To Empathize...and to care...

I feel we are in such a fast paced life that it looks like there really isn't anytime to sit back and relax, to enjoy the moment, to have a listening ear, TO EMPATHIZE...and TO CARE..

As a parent I always feel its my responsibility to teach kulli all of the above. I do not want to be a parent that just talks about these things but also follows it so that kulli can actually see and learn. I do not know how far I have been successful. But I am a very proud mother when I see the little one empathizing and caring for others. To me its extremely important to emapthize with others cos I feel that's how everything else will fall in place. That's how one can imbibe good values, one can understand the difference between good and bad, once can make the right choices. You get the drift right.

Now the reason for this post is, I definitely wanted to put few incidents here that shows how kulli empathizes and cares for others, so that kulli can read them years from now and feel good about it.

Kulli goes to a park nearby everyday and has quite a few friends there. Once day one of her friends (lets call her S), came to the park and was quite sad with her eyes still wet from all the crying at home.
Kulli and her friends observed this and they checked on her (These kids are all 5 and 6 year olds). S happened to tell them what had happened. After hearing the story kulli runs to S's grandmom and this was she told her "Paati, please dont scold my friend, I dont like it when she is sad and crying. If you scold her I will be very upset."

Second instance, there is a one year old kid that comes with his grandfather to the park. This kid was playing on the swing and the grandfather was pushing it gently. The kid asked for water and the grandfather left the kid on the swing to get water. Kulli runs to this grandfather and tells him "uncle please don't leave the kid alone on the swing, if he falls down he will get hurt".

Hearing this I was gleaming with pride. Even now while I am writing this, it brings a smile on my face. I want to remind myself that kulli by nature is a very caring child and I should make sure that I encourage and appreciate this more often.

I want to be me

"I want to be me" such a simple sentence and yet has such a strong message, isnt it?

The other day my SIL took kulli out to get icecream. She happened to ask Kulli whether she wants to be Kulli Shonapa (kulli's real name with my husband's name as surname) or Kulli Amma(kulli's real name with my name as surname). Looks like kulli thought for a while and blurted "I want to be me".
When my SIL told me this, I was like woaahhhh wait did she say that.

I am not sure kulli understands what she has said. But to me it meant a lot. All I want to say to her is this,  I get the message kulli, I know you want to be you and I also wish to let you be.

P.S. FYI, when I asked her the same thing she said she wants to be Kulli Amma (yayyy....even if its just to please me..:))

Little Mediator

The other day Shonapa and I had our usual fight "you did not do this, you come late from office blah blah". you get the drift right? No, we don't fight a lot and our fights are usually silly. So we did have one such fight and I went off to sleep after being vocal(read: scream) about my anger.

Kulli wanted me to play with her and I was in mood to do so. This is how our conversation went:

Kulli: Amma, what happened Amma?
Amma: Appa is useless Adi (this is where you guys should not advice me on how you should not bias the kids, I can be very mean when I am angry.)
Kulli: Thinks for a while, its ok Amma come lets play (ahh she has her priorities set ..)
Amma: No Kulli, I am upset I dont want to play
Kulli: What happened Amma?
Amma: I told you Appa does not help Amma and Kulli (see how I am making her a partner :))
Kulli: Thinks again and runs to Shonapa and yells Appa!
Appa: Come Kulli leave Amma alone, I'll play with you (good try Shonapa)
Kulli: No Appa! and she yells on top of her voice "Why are you not helping us Appa?"

I start laughing loud after this and all 3 of us end up playing with Kulli until midnight

See I have my own little mediator and a soldier.

Do you have one too?

"Manager will hit you with the rolling pin..."

I know I've disowned the blog for sometime now. I take the blame, too lazy extremely hectic settling down in a new place, I can bore you with quite a lot of reasons, but nope that's not the intention of this post.

I really had to post this incident. Everytime I am on call with my manager kulli somehow manages to distract/disturb me. I keep telling her that my manager will hit me with rolling pin if I didn't work. The other day I was on call with my manager and kulli as usual tried to disturb me, I was in no mood to entertain her since the call was pretty serious and one where I had to do the talking. Kulli understood that I can get really angry if she distracted me. So she ran into her room maybe to plot her next move. She came back after 20 mins forcefully planted a kiss on my lips for nearly 5 mins and then mocked at me " now your manager will hit you with the rolling pin :)"

Hoping to keep posting such incidents more and more.

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 :(