Peapod stuff & Week 33 updates

I was really cool, infact excited all this while about the changes coming up but since last week, thinking about it makes me very very nervous. I am all the time reciting Psalms 121 and sometimes I just can't even get past the first line. I am not so much worried about the delivery as much about everything that will precede it. My health, the baby, the peapod's admissions, managing the whole family circus, pulling this whole thing off without loosing my nerves. Since I am so used to being in control of things, being in bed with restricted mobility is like pulling my life plug. I know, I should just trust others in the household to takeover and step back. Maybe I will(like I have a choice) but cant help getting paranoid.

There is this whole lot of things that I did love to do considering it would be Christmas time when the baby arrives and I want it to be special for all of us. Ofcourse blame the nesting instinct that has kicked in as well. I am arranging & re-arranging the house in my head. Also, considering the fact that I will be home for atleast 4-6 months, I want a beautiful house to live in. So far its been just necessities and a tidy & warm place to return to at the end of a day. Both my sisters dropped in tons of baby stuff that were not used or hardly used and I sorted all that I wanted and put away a whole lot as well. The hospital bag is ready. The peapod knows that the baby will arrive in December and seems as excited as me. The father seems to be in deep thoughts all the time, so I don't know if the thoughtfulness comes from the excitement or he is gearing himself for the avalanche that is to follow.

The Jellybean went back to Baroda. I did not see the Peapod enough over the 3 weeks, the Jellybean was here. Every evening when I landed at mom's place to pick her up at 7-7:30, she wasn't willing to come. The moment she hears me ring the bell, she was already yelling even before the door opened to let me know she wasn't coming and I can go. At about 8-8:30 my sister used to drop her but she wouldn't come alone, she would force the Jellybean to come along or the jellybean would tag along on the pretext that she has to drop her at our doorstep, and once she is here, the peapod wouldn't let the jellybean go. My sister would then go back and then come back around 9:30ish to pick her up. Thank God we just live 2 blocks apart from my Mom's place. After the jellybean leaves, finally we have time for one super tantrum, a little throw and mess the house or cry for no specific reason or some insanely impossible stuff like she needs 10 llamas (blame me for the books I read her) ...RIGHT NOW . Finally we used to get to bed by 10:30-11ish. The 2 weren't even all lovey-dovey all the time but they just had to be togather every waking moment possible.

Some weird things the peapod does, she reads her books upside down and she writes right to left. Like if she has to draw an 'H' the right most straight line comes first then the left one and then the sleeping line goes from right to left. She even writes her 'F' like its mirror image at times. I think she gets this from watching us read/write by sitting across her. I think we have comfortably managed to mess it all up. Off late, she questions everything and it doesn't end with an honest answer to the said question, the answer only leads to an another question and then an another untill I put up my hands and surrender to her on my knees untill she proclaims Mumma does not know anything with tightly closed eyes with additional emphasis on "does not know anything".(Mamma(ky) onnumm ariyethilla). The other hit thing around is asking me when something would happen and in peapod's world, she has to know how many times she needs to sleep and wake up before its saturday or how many times she needs to sleep and wakeup before the Jellybean comes or for any other peapod look-forwards. There are days when she gets all excited and starts me on when the baby is coming. Can you imagine my distress as she goes,
pp: When will the baby come?
Me: December
pp: so if I sleep and wake up then what happens?
Me: you go to school
pp: and if I sleep and wake up again then what happens?
Me: you go to school
pp: and if I sleep and wake up again then what happens?
Me: we all have a holiday
pp: and if I sleep and wake up again then what happens?
Me: Then we go to church
pp: and if I sleep and wake up again then what happens?

after we have covered about 2 weeks, I just say and then the baby will come. She gushes all excited and gets back to her stuff. She knows her numbers, weekdays and months but none of that is of any practical use to me when it comes to peapod's self-devised counting methodology.

Week 33 is on. My lower back is aching. Sitting, standing and lying down are all equally uncomfortable and the worse is when moving from one state to an another. I feel embarassed waddling around in office like a penguin on ice, dragging my feet and my whole self around. An another 45-50 days to go. Uff .... Its not even like I am all set to go into labor today or even a week down the line but still.

Gyaan - Just like that

Foolishness and innate evilness is a deadly combination. Its lethal. I have realized there isn't anything anyone can say or do about it because when you are advising/proposing solutions, the evilness beats you and when you are preaching goodness, the foolishness kills you. Since all it does is sap out positivity and fun, you might just as well stay away and let it self-destruct. It wouldn't have been a problem if one didn't care & love enough to watch it in progress.

