The Exasperated Mommy Bloglet

Posted on June 4, 2022June 4, 2022 Posted in blurt outs, challenges, cognitive dissonance, current events, cynical, family, how in the world, Learning, Life, life's lessons, looped, Love, matter of fact, MLM, modern families, mother and child, parenting, people, raising kids, rants, relationships, SAHM, self-awareness, telling stories, the human mind, the writer in me, turbulence, what kids want, what women wantTagged 2022, according to kids, bonding with kids, bored kids, communication, during the summer, emo, hot and bothered, hot and hangry, raising a boy, raising a teen, raising kids, turbulent teensLeave a comment

Living with a teenager is quite like living with an overly opinionated, randomly emo, rather ignorant, squaking parrot who you love to bits but want to silence by throwing a tarp over.

Let’s Catch Up

Posted on April 9, 2022 Posted in challenges, changing society, cognitive dissonance, current events, death, family, good times, happiness, health, home, in this day and age, Learning, Life, life's lessons, looped, Love, matter of fact, men&women, MLM, modern families, mother and child, musing, parenting, people, raising kids, Red, relationships, self-awareness, self-improvement, telling stories, the human mind, the writer in me, turbulence, what kids want, what women wantTagged 2022, acceptance, friendship, growing older, growing pains, growing up, life and death, life's lessons, life's tough questions, raising kids, realizations, Red, TOLeave a comment

It has been a while since I wrote. Been a while since I even thought of writing, to be honest. In the words of John Lennon, “Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans” and it it holds true even now, decades after he said it.

I turned a year older recently. Had my peeps around for a bite of birthday cake while TO manned or should I say preteened a live sundae counter. Kids were happy, dentists will be made happier still somewhere down the line.

The year started off well enough but came with a few hard knocks rather soon into the first week of January with us losing a loved family member and in March me losing someone very dear to me. My process of grieving is usually to write about my feelings or the person who has gone and pay them a tribute in some way but this time around it’s been rather hard and the words don’t want to come forth.

Apart from giving it time, I suppose there’s not much one can do but not everyone’s life is one we can celebrate in toto once they pass. Some lives you look back at and hope for all the turmoil they were in or caused, they gained a modicum of peace somewhere and didn’t feel agony or fear in their last moments. I find it a crushing thought to even imagine anyone I’ve cared about experiencing pain in their final moments. But one must try to accept what life throws their way, however jarring to the senses and move forward. I read an article sometime back about moving on vs moving forward; found it made sense. Posting it here for those who don’t mind a bit of gyaan but not an avalanche of it.

This morning when I started off with my morning routine of Wordle and a quick crossword, I realized how much TO’s influenced my life. The child isn’t a Ross Geller in the making from what I have understood. He can love dinosaurs and other buried prehistoric creatures without wanting to devote time in academia to truly enjoy it. The reptiles he loves have become integrated into our lives and our minds. One of the clues this morning in the New York Times Quick Crossword was Spitting _________ (a five lettter word) and I automatically filled in cobra. Once the crossword was filled, I found it was a different word entirely. Once upon a time I’d have been able to lead with the other word more easily but now life has a place which is dedicated to animal quizzes on road trips and amorphous plans around the world to see dangerous creatures or the slithering ones.

With summer break on the horizon along with exams, our days are busy and minds busier still. Hopefully the writing bug bites me again and I reenter the blogosphere properly and soon!

Ciao.

Parenting Bloglet- 22.02.2022

Posted on February 22, 2022 Posted in blurt outs, challenges, changing society, cognitive dissonance, current events, education, family, fresh hits, good times, happiness, home, how in the world, in this day and age, Indulgence, Learning, Life, life's lessons, matter of fact, me-time, MLM, modern families, mother and child, musing, parenting, people, raising kids, relationships, SAHM, self-awareness, self-improvement, telling stories, the human mind, the writer in me, un-norm, what kids want, what women wantTagged adapting to change, back to school, changes, covid-19 diaries, expectation vs. reality, growing older, growing pains, parenting, raising a boy, raising kids, realizations, serenity now, the new normalLeave a comment

