8 things about myself

I've been tagged by UTBT and Kodi's mom. Thanks both of you for my very first tag!
Well 8 things about myself...here goes -

1. I still breastfeed my daughter who is going to be two soon. And dreading the weaning process. Why I still breastfeed her? - WHO recommends that babies be breastfed for 2 years, it's the easiest way to make her sleep, I've not been able to wean her - she cries her head off when I say no, and of course the health benefits for mom and baby that are supposed to be there.

2. I learnt crocheting from the internet when I was pregnant and made lovely booties and headbands for my daughter that she never wears! At one point in time, it was an obsession, I would take the needle and wool and keep crocheting away!

3. I still miss being with my parents 3+ years after marriage. The best part about having a baby was the 4 months I spent at my parents home. I wish society was different in India and parents stayed with their daughters rather than their sons. Sounds logical - daughters are always more attached and will look after them with understanding affection. Most sons are not that attached to their parents, and especially not understanding. And it is unfair to expect a daughter in law to look after her in laws like her parents. Ever noticed how it is always the 'son who is looking after his parents so well and never the daughter in law', though she does all the dirty and hard work. But is there is a problem, it is because of the daughter in law, not the son.

4. I love clean houses but hate cleaning. I just dump stuff in the cupboards and lock them up;-)

5. My name has no known meaning. My parents just took it from a brand they liked, which sadly is no longer around. So, whenever someone hears my name, they ask me what it means, and I say that it means me. Someday, people will name their daughters after me, and will refer that great person after whom they named their babies:)

6. I wanted a son, cos I thought it's an easier life for boys. But, am glad God gave me a daughter. I hope I can make her strong and independent and loving and caring and giving and all the things I wish I was more of.

7. I've paraglided once. A friend and myself signed up for a session - to do something new and different in out dreary lives. It wasn't as exciting as I thought it would be. The view from above was just like watching from a terrace. Guess I am a boring and dreary person myself. I love staying at home over weekends and the only thing that excites me is shopping, or rather window shopping.

8. I plan no end for occasions like my husbands b'day or our anniversary and the lucky guy gets wonderful surprises and gifts. He doesn't return the same. Silly man neither understands neither subtle nor direct suggestions from me on what I want:(

Eating with kutti

Kutti is a fussy eater. Period.
It's been a struggle to get her to eat ever since she started solids at 6 months. And with her slow weight gain - it has left me a frustrated and always guilty mother. It's been some trick or the other to get some food into her mouth. sometimes it would be putting her in front of the mirror and feeding the 'kannadi paapa' or mirror baby, or making her lie on my lap and give a bowl of water to play while I quickly put in a spoonful when she opens her mouth by mistake, or put on the TV and feed her hoping her favorite ads would run on repeat mode, or....you get the idea. If nothing works, pin her down, hold her hands tight and shove the spoonful inside! Cruel - but what do you do? No matter what the experts say, you can't just leave your kid with a few morsels per day. There are times when she is a model baby and would voluntarily eat her food...and before you can confort yourself that the bad days are over and picture her eating like this for the rest of her life, she will decide that 4 spoonfuls are enough and then you are back to the usual routine.
Sometimes I get bright ideas that maybe I am putting her off food with all my force feeding and maybe I should leave it to her - and that doesn't last more than a day.
Give her a plate of rice to eat and she would drive even a saint up the wall. You see her take one big spoonful and feel happy thinking she is going to eat it. But, no...she has ither ideas. The spoonful gets dumped in another corner of the plate. You stay calm and repeat your requests for the spoon to be put in the mouth. So a spoonful starts moving upwards when suddenly kutti declares that it is 'pey' (perisu or big). So you ask her to take a smaller quantity (chinna spoon or 'chin'). So she agrees 'chin' and takes about 4-5 grains of rice and again changes her mind just as it was about to be put in the mouth. She wants to take a 'tutti'(kutti or tiny) amount. So off go all the grains till there's one tiny morsel left. And by the time she puts the spoon in her mouth, that morsel has fallen off. And poor amma has reached the end of her patience, and picks up kutti and the plate and heads off outside to show her the crows and try and feed her:(

How does one rise above the pettiness of others

There are lot of people one meets and sees who seem so dignified and are always so polite and charming. I sometimes wonder how they would react if someone were to cheat them or bad mouth them. Would they still be able to remain calm when provoked.
The way you interact with people is dependant on the kind of people they themselves are. If someone is nice and friendly, you also loosen up and are nice and friendly. If someone is serious, you tend to be the same way with them. But when somebody's being mean, how do you react without becoming mean yourself! I mean, most of us are not saints.
And how does one deal with someone like your MIL who you cannot wish away from your life, but who is not so nice behind your back and in front of you! When I got married, I was this really naive person who thought everybody in her husbands family was wonderful, especially her MIL. But down the line, one learns otherwise! The problem is that she goes on pretending to be the great person she is... and I am left spending a lot of productive time on things like - I should have replied like this when she said that...next time she comes down, I will behave like this...and so on. I've become a lesser person thanks to her!

