My grin has changed!

Written on 27th January 2009

Seems like just yesterday that my baby had a gummy grin. Then came the beautification of Chubbocks with lovely even white milk teeth. Made a handsome devil out of him!

Then a few weeks ago, Chubbocks came home with a wide grin and told me with great excitement, "Mamma, my tooth is moving. I'm so happy!"

All his friends at school had one or two teeth either loose or fallen and he couldn't wait to join the gang.

His front tooth had been moving quite a bit since then and every day, Chubbocks would spend hours in front of the mirror, manoeuvering it back and forth and watching it intently as if he could will it to fall.

Today he burst into the house, his face a beam of pride and joy.

"Abba, my tooth fell in school! There was a mountain of blood in my mouth!" He held out a pearly little tooth for us to see.
It was true!

My baby is growing up!

Home, where the heart's escaping...

We finally have some parts of our home looking the way we wanted. It's been a long time in the works. We moved into this house almost 7 years ago, just A and me. We had heaps of books, lots of prints of paintings, some souvenirs from our travels and a few things we'd picked up during our courtship - a lamp, some pottery dishes, an ostrich egg, a Chinese vase...So we really had fun shopping for furniture and linen and setting it all up.

Then our water curse kicked in. We had 7 floods in a first floor flat. We traveled some more and bought more souvenirs. We visited antique shops and junk markets and scouted for finds. Then the kids came along and brought along their own contributions to home decor - tons of toys, clothes, diapers, paper that they had scribbled on and now considered art, projects they brought home from playschool. Scribbles on a wall, crayon marks on another... We outgrew the old space, lost our library to make a bedroom for the kids. Our guests had to share their room with the TV and the two kids during playtime. We were bursting at the seams and we had a baby coming!

Then this year the downstairs tenant moved out and we rented the whole space. It turned out lots of repair work was required, and we waited and waited. Meanwhile, we knew we'd have the space for a library once again, so we ordered bookshelves. I had great fun going down to Nehru Place and hunting down fabric for curtains, we hit all the sales we could find for area rugs, cushion covers, and I got to order the furniture I coveted for our new family room.

We still have bits and pieces to come together. We only decided on the theme for the guest room - Chinese - two weeks ago so new lamp shades and bed covers have yet to come. A table needs to be moved into the library. The plants need a bit of reorganising. The mural on the kids playroom wall needs to be painted and I'm being quite slow. But most of the rooms are done or offer some clue as to how they'll look eventually. Oh, and our water curse is alive and kicking!
Welcome home...
That's where I had my moment of peace yesterday...
looking at this view:
The entrance is one of my favourite spots, just because it was such a process to get it right. I wanted the wall to be painted a deep blue. I even gave the contractor a reference swatch - but clearly he didn't take it to the shop with him, because I nearly fainted the first time I saw it. He'd painted it a horrible shade of muddy turquoise blue. He repainted it twice but kept getting it wrong until finally A went with him to get the right colour. And the light fixture - I spotted it when Dad and I were shopping at Lok Nayak Bhavan for the other lights, and just fell in love with it. Luckily for me it wasn't that expensive. Expectedly, A loved it, but unexpectedly, everyone else did too, including my mom and grandma who have more traditional tastes.

My view of homes is that they should reflect the personalities of the people who live in them, be welcoming and comfortable and have little moments of surprise or delight, unexpected discoveries, if you will, even for the people who live in them. I hate homes which are all done up to impress other people, stiff, unyielding and with relentless beige. I'm so not a minimalist! Maybe one zen corner somewhere, but for the rest of the house, I need colour and light and texture and warmth.

As soon as you enter our house, thanks to a huge shelf which was built in already, you have a pretty good idea of what we're about. The shelf has a few souvenirs from travel, including my favourite, a thepanom - a kneeling figure with hands joined in a namaste, made of blue celadon, which we bought in Bangkok. The rest of the shelf has books, but naturally, since our library is always overflowing. We have books on travel, cooking, history, art, gardening, decor and entertainment here - pretty much summing up our interests! Oh, and there's usually a chair which has the overcoat, bag and shoes I wore to work that day, reflecting my other passions:)
Our house used to be mostly in our two favourite colours, red and blue. Now we have a few more colours in there. In fact, I realised that our winter decor all has touches of gold, since that's also the festive season, and that keeps the same mood throughout the house, except for the kids' playroom and bedroom which are in shades of green and cream.
That's the drawing room:


And the family room:
I had been loving this style of furniture for a while, and it was great to finally be able to order it. Somehow that and the rug we bought last year in Turkey come together to make the family room a place where we instantly feel warm and cozy. We usually end up curling up on the floor, though, instead of sitting on that sofa. As you can see, Bojjandi's enjoying a nap on the floor cushion!

