Monthly musings

These are some thoughts which occured to me over the last month or so which do not merit individual posts (rather I dont have enough to write on each point) so am just jotting them down here

1. Swimming : Have rediscovered the joys of swimming. Its great fun, not too tiring and a great way to tone up. Why didn't we get club membership earlier? Why didn't I quit my job earlier? That said I managed to enjoy the pool for about a month before the weather changed in Bombay and it became too cold for a morning swim. Have always enjoyed swimming -started at 2 years in Singapore where my dad used to play Po Ba with me. Then when we moved to Delhi he taught me how to swim in the Delhi Gymkhana pool. But I was not confident enough to go in the deep end and used to do breadths in the shallow end only. Then one summer my cousin and I went for swimming coaching classes at the Jayanagar pool in Bangalore. That was an Olympic size pool and the coach was relentless- he used to make us take the paddle and do lengths up and down continously. He also taught the correct way to do freestyle- breathing once in five strokes by raising your head to the side. My cousin and I used to be quite terrified of him since he used to pinch us if we slacked around in the pool, and I remember getting butterflies in my stomach on the way to the swimming classes. But they were really good and when I got back to Delhi I could confidently do lengths and even took part in the swimming gala and won a couple of medals! That year we also moved to our Senior school in Delhi which had an Olympic sized pool and weekly swimming classes for us. I was asked to come for extra coaching in the evenings, and I remember the first evening I went I was overawed by the 12-12th standard boys and girls diving from the highest diving boards. But the extra classes were very strenous, and my mom was not struct enough to make me go (partly because we were anyway moving to London at the end of the year, and partly because I was getting a cold very often because of the evening swimming, but mainly I was too lazy and got away with it. Now I really regret that and wish I had stuck it out, my freestyle could have improved significantly, and maybe I would've learnt some other styels). We kept up the swimming in London, going to the local swimming pool. I remember we had a small accident and a huge fight with the owner of another car, once when we were driving out to the pool. The car owner worked for a taxi comapny, and even though it was a small scrap he staretd yelling and abusing and we got quite scared. It was only my mom and me and nobody came to support us, and finally my brother had to come and calm him down. Then when we shifted back to delhi, we continued with the bi weekly swims to Delhi Gymkhana. After college, i completely lost touch with swimming, at mba college there was not much time for swimming and Bangalore was too cold to swim most of the year, and ever since I've started working in Bombay I've never had good access to a club with a swimming (too expensive to take membership to a club near the house, and the one which is reciprocating with the Delhi Gymkhana where I have membership takes an hour to reach from the house). But now the new club is close to the house and swimming there is great fun, as the pool is not too crowded on weekdays . Only now suddenly Bombay has become too cold to go swimming in the mornings and afternoons i still try to grab some shut eye.

2. Book lovers and sports enthusiasts : Have been wondering is it possible to be both? Or even common to be both? When i look around at most of my friends/colleagues/relatives I find either book lovers or sports enthusiasts, or neither. But rarely both. Most of my friends are book lovers and manage to fit in books into their hectic schedules of work/looking after kids/travel etc and are up to date on the latest authors/trends etc. But they are not really into sports, I don't mean that they are not fit or anything, many of them gym/workout etc, but dont play a port for fun/watch sports on TV. Even when they were young they would not take part in many sporting activities. On the other hand my family is more sports oriented. My brother played many sports when he was younger and even now plays cricket when he gets a chance. He watches most sports on TV. My parents also follow cricket, tennis keenly, but are not great book lovers. As for me, I have always been more into sports. In my London school I was part of the school netball team, and my class rounders and athletics team. When we came back to Delhi I used to represent my house in all athletic events ranging from 100 m upto 800 m, long jump, discuss etc. I even stood for sports captain, but lost to a national level athlete. I still think I would have made a better sports captain as its more about organising sports activities/training students rather than being a winner yourself.  On the other hand my reading habits are abysmal. I rarely pick up books to read, preferring to watch TV if i get some spare time. I like thrillers best, but recently have found I lack the patience to read them fully. After about halfway I skip to the end to see what happens and then resume mid way if I find it interesting or just give up and move to the next book. I think its a lack of concentration and patience to finish books. Sports are just more exciting and finish faster. I think its rare for a person to be a book lover and a sports enthusiast, but that's just what I think. What do you feel?

That's it for now. Happy new year to all. 

