Breaking out of the bubble (for moms).

So, I survived the first 6 weeks and survived a major abdominal surgery. You don't normally equate a c-section with major surgery but after reading up about it, I am convinced it is. Compared to the nightmare that was my first (non-surgery) delivery recovery, this one seems better but I guess if things had gone wrong with the surgery, it could have gone terribly wrong.

The bubble thing. The first six weeks after r~ was born, I was in a haze. I continued to be in a haze even three months after she was born. I just didn't feel quite right (which later I discovered was my thyroid levels acting up). But thyroid levels being off or not, the first six weeks after delivery, you live in a bubble. In my case, I kept hanging on tight to different mementos, places, things at different times during those six weeks. The first thing I held on to as a security object for a few days was this pair of socks -- they gave it to me at the hospital just before the surgery...



The five days in the hospital this time were mainly about little milestones, little victories for me. Last time, it was quite the bollywood drama -- I asked to go home after third degree tears, hemorrhage and the doctor said he would stamp an AMA (against medical advice) on my forms if I did that! 3 days of labor, attempt to birth at home etc etc. Long story that. This time, everything was planned and felt a bit unreal. k actually had a real hospital bag ready (last time, after my last bit of strength with home birthing and labor had drained off, I picked up a kroger bag, stuffed a few nighties in it and insisted we rush to the hospital with that). This time around, we had taken a real hospital tour, pre-registered, all that good stuff.

After a 'regular' delivery, delivering a baby by c-section was...different. I almost missed laboring (or perhaps that was my hormonal imbalance speaking to me). I missed the challenge of kicking labor in its *-- and knowing that I have the strength to push the baby out. I have read that labor pains is one of the worst forms of pain that a human being can endure. So, coming out of it alive seemed like winning something. I was thrilled to see baby m~ and wondered in a drug-induced haze if I should make another one of these wonderful little things but I hadn't pushed the baby out. I felt a little tugging and there she was! The post 'delivery' part of this pregnancy though was as miraculous as the first time :)

That's the surgery part of it. Then came the 5 day period where I had to kick a different *-- i,e surgery recovery :p I decided to stop and make a little mental note every time I crossed a milestone -- getting up to walk (12 hours after surgery), getting off the epidural, using the rest room for the first time, walking out of the hospital room for the first time, everything was a struggle and a small win. After 5 days, I almost felt scared to leave the hospital like I was leaving a safe bubble to go to the outside world. I guess the hospital room and nurses had become my second security blanket. I held on to little things like the warm water and apple juice k would give me in the hospital room -- each was a source of comfort that it was going to be ok.

At home, I looked forward to the huge scoops of nei that I know my mom would have had ready for me. I remembered the taste from my last time and somehow even that helped me recover -- the familiar tastes and smells of home, and settle down to a more normal routine at home. I shed a few tears for not being able to spend enough time with dear big sister r~. Our lives used to revolve around her constantly and now I wasn't able to shower her with the amount of attention I was accustomed to giving her. And the fact that she was so excited about her lil' sister and had not a jealous bone in her body only made me feel sadder somehow. I am back to doing activities and crafts with her (and sitting on the floor!) and am glad for that...it's always the small things that catch you unprepared.

What's the big deal, you ask? Everyone has or knows someone who has gone through a c-section (or a regular delivery for that matter). True, that. But, I thought I'd write a little about what it feels like to actually go through it and emerge out into the sunlight. I am still seeing through tinted glasses, still standing with one leg somewhat inside the bubble but I know I will step out eventually like I did last time.

Here's to all the moms who make the journey! It's not an easy one :)

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Scatterbrained.

Aaah. Another night in countless nights with less than 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep (where's my medal?) Side-effect being that I can't think coherently and therefore cannot write coherently. Result being this post.

I wonder if Radhika doesn't like the bottle just like I don't like the breast pump. In our quest for equal rights, we seem to have painted ourselves into a corner. Need to perform well at work, need to be great mom...Need to be a great mom, need to perform well at work, need in-laws to think am doing some level of work at home (have pretty much given up on this), need to have date nights (Ha haaa), need to keep up with baby-info, need to sell my book (I know, I just can't stop saying "My book" :-)...so many needs and one small brain (Ok fine! It has 100 billion neurons but ever tried to reach this limit?).

