Category: WTF

The Serenity Prayer

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It’s not just in rehab that one prays for serenity. Or even on Seinfeld. Parents frequently pray, atheists and all, for deliverance or the ability to bear with those who we do not understand and want to spank the butts of.

This conversation took place just 5 minutes ago: TO storming into my room, “HEY AYU! S aunty made the bread that I don’t like! Me: But you ate it so well last time she made it, you like French toast. TO: No! I HATE French toast! It’s disgusting!! Me: Ok, just eat it today because you need to take your medicines after food. TO: I DON’T WANT TRIANGLE BREAD PIECES! Me: Just put both together and make a whole bread and it won’t be a triangle anymore! TO: But it won’t taste the same (whine whine whine grumble grumble grumble and exit stage left).

Why Hast Thou Forsaken Me Bored Winnie The Pooh GIF - Find & Share on GIPHY

Problem Of Plenty

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A few years ago I was sitting with a bunch of gal pals on a gals’ weekend away and we were talking about how our lives are. Essentially the “why” of needing to ‘get away from it all’. One of them said (with a sigh) that mornings were quite hectic because: a) the milkman would turn up b) the newspaper vendor could then come c) the cook would follow d) then the maid e) and finally the dog walker. And while it totally sounds like first world problems to anyone else who’s eavesdropping, but it can be exhausting in its own way.

When I was gainfully employed but still clawing to survive, I did everything on my own. Dishes, clothes, go to the bank yada yada yada. I didn’t have a car of my own and was dependent on public transport and all its vagaries but life was just dandy. Fast forward to circa 2019 and am rotunda housewife who genuinely needs nothing. Wants are a different thing that we won’t touch upon. That’s a longer endeavor than trip down to Tartarus!

TO has been a bit under the weather recently. Summer fevers can be a real beeyotch. It’s hot outside and he’s hotter than he’d like inside- good times. Anyhoo, Red’s out so that meant that I had to channel the patient and placid parent along with my own snarky self. Bipolar parenting is never an easy thing in my book. And yesterday was the day that the door bell rang at almost regular intervals and made life that much more interesting. Thank goodness I’d already got all my parcels the day before.

We get organic, farm fresh (queue the angels’ chorus) milk 2xs a week. Yesterday was one of those days. The morning started with the cook coming in aka Bell#1. Bell#2 was the garbage collectors. Bell#3 was the cleaning lady. Bell#4 was the ironing guy coming to collect the stuff to be ironed. Bell#5 was the milk guy. Bell#6 was the ironing guy coming to return the ironed clothes. Bell#7 was a friend of TO’s. Bell#8 was a friend who dropped by for a chat.

Thankfully for the last two ding dongs TO was asleep else with each bell he called out like an entitled Upper West Side grande dame who lounges  in bed with two lap dogs or like this piece of sunshine and goodness stepmother on Tumblrand calls out instructions for every little thing. He’d go, “Can you get that?”, “There’s someone at the door Ayu”, “Hey, the bell rang”. Lord! blessed are the lives we lead.

 

 

Pointy Elbows and Drool

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Everytime you think you’ve reached a time and place where you don’t have to be a crabby cakes about your kid, they prove you wrong!

Of late TO’s been climbing into our bed. Resulting in either one of us sleeping on our own somewhere else (bliss) or us getting through the night but with pokes and prods and occasional limbs flying about.

Early this morning but still at a time I choose not to be woken up at, someone went poke-poke at the soles of my feet. It was TO asking me to make room for him, his pillow and coverlet.

I made room for him and then did a quick recon of the room he’d been sleeping in to see if the fan or AC had still been left on. We apparently have mood lighting in this house you see- when one leaves a room and *if* they feel like it, the fan and lights get switched off. Else, they don’t.

Anyhow, I came back to my room within a few seconds and found a small child could take up a ridiculous amount of space; yet again. I squished him up and moved him down towards Red (who always sleeps like a baby I might add resentfully).

I kept dreaming of the world being all cold and wet and me baby proofing the house for some reason…putting those cone guards on the edges of tables and sharp pointy things and then realized why that particular dream had come to me…TO was sleeping with arms akimbo and his rather pointy elbow had caught me in the ribs! To add to it, he was drooling. Everything one likes to wake up to an extra hour early, for no good reason.

This parenthood stuff is a doozy!

Oh My Angst Hurts

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The Offspring (TO) has been introduced to the world of peer pressure. He has met the “popular” kids, met the jocks, met the goody two-shoes and is trying to fit into the whole ecosystem as we speak…erm type.

Being of a slightly more touchy disposition, TO is at times inclined to want to change schools if he doesn’t have a good day or have a bad experience. Of course the very next moment he can be on top of the world as well. Am told such is the world of children.

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This morning his reason for not wanting to get up and go to school was due to the kids he had a falling out with. He gave us more details while having his milk. The conversation went something like this- TO: ” So I’m not friends with X anymore. Me: Why? TO: She doesn’t want to be friends with ME. Me: (making sympathetic face) Whhhhyyy? What happened? TO: She says stop following me around. Me: Well…do you follow her around? TO: (looking sheepish)..only a little bit. Me: Well then, don’t follow her. TO: (huffily) ok fine!

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The rest of the conversation consisted of words irritating, annoying, irritated and annoyed and why the middle finger is *not* to be shown and at least a 1000 reminders to finish his milk and go for his bath.

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Turbulent Thursdays anyone? And to think that we have yet to navigate through the choppy waters of puberty. God help us.

