Tagged

I have been tagged by Poppins about when I would judge others.For me,its not an easy thing to write about.Lets see how I do......

I would judge someone if he/she:
# Keeps talking about how every member of their family has studied very well with multiple degrees and how they are doing very well in life.

#Tries to show off desperately the things they do-like gifts they give others.

#Does certain 'bodily actions/sounds' in public,which are strictly supposed to be private.

#Does not respect their parent or not care for them when they most need the support or knowingly give them a hard time,just to make their own lives easy.

#Manipulates others lives/actions on a given day just to make sure that their day turns out the way they want it to.

#Pretends to listen to you while talking,but does not sink in half the information just because they are pre-occupied with some other thing.This is my big one,I will conclude the person has no respect for you and I would feel the same way towards him.You have to be a good listener before you are a good talker.

#Always indirectly asks for compliments,but does not give any to others.

Guess that's all I can do for now......

RD and A1A2's Mom-How about picking up on the tag?

Life As A Nomad

This morning I was counting the number of days we would be at home in the month of July and the number I came up with......9 !!! It started with our Pennsylvania trip for the long weekend during the first week of July.Got back home that Saturday and left the following monday to go and stay at my hubby's cousin's house for 3 days(Hubbs was away on work),got back middle of the week.Left again that sunday night with hubby to give him company during his stay in Hartford.We are heading back home today(after 4 nights),and guess what?yep,we are leaving again this sunday afternoon to Atlanta,to his sister's house and will be back on August 1st !!! So can we officially be called as Nomads,even though we have a single family home of our own?I think so.........

Our stay in Hartford is not bad at all,much better than what I expected.We are staying at a 2 bedroom,2 bath hotel suite,which is similar to or bigger than most apartments I have seen.There is a full furnished kitchen,so I have been making meals for Miss D and some for us too.The weather is nice,so we go out for walks in the evenings,and check out the local action after hubby gets back around 6pm.The best part,no cleaning,no doing the sheets,no worrying about messing up the room.....well,a little;-))

Looking forward to out trip to Atlanta,first because they have moved in to a new house with a nice big swimming pool:-))Best part.Second,to all the help I will get taking care of D,my SIL has two teenage boys and she adores Miss D and would love to hold her 24/7.Third,I am hoping to comfortably leave D in their care and get some time off to ourselves,catch a movie or a nice sit down dinner.

Now the question is -am I enjoying all this traveling or is it too much time away from home,routine and my comfy zone?Yes and no.On a general note,I love to travel,see new places,meet people,enjoy the days of no cooking,cleaning...but at the same time,I will miss my home,and miss my swimming classes,Miss D's Gymboree classes and everything else that happens while we are home.When we were a couple,its a different feeling to be out and not care about where we are.With a kid,its not as easy or may be we take longer to adjust to their routine in a new place than themselves adjusting.I have been packing and unpacking a million times and its no fun.

I am able to do all this since I am a SAHM.Soon Miss D will be ready to go to pre-school and I will hopefully be back in the working world,and will not be as flexible as I am now.So,I should enjoy these carefree days with her and let her enjoy the time with me.

Fun week with 5 other kids

We got together with 5 other couples with kids during the July 4th long weekend.I was so excited about the trip from a long time,since I was going to meet 2 kids whom I had not seen at all and hang out with our friends,which we had not done in a long time.The reason being,everyone was busy getting pregnant and having babies in the year 2006.We met on Tuesday night and drove back home on Saturday.

We had rented an apartment in a resort in a hilly area,nothing much to do,but very scenic.What with so many little ones,we ended up at home most of the time,so the place where we stayed didn't matter.We took a lot of food to cook,especially for the kids.The whole dining table was filled with junk food that everyone brought.We managed to finish most of it !:-)!The adults had a great time,am sure the kids enjoyed too.

Miss D was a little unhappy the night we got there,she slept at the very end of our drive and woke up in a new place,with a whole bunch of new faces looking at her.She kinda freaked out,but was fine the next morning.She enjoyed the rest of the stay,and started playing with an older boy,running behind him and trying to imitate him.She was the only girl among 4 boys:-)You appreciate and enjoy what other kids do only when you have one of your own,at least that has been the case with me.It was so much fun watching all of them run around,pulling each others toys,tugging each others shirts and falling over one and other.

Hope we meet like this often,its a pleasure incomparable to others to see them together.

I hate when I shout

I am writing this with a very bad feeling about myself.I yelled at my little daughter,she cried and went to bed and I can still hear her taking those deep breaths on the monitor,the ones that last much after they stop crying.I yell and the very next second feel terrible about it.Only wish I could hold off just before I am about to loose it and control myself.It happens sometimes,but I catch myself yelling at her once in a while and I HATE myself later.

