Jump!

Yesterday was my 10 yr old niece’s birthday. And the first one she spent it with me. I did want to make it special. So we ended up with us going to the mall, purchasing her gifts for her. And then we went to “great jump” a trampoline place.

To say the least, its going to be one memorable birthday. Lately, I have been feeling very inadequate. Well, its been moths since I have been feeling inadequate. The reason being, I have always been a planner. If I am having a party at home, I would start cleaning, plan it- till it all fell into place like a planned concert. In my mind, I knew what was going to happen.

Fast forward now, I am lost. I have no clue of whats in the house, no idea of what the fridge has, no idea where that needle is, nor the flash torch. Where are the extra stationary, do we even have some?

Between the both of us, I am the planner- most planning- if not related to solely him falls on me. I am also the live-walking sticky note. So, if you think about it, thats a lot of stress on me. My mom and my sis both looked upto me like I am crazy when I vented out to them. ” You are lucky, they said.Your husband does everything”. I started feeling bad for my vents and complains. At the same time I was talking to a college of mine, an American one.He asked me if my husband thanked me for letting him off the hook EVERY weekend to do what he wants to do.

I thought about it a bit more, and narrowed it down to expectations, my brother-in-law and father were the typical indian males, would not move a finger to do a thing. So naturally to them my husband was a gem of a person (and I am not denying it). But on the other hand, the american guy was tied rather tightly by a rather thick rope- and rightly so, he has two little kids.

But, one thing that my sister said was that she totally understood where the frustuation came from, she saw that I really did have to take care of EVERYTHING. It was almost like I was giving written instructions – to a school kids. If the instructions were messed, missed, or forgotten it would not be done. And so, she said. “Let it go”.One another thing a friend said was “don’t try and be perfect” your daughter is going to want to follow it.

Its going to be one hard concentrated effort on my part to let go. To not kill myself- to make things work. Its not funny when in the past month I have blacked out – not once but twice- because of exhaustion. I promise started next month I will be a little more lax and a lot more relaxed. I have accepted my curly hair, I think if I work hard at it- I can make this a habit.

I have hair- and other things women don’t talk about.

Its been almost suicidal when it comes to self-image maintenance. Post baby- I must say I have become a hazard in the looks department. I had forgotten how thick and caterpillar like my eyebrows could grow to. Or that I have hairy legs which I hide under my black tight-fitting trousers because wait my hips have grown to double the size, since I last visited the gym eons ago.

So I took a week by week cleansing process ,a looming visit from the family  helped. The desire to preen kicked in. I am in week 2 now. Week 1 started off by booking AND KEEPING the eyebrow appointment. Once the lady whipped my eyebrows into shape she said to me in dismay (in hindi) “madam, what have you been doing to your eyebrows. They have such excellent shape, you had just messed it up”. To which I wanted to throttle her and  ask her if she had a baby. But then I decided that sometimes you do want nothing but the truth and not just the ” You look nice” that my husband throws at me ever so often.

The next week, it was to go color my hair which was followed by a talk with a co-worker about her curly hair. She said she made peace with it. She even let me borrow a book on curly hair- and I went and purchased some products, I must say I am thrilled. I love like how my hair looks like. I have started liking my curls. I’ll wait a few months before I walk to the curl salon and get a proper curly hair cut. This is a HUGE deal for me. For a good part of my life I have been struggling to accept my curls- everyone loves straight shiny hair. Well, I am not everyone. I have curls

What next? I need to lose those 5 lbs, and buy new clothes. In other news, I have stopped pumping- oh lord you have no idea how much time that frees up!. Which then, gives me time to actually go to the gym during my lunch break. Is this where I slowly start getting my life back? .

Hi there, been …

Hi there, been a while eh?. A lot of things happening, a lot to report. But.. absolutely no time to jot it all down.  I am down with a serious bout of cough and cold, something the dot got home from daycare. Today marked the first day that she didn’t cry while daddy dropped her at day care, an ecstatic dad called to say so . 

 

Yesterday as I layed down with a dose of Nyquil (yum) and the hubs got me a bowl of man made khichidi, I ate it with gusto and then said that it felt like old times, where I could actually affford to lie down…it felt good- sometimes falling sick is a good thing  

 

May 7th- May 14th is teachers appreciation week, so…well I have something planned for the lovely teachers that the dot has. I especially love miss Ditte. She is so patient, calm, reassuring that I feel like sitting with her at daycare. Apparently my girl is popular too- as I pick her up, and carry her rather proudly – all the she humans call out to her and wave her a “bye”. There is something about my little girl.  I knew it!. 

Her teacher said she is thankful to have her in her class on some days- because my girl has a sense of humour- in the middle of her  mumum- she’ll give you abroad smile- like a goofy one. Or she’ll do something funny and she’ll smile at you- like “did you understand my humour”. The other day I was teasing her about growing up and I said jokingly ” little girl, you better put on weight, mommy is trying to fatten you up”.to which she grinned back- like “yeah yeah I know”. Well, I could go on and on about her. 

