C'est la Vie!

The Maharaja is a Monkey

2007-03-15T20:08:00.000-07:00

The cop car was at our mailbox and he was walking up to our door. All Shiny cap and Shiny shoes (And so clean. What scrub do they use? My St.Ives so doesn’t measure up). "What speed were you at?" My G almost yells at me. Little explanation note here: My husband didn’t always suspect my driving. A few little episodes in Chicago which involved some car totals, some appearances in court and those horrid 8 hour classes and some money (not much) have left my reputation scarred for life. My husband cares not for scars but he does care for my life, so I have since been under strict supervision. He forgets my recent misdemeanor. A misdemeanor that has changed me for life. I am now as law-abiding as a congressman running for presidency 2 weeks from now. The misdemeanor involved money and money really speaks to me. It speaks more loudly when you have a baby, a mortgage and a healthy passion for clothes. (I still contend that if I was doing 80 at an exit with that curvature, I would be flying off the road. It’s all simple physics but they don’t teach physics in the judge degrees obviously)

OK see now I’m all up in the air and a hundred miles from the point I was trying to make. The cops, they were at our door. Well, it turns out the little monster can’t wipe his own ass but he can use his little fingers to dial 911 in the half second that he had the phone before we pulled it away. And so MrG had to prove his innocence by displaying his infant son and happy wife and wholesome loving family. The neighbors might still think he is a wife-beater or something and the wife's sneaky call was this cry for help and that is so killing him. You need to know MrG to understand the extent of his misery here. As fate would have it three of our neighbors were out and about at that very instant that Shiny walked up to us. They were close but not close enough to have heard our funny story. So now MrG will lurk longer and longer at the mailbox waiting for a chance to explain that we are a respectable family. He waits for spring like none of us do as then he is sure to catch them outdoors. I asked him to just call all the neighbors and explain it all, as it was about time he had a full night’s rest. But he thinks that will make him look desperate. And that he is not. LOL!

Traces

2007-03-15T19:36:00.000-07:00

As I did the rock and the pat tonight
The rhythm broke away in the middle
And instead my forefinger tapped away swiftly
Just like yours used to, when I was little

And then later in the semi-darkness
He was clipping his toenails, bent over the rails
He muttered softly almost to himself
"How can a baby have such thick nails?"

Still at the table after a meal at home
A meal that ended in curd and pickle
As the hour ticks and the conversation flows
My brother’s hand dries out, little by little

With each day more comes to light
Some imperfections seem perfectly right
Because it means there’s still a bit of you to see
In them, in him, and in me.

Mushy Moment

2007-01-11T19:52:00.000-08:00

You know you can never really have the old life back when....
....you're feeling hot lounging in a cool martini-bar on NYE, but you do the run-fingers-through-hair move and you suddenly feel dried baby food in a strand.

You know you really don't want the old life back when...
....you tuck said strand behind ear, and recall that the food got there when he reached up with those grubby hands and stroked your hair. In the middle of the feed, in the middle of the screaming and grabbing. Making perfect eye contact, no pulling, just a stroke. And it's warm inside, warmer than any appletini could ever make it.

These things happen?

2007-01-11T19:30:00.000-08:00

Middle of the week, middle of this crazy work week, I vent on gtalk...

Me: guess what, MrG was at a sports bar last night. till midnight. some game.
P: yeah?! you were ok? nanny stayed over kya?
Me: no she left. but i managed. bawling baby on hip and all.
P: good re.
Me: thanks re.
P: should have kept her tho. these things happen sometimes.
Me: these things? mrG ka bada side le rahi hai
P: no i'm just saying
......
Me: MrP was logged in till late yesterday
P: oh yeah, he was cooking and chatting it seems
Me: it seems?
P: i was playing poker with my office people. he went home, cooked dinner and then came to pick me up

It’s Come Home

2006-12-22T08:13:00.000-08:00

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.

2006-12-19T09:15:00.000-08:00

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

2006-12-18T10:07:00.000-08:00

'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

2006-12-15T10:53:00.000-08:00

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?

