Grumpy mummy.

Wrote this over the weekend. Have only just managed to post it!


So, fifth straight night of almost no sleep and I'm feeling more than a little bit frazzled. Husband (chirpy and cheerful after his 8 hours in bed) declares, "we should get you a t-shirt with 'GRUMPY" written across the front!". I cannot even begin to describe the amount of self control that goes into not resorting to physical violence. Anyway, he calls me resentful (hell yes! Two and a half years of no sleep, no life apart from baby, and he'd be a whole lot more than just 'resentful'.) Then he says, "Maybe you should blog about it" (Hah! For once, pleasure's all mine dude! Hah!). I call him a nag. I glare. He smirks. From the next room baby yells at the top of his voice, in perfect sync with Barney, "we are a happy family". And I burst out laughing. I must say this weekend's going better than most so far!

Perceptive little thing that he is, every time husband and I are on the verge of a blow-out (about 5 times a day on weekdays, and 50,000 times over the weekends. Of course. You mean that's not normal? Damn.), he will grab our hands and say, "Papa kiss Mamma!", or vice versa. And of course we do. Even as we're given daggers to each other. (Not normal you say? You sure? Double damn.)

You guys have no idea how hard it has been to come so far in to this post and not mention "teething". But of course we have by now established that my self control is of mythical proportions. So, sleepless nights. The "rock me through the night" nights. The "I'm in pain and I will yell" nights. We've had them all in the last two weeks. Everyday I think, this is it, his teething has never been so intense, he's definitely cutting a tooth. Till the next day. the teething just keeps on getting more and more intense and even one of the four molars hasn't cut through yet.

The dentist says, "Molars? They aren't really bothered by the molars. They're used to the pain by now you see". Really? I mean really? Like "dard ka hadd se guzarna hai dawa ho jana" (when pain crosses all limits, it becomes the salve. Or so said Mirza Ghalib.) For my baby? Really? And thats supposed to reassure me? I sure as hell hope my two and a half year old isnt "used to" any kind of pain! Hummmpphh! Dentist! (Yes I will order that GRUMPY t-shirt after all, thank you very much. Hope that makes you happy, husband.)

And I miss my friends. Really really miss them. This whole baby business, rewarding and frustrating and amazing that it is, has left me so cut off and removed from everything and everyone that it doesn't bear thinking about. Take today for instance, this lovely beautiful friend of mine is getting married today, and damn but I'm not there! But I want to be NS, so much. Here's wishing you both a happy happy marriage filled with togetherness and understanding and love. ( What? I'm sure its possible! :D)

And this is for my best friend in the whole wide world, NK. I miss you. And I wish we were at least on the same continent. And that I wasn't so so rubbish at keeping in touch. And thank you my love, for not giving up on me.

Okay, enough shout-outs. I feel like an RJ on a radio station no one listens to!

That reminds me, I'm so sad that I didn't go say goodbye to Bush House one last time. Worked there 7 years. My first (and so far, last!) "proper" job. Learnt so much. About so many things. Ah well. what is it they say about tears and spilt milk?

And I'm back.. (I think)

Hello there! Its been a while, eh. I'm sure you've all missed me (hah!). Its been a hard few months (a hard few years, to be honest), so I haven't really had the time or the inclination to write. I'm not going to bore you guys with all the maudlin, morbid details, but yeah for a while there I wasn't quite sure what was going on. In my life. In my world. And I guess it all just got too much. So my trip back home (yup, a month in March) couldn't have come at a better time. Helped me recoup, refocus, and frankly helped me stay alive. And though things have been better since I got back, its still been quite a struggle trying to keep the darkness at bay. Hang on! Did I just admit to being so low that you could say I've been "depressed"? Well, yes. I did say its been a hard few months/ years, didnt I? 

Anyway so I'm sort of hoping that I've turned some kind of a figurative corner. And things are going to get better. I mean when you're as low as I've been, the only way to go has to be back up, right?

Moving on. Baby's hardly a baby anymore. He's a proper little boy. A regular chatter-box. With wheels on his feet. The only time he actually sits down is to eat (well, most of the time), and read. Not that big on eating. Or sleeping. Huge on running. Jumping. Playing puzzle games. And making up stories. He's figured out that he came "from mamma's tummy", and that he can "kiss everyone", especially "mamma happy". Still working on "who turns the sun on?" and "why are nani, nanoo in Jammu?".