The Side Window

Posted on January 8, 2022January 8, 2022 Posted in blurt outs, changing society, cognitive dissonance, current events, family, father and son, fresh hits, health, home, how in the world, in this day and age, Learning, Life, life's lessons, looped, matter of fact, men&women, modern families, mother and child, musing, parenting, people, raising kids, Red, relationships, SAHM, self-awareness, self-improvement, telling stories, the human mind, the writer in me, turbulence, what women want, WTFTagged 2022, covid body, covid-19 diaries, dafuq, family, growing pains, health and healing, parenting during Covid, raising a boy, raising kids, realizations, recovering from an illnessLeave a comment

For those who are fans of the Hitchcockian thriller, this isn’t an attempt to ride on the coattails of it. But I was hard-pressed for creativity and my brain doesn’t function well without caffeine so an “inspiration” is what I’m working with since there are some similarities between me in my current predicament and Jimmy Stewart’s character from the movie.

I’m in a room from where I’m not in a position to exit too quickly. I’m Covid+ and have a less than desirable viral load. Red and TO are down as well but thankfully theirs seems to be a bit less worrisome. Kids are actually quite a bit like balloons. They feel down in the dumps and they deflate and the moment something perks them up, they’re inflated and soaring in the skies. Which describes my kid down to a T right now. He’s all flushed and cute looking from the fever but is uncomfortable enough to admit it and is lying down of his own free will. The moment the medicine kicks in, he’ll be whooping and hollering like he always is.

This room is the sunniest one of the house and I soak it up everyday for a few hours because on top of all the meds I’m putting in me, it’ll really push me over the edge to have to eat a vitamin D tab as well! Anyhoo, there’s a big clearing outside the window and I’m entertained by seeing big groups of people play cricket, kick around a soccer ball and also see the cranes move in the distance. I have access to the telly…but this is live!

In my daily life, I can be a bit of a lump. Give me a good book and I’ll be practically inert, moving only to flick the screen or turn the page. Since my Covid brain is extremely scattered right now, it seemed right to put this in here.. Spoiler alert- rock song!

Back to the narrative: I’m indoors. In a room. Am allowed to peek out while double-masked and remind my kid to not be a butthead and do his chores to help out his father who’s being a rockstar and a bit of a bossy pants. I think every husband might derive some sense of a pleasure in shutting the door on his wife’s face (all in the name of good health of course) and tell her to stay in and not come out!

I had a bit of anxiety yesterday (which I was unaware was anxiety) and needed to go for a scan to see if my lungs were impacted as well. The doctor pronounced my lungs “flawless” [sic] and gave me a prescription for the anxiety- “Don’t be anxious.”. Hmm..I wonder which strength that tablet’s available in. I did take advantage of the utterance to tell Red that something in me was flawless. All I can say is that when a person is stoic with their expressions, their eyes often pick up the slack. And how!

Stay safe everyone. Hoping the family sails through this bit of stickiness without too many bumps in the road. And I’m definitely hitting the road after this. I’ll be upto my eyeballs in antibodies and would be a fool to not take advantage of it.

Over and out from me and my flawless lungs!

Kiss Your Right Bicep!

Posted on January 1, 2022 Posted in Blast from the past, blurt outs, cognitive dissonance, contentment, current events, entertainment, family, fresh hits, funny ha-ha, good times, happiness, home, how in the world, in this day and age, Learning, Life, life's lessons, looped, Love, matter of fact, men&women, MLM, modern families, musing, people, Red, relationships, SAHM, self-awareness, self-improvement, telling stories, the human mind, the writer in me, what women want, yeah baby!Tagged 2022, family, family time, in the new year, optimism, patience, patient, Red, red-letter days, staying healthy, teacher, tennisLeave a comment

Red is a very good teacher. Primarily because he wants the person he’s teaching anything to, to genuinely learn and enjoy themselves in the process even if it’s something that they didn’t seek out on their own. The prime example of that is the time spent with TO and getting his concepts clear in math. Red will research long and hard and find the best resources which simplify things in such a manner that it doesn’t seem difficult at all for the person trying to learn.