Diwali Vacation - 2009

So the Diwali vacation has begun with a bang this year. The peapod's school closed for Diwali vacations starting this week and so did the jellybean's. So jellybean & sis arrived home on Saturday. The peapod & jellybean, 2 chatterboxes talking to each other makes an amusing sight. In an hour they had hugged, kissed, yapped, fought and made up as well. They danced the garba in the lovely ghaghra my sis got them. Jellybean speaks a little bit of Gujarati as well, can you imagine. The peapod knows her way around her granny, she knows the rules of the house, she knows what is a no-no and she also knows how she can work her way around those but the jellybean is new having quite forgotten what is it that works and what doesn't and ofcourse the rules have changed too. So while the peapod knows she cannot jump on the couch like on a trampoline but can jump on the bean bag, the jellybean clearly has forgotten. Playing with the 2-way light & fan switch have be was their game, but is no more entertained - its a waste of electricity. Likewise playing with the taps on was something they enjoyed as 2 year olds, its again off the list now with lectures on wastage of water. Plucking tulsi leaves off granny's garden after watering the plants and chewing them was an another stuff that was ok, but not anymore ever since the plant leaves almost shriveled up and mom is figuring out how to sort that out. So peapod has an advantage that she uses very well. If she is not getting her way, she will immediately go and get granny and embarrass the poor jellybean who like ever before is the drama queen, ready to shed a bucket at the drop of a hat. Its been just a day but they are back to their games, cooking, jumping, dancing, hiding and all sorts. It also helps when you have crazy entertaining aunts, one who joins their games with equal gusto and seriousness. It doesn't matter she is the mother of an almost 1 yr old. You tell me, who hides under the bed for a good 5 mins when playing hide and seek with two 3 yr olds? Who tries to come up with colors that are hard to find when playing "find the color" around the dinning table? The other aunt dances with them, teaches them to shake their bums and then throws them above her head just to get them laughing uncontrollably. Baby Neil at 10 months crawls around and stands with support and is still wondering what is the chaos all about? The girls love offering their food to him in tiny bits which he very eagerly sucks off their fingers. In short the kids are having super fun and its just been a day.

The Vacation Bible school(VBS) is a 6 day sing-song-story-color & dance thing for 5 days for 3 hours in the church. Its usually conducted during vacations, summer or diwali. Ours began today. Both the girls had been to VBS last year and enjoyed it immensely and they are back to it this year. Its basically full of music, new hymns, action songs, stories and many random activities based on different age groups. As kids, every time we went to Kerala we made sure we could attend VBS at my mom's place. We were a bunch of cousins who would go togather & have the time of our lives. The tempo & mood is high-beat during this week and 5 days pass by just like that. I am here sitting in office, just got off a conference call and have my tasks listed out in front of me but all I am thinking is..oh my, the kids must be having fun and I am missing it. Yeah, sometimes I am still the little girl who loves the loud music, songs/hymns and all the silly-kiddy fun.

And my little monkey, at week 29 is busy kicking. Sometimes I do not realize I am making faces when the kicks set in and makes me uncomfortable. Put on a little music and he/she then settles in well. I am off reading, can almost say "completely". I just don't feel like reading anymore. I am carrying "Devil wears Prada" in my bag and I haven't even opened it. I actually haven't read a book in a month. An another side effect of pregnancy, you think?

Hope you guys have a rocking Diwali as well!! Happy Diwali to my dear dear lovely readers. Yeah ok to the 3 of you who read me.

How can this happen in India????

That was my reaction when I saw the news about how a man locked up his wife and 2 daughters in a house for 7 years in a place like Vasai. Typical Indians and the indian way of living is often accused of NOT minding their own business and always poking around in another's affairs. We pride ourselves in knowing our neighbourhood. We know our neighbours, where they hail from, we know where their parents & in-laws live, we know what is the current biggest crises in their household, we know their festivals, we know where they work, we know their friends and relatives who visit them, we know their typical daily routine, we actually know pretty much everything that we are required to know and mostly the other gory details too.

I am totally lost how did people not know or care for 3 people who were locked up in a house for 7 years. As Indians we are accused of having acute interest in the neighbour's life and mostly providing it for the gossip mills around as well. If this unwarranted attention & behaviour was of any use to anybody anytime, it was probably at times like this.

Crimes like this in the western suburbs of Bombay, its very very difficult to imagine.

Books for 2-4 year olds

As a mom who loves to read and would love to inculcate her love for books and reading in her daughter I am always on the look out. Sites like the Saffron tree and Amazon provide much help and specially Saffron tree because the recommendations come from parents who have similar aged kids. Books recommended by other mommy-bloggers rate very high on my radar when I am looking out. Also the other problem is, many of these books I might not find in stores like crossword, landmark or Odyssey anytime I choose to walk-in. Once in these stores I just need to pick random books that look interesting but they are never half as interesting as the ones recommended by other bloggers. So this post is just for moms like me out there, who are looking for what to buy for their 2-4 year olds.

