Patience...is what motherhood taught me or not?

I think I have never been patient in my life for anything like when others are talking, you should patiently listen and then respond (I would cut them short and start talking ..rude i know) or like wait in a line patiently (long queue in movie theatres chuck it..buy it in black even if I could get the tickets had I waited patiently in line) the list goes on, but you get the point right?

Things changed completely after Kulli was born. If someone asks me what changed after motherhood? I immediately without blinking an eye tell them "I ve learnt to be Patient". I think it is true to a great extent. For example, nowadays when I am talking to someone Kulli screams at the top of her lungs and when asked what happened she goes "He no talk to (the person that has my attention currently)", I stop talking immediately and just keep listening to the other person. When I am waiting to board the flight in line Kulli screams again (like mom like daughter you see) so to make sure I dont have the attention of all those boarding the flight, I start entertaining Kulli and forget that I am actually waiting patiently in line. And I have already told you how we go to movies nowadays.

If you still dont believe me let me tell you another incidence that will prove to you that I am extremely patient and have mastered the art of being so. Last week we were in Chicago to visit Shonapa's friend and his wife. We stayed at their place for 4 days. Kulli got a gift as soon as we entered the house. Kulli has never paid any attention to the toys we have got her so far, she will play with the toy for 5 mins and forgets completely about it. But this one toy got her attention for 4 full days. Shonapa played with her the first time and after the cups were all stacked up to a tower all of us applauded the little one. This got her more interested with the toy and she kept building the tower for one full day. Every single time she finished building it, she would look at all of us and we had to duly applaud for "Her Highness". The first day madam built the tower approximately atleast 60-80 times. Each time her mother had to make sure that everyone claps for her (so I had to be patient to do so :)). Also, if she wasnt able to place the cup correctly she would tell me "Amma dont be frustrated, try it again". She told me this atleast a 100 times in one day. At the end I kept telling her "Kulli am getting frustrated cos you are asking me not to so often :)".

Now tell me,  am I not patient?

Mommy Guilt...will it ever go away?

Imagine this: your heart is ripped out, you are still alive and your heart is shook in front of you with such vigour that you feel the pain in your chest. Sorry for describing it like this, I dont mean to be a sadist, but thats the amount of pain I endured this past week when my child had a simple febrile seizure. She has had it twice earlier when she was nearly a year old and the pain was exactly the same.

I have been explained in detail by reputed doctors that simple febrile seizures are harmless especially the ones that has lasted for less than 2 minutes but still when as a mother I see her go throught it, my heart breaks and the guilt demon makes way so deep in me that I cant get rid of it.

Worst is when at the back of your mind the demon keeps telling you ways of how you could have avoided it "you should have given her the acetominophen even if her temperature was normal, you should have done this, you could have done that grrrrrrrr"

Life is much better now (thank god), with the kid doing great and back to normal. Atleast now I am saner, I still panic but at the same time I do respond wisely to such situations.

With all said, my next task is to get rid of this guilt demon. Any ideas how that can be done? What do you do to be a saner, wiser mother?

Love thyself

Isnt it true that we should love ourselves first? Its a great lesson I learnt from my dad and my husband. I always keep reminding myself that I should teach this to Kulli when she grows a little older and understands this. Little did I know that Kulli already loves herself and does not need to be taught :). If you dont agree to this, please read further.

Shonapa keeps telling Kulli "Appa loves you", "Amma loves you" (he actually screams this and its like a game wherein when shonapa screams "Appa loves you", Kulli goes "Kulli loves you"). He then asked her "You Love?" and she said "You", Shonapa was elated but then thought about it for a while and realised she would say the same thing ("You") if anyone asked her "You Love?", thats when he taught her to say "You Love Appa". Kulli learnt this very well cos whenever I asked her "You love?" she would happily yell "Appa", this made me go red in anger, envy and I counted to 10 made sure I was calm and then taught Kulli to say "You Love Amma", I repeated this like 100 times and made sure even if I asked her in sleep she should say "You Love Amma" :) .

