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......

A Desperate Housewife

Some people are TV addicts, some watch their favorite serials or shows, a few say they do not have interest in watching TV at all, or they do not have time to watch the mass media.

I am in the second category, you won't see me surfing the channels. I have some favorites that I would not miss for anything. One such sitcom that I will never miss is Desperate Housewives. It is a comedy-drama series about these 5 rich and beautiful women who share their deepest secrets with each other. Their lives are seen through the eyes of their dead neighbor. They live in a fictional street called the Wisteria Lane.

But the trouble (that's how I put it) with any sitcom is they air in seasons. These ladies take their breaks for 6 months at a stretch and all we can watch on TV is repeat telecasts. The wait for a new season gets me or any other fan of DP impatient. I just can't stop being proud of our women in Indian Mega serials. Do they have a break? No...they are supposed to report each and everyday. Even known stars like Ramya Krishnan, Khushboo, Dhevayani.....maybe that's the reason why you can afford to miss a couple of episodes in a mega serial and still get back in line with the story!!!!

So here I am...after a long time

Its been 6 months since I wrote in my blog and I should say I have missed 'myself' soooo much, gotta make a vow to keep posting regularly. Lots of things are happening, with me, hubby and our kid on a Europe Trip, changed my kid's school because we weren't that satisfied with his first one, got my authorization to work in the US (finally) so been hunting for a job big time, my in-laws had come to stay with us for 2 months, had been to San Diego this Labor Day...just kept me busy all the time.
In the meantime, I am a bit depressed, because I have been looking for a job for almost 4 months now and there is no progress, each time I kind of hope for something to happen, and it gets me back to square one. I get angry very easily now and I turn it to my poor son, I don't beat him, but I feel like I am not giving him enough love and attention. Small matters turn to big fights with my hubby and I end up feeling very bad. I just hope all this is a phase and good times are in sight.

My Precious

My 28 month old son went to school for the first time today. For sentimental reasons, I put a new dress for him that his grand mother had sent. My hubby took half day off from work just to see how he is adapting to being away from his mom and dad. He was fine, and did not cry when we left him, He was there for three hours. I could not wait to pick him up from school. I rushed into his room thinking he would come running to me and give me a tight hug, but all he did was give me a smile that said 'Hi Amma'. I was so surprised because I was expecting him to miss me!!! Since I am a stay at home mom, I have never left him with anybody for more than an hour. I feel he is so mature for his age, and am sure he is going to be a wonderful person.

"Mom, He is staring at me"

I saw an ad in SUN TV recently that got me to think about the incidents that happened in my childhood days and how it affects me still....there was this AD for Arogya Milk, where the former actress nadhiya and her 'daughter' are sitting in the dinner table, and the daughter tells her that a guy keeps staring at her when she takes the bus to school everyday and her mom says 'stare back at him'....now it's not that the Ad has any relevance to the advertised milk, but it's people like that guy who keep affecting each and every girl. Some girls give a 'don't care' attitude (I really appreciate them because it shows that they are bold and are ready to face the many challenges that await them), and some girls take it to their heart (who, like me want to give a 'don't care' attitude but it still keeps running in the back of their minds).
My mom who wanted to give her daughter all that she did not have in her childhood days, bought me short skirts, pants, t-shirts, long ear-rings etc....When I was 13, I wore one of those skirts to my school Annual day function and my classmate, a boy commented that I had long legs....I did not know if it was a compliment, all I wanted was 'no comments'. After that day, I never wore any skirts!!! When I think about it now, I blame myself and not the guy, why did I have to be so conscious about what people think about what I wear as long as I am comfortable in it. I did not wear sari till 22 because one guy in my apartment complex commented that I did not have the 'right curves'. But when I think about it now, my husband still says I look gorgeous in a sari and wants me to wear it everyday.
My commute to college was by Bus, so I never thought about wearing jeans and shirt at all, I wore a loose fitting salwar with my dupatta all covered and pinned up, Oh....why did I not wear fashionable clothes during my college days....I wear all these here in California, because there are not many people who stare at you and comment about the way I dress, at least I have not come across anybody, save my husband, who has the time to look at me and give their comments.
By God's Grace, if I have a second kid, and if it's a girl, I am going to get her all the fashionable stuff like my mom got for me, give her the confidence to face the world and make sure she doesn't crib (like me) over things that she wanted but did not dare to venture.

Friends forever

"Nobody would choose to live without friends even if he had all the other good things of life."
Aristotle, 384-322 b.C., Greek philosopher

I had gone to one of my friends' baby shower, it took place in a Mexican restaurant and was a girls night out. So dads were at home taking care of the kids. All the ladies, except the pregnant one, were strangers to me. It was awkward at first, but eventually, we all became comfortable around each other and had a good time talking about our husbands, life after marriage, kids etc....one girl brought her friend to the restaurant and introduced her to all of us, said she is a very close friend of hers from school. Both of them were lucky enough to get married to NRIs working in the Bay Area. Looking at them talking about old days and laughing made me miss my friend who is married now and is in Bangalore.
Now its not that I dont have any friends here and am a loner. I have lots of good friends, infact, one of them is from my high school . I can just pick up the phone or go and meet them, talk to them about anything and everything under the sun. I am sure my Bangalore friend would have gone on with her life, making more friends. But we had the happiest days of our lives and the things I shared with her cannot be shared with anybody else (pls, iam NOT talking about lesbian love)
All this makes me think.....right from the day we started walking, we have been (are still being) introduced to lots of people, of different age, and gender. Why then, are we close with just 1 or 2?

