Why I refuse to give advice to Kate Middleton

Not like she came a-knocking at my door but still....IF she did, I've decided not to offer any advice. My reader stats show me that I have a bunch of readers from the UK who consistently read my blog every single day. How can I assume she's not reading? ;)

Oh wait...you ask why I won't be offering new-mom advice? 

Well, primarily because I'm going to be consistent and reliable and stick to what I said earlier.

Secondly, because of what these BBC folks so wisely said about 10 types of irritating advice for parents. Thanks, cousin A for sharing the article!

So keep smiling, Kate. You'll be great.

Oh...and ignore all those headlines that scream out "Will Kate Middleton breastfeed or not?". It's nobody's bleeping business. I swear, that's a big topic of debate in some circles in the UK. 
Ugh. Pregnancy is hard as is, people, without having the world stare at your royal bosom wondering whether it has milk or not. Get a life. Quick.

A solution to plastic bag clutter

When I lived in Madras and Bombay, I never really faced the 'plastic bag clutter' issue. I used and re-used cloth bags and very rarely accepted plastic bags from the stores. Carrying your own bag was the culture and it made sense. A little bit of inconvenience made a big difference to saving the world. So we all sucked it up and carried on.

Plastic has a different story here in the United States. I feel like I have to take double the thought and effort to save my home from getting submerged in a flood of plastic (so convenient) or paper (oh so pretty) bags.

Oh-kayz. Look at this basket of shamefulness.These are not the values I want to be imparting to S.

A and I finally have a solution to plastic bag clutter (and this might seem so 1990 to those of you who are already doing this!):

Say no to bags. 

End of story.

We shifted our hoarder attitude to a purger attitude. 

From

You never know when you'll really need it...someday

to

We don't need this, we have a better alternative.

Storing plastic bags so "we will reuse them someday" only adds height to the plastic bag mountain.

Storing paper bags because "oh they are so pretty and I'm sure we will use them to give someone something." only takes up valuable retail space in my apartment.

The check-out guy in stores usually asks me at the end of my purchase. "Paper or plastic?" as though this is a binary decision. I bought a ceramic bowl at Home Depot yesterday and turned down the paper wrap (a ream of paper to cover the fragile bowl) as well as the paper bag and decided to simply carry the bowl home. As is. 

I swear, while I was walking out, people looked at the bowl as thought it were a streaker in a tennis match. Running nude across the department store, with no care or shame that it was wearing absolutely no clothes. No paper wrap, no paper bag. Ohmigoodnessgracious! Call the cops! The Indian woman's stealing a bowl!

It's been just a week since A and I became resolute in our decision to turn down bags. We keep a cloth bag in the car and the stroller. We already feel great. 

My next plan is to launch phase 2 in a month's time:

Say no to plastic.

End of story. 

I know. Scary, right? But don't tell anyone just yet.

Hilarious - why do parents have no time?

True dat. My friend B from http://merrytogoaround.com/ emailed this article to me - it's been doing the rounds on Facebook but thought I would share this anyway and add to a Monday morning laugh (ok...smile) to my readers' day. 

A tribute to all parents, especially primary caregivers, who work hard to keep up with each day!

Baby's Sunday out

Picking wildflowers or 'phoo's as our precious S refers to them

Perched atop appa's able shoulders, watching the boats line up and 'anchor' for the evening

Boats lining up

Ducks...err...boats in a row at Diversey harbor against my favorite Chicago skyline backdrop

Days like these make us want to buy our own boat! Perhaps someday... LOL...yeah right!!! Maybe if we get one on a deep discount over Thanksgiving at the dollar store. Ho hum. 

3 children's books you can think of in 30 seconds

I grew up loving books. I attribute most of that love to my older sister, who was an obsessive bookworm. Much like me, she chose the imaginative, creative, fantasy world of books over concrete, boring, mundane reality. 

Reading non-work books became a challenge when I was working like a maniac at my corporate job. Surprisingly, I revived the reading habit when I became a mom, thanks to my iPhone and the Kindle and most importantly - NURSING! Yes, I spent several days and nights in my rocking chair with a newborn on one lap and my iPhone on the other. 
Of course, A, in his factual style, will dispute this and say that all I was doing was increasing our amazon.com bill since I had the fabulous app, had Prime delivery and was constantly buying 'pointless' stuff. All I can say is that one-thumb-activated retail therapy is a sure fire way to prevent post-partum depression and therefore maintains marital harmony. HA!

These days, a lot of my friends and I talk about which children's books we should buy...and the list is endless. I'm not sure whether my daughter or I enjoy them more but I was wondering which kiddie books were your childhood/ your kids' faves. Oh - and don't think for too long, just give this 30 seconds.

Let me start off by listing S's top 3:
1. The very hungry caterpillar by Eric Carle
2. Red hat blue hat by Sandra Boynton
3. The little red caboose from Little Golden books - this is her new favorite, thanks to kutti M's recent visit

Tell me, I'm curious:
What are your/ your kid(s)' top 3 children's books?

