A Date!

 

My week day mornings are frantic. It’s because a tiny human has to get to school on time.

I wake up groggy - ever so dearly pining for just 5 mins more of deep sleep. But alas. My needs take a royal backseat. I somehow manage to push through the morning chores and brace myself. 

The next part is tough.

I have to awaken THE tiny little person. Now this person is mercurial. Some days are sunshine and roses. He’ll wake up with a huge smile and a hug and share fresh anecdotes about his dreams. Most Other days, it’s like the dragon pulled you down his dungeon. He’s angry, upset and totally betrayed by his mother who dares to wake him. And for what……School?? You must be kidding him!!!

But well, we gotta do what we gotta do! So I seek patience from the Force. Because guess what, I’ve already lost it a couple of times in a span of ten minutes.

After a lot of talks, negotiations, threats and ultimately literal begging, he relents. He gets up, drudges through the chores and somehow gets ready in time, give or take a few precious morning minutes. 

I've known of a lot of homes and families which play devotional songs in the mornings and it’s a beautiful hum and background music to the whole house. In my house though, you'll hear the constant hum of things like “just eat that” or “no you can’t throw food on the floor; Empty threats like  “pick that uppppp or else….” ; “no you can’t go to school in your night suit”; “yes you are a boy not a car” and more such interesting things.

But anyway, we are out the door and on the way to school. The journey to school is another chapter in convincing arguments and negotiations. I am beginning to thank my stars that I didn’t choose a career in law because every morning is epic evidence of how I am so bad at it. 

The actual moment when I drop him off at school though, is poignant. He feels miserable. I feel sad. We hold hands for a second more than required. He has moist eyes and I have an emotional lump in my throat. His eyes and ears are longing for me to say “chuck school today, let’s go home” …. But that doesn’t happen. He walks in slowly, deliberately and with a tinge of disappointment at how his morning has gone so far. I watch him. I feel like bringing him back and telling him chuck school today, let’s go home!! But that doesn’t happen na :( 

And so, he goes in. I linger a little longer …. I don’t know why. 

But then I leave too.

Now the next few hours are mine and only mine. Till I go back to my boss of 4 years, I am a free person. Well, it’s a date alright :)

I go for a yoga class sometimes and stretch and move to provide some much needed TLC to my ageing, aching muscles and joints. 

Sometimes I go and see my erstwhile staff members - they are also called my parents. You see, not too long ago, I was the boss and they were the captives, working day and night like I’m doing now as karma comes back in form of a tiny person of my womb :) They let me live the illusion of a bygone life, even if for just a few hours :)

Then there are those days when I meet my friends. Oh ! This, I must tell you, is one of my favourite things to do on a date with myself. These rendezvous are the joie de vivre of my life. They remind me of the girl I am before I became the girlfriend, before I became the wife, before I became the mother! They remind me life is simple and joyous when you share a wonderful, throaty laugh over an absolutely silly age old joke with people that matter.

And then there are days, when I spend those hours with just myself! I find a cozy spot in a restaurant or cafe, I order something completely and sinfully loaded with calories or a green tea, there is just no in-between. So whatever the mood, I order food accordingly and sit :) I watch people around, I think of how so many lives meet and intertwine with each other every day and how everything, just everything enriches us every day! I philosophically remember my carefree teens and twenties and how I really feel like a different person before and after the birth of my little one. 

I think of how my best friend has evolved with me from being my college classmate, to a person of interest, to someone I dated and then married, and is now an awesome father! Then I remember the little fights we have ever so often and make a mental note to give him the silent treatment till he apologises for whatever has happened (whosoever’s fault it may be).

Then as I casually glance at my watch, I’m reminded that it’s time to get back on duty and fetch my tiny boss. And so, I save this document and remind myself to publish it on my blog, for you to know, how I date myself for a few hours, everyday :)

A question about travel!

You know, travel is magical. Of course you know that! 

It’s magical, it’s amazing, it’s eye-opening, it’s enthralling! It’s hard work, it’s complex some times and oh! With a kid! It’s EXHAUSTING ! Bone tiring! 

And hence, after you are a parent, travel is a mixed bag  But it’s a happy problem because you are basically running away from your problems with some different problems to a different set of problems and it’s temporary and it’s a problem you are happy to solve  Hahahaha I read that again myself! Ramblings of a different level! But that’s for a different blog post altogether!

This time, I am here to tell you about my very random thoughts and questions on travel. 

You know, I have realized this about myself – I become a different person when I travel. 

For some strange reason, I feel different physically when I travel. I feel taller than I am, much much thinner than I actually am and I seem to think I have hair like a shampoo-commercial model. I walk with a spring in my step. Oh my god you should see me in the airport – I walk with an air of over confidence. I walk a taller, thinner and as if I were a very hot person – but in reality, it’s a like looking at a confused, forever rushing and scared fat cat. But yeah – that’s how I feel. But I also have my heart beat very fast and hard. I don’t know what it is about airports and planes – I feel extremely over-confident and very very scared and doubtful all at the same time.