'Inspired' by movies

I had a dream yesterday about me and my hubby fighting over something I cant remember, I couldn't sleep after that....now its not that we don't fight at all (argue, let's use a polished word), we fight all the time, but....DO WE HAVE TO FIGHT IN MY DREAM TOO??? It so happened that yesterday afternoon, I usually switch to see what is on SUN TV after my kid's cartoons get over on TV. There was this mega serial (dont ask me the name) going on at that time, wife's trying to spoil her husband's sister's marriage, and her husband found out about it, both of them were fighting and he slapped her. I switched off the TV and went on with my day's work, but what made me dream about it that same night?!!?
Before I got married, I used to go out with my friends and watch some random movie, and if we dint like the movie, we would just walk out. It all changed after my hubby came into my life. He has the knack of picking up really good movies. Infact, the only 2 things I let him decide without asking me are movies and restaurants(he, like me, loves eating yummy foods). He does lots of research, reads reviews from movie sites, picks up Oscar nominated movies etc. We had movie nights at home everyday, and almost 90% of the movies that we watched were really good. It all varied from comedy, action, romance, drama, movies from a foreign category......Now with a hyper active kid who sleeps everyday at 11/12 every night, there is just no time for us to watch any movies together. So I am back to square one. I watch movies when my kid takes his afternoon nap.
One such day, I watched a Tamil horror movie, Sivi with my friend who had come home to see me. We watched it on the desktop, reduced the volume and tried to make the movie less scary, but I still had a horrible dream that night. The other day, I was watching Taare Zameen Par, a good Hindi movie about a boy with dyslexia. It made me so emotional that I held my son close to me all day. The list of movies and the effects that it had on me are endless.
There are movies that give you lots of information (some of them are false), increases your awareness, makes you laugh, makes you cry, makes you scared........They are not just for entertainment. They have become a part of our life.

Be My Valentine

My husband woke up in the morning, took his coffee cup and said as a matter of factly "Do you realize this is the first time after we got engaged, that both of us are together this Valentine's Day??" True, we got married in June 2004 but we got engaged in January. I was in India and he was here. 2nd yr, we were married, of course, but he was off to New York and we were left to celebrate our valentine's day alone. 3rd yr, I was off to India with our kid and he was stuck with work. 4th yr, he was off to Japan for another office trip. This time, there is no India trip, no overseas office trip.......am I looking forward to it....Is it that special a day??? Yes, I am very much looking forward to it....Coz to me, this day is not just celebrated with my hubby (that's what I call him).....I want to celebrate it with my sweet son and my dearest mom too. I have a special place in my heart for them, I think about them all the time......a mother's love, a husband's love and a son's love are all priceless treasures for me....words are not enough to express my love for them, but let me give it a try....
My son......I love you my son, you are the light of my life!
My mom...Thank you for being the one person I could trust, am so proud to claim you as my mom
My hubby...You are my lover, my life, my friend, my world.

HELP......I am getting old

I was sitting in the classroom waiting for the teacher to give my 10th Board exam Question Paper, it was a chemistry test paper, the subject I hate the most.....having to remember all the chemical equations, hmm ....in a way I was happy because I was not going to take Science (Group 1 and 2) in my 11th and 12th grade.....I was dying to finish my 12th grade and end up in college, where you can bunk classes, go to movies, need not wear uniforms, its funny how many movies give you wrong information about college.....i realized it 2 days after I entered my college premises....
I bunked the first 2 days of my class and went on the 3rd day, my class teacher asked me to give the leave letter by the end of the class.....so I wrote it and signed it myself and gave it to the teacher. One look at my leave letter and she sent me out of the class!!!! I came out of a school to go to another school....I then wanted to end my college life soon and go to work, because college life sort of got monotonous for me, but still went on to finish my post graduation. 5 yrs later I got a job, and started working....I had a great time but I wanted more out of my life....so I wanted to take the plunge into married life, got married to an engineer and settled down in the US. Now with a kid and 2 yrs more to hit the 30 yr mark, I want to go back to my 10th std public exam hall and start all over again.....

Time turners

I am a BIG fan of the Harry Potter movies and was quite intrigued by the time turner Hermione used in the 3rd movie, the Prisoner of Azkaban. I wish I had something like this just to turn back the clock and change things. I am sure everybody at some point of time or the other wished they had a chance to turn back the clock and modify things a bit.....and if you hadn't thought about it yet, you are really happy with what you are now, hats off to you!!!!

This happened almost 4 yrs back when my marriage was about to take place, My dad was working for State Bank of India, Palani and he took sometime off from work and came to Chennai just for this occasion. But his manager gave him a call and asked him to run some errand there, so he had to go back to Palani 2 weeks before my marriage. A day after he reached Palani, we got a call from his co workers saying he had an epileptic seizure (fits in non medical terms) and has been taken to the hospital. Unfortunately, the medical facilities out there weren't very good, so he was taken to Apollo Hospital in Coimbatore. They were not able to save him and he passed away early the next morning. If only he had this attack when he was at home, we would have taken him immediately to the Apollo hospital in Chennai, and he would have been saved. I just wish I could go back to that time and stopped my dad from going to Palani. If only that had happened, I would have been talking to him now.
So this blog is totally dedicated to him, I miss him so much. I just wish I had shown him how much I loved him when he was there right before me.