She had a fun day playing with her second cousin and then spent the evening with her neighbor playmate who is her age.She was very sleepy when I took her upstairs to bed.She's been very unhappy about diaper changes lately and it is a big challenge to change her,especially at night before going to bed.So I was prepared with things to entertain her,and tried to distract her with things which usually would catch her attention,but not tonight.She had a little diaper rash to begin with and I tried hard to sweet talk her while changing and she would not let me do it.Then I yelled,she started to cry and I yelled more and she cried more and more.The work was done,she drank milk while trying to console herself,and dozed off in a few minutes.In the mean time,I almost had tears in my eyes,the poor baby had a diaper rash and was so sleepy and all she wanted was not to be changed.

Hmmm,its all part and parcel of motherhood,raising a child,trying to be a good parent........will feel better once I hug and kiss her in the morning.Waiting to see the cute smile on my darling's face tomorrow.She wakes up every morning by saying "amma" and "appa":-)what more do I want to hear first thing in the morning!

I know when I go.

It happened once,it happened twice,it happened again and now I think ,my almost 16 month old can say 'kakha' when she goes khakha.I am so very proud of that fact.First few times,I thought it was just a coincidence that she said that word and soon after I would have to change her diaper.But she says it as soon as she goes,so it ain't no coincidence,my baby knows :-)I consider this as a step in potty training.

I am making her sit on her potty everyday for a few minutes,but nothing has happened after that one time when she went.I am not breaking my head over it,its not going to happen any time soon,I know.She loves to sit there,for her its 'book' time when she's on the potty,she reaches to the book in the basket as soon as she sits down!

On an other note-yesterday we had a barbeque at our house.There was a little girl,aged 7 or 8 and her favorite second cousin who is much older, but loves to play with her the whole time we meet.Miss D is so happy when there are other people around and loves to get entertained by them.There were 3 other families and I hardly saw Miss D for the whole evening,felt a little weired,but nice.We were in our backyard,enjoying the nice weather and good food being grilled by hubby dear.Then our neighbors sprinkler system went off and Miss D went running right in to the spraying water ! I ran and caught her ,of course she hated me for that.We tried to distract her for a few minutes,but she kept fighting us and running back to the water.So I decided to change her in to her swimsuit,but by the time I put her bottom on,she ran to the water and just before she could get wet,the sprinkler stopped !!! Gosh,she must have thought it was a big scheme that we planned:-)

We didnt want her to think of us as mean,scheming parents.......so we turned the water in the garden hose and she had the time of her life with water being sprayed by her dear cousin.The look on her face by being all wet and water dripping everywhere,was priceless!!!
Picture attached.

A smile is all it takes..............

There was a long silence in my blog world.I was reading other blogs and commenting,but never spent enough time to write my thoughts.While I was away in my own world,Miss D tries to repeat almost everything we try to teach her.She knows to say the word 'Horse' very well and any 4 legged animal is a horse in her eyes.She saw a dog at a friend's house and it became a horse.Any picture of a zebra,giraffe makes her say the word.Now if she hears the name of her cousin,who taught her that word,she has to say 'Horse'.So concluded-Horse is her favorite word of the month !!

Going back to the title:-),I think all parents will agree with me when I say "A smile is all it takes to melt our hearts".It is a little trick they learn from the early days to make us forget everything else in the world and smile back at them.We can be upset,angry,'not in the mood' ,depressed......and the only thing we need to see is those precious little lips move closer to the eye and all those feelings go away,at least momentarily.I can be wild,if she is doing something she is not supposed to and the very next second if I catch her smiling at me,I can not do anything but smile back and hug her.Like,this afternoon I was trying to make her sleep when she was sleepy,but didn't want to sleep.I was rocking her for a long time,she almost dozed off and then started moving around to get up.I was restless and got upset and forced her to sleep,she didn't like it and started crying.So I pacified her and put her on my shoulder,after a couple of minutes she looked at me & gave me the big smile.I felt so bad about what I did,but I know that she forgot in a few seconds and we just hugged and kissed.

So innocent and simple is the mind of a child,they are so upset and mad one minute and the next minute they get over it and move on.The world will be such a better place,if we adults behave in a similar way.There are so many reasons I want to freeze the age my darling daughter is in:
The innocence in everything she does.The sound of all the words she has been saying,so new and so unique.
The way she sucks her thumb and holds on to my shirt with the other hand or when I am in the kitchen doing work,she squats down sucking her thumb and holds on to the end of my pant/pajama.
When we wake up together and I pretend to be sleeping,the way she moves my hand from my face and smiles.
When I pick up her shoes to go out,the way she runs to the stairs to sit on the last stair,for me to put on her shoes.
Small things make her so happy,when I run fast towards her,she has this crazy laugh which sounds adorable.
One of my favorite is all the nice bear hugs and the cute kisses she gives me when I ask her to and when she wants to.
Oh oh,I almost forgot my other favorite,any music she hears and the immediate reaction is to start shaking her butt from left to right and lifting her hands up in the air and dancing.My babe has got her moves!She even came up with this new step of tapping her legs like a salsa:-)!

I know I missed a few points,but if I don't post it now,it will go in to the edit mode for a few more days:-)
The above picture was taken last month.