1. Barnyard Dance - Sandra Boynton
This is the first book that I bought after seeing it on ST. It was an instant hit with the both the kids, my daughter and my niece. They loved the rhyme and the different animals sketched.







2. JamBerry - Bruce Degen

Its a sweet story about a little boy and big bear out to collect all kinds of berries. The peapod wouldn't even let me bypass the first page, I have to begin with "JamBerry by Bruce Degen". The illustrations are so beautiful that even after reading it out to the peapod for almost 1-1.5 years she still finds interesting stuff in there. Yeah she knows the book front to back and can now sit on her own and recite the whole book..





3. The very Hungry Catterpillar - Eric Carle

Its a small book that we have. I am not sure if there are different sizes available but it is totally worth it. The book illustrates the transformation of a beautiful butterfly from an egg. I am still reading this one out almost every night.>







4. The Runaway Bunny - Margaret Wise Brown

This one is about how a little bunny tries to keep running away from its mom only to be found by his mom in various scenarios. This one is a cute book but not quite as hit as the others we have. Since this one doesn't have rhymes and a little too many lines to be read, the peapod looses patience while we read them. I hope she will begin to like it in the coming years.




5. Is your Mama a Llama - Deborah Guarino

This one is about a little llama trying to find his mom. The rhymes are easy, the pictures very cute and the illustrations are so well done there is always something new the peapod finds in there.







6. Who are you baby kangaroo? - Stella Blackstone

This book was an instant hit with peapod and she knew it by heart in 2 days time. She totally loved the repetitions and she already knew what the young ones were called and so it was familiar and new all at the same time.




7. My Granny went to Market - Stella Blackstone

When the book first arrived I was a little apprehensive. It talks about various places like Istanbul, Russia, Switzerland and so on and the pages illustrate various specialities about these places and I kept thinking this is too much for my 3 yr old. But once I started reading it, I realised I underestimate her pronunciation skills. She says Istanbul, Australia, Switzerland and now also identifies the things that come in from each of these places. And it helps me build a bit more about each place each night we read it. Initially she was pretty amused that the granny had short hair and was wearing frocks :), she has got used to it now. I think its a lovely lovely book.

8. My little picture dictionary - Rogger Priddy

This was a gift from her cousin and it is a beautiful book. She has had it now for more than a year and she can identify almost 60% of it all. A lot of verbs and adjectives that she can identify ONLY if we ask her the right questions but then its all malayalam and hardly any english verbs or adjectives. Its good for an another year or two.






A couple of books that we haven't opened yet are
1. Bringing The Rain To Kapiti Plain: A Nandi Tale by Verna Aardema
2. The Color Kittens by Margaret Wise Brown
3. If I were a Lion by Sarah Weeks
4. All the way to Lhasa - A tale from Tibet

Will tell you how they all turn out in a couple of months.

Most of these books can be bought in India at flipkart or landmark online. None of the other umpteen books around she has holds as much charm and wit as these. Feel free to drop in a few names of your favourites for your kids or your favourites as kids.

Child custody - who decides?

Ever since I saw this news flashed all over punetimes the last 2 days, its stayed on. The story is simple and is a common one as well with umpteen dozen divorces where kids are involved.

I do not wish to take a stand here for either of the parents and nor am I trying to be judgemental either but have a couple of thoughts brimming in my head.

If 2 sane sensible adults (lets forget all other kind of couples) in a marriage decide to part ways since their wavelengths do not match(forget all other reasons as well) and also for the sake of argument lets say both parents can give the child a secure & comfortable life, who is the best person or people to decide the custody of the child or children?

It is a tough decision to make for either parent. While being a mother I am really tempted to say a mother is more attached, but emotions for your child can not be brought out and measured on a balance scale, maternal v/s paternal. When 2 kids are involved how do you decide to split them even? Which of the parents want to make that choice, son with you, daughter with me? One of the parent must let go or both need to work at getting the marriage to work. Individual's happiness is important but both parents have a far greater responsibility towards the kids. A happy childhood is their right and they deserve it with both or one parent. Also, I think its cruel to split kids, even if there are 3 kids. Putting your child through the trauma of having to answer questions like "Mummy or Dadda" or having a third person, the legal system question the child or exposing them to the world when they are the most vulnerable is very cruel. For the love of your child or kids, parents need to settle that between themselves. If parents can not agree between themselves, one of the parent will still be miserable after the judiciary makes its choice. A divorce should help you live peacefully, happily and let the other person live their life as well. If one continues the custody battle long after the marriage is over, the whole purpose of a divorce probably is lost.

