Baby - Boy

Sometimes I think Chubbocks is really growing up. He's already six years old and many a time he displays more wisdom than his mom. Like last night, for instance, or should I say early this morning, when for the nth night in a row Bojjandi was creating a ruckus and preventing me from getting more than 5 seconds of sleep at a time. I couldn't help but burst out, "Keep quiet, you stupid baby!" A sleepy Chubbocks pipes up from his bed on the mattress on our floor, "He's not stupid!"

And then there are other times when I realize he's still a small little boy, even though he's a big brother who sticks up for his siblings. Like when he goes to a friend's house for a playdate, starts missing us and calls us with tears in his voice to check when we're picking him up. Or Rusky…
His school has this cute thing where each class has a stuffed toy for a mascot and each child in the class gets to bring the mascot home for an overnight stay and write about his/ her adventures with Rusky. Chubbocks had turned out to be quite attached to Rusky. I recently made a donation to WWF and in return got 3 stuffed pandas, one for each child. Chubbocks promptly named his Rusky and now can't be parted from him at any price at night. Before going to sleep, he makes sure that Rusky is curled up in his arms and well-covered by the quilt. Even when he accidentally wakes up at night, he has a quick look to make sure Rusky's okay before he settles back to sleep…

Creating Beauty

A and I often discuss what are the things that are really important in life - not the big car or the big, swanky, over done-up house, not the brand name bags or jewels - but being able to add and create beauty in your life every single day. To that end, our efforts with the garden are quite interesting. I am pretty poor at being able to visualise a garden landscape, though I can perfectly well visualise interiors of a home. But we set out to create a sand garden in one part of our lawn that gets almost no sun due to a beautiful but large jacaranda tree that blocks out the sunlight. It's still a work in progress - the bottlebrush tree has to grow, all the poppies aren't yet in bloom - but I think it's getting there. What do you think?

And this is how our entrance looks - quirky, don't you think?
And how do you like our tea guests...
... curled up in the breakfast nook?

Poyums

Chubbocks has been addicted to Oh Say Can You Say for the past couple of months as his favourite bedtime reading. So now he has decided that he has to start composing what he calls 'po-yums'. Here's a sample:

There was a girl who ate a butterfly

Then she ate a bun

And there behind her

There was a gun

 

Don't like that? Here's another one:

Run across the street

And eat, eat, eat

And Burst

 

Eulogy for my favourite aunt

I can't believe we lost you yesterday, forever. I saw you in my mind's eye as I woke up this morning, looking as elegant as ever with your hair in its French roll and your brightly coloured saree with a sleeveless blouse. I don't know if you know how much I admired so many things about you: your energy, your eagerness to learn new things and to teach other people, your youthful zest for life, that bright smile. How feisty and independent you were and how proud, no matter what circumstances you were living in. How much confidence you had in your ability to do things. How much courage you had to live life all on your own. What lovely taste you had in jewelry, in clothing and how chic you were, how stylishly you wore your clothes. What a beautiful name you had - Champakamalini, though we always shortened it to Champa - and how much it suited you, that fragrant, elegant, strong flower.
I can't believe I'm not going to hear your youthful voice, making me roll my eyes at one more piece of advice doled out in your high, lively voice. I can't believe I hadn't met you in so long and that now I'll never meet you again. I can't believe that you never met Puddi - the two of you would have bonded about the manic energy you share. Or that you never saw Bojjandi.
I still have the beautiful frock you got me for Chubbocks' first birthday - what a pretty girl he made - and I remember how much I liked it that you had taken the trouble to travel all this way for his birthday.
I hope you know how much I loved you and respected you and how integral a part you played in shaping me to be who I am today. I will always miss you. XXX

Home is where the heart is...

Tomorrow I head back to work full time. I find myself strangely apprehensive about whether I can pull it off, put my heart back into it and about whether I’ll enjoy this time spent away from the kids and A. It’s not a good time for me to be ambivalent because I have to have a job given A’s new gig as entrepreneur.

I’m incredibly glad for him and grateful to God who in one way or another paved the way for this to happen, because if it hadn’t been for a Deus ex Machina, A might have carried on working at a corporate job but with his heart and soul completely not into it. There are some people who’re good at that and who pull it off incredibly well but for A and I, we have to operate from our cores, otherwise we get dissatisfied and that spills over onto everything else. I’ve been lucky in that so far, whenever I felt that’s sense of dissociation , I had the freedom to quit and start looking for something I wanted to do, because I was either unmarried or A was working, and I’m glad that my being at work full time is giving me a chance to repay A by giving him that freedom.

But the last four months have really been rather idyllic. First I was on maternity leave and about 5 days into it, while A was on paternity leave, he quit and he didn’t even have to go back for too long to serve out his notice period. So we spent a cool two months hanging out together all day, along with Chubbocks, Puddi and Bojjandi. Then, even when I went back to work in December, I was only working half days so I’d be home for lunch and we’d both greet Chubbocks when he came home from school. We took leisurely siestas together and hung out with the kiddos the rest of the day. We read, lazed in the sun and got our house put back together to some extent. We had time to chill, have a conversation and an after dinner walk and watch friends and laugh late into the night.

From tomorrow I’m back to being gone for 9 and a half hours a day, from 8:15 am to 5:45 pm. It’s going to be even harder knowing A is at home and that if I was we could be spending time together. I’ve gotten spoilt, used to spending my whole day bounded up with him and the kids and it feels a little like I’m being exiled from the Magic Kingdom. I’m going to miss the way Chubbocks bounds into the house after school, excitedly chattering about his day at the top of his voice. I’m going to miss seeing Puddi do all the wonderfully kooky things she does, from her request-a-minutes to have anything, from pomegranates to ‘chandra’ ( santra – oranges) to toffees to namkeens, climbing on the furniture, riding Chubbocks’ old cycle and watching the cat that haunts our place bask in the sun. I’m going to miss Bojjandi’s gurgles and coos, his calls for attention, the bicycling movement of arms and legs as he pumps them up and down when he’s particularly happy or excited, miss feeding him so many times a day.

Sometimes I wish I could reverse mortgage my time, that the workplace worked in reverse. That I could have worked until I had Chubbocks and then taken time off till all my kids turn 18 and then get back to work till the end of my days. I’m so glad today’s Sunday and family sleepover night. We have all three kids in our bedroom on Sundays and though it’s kind of cramped, my heart just feels full on Sunday nights.

I guess right now there’s no real cure for it, unless I quickly write that best-selling potboiler. So I’ll just have to store up heaps of time and attention for the weekends and just wrap those memories around me the rest of the week…