A Few of My Favourite Things

Here is what's brightening-up my winter days:

• Watching Sully (the techie) and Boo (my baby) enjoying Monsters Inc together. They scream and boo and giggle all through the movie
• My morning strawberry indulgence shower and my baby smelling of fresh honey and toffee after her morning bath 
• Brownie pie (at my local coffee shop) with my afternoon americano (isn't it great how all those winter layers let you indulge without worrying about the effect on your hips and tummy)
• The seasonal glitter and shine every where I turn. "I love my bling darlings"
• Getting to wear my favourite leather coat on my mini-break last week (I haven't used it for three years!) 
• Meeting my BFF (and her new-born son) after a 2.5 long years apart 
• Climbing back onto the blogging bandwagon after a series of longish breaks
• Catching-up on great books I missed, like the "Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" series. One book down, two to look forward too
• My baby singing "My Favourite Things" from "The Sound of Music" at the top of her voice, while being totally oblivious to who's listening. I wish I could enjoying being "me" as much as she enjoys being "V"

What's cheering you up this December?

Weekend Zen

I realized one thing this week. It doesn't matter how many brilliant posts you write in your head, you need to put it out in the blogsphere for it to have any sort of real value. So before the next weekend starts, here's a post I've been meaning to write for the past seven days. This is not one of those brilliant post (you need to hang out here regularly to get to read those), however, it's a special one.

Last week I decided that I need to be more like the techie. When he's with the little one, he completely enjoys her. I understand that I can never be the same, since a mummy's balance of fun versus responsibility is different from a daddy's (at least in my limited experience). However, I have also understood that sometimes you just need to have fun and throw caution to the winds, because this time with my daughter will not come back. So, I attacked the weekend with this learning in ,mind (yes, I can plan a fun day too). Surprisingly, just the intention to have fun lead to a spontaneous zen-inducing day.

On the weekends our whole family gets together to relax. So, we have about 7 kids ranging from 1.10 years to 15 years throw together. The first half of the day was pretty much par for course. Grocery shopping, family lunch and a movie in the home theater while the younger ones napped. Post naps we stepped into the driveway to perfect weather conditions, bright sunshine and a cooling breeze. That's when I hit on my first idea, hopscotch. This may seem a bit silly to some of you, but today's kids either play organized sport or spend time on the phone, in-front off the computer/television. 

When I asked for some driveway chalk they were all intrigued. By the time I had the first box drawn out, I had 10 people helping me. We ended-up with 2 different layouts and marked them as level 1 and level 2. This has to be the most fun game of hopscotch I have played in years. The little ones just had fun jumping, while the older ones loved the challenge and the adults actually got some decent workouts.  The perfect way to enjoy the perfect day.

We didn't end with hopscotch. The enthusiastic competing gave all of us a big appetite and I decided to make my favourite spaghetti arrabiata (I know it's nothing special, but we love it). My 12 year old niece loves cooking and wanted to help me out. My toddler is my current kitchen helper. So the three of us set off to blanch the tomatoes. By the time the tomatoes where ready for peeling I had 5 kids in the kitchen (2 of the boys joined in and the littlest boy decided to keep pulling stuff of the workspace). They all peeled and chopped the tomatoes, smashed the garlic, and halved the spaghetti sticks. (Breaking the sticks was their favourite activity, thought the flying pieces of dry spaghetti  almost caused a few injuries. I finally had them close their eyes every time they snapped the sticks.) Everyone had a turn at stirring the sauce and tearing up the herbs. The troupe even enjoyed the clean-up part. All this fun also resulted in food that everyone loved (there were about 15-20 of us that evening).

The best part of this experience - I spent a fun, stress-free day with my baby.

This is what I've planned for tomorrow's zen experience - jump rope competitions followed by tofu and vegetable stir-fry with buck wheat noodles. (The little one's running a fever today, so don't know if this will actually materialize.) 

What do you do for family fun? I love new ideas and am always willing to use my husband and child as guinea pigs (just kidding).

The Little Things I Do For My Mommy

I hate being coped up in the house and my munchkin takes after me. So any free time we get together we grab our stuff and rush put the door. We do movies (we even do late night shows on the weekend), shopping, eating visiting the library, going crazy on the beach, you name it and we've done it. Given our current lifestyle most of this is just me and her time.

