Happy Mother's Day

There is no love in this world that can be compared to a mother's love. It is forever strong, never changing for all time and when her children need her most, a mother's love will shine.

When I was a teenager, I had a very big fight with my brother (he is elder to me by 2 yrs). For some reason, I really don't remember what it was about, we ended up wrestling each other. My mom had just come home from work and she was shocked to see us bleeding on the face and hands. She tore us apart and asked us to calm down. We started to argue with our mom as to who started the fight. She listened to us patiently and started scolding me. I got very angry and thought that was just not fair. I told her that I was younger and that he should not have prodded me. When she was still not convinced, I told her that she never loved me, and her son is the most important thing in this world for her. She was stunned at first and told me patiently that her 2 kids are her 2 eyes. I never believed it at that time, never thought how much it would have hurt her. I realized my mistake when I had my son in my arms for the first time. I might have 1 or 2 more kids in the future, but all my kids are the same to me. They are, like my mom told me, my 2 eyes. I can't live without them.

I love you mom.

The boy who never sleeps

What can a mom do when her hyper active 3 yr old refuses to sleep at night even when he is really sleepy?

There are different types of toddlers...some take a sound nap for 2 hours in the afternoon and still sleep for 10 hours at night (lucky moms!!!), some refuse to take a nap even for an hour in the afternoon but sleep early at night (well, moms are not that lucky, but they can have a break at night), some kids (like mine) refuse to take a nap in the afternoon and sleep at midnight after all the cajoling and threatening. They still have the energy to wake up early in the morning and wake their moms.

My son does take a nap in the afternoon only if I sleep with him. If he finds out that I am not sleeping with him, he wakes up too. There is no such thing as a sound nap for him. The same goes at night too. I try to put him early to bed (by early, I mean 10 PM) and come down for a bit of a couple time with my hubby when I hear a voice from the bedroom. I have tried all kinds of tricks with him, cajoled him, threatened him, shouted at him but nothing works. He sleeps only when he is 'satisfied' that there is nothing else left for him to do, and to top it all, he wakes me up in the morning saying "amma, get up, we got lots of work to do today".

I am really longing for an hour long bubble bath, watch some movies, just stretch my legs and read a book. When will my simple needs be met:-(

Movie Mania

I have never been a movie buff. I select movies because it stars familiar and likable characters.Since my amma has come here (oh, she is gonna go back in a couple of days, feel like crying), I take her to the public library at least once a week so she could pick up some tamil novels. I started browsing the library's video collection and picked up some movies. I just watched these 2 movies yesterday and they were undoubtedly the best movies that I have seen in the past year. Random Hearts is a romantic thriller starring Harrison Ford. I chose this movie not because of the lead character but because of its tagline..."In a perfect world...they never would have met". It was a wonderful movie about two people getting together after their spouses die in a plane crash. It turns out that their spouses were having an affair. I also thought the title as an apt description of the movie. Return to Me is a romantic movie. I selected this because of the X-Files guy, David Duchovny. The characters are so lovable and you just get involved with them so much that you feel empty after the movie ends. If you are a romantic like me, don't miss them..and don't forget to thank me for it;-)

and yeah...I forgot to mention, this is my first post for 2009. Taken me 3 months to scribble!!!!

Like father, like son;-)

It is so common everywhere...we see our friends, our family members or even a person sharing the elevator, and the words just come out of your mouth...."ohhhh, he is so cute, looks like you" or "she looks like a mix of both of you". Some people say the kid looks like the mother, some say he/she looks like Dad. In my son's case, the unilateral decision is that he looks like his dad totally. Good for me that I have a birthing video so I can show him that I am his biological mom!!!!
Apart from the looks, there are also other things that we inherit from our parents, like the way you fold your legs when sitting, or the hand writing (slanting or straight). My son too, has inherited these other qualities from his dad.

1. Impatience: When I go shopping with my hubby, I have to write a to-buy list, so all we have to do is go to the particular aisle and get the stuff that's needed. Any window shopping is strictly prohibited. Take my son shopping and he is at his worst behavior. Never gives me time to browse for stuff.
2. My son and my hubby are not outdoor guys. My hubby's idea of a great day is to wake up late in the morn, read the news(he can read it for hours), have a delicious home cooked meal, take a nap for an hour or so, and then watch a movie in the evening. My son would sit on for hours with his numbers and alphabets puzzle and never get bored with it, he always prefers playing with his toys rather than going out and playing in the slide.
3. Both of them are very content and happy when their simple pleasures are met. My hubby gets excited with the new issue of Time Magazine. My son would jump with joy if I spend time with him doing reading, writing or coloring.

I am sure you can point out lots of stuff common with your kids or your parents. But what gives my son the unique edge is his tooth. Just have a close look at my son's teeth formation. We had gone to San Fransisco yesterday and this was the smile he gave us when we took him to a park, and showed him the ducks. There is a gap between his lateral incisor tooth and his canine tooth. There are 2 canine teeth for all of us, on the left and the right. For my son, they have changed places, that is, his left canine tooth is on the right. Guess who has the same teeth formation??