Confessions of a Daughter-In-Law

2006-08-11T09:47:00.000-07:00

I’m dying to

1) Prance around in shorts and a tank-top in this hot, hot weather without a care in the world

2) Dance my crazy dance in the living room with my son in my arms – in the said outfit. Look crazy while doing it.

3) Hug my husband whenever I feel like it and maybe even slap his bum and get slapped right back.

4) Sit on the couch after work with nothing in my brain. No small talk, absolutely nothing. Just let the day’s events wash over me in a calming summation.

5) Wake up at noon on a Saturday. Or even better, spend an entire day in bed with my son wedged in between me and my hubby. Watch TV in bed and eat in bed too. Shower and go right back to bed.

6) Maybe roll out at dinner time and cook a very, very, very simple meal (which will contain NO Indian spices). Very slowly.

7) Sip a nicely chilled Smirnoff Ice while chopping the vegetables. Chop, chop, chop...sip, sip, sip.

8) Have dinner in complete silence. Beautiful, comfortable silence.

9) Run the dishwasher when I feel like it. Maybe day-after-tomorrow.

10) Just be a small little family.

I'm such a wuss. My friend wanted to poison her mother-in-law's meal. Either that, or it ain't that bad.
.

Huh! Really?

2006-07-28T06:35:00.000-07:00

Your Blogging Type Is the Private Performer

Your blog is your stage - with your visitors your adoring fans.
At least, that's how you write with your witty one liners.
And while you like attention, you value your privacy.
You're likely to have an anonymous blog - or turn off comments.

What's Your Blogging Personality?

Not off the mark completely...The last point was accurate enough!

Their Grass is Greener. Really.

2006-07-25T21:37:00.000-07:00

We don’t live in Wisteria lane exactly, but we could easily pass for the adjacent one. The underlying suburban traits are so obvious, and the competition is maddening. The landscaping is our lane’s favorite summer thing, and I’m fast discovering, my favorite summer peeve. We usually take solace from the fact that our front door neighbors are not in the mad race either. Our lawn and existing landscaping was quickly achieving a very Wild Garden look (that is a type of garden – a certain William Robinson declared it. My kinda guy). I helped Mr.G name the look we were going for and went right back to choosing rugs for the living room...not the hubby, he was losing serious sleep over this. But it’s been a busy year, to put it lightly.

The arrival of his mother brought a couple of things to light. For him, it was the fact that maybe there was one solution; his mother could water the lawn! And for me, I figured our where the passive-aggressive streak of competition in him comes from. It began slowly. She wondered aloud the first week about when the neighbors water their lawns as she doesn’t see anybody do it. I explained automatic sprinklers, reiterating the fact that it has been a busy year for us. Her face fell at first but quickly changed to fierce determination. A couple of weeks ago, she asked about beautiful boulders in other people’s front yards and the topic of professional landscapers came around. This time, the determination was mingled with anxiety.

Last weekend we were at the Boston Commons enjoying Shakespeare in the open...this was my first time watching “Taming of the Shrew”. As we spread our blankets and I settled down to an evening minus baby, I caught MrG staring at the grass. “It’s just Bluegrass Rough...not even Kentucky! But still pretty green, huh?” I sighed.

The next morning, I wake up to see MrG and his mom at the windows. I make my coffee and go to stand next to them to see what is keeping them there. Our front door buddies, our comrades in crime, have crossed over! They have hired professional landscapers who have driven up in a huge truck. Some 6 men jump out and roll out yards and yards of Rye carpet grass. In the course of the next few hours, voices are high strung and there is undeniable jitteriness in our home. Our neighbor waved to my husband, grinning. And needless to say, the landscapers drove away leaving behind the nicest lawn on our neighbor’s side of the street, and two very pissed off people on this side of it.

Its 11 PM as I write this and the mother and the son are in the yard, turning off our manual hose sprinkler. There has been much discussion on professional yard maintenance and landscaping. Our neighbor had apparently waved again, grinning. MrG gets on Local Google.

I take my opening line back – we could pass for Wisteria lane itself. Though the housewives are a tad laidback here, the desperate husbands are aplenty.