Uhh...wait, where was I? Oh yeah, the breast pump. Been thinking about this contraption ever since I read this cool article by Judith Warner. So now, we willingly subject ourselves to this nonsense and demand a pumping room in the workplace so we can save some magic-mommy-milk for baby. If you lived in the previous century and someone told you about breast pumps, you would have laughed and then raised your eyes incredulously when you realized it was not a joke. What have we landed ourselves into?

Why do we feel the urge to work when nature did not entrust us with that responsibility in the first place? Yeah, yeah, we have brains that function just as well as mens' brains etc. But maybe, the brain was meant to function best when the woman stayed home with the children. Then, the equations would have been clear-cut. And yes, I would probably be teary-eyed in my pretty apron (Yeah, chronologically and geographically incorrect but am sleep-deprived) if I had burnt the bajji that I fried lovingly for my husband when he came home after a day's work. But at least, I knew that was my responsibility and I knew I had to excel in that. Not in 200 other things that I impose on myself.

What can I blame for this urge to multi-task? To work and pump and nurture and be good at everything under the sun? (I know I hardly used the breast pump, so can't really rightfully complain but what the hell, just feel like complaining about...women and our decisions).

The vast majority of self help books say, "If you are unhappy, change it..." (Who moved my cheese, anyone?)...so why don't I just change it instead of typing furiously on my thinkpad? Sigh. Because all said and done (What now? I am using cliches? I really need to sleep!), I got it pretty good and I realize it in those rare moments of self-awareness that seem to come farther apart nowadays.

What's my point again? Dunno. What if I lived ages back...actually no thanks, I'd like to live now :) So, what if I just do one thing and be really good at that one thing? (Like google -- search and search real damn fast and well!) Let's see...in my imaginary, ideal world, I would probably be an SAHM, owning one of those mom-owned cool businesses or writing for a living (Woohoo! -- so, read my book already!), having the energy to take care of r~ all the time and ooh, wait, I want to look sexy too and not fight with k over night wakings...!

Hey....100 billion neurons, you got that all? Good, so work towards it!

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Moms stuff.

Got this from l~ on mother's day -- it's hilarious and... cute!

Best mom of the year -- me!

This other link is about Priscilla Dunstan and her baby-talk language. I tried to apply it to r~ when she was around 4 months old but she was probably past the new born baby-talk at that point. Highly amusing (for moms) to say the least.

Baby-talk

And this is my very first mother's day gift; it's engraved and plays a melody -- r~ loves it as much as I do!


And this email is something every mom will appreciate -- k sent me this email a day before r~ was born:

"I am so proud of the way you are coping with labor."

...so something does go on in that head of his while he does all his staring-at-vacant-spots-stuff; poor dude has hardly got a chance to relax and stare since he sent this email :p

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About a mom.

IBH's tag -- top 5 reasons why I love being a mom.

1. When I come home from work and call out to r~, she dumps everything she is doing midway, ignores everyone else around her and heads straight to me with a big smile on her face...almost breathless! Gotta love that feeling :)

2. Am surprised at how the dad role fits k perfectly. He is great at being a dad -- touch wood. Not that I expected him to find it a challenge...well, ok, I'll admit it. I think he is even more patient a parent than I am (See how nicely I worded that? ;). He always does the one little extra thooli-aatardu, rocking etc when I have given up and almost drifted off to sleep! And while I was teetering between being conscious and barely-so the first few weeks, he mastered diaper-changing and that is quite something!

3. Ok, I don't really have a well-formed idea for this point. So, I am just going to use whatever phrases come to mind...

An exciting, satisfying, thrilling...life-long project; scary because there is this little life dependent on you but that somehow makes your life worth so much more; an adventure every day; never realized I hadn't "played" in ages; emotionally tied to someone like I never have before; moms have got to be better people in general -- how can you be self-centered with a little one in your life?; Focused; No one knows her better than I do -- lovely feeling; love the possessiveness that's a part of being a mom; love reading, researching doing all I can to do the best for her; love the smiles, the shrieks of delight, the babbling...the milestones, the everything...

4. Woman power takes on a whole different meaning after child birth. I feel empowered. Moms rock.

5. We are mom and daughter. We are a unit. We have a little world of our own. For now, that's all that matters.

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Work family balance -- hah!

