perturbed by the screaming kids, blasting balloons or even the shrieking music.
31.10.2010 Laughed out loud for the first time. It was so funny to see that!

Sanju

Seems to start on a case of Sibling Jealousy...

* If I scold him, he asks me if I still love him? Then, why do I scold him?
* Why is the baby taking up so much of my time?, etc.
* Becoming tooo mischievous
* Refusing to be anywhere without me
* Not even attending evening classes

But loves n adores Aaru too...

For example, when I was scolding Aaru after another sleepless nights, he tried to pacify my grumpling by calmly explaining to me...

"Mom, babies don't know anything. Some of these babies are tough to manage. So, please don't scold Aaru."
Isn't that sweet?

Now I know why I shouldn't start work again so soon!

Now I know why I shouldn't start work again so soon!

I was ecstatic when I started on this small temporary project a couple of weeks ago. The deadline for the same was the 8th and I was making progress perfectly.

By the 7th, I had done around 80% of the work and was planning to complete the balance in the next 2 days. How optimistic this sounds!!! The blow struck and how:

6th Night 12.30 a.m- Sanju is bawling. He has too many mouth ulcers and they are paining like crazy.
7th Morning 8.00 a.m- Aaru is due for Triple Antigen. Decided to show Sanju to the doc too. Sanju diagnosed with Hand, Foot & Mouth disease. (Got it from school where an epidemic of this disease is going on) Doctor says there is a high risk that Aaru may catch it from Sanju too. (I am still crossing my fingers that this doesn’t happen!)
7th Entire Day- Sanju crying while Aaru is down with fever because of the shots.
8th Morning 7.30 a.m- Hubby unable to get up from bed – severe dizziness…
8th Morning 10.30a.m- Doctor rushed home and diagnosed a mild(?!) case of Vertigo. Hubby unable to get out of bed for the next 3 days.

So, what did I do? Quit? Nope. I completed the project as promised and dispatched it on time. It was tough to do that but I had no choice. I feel that once I promise that a work will go through, there is no choice but to make sure it happens even if it means I have to give up sleep.

I am not only a writer but I have also employed writers before and it did irritate me immensely when a writer wanted the deadlines to be extended. Maybe that is why, I did not want to do the same!

Anyway, it is done and over with now and I am pretty excited to see my name in print once again!

Working again!

Guess what? I am working on a project again. It is a supplementary paper with the Times of India and DNA (Kandivali Special) and the topic is all about toddlers. Though the deadline is driving me crazy, I just love it!

Bye for now! I'm back to work!

Alone Again!

I am back in Mumbai after 3 n 1/2 months. We returned on 12th- a Sunday. Aaran was pretty okay to manage along the way except once when he bawled aloud at the Chennai Airport. I know there is a feeding room somewhere in this place, having bumped into it once by mistake. But now when I needed it, I couldn't find it anywhere. There were no signboards anywhere and both me & Aaru were getting desperate. Finally, I just plunked down in a little less-crowded portion of a waiting area and fed him. Thankfully, I wear only dresses with feeding provision and feeding bras as long as I feed the kids. When I quit feeding Sanju, I was so desperate for fitting dresses and lacy bras that I went on a shopping spree. As of now, I am still enjoying what I am wearing as it is too early to get bugged of it!

Days are getting to become very tough now that I am back alone, especially the evenings. Sanju is desperately bored of being stuck at home and Aaru refuses to leave my arms. Though I am quite adept at feeding Aaru as I am reading a book to Sanju, the whole process drains me out. Every few minutes that Aaru dozes off, me and Sanju play volleyball in the lobby. Very soon, he howls and we have to head back. I can see that Sanju is irritated and bugged up. That is why I took them both to Payal’s house today. Sanju had some half-hour of fun there while Aaru dozed in his pram. I desperately need some help in the evenings. Hope I get someone soon!

However, all said and done, I am so happy. I really missed my home and my husband. It’s good to be back!

The First Delivery Story - Part I

When I first came to know that I was pregnant, I was ecstatic. I bought all the pregnancy books available on the stands and read them in detail. My obsession was so bad that I could even quote from most of them. I was through most of them even before my second trimester could begin. Then I started on the baby care books. In devoured them and knew everything necessary about caring for babies months before mine was born (at least theoretically! – it is only later that I came to know you can never know all about baby & child care; each one is different & they will constantly continue to surprise you) However there was this one section that I totally ignored in all these books. Since mine was a normal and uneventful pregnancy, I ignored the possibility of ever having to undergo a caesarean.

The very little that I knew about c-section was what I had learnt in a 30-minute session in my pregnancy classes. So when my waters broke at around 11.30 p.m on February 20, 2006 and my hubby, mom & dad rushed me to the hospital, I was horrified to know that the baby had passed meconium and I needed to be operated immediately. I broke down completely. I just remember flashes of the conversation and buzz around me…

- Dozens of nurses poured in and each one was doing a variety of stuff to get me ready for the c-section
- The word “fetal distress” was being whispered all around
- The voice of my gynaec, Dr Nirmala Jayashankar. It was an answer to my prayers as I seriously wondered whether she would turn up at 12 midnight on a Sunday
- The constant ticking of the fetal monitor
- My mother asking me to remove all my gold jewellery

And amidst all this, I heard the nurse ask the doctor, “Her husband wants to meet her. Can I permit him?”

Immediately, I wiped my tears and tried to put on a brave front. He came into the room and kissed my forehead. It was unbelievable. My hubby dislikes any form of public display of affection and here he was kissing me in front of the entire battalion of hospital staff. It was such a beautiful moment in my life. In fact, whenever me & my hubby have quarrelled and whenever I have had the urge to knock him one on the head, I recall this kiss and it has saved him many a time!