Feeling...

2006-07-18T11:16:00.000-07:00

The weeks after the Maharaja was born were some of the most confusing of my life. The expected feelings of excitement, fatigue and exhilaration were all there and I was prepared for it. But what was somewhat disconcerting was the fact that I missed him. I missed having him inside me. When it used to be really and truly, the two of us. When the kicks and rolls were exclusively mine. As the weeks turned to months, I learned to share. He would gurgle to others, he would smile at everyone (Yes, literally, everyone – much to the amusement of the cashier at BabiesRUs or any random stranger on the street for that matter) and its okay. I can deal with that, I think.

This weekend my baby was introduced to solids. The way he has been watching us eat has made it quite evident that he is interested. With eager excitement, I spooned in the tiniest portion of rice cereal into his open, fish-like mouth, but he shoved it out using both his tongue and his arms, with Lilliputian-Herculean strength. Then he proceeded to spit out what little had made it in, with deliberation and patience. I felt a small, vaguely familiar, sense of relief.

You will invariably, lose your dependence on me, step by step...But let’s stretch this out as far as we can little fella! To live is to be slowly born, and you make me feel like I’ve only just begun.

Binding fear!

2006-07-04T20:45:00.000-07:00

Two weeks ago...

My mom has called in to check on the status of her grandchild besides other things. Mr.G is dutifully filling her in with the details on the poo and pee stories.

Mr.G: Gabby is coming aunty, she just came back from the mall and...

Pause.

I run up the stairs taking two at a time..shaking my head and flailing arms wildly though I know that there is no way I can get there in time.

Mr.G: No, no aunty...she helps my mother a lot. She made dinner in fact.

“Thank you, thank you” I mouth. These moments of timely white lies are when my love for Mr.G doubles up.

....................................................................................

This weekend...

Mr.G is on his weekly call with his grandmother. This is the mother-in-law’s mom we are talking about. The topic is the great-grandson of course. Conversation is in tamil here, but the gist is fairly easy to understand.

Mr.G: Yes, yes he does. Yes, yes we do. No, no everyday. Oil bath.

Pause.

Mr.G: No, Gabby gives him his bath.

The m-i-l has rushed out of the kitchen...shaking head and flailing arms wildly.

Mr.G: Actually amma gives him his oil-massage and everything…Gabby only does the final part.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you” m-i-l mouths, wrings hands and retreats into the kitchen.

.................................................................................

The decades that separate us notwithstanding, I think I just might get along with my m-i-l....as I find we have some basic things in common :)

Sweet Surrender (of a whole new kind!)

2006-06-19T11:08:00.000-07:00

After dinner you are mine. No TV, no music, no chatting in the background. Just you, me and the peace and quiet of the upstairs. You are fed, cleaned, you look the picture of contentment…a toothless sleepy grin is my prize. I know the best way to get you to sleep is to leave you in your crib when you are drowsy so you can drift off. And you have shown us you can do that easily. But I take you on my shoulder and we walk from room to room, so you can continue to form your pictures. Pictures, which will one day, form your earliest memories. You look around, alert and bird-like, with your head bobbing ever so little, cooing at random. Slowly, you nuzzle and nudge your way into that favorite spot of yours where I can feel your breath on my neck. Your arm finds the comfortable perch of my forearm to hang off from (Something that you learned to do in your second month. When you were a newborn you slept like a koala with your hands curled tight underneath you). You are tucked into the crevice of my shoulder forming a perfect semi-globe, your little butt supported by my arm. There is a dull ache in my shoulder, one that keeps growing with your growing weight. One, which I have long ceased to pay heed to. As I arch my neck to make more room for you, I can feel that slightest shift of your weight. You are asleep, I can tell before I do my customary walk to the mirror to check if you are indeed, asleep. There is something infinitely trusting, infinitely innocent in that final give to sleep. I lay you down in your crib.

This has done me more good than it has done you, baby! Sleep tight. The pleasure, as they say, was all mine.

Now, if only ever night were this idyllic.

Electronic Babysitting

2006-06-09T16:31:00.000-07:00

Mr.G: “Is it OK for him to be swinging for so long?”