As you can tell, am back to work part-time. They even have a PT community at work which is strange considering PT is not a very promising career path nowadays, they tell me. There is always one high-visibility meeting that you will miss irrespective of which half of the day you choose to work. Oh well. At least I have a something called a career (outside home, that is), for now (touch wood).

So, an interesting incident happened today when I was @ work from home. r~ was sleeping upstairs and I had this brilliant idea that I should attend the meeting using our home phone downstairs since the baby was upstairs. Which is all well and good except that the baby eats downstairs not in the bedroom. Now, how did I miss this piece of logic in my logical brain is beyond me. So, I logged into my telephone conference call while testing the client on my laptop and suddenly k's mom gets r~ down. r~ having just woken up is fussing. The poor thing has a bad viral infection and that doesn't add any joy either.

I am just a dummy in the meeting because I am just getting back to work after a loongish siesta for 6 months. Heh. So, I do what comes automatically to me. I fill a bowl quickly with whatever the baby has to eat and hand it to k's mom, chitchatting along the way. The brilliant idea here is that once that this little detail taken care of, k's mom will feed whatever r~ will accept (given her runny nose and cough) and I can meanwhile carry on with my meeting (almost) uninterrupted.

But, of course, we always forget the little things. I did not mute my phone. And s~ pings me and says, "Umm...you might want to mute your phone :)"

Ah! The mute feature. How convenient. How also very not smart of me to not use it.

k tells me, you know you can always use the room upstairs. Hmm...yup, I could have done that but then the six people who were busy sitting at their desks and diligently testing the code wouldn't have been introduced to my sweet daughter's melodious calls.

I get back on the phone and say, "Aah...(nice pause)...sorry if you hear r~ in the background...heh."

One soul patiently responds, "No problem!"

Yup. No problem as long as the mute feature works. I realized I am one of those people on the call that provides comic relief with a funny sound in their background that they didn't realize was getting through the call and then they go, "Oh...just a minute. Down Peter, down boy, down." And the dog whimpers and stops barking into the conference call :p

And that is the beginning of my series titled "Work-life-balance -- a collection of faux pas"

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Food, growth spurts, and help -- not necessarily in that order

I am sleep-deprived. k is sleep-deprived. Li'l r~ is sleep deprived.

The good news?

Help is on its way! Yay! k's parents get here...anytime now which means while they cuddle, hold, play and smother li'l r~ with kisses, I shall fold my legs, make myself an enormous cup of coffee in the morning (which will begin after 9) and...just sit.

Today, I saw a desi couple walking on the road as k, r~ and I were watching from our mini-van and the first thought that crossed my mind was: Hey! We should be doing that now; the weather is so good. But, of course, the whole reason we were cruising along aimlessly in the van was that poor baby r is going through a pretty rough growth spurt.

Huh? Growth spurt? You ask me. As in baby milestones -- rolling over, sitting up, popping a tooth -- aww, how cute!

And I shall tell you a truth that has been hidden from you for so long. Growth spurts are fun. Especially when you think about them 14 years from now and share the event with your teenage daughter who yawns because she has heard that story so many times before. That's when it is fun. Now, it is just plain frustrating. Frustrating for baby who has to experience sore gums and loose motions and be out of sorts to pop out her first tooth, frustrating to mom because baby is suffering and frustrating for dad because mom and baby are frustrated. Every growth spurt is accompanied by fussing, sleepless nights and cruising in a van. That last bit was precisely what we were doing today evening.

r~ missed her evening nap, got herself overly tired and frustrated, forgot how to sleep in mom's hands, dad's hands, at home! And so we tried the time-tested car-seat sleep trick which every baby expert will tell you is the #1 golden rule of things to avoid while putting baby to sleep.

Heh.

Tell my daughter that.

So, the nice strolling in nice weather with a nice baby stroller was kind of out of question given our current situation. Anyway, in the near future, when we are in between the dreaded growth spurts, I hope to do that. r~ really does love the outside from the little she has seen of it so far. I can't wait to take her for her first stroller ride. I keep hearing stories about strollers ranging from super-sexy mom figure because of daily strolls with baby to super happy baby that sleeps blissfully during stroller walks. Like everything else in babydom, I guess I will have to actually put r~ in the stroller and go for a walk to see if I end up with a great figure or if I have to come rushing back into the house because r~ got upset with a friendly neighbourhood dog that decided to welcome her with a hearty bark!