We put up two of my favourite pieces of wall-art in the kids' room. I used to have a fairy tale book that I loved, as a child. A family friend had gifted it to me when I was five. It was called The World's Best Fairy Tales, compiled by Reader's Digest, and used to have the most wonderful illustrations. Sadly, this hard-bound book had fallen apart over the years. I was loath to destroy it because I wanted my kids to be able to read the stories. then I scouted around on abebooks.com and found the book, albeit in two volumes. So I ordered that and promptly took the illustrations out of the old book to have framed. We had close to 65 illustrations, so we got them framed as two large pictures, as if each illustration was in a window. I simply love these two pictures, they're so magical, and the colours so bright and beautiful.





And the kids are having great fun playing house...

My Kind of Sunday

After a madly hectic phase when my sister and nephew were visiting, I was even more occupied Friday and Saturday with work. I literally was working from 9 am till 8 pm yesterday, which is a way was good because it helped take the edge off the fact that my sister's gone back to the US. Today morning dawned bright and clear and we decided this would be a great Sunday to hit the club. Our club has a brunch on the lawns on Sundays in winter, with a singer who knows all the old 50s and 60s numbers - Khoya Khoya Chand, Pal Pal Dil ke Paas and so on. They had a Hyderabadi and Lucknowi kebab and biryani festival which I knew A would love.

We woke up in a leisurely way and after bed tea, had the time, after a really long time, to go through the papers, especially the Sunday Brunch. Brekker was light since we knew we were going to gorge at the club . I sat down to feed Bojjandi and found one of my favourite programs on DT&L being telecast - What not to wear. We finally made it to the club around 12:30, by which time the sun was out in full force, in that typically Delhi Winter way. We dawdled over lunch, Chubbocks freaking out over all the 'Non-veg kebabs" as he loves saying, and Puddi feeding herself four pieces of tandoori paneer. The food was good - low on oil, with a great selection of veg kebabs - and the music lovely. A and I sang along, really getting into it and enjoying the warm sunshine on our shoulders. We even ended up sampling three out of four desserts - GJ, Gajar ka Halwa and Kulfi, and Puddi made a meal just out of dessert!

On the way home we were all pleasantly drowsy and even Chubbocks wound up napping. I actually managed to go to sleep and had one of those deep slumbers which one gets occasionally in the afternoon, at the end of which you can barely drag yourself out of bed and the eyelids seem too heavy to open. I had been needing more sleep for a while so it was good to get down to it. When I woke up, the kids had gone to the park so only A, I and Bojjandi were home. We had our tea sitting out on our new patio, with a slight chill breeze running through the jacaranda tree and green plants all around, under a bright blue sky. A and I could sit and chat quietly. It was like a magical interlude, snatched out of time. The colony was quiet, for once no noise coming from the DLF constuction sites nearby. Not even a bird cry disturbed the stillness of the afternoon, and suddenly I felt such a sense of peace stealing over me...Reminding me of my favourite lines by Browning, "God's in his heaven; All's right with the world..."

It's so important to remember that, all the more during these turbulent times when it seems like there is only turmoil externally: the economic news sucks, friends and relatives are leading unhappy lives, we're missing loved ones...but still it's a wonderful life!

2009, here we come

There are some people who just hate change. They fight it kicking and screaming to the last nail. And then there are some who embrace it wholeheartedly, who seek the gifts that come their way with each change, who try and discover new meanings to their life each time life takes a turn. I like to think I'm of the second variety.

Last year was pretty eventful. We conceived Bojjandi early in the year, a big surprise and in some ways a shock - not in our plans, for sure. But soon enough we realised that this was God's whisper and who were we to not listen to someone who had other plans. Shortly after that, A was busy with the launch of his new television channel, something he'd been working on for 6 months and wanting to do for much longer. A gigantic work project came my way, and we were on a whirlwind of travel, client meetings, research, ideating, arguing and so on. I got roped into an online baby shower and on the way discovered a whole world of blogfriends, whom I couldn;t live without now. We had what must surely class as Chubbocks' best holiday ever, right here in good old Goa. And we finally got the opportunity to rent the whole house we live in and got busy with the renovation, from July.

Chubbocks went into kindergarten this year, from nursery, and became a 'bus children', as he calls it. From being a baby who greeted change with suspicion if not outright tears, he's become a sporty little boy, who looks forward to new adventures and meets them halfway. He's had quite a few milestones, including a tooth that, he discovered on 31st December, was finally wobbling. "I'm so happy, Mama", he told me with a big beam, as he wobbled it back and forth for me. He's had several playdates and even been on a sleepover. That was a big step for him, since he's only ever stayed over at my parent's place before. There was a playdate with four of his best friends from school, and he had the option of staying overnight there or coming back. He chose to stay over, and the house felt all empty to us. Puddi wandered around like a lost soul. He finally came back the next afternoon, with a strange expression on his face, and burst into tears. he had missed us dreadfully, and gotten up in the middle of the night and cried. His friend had told him to go to another room to see if he felt any better and this poor little baby had been roaming around the strange house, blinking back his tears. Now he's still full of beans for a playdate but starts getting antsy by evening, wanting to come back home to mama.

