It’s Come Home

Scene I – Happened some months ago. I’m nursing the baby. The living daylights are knocked out of me as my neck snaps up in pain, my face contorts and I have a sudden impulse to fling the baby into the center of the room. But instead? I ease him off gently, run downstairs yelling "MrG! Guess what? He’s teething!!!" And then we go out and buy half a dozen teething toys and rings for him to chew on. I carry the bite marks like an emblem, showing them off in private to MrG, till they fade away.

Scene II – He grabs my hair in his little fist and tugs away till I can feel the tears in my eyes. I open his tight fist and immediately proceed to remove all the hair from his hand lest he put it in his mouth. Much later, I rub the area near my temple, where it still hurts. Only a little.

Scene III – I’m putting the monster to sleep. It’s quiet and the lullaby CD promises to put me out before it does him. He kicks around and tosses and turns on the bed like a madcap (usual practice). It reaches a pinnacle which means anytime now, we’re done. My eyes begin to close. He flings himself toward me like a cannonball and his coconut-like hard little head knocks me on the mouth, my right incisor clamps down on my lip. I can taste the blood. I don’t move a centimeter. No point getting him excited, we are almost there. 5 mins later, when he is still and breathing steady I get up and check in the mirror. The lower lip is swollen like a plum. MrG walks in. I say "He’s out and it’s only 10:15. Good day, na?"

Wikipedia says "The Stockholm syndrome is a psychological response in which the hostage exhibits loyalty to the hostage-taker, in spite of the danger (or at least risk) in which the hostage has been placed."

Yes, that’s it. Stockholm has come home.

A Baiter? Me? No Way.

We play a game with the Maharaja. It began when we were trying to get him to move. See, he doesn’t understand that lifting his ass will assist the whole crawling thing. So currently, we are stuck at the GI Joe type-of-crawl, where he uses his elbows and palms and sort of drags himself here and there. He is very adept at it now, but a month ago, he would stress and strain and then just get lazy, roll over and coo to the ceiling. So well anyway, I would wave, from a yard away, a remote control, shiny steel spoon, cell phone or sometimes a knife (no, that was just to make you sit up and take notice. And yes, we do buy toys for him. Tons of them in fact but he doesn’t give a s**t. Mommy-Daddy’s precious money dude! That is so coming out of your first pay-check) He would somehow reach the point of prize only to find out that I’ve moved it further out. Now that he has mastered this weird method, we just do this to get him really tired before bedtime.

So last weekend we had friends over. They watched in dismay at what I was doing, at one point the woman was going to get up and call Child Services but refrained (politeness or fear (she knows of catfight), I don’t know). But 15 mins later when the Maharaja was fast asleep in my lap and I rose to go and put him in his crib, she followed me upstairs. "Is that OK?" she asked. "Oh yes" I said, going on to tell her how another friend of ours gets her toddler to climb the stairs till he falls asleep. Very effective. But I would refrain when his eyes are half closed and he is leaning on the banister. Making him do it one last time then? That’s just heartless. My guest swallowed hard.

So we were in the nursery and the King was down. I tucked him in and looked up to see my friend staring at the wall behind the changing table. "You like?" I asked. "I used oil, so the colors are bright." She turned around and said "It’s in your psyche. You’re a baiter. I see the underlying theme now."

Whaat?

Later that night, I told MrG. "I’m not a baiter, am I?" I asked all sweet and gentle. "No, of course not. They don’t have kids, they don’t get it. You’re a good mom." he assured me, equally gently. "Awww" I go. We switch off the bedside lamp.

"Baiter."

"But I’m really tired"

"Baiter."

Refusing to let it be

'Child-woman' and 'woman-child' all sound good. But there are some things you really wish you've grown out of. Catfights, for example. They are not at all what they are made out to be. I was in one recently and though the event has "left the building", the bad taste in my mouth is yet to leave. MrG drew my attention to a Dilbert panel yesterday which has Ted (the generic guy) going "Can I bail out of this project before it becomes a blight on my resume?" I wish I had the sense to get out of the catfight before it became one, before it became a "blight" on my life. Sometimes, the warning bells are all ringing, the signs are all flashing, yet you don’t get out while you still can, gracefully. Why, oh, why?

Maybe I just like the taste of blood  :)

Guilty Pleasures

I’m in love with working-out these days.
I watch the O.C. I also watch E! News, Gilmore Girls and America’s Next Top Model. Wait it gets better, I even watch One Tree Hill (*Sigh* The things I admit here). MrG’s old grad school TV was retrieved and placed in front of the treadmill in the basement. And you begin to see.

So in a world of crazed bosses, aspiring yet clumsy crawlers and hubbies who have sudden bursts of work-related travel (Yes, very fishy. He takes business trips every month since the baby came. Even a chimp can do the math), lying on the couch watching TV all evening while Mom watches the baby is not an option. But working-out? Now that’s an admirable thing to do. Keeping fit and all that good stuff, such a positive air about it.

Now, next to the treadmill room in the basement is a dump-room. That does not mean we take dumps in there (east-lingo never really meets west-lingo!), it just means anything and everything that you can’t find a place for in our house, goes there. Or stuff that we don’t want visitors to see. Or stuff visitors gave us on earlier visits, which we promptly pull out when they come visiting again. (Cross-stitch-paintings, soap-cases...I love you visitors but what were you thinking?) MrG keeps his tools there (temporary home, a beautiful new mansion will be built for the babies when they come of age or something he assures me) and he spends several perfectly useful afternoons doing perfectly useless things in there.

So as my work-out sessions grow longer and longer I see MrG spending more and more time in the dump-room. Yesterday, after my time sauntering on the treadmill was over, I worked over to the dump-room to see what he was up to.

Did I mention...the beer has been displaced from the kitchen as well while Mom’s visiting?