Lean babies are healthy babies

Kutti was a nice fat baby when she was born at 3.75kgs. I was mighty proud of myself for "my achievement". But after her 4th month, her weight gain started going down. I put it down to her body catching up with her genetic weight profile as I am small built myself and so is my husband. I continued nursing her exclusively despite the doc recommending solid food. We started solids at 6 months and madam turned out to be a very fussy eater and still is. She didn't gain weight at all for 3 months from 7th to 9th month. And then we started getting a little worried. Doc did blood and urine test and all turned out to be normal. Thereafter she started putting on a little weight thankfully - I used to take her to the grocer's shop and put her on the weighing machine to check her weight:) And now at almost 2, she is 10kgs and a little more. She is the same size as my neighbour's 1 year old! But atleast she is putting on a little weight each month. And I keep my fingers crossed:)
The funny thing is that whenever something is wrong with the baby, it is invariably the mother who is blamed. According to my MIL, she did not gain weight earlier on 'coz I am a vegetarian in a non-veg eating family and my breast milk is no good! And she would tell this in front of all and sundry! And that we (read my parents and myself who held her and rocked her to sleep when she was an infant) passed on too much of our body heat to her and hence she didn't gain weight. And I don't feed her nutritious food. And so on... And of course, my own doubts on whether I was doing a good job of being a mother.
But I'd like to believe that lean babies are healthy babies and grow up to be healthy adults.

Who does your baby take after?

I'd had a c-sec for kutti's delivery and was in an anaesthetic fog when I first saw her. To be honest, I was in for a shock. She looked like her appa, to be more precise - like her thatha (appa's appa). Right down to the bald head! None of the rush of motherly love or tears of happiness. I felt miserable as a mother. For some reason, the connect didn't happen the way we see in movies or read in books.
The next day when I saw her properly, I started appreciating how beautiful she was. At 3.7 kgs, she was a nice fat baby, hardly like a frail newborn. Her little feet, and her littler hands - I loved them. Also, I found that she had my nose and ears:) I was ecstatic. Yes, my baby did have something that looked like me.
As she grows bigger, I like to think that she's looking more like me - atleast she looks more like me when I was a baby than my husband.

Dancing

My baby girl loves dancing to dhin chak songs! The latest on her list is pokkiri pongal from pokkiri. Yikes...I know:(
But she's got a nice grace to some of her moves and me and my husband think that she'll end up a great dancer along with Olympic champion and company CEO and social worker.

Where is my appa?

Yesterday my husband (appa) decided to shave off his mustache. Kutti who's always seen him with a mustache - now refused to recognise him. She would cling to me and cry whenever he came near. Now and then she would remember and point to below her nose and say 'Appa...appa'...so I told her that if she called it, it would come. So she's been doing 'va va va...' all day!!! Today after a lot of cajoling, she's going to appa again. And, yes - she's learnt another word - meesai (mustache in Tamil):)

Where do grandmom's get energy when a grandchild is born

My mom was 59 years old when kutti was born. Not too old, but for some one who's had 5 major surgeries - tough.
She's always been energetic - finishing up her work in a jiffy and multitasking even before the computer world thought about it. Cooking food that normally takes 1 hour for me, (and 2 hours for my MIL;-) would be done in 25 mins.
And in Tamil Nadu, where kutti was born, people have the most funny and impractical customs. They will visit by hordes to see the baby soon after the delivery. We have to provide them with tea or coffee or buttermilk or juice with or without sugar or milk - they will NEVER say don't bother! They know that the family would have been up all night with a colicky baby and would love to get any rest that they can during day time, but will come and gossip for hours together. And of course, they will have to customarily push a dirty 100 rupees note in the baby's hand which naturally curls and holds the note and exclaim that the baby is already holding on to money!
Where my mom got the patience and energy to handle all these people, and take care of me any my baby - I will never know. But here's a big salute to her and her wonderful spirit - I wish my baby girl turns out like her.

The dog and the baby

I was staying with my parents for my baby's (kutti (little one in Tamil)) delivery and was with them till kutti was 3 months old. We have a lovely Pom - S who was the darling of the family till kutti was born. In a sense, she was the baby. No photo was taken without S in it!.
But after we brought kutti home, S became the outcast. She was tied outside all the time and we were irritated with her whinings. With a new baby in the house, every little thing seemed to bring in germs and infections and S was now looked at as one big germ carrier. Poor doggie. But one should have seen the way she came running in when kutti was crying - like it was her own baby!

My first post

As cliched as the title sounds, well here goes - my first post!
After months of reading blogs and thinking of starting one myself, I finally took the plunge - another member of the blogging community.