Oh and by the way, we're still teething. Yup. One of the many banes of my existence. Makes me want to break something. Now its the last four. The big ones. We've been up since 3 almost three nights in a row now. He deals with the pain and discomfort quite well, but cant seem to sleep through it. So as soon as the bedtime dose of paracetamol wears off, its the old "rise and shine!". I swear the day he gets his full set I'll turn uncharacteristically religious and ask my mum to do whatever it is they do when a prayer has been answered. Within reason of course. Cant have poor unsuspecting lambs slaughtered just because I decide to act out of character!

And the other day baby was looking through this book, and right there on the page was this big fat M (loves the alphabet!). So what does baby boy do? Twists his little body so his head is level with his knees, then twists his little neck so he's looking up at the book which he had propped up against a cushion on the couch, and says "Its a W". Simple, uncomplicated, straight forward little guy, my little boy eh? I feel for his poor girl friend(s) already!

Snow magic

Snow! Snow! Snow! The lovely White stuff is still everywhere. I woke up to such dazzling brilliance a couple of nights ago that for a while I actually forgot that it wasn't strictly speaking "morning" (2AM for godssake!) and baby momentarily forgot why he was up and so grumpy. Everything was white and serene and beautiful and bright, right in the middle of the night.

I love snow. I have always loved snow. It's like a blessing, a benediction that transforms even the dreariest and most desperate of landscapes into something magical and splendid. Much like memory, like remembering, like nostalgia.

For a while there at 2 AM with a sleepy, dazzled, quiet baby in my arms, I forgot where I was, what time it was and what place. For a while there, I was 12 again, looking out at the snow from my little window.

Middle of the winter. In Srinagar. And as far as my sleepy, dazzled eyes can see, the earth is covered in magic.

How time flies!

So we've just got back from our visit to the husbands parents. Three weeks of relative relaxation, the operative word being "relative" of course (no pun intended). Still it's good to be back. After a certain point you miss the comfort that familiarity offers. Your own bed, your pillow that's slightly wonky in it's own special way, your favourite mug, and coffee just the way you like it.

Having said that (I'm now going to say this! - I love Seinfeld, obviously!), Wales was a lot of fun. Baby was thrilled to be there. His grandparents were overjoyed to have him and it was very special and beautiful to watch them bond. And even though the weather was atrocious almost all the time we were there, and we couldn't do half the things we'd planned to do, it was still great.

And now we're back. Baby was actually pleased to be back. We said elaborate "hellos' and "we missed yous" to almost all our favourite toys. Even then it took longer than a week to get back into some semblance of a routine. And what do you know it's already the end of January! Christmas has come and gone, hell the new years come and gone it seems, and I'm as usual struggling to make my peace with how quickly time passes. Baby is all set to turn two in a few days. Imagine that! My little new born baby! Two years old! A proper little boy!  It's enough to make me laugh and cry (and misuse the poor old exclamation marks!!).

The other day at his play-group, this lady who's son is about a year younger said to me, "I always worry about the older kids crashing into him"; and I said, "yeah so do I". She looked at me for a while and then said, "You do realise that your boy is one of the older kids?" My turn to look at her for a while, and then smile and shrug. I can't believe how quickly the time has gone. (Though of course if you'd asked me at 3 in the morning today, after days and nights of no sleep, I'd tell you I've felt every single second of the last two years!).

The last two years have been great. And so hard. I don't think I've ever felt more than I have in the last two years. I've never felt such joy, such despair. My relationship with husband has never felt more meaningful, problematic, more tender, more fraught. It's so easy to underestimate the effect having a baby has on your relationship. To be fair, our relationship has never been placid. We are both too passionate for that to happen. Baby just added another layer of complexity to already complicated dynamics. But I digress.

So to sum up,  baby turns two soon. A far as I can tell 2012 is almost over, and before I know it he'll be off to university, screening my calls. In other words, I'm old and wondering where my life went. Okay, maybe that's a bit extreme, but you get what I'm saying, right?


Today is the first day in over a month that I've been able to get a couple of hours just to myself. That's another thing I missed about London when we were away, the ability to just take off.

