3 Big Impact, Small Decisions.

Lately, I've had some time to sit back and reflect on life in general. I am blessed to have parents who live in a community surrounded by beautiful nature and beautiful people. Ashwin, Nanma and I have has some much needed, quality time together as a family. It has been wonderful and I am so grateful!

One of the things I've enjoyed is watching Nanma run and play with abandon. She has had more scrapes on her knees in these two weeks than she has had in a year in the city! She is a friendly child and has made friends so easily with children of all ages here. She spends her evenings in wild abandon playing inventive games like the "well game" " rock style" and just plain old tag. Watching her has made us feel like we are somehow depriving her of a "full" childhood because we live in a big city!

I've decided that once we get back home, I am going to take her to our local park as often as possible. I must confess that I let my laziness take over and just let her play at home with her toys or watch a video more often than I should. She thrives on physical activity and I hour don't hinder that!

I have decided to actively socialise with my neighbours. My best friend stays in the same building as us and they have two wonderful kids who Nanma plays with everyday. I've been enjoying the comfort of knowing I don't have to go through those early negotiations in friendships. Our families have almost the same rules and expectations when it comes to our kids, so I've actually been in a kind of rut when it comes to Nanma's friends. I realise that my daughter is good at building friendships and I out to encourage that. So... When I get back, I will make the effort to build relationships with my other neighbours and friends from church so that my daughter will too!

I have decided to be more careful about what my family puts into our bodies. Recent circumstances have made me realise how important what we feed our kids is. Nanma eats a lot of rice and very little nutritious food. I have in the past allowed her to eat just plain lemon rice or maggie noodles for lunch or dinner. While it is alright to do that occasionally, I have decided to be more careful from now on. Ashwin and I haven't been careful at all, and are reaping the ill effects of that now. We certain,y don't want that for Nanma.

So, that's it... My 3 decisions. They are not easy. Laziness is a constant battle for me. But I need to remind myself that I'm not doing Thomson my own. I have a Heavenly Father who is even more invested in the well being of my family than I am, and He has promised to help!

My Family

I love them!

I don't have a day when I have not been grateful for the joy these two darlings bring me.

My husband = my rock, my main man, honest opinion giver, my best friend , my one true love , know-er of my inside outs.

My daughter = my dream come true, bringer of laughter,  intense feeling stirrer , my catalyst in making me want to be a better person, the best present from God.

I am blessed and I am glad I know it!

The Very Hungry Caterpillar Birthday Party

Presenting you , Nanma's 3rd birthday party. The theme was her current favorite book - "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" by Eric Carle. Our little flat was decorated with colours and pictures from the book and the cake was the caterpillar of course! I baked vanilla cupcakes with green butter cream frosting for the caterpillar's body and a small round vanilla cake with red buttercream frosting for the head. On the menu, we tried to have food from the book and got as close as we could with our small budget and locally available resources.

I went out looking for party hats. They cost between Rs.4-8 per hat and I thought that was a waste considering they're never used after the party and invariably are too flimsy and break within the first few minutes of wearing. Instead I bought thin, metal hairbands and used sparkly pipe cleaners and twisted them around it to make antennae!

My darling father-in-law and cousin Soumya helped make the butterfly for the wall.

I used tissue paper to make colourful pomanders that were strung across our teensy weensy living cum dining room. I learned how to make them here. Of course, I cheated and used less paper.

Our little home had more people that we've ever had before, but I think we managed quite alright for that! Here's nanma blowing the candles off. Look at the faces of the kids around her...so cute!

You should have seen her go at the cake with the knife... such a pro at cake cutting!

And then it was time to bond with her friends and cousins over food! Notice the mat they're sitting on? It was a gift when Nanma was a newborn by our beloved Moses Thatha.

She managed to sneak in some cuddle time with her Chennai Ammachy. Nanma is wearing a dress handmade by her ODC Ammachy aka my mom!

After food, the kids moved on outside for some craft fun. I had saved cardboard egg cartons for a couple of weeks to make caterpillars.
Of course it was MESSY !!! But we managed to clean up afterward. Thank you SO much Soumya for helping me clean up!

After our guests had left, the closest family stayed on. Here are Nanma and her cousin Ahana showing off their dance moves!

Waka Waka!

Over all it was a lovely evening. Planning the party was stressful but it was "Happy Stress" as I call it!

Being a Working Mom

** DISCLAIMER**

I really appreciate Stay at home moms and their dedication. I do not mean to say that one is easier or better than the other. Please understand that in this post I am only talking about my situation, and not anyone else's.

It's funny that almost all the "Mommy Blogs" I follow daily are of Stay-at-home moms. (SAHM). Making the decision to continue working after Nanma was born was not easy. And for a long time I swayed back and forth between guilt and confidence in my decision to work.