Ajji Maney

S loves to be with her grandparents, and Ajji Manay (Grandmother's house) is the place to be. She's extremely attached to my mom who has spent a lot of time with us since S has been born, especially for a period of nearly 9 months around the time A was born. Ajji spent most of the time with S so that I could concentrate on A and I think this helped quite a bit to reduce the normal feelings of jealousy and angst when another child arrives to share the attention.

Ajji Manay, in addition to the main attraction of Ajji and Ajja also have Bingo and Elmo, our dogs, swings in the balcony for both the kids, an ongoing supply of snacks, ice cream, a park walking distance from the house and a many varied activities throughout the day such as feeding the dogs, watching the coconut collector climb the trees and pick the coconuts, watching the gardner, kids playing downstairs etc

As I mentioned earlier S is very attached to my mom and the last time we were here she was very upset to see her with the walker. When my dad came to Bombay the first thing she asked him was whether Ajji's walker has been thrown away. And when we came back here, my dad jokingly asked whether we should get the walker back and she actually got tears in her eyes. S wakes up early in the morning and goes to my mom, has her afternoon nap with her, and goes to Ajji for all her troubles (today when she fell down from the sofa, after i cleaned her up she ran to her Ajji to be comforted)

S is very fond of Ajja also. When he came to Bombay ( he came to pick us up on the way back from Pune, yes I am still extremely pampered, wonder how I will manage with no support in Zurich) she immediately went upto him and hugged him. Then they both spent time at the dining table, with my Dad writing a letter and S doodling on a paper. Then she made him read books to her and generally hung around with him the whole evening. Even in Bangalore she loves to go with her Ajja to the exercise room and do the cross trainer/ go down to his study and examine all the articles there.

A is also thrilled to be here. She seems to be more attached to my dad and is completely taken with the dogs. Anytime we need to get her to open her mouth for her food we say Elmo Bingo and voila. My dad takes her often to see the dogs, and also generously gives her his playing cards for her to destroy.

Being with grandparents is one of the best experiences for children, and I think this will be the biggest thing we miss out on by moving out of India. Otherwise S and A would see our parents every other month- with me coming to Bangalore at least twice a year and my parents coming over at least twice a year.

A walked today

A walked today for the first time. She was standing by herself, not holding onto anything in the middle of my mom's hall and I went towards her calling her to me and she took 3-4 steps towards me. She promptly sat down after that and crawled the rest of the distance towards me.

She's been walking holding onto the furniture for some time. But she's been very comfortable crawling at full speed all around the place to give the whole walking thing a try. But over the last week she's started standing without any support for some period of time and then trying to walk. Yesterday at my aunt's place she held onto the centre table and walked round and round for some time.

And today after her first few steps, she again tried, and after a couple of steps she held onto her sister S and started walking holding onto her as a walking support!! It was so cute, it looked like A was hugging S and S was the patient elder sister.

A has now two small teeth also and is quite the glutton for snacks- she loves tiger biscuits, breadsticks, gerber snacks and even murukku!!

Anniversary woes

This year was the first time in the last 9 years that the hubby and I have not been together for our anniversary. He is travelling to Vienna for a conference, and well I am here. I was complaining about this to all and sundry who called to wish, mentioning that this should not be a sign of the times to come until a friend very wisely pointed out, how different would it have been if he was here given that we have two very young kids. And i agree. It was a working day and we cannot go out at night since there is only the one maid and it becomes difficult for her to manage both kids alone. And also to be honest, we are not really big anniversary people, we wish each other, sometimes give presents, if we have found something the other person likes, and maybe go out for dinner, if it is a weekend. But nothing else really. In fact some years back we were at a friends place for dinner on our anniversary and she turned around and asked us, isnt your anniversary sometime now and we were like, ya its today, and people were quite surprised that we were ok spending it with a group of others, but really it was not big deal .So  why the anniversary woes post you ask .Mainly I like to crib and this gives me a good opportunity to vent that the hubby is not there for the anniversary blah blah. Actually thinking about it he was out of the country for my birthday as well this year...the plot thickens. He got me nice goggles for my b'day so it couldn't be to escape giving a present, maybe he doesnt like cake? which i insist on cutting for all celebrations? Anyway this year i have treated myself to two Friends season DVDs as an anniversary present for myself and the DVD of Inception for the hubby (ok that's also for me, love the movie)