Red is also a very good teacher when it comes to sports. He’s good in tennis and pretty decent in cricket and has spent countless hours tossing the ball back and forth with TO over the years. Thankfully TO hasn’t inherited my spastic movements in any form of athletics; he’s a decent bowler as well and like all young boys, frequently dreams of hitting a BIG one over the boundary and taking his team towards victory in a major tournament!

Photo by Joao Alexandre Paulo on Unsplash

For our first anniversary, Red and I were vacationing in a lovely waterfront resort which had a pool table. Being slightly clueless even then about the talents of his new wife; Red wanted to play pool and very enthusiastically I might add. After the first few balls left the table, one being airborne enough to nearly give him a lobotomy, he quietly and decisively gave me a book, led me to a pool side lounge chair and left me there to do what I do best- not be athletic in any form.

This morning, possibly feeling enthused about having started off the year on a good note, Red tried to introduce me to tennis; again. He brought TO along as back-up for when I inevitably failed miserably but still persisted in teaching me the basics which kind of went like this: ” Try to find the sweet spot when hitting“, “wherever your racquet faces, that’s where the ball will go”, “don’t just hit the ball, brush it so it spins and moves better”.

In time his inputs became a bit crisper and to the tune of, “You’re using a racquet, it’s not a dosa pan!” And after a few times of my hitting the ball too high, too far away and once entirely outside the building fence, he told me to “kiss my right bicep“.

I thought that was too meta but I stopped and kissed my right bicep and got an utterly bemused look from him because he had meant that while moving the racquet I should move my right hand so far along that it would align with my face and close enough for me to “kiss my right bicep“. Ohhhhh…the a-ha moment had come in quite a bit late in the game. He did not, at all, intend for me to come to a standstill, turn and kiss my right bicep and ask, “Ok, now what?”

But you have to give the man props for his optimism. To try and nudge a myopic wife who’d rather be stuck in books all day long, to come and run all over a tennis court so she could develop a bond with the game after 17 years of knowing how bad her hand-eye co-ordination is truly the heights of optimism.

He also had to deal with my, “Oops, I did it again” look every time the ball left the confines of the court and went somewhere unreachable. Of course each time I did hit the ball with a wild swing he still ducked, because while he is optimistic, he certainly is not dumb!

The Child: Lockdown Version

Posted on November 27, 2021November 27, 2021 Posted in Blast from the past, blurt outs, challenges, changing society, cognitive dissonance, current events, education, entertainment, family, funny ha-ha, grub, happiness, home, how in the world, in this day and age, Indulgence, kids at play, Learning, Life, life's lessons, looped, Love, matter of fact, MLM, modern families, mother and child, musing, parenting, people, raising kids, relationships, SAHM, telling stories, the human mind, the writer in me, un-norm, what kids want, what women want, WTFTagged Blast from the past, covid-19 diaries, during the pandemic, expectation vs. reality, growing older, how kids think, kids say the darndest things, mommy blogger, mommy tales, nostalgia, parenting, raising a boy, raising kidsLeave a comment

I started this post over a year ago and like many things which come to a grinding halt, so did this one. But it was too funny for me pass up posting it and since things are in a better state than they were a year ago, with the pandemic and its fallout, this post is one that looks back with a smile at a truly difficult time for all of us.

This lockdown has been an experience in more ways than one. Earlier I knew my child viewed me as The Enabler, The Witch, The Taskmaster, The Cuddlebunny at different times depending on his mood but now I’m almost convinced that when he sees me, he sees icons floating all over and all he has to do is just push one for a desired action to occur.

I’m also convinced that his speech has suffered a set back since he tends to bark out single words and use them like sentences. For eg: he’ll see me and say, “FOOD!”. If I stop in my tracks because of the terse and abrupt nature of his communication, he’ll look at me as if my IQ points aren’t what they ought to be and lift his t-shirt and rub his tummy signifying that food needs to provided. If I just want to mess with his head a bit more and act like I’ve still not understood him, he opens his mouth and points towards it and then rubs his tummy. Occasionally he’ll throw in a “DUH” very sotto voce.

These are the various icons I sport: when he needs digital entertainment: sadly most of which need unlocking. Am convinced he sees me like this and in this order!