Oh and did I mention that we're still teething? (Hah. Bet you thought you'd escaped my constant moaning about teeth this time. Gotcha!). Canines now. The worst so far. The way I look at it, it can only get better from here. The other day, after a long hard teething day (would not let me out of his sight and cried at the smallest things, and all this after paracetamol), I looked at him and said, "Your teeth!", before I could finish he chimed in, "Teeth! Naughty little monkeys!"

But hey I think we're on the home stretch now. 12 out, 2 canines have cut through, two more are imminent. Then there's just the four big molars. Almost done!

Wonder what the next big thing will be.

Almost two. And yemberzel.

So it's been a while - again! I clearly knew what I was talking about when I predicted that this blog was going to be "erratic"! There's just so much going on, and not enough days in the week, hours in a day.

I'm afraid it's still all about teething with us. It's been so intense for so long this time round that I'm completely exhausted. And so is baby. Four molars. Half in, half out. Pain killers pretty much every day. Quite intense.

We are coping though. And the fact that he is such an amazing, active and engaged child helps. He's into everything now. And his favourite words these days are: "what/who is that?", followed by "why?". I feel like I'm on a perpetual quiz show!

One of his most favourite things is to make a "tent" in his cot (with one of his blankets - which blanket, depends on what mood he's in: small white blanket if he wants to be alone in his tent, the big blue one if all three of us are going to huddle under it, and the knit green one when he's feeling "cold"!). It's a game we play at least once a day and if we forget he'll say it's been "such a long time"!

He's so delightfully involved with everything I do that I often find myself forgetting that he isn't even two yet. So to take care of that little detail for me and to remind me that he is in fact not quite two yet, he'll throw one of his typical, impossible "I'm-the-toddler-CEO-around-here" tantrums. I know the quickest way to peace is to give in. Then I worry of course, about what that teaches him: yell hard enough and long enough and you'll get your way. So I hedge. Try diversions. Pick him up. Show him the "moon" we've painted on the bedroom window (he loves the moon. Going to bed without saying "night night" to the moon, or "zoon" as he calls it, is unthinkable. Given that we live in cloudy London, painting one on the window was inevitable!). What seems to work best so far is to tickle him. Turns out he is a baby after all!

I mentioned, I think, in my last blog that my cousin was here, visiting. She's gone now. And how I miss her. Her visit just brought home the fact that I'm so "on my own" here. The days she was in London, she would drop by, we'd go out, stay in, she'd make tea, watch baby, we'd just talk and truth be told I was so much happier. Even with all the sleepless nights and baby-attached-to-the-hip days. And it's not like she had nothing else to do. She was working, but she made the time. For me. And for that, I love you R! I just wish her and the other R and a few of my girlfriends were around all the time. Life would be so much easier. But what's that they say about wishes, horses, beggars and riding?

Anyway, the other kinda big thing this week is that the Yemberzel website is finally up. And I really do have Husband to thank for it (makes for a nice change, given the murderous feelings we've been evoking in each other lately!). It's been such a journey. The designs, the jewellery, the pictures -- and finally it's all up there. And just for the record it did take me the better part of almost two years to get here. The designs were the easiest bit. Getting them made right was a challenge. The website, where it's all finally come together, is an achievement. Thank you H.

Now of course, all we need is for people to buy all that beautiful (even if I do say so myself!) stuff!

Tooth Tooth Teeth!

I wrote this blog almost two weeks ago. Haven't had a moment since to sit down and put it up. Since I wrote it things haven't changed much (except may be, that my hold on sanity is becoming increasing fragile!). Baby: Still teething. Still not sleeping. Still amazingly cute. Me: Trying to cope. Trying to stay alive. Trying to stay sane.

Through all of this a few things that have helped : coffee, baking and my cousin's visit. Thanks R!

So, we have had a rough couple of nights in the last week. Though I suppose they could have been worse. His teeth, his teeth! When will all his teeth come through! Poor baby. He really has been teething pretty much all his life. He was 3 months old when it started. The drooling. The chewing. The biting. I thought, great! early teether! We'll be all done by the time he's one! Right? Not quite. His first tooth cut through just a week shy of his first birthday. And now at nearly 22 months we still have 11.5 teeth to go (well yes, one the pre-molars is half in and half out!)