To understand my story, we need to back track a bit. Motherhood was something I wanted to experience right from childhood. Somewhere along the line between a kindergartner and a college student, the desire to become a teacher crept in and took a firm hold. My grandfathers on both sides were living examples for me of people who answered their 'calling' and lived by faith.

People outside my family expected me to follow in my family's footsteps and become a doctor. But very soon it was apparent to me that being a teacher was my calling. I've mentioned countless times before on this blog that I love my job as an elementary teacher. So when I got pregnant, the question of quitting and becoming a SAHM came about. (The recession was in full swing and my husband's job security was at an all time low.)I felt myself being torn in two directions. After much prayer and with the support of my excellent family, most of all my awesome mother in law, I decided to continue working.

Funnily enough, Christians I admired turned around and began criticizing me for my decision. This hurt. . . .very badly. They told me I was neglecting my duty by working. I was ridden with guilt every time I had to leave home early and Nanma cried out for me. The first few months back to work were torturous in some ways.

Slowly I began realising that this is indeed what God had called me to be. A wife, mother and teacher. I have fixed working hours. I am back home by 4:30 latest. We have scheduled Nanma's naptimes so that she gets enough sleep during the day and is awake and waiting for me when i reach home. God blessed us with Susheela Akka - our Nanny/maid who lives with us. I spend all my time right from when I reach home till Nanma goes to bed, with her. I am happy, Nanma is happy and so is Ashwin!

I used to worry about missing major milestones. But by God's grace, I didn't miss a single one! I managed weaning, teething, walking, pacifier weaning, bottle weaning, potty training all of it over weekends and school holidays. I can't really say "I" managed it, cos I believe God had a major part to play in it as well.

My fears of having a child that loved her Nanny more than her mother turned out to be just that - fears. One of my favorite verses is this : For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline. - 2 Timothy 1 :7. Being a working mom has meant teaching myself to be more disciplined. I might not be able to get my mani-pedi-facials done as often as I could earlier, and I might not be able to sleep in or take an afternoon nap with Nanma. For me, work has not come ahead of my child and I hope that will always be the case. I have had some wonderful times with my daughter and am confident that the fun times will continue.

Many Christians are often quick to judge working mothers. I cannot speak for all mothers everywhere, but I do know this. God has called me to be a mother and a teacher. And I for one am happy to follow my calling.

Like I said in my last post, I don't know what the future holds. I might not always be a working mom. But I do know this - Satan tries his hardest to convince women that others around us are right in their criticism. But I'm wiser than him in knowing with all my heart that God knows best! Being a working mom isn't easy. But then I have the support of a God who gives me daily grace and strength.

I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who has given me strength, that he considered me faithful, appointing me to his service. - 1 tim 1:12

I don't want a "Good Girl" Lord!

"Good girls don't do that!" is something I find myself saying about 20 times a day!

For all her cuteness and charm, Nanma can sometimes behave like a little devil! There are days when she will do the EXACT opposite of what we tell her to do. I have lost count of the number of times she has embarrassed us in public and I've silently prayed, "Lord, please get me out of here!"

Just the other night, I told her not to do something. She went ahead and did just that, and then went on to face the consequences I had warned her about without flinching. I have always known she is strong willed. But that day, I began fearing for her (and us!) "If she is like this now, what is she going to be like as a teenager?"

I see some of the kids she plays with at school and Church and I wonder why she cannot be so "nice".

"What am I doing wrong?"

"What are others thinking of me as a mother right now?

And then today I read this article by Lysa TerKeurst. Just what I needed. Here is an excerpt of what she says in the article.

If you are a parent struggling with this area too, I would encourage you to go and read the whole article. I'm going to try and change the way I pray for Nanma. And I am going to try to remember that her strong willed ' ness is not my doing, but a gift that God is going to help mold into a terrific character trait!

"I cried all the way home. Not because of what she’d done that day. But rather because of how she was everyday. So determined. So independent. So insistent.

I would beg God to show me how to raise a good child. One that stayed in her stroller. One that other people would comment about how wonderfully behaved she was. One that made me look good. . .

. . . Maybe God’s goal wasn’t for me to raise a good rule following child. God’s goal was for me to raise a God-following adult. An adult just determined and independent and insistent enough to fulfill a purpose He had in mind all along."

- Lysa TerKeurst

If you were a fly on my wall

About a year and a half ago, I wrote a post titled "If you were a fly on my classroom wall". Now its time to do the home version of it.

Things have been very interesting recently. I think its all the time she has spent indoors thanks to her family members falling sick one by one that lent flight to this splendid imagination of hers.

So. . . if you were a fly on our wall you'd hear things like . . .

" Amma, Appa talk softly! The balloons are sleeping"

"Nanma! You can't mop the floor with grape juice!"