I really can write a book, several actually with titles like: "You are expecting but you really have no idea what to expect!", "Tips to get through the first six weeks after which you will get used to it", "Baby sleep solution -- there is none", "Remember me? The mom?", "Parenting styles -- the generation gap" :p

Oh! Almost forgot; I actually cooked. There is evidence for the same.

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Nothing in particular

Love the curtain and the shadow dancing in the breeze today

Today has got to be the most amazing day since well, since the last amazing day there was. The weather is perfect. There is a nice breeze airing out the house. I am home. Lil' r~ is sleeping. k is working. Life is as it should be. Nice.

The day is nice enough to actually make my mind think thoughts in singles and they are gently floating instead of racing past as they usually do. I am reading this tome about the thyroid hormone and it suggests zen stuff like yoga, tai-chi, meditation and the like to calm the thyroid-stressed mind. Hmm...tai-chi -- now, there' s something I never thought I would be trying. Any of you know of good tai chi centers or have any preferences about these zen-style classes? Tell me, tell me. I am all ears and ready to de-stress. Apparently, stress is the cause of all diseases in this universe. Now they tell me, when I am thirty years old! So, I infer that some life-style changes are in order. Everything originates in this boggling, indecipherable, capricious mind of ours and so I believe I should give it a full spa-style treatment to see if I can get it to behave and hence all the aah-smell-the-flowers kind of talk.

By the way, are you many of you out there or just one that visits my blog but doesn't leave a comment? I am always thrilled by all(one?) of you. I think people are being nice to me most of the time. They say things like, "Oh! I read your blog all the time. I just haven't left a comment." I wonder why. I think it's because I write about nothing in particular most of the time. In any case, this little note is for all those people or you. Thanks for passing by and nodding a silent hi.

Coming back to my zen life, I can finally say I had this cool postnatal massage. It wasn't am-aaa-zing as some women would coo. It was good. My muscles got a work out and the delicate masseuse (who happens to be the same age as me) and I had a pretty interesting chat including all the hippie topics that am passionate about - vaccines, elimination communication, going back for good and related baby talk. k was like, "Jeez! I sent you there to relax, not chit chat some more!" Whatever. I would highly recommend the massage at baby moon, including the conversation!

Meanwhile, here is a silly ditty inspired by li'l r~

We rock, we walk, we talk
And yet you balk,
at the prospect of going to sleep;
For now, the secret to your sleep
is all yours to keep!

We try in vain,
for insights to gain
about babies and sleep;

Meanwhile,
you cry, you sigh,
you resist, you protest,
you play, but to sleep, you say, "Nay!";

And we rock, we walk, we talk...
Perhaps, one sweet day,
you will snore away
and dream sweet baby-dreams,
while maybe, just maybe,
mom sleeps like a baby!

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Scary stuff.

Life is one whirlwind, roller-coaster ride with a baby. Being a first-time mom seems to be even more challenging. You hardly have time to breathe a sigh of relief that the nine long months have come to a happy end, you have several other worries to deal with now, not just, "I hope the baby is safe inside", now it's a potpourri of issues about baby's health, behavior, growth, milestones, your own recovery, nursing, sleep-deprivation and a totally out-of-wac endocrine system!

Gak! I bet a few of you read this post today and decided to maybe wait some more time, say a year or two, before you have kids!

Anyway, baby~r gave me a scare today by deciding to not breathe for a few seconds while crying. That was scary! Scarier than the time when I almost drowned in the local gym pool. The latter had a kind of finality about it, I thought, "Ok, here we go. I guess I am drowing, when does the life-flashing business start? blubb blubb blubb".

The dear husband had cautioned me against swimming past the blue flags and so that's what I did.
I swam till the blue flags and abruptly stopped.

I went down.

And further down.

Only my feet did not touch ground when I thought they would and so I went almost a feet below the water surface and kept bobbing up and down like in a really weird comic routine.