Mrs.G: “I didn’t find anything against it online”

Mr.G: “Tell me you didn’t look at just the Fisher-Price website”

OK so I didn't look too hard. But we all grew up in those jhulas ourselves didn’t we? They are omnipresent in a household with babies, every once a while spilling over to non-house locations too (Recall Indian Railways, any class, as long as you have parallel sturdy berths, there’s a sari/dhoti make-shift jhula quickly knotted up and in no time, a blissful baby can be found fast asleep inside)

Five years from now, for the Maharaja’s sake, I hope and pray some random study doesn’t end up with this in-situ result showing a close relationship between slower kids and the ones that spent an unmentionable number of hours in the Fisher-Price Nature’s Touch™ Baby Papasan™ Cradle Swing. Because this swing rocks. Not just in the way swings are supposed to but as in “It ROCKS my world”. It allows me to shower, eat, watch TV, talk on the phone and need-I-say, blog! It allows Gabby to catch up with her whole other non-mommy life and doesn’t make her feel like a bad mommy one bit. The baby is napping, and that’s good for him, isn’t it? He smiled in his sleep too, there you go.

I suspect my thoughts on this approach to buying oneself some time would have been very different 3 months ago. Let this be a lesson to me and to the person who grimaces at short-cuts in parenting, at crying babies in crowded flights (you feel cramped, bored and impatient yourself don’t ya?), the person who raises one eyebrow at pacifier-happy babies, who wonders about the need for security blankets in a disapproving tone or who wishes family-friendly restaurants mean you can bring your child but check him/her in with your coat at the door. You really need to be on the other side of the fence for this one.

Now when I pass mini-vans with purple dinosaurs dancing in the darkness, I don’t cluck my tongue or shake my head. Instead I wonder if these can be coupled with vibrating car-seats. You know, to cover the transitional stage.

Losing Ground

2006-05-04T16:46:00.000-07:00

Six weeks after a baby is born, a lot of things change. With respect to the baby, we have gaze-holding, smoother arm movements and cooing. Stuff is on somewhat of a schedule (though the schedule might change every day). With respect to the Mom and Dad, well, the Mom can start exercising, Mom can go back to work and Mom and Dad can err...get started up again.

Usually, baby is better with meeting these milestones than Mom and Dad are. Mom is hoping going downstairs counts as exercise. Work...well she has a whole month of maternity leave left (yoo hoo). As for point 3, a lot is usually said about the mood, the energy, and an opportune time...but one of the main reasons I can best depict with this sketch. Yes, we have space issues.

In a New Light

2006-05-03T19:10:00.000-07:00

" I know God will not give me anything I can't handle. I just wish that He didn't trust me so much. " - Mother Teresa

How uncool am I?!!

2006-04-26T12:07:00.000-07:00

## I can stare at the Maharaj's face for 2 hours unblinkingly, while he is sleeping no less.

## I can easily manage 10 photos a day. I can photoshop them into sepia or whatever and send them out to family and friends, almost on a daily basis. And yes, family and friends don't request them any more. But I still send them anyway. We are talking rock bottom of uncoolness barrel here.

## When asked how I'm doing, I have to fight the urge to go into great detail on how he is doing.

## The red tee would go better with my skirt, but I bought the blue. Now we have matching outfits.

O my God. I am going to asphyxiate him with love.

"Few misfortunes can befall a boy which bring worse consequences than to have a really affectionate mother." - W. Somerset Maugham

Make way! The Maharaja is here!

2006-04-25T20:47:00.000-07:00

“Got milk?” his huge eyes ask greedily. “Yes Sire, I do” I mumble softly as I pick him up for the 306th time that day. No, this will not be a 101 on breast feeding, though the topic is a riveting one actually (Example: “Isn’t it orgasmic?” Asks my pal who is also in the throes of it. I look at her agape as there are 2000 things wrong with addressing that question. But yes, the endorphins that are released in the process are good guys...we like them, we do. They are God’s consolation prize for the soreness and what-not. In general the breasts do play a big role in life nowadays and they tend to look down on all the non-working ones...all that preening and perking and nowhere to go, if you know what I mean) But again, we shall not talk about all that just yet. Let me tell you instead how the Maharaja arrived, how he tore to shreds Gabby’s old life and how what remains of it is beyond recognition and how I could not be more thankful for all the damage done.

