Baby and everything else.

Everything is a blur. Everything is crystal clear. Moments of insanity interspersed with moments of bliss. Chaos and stillness coexist.

Babies can do this to you and much more.

And in between all this, I managed to notice a silvery glow in the sun. A strand of white in an unruly mass of black. And it happened much before I hit my mid-life crisis. And the unlikely discovery took place in the middle of a conversation between k's mom and me. I was describing r's antics to her absently twirling a bit of hair in my index finger (an annoying habit I picked up from a girl at Bits) and the glint distracted me. I stopped speaking for a while and held the strand of white hair in my hand and gasped.

"Mummy, mera baal saphed ho gaya he"

k's mom, being the nice woman she is, gasped along with me, heard the anguish in my voice and commiserated with me. A few moments of silence and she cautions that I should not remove it else two would sprout in it's place. Yeeesh.

Later I reasoned. One white hair after one baby. Not a bad deal after all.

***

r does the funniest things.

Wait a minute...I am not going to be one of those moms that constantly talk about their kids.

Hmm, on second thoughts, I don't mind being that mom :)

So, the other day r woke up from deep sleep and she had the weirdest expression on her face, like she had forgotten that she was born! She looked to her left and then to her right and stared at me with the biggest eyes possible, as if to ask, "Wrong exit?"

***

The funny thing about marriages like ours (N.Indian weds S.Indian) is...actually there are a lot of funny things, conflicts if you will like:

coffee vs tea

rice vs roti

veshti vs what-do-they-call-it-pyjamas?

and now a brand new addition to the repertoire - thooli vs ghodiyu

So, we, meaning k & I, have this thing called a ghodiyu which swings neatly and r has been kind enough to start sleeping in it now. We, meaning S.Indians, use something called a thooli to rock kids to sleep. It's a hammock that's hung from the ceiling rather than from a stand and it's more closed (to resemble the womb). My mom is convinced that a thooli is the ideal sleep solution for r. k meanwhile is thrilled that we try to put r to sleep in a contraption similar to what he refused to sleep on as a baby :p

r meanwhile assumes it's play time whenever we put her in the ghodiyu. She gives this really flirty grin to the decorative stick above her that holds the ghodiyu together and starts playing.

Personally, I doubt she will sleep well in a thooli either. Babies just aren't designed to sleep like adults unless of course it's an $$amby baby$$ :p

***

k claims he can no longer be the "good husband". Apparently the warranty ran out six weeks postpartum.

"Let's see 9 months of pregnancy plus 6 weeks after birth. Yup, now I can stop being so nice..."

"So now you go back to being you again?"

"Basically yes."

"You are a !@#$$$%"

"Not in front of the baby!"

***

I have never considered myself "girly" nor did people give me that impression until sometime ago. Anyway, I rediscovered a girly part of myself with a quick stitch kit. You know how you always see this picture of a happy, heavily pregnant mom knitting her way to glory? Well, I took a short cut and did this instead (I just had to show off here!):


Proud sigh.

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The man at the bottom of the stairs.

"The man at the bottom of the stairs. By RS."

This sounds like one of those story reading sessions that come on TV. You know what I mean? Usually it's a local channel and there is a still picture of the book and a serious sounding voice reading from the book. If you don't know what am talking about just forget you read this bit and say "Man at the bottom of the stairs" in a grave voice, that should do it.

Anyway coming to the man in question, that would be my dear significant other, k. He has now accomplished the surprisingly tricky task of falling down our stairs three times. I am tempted to say four but that one time he just missed, falling down the stairs that is. He somehow managed to find his delicate sense of balance and stay put on a step.

He always has a valid reason for falling down. I almost bought his story the first time. Of course now am wise. Now I know that his falling down the stairs can be explained by a complex equation involving many variables including the universe, balance, karma and sloth.

The first time he said he was jetlagged and thought he was walking on level land and hence fell down the stairs. Fair enough, we had just returned from India and I convinced myself that it could happen to anyone. No broken bones, so we were good.

The second time, I was an active participant in his fall. No, I didn't push him (very funny) but I did try to save him. Rather brave of me. It didn't really work out but hey, it's the thought that counts. Yeah I know, k is not very convinced with that line of argument either. So what I did was hold out my hand to prevent or at least deter-progress-of his bumpy ride down the stairs but I realized a split second late that I was not endowed with giant arms. So my arm kind of hung in the air as k went down the stairs. Bump! Bump! Bump! When I saw him sitting down the stairs holding his sides, I was terrified and also had an inexplicable urge to laugh. Nope, k didn't approve of that urge either.