Having to steal/kidnap one's own child, getting to a situation where one needs to hide the child and self is definitely not the way to salvation but muckier waters. A divorce is bad enough, don't make it uglier by pushing the child or children in the forefront by making them your shield to fight your spouse.

The peapod at 3 and a half

At 3 and a half almost, she has grown tall and reaches my waist. With my piddly height of 5'1, I am sure she is going to take over me before she even gets through secondary in school.

She is a happy, active, thinking and an aggressive child who challenges her limits everyday forcing both me & P to rethink if what she did or said is actually off-limits or can we consider taking it a little easy, after all she is just a little child. While her teachers at school have very good things to say about her, she is a total spoilt brat at home. This bad behaviour I am guessing is reserved mostly for just when we are around. I have never seen her or heard about her harming an another child or misbehaving with anyone except for family. We are still struggling with getting her to behave herself in church. A couple of times P had to twist her little ears to simmer down her tantrums in church. There are times I can see it in her eyes that she knows she will get into trouble but inspite of it she tries throwing whatever it is one more time or howling once more and wait for our reaction and if we ignored, she would try it once more unless one of us got off our butts to tell her we had enough.

My sis from bbay is home with baby Neil for a week and the peapod has been hovering around him like a fly. She lies down when he is sleeping, entertains him with her rhymes and songs and plays his silly games to get that toothless wet kiss. She bosses my mom around if the little one is crying and my mom is on the phone or busy else where. "Ammmachyyy... Can't you hear Chiku crying?". She absolutely loves and adores him and is always always around him. Wouldn't leave him alone for a minute. She goes around announcing that we have 2 babies, one is chiku and the other is in mumma's tummy.

I had taken her for my 6th month ultrasound last week. I wanted her to see the baby. Like a restless puppy she kept moving from behind the doctor to under his right arm and then under his left arm. The doctor was kind and obliged her by showing her the face, the hands and legs. Ofcourse we all know how clear ultrasound images are. Though I could fairly make out the face and hands and fingers, I am not sure what she saw or understood. When we were out, she told me the baby has very very long nails, we should cut them. There are times when she is doing random stuff like drawing or coloring or watching TV, she would suddenly turn to me and ask me what is the baby doing. She will laugh very lovingly over any story I tell her and get back to whatever it is she was doing. Everytime I and she are at cross-roads, she threatens to cut me and the baby up. She threatens to box my tummy at times, but she never really does. Just 2 days ago she even felt the baby move. She didn't seem very impressed or amazed like I expected but she was happy and kissed my tummy and continued with her stuff.

Every night before we sleep we pray and I encourage the peapod to pray 4 lines. She begins with bless me, mumma, dada, and naming everyone she can remember and then would innocently ask me if she should pray for the satan as well? We have this very adorable yet-to-be-2 baby girl staying right below us. She is a darling. The peapod calls out to her atleast twice a day and specially if the little lady is heard crying. But yesterday when the little girl and her mom came visiting, the peapod totally ignored them and acted as if she never knew them. The sweet little darling went up to the peapod and kept calling her by name but she wouldn't even look at her. Absolute arrogance was at display and when I asked her about it latter, she just changed topics. I am hoping she was acting shy or pricey which she does once in a while when she meets my sisters or cousins after a while but comes around pretty soon but here she just couldn't bring herself to come around I guess and got caught in her own web. This morning when the maid was leaving, she said "thank you for cleaning our house" pleasing the maid no end. Endless questions, sometimes the same thing but just asked differently like, how does it rain, why does it rain, did Jesus forget to close the taps, why do you water the plants, why will the plants die, how will they die, I cannot see the sun, is it night now? I can see the moon, is it night now? and such umpteen questions.

Innocent and wicked, loving & stubborn, adorable and arrogant... that is the peapod at 3+ and just before the arrival of the second one.

With the arrival of the baby, my equations with her will change in terms of time and attention and I do not know what else. While I realize I need to prepare her, I am just basking in the helplessness of being in love ONLY with her. I don't want to let go this mom-daughter physical bond before it really needs to. Peapod is a co-sleeper and is used to bed time reading and casual talks before either of us drift off to sleep and this time is more precious to me than I guess it is to her. I am not sure how I am going to sort all this out in the next 4 months. We moved into this new place with just a handful of basic necessities & must-haves and have managed pretty well so far. A good bed, a rocker, a good storage unit, a couple of rearrangements in the room and a whole lot of baby shopping is all on my list now. Also by year end there is the whole circus around the peapod's admission that is waiting to happen.

And while at it check out this cute cute nursery. Wants me to copy-paste it as is.