We had Plan A and Plan B. We also had E thru Z but we didn’t share that with public in case they thought we were over-prepared or something. We would take the freeway all the way to the hospital if I went into labor at 3 AM… but any other time of the day and Mr.G would execute one of the above mentioned plans and get us to the hospital deftly avoiding traffic. We practiced Plan D on an ultrasound trip in mid-March, arriving at the hospital beautifully in time avoiding the crazy lunchtime traffic of Boston. At the end of the session where we looked at the little bugger in black and white, the radiologist went to chat with my Gynac and came back singing “It’s time to get the fellow out!”. Yes, labor was going to be induced the next morning, the reasons aren’t as important as was the fact that she was doing the right thing.

I shampooed and blow-dried, feeling weirdly like I was going to a party...getting pretty for the Maharaja’s arrival. So much for Plan A-Z, we arrived well in time. No romantic dash to the hospital, nothing. Induction was followed by an epidural which I begged for in record-time. Let me pause here and tell you about this great, great thing. It will change your life one day. I proclaimed eternal love to Larry my anesthesiologist and he was very reciprocating. Larry then went to the next room and was very receptive of the undying love proclaimed to him by the next girl he put out of misery. That’s his life – he just gives. At the pearly gates, he will be like No.1 I tell you. Labor continued...I was only 5 hours into the game, the first couple of hours I was still smiling into the video camera so they don’t count, my nurse said.

What changed everything was when our little fellow’s heart rate fell at 8:20 PM. It came back up but the doctor warned us that if it fell again we were heading to the OR. It did at 8:40 PM and in that instant of time, I have felt fear like never before. It was a gripping, desperate fear, mirrored in Mr.G’s eyes. I was undergoing the C-Section by 9 PM. What was lovely about the process was that I was awake throughout the procedure and Mr.G was right by my side (He has a way of describing the color of my insides that I find quite disturbing!) The doctors chatted about India, babies and what-not while they pulled and tugged at my abdomen (pressure is all you feel with an epidural). It was all overridden by the cry that every cell of my being was straining to hear. You wait for that cry like your life depended on it. And the room filled with it at 9:06 PM. The image that I relive again and again is that of Mr.G coming toward me with a swaddled bundle which had just the profile of the Maharaja popping out. I was looking at a mini Mr.G. We had made him. Created life. That too, so perfectly.

With every passing day, every feed, every teeny super-tight grasp of my finger, every gaze that just manages to focus and lock in with mine, every vague search towards my voice, every smile, every coo, I learn so much. Not just about my darling milk monster but about myself too. I am not completely self-centered, and as a mother I am invaluable. I don’t know about maternal instincts and I don’t know about falling in love with your baby in the very first ultrasound. I know though that the first time you are alone with your baby and he cries and you fumble with the diaper to check and then take him to your breast and he fusses and refuses to latch on and you try this and that in a crazy haste because you cannot bear to hear him cry for a second longer…and after he does latch on and is comfortable you break down in a flood of tears because you realize that this is so much stronger than love. It’s like the foundation of all feelings, beyond description.

So the Maharaja has arrived and I’ve found out that the very useful excuse “He’s waking up!” that I use when on phone conversations that run too long is somehow understood by him. He keeps us occupied, to put it lightly. I’ve realized how ridiculous I must have sounded when I used to use phrases like “Too busy” or “No time” while talking to people with kids. I’ve realized I used to have so much free space in my head and in my life it was insane. Being on maternity leave and a mother to only one baby I guess I still don’t the true definition of busy. The woman down the hall from me in the hospital that had had triplets the night before I had delivered, she could surely through some light on this subject. It had been a full moon night so the place was very happening. The maternity ward tends to be. They keep themselves busy doling out so much advice, it’s funny. More on that later, “He’s waking up!”