The third incident is pretty recent. And I have only myself to blame (No, again, it's not what you think, jeez!). So after the first two incidents, I had gotten into this routine of reminding k not to fall down the stairs. It kind of became a habit. Every time he would go near the stairs, I would automatically say, "k, don't fall down the stairs" and it was all pretty effective. But after a few months, we both grew complacent. I stopped reminding him each time and he assumed he was super man again which means he would go down the stairs 3 at a time and then try 5 and so on. So last week, super-k did just that and Radhu and I heard a thud! thud! thud!

So that's the story about the man at the bottom of the stairs (sounds almost like Harry Potter living under the stairs minus the magical powers). And for the next few months am back on auto pilot reminding k not to fall down the stairs and k believes he is just-k not super-k, so he takes the stairs one at a time.

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What this is not about.

My birth story
I thought of writing a birth story. As one of my friends put it, Radhu's birth was eventful enough to talk about it for quite sometime. But then, somewhere between midnight feedings and diaper changes I lost the enthusiasm to write about it. I did note down a pretty extensive story in my diary though. When Radhu is 16 and talking back at me, I plan to show her the diary entry, just like Marie (Arrgg, it's finally happened. I am planning to be like Marie of all people!):

Ray -"No"

Marie - "Oh the agony...when I carried you for nine months..."

Ray - "Ok mom, not that story again. I'll do it")

So anyway, I didn't write the birth story here. So, this post is not about that.

Drishti
Just like in any TamBram family, as soon as an auspicious event occurs, there is extensive discussion about drishti (nazar) and even more elaborate ways to circumvent it. For instance, inviting a 100 people to your new house for the house warming ceremony, these people being likely drishti candidates. Now, what defines a drishti candidate (i,e a drishti putter)?

A drishti putter is someone who is likely to see your fine new house and go, "Gosh! Look at their biiiiig house! It's so neat and shiny! Wish I had one like this" and then lo and behold! The east entrance of the house crumbles down because of a rare species of malfunctionaing termites. You get the point. So coming back to the discussion, a new house owner wishing to avoid drishti should invite the most likely 100 drishti putters (it's kind of like the flu vaccine, you select the most probable strains!) and then offer good food to them to avoid their drishti. Yup, we TamBrams sure know how to beat the "casters" of the evil eye!

I wanted to note down my thoughts on drishti but then I was so overwhelmed by the amount of rules and regulations for avoiding drishti for new baby and mom that I forgot to note them down here. (To be fair, my mom has been pretty lax about imposing them on me which is sweet of her...just in case she reads this post :p)

So this post is not about drishti.

Homesickness
What do you call it when you are homesick at home? That's what I have been having intermittently for the past several weeks. And I blame it on my house guests. My dad initially flew in for a week, followed by my brother for 10 days and then my sis-in-law for 10 days. And everytime they leave, I feel homesick all over again. I even considered going to Madras for a couple of months. Being a new mom puts certain things in perspective or way out of perspective. Which is pretty much how being a normal person is but anyway, what was I saying? Oh yeah, perspective. So you a new mom and you start thinking about how much quality time the grandparents are missing back in India and then you start thinking about moving back to India for good and then your husband goes like, "Whaa? Is this some weird manifestation of baby blues that has my wife suggesting sudden life changes?"

But after six weeks postpartum, I gave up the idea (at least for the time being). So, I couldn't really write about an India trip.

Baby Talk
Ever been in one of those mildly embarassing situations where the parents of a baby excitedly tell us "Oh you should see him doing this, it's so funny..." and then they prompt the baby with all the sweet talk they can muster. The baby of course does its own thing. He gives them a blank look and refuses to do the cute antic he was supposed to do. Even worse, he acts like he did not even begin to understand the request. I am waiting for the time when that's going to happen to k and me. I always told myself I should remember not to do that but am pretty sure I am going to do it. I could write something about funny baby stuff like that but I keep forgetting what else I had to say. All thoughts keep getting entangled with a steady flow of drowsiness.

So that's all the stuff that I did not write here. Until I have some coherent thoughts that I can pen down, this is what my blog is going to be about. Little nothings :)

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