So when Shonapa acme home from office, I took Kulli to him and asked her "Amma Loves?", she goes "You", "Appa Loves?" she goes "You" and finally to make my point to Shonapa I ask her "You Love?" and she goes "Kulli" sigh :(

Please Thankyou Appa

This morning Kulli got up and came to me half sleepy (have you noticed their eyes when they walk after sleep, half closed soooooo cute :)) and asks me "Amma phone". I told her Kulli first wish me good morning and then you can ask for the phone and she goes Ammagudamingphone all in one breadth. By then Shonapa wakes up and takes his phone from the table. Seeing this Kulli runs to him and goes Appa giveeeeeeeeeeee...Appa give ittome....Appa giveeeeeeeeeee phone.....I ask her to say "Appa please give phone". She knows the only way she can get is to do as I say and she goes Appa please give. Shonapa melts at this and gives it to her. I then asked Kulli to say Appa Thankyou, she looks at us for a while and goes Appa Please Thankyou (all together so we dont bombard her with more knowledge etiquette while she is browsing youtube :))

Life of Pi

No no..dont go away..this isnt a movie review,relax.

Shonapa and I love to watch movies together..he likes good movies (read it as intelligent movies that tortures your brains for no reason) and I love the mushy, romantic always happy ending movies. Nevertherless we love to go see movies together. I still remember seeing Inception together and discussing (arguing, fighting) about the movie and what it meant and how many levels of dreams etc etc all night long, and we love doing this.

However since Kulli arrived this wish of ours had taken a back seat. And no, we did not stop seeing movies, but we stopped seeing it together so that babysitting becomes easy.
Last sunday I really wanted to see Life of Pi and that too with Shonapa so that we can have one such intellectual discussions/fights regarding God, philosophy etc etc. So we made a plan to put Kulli to sleep and go watch the movie. Kulli naps for exactly 2 hours and so we had to time her nap so that she falls asleep 10 minutes before the movie starts to watch it uninterrupted. Kulli falls asleep when we drive long distance and so the plan was to head out driving till madam falls asleep and then buy tickets for the movie.

Once in the car madam wanted us to play her rhymes CD, we obliged and she goes "stop Kukkaburra stop..." shaking her head, legs enjoying the songs. Whenever I tried patting her, she started singing louder. Did she know our plot? Murphy's law we thought and kept driving praying all the while that she falls asleep. The movie was to start at 3:40pm and we were still on the roads at 3:30pm driving for more than 40 minutes for kulli to go into the zzzzzzzland and give us our movie time. Finally madam went to sleep at 3:40, we run to check if the tickets were available and didnt I say I love happy endings :), we got the tickets watched the movie un-interrupted for 2 full hours all the while Kulli sleeping on my lap.

We come out and discuss the movie, pat our backs at the successful planning, laugh about it.

And yes like the old lady waiting for the car said "we saved on baby sitting too" ;)

Loved the movie (had a happy ending you see :))

Blessed to have a daughter

Yesterday Shonapa and I had a fight. Yours truly is known to lose temper and is the monster/witch in the family. A worse one when really tired and has lots of household chores to be done. So you get the point right, we did have one such fights last night when Kulli was playing some game on the iPad.

She left the iPad, came running to me cos I was screaming and said Amma, Amma.. I did not look at her and was upset at the fight. She climbed up the couch, hugged me (call me a mean mom, but I still didnt calm down). She realised I was still upset and my lil angel kissed me on my cheeks, gave me butterfly kisses, started making cute faces and eventually made the hard rock of a heart in me melt.

Now tell me am I not blessed :)

When does it strike you that your kid has grown..

--> When on forcing to finish the milk she looks at you in your eyes and with a stern, firm voice says "Enough".

--> When she starts helping you in the kitchen like putting milk cans in the trash, getting you onions from where its stored

--> When she hates you for scolding her in front of others

--> When she goes to a corner, makes a long face and stays there making sure you are looking at her to prove that she is upset

--> When she addresses you by your name

-->When she wants to eat on her own with a spoon and does not want you to feed her

-->When she starts humming the songs along with you (not the rhymes but the bollywood songs!)

--> When she pats you to sleep and sings a lullaby too

And all this at 2 years !!