So, I am planning on gifting the teachers something, but using the opportunity to actually bake something for the girlie’s birthday. Lets see, if I am in the mood, and if it turns out right -I’ll probably blog about it!!

My head hurts, but I am fine.

Today marked the end of the 3rd visit to a specialist. It turns out she is doing fine, only we could be sitting on a time bomb. Its definitely scary. But, its a huge relief. The past 3 weeks have been my toughest by far as a mother. I feel even more insecure of whats to come. I know exactly what it feels now. 

They have ruled out the dreaded syndrome. Something no parent wants to hear about -ever. But at the same time, I am wondering if working with special needs kids would be something I would want to work on?. I pinged an online group, one of them said she is constantly looking for a special needs teacher, but- she said she looks for the personality and not the qualification.Do I have it in me?. 

We were happy to rule out the syndrome, but what if a parent was given a negative feedback- it would feel like the world just came crashing in on them, I cannot even imagine.

 

Being a Mom.

of a healthy baby is one thing. But the hardest thing is hearing that something could be wrong with her. My heart felt like it would burst. And  I had my third panic attack. I could not breathe- I wanted to go hide somewhere.

Today, I hate being a mom. I understand what it means to have your heart walking outside your body, I know exactly what it means. And I am not kidding when I say ” I will give up my life if want be, to protect this little one, even if it means the baby has a .01% chance to live”. 

I remember I had asked my husband while I was pregnant “If he has to choose between me and my baby who would he choose”, he had replied me. If he had chosen me, today I know I would have never forgiven him or myself. 

Being a mom is hard. and its hard as hell.

Lucky.

I go back and look at the picture of me and my little one finishing the 8K together and I feel extreamly lucky. Lucky to have a supportive husband, and incredible baby and my oh my a loyal loving dog. I feel truly blessed, and I can’t wait to start my life all over again with just the 4 of us. 

I feel hurt when people look at tell me ” you are lucky” or ” you should thank your husband” and that not in a nice way. The three people who I mentioned above get my undivided attention and my love, I care- and they know it. I thank them verbally with words, pats and hugs. I am open in my conversation with my spouse and I apologise and promise to do better when I am wrong. I try not to stress them out with my problems and most of the time try to be positive. 

But then, I say ” Be jealous, very jealous” and walk on. Its definetly not that I don’t have problems in my life, I just chose not to talk about them, or don’t really pay as much attention to them. Is it bad that I prefer focusing on whats good? . 

I spoke to the career counsellor- it was good. It gave me food for thought. I promise to work on it, except maybe the time is not now. I feel I can’t change too many things in one go. This will take time. Slow and steady. For one, this past few days, its been fun working here- I think if I hang in for some time-things might get better ?

The second, I am trying to take care of myself- my physical self that is. I don’t feel healthy. So trying to get back on an exercise regime itself is taking some time. 

Daughter starts day care next month, I know that will cause a different kinda routine and change. Is life all about this? change and me trying to adapt to it? Which means I need to be quicker in accepting change and going with the flow. I cannot pause life. I need to continue with what I am dealt with. Thats does sound like a plan, and sounds and feels better now that I have typed it out. * lets out a deep breathe.

Its weird, I have started thinking about somethings, about wanting to go back and explain. But I know that would be the wrong thing to do. Sometimes chapters read and thought about are better to be closed and left as is. We do not believe in breathing air into a dead character and resurfacing them back into the present do we? 

I love going back and wathing me and the baby at the finish line. It significies a zillion things to me that I can, that I can start and finish, that I can do it, and I can do it with her. I love the feeling. Feels positive. With that, have a great weekend. Stay warm! ..and…fuzzy  

Just you know, this and that.

Its crazy you know. This intense desire to write SOMETHING. But, then when you begin to type something…you pause.You look down at the delete button and press it umpteen times, till everything is a clear canvas.Rinse.Repeat.

I wrote something down, I re-read it and then smirked – like a lot. and then you guessed right, I deleted it. Because, uhm, I found the post a little too emotional for my taste.

So here I am. First things first, I don’t think I like my job. I don’t see myself sitting here for a long time. The question is not if, the question is when. The problem is that I don’t know where to go next. I have a long term goal in mind. And so with that I got in touch with a career counsellor who I plan to talk to next week. Well, thats a first step I assume.

My plans to celebrate babys birthday, the enthusiasm has fizzled. Sad. I  know.I think I am just overwhelmed. I need to reclaim the kitchen.

I will update this post, once I come back from dinner. I hate being interrupted and I had timetables and schedules. Hate…and thats an understatement. I can’t wait to going back to a house which is quite and peaceful.Breathe.