The other time I was really scared was the time I lost my identity after graduating from Bits, Pilani. With a somewhat decent 8.75 GPA, related grade sheets, 10th and 12th report cards, passpost, birthcertificate and cash, I boarded a bus from Pilani to Delhi with a bunch of my friends. Now, I have never been any good at packing suitcases. And since I had everything that defined my four college years in Bits to pack, I did what I could and ended up with thirteen pieces of luggage! One of them was a regal looking suitcase with all the important documents that defined...me. When we got off the bus, I very carefully collected my paraphernalia and got down and started counting them. I counted twelve, recounted and wondered what I was missing. Of course, the suitcase. I looked up and suddenly the bus was gone. With my precious suitcase.

Then, I went a bit crazy. I tried to run behind the bus in traffic and one of my friends stopped me and made me sit down. A couple of my friends even rented an auto to chase the bus but came back because that particular bus was lost in a sea of similar looking buses.

I cried and then cried some more, didn't eat for a day. I called my dad from a pay phone and told him the whole story. When I boarded the Delhi-Chennai TN express, I was still crying and hadn't eaten for more than a day.

And then the magic happened. The train stopped at Baroda maybe? for a few minutes and a stranger boarded my compartment and handed a box of sweets to me. He was my dad's materials-supplier and the best part, he held my suitcase in his hand. My dad had managed to track down the bus in Pilani and to get someone to collect the suitcase and hand it over to his colleague. I was thrilled! He then called my dad on his cell and handed the phone to me. I was too deliriously happy to say anything that made sense at that time. He got off the train just before the bell rang for the train to leave the station.

And then my friends gave me ice cream. Yeah, I know, just like in those movies where things mysteriously appear. I think one of them bought an ice cream for me because I hadn't eaten for a day. That was the yummiest ice cream I have had till now!

Ok enough of scary experiences. I don't want nightmares! Goodnight people!

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iBaby

1. iPod + player

2. iPhone

3. iMac

and then momma comes a distant fourth in radhu's list of what/who she loves!

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What's the deal with baby dresses?

I don't get it. Sometimes a onesie meant for a 3 month old is right for the baby and sometimes a nightdress meant for a 9 month old is tight! Mom says she always bought dresses which were double my size when I was a kid. So, I was always running around half-tripping on my own dresses!

These onesies below are both for a 12 month old baby; obviously the companies had very different ideas about how big a 12 month old baby should be!

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Twinkle twinkle little star...

So baby r~ decided she didn't want to nap like babies are supposed to, she decided to stay awake all afternoon today and I was running out of ideas to entertain her. k decided that nursery rhymes would do the trick and lull her to sleep. So he did what every dad would do - he looked on google :p and he came across this rendition of "Twinkle twinkle little star". I had a feeling k enjoyed it more than r!

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Being a parent.

If you are one of those people that wondered what it feels like to be newbie parents and what the big deal is about, you are reading the right stuff now :p Or, if you are just being nice to me and reading my post just for the heck of it, that's cool too :)

Remember how we used to consider couples with kids a whole different set of people? People with hefty bags filled with diapers and related paraphernalia, people that were concerned more about their baby's spit-ups rather than their appearance, people that could not talk about anything other than their baby, people with a somewhat needy little one clawing for their attention constantly? We were not them. We even found it hard to imagine how life would be when we became them. Some of us even wondered what "unconditional love" meant. We heard words like sleepless, poop, diapers, doctors and wondered how we would ever inhabit a world filled with those words...

And guess what? Suddenly we are very much in that world. We are now parents that, no matter how interesting a conversation with someone is, always have one eye tracking our baby, we hardly give a second thought to what "poop" used to mean in our older worlds, focusing rather on its texture, smell and contents to smile or frown with concern, we talk less about "I" and more about the baby, we learn that absolute happiness has to do with a lot more than just some "me-time" and we worry. We worry all the time about the little life that we created and hope that it smiles back at us with that adorable, charming, heart-melting, lopsided grin today, tomorrow and forever...

We are now the parents.

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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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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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So now I know...

that socks and mittens for newborns are an eyewash. They are just something you buy thinking your precious little one will keep her little toes and fingers toasty in them. So far one sock managed to stay on for 15 minutes and that's my baby's personal record!


Happy Saraswathi Puja and Happy Vijayadasami to you all and many thanks for the good vibrations sent my way :)

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