Imagine, then, how I feel when that bubble bursts and I get “randomly” picked (Every single time) for a pat down or open-bags-and-recheck or when customs decides to ask me special questions – for which I don’t seem to have any easy answers! 

This once I was travelling to Singapore and the customs person, in all normalcy, asked me why I was going to Singapore. My mind messed up at that exact moment. Like it froze and then melted real quick and I answered with a very weird expression – TOURISM ! Yep! Tourism! Not holiday or vacation – Tourism! 

Well, now it was his turn to look weird. He saw me for a moment and held my eye for more than a few uncomfortable seconds. Then he got up! Oh no! I was going to be there a really long time! I saw my husband and son clear customs in less than 10 seconds and walk over onto the greener pasture. While I waited here for an uncertain few moments. Then that person returned with another colleague and both had weird expressions on their faces. This time the other colleague asked me the same question – but this time I knew the correct answer. I said I was going on a holiday with my family and optimistically pointed to them on the other side.

They seemed satisfied. By then my false tall height had returned to my regular factual height and now I started feeling fatter than what I already was! It felt like a thud! 

I thought the ordeal was over – but it obviously wasn’t! They asked me another question – “How many days are you going for” ! That was it ! I was brimming with tears at this point. I was only going for a week and all I needed to do was tell them that. They were both looking at me. I am confident one of them had a small smile beginning to form on his face. The other one was a bit irritated. I needed to say 7 days or a week. 

But what did I say? 

I said “one-fourth of a month”! 

Suffice to say, that sent them into a brainless tizzy. They spent a lot of time talking to each other in hushed tones and deliberated on some issue for almost 5-6 minutes. Passengers behind me in the serpentine queue were beginning to wonder what was wrong with me – they were a mix of irritated, annoyed and also curious! 

Ahh well, but some good karma caught up at that perfect moment for me. The customs personnel had deemed it fit for me to travel despite the amazing answers I gave them. 

But before sending me over to the happy side – the irritated person gave me parting advice – “udhar jaake tourism mat bol dena, India mein hi holiday karna padega phir for one-fourth of the time” and then both of them guffawed and high-fived each other. 

Mom Chronicles #5

I have been wanting to write a post here for a really long time. I have tried to write many times too but get nowhere. Either I get too overwhelmed and cry half way through the post or I just don’t find the right words to express my thoughts – soooooo I have not been able to write :-)

But, here I am again, trying to put some words together sensibly to make a worthy blog post!

Did you know that tiny human beings are constantly listening to adults? They are grasping at all the words, sentences and meanings they can. It might not look like they are listening – they might be busy playing their own little games while you are talking – but they have super-powers in their ears. Their ears multi-task! They listen all the time and then use their ultimate superpower – use this knowledge back on you at an unbelievably sticky time! There’s no escaping this.

Let me tell you how!

Those that know me, know I have a thing for food :-) It’s a love story. One sided maybe – but I am passionately in love with food. My stomach doesn’t approve of this affair many a times – so I do end up dealing with it’s tantrums by way of acidity :-) And hence, I also have a thing for Gelusil ! I speak of this quite often to my husband, oblivious to the fact that there are more listening ears than intended :-)

I had some relatives over a few weeks ago. Of them were two energetic nephews who dote over my little one. They were playing some planet stuff while all of us adults were seated around them and chit-chatting. In what can only be described as a moment of profound teaching, the older nephew started telling my son about the Sun. “You know, The Sun is made up of gas and hot air and it’s the biggest part of our solar system!!!” My son looked at his older brother with limitless admiration in his eyes but then suddenly something clicked. He responded with “Ohhhhhh woooohhhhh Sunnnnnn. Arrrrreeeyyyyy meri mumma ko bhi bohotttttt gas hota hai aur papa unko immediately gelusil de dete hai. Matlab mumma Sun hai???”
This was followed by pin-drop silence for a few horrendous seconds and then there was LOUD and continuous laughter, of course, with all eyes on me! I laughed too – albeit forcibly. To save face!
What followed was then an array of home remedies, tricks and ideas to deal with my sunny problem! And while all this was happening, the little munchkin of mine had come back into the room with the bottle of gelusil so that his Sun could burp off the hot air!!

In another instance, he thought it was okay to let his class teacher know that an uncle of mine, in Chennai, was old and his bag was torn.  This was because he had overheard a one-sided conversation I was having with said uncle on the phone! The uncle doesn’t have a torn bag!

He also thought it necessary to tell his grandfather – a man who is 70 years his senior – that he must change his ways! In actual words – “Thatha needs to change his behaviour”. So unprompted and soooooo hilarious ….. but well, he had heard his grandma say this to grandpa many times and he used it at the opportune moment when he was denied something by Thatha.

That’s how this little kid rolls. And I know that ALL kids roll this way. Hehehehehe.

We’ve started being careful of what we talk around him. Because we’ve had some funny but many embarrassing situations.

It’s been the hardest on my husband, who is a regular user of certain choice expletives as part of daily conversation :-) So imagine his plight when my son reacted with a loud “F**k it” on dropping his favourite vehicle in the middle of an office conference call :-)