Coming back to outings without kids, yesterday I had the unique opportunity to go for an adults only party (no no nothing of that sort, this was a dinner for our office at my boss place and the invitation said spouse only since they didn't want kids interrupting the conversation) with my two kids in tow. The hubby is away and i didn't have anyone to leave the kids with. I refused the invitation, but later the boss called saying i can get the kids along.I initially planned to go only for an hour, since its only 5 mins from my place. It was quite the experience i tell you, when we reacher there, S insisted that i sit with her and A in the toy room. When i made my escape after 5 mins, she started howling so i had to go back. Then luckily, she became friendly with the maid there and my boss younger son (same age) and more importantly with his toys so she allowed me to escape to the adult group for about 20 mins. A was better, if i left without her seeing me she continued to play. But if she saw S crying, then she also started crying. After about 20 mins, A started howling (she was hungry) so i had to leave  my chatter (and my wine) and go and feed her. I had cheated and got some cheese which she likes, instead of the elaborate cereal and apple dinner feed which i need help to give. While i was feeding a couple of my collagues wives came and saw the drama, and I am sure they made up their minds to delay having kids for a couple more years at least!!! One of them has a 2 year old daughter and boy was she bindaas. She happily left her mom and dad and played in the toy room, let anyone carry her (if any of my colleagues came near my girls they would both start howling!) and was quite peaceful throughout. After A's dinner i managed to get back to the chatter and the wine for another 15 mins, till this time S started howling. I think she was bored and sleepy (the boss kids had gone to sleep). A also started howling then and both of them refused to go to anyone. So there i was, sitting in the living room, with both kids of my lap. The boss wife mentioned that this reminded her of herself- she also has two young kids, who are 3 and 41/2 and it seems before sleeping/after waking up/after school they both sit on her lap. I was aghast to hear this, i thought things would improve when the girls are older!! Then of course a colleague who has daughters who are much older informed me, that this is the best time and i should wait till the girls become teenagers to see what tough times really look like. Wow!!

The kids kept crying, and A chewed up a paper puppet of the boss son. I really felt bad about this, because i really feel you should respect other people's property and not use your kids behaviour as an excuse to spoil other people's toys, but somehow with  both kids crying i could not force A to stop eating that! I managed to pacify them with some cheerios, have A her milk and when they had calmed down, left them with the boss maid for 10 mins while i quickly grabbed some dinner. Then we sat for about 10 mins in the hall, where S was climbing over all the sofas and A was trying to push the chairs, and I decided i better make my retreat before the kids do some irreperable damage. What an experience!! Thank goodness, i've already quit, otherwise i can see my performance rating dropping a couple of notches after this!

S and A Tales

A has become a big girl. And so says S. In a conversation i overhead yesterday, she was telling A, you've become a big girl now, dont throw the toys on the floor, i wont pick them up for you, what's the point of throwing them on the floor.  All in Hindi. I found it hilarious, but I guess she's learnt it from me since i keep telling S that she's a big girl and not supposed to do x, y, z things. 

So A is now 91/2 months. She is quite the

- Suspicious girl. Suspicious that the food we are eating is far tastier than what we are giving her, which is usually the case. So she is willing to open her mouth whenever we offer her anything we are eating. So she's already had cheese (her favourite), grapes, strawberries, biscuits, egg, a cockroach (she picked it up and put it in her mouth!) as well as clay/cotton/thermocol which is had on a daily basis. In the park, after she's crawled after the ball for some time, or walked around (with our help) trying to kick it her next favourite thing is to pluck all the grass and mud and put it in her mouth. Of course any snacks offered to S has to be shared with A also, and her favourite playtime is to pull the bottle from S mouth. She's absolutely fascinated with S bottle and the other day i walked into the toy room and A has her back to me, and when i called her name she looked around guiltily (i am kidding you not!) with S bottle in her mouth... (yes S still has milk from a bottle, she resisted too much to the change and i was not prepared for the long tantrums, maybe will wean her off the bottle when i stop working) A is also very suspicious that S is playing with all the good toys and reading all the interesting books, while we are trying to palm her off with the boring ones. So much so, that even if i give A the much more colourful book, she'll come over to where S and i are sitting and sit on top of the book I'm reading to S. Similarly with toys, playing with clay/lego/blocks/jigsaw puzzles is impossible with A around, so now we have started putting her on top of S cycle to keep her busy and keep the toys out of her reach

Introspective girl - she sometime has this long thinking look on her face (the hubby gets it often, and while i realised that he's really not thinking about much, am puzzled what A is thinking). She can be pretty quiet and play with her toys by herself for some time and if we get any guests/or are at anybody's house during these introspective times, they are convinced that she's quite the shaant kid 

Aggressive girl - she knows what she wants and knows how to get it. She has the loudest wail I've ever heard and is capable of deploying it continuously. She hates being changed (why?), being rocked to sleep when she's not sleepy, when something is taken out of her mouth and generally if i am carrying S and not carrying her. 