Chubbocks had his first crush this year, on one of his classmates. It's very sweet and yet funny to see the bashful expression on his face as he keeps recounting incidents from school which feature his ladylove. We've been really good and not teasing him, though it's hard to resist the temptation to ask him leading questions. He also electrified us by announcing that all the girls in his class had decided whom they want to marry when they grow up, and he agrees he wants to get married because , "otherwise I'll feel bad when I come home from work and nobody's there". He has also made his second career choice ( the first, last year, was to be a dentust), to become a paleontologist, and has been studying dinosaurs with avid interest.

Puddi has grown into a mad little thing, with two distinctly different sides to her Gemini personality. She can be Miss Prim and proper, sitting with hands folded and ankles crossed, asking for her hair to be combed just so and begging to wear Mama's earrings and necklaces, deciding which outfit she wants to wear that day. And she can be a complete madcap climbing up the monkey gym, hanging off of the furniture, turning somersaults and making crazy expressions with her dancing eyes. She's great fun to be with, and has a tremendous sense of fun herself, throwing herself into all sorts of games. She has a whispering game which she plays every few days, when she says everything in a conspiratorial whisper. Her new thing is to ask Chubbocks if he wants to get into the Bat cave with her ( my sister brought them one), and then they both run in and then rush out, screaming. She loves pretending to be a dinosaur/ lion, everything with the same roar, intense stare and hands turned into claws.

She had her own milestone late this year when she became a big sister and started going to playschool. She's been amazing in the way she's adjusted to the new baby, never complaining about the time and attention I have to give him, and immensely interested and loving towards him. She loves laying her cheek softly against his head or stroking his chubby cheeks with her chubby finger. She's always clamouring to hold him in her tiny lap, and delighted whenever he smiles up at her. And school...wow, what enthusiasm she shows for it. The days that she has to go, she's ready from the morning, getting her bag out into the living room, dragging her shoes out. She practices each and every thing they do in school at home and has made leaps and bounds of progress in English.

A's had an interesting year as well. Launching two new channels, nearly getting posted off to Bombay, then resigning and deciding to finally strike out on his own and do something that's been a passion for him for a while now, film production. For a while now, he's been going through the angst of working to someone else's goals and values, which is a common conflict when one works in the corporate sector, and now finally, he gets his chance to break out and be true to himself, to operate from his center, as Oprah says. I've always believed that that way you get the joy that your work should be composed of, and you do end up making money.

For me, apart from the sheer delight of watching the kids grow, welcoming Bojjandi into the world and having an interesting year at work, the best part of the year has been the last three months, when A was home and so was I. We both got to hang out with the kids and with each other, chill out, have no agenda to our days, and it was fabulous. If there was one big gift the year gave me, it was that halcyon period of 3 months. Lots of little gifts as well:
Our new and improved/ larger house
Finishing my chick-lit novel
My sister's visit at year-end
The recession, which finally gave me the kick in the pants I needed to cut down on spending ( that's a bit of a 2-edged gift, but nevertheless...)

To misquote Tennyson,
"Old year you must not go;
So long you have been with us,
Such joy as you have seen with us,
Old year, you shall not go.

He froth'd his bumpers to the brim;
A jollier year we shall not see.
He was a friend to me.
Old year, you shall not die;
We did so laugh and cry with you,
Old year, you shall not die"

I'm looking forward to 2009 being an interesting year as well - lots more blogging, hanging out with friends on and offline, interesting work and hopefully financial security too...I miss shopping!

3 months old already

I can’t believe Bojji’s already that old! It seems like just yesterday that I was huffing and puffing fit to blow anyone’s house down with him inside me, being repelled by garlic (gasp, moi, who usually eats enough garlic to keep a whole village of Draculas at bay). He’s already been on the planet a full year - from conception to delivery. It’s been an eventful and tiring yet thrilling three months. One quickly forgets how small and vulnerable they are until a new l’il un comes along.

From this little puny thing that could barely move a muscle, Bojjandi’s now a pretty active little baby, kicking his legs and arms vigorously and craning his neck to look around him. Place him on a floor cushion in the family room and he tilts his head backwards so he can watch TV better – though what it looks like upside down, God only knows. He’s been smiling for a few weeks now, though mostly at the fan. But now he’s old and smart enough to recognize people – or at least the fact that someone’s talking to him. Pick him up, coo to him and he lets out the most beautiful beams full of joy. He seems to save his best smiles for me, and each time I pick him up, he focuses intently on my face and starts smiling repeatedly. There’s a magic in a baby’s smile which just melts the heart.

It's amazing to me that something so tiny can already demonstrate such intelligence or purpose, to know when someone is cooing lovingly at it, and to know how to respond right back to that love. Truly, someone up there knew what he/ she was doing when they made babies!