So it's a given that she accompanies me into public toilets. Like I've mentioned before, for all my dislike of staying home, I do love having my own loo. Unfortunately, I'm not rich enough to have one follow me around, and I have a relatively weak bladder, so I have to use the commonly available ones. I refuse to sit on the seat of a public toilet without using a liner (when available) or covering it with toilet paper and my daughter is well aware of this fact.

At home though I allow my bum to touch the bare toilet seat I always stock a few extra rolls of toilet on the bookshelf next to the toilet. This is in case the current roll runs out halfway through my requirement.

A couple of days back I was rushing into the washroom at home for a pee when my daughter decided to chat with me as I relieved myself. Her reasoning, "Mummy you tell me stories to help me poop, so I'll tell you a story to help you pee". Simple and difficult to refute. She noticed the empty toilet paper  holder and immediately picked up a fresh roll and replaced it. "Mummy some silly person forgot to keep you toilet paper ready". (No really! who in my train of maids could have possibly made that mistake?) Then she proceeded to tear of little squares of paper and lay them on the seat. I was in pain by then and politely asked her what in the world she was doing. "Mummy, I know you like a pretty seat so I'm decorating it for you to sit and pee".
 

Discovering Pure Joy

I'm not talking about some swanky perfume. Hello, I'm a mummy, we don't indulge ourselves with such wasteful pleasures, or rather we pretend not to and do it on the sly.

What's more important is, this weekend I re-discovered true joy. Don't you remember the blissed out feeling that  used to wash over us once we handed in our last exam paper of the term and had 60 days of summer fun ahead. I unexpectedly had that experience after years.

We were having a family wine session on Saturday night. There was some dance music on, the adults were chattering away and the kids were going crazy trying to keep up with the music and their made up moves. All of a sudden my mom (who does not touch alcohol) nudged me and pointed at my daughter. My little angel was dancing, not her usual bounce, but real dance steps. Crossing her feet, doing a gentle wave with her arms and best of all she had this totally blissed out expression on her face. I can't explain how or why, but for the next 15 minutes I was as oblivious to my surroundings as my baby girl. Her pure joy in dancing some how transferred it self to me and I entered this trance like state of total contentment and serenity.

If this sounds too New Age to any of you, don't worry, it feels the same to me. This is not me, I'm an overworked, highly-stressed, over-analysing individual, like most moms of my generation.

However, for those 15 minutes I was in a place I thought had disappeared with my childhood.

When I came out of my trance I nudged the techie and pointed at the munchkin, with the hope that he would get a glimpse into paradise.  

Peeing like a Big Person

I thought my little one was toilet trained and have been pretty free with her at home. Obviously, we have an agreement that she wear pull-ups when we are away from the home turf for more than an hour. She's fine with this since she hates public toilets and I'm paranoid about UTI (urinary tract infection) from using public toilets. Plus I have no intention of going diaper free at night till she's three and can get up in the middle of the night to pee. Apart from this she's toilet trained and hasn't even worn diapers to play-school for the past 6 months.

About two days back she did her usual "mummy pee" shout and I went rushing to get her to the potty on time. What I found, was her proudly hanging on to the proper toilet (with both hands) and standing in a puddle of pee. She gave me a big smile and said, "see mummy, I peed like a big person"!

Apparently, she saw my 6 year old nephew (I guess 6 looks big when you're two) peeing and thought she would prove herself in the same way. I obviously have a lot of explaining to do on 'how' and 'why' boy-girl peeing methods are different.

For the moment I just applauded and then explained to her that if we sit on the toilet we only have to wash our hands and not our whole body, so we save a lot of playtime. (Imagine, if she did the same in a public toilet! I wouldn't even know how to start cleaning those little hands.)

Any tips on how to tackle this? I definitely did not anticipate this stuff during parenting 101.

Title of Substance

This was the third post I wrote on this blog. It was the first time I used a title that distilled the gist of what I was trying to convey (or at least I thought so). Most of my titles are pretty subject focused rather than substance focused (if that makes any sense). I hope I've piqued your interest enough to get you to read on.

"Wrong Shoes Mummy"


My mornings seem to be unbelievably busy, though all I do is feed my daughter breakfast and make her use the potty (my husband does this on my yoga mornings) before getting both of us ready. The rush is despite the fact that I organize all our clothes and other stuff the previous night.

