Hugs and words always work...

Never knew that a fun, bead shopping trip to a local craft store could teach me some very important things about parenting!! We went there to get beads for her math work. We went for beads. But, we the artists can never go in with a list, shop, and leave. We feel compelled to browse. We get ideas. We jot those ideas in a notebook (we always have a notebook in our bag!!). Stuff the notebook in the bag. Get back home.  After a few days we replace the notebook with another notebook (what do you mean 'why'?? We just do! that's all!)   Then the original notebook (like the 5163 other original notebooks) moves on from the bag to the dining table (needless to say we never have a clue how it got there). Then in a few days the book gets so sick and tired of being pushed and shoved that it moves residence to under the dining table.  Not the best place. Lesson learnt. So, move to the book shelf (nope! a book shelf is never a good place for these special notebooks and nope! this one is not going to stay there for long either...). After a few days or maybe weeks, it will find it's way to the shoe rack and then to the coat pocket (it's a pocket book silly :))and then to the bedside table, the window-sill, the underbed storage and at last to it's final destination- the invisible notebook-eating monster's tummy from whence it will reappear after a few years and follow the same pathway unless I am so overwhelmed at finding it that I actually decide to consolidate all my ideas into one big notebook (there are a bunch of 'one' big notebooks too) and recycle the 'original' one.

So, getting back to the point, we went bead shopping, saw some other stuff, jotted down ideas, saw a colouring book, took it (another trick is to never take a shopping basket/trolley at any store other than the grocery store. There is only so much one can hold in one's hand). Then, as I was paying up, mini me saw another book. She obviously wanted it. Her cousin has it. Hmmm... I had to draw the line somewhere. I said, "No".  She said, "why?".  I said, "Because we don't buy everything we see". And then she said the cutest thing ever. She said, " But Amma!  I didn't see it! Now can you buy it for me?".  I so wanted to but it for her but I still said no. She cried and it broke my heart to see her crying over a book that cost 3 bucks.

Mini me doesn't do that very often. She very very rarely throws a tantrum for things she wants us to buy for her. Many a times we have given in to her demands. And this time around I would just have bought her the book gladly. But she gave me the wrong reason. She had to learn that we don't go out and buy everything that other people have. Neither do we buy everything we see and like in a store. And she knows that now.  It just cost me half an hour of my life, tons of hugs and kisses and a lot of patience.  But it was more than worth it. She saw it.  She got the point. And she suggested we went home, sorted her stuff, give away some that she isn't using, make some space for her new book on the book shelf and then go to the book store and get something that she likes. Not something she wants just because she saw it at somebody's place.

Now I know I made the right choice and for once I am proud of my parenting skills :) Now, that's a rarity too.


P.S. It helps to give tons of examples from our own lives too ;)

A Miracle!!

I am thrilled. Excited. Elated. Full of energy. I feel like Eliza Dolittle singing 'I could've danced all night'!! The reason? Oh! I have a pretty darned good reason to feel this happy. I want to scream it out from the mountain tops. You will not believe what happened this morning! Jr. H brushed her teeth. And that's not all. She not only brushed her teeth, but she did it on her own. With paste. In precisely 5 minutes. She did not swallow the paste. And here's the best part...all this without one drop of tear! No 'silence'. No wrestling. No bloodshed. No head injuries or hospitalizations. No blackmails. No threats. None of that. Just pure plain old peace. Non-violence. It's amazing how the quality of my entire day depends on a four year old brushing her teeth!

When kids become teenagers...

Nope! Mine isn't a teenager. Yet. She has a 'good' (and that is what I call wishful thinking) 9 years to go before that.  But she's being nice to me. She's letting me have a sneak peek at what she will be like in her teens.  Most parents might miss taking the hint but not me! Oh no! I get it so totally and clearly that all of my recreational reading is only about kids and how to live with them.

As you know or might have guessed, my daughter turned 4 a few months ago. And there is reason why they call it the 'fearsome fours'.  To me it feels like her birthday was the official declaration of war in my house!