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Ruminations@3 AM

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I have a slightly off sleeping pattern. I need to time it pretty precisely so I get my required amount of sleep. Too early and I’m up 2-3 hours prior to my usual wake-up time. Too late and I’m rushing through the morning just to catch up with everything that needs to get done by 9 am.

Some days, like today, I’m up early and looking out at the city and it’s pretty darn quiet. No sounds anywhere and few cars around. Almost seems like I’m the only one up for miles around.

I drift from room to room and ultimately set up shop somewhere and start listening to music (right now it’s Sonique’s It Feels So God) or start streaming something-none of which aids in going back to sleep.

Social media can be a boon at this time. Or a curse. But then again it always is. I see whose babies are upto what or where people are travelling to and wonder about life.

I also go and look in on TO and either cover him up with his sheets or demummy him (aka unwrap him head to toe) and start thinking about the morning.

Occassionally I catch up with my BFF because she’s on a continent that works with this time difference. But I mainly go into the bhatakti aatma mode till I give up the ghost (totally bad punning at 4 am) and wait for morning.

I really want to just be able to do this though…

Stupid growing older and messed circadian rhythms.

Grrr!!

What Dreams May Come

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For every student who dabbled in Psych, Sigmund Freud is a part of the study one couldn’t escape. He was the pit in the cherry or any fruit that you had to eat around and eventually spit out. And now I’m doing justice to both my Psych and English Litt backgrounds by using metaphors and also showing my subtle dislike for the man.

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But dislike aside, pioneers usually pave the way by being the first one to *do* or propound something. In the course of time people run with it, either disprove it and tear it down to build anew or to use it as a foundation for their thoughts and research.

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Why am I talking about the dirty old man of Psychology on this fine, breezy morning? Well, he spoke and researched at length about dreams and their meanings and I can barely count the number of times I’ve seen non-psychology students get his book and flip through the pages and try and find a meaning for the dream that they had.

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I have rather vivid dreams, complete with background scores and set decor sometimes. We all pick up cues from our environment all day long. Some we’re aware of and others hover on the edge of our consciousness and come out full force when the guards are down aka asleep.

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It’s not only the bad dreams that startle us or make us think. Prima facie even a “happy person” who’s looking forward to something fun and positive could have a dream that makes them think, “why that dream? what could it possibly mean?” And the answer can sometimes elude us and at others it’s right there in front of us.

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I have no idea why I dreamt what I did last night. I don’t even know for sure if it was negative in it’s connotation. So many things get tainted with a negative slant because of fear, misinformation or just because of stereotypes when it could actually be a far more benign thing.Image result for freud dream meme

And sometimes a dream is just that, a dream and not something that needs to be dug into deeper. I’m playing Roberta Flack’s Set The Night To Music while typing this post out…it could mean nothing or it could mean the nights have to be waaaay more chillled out for me going forth.Related image

But one thing seems certain, my kid needs new toys. If I find another reptile while I’m brushing or making the bed or see him search for poisonous snake pictures and videos on my phone then the blame’s squarely landing on a particular pint sized person who clearly overshares his interests with his reptile-fearing parent.

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Mommy over and out!

 

Oh No You Did Not!!

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Red and I impose parental controls on TO’s digital media views and mainly their content.

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It’s not so much to keep him away from profanity (he gets a dose of that when I drive) but also to keep him away from concepts that he may not be able to understand and end up getting freaked out about stuff in the process.

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A while back he and 2 of his cute little friends let it slip how they’d sneaked a peek at The Conjuring while playing unsupervised at another friend’s house. I was able to correlate that with a period of being kicked out of my own bed because someone was afraid to sleep alone in their own room. Or even when they did sleep alone, they wrapped themselves up like a mummy and gave me sleepless nights about suffocation and what not!Image result for kids watching horror movies

This morning I was telling Red over coffee that I had weird dreams last night from seeing clips from The Shining and being partly sleep-deprived and suddenly pipes up a voice from behind me, “Oh yeah, that boy with his cycle and those 2 girls who meet him in the hallway and that old guy who gives him icecream and tells him not to go in a room…that movie, right, with all the blood?”

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After internally WTFing with myself liberally I turned around to ask him how he knew about the movie which he did not have the clearance to watch. He told me very casually that he’d watched it at another friend’s house but only a little bit and he wasn’t scared of it at all!

A part of me is happy that he’s choosing good stuff to watch and not getting messed up in his head by watching things like Evil Dead or the Saw movies, but almost 10 may not be the best age to watch someone’s spiral into insanity and attacking their family with an axe. Just saying.

And while my mother let me watch horror movies when I was his age, I can honestly say I was in it for the blood and gore and she was ok with it because she knew it was a phase and I’d outgrow it. She steadily kept her hand over my eyes during the scenes with nudity though. Come to think of it, most Hollywood undead serial killers are such perverts! They wait till a person is “otherwise occupied” and choose that time to cut their heart out. But those days of cozying up with my mom on the couch, hogging on Hershey’s chocolate pudding cups and watching Jason slash through teenage bodies with his chainsaw…oh the nostalgia. Am almost choked up.

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But if this kid thinks he’s going to watch gore before he’s 35 he’s got another thing coming!

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P.S: This blog post and the others like it have been brought to you courtesy of a Macbook Pro that I was given so very thoughtfully for my birthday this year and about which I have not waxed on eloquently enough.

Disclaimer: This is not an Apple sponsored advertisement. More like Red-sponsored.