I was on an old portal I used to work on, and I felt a tingle as I was there, nostalgic almost. But, its odd, though I enjoyed working on that project and have fond memories of it, I don’t want to go back. Don’t want to go back to the project or the people I have worked with. For me this is significant, especially since one of them asked if I would want to pursue and opportunity there. I don’t think I ever want to work with them.Again. I think its because, I have changed. They will expect me to be THAT person they once knew.It was nice as is. Let it remain that way.

Rambling, I know. Know what I miss most? . A feeling of belonging..to something. I feel like I am adrift again. I would find solace with the work I did- a feeling of belonging to a company. I don’t have that feeling anymore- and I lack the passion I felt for the place I work with. I would look up sites like glassdoor, plug in the stock symbol on google search to know and hear about the company I worked at. Today, I care less. Infact, though people tell me that the company I work in, is doing great.I don’t care. I dont see how people enjoy working there. Where. is .fun? . Work is supposed to be fun. Work is supposed to give you satisfaction . I don’t find it that way anymore, and for me…if I spend 8+hours a day away from home. It has to be something that I really want to do.

Mid life crisis you think?

Sometimes, my magic just for the heck of it- I want to meet people from the past (contradictory I know) . And ask them, if they find that I have changed. Or, better still..after all this time..if they did think about me. What did they see me as?That one word that comes to mind when they do think about me perhaps ?

Something that come to my mind?. unreliable, distant, needy,disgust,pity,sadness. I think there is a reason why these people are not in my present, and I don’t see them to be in my future.

What else do I write about? My achy back?. or the 7 lbs that I have put on in the past 3 months? . Its like there is no escape. The amount of disgusting oil in the cooking..there is no escape. I don’t have a choice, or do I?. I think I will stick to cereals for mornings.

I have started my exercise regime again. Aiming for 2 times a week is not a bad idea, plus walking a 5k should help.5 weekends I can do this.

Well, looks like I am done. No more itchy fingers to type stuff up. Just they way you ordered it “random stuff in no particular order”

 

 

 

 

shoes

Today, I felt rich and ugly. We purchased a bob stroller- an orange one. Its expensive, but considering that, that could be our ONLY stroller – which is expected to last us 3+ years, we were willing to invest in it- more so since husband is a runner- we thought it would suite our lifestyle well.

Anyways, me, the daughter and our dog went for a mini jog round the house- I felt rich- I have always felt that rich women who were perfectly shaped jogged around with their babies and dogs. But me, ehh- unkept hair- over sized jacket- dark circled- dragging myself along- I felt untidy and fat.

Its been ages since I purchased new running shoes. Was it in 2005? . I could feel the pavement through my shoes- and yes, I am very familiar with it. I remember as a student wearing shoes with holes in my soles. When it rained/snowed, the wetness would soak in through my soaks.!

I was cheap – my first job as a student was to work at the cafeteria, for Sodexho Marriot. They provided their employees purple tops, navy blue pants and black shoes. They didnt have my size, they had a size bigger- but it suited me fine- my feet would swell at the end of the day- I am glad THAT lasted for ONLY a month. But that black shoes served me for a long time.

How far I have come, for some odd reason, I don’t seem to remember any of it- except when I smell, touch, feel something- which feels familiar.

PS: Its odd, how the feeling of the pavement underneath, an article in the university alumni newsletter can make you pause life for a moment and make you write a thank you note to your advisor- your professor who got you, your financial aid. I hope he forgives me, I don’t remember if I did work for him enough- maybe I didn’t, maybe I didn’t . I was naive and stupid to be caught in boy troubles then. I perhaps would have done things differently now.

 

 

giving back.

Its 9:18 PM on a Tuesday night. I am 35 years old. Today, at work I received an email from a co-worker I have always ‘planned’ networking with, but never got to. The co-worker and another was laid off. I was stunned because I did not expect it. The reason, I am sure what that the skill set is no longer required or something lame like that. I just feel its more of a american VS non-american attitude. The non-american worker was chucked out.Lame. I hate politics and I refuse to play it, though it means me loosing my job over and over again. I know someday I will die happy knowing I didn’t compromise my morals. I am very.very. clear about that. No doubts about it anymore.

But, I am even more desperate today- I want to do something I feel happy and contended for. I want to help people. Women in particular. How? Damn, my life seems to be ticking by, and I haven’t contribute to mankind.

I heard a laugh a few days ago- from the chair next to mine. I was jolted. I spied the person from the corner of my eye- I saw the hand gesture, the laugh , the hand over the mouth kinda laugh. The laugh subsided. But, I did tear up. I hate it when that happens. I want it to stop.

I am feeling really anxious.and impatient.

Today

I watched a video of a baby crawling on babycenter.com and started crying. Ahh, its tough on the mommy side of the world!