And Mr. M is now our official mediator. I guess he has a strong affinity to 'M' words.  He is the one that intervenes when push comes to shove and might progress to head injury and hospitalization as a result of trying to brush our teeth. He is also of great help when Jr.H insists that she will go to school in her underwear.  He is the one who checks on us when there is maddening silence in the house, the silence not from us being quiet but from us screaming so hard that our voices go above and beyond the frequencies that humans are capable of detecting. Now being able to distinguish between those two types of silences is a very special talent and it takes a lot of practice.

The only problem we have is Mr. M's part time (and needless to say, less important)occupation like his day job which keeps him away from home for a good 8 hours in a day. Take away the time that Jr. H spends at school and we are still left to fend for ourselves and protect ourselves from each other for what seems like eternity but actually amounts to about 4 hours. So, for the sake of those 4 hours, I started reading a very interesting book that many other survivors had recommended. And guess what I found. She is EXACTLY like me!!!

Bringing up Kids...

Remember the time when you were told that having kids would change your life? I read somewhere that that statement has been awarded the 'Understatement of a Lifetime Award'. Oh wait! Or is it just that I have been thinking it so much that I have started seeing it written everywhere. Maybe it's just my mind playing tricks on me. But I sure know that there ought to be such an award and that thing about kids and how they 'CHANGE' your lives surely is the most deserving canditate.

Change your life indeed! I think all those people were just being kind to this poor round fat clumsy woman with swollen ankles and constant backpain that was me.  Nobody wants to scare a poor pregnant woman out of her wits. It's not like they can tell you at your most miserable state that it's about to get so much worse that pregnancy will seem like heaven to you.

And I anyway believe that change is a very broad term. For example, it's a 'change' if majority of the books on your library hold list have the word 'kids' or 'babies' in the title.  It is also a 'change' if you are talking to your child in the car when in reality you are driving all alone.  It's a 'change' if you drive with your windows rolled down in the peak of winter just to remind yourself that you are indeed alone in the car!  A 'change' is also when you instinctively pick up the booster seat at the movies when the only people you are with are all adults. A 'change' is also when the first thing you worry about when you wake up is breakfast for the little one and the last thing you worry about before bedtime is breakfast for the little one. Also, hearing a war cry first thing in the morning and last thing at night might fall under this category.  It's 'change' if you are suddenly feeling guilty about going on a romantic dinner date with the man you loved enough to marry. I know! Tell me about THAT! Now 'that' is material enough for another million and a half blog posts, don't you think?

Anyway, the point is that maybe, just maybe, what people actually meant is that kids take control of your life rather than change it. They dictate where you go, what you do, when you eat, when you sleep, how much you eat, how much you sleep, what you say, who you meet, what you cook, when you brush your teeth, when you take a bath... I am stopping here only to be polite to you and to keep my poor little post from  getting an R rating!!!

Global Positioning System...

Oh Please, get serious people!! What is this thing supposed to do anyway? Show you the way? Maybe I should come back another day to finish this blogpost when I get out of the hospital after having my sides sewn because as of now they sure are splitting!

And, could somebody please tell me why I let Mr. M con me into letting him buy this thing?  It wasn't enough that we were willing to kill each other over my 'stuff' and his 'junk', we had to go and add her to the mix. Yeah! It's a 'she' and I think the only reason we still put up with her is because she has enslaved Mr. M by the way she says 'destination'. I can say a lot of words and I can say them pretty well. How come none of those have that kind of effect on him? And all she does is say, "arriving at destination " after I have done all the navigation!

The other day, Ka wasn't well and we were desperately trying to find a pharmacy close to our home. So, after arguing for at least 15 minutes as to where the closest pharmacy was, Mr. M decided to shush me and ask 'her'. It's anybody's guess on how annoyed I was.  As his luck would have it (and much to my delight!), his lady beloved spent what seemed like an eon aquiring satellites :D  After she finally got what she wanted, she started to give directions. And it's funny coz the first 'pharmacy' that she took us to was an open ground with nothing there. From there she then took us on a mini world tour before she got us to the pharmacy I suggested at the very start. But some people never learn their lesson. On our way out, Mr. M did it again. And so did she :) Finally she made up her mind and decided on a left turn. Her wish is his command. So, he risked our lives to take that left. A cop could have scraped our remains off of the road and booked us for reckless driving if not for the alignment of my stars and planets. And after all this movie style driving just to humour her, what does she do in return? She recalculates and she takes us on another mini world tour (in the other direction this time) before Mr. M begs for forgiveness and asks me to navigate. What could I do? I am a mother and I had to give in for the sake of my child.