My goals for this blog

Someone asked me what the purpose of my blog is and I realize I never said this out aloud earlier

My goals are to:

1. Preserve and savor memories of my (now one-year-old) daughter's milestones

2. Share nuggets from my life and inspire discussion as a way of staying in touch with loved ones

3. Have a creative outlet. I love writing. Blogging is a self-fulfilling goal in itself

Tell me, I'm curious: do you blog or keep a journal? What are your goals? Share your URL!
OR
did you ever start a blog that is languishing in a corner of the internet? What were your goals? What made you stop?

Father's day at the puppy zoo

Summer is finally here in Chicago. Which means there are tons of kid-friendly events all around us since we live in a very kid-friendly neighborhood in the city - Lincoln Park.
A and I, in our enthusiastic parental affection, dressed little Precious in extremely cute-sy shorts and a sun hat and headed to the zoo. What's really cool about the Lincoln Park Zoo is that it's right in the middle of the city. We could even walk to it from our home, except that S's naptime and mealtime might get screwed up since I'm SO darn anal about doing things on time when it comes to her routine.
(I can already imagine her rebelling in her teenage years and eating dinner for breakfast and starting out with ice cream just to piss me off. Sigh. Actually that sounds perfectly fun and I secretly wish she'll go ahead and do it so I can join her!)
Anyway, back to the point. It was father's day last weekend and I made A wear his traditional Super-Dad t-shirt. I also bought S a "Daddy's girl" onesie (which was on sale for $3 at Carter's!!! Brilliant!) Very corny to get matching clothes but it's a tradition that we've come to adore.
Anyway anyway, back to the point again.

Animals.
S has so many stuffed animals given to her by loving friends and relatives and we keep teaching her the names of all the animals. She currently owns at least one:
giraffe
koala bear
polar bear
Pooh bear

German bear (no, you didn't miss out on childhood. This is just a bear dressed in Bavarian clothes)
cow
horse
moose
dog/ puppy (in various sizes)
penguin
bald eagle
sheep
tiger
monkey
turtle
frog
bunny rabbit
mickey mouse
which I think is way too many toys for a kid living in an apartment.
Many a time, S tries to repeat the name of the animal she is playing with and A and I have been getting excited thinking about how she will jump up in joy when she meets the animal LIVE at the zoo. 

With this excited thought, we entered the zoo and proceeded to say hi to the giraffes. They looked so tall, elegant and amazing that we turned to S, telling her 'giraffe, kanna!'. 

Her eyes opened wide and shone bright with excitement and recognition. Or so we thought.

Sure enough, she started jumping up and down in her stroller and as we continued to introduce this fascinating, majestic animal, she yelled out with joy- "PUPPY!!!!!!"

A and I gently reinforced, "not puppy, darling, this is a giraffe." 

And S continued to point and exclaim, "PUPPY!" at every other animal we saw at the zoo. 

"Lion, kanna"

"PUPPY!"

"Flamingo, kutti"

"PUPPY!"

"Polar bear, chellam"

"PUPPY!"

We are guessing that's baby talk for 'animal'. 

Or we went to a puppy zoo and 'saw' other animals because of our vivid imaginations. 

Tell me, I'm curious:
Do you think Father's Day is fun or corny? What did you do this year?

We now have a son

No, we did not adopt a baby. 

We had our home grown barber give S her third haircut last weekend. The husband and I were sick of taking S to the very famous Mini Snippets - a kids' haircut place - where she would proceed to unleash all her existential angst by bellowing her tiny lungs out. The chair, the mirror, strange people...and worst of all, the big black coat around her....she hated it all. At the end of the session, we always had two frustrated parents and one traumatised kiddo.

This time around, we decided to do it ourselves. Rather, I decided to cut her hair myself. Mommies do this all the time, right? I watched a bunch of videos on YouTube and felt like a pro.

A did have some doubts about this new venture:
Do you really think we should do this? We are total amateurs.
We might screw up her hair
She might freak out anyway

I confidently dismissed all doubts and said that the baby I carried in my womb for nine months would be most comfortable with her loving, caring mommy going snip snip, right?

Wrong! 

We put S in her bathtub, I took the pair of scissors, snipped just a tiny bit and...FROZE. At that moment, I felt like I couldn't bring those sharp, dagger-like, extremely dangerous pair of scissors near my Precious little innocent baby's angelic cherubic face. Chicken.

Thankfully, the husband had some presence of mind, jumped in to save the day, grabbed the scissors and cut her hair quickly. She did wail but at least it was short, quick and we did not have to endure a crying baby in a car ride back home. Whew.

Thing is - random passers-by have been telling me how absolutely friendly and adorable my son is. :-)

Tell me, I'm curious:
Does this incident remind you of something crazy you've ever done? Or almost did? ;-)

Once they start talking, you stop.

S was an early walker, early talker. Though many parents told me life would be hell once she started walking and getting into every corner of the house, I really enjoyed her walking. She became more independent and I didn't need to carry her everywhere.