Oh! I’ll just say it like it is...

2006-02-02T13:24:00.000-08:00

I’m not a native of these parts
But my kind and your kind,
Go back a long, long time
So in a way, it was a reunion
Creating perfect music, flawless rhyme.

I am an acquired taste they say
But you took to me like a fish to water
Soaking your soul in my sweetness
For you, it was love from the beginning
Your eyes and waiting lips,
Have time and over, confessed.

Like making love while still half asleep
Morning rays flooding the boards
Things enjoyed first thing in the morning
Are special enough for their very own odes
To some I am bitter, to some a vice
I come hand-picked and roasted nice
I’m Peet’s Sierra Dorada, a signature blend
Displaced once a while by whatever’s the trend
But for Gabby I will simply remain
A brew invented to keep her man sane
Screwing with Mr.G’s coffee, to simply state
Is like playing with fire or tempting fate!!!

Those Days...These Days

2006-01-30T12:00:00.000-08:00

Cranberry or Apple
Shaken or stirred
Luncheon here, cocktails there
"What to wear! What to wear!"
Work, work, work
Got to go, got to go
Do this, do that
Get here, get there
The timetable of life
Beat, fair and square.

..........................

Counting the days,
The weeks and the chores
Feeling a kick, feeling a roll
A stirring within
Inside at the core
Not like anything
Ever felt before
Anticipation gnawing
Excitement mounting
If it’s going to be like this
I want more, more

“Really, what use of living in this country??”

2006-01-26T11:11:00.000-08:00

The Mom has arrived. And till the baby arrives, she shall be my favorite bait. So I might wander off to different topics but there will be frequent stopovers. This is definitely not the first time my Mom has been to this side of the world but wonder and awe and disgust are usually expressed anew – just because. The things we are missing most sorely are:

1.The maids
2.The gossip sessions with the building-wale.
3.The maids
4.The sunny Hyderabad in general
5.And the other maids – not the daily ones, the weekly ones.

The kitchen is her domain. She loves to cook but at the same time is hopping mad that the dishwasher actually needs to be loaded before the dishes are done, the veggies actually need to be fetched from the stores before the cooking can be done, the laundry has to be taken downstairs and dumped into the washer before it can be transferred to the dryer (a whole extra step, which can throw your life into quite a frenzy apparently). And what’s more, the daughter and son-in-law actually need to work to fetch the bread home before it can be baked. All very unacceptable! While I hum and dance-about talking about how easy my life has become since she has arrived, she is still flabbergasted at how we can enjoy these miserable lives we lead. Last night after work, she saw me walking around watering some plants and mumbled

“What life I don’t know” (Heavy desi English here, but the Queen’s version does hardly any justice at all to the emotions to be conveyed).
So I giggle and say “I’m just watering the plants Amma!!!”
“Why all this when there’s no maali, no maid, nothing!”
“It’s three plants!”
“Put them in one place at least. Why in three different floors?”
“That’s ok”
“No lift (elevator), nothing”

At this point I laugh out loud. An elevator for inside the house!!! Before people assume that I live in a house with an East wing and a West wing and a North tower, let me clarify that it’s a regular suburban home...not very different from the home my Mom lives in Hyderabad but hey, definitely not the same it seems. First of all it’s the same physical and mental temperature in Hyderabad. Now that sentence is actually loaded. See my Mom is freezing mentally. In her very own words - “Physically I’m warm only but mentally somehow I’m feeling cold”. Now that just means that when she looks out of the windows she sees the white blanket Boston is under right now and it’s effecting her in unimaginable ways! :) We are yet to venture to the deck or even the garage so the physical warmth is being protected well, the mental part I just don’t know how to tackle. Permanently board the windows maybe? Suggestions are welcome!

On her daily phone conversations with my Aunt I hear her say “Never! Boston in winter, never!” Pause. “Yes, somehow bad timing for Gabby”. I frown and start grinning at the same time. Is she really talking about when Junior was conceived? Confirming my thoughts the conversation continued...”Yes, what to do? If the delivery was in August it would have been best. Now no other way!” she concluded.