But there's always a next time. And the next time I will surely avenge him. Maybe I will let her take him to the Indian restaurant in New Mexico instead of the one on 140th Ave NE ;)

War and Peace

Picture this for this is perfect. A hot shower. A foot massage with fragrant lavender foot cream. Starwberry body butter. A wonderful night's sleep, peaceful and dreamless (now that's a rarity!). A warm moist kiss on the forehead and a soft whisper, so soft it feels like the flutter of an angel's wings, and then a delicate hug that wakes me up ever so gently at the break of dawn. Yes, that's how my daughter wakes me up in the morning. What could be more beautiful? What could be more perfect than to see a beautiful angel face with big beautiful eyes staring back at you when you wake up? I feel like I am in heaven...

But... There's always that 'but', isn't there? Ready to pop up at every turn in the road. At the drop of a hat. Now, that little guy can't let things be and leave us alone can he? (sigh!) Anyway, now that Mr. But has decided to show his face, let's not ignore him. Let's start off where we left off...But...I am in for a big surprise! Heaven huh?!? Sure!! Sure as hell!! I have been making a note of this and am now pretty sure that the transformation happens the very second I think 'heaven'. I can almost hear the war cry in sync with the voice in my head saying the word 'heaven'. And from that point on we are at war. There's a war about eating candy and brushing teeth and drinking milk and eating and bathing and getting dressed and packing lunch and wearing socks and wearing shoes and getting to the car and being first in everything we do and so on...

Call me crazy but come to think of it, I would fight the battle a million times because it always always ends in a goodnight kiss and a visit from the angel at the break of dawn :) 

Why a mother's job is the toughest...

I am a mother to a 4 year old and I can't help but think everyday of my life that whoever coined the terms 'terrible twos', 'troublesome threes', 'fearsome fours' and beyond knew exactly what they were talking about :) And needless to say, I dread the 'frightening fives' lurking around the corner.
Here's what I feel. A mother's job is the toughest because unlike any other job, mommies cannot give up. Mommies cannot give up and mommies cannot screw up. We do not get a second chance. We cannot go back and fix 'it'. Ever. We cannot undo whatever's been done. And when I look at all the people I have met and known in my life, there are really very few I would wish my kid to be like. There are frighteningly few that I think of as well-balanced, sensible human beings. That in itself is a challenge. To bring up a well-balanced, sensible, good human being :) Those hand-full of people have had me set my standards way up there and I am struggling to get there.
But, what makes the job tougher, more challenging are the people around you. Your family. Your friends. Other mommies. Society in general.
Here's what I believe. Contrary to what most people say, mommies don't instinctively know what to do unless it is a question of survival. But for everything other than survival, gone are the days when society had faith in a mother's instinct. We humans have come a long ways from there. We know too much. We want too much. We think too much. We worry too much. We analyse too much. We have disconnected from nature too much. And, society, very conveniently, left mommies out of the deal. I say, if mothers are expected to know everything about bringing up kids, fathers should be expected to go out into the jungle and hunt for food the good old way.
I hate it that society puts me up on a pedestal, says,"Oh! Don't worry. It will all come naturally to you. Just follow your instincts", and assumes the right to judge me every minute of the day. I hate it that I am not allowed to be human anymore. I am not allowed to get stressed, frustrated, sad, angry, or clueless about anything pertaining to my child.
How do i follow my instincts in today's world? What are instincts anyway? I don't think I have many left. My instincts are obscured by the information I am fed on a daily basis about bringing up kids. My instincts are lost in the deafening babel of voices telling me what to do and how to feel and how to react.
STOP IT people!! Just stop it! No matter what I say or do or feel, I love my daughter more than I love myself. None of you is ever going to be able to match up to me on that one. So, if you could please stay out of it, she and I can figure things out for ourselves. We might look lost at times, but don't worry! we will find our way.