Now to the talking. S started saying slightly complex two syllable words before she turned one. At her one-year appointment, A and I proudly told her doctor that S was talking quite a bit when he cautioned us about the language we use at home.

"Babies understand way more than they talk. You know what that means, right? You guys need to watch what you're saying"

and all of a sudden, A and I are polite to each other (sort of), switch TV channels when there is foul language, and bite our tongue even when we want to yell  %&^*(&*($% at each other. To be honest, A isn't the cussing type. It's his Miss.Manners butcher-wife who has a temper and needs to control it these days!!!

Thanks, S. You are teaching mommy and daddy to use their Ps and Qs for the first time ever. Babies are a good influence on their parents.

Daddy daddy cool

Everything is about appa these days. S turned one and around the same time, realized that life didn't need to only revolve around mom. She discovered this new person who walks in the door every Thursday night and creates a fun filled weekend for her. Now she can't stop asking me where appa is. She even looks at a picture of A and asks me enquiringly... "appa?" and runs to the phone everytime it rings, asking me "appa?" and runs to the door whenever there is a knock, asking me...you guessed it! "appa?"

Everlasting daddy-daughter bonding has begun.

What's that? Am I a teeny-weeny bit jealous, you ask? I do all the hard work during the week and he saunters in to receive boundless love....Is this fair, you ask? Am I upset, you ask? Hmm....let me think about it.

Ha! Nope. YAHOO!!! Finally a break from 24x7 parenting and it's a win-win-win! :-D

Oh...and A dutifully changes the diaper whenever he is around and S will NOT have me change it when she knows her appa is around.

Double win.

Tell me, I'm curious:
Growing up, were there phases when you switched loyalties between your parents?

How to keep mum

A research study at work revealed that 'new moms' were the most opinionated cohort among all cohorts ever. (Explains why there are so many mommy blogs out there and why P&G is dying to get these mommy bloggers to talk and write about their superior products, huh?). I heard this when I was an exhausted, confused new mom who had just returned to work and was baffled. What - me? New mom - opinionated? No way - I had no clue how to do anything when it came to babies.

Fast forward to a year later and....I really need to learn to keep my mouth shut. Especially when talking to other moms. and ESPECIALLY when we start talking about my favorite topic- baby sleep.
Sleep - or the lack of it - was my state of being for the first nine months of motherhood. S was AWFUL about sleep. Since then, I rolled up my sleeves and decided that I was not going to crib, vent, rant or blame the baby for my sleep deprivation . Not any more. A and I devised a plan and taught S to sleep on her own. and wow, best decision ever. That was the start of teaching our child good sleeping habits. I admit, I tend to be quite fussy/rigid about when, where and how S should sleep and almost NEVER compromise on her sleep.

Now that I've written it loud and clear, am sure the Jinx God will come knocking at my door tonight! Darn.

Anyway - since then, I started to believe that if the mom (usually the primary caregiver) is not disciplined about the baby's sleep, the baby cannot be disciplined and independent about falling asleep on her own. I also started to have a very low tolerance for mom/dad/other well-wisher fatalistic, moralistic, helpless statements such as -
"Children will learn to sleep when they are ready. You need to suck it up now"
"We never slept for the first 2-3 years of our kids' lives so you should not expect to"
"I haven't slept for the past 6 years since I had my daughter"
"I make my child sleep at 10PM but she still wakes up early...I don't know why"
"This is the price of parenthood"
"Let the maid make the baby sleep, I'm done trying"

Of course, baby sleep sucks when the baby reaches new milestones or is unwell. I'm not talking about those exceptions here. I'm talking about a healthy, happy baby who wakes up  at night for no real reason.
Now, when S was born, I understood immediately that all children and unique and different and of course, there is no one formula that fits all. They are not robots. However, since witnessing that teaching S to sleep on her own was the only way we got any sleep and became, therefore, human once again, I've been dying to spread the joy to other sleep-deprived moms. In fact, when other mom friends started calling me for advice, I became more confident that my way was a great way...no...the only way.

Sigh. I need to learn to shut up! When my dear friends comment that they are exhausted and wish they never had kids, I get all worked up and emotional for them and get into my 'Helpful' Sleep Nazi mode = lecture mode. I typically dislike people who moralize, lecture and think there is one way to do things/live life. Sadly, I've observed myself fall in that category when it comes to baby sleep. I'm tired of seeing all my mom friends tired and can see the 'mistakes' they are making when it comes to their baby's sleep.

One fine day, though, I realized that you know what - some moms need to crib just to vent about motherhood. Because motherhood is the hardest job ever. Some moms DO have it harder than others. Some moms have almost no help with the baby and have to plod on alone. They have no village helping them raise their child. and some moms have babies who are fussier than others.

All of us have good days and bad ones. and babies who sleep well and babies who don't. I just need to remember that and accept that if my friends aren't sleeping well, they have a good reason for living that way and it's not my business to 'help' them out.

#nomoreinterfering

Tell me, I'm curious:
When do you find it hardest to keep your mouth shut and not share an opinion?

Typical sleep story in my home