I can't really think of anything worse than a toothache. And then to have this constant niggling pain/pressure under your gums. I'm often amazed at how well he deals with it. Most of the time. The nights are always worse. Though I think he's figured out that if he wakes himself up and starts playing, he can deal with it better. Hence the sleepless nights full of painting the walls and hopping up and down; and for me, thousands of extra calories that I most definitely do not need. Of course there are nights when he's just so sleepy, all he wants to do is sleep, not paint or hop or read books or destroy the flat (these times are rare, but it does happen!). And he can't, because of his darned teeth. Those nights are the worst. Up. And crying. And in obvious distress. Nothing worse.


Every time that I come close, so close, to the end of my tether (Husband hates that phrase. For reasons I still haven't quite figured out), I try to remember that its probably (most certainly in fact) worse for him. Babies have so much to deal with. And toddlers even more. Everything is new/ interesting yet potentially frightening. And then there is the physical discomfort that comes with being a baby. Burping, gas, tummy aches, allergies, rashes, nappies, teething, growing pains and very limited powers of expression. I think all things considered they do exceedingly well.

Baby is getting better at the whole communication thing though. And the joy on his face when I get some of his more complicated attempts! Like this good friend of mine once said, (her baby is exactly 9 months older then mine) some things get easier, others get harder. Truer words were never spoken!

And through all of this the baking continues. I am really quite new to the whole thing, and I don't have any of the gear (weighing scales, measuring cups etc etc) but when has that stopped me before huh! And I must say there is something comforting about baking. Maybe its the precise-ness, the order. I suppose on some level it balances the chaos that the rest of my life has become. Anyway, baked a great banana and blueberry cake and some really buttery chocolate chip cookies. Not bad for a newbie!

Separation anxiety, baking and Plath

So as I start I've decided that I'm going to blog at least once  a week. You see the only way I can get any time on my own to do anything at all is to leave the house. Without baby. So a weekend blog it's going to be! I have a little weekend ritual. Every weekend I try and leave baby with father and take off for a few hours (the operative word being "try"). More often than not I find a cafe, order something to drink (sometimes with lunch, other times I skip lunch and go straight for the dessert!), and try and do two things: not think about baby (for at least 10 mins. What? I'm not a fantasist!), and to write. Something. Anything. Not that I manage to get away every weekend. And even when I do there have been times when the phone has rung barely twenty mins into my away time. Yelling baby, exasperated father. Oh the joys!

So you see now my "away time" is going to be my blog time! I'm sure none of this is even remotely interesting for any of you, but hey this *is* my life!

So anyway, the big thing this week has been "separation anxiety". It seems the fact that baby is with me all day and night long is just not enough. If I so much as take a step away from him (to do something totally unreasonable, like say, go to the loo!) even when his father is in the same room, it leads to such inconsolable crying that I've decided going to the loo alone is over-rated. Hugely. It's all a bit strange. Because he really is an independent little boy. Keeps himself busy. With his toys, crayons (he loves "painting"), books, destroying the house. And he does really want to be left alone, most of the time. Of course he's not even two yet so he does clamber into my lap every now and then, just to check in. We have our "cuddle time" and "tickle time" and more recently "kitkitkit Kashmiri tickle time"! 

According to "Dr. Google" this whole "I-can't-bear-to-let-you-out-of-my-sight" thing is a toddler thing. A phase. He'll grow out of it. Apparently. So while I wait for the time when he's away at university screening my calls, I try to remember that with babies, toddlers, everything is a phase. And it's true. You really actually do forget. Burping, gas and vaccinations which were the big things in our lives just a year ago are such long-forgotten non-issues now that we are dealing with our pre-molars cutting through. And of course separation anxiety.

The other day after a really hard night (he kept his eyes closed, though I knew he wasn't sleeping, for as long as I rocked him. The minute I'd stop he'd start crying), both of us finally managed to sleep for a couple of hours in the morning. I woke up, as usual just heartbeats before him. He opened his eyes, looked at me, smiled and said, "aayeyah (that's what baby calls himself these days) love mamma!" Worth all the sleepless nights in the world. A thousand times over.

Oh almost forgot, the other thing this week has been baking! The not so long rainy afternoons do seem less dreary when you can smell the brownies baking (sometimes burning, but what the hey!). Either that or maybe I'm going down the "Plath path"! Thankfully I'm not talented enough to seriously contemplate killing myself. Phew.

And if anyone wants to try my take on the traditional banana bread, give me a shout!