I’ve heard about people planning babies so a school year is not missed or a tax year is covered. We should really factor in best visiting time weathers too now. Definitely time for a TurboTax kinda program that takes into account all of the above along with of course your “time of the month” and tells you when to excuse yourselves and go do it. Otherwise “Really, what use of living in this country??”. Really Amma, what use?! :D

Of Mothers and Daughters...& the hundreds of layers of palpable tension in-between.

2005-12-22T11:04:00.000-08:00

I need a tee that says the following

“Yes, I’m pregnant.
Yes, we know what it is. It’s a boy.
I’m due in March
NO, it’s not OK to rub my belly."

So people who have more to add can jump directly to other questions and those who don’t can please slink away. The questions that follow mostly revolve around how nervous or excited I am and if I’ll have some help around the time. The first one is easy to answer. Yes, I’m aware there will be pain, and blood and goriness, and pain. But a situation where half a dozen doctors stand around my bedside and throw their hands up in unison and go “Boy I’ve never seen this before” and walk away leaving the bun in the oven for eternity is unlikely. So when we’re ready, we’ll be ready and hook or crook, we’ll have the baby out. The more sedated and drugged I am during the process, the better. But either way, we’ll deal. This one is not really giving me sleepless nights.

So what is? The help I’ll have during the time of course. The Mom arrives soon. Now all the Moms who read this blog will go “Oh perfect! You’re so lucky” and the daughters in ya’ll might well say the same thing but with a sardonic grin accompanying it. Because we know don’t we? I firmly believe my Mom is unique in her mixture of fierce independence, high, oh-so-high expectations of me, general exactness, demand for things to be just-so and this and that. But I’m aware this is just me being all-about-me. The universe demands of Moms to be a bit of a pain. It helps balance the unquestioning love and unconditional patience that they are made up of. Along with the deftness of the hand that knows just how to fix that sambar as well as that bruised knee.

Over the years, we have agreed on one thing - that we are different. The acceptance of the difference is a whole other challenge and each fancies that we are letting the other go easy. After all, she’s blood :) I think we would have ample bonding opportunity if I had a sibling or two who I-don’t-know...did drugs and ruined his/her life? Or maybe gambled away the family fortune..? Or in the least broke a rule or two bigger than choosing his/her own spouse. But nah, that wasn’t to happen now, was it? So here I am stuck with 80 % of the total shock-factor that we as a family can muster, thereby limiting discussions where I can click my tongue, sigh and shake my head while Mother and Daughter stir soups and break bread together as we concoct ways to improve the poor guinea pig’s life.

It’s anyways hardest for the youngest. Because you were the one with the easiest life. The one who grew up in the lap of luxury compared to the older ones...they who used to take the bus, who didn’t get to eat foreign chocolates and who in general walked uphill to school both ways are a difficult crowd to live up to. Now add a sibling of the same sex who has never broken a rule in the book except maybe the one about dicing the potatoes in the unorthodox way (boiling them first) and you have no room for wiggle whatsoever. All things considered, it’s best to find cousins who are indulging in scandalous behavior and recap their lives, install DISH so we have the Sun/Gemini/Teja areas covered and of course, have a baby. These should do it. She'll be soon on her way here, my Mom, bless her! And I’m thinking we’re gonna have a wonderful time, my Mom and I.

And if, by some weird chance, there is some unpleasantness, perspective will soon take care of that. Did I tell you who visits soon after her? The in-laws of course. :)

New Worries

2005-12-05T10:59:00.000-08:00

We have an attic in this house. It’s a cute one. Perfect for crawling onto and exploring. I guess little kids can walk upright in there as well. As I settled into bed the other night, I gestured towards the attic and said “Our grandkids won’t find anything interesting up there”. Mr.Gabby looked up from behind his monitor from his little niche in the corner of the bedroom and went “What?”