I invariably lose my cool, when my daughter starts choosing what footwear she wants to wear to school. I mean she just turned 2 in April, isn't it too early for her to have a fashion sense? Anyway, this crazy morning rush was what caused one of my most uncomfortable days at work (since we started our own business).

It was a usual weekday morning and I had just about managed to get everyone in the car (we drop our daughter off at school on the way to work). The little one kept saying "Mummy, wrong shoes, wrong shoes". I shushed her with a "behave yourself" as I tried to feed her the cereal she had refused to eat at home. When we finally got to school she gave my husband a big hug and kiss before getting off. While I walked her to the gate, she had a last try "Mummy, your shoes are wrong" (she often gets mine and yours mixed-up). I ignored her comments and hugged her, she in turn gave me a kiss and a confused stare before heading indoors with her favorite teacher.

Half an hour later, I was holding my first discussion of the day in the corridor of our office, even before I reached my desk, when my accountant walked past and gave me a quizzical look. I smiled at her and continued the conversation. Throughout the day I kept getting these confused stares from people and couldn't figure them out. I finally found out why when I bent down to retrieve a fallen bill. Horror of horrors, I had worn my water-proof house-slippers, the variety with a red and black floral design to work!

While I was busy shushing her, my poor little baby was trying to save me from embarrassing myself at work. Now, I pay a lot more attention to her morning comments and try and stop myself from shushing her in general. I've realized one thing, she is totally focused on the moment, unlike her preoccupied mom.

I have a lot to learn from you my sweetheart.


Does the title suit the post? What title would you have used for this entry?


*Thank you to the SITS girls and their wonderful sponsors, sponsors, Standards of Excellence, Westar Kitchen and Bath, and Florida Builder Appliances for getting me out of a blogging slump with this challenge.

See What My Mummy Uses at Home

I think this post is going to make all of you a lot more sympathetic to the teacher I cribbed about in the previous entry. Cookie (that's what we call the little one at home) had her first bit of homework yesterday: bring pictures of two objects used in your house, for a class collage. Me being the aspiring modern mom, ignored the fact that the message was addressed to the parents and decided to turn it into a project. My rationale being, what is she going to talk about if she doesn't choose the objects herself.

So, step one was deciding where we were going to get the pictures from. The only solution I came up with was cutting them out of a magazine. Now, in our house we get two magazines:

• A magazine for entrepreneurs, which both of us read and also refer to for ideas. I couldn't destroy the back issues as we may need it going forward. In addition, I didn't think they would have too many pictures of household objects.
• Cosmopolitan which, again, both of us read. (Hubby when he's really stressed out and needs to laugh at us silly girls, or so he claims. Now you know his little secret) So my precious Cosmo it was. My logic being, this being a girlie magazine it has to have some practical women related advertisements. Plus, what other choice did I have. 

These are the pictures my little angel went for:

• A pot of Bodyshop's Body Butter - I totally approved of this, what could be more useful (and indulgent)
• A mug full of low-fat vanilla latte - which she insisted on calling "hazelnut mocha with skim please"
• A pink and violet fully loaded hair dryer - I have a blue one, so close enough. She loves to watch me dry my hair and get a second of drying too
• A tube of Neutrogena hand cream
• A bottle of Vaseline for Men body lotion - we really have this at home. She shares it with her dad and declares that she "loves her daddy smell"
• A bottle of Tide washing powder - this too has a place in our house
• A plate of double fudge cookies - I kept trying to get her to focus on the plate and not the cookies, to no avail
• The Burberry Summer perfume for men - she did gift this to her dad on his birthday
• A small pot of MAC shimmer eyeshadow - my mom loves MAC products
• A designer backpack - she claimed it was her Dora school bag

We finally decided on the Tide bottle (me), the mug (me), the hair dryer (her), the backpack (her) and the pot of Bodyshop Body Butter (her). Hope her teacher thinks that we like to get involved in our projects rather than that we are indecisive, considering the instructions said two objects.

When we were packing the cutouts into the pages of her notebook, one of them fell the wrong side up on the floor. When I bent down to pick it up, instead of an image I saw the words "show him your wild side". That's when I realized, pictures cut from a girlie magazine will have racy articles on the reverse. Picture her teacher seeing that along with her choice of products and imagining a house where we throw money away on luxury brands and swan around in fancy negligees all day. So we had to stick the pictures on white chart paper and cut along the curvy edges to create faux collage worthy cutouts.