The most delicious thing yet....from my kitchen

A couple of days back, I had dropped my son in school and went to the service center to fix my car. The waiting time was more than an hour so I was cursing myself for not bringing a book to read. How was I going to spend an hour without doing anything. Just as I was beginning to get impatient, there it was, on the big flat screen TV, my favorite channel, Food Network was running. I just couldn't stop grinning (it was a simple pleasure really which turned out to be expensive later on!!!). I couldn't contain my excitement when my favorite show was on....Everyday Italian. God, I just love food. Its always a wonder to see all the edible colors in a meal.
So on that particular day, Giada, the host of this show, was making Pineapple Upside Down Cake(If you want to look at her recipe, go to the food network website and type Pineapple Upside Down Cake). She used fresh pineapple, caramel sugar, eggs and cake mix and made it into little cup cakes. The end result was just mouth watering. Since I couldn't take that picture out of my mind, I went straight to the grocery store and got all the ingredients to make my version of the cake. I made an eggless version of sponge cake today and instead of the icing on top, I put the carmelized pineapples. For more color, I grated hersheys chocolate and sprinkled it on top. Well, I am a very good cook, and I must say this is the best yet to come out of my kitchen.

Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow

Yesterday: A couple of weeks back I had a play date at home with my friend. Her kid is the same age as mine. We were talking about our age and when we had our kid(s), she has 2 and she brought her second one home. I told her I was 25 when I had my darling and she said "oh, so Ani is an accident, then". I sheepishly said "yeah". True, he was an accident, and when I first found out that I was pregnant, I did not know how to react. Of course, I wanted to have a kid but I just did not know if I was ready for it. When I told my dear hubby (am emphasizing the 'dear' part here, because he read my last post when he was at work, gave me a call and said 'I Love You') the news, he thought about it for a second and said " so am I going to be a father?". As days went on and a couple of trips with the doctor, I was still not sure if I was looking forward to my days as a mother. I did not have morning sickness, watched baby channels, shopped for maternity clothes, counted my baby's moves everyday, listened to lots of music, shopped for baby stuffs and countless things...not to mention the amount of food I ate, oh, I was so fat and over weight that people around me thought I was going to give birth to a huge baby. But nothing in this world could have amounted to the joy on the day I gave birth to my boy. He did not weigh much (hmm, it took me a lot of time to shed my 'baby' fat), kept sleeping 90% of the time, and it took us a lot of effort to wake him up and feed him. Days went by and he started smiling, crawling, walking, talking, and my dear (again!!) hubby and I were so proud of him. We realized his feelings, his happiness, his needs. We, in turn, learnt stuff on the way.

Today: Here is a 35 month old boy who wakes up early in the morning (he wakes me first), brushes his teeth with lots of grunts and shouts, eats his cereal (well, most of the stuff is on the floor), waits for Dad to go to work, takes his lunch, says 'Bye, Priya. Got to go to office, have a meeting with my Boss'. puts on his coolers (Its very hot outside, you know), takes his car and gets me groceries. He is bilingual, talks English and Tamil with ease. He knows how to get his way with his mom and dad. He loves to hear stories about people falling down(!!!) and laughs at silly rhyming words. He is a happy person and is really fun to be with.

Tomorrow: I was watching the new season of Desperate Housewives and how Lynette Scavo was trying to communicate with her teenage son. She used a site similar to Orkut and Facebook, posed herself as a teenage girl and chatted with her son. When her son finally found the bluff, she told him how desperately she missed her conversations with him. I saw that scene, looked at my son, and asked my dear hubby if Ani was going to do this to me. Am I going to miss his smiling, innocent face when my small boy becomes a teenager? No, I want to be his best friend. I want him to know that I have his best interests at heart. I want him to confide in me. I want us to have the best mom-son relationship. Now, Am I asking for too much???

Have I changed?!!!

I got married in 2004, I was 24 then. I was so looking forward to my life after marriage, always wanted to be a good wife, a great cook, home maker, mom of 2 adorable kids....never a career oriented woman. Well, all went on as planned, I started cooking edible food, waited each day for my dear hubby to come home from work, got pregnant 6 months into our marriage (which surprised many). Me wanting to be a stay at home mom started during my childhood days. My dear mom is a working mom (she still works even after my dad's death. Me and my brother are very particular about it because she needs some distraction too). She did not have enough time at home to take care of us.I have always envied kids whose moms were home makers. They had all the time for their kids. I was so needy (still am, as my hubby puts it), yearned for my mom's love and attention all the time. Well, to sum it all up, I did not want my kids to feel that way about me and I wanted to be there for my kids anytime.

Now, I have changed my mind, I want to work, want to look into advancing my career, thinking about waiting a year more to have the second one (my first is 3 yrs old now and people have started asking questions as to when I will be expecting). What has made me rethink about my future?

The first thing that comes to my mind is loneliness. As a person who is so used to the noisy streets, nosy neighbors,lots of friends, and especially my mom's love, life in the US is different. You can't just go and knock somebody's door and say HI, sometimes you can live in an apartment for a year or so and don't even know your neighbors. It's not like I am living in a totally isolated area where you don't even see a fly, I am in the heart of silicon valley and Indians are a plenty. But meeting your friends in India is different from meeting them here, need to call them, set up an appointment with them!!!!

Society too has made a big impact on me. People are so independent here, women really don't mind working in a gas station or being a waitress. I went to an optometrist and saw an 80 yr old lady behind the reception. Of course, most of them had to work because they got to make both ends meet. I don't have any problems like that, fortunately. We are well off, but extra income is always welcome.....

Lastly, I need to see how it feels to be working here, I have worked for Hewlett Packard in Bangalore and in Chennai, but not anywhere in the US.

As luck would have it, the financial crisis has made the job search very difficult, Finance professionals (like me) are being laid off...hmm, I am not going to give up......