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July 18, 2008

Just say "yes"!

You know this trick men have to pacify their wives, just nod every few minutes and say a few agreeable words like "Hmm...yes", "I can understand", "Makes sense"? Well sometimes, I think that works best for the man and the wife. Especially during pregnancy. The other day I was asking k if he knew what the most annoying question is that people ask me? He came up with a few vague answers and in general was clueless, which is not a big surprise. But anyway, one of the most annoying questions for me is, "Have you been walking/exercising regularly? Or..."

Or what? Or have I been sitting on my fat behind, perching my oh-so-light 25 pounds extra on the sofa and watching the 5th rerun of Still Standing or Rachael Ray's summer treats?

Or have I been lying on bed all day calling k on the cell to ask for some light snacks to be brought up to the bed room?

Actually if you think about it, it's an innocent question by itself but somehow it always rubs me the wrong way. Maybe it's the weird hormonal imbalance in me that manipulates the question in my head so I process it all wrong. Each time!

In my head, I come up with a fitting response each time though I just nod each time and say nothing, for example:

"Oh nooo! My nurse says walking might result in preterm glycomalampsiacal abberrations!"

"Nooo, I am waiting for you to gain 20-30 pounds extra and join me for walking, that way we can both enjoy how light and breezy we both feel about the walk, so shall we say, next Tuesday?"

"No, I haven't been walking. I prefer not to move much from my bed so I can stay relaxed all day long. Of course my company understands and so does my husband. In fact, the other day my company sent me flowers that my husband arranged in a pretty vase next to my bed so I can smell it without getting out of bed..."

Or I could go with the really simple, "No. I don't believe in walking" response.

Anyhow, coming back to the topic, sometimes the least stressful thing for a woman to hear during her pregnancy is just a yes. Not a detailed logical response explaining why her idea won't work, not a sorta-yes-sorta-no head shake, just a bright, agreeable "Yes!".

"Can we go on a cruise with our one week old baby so we can both recover?"

"Yes, of course dear!"

"Let's plan the India trip that we will make in 2015 so I can make sure we are all set..."

"Yes, I agree. Let's do that!"

"I want tea at 8.30 in the night 15 minutes before dinner."

"Of course, good idea, I'll make some for myself too!"

"Will the baby be born with 6 fingers?"

"Yes..." Well, it doesn't always work but 3 out of 4 ain't bad!

See, what I mean? There is an RSS (Really Simple Solution) to every problem on earth. And if men were to ask me the one thing they could do to ensure a stress-free la-dee-dah pregnancy for their wives, I would say, "Yes. Just say yes!".

Reminds me of this movie in which Rajnikanth will keep saying "Yesssss, yessss" without understanding what the other person says in English :)

July 09, 2008

This and that.

We watched It happened one night a few days ago and I absolutely fell in love with the movie. A few minutes into the movie, I guessed that DHKMN (Whaa? You can't figure that out?) was an almost scene to scene copy of this movie...and here I was thinking the Hindi version was an original. Hey, by the way, how many of you knew that u, me aur hum was a copy of The Notebook? I didn't and was quite disappointed and a bit umm...scared after seeing the movie. Another flop remake was "Mann" (An affair to remember). Anyway old, b&w movies are the bessht! I recently watched Pillow talk and it rocked! So also, Come September and Guess who's coming to dinner. Recently, I also was watching When Harry met Sally for the umpteenth time and I realized this is a theme that has been revisited so many times since but it's always fun to watch. Hum-tum for example and A lot like love (one of my recent favorites).

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So, as you can see, am really focusing on doing research for the little one. Above mentioned movies are...umm a kind of preparation for the movie-starved days that lie ahead of me :p I think there are about 2 million, 836 books written on pregnancy. Someone ought to stop people from writing any more books on the topic!

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I have a bridal shower to go to this weekend. Did you know the right etiquette is to give gifts for the shower and the wedding which are kind of one and the same, I mean they celebrate the same event but anyway, in case you didn't know (and I didn't until recently), you might want to budget accordingly :p I can finally wear one of my cute, American maternity tops to the get-together. Somehow, am not so comfortable wearing it at desi gatherings :p!

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Have you ever been in a situation where people try to justify what they do? I mean, they chose a path in life and maybe they weren't really convinced about it, so to convince themselves, they kind of throw in a bunch of supporting statements towards that choice. Recently, someone I knew made this statement about having 2 kids, "God! I have no idea how people manage 2 kids! I am all done with my one!" Ok maybe "one" worked wonders for you but then is it necessary to wonder and exclaim about the poor humans that decided that perhaps "two" was manageable too? Sometimes I wonder if these people have a small nagging doubt about the choice they made and they overrule it by saying stuff like this. But then if everyone was agreeable and nice and supported one another's choices, then the world would be kinda boring I guess.

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There are 2 kinds of people in this world. Those that say it as it is and those that don't. Say, for example, you asked a question or a favor and they don't want to answer it, they talk about everything under the sun, only peripherally related to the topic and think we would be distracted enough by it to not recognize the original intent of all this chatter - the same tactic we employ to distract kids. I think it's just simpler to say it as it is unless of course it means getting fired from your job :p or being downright rude in which case maybe we should revisit our response anyway!

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