About 5 or 6 years ago, when Mr.Gabby (or then boyfriend-Gabby) and I had just become something of an item, I was moving apartments. He and his friends were busy loading the truck downstairs and I was cramming in the last few odds and ends into boxes. I reached up to the top of my closet and the huge yellow plastic zipped-up envelope I retrieved stared at me, silently challenging me to make a decision. It bulged with every old love-letter I had ever received along with all-things-romantic that had transpired in Gabby’s life so far. Yes, even those cute Valentine Day’s cards that one finds stuffed in school bags and cycle-carriers, slipped in when you’re not looking. It was filled with some things that would make you go “Aww” and some others that were not so aww-worthy but definitely stirring to me. Those kinds of things that make you pause and stop what you’re doing and just wonder. If only for a short while, you wonder how these people are, how they’re doing and what they're doing and then you shut that little mental envelope and go on with your business. I unzipped the bag slowly and as I did so one not-so-pleasant memory surfaced and I instinctively figured out the best thing to do. I walked over to the corner of the kitchen that housed the growing garbage pile and tossed it in. “Fresh beginnings” I murmured to myself as I taped up the last box.

“There won’t be any pile of letters tied up with a silk ribbon smelling of lilac or lemon verbena..” (Or in my case, now that I think about it, a curious mixture of Estee Lauder’s Pleasures and Indian spices)
“Not even a shoe-box with some mementoes!”...“I threw them all away!”
I had Mr.Gabby’s undivided attention by now as I continued to crib.
“A little kid won’t clamber down the stairs red-faced and breathless clutching handwritten love letters!!!”....
“And you won’t get to chuckle and say “Ah, your Granny was quite a firecracker in her day” or something cute like that!!!”
“NOTHING!!!”

Mr.Gabby stared at me, disbelief wrought on his face. I knew this wasn’t a big deal to him but I was hoping he would understand my frustration a tad bit at least. He walked over and in some corner of my head I wondered about the commonsense of lamenting old-boyfriend keepsakes to my present love-interest, however honest the current relationship! He sat down on the edge of the bed and said “You threw it all out?” “Yes” I said. “Were there addresses on the envelopes?” I suddenly saw where this was going. “You guys had already taken the shredder to the new place!” I cried out, hoping he wouldn’t ask me why I hadn’t torn the address portions by hand.

A helpful note: Mr.Gabby takes Identity theft Very Seriously. As it is a matter that needs to be Taken Very Seriously. We have an industrial size shredder and several smaller ones too. The industrial size one can even gobble up a CD and crunch it up into several small pieces in 2 seconds flat. It makes a resounding racket while doing so that can quite grate your nerves. In general, all shredding makes a din but we should just grin and bear it, as Identity Theft needs to be Taken Very Seriously.

“Oh well” he said walking back to his desk. I could see that the emotional weight of the issue might have made my action excusable but disappointment was still at large. He resumed typing and I resumed reading. Suddenly he asked “Were there photographs too?” I nodded glumly. “Of you as well?” More glum nodding. “Not quite the lilac-smelling experience but our grandkid might still turn red-faced and breathless, if those pictures some day make it to the internet” he said. I looked up to see him grinning helplessly. As I threw a pillow in protest and screamed that they definitely weren’t those kinds of photographs, I also thought of how the internet might well be the most interesting attic in the future. God knows what shit they’ll dig up about us...all the more reason to keep this blog shit-free. Oops.

Pregnancy Perks

2005-11-08T17:20:00.000-08:00

Scene: A friend’s apartment. The men are missing. They’re doing things pregnant women can’t help them with. Like painting walls and lifting boxes. What were you thinking?

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“I’m huge”

The rest of us in chorus - “No you’re not!”

“Yes I am. Look at you. You’re hardly showing”

*Some reaching over and feeling of belly happens*

“I am showing more than her!”

“But she’s not even at 14 weeks!”

*Pause*
*We all look down at our own bellies*

“Remember when we sucked it in all the time?”

In chorus – “Ooo yeah!!”

“I was usually exhausted by the time I went home”

*Everyone nods understandingly*

“It’s nice to let it all hang out”

“Proudly.”

“In fact, I don’t think this is the baby at all. This is all that was sucked in before”

*Pause*
*We look at her. Admiration mingled with horror*

“Ummm…Maybe not”

You can’t let everything hang out.

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