Mummy's girl - S was quite the daddy's girl when she was young, maybe because the hubby also used to get more time with her, and now she does not clearly have any preferences between the two of us, but A is clearly mummy's girl. When i get back home from office, she'll come crawling to me and pull at my kameez to pick her up. She'll wail if i go to S first or if i go to the other room maybe to get a glass of water without taking her along with me. She also says "amma" but that's a mixture of mamma and a generic term when she wants something/wants to be carried. 

Troublesome kid at night - she is very difficult in the night and doesnt sleep for more than a couple of hours at a stretch. The typical night consists of her sleeping at 11, getting up at 1:30, sleeping again immediately, getting up at 3:30-4, then refusing to sleep for an hour/half hour, then again getting up at six, her milk then, again sleeping and getting up at 7:30. I cant take it beyond six and i wake up the maid then. But its been ages since i even got 4 hours of sleep at a stretch and  wonder when A is going to sleep through the night. I clearly remember S was not difficult at all, we had attended my sis in law's wedding when she was 10 and 1/2 months and she slept through each night properly.

 Solids girl - she hated her milk and gave me many sleepless nights and ulcers with her refusal to drink milk. But, (thank God and touch wood) she's much better with her solids and we dont need to spend too much effort and time trying to convince her to eat what is offered. S always hated solids, and still likes her milk- many times she actually comes and asks for milk again even if she's just had it.

Naughty girl - some friends who've seen her have said she's very calm, and while that is true in patches she is also pretty naughty. She loves to pull the DVDs off the shelves, she climbs on top of the bouncer to reach the higher shelves and pull out the DVDs from there. She loves to pull the books from the bookshelf (now we've emptied the last shelf and only kept magazines there so she doesn't hurt itself. She also loves to throw things behind the bed - she'll crawl over to the headstand and pull herself up and throw whatever she has in her hands over the bed. And she gives me a guilty look after that!!

A's now got two small teeth at the bottom and she crawls all over the place, and walks holding furniture. She's pretty good at climbing and sometimes I'll look up from my latop and find her on top of the sofa next to me.

S is growing up so fast. In my mind she's already a big kid, compared to A and sometime i forget that she's still a baby herself. But she has become so much bigger suddenly. She loves her school and tells me what she did each day, who her friends are, what she wants to take to school for her tiffin. After school she'll open her tiffin box and show me that its empty with a big smile on her face. I have been quite awful with her tiffin, earlier she never used to try much stuff and i also didnt have the imagination or the enthu to give her different stuff, so it was more or less cheeselings and bourbon biscuits everyday. But now she asks for grapes/corn/chappati/toasted cheese bread and I'm thrilled. This week I managed to give her different tiffin for everyday of the week and none of that involved snacks! Also helps that my work hours start only after dropping her at school so i am able to spend some 5-10 mins on preparing her tiffin. She plays a lot more in the park now- she can swing by herself, goes on the big slides, plays with the sand toys and tells what she wants to do. She surprises me sometimes by how observant she is- if we are reading a book and i read something in a different way she will ask why. The other day we had gone to the club and she pointed at some cupboards in a room and asked why they didnt have handles (!). Something i wouldnt even notice. She is also listening to whatever we say, sometimes the hubby and I would be having a conversation and she would pipe her with her take on something and we would suddenly realise that she's been following the entire conversation. 

She loves me to read books to her and choses what book she wants me to read. She likes to do jigsaw puzzles (the 4,5,6 pieces one she does herself) and the bigger ones she does with me. She loves her lego and her clay also and going around on her cycle. I don't get enough time to do all the activities with her everyday, but i do try to take her to the park on all weekdays. She does craft with her hubby in the weekends (thank goodness i am pretty terrible at anything to do with craft/drawing/anything creative) and now that we have membership of the nearby club i try to take her swimming twice a week. We just signed up for the musical bonding today,  hope she enjoys that! 

S and A get along pretty ok as well when A is not trying to pull S hair, poke her eyes or generally whack her. S is pretty gentle with her and complains to us if A is hitting her (and knows not to hit her back). She lectures her quite a bit!!! And she also tries to play with her- if A is bouncing in the crib, S will get in and bounce with her, if A is crawling in the living room, S will also go crawling with her. She likes to feed her snacks as well (though i caught her trying to feed her grass in the park the other day) and shares her toys with her without a grumble. Love you dolls, hope you remain the best of friends forever.