Don't know if I'll be so excited about her next project. Maybe I'll just send her to bed and do it myself.

The New Dining Rules

I had the most uncomfortable experience yesterday. My daughter has two sides to her, the stay at home side and  what I call her public image.

At home she expects every family member to run circles around her and obey all her commands (this works with her dad and my parents, not me), does funny stuff to make me laugh or sings at the top of her little voice and asks us to clap after she finishes an act or song, insists on dressing herself and cleaning up her own messes (doubling my work) and generally looks down on those who don't do the 'I'm not worthy' thing every few hours.

Her 'public image' is completely different. By public I mean when the majority of people fall in the stranger or not too familiar category. She speaks softly, sticks close to the nearest family member, drinks soup without spills (don't know how she accomplishes that), politely asks us to get her what she needs (this includes checking if she can use the toilet or needs to go in her pull-ups) and let's us put on a bib for her. So, obviously when we went out for a big family dinner last night I was sure of having a smooth and enjoyable evening.

The evening started with her insisting that she wanted to eat with chopsticks. On being presented with a set, she very politely handed one back to waiter and proceeded to eat her noodles with one chopstick. The waiter looked at me (who by the way was using both her chopsticks) with a raised eyebrow and all I could do was smile sheepishly. Next she asked for a glass of watermelon juice and was told that they had fresh orange, grape and sweet lime juices. She smiled sweetly and asked if they could get her some watermelon pieces please. When the plate of freshly cut watermelon arrived, she took her water glass, and proceeded to squeeze the juice out of the pieces into the glass. I asked her to stop immediately and was told that she was teaching the nice man to make watermelon juice! Finally when I was busy having a conversation with my sister-in-law, the waiter informed me that my daughter was throwing her food on the floor. I turned to her in shock, only to be told that she was clearing her plate just like I had asked her too! The princess was sent to watch the fountain in the hotel lobby with her cousins, while we adults finished our meal. Hope she didn't think I was rewarding her behaviour, it was more a case of getting her out of sight of the hyperventilating staff

Someone please remind me to think before I give instructions to a two-year old. They 'literally' take you at face value. Or is this just my little girl? And I couldn't even scold her for being naughty, since I have told her that if she understands why she's doing something and I understand it as well, we will only discuss how we can do better. Oh! the trials of modern, rational parenting.

"Wrong Shoes Mummy"

My mornings seem to be unbelievably busy, though all I do is feed my daughter breakfast and make her use the potty (my husband does this on my yoga mornings) before getting both of us ready. The rush is despite the fact that I organize all our clothes and other stuff the previous night.

I invariably lose my cool, when my daughter starts choosing what footwear she wants to wear to school. I mean she just turned 2 in April, isn't it too early for her to have a fashion sense? Anyway, this crazy morning rush was what caused one of my most uncomfortable days at work (since we started our own business).

It was a usual weekday morning and I had just about managed to get everyone in the car (we drop our daughter off at school on the way to work). The little one kept saying "Mummy, wrong shoes, wrong shoes". I shushed her with a "behave yourself" as I tried to feed her the cereal she had refused to eat at home. When we finally got to school she gave my husband a big hug and kiss before getting off. While I walked her to the gate, she had a last try "Mummy, your shoes are wrong" (she often gets mine and yours mixed-up). I ignored her comments and hugged her, she in turn gave me a kiss and a confused stare before heading indoors with her favorite teacher.

Half an hour later, I was holding my first discussion of the day in the corridor of our office, even before I reached my desk, when my accountant walked past and gave me a quizzical look. I smiled at her and continued the conversation. Throughout the day I kept getting these confused stares from people and couldn't figure them out. I finally found out why when I bent down to retrieve a fallen bill. Horror of horrors, I had worn my water-proof house-slippers, the variety with a red and black floral design to work!

While I was busy shushing her, my poor little baby was trying to save me from embarrassing myself at work. Now, I pay a lot more attention to her morning comments and try and stop myself from shushing her in general. I've realized one thing, she is totally focused on the moment, unlike her preoccupied mom.

I have a lot to learn from you my sweetheart.