Then I was wheeled into the operation theatre. My mom and dad stood in tears helpless and I tried to smile and wave at them. I’ll continue the rest in the next blog.

C-section Horrors

I have always been scared of surgeries, especially after both my parents underwent terribly painful ones. I prayed that I should be spared of it forever in my life. But it was not to be so. I underwent my first at just 23 – an emergency c-section.

People somehow do not consider a caesarean as either an important surgery or a painful one. This is especially true of those who had a normal labour. The only thing I feel like telling them is to please undergo one before coming to such rash conclusions.

After delivery, every mother has to undergo bleeding, yucky sweating, afterpains, cramps, constipation, incisional pain, breast engorgement and what not – along with sleepless nights with colicky infants. Now we c-section veterans underwent not only all this but also terrible pain in the stitches as the anaesthesia wears off (did you know pain relievers are given only once in 8 hours – medical science does need to improve!), inability to even sit up (forget sitting up – we couldn’t even turn to the sides while lying down; & still we continued to feed an infant who needed his meals every hour), terrible indignities like
• wearing a hospital gown that even Pamela would think twice before donning,
• having a nurse change your pad,
• having these strange men popping in at all odd times to change the urine bag (they also loudly declare the quantity in it – I was so embarrassed the first time that guy screamed out “550 ml” to the nurse on the other side across the lobby)
• having an escort to the toilet for the first post-surgery piss,
• and worst of all, having a nurse pop into your room when there are visitors, questioning loudly, “have you peed yet?” and you have to answer her!

I knew of all this only after my first surgery and decided not to have any more kids. I knew the doctors would only put me under the knife again. But my persistent hubby tricked me into believing that I would have a VBAC (vaginal birth after caesarean) and I believed him. Maybe, I wanted to believe him in the hope of having another cute little chubby bubbly around the house. But it was not to be so. Four years five months and one day later, I had to undergo a c-section once again.

I’ll talk about both of those experiences in the next post!

The Night Monsters

I had a very peaceful night yesterday. I woke up only about some 11 times throughout the night. Twice for my elder 4 year old son – once for choo-choo (i.e. his term for the ‘loo’) and once for scary boo-boos under the bed. The rest were for my one week old younger son who has this cycle of feeding – dirtying the diaper – pissing on mom as she is changing that diaper and feeding once again. To bachelors and childless couples, this may sound like a crazy night. Definitely not one that they would call ‘peaceful’. However any night not interrupted by wailing screams, frantic phone calls to doctors, thermometers, sponging, medicines and tears is a peaceful night for all mothers.


When I was a new mother the first time, I did not have this wisdom. Sleepless night after a painful c-section made me groggy, irritated and tearful. Around the second week, my son had a bout of colic. His painful cries made me desperate. I would have gladly bitten off my arm if it would have eased up his pain.


As the years rolled by the night monsters rolled into my life. The fear of what the night is to bring gripped me. Scorching temperatures, painful tummy, projectile vomiting, diarrhea, feet pain, knee pain, eye injury and lots more have kept me awake through many nights and those were crazy nights. Those nights made me and my husband so desperate that having a 24 hour pharmacy at a walkable distance was our first prerogative while looking for a house.


Give me a sick child in the day – I can manage that but not in the night! But, I just cannot understand why is it that kids love to fall sick only in the late P.M. and early A.M. hours! So, the night monsters do crop up once in a while. To fight them, me and my husband keep the pediatrician’s number on speed dial and the car filled up with petrol always. I send up a special night prayer everyday to ward off these evil night monsters, cross my heart and go to bed. And when I wake up in the morning, I thank God for each peaceful night without the night monsters.

The Last 10 months: A summary

The last 10 months I took a break from tapping the keys of my laptop. From the day I came to know I am pregnant, I took a break from blogging but I did continue to journal in the traditional manner, with pen & paper. I thought I’ll share a few glimpses from that journal with you.

17.11.2009

It was the first time Aaru (Aaran Krishna – my second child) showed up as a faint little extra line in the home pregnancy test kit. I was ecstatic. I am going to continue this post as a direct talk to my little dear one.

Dear Aaru,

20.11.2009

You showed up in all your glory. I kept hoping you were a girl. Then a few months later, I wanted you to be a boy. Then towards the end of pregnancy, especially after dad’s granny’s death, I was hoping you would be a girl. Especially because I wanted to name you as ‘Kartiga’ in her memory. She was a wonderful, kind-hearted person and it is really too bad that you didn’t get a chance to meet her.

April 2010

I was diagnosed with Herpes Zoster on my left leg and it was the most horrible part of your pregnancy. I remember my fear and horror about whether I would lose you. For the first time, I realised I love you as much as I love your brother Sanju. Till then I had wondered whether I could ever love anyone as much as my dear little Sanju. (Now, he seems so big and you seem like the little one!)

9.6.2010

It is a week since I reached Nani’s house. You are 2 kgs and the second blow has fallen – I have hypothyroidism – diagnosed only now! We all prayed I didn’t have it in the initial trimester when it could have harmed you! However, the doctor assured me that it could have definitely not affected you. Thank God!

2.7.2010

Started to pack the hospital bags.

14.7.2010

The doctor has asked us to fix a date for a planned c-section as your head has not set at all. You are still moving all around my tummy. We decided for 21.7.2010 as advised by the pandit. I was happy as it was my darling brother’s b’day too. On that day, between 6-7 a.m was the time fixed for your delivery.

21.7.2010

That is a whole big another story. Let’s reserve it for the next blog.