bringing up kids

A Blog A Day- Day#1

I’ve been telling the offspring to buckle down and do a couple of things but being a parent means leading by example (or so we pretend we do) so I’m going to try and hit a few targets of my own. Expect grumblings from time to time.

I want to blog more. I love to write and I’m not picky about what I choose to write about. I’m usually reading something or the other, thinking about doing something and make plans for future trips and travels galore ergo loads of food for thought or bloggy material.

So this is going to be my honey-do list/things-to-do/bucket-list galore and inshallah by 31st December, I’d have done at least 100 consecutive blog/bloglets and been able to cross things off on the ever-growing lists that my brain throws up and Red ducks very nimbly.

And on that note I felt a gaze searing to me and looked up to see MLM staring at me. Locking gazes me with he said” Cookie”. Brief. To the point and hungry.

So here I go to get him a cookie. Come back tomorrow for day two of my A.B.A.D challenge.

Alexa Mornings…

Red bought an Echo Dot for th house last year. Suffice to say it’s the digital pet. The offspring has bonded with Alexa quite a bit. I keep hearing his voice trilling , “Alexaaaa” on and off right from the time he’s up in the mornings.

Echo Dot has more capabilities that can be tapped into if you’re an US-based user. Lesser so in India. But apparently this year Amazon Music will be making its entry into the Indian market and then this kid will really go wild. Now there’s a Bluetooth sync with my phone and the songs which are saved on a separate song app or on my phone can be played. But we have to be far more hands on. And we’re all about remote management in this house. If we can just park our butts somewhere and just ask for songs to be played, it would be a pretty darn good thing!

This morning the offspring woke to a house with an absent father (courtesy a business trip) and he sat and pouted about missing the parent for a bit. And in an effort to cheer himself up, he turned the house into a dance club, playing Bollywood hits before 6:30 am. All courtesy Alexa.

Where’s the parental settings people? Is that in the next upgrade?

In the meanwhile, Kala Chashma gets looped sun up to sun down just because Alexa can!

Yo!

Priorities

We have a Gopro mini camera. The offspring loves it because he can take it underwater. I love it because it helps me not lug the entire camera gear I tend to normally take.

For a totally amateur photog I have quite a bit of gear; which we discover only while packing.

We’re vacationing in Kerala now and I got the head harness for the camera so we can have fun in the ocean and have our hands free at the same time.

MLM aka the offspring wore his swimming glasses today and mounted the camera on top much to Red’s dismay because in the water the brat turns into a much more slippery customer to tackle. To add to that, the added weight of the glasses and the camera kept hampering his foray into deeper waters. Phew!

When Red complained to me about bringing the camera along I told him clearly, ” When in doubt, save the kid first and then the camera.”

Here endeth the lesson.

A Few Words From A SAHM

I am a SAHM. I like writing the abbreviation rather than typing out the whole shebang viz Stay At Home Mom. And I think quite a bit of time and effort is being spent on Mira Rajput and her choice of words regarding her own daughter.

I suppose if I wanted to, I could extrapolate, that when Mira Rajput used the word “puppy” in reference to leaving her child behind at home while she went out to work, she was likening all the children “left behind ” to puppies. It could also be that it was a less than tactful choice of words to describe a situation which is touchy, difficult and something that women can genuinely never really come to terms with, IMHO.

But again IMHO, Mira Rajput is neither a role model for women, of any age, to emulate; nor is she an expert in parenting. She is merely a young woman who is thrust into the limelight because of the man she married and because of whom each and every action of hers is scrutinized and dissected.

Do I think it was an unfortunate choice of words? Yes. Do I think it was maliciously meant and demeaning to women around the world? No. Why not? Because I don’t give a fig about Mira Rajput or her opinions! I am too busy “working” as a SAHM raising my own “puppy”.

Ladies, with all the nonsense that surrounds us in the world these days; can’t we ever let go of the stuff that the media reports? Choose not to get wounded when nouveau celebs express their opinions about random things. Because it’s on their radar, doesn’t mean it should resonate so strongly with you. Or jar you so badly. These people aren’t the last word. Let’s stop giving them the podium and pulpit.

*mike drop*