My life as a working mom

This post is by Poppins of http://babiesanon.blogspot.com

I see a few posts once in a while about working moms. People wonder how we do it all. The answer- we don't. We don't do it all, but we do all we can. We're just as busy and just as involved as a stay at home mom, only our routine looks different. Here's what mine looks like. I'm going to start from when I come back home from work - which is around 6 pm on most days.

6:00 pm: I land from work all eager to see poppin. She does a little war dance and makes all kinds of unintelligible noises
prancing around the room, refusing to let me touch her. It's worth working outside the home just to see this. 5 minutes later, I cannot bear it anymore, so I scoop her up and give her a huge kiss (or many huge kisses) everywhere and start asking her how her day was.

6:15 pm: Our welcome routine over, I listen with half a ear (I'm a bad daughter/DIL) to my mother/MIL. They are usually telling me about their day. I only perk up if they tell me something cute that poppin did, otherwise things like 'Oh the maidservant came late today' etc does not merit my full attention.

6:30 pm: I go into the kitchen and start moving pots and pans around, maybe munch some biscuits, all the time with poppin at my heels watching what I am doing and perhaps hoping for her Mummum. Then I sit down and give her mummum (dinner). She has an early dinner.

6:45 pm: Still eating her dinner, now that the edge has gone off her hunger, poppin starts squirming in her high chair. Out comes my stories of the Thatha who asked the bird to sing, the lion to roar etc. By the time I get through that story and a few of her favourite songs, dinner is done. I pull her down from the chair, wash her mouth and give her 'Akkam' (water)

7:00 pm: Start with dinner preps or help my mil with dinner preps. Poppin is usually spending time with DH at this time. He sometimes combines work with fun by placing her on his lap while they view Mickey/Elmo/barney/Dora etc on his laptop via Google images. Bad daddy :)

7:30 pm: Poppin is thinking that I am spending too much time in the kitchen, so she comes and hugs my legs or tugs at my dress all the time saying 'Mumm-any'. So I carry her, and cook singlehandedly. If MIL is at home, she comes to the rescue and shoos me away from the kitchen saying 'Go spend time with your daughter go !'. Sometimes DH comes to the rescue and takes her to the common area of our apartment where she's playing with the neighbor's kids.

8:00 pm: Dinner done, I sit down with poppin to spend some 'quality time' with her. For half hour we just play, or read. Sometimes I take her down to the lower level where there are some kids or maybe we just go for a walk. Or perhaps to practice climbing up and down the stairs. I also use this time to go to the neighborhood grocery store to pick something up. Poppin loves this me-time. DH is at the gym at this time.

8:30 pm: Time for our dinner now, and poppin loves eating a bit from our plate - adult food does taste more nice. We usually have music on (satellite radio) and we amp up the volume and watch poppin shake her booty. Who needs TV when you have live entertainment?

9:00 pm -10:30 pm: Quality time as family. DH and I let poppin play while we catch up on the day's happenings. Some story telling, some songs, some dancing, some reading. Poppin has a glass of warm milk.

10:30 pm: Time for sleepy land. Poppin goes to sleep, DH and I peep into our respective laptops and then call it a night. Some chatting at the bed before we nod off.

7:00 am : Wake up time for DH and me. I do the morning chores, boil milk, coffee decoction, make oatmeal for DH, fruits/toast for poppin and myself. DH is meanwhile getting ready to go for his long commute to office, has a hurred breakfast and leaves.

8:00 am : Poppin awakes. After some cuddling (it's lovely to cuddle a warm-from-sleep baby), we do the usual struggle of brushing her teeth with her Do-ah (Dora) toothbrush. Then it's her morning milk followed by big job in the potty.

8:30 am: We have breakfast together.

9:00 am: I get ready, go for my bath etc. When MIL is not there, I bathe with poppin. Maybe it will corrupt her to see me in the nude, but hey a girl's got to have her bath right?

9:30 am: Time to leave for office. Regretfully (Ha, who am I kidding?) I either drop her off at my mom's place or just say Bye (when MIL is here). She cheerfully waves bye. It's hard to believe but poppin has NEVER cried when I leave for office, I'm damn lucky so far.

9:30 am-5:30 pm : I'm at office, reading blogs in mini breaks, chatting with my colleagues, drinking yucky office coffee, calling a few times home. And I do some work in between:-)

Poppin meanwhile, has had her bath and food and sleeps for a good 2-2.5 hours in the afternoon. When she wakes up, and eats some snacks, she heads to the park and plays for an hour, before welcoming me home.

If I have to get nitpicky, here's a breakdown of the number of hours I spend with poppin (Not counting the night)

Time spent with me: 8:00-9:30 and 6:00-10:30. Total: 6 hours.

Time spent with her grandma (Not counting her afternoon nap): 9:30-1:00 and 3:30-6:00. Total: 6 hours.

Not bad huh? This not counting the days DH or I work from home.