"Penguin is sleeping in the washing machine"

"I don't want medicine! If I go to Samaya's house my cough will all go away!"

"Amma, I want semenlation!"

WHAAAAAAT???

Semenlation! .....(turns out she wanted steam inhalation! phew!)

"Nanma reading time is over. Now its sleeping time"

Amma, dont disburt . I'm bissi"

"Tomorrow is my kalyanam*" (*wedding)

What is kalyanam?

"kalyanam is wearing sari and eating biriyani"

You want curd in your noodles?? REALLY?? NO!! (I don't know where she got that Ra-One trait from!!)

"My crocs also want a bubble bath"

"Amma, is this my poopoo? " (taking some random piece of dried brown stuff off the ground and shoving it under my nose to smell!)

O.K I'll stop there.... it could get worse you know!

It Hurts

I learned a lesson tonight.... A big one. And I want to share it with you. I am totally expecting some hateful comments, but I stand by what I say. 100%

This evening, Nanma was acting up way more than she usually does. She seemed to be focusing all her energy into repeatedly doing what she very well knows she isn't to do. Now we have a discipline system going at our home. At our home, the natural consequence for what cannot be corrected after 3 time outs is an adi. (spank)(Don't jump at me now!) .

Now Nanma got one adi. She cried. It was hard for me. And she was warned that doing the same "bad thing" again would result in another adi. She told me she wouldn't do it again. And then, barely 5 minutes later, she was back at it!

This time, I was more upset than angry. I hate having to cause my one precious daughter pain. But I knew I couldn't let it slide with just a warning because then she will understand that she could get away with anything if she does it again. I told her I was going to give her an adi. I saw that look of fear cross her eyes. It was p.a.i.n.f.u.l to see that. But then again, I knew I had to do it just to make her understand that I mean NO when I say no!

My eyes teared up as I told her that her defiant behaviour was making me sad. I reminded her of my warning and told her I love her. But I have to give her an adi. I cried. It truly hurt me more than it hurt her to give that adi. ...... I know. Because I have heard my own mother tell me that "adi chufying" me as a kid hurt her more than it hurt me. I never understood it then, but I do now. I've felt my heart being wrung out as I watched Nanma go through an illness or even cry at vaccinations, but this one hurt far more than all those!

And as I held my crying toddler close, and whispered in her ear that I loved her more than she'd ever know, and that I was happy she wouldn't do it again, something suddenly dawned on me.

This is exactly what God was feeling like about me... or even worse! How many times did he watch in sadness as I committed the same sin over and over again! And it probably hurts him far more than it hurts me to watch me face the natural consequences for my actions! And oh my goodness, if I love my daughter so very much, how much more does he love me!!!

Gosh! This is what He means by "The Father's love" !!!!!! God - my heavenly parent!

This blog post might seem ridiculous to you if you don't believe in disciplining your children, or even if you don't have kids yet. But trust me. I feel it, and Its real!

P.S. Appa & Amma, I know you're reading this. I'm so so sorry for the pain Ive put you through. I never understood what you meant till now. Love you so so much!

I'll Love You Forever

Nanma and I have this game . After her bath, I wrap her up in her hooded towel (which barely wraps her up from head to toe now!) and I carry her to the bed to get dressed . But if Ashwin is around, then I place my bundle in his arms and we pretend she is our 'kochu baby' (tiny baby).

Nanma loves this . She also points to a picture of herself all swaddled up in our arms as a newborn baby and says "Adhu pola kochu baby" ( A tiny baby like that) .

Last night as I carried my freshly bathed and wrapped bundle of love into our bedroom, she looked up and noticed the ceiling. Eyes and mouth wide open she looked around, noticing things she never had paid attention to before.

That sweet scene gave me a lump in my throat . My heart did a little flippity flop as I was taken back to the day she was born . After screaming her lungs out for 5- 10 minutes and after her first feed, she lay in our arms, all swaddled up and wide eyed for more than an hour! she kept looking around, taking in all the new sights and a few familiar sounds! Everyone who saw her then remarked at how wide eyed and full of wonder she looked ( After gasping at how tiny she was, of course !)

Looking at her now, she 10kg+ almost 2, walking, talking, singing, dancing and drama queening.... I can't help but feel a rush of love and thankfulness take over me . Over and over again, I am reminded of the meaning of her name . GOODNESS . It isn't this little girl that's full off goodness . She is more full of mischief than goodness , but it is the God who created her.... He is so very good, I just cannot wrap my mind around his goodness !

Dear Nanma,

From a microscopic little embryo baby, to a screaming newborn, to a two year old, God has preserved and protected you . Your Appa and Amma still cannot believe He chose us to parent a little jewel like you . You have brought us more joy that we ever thought possible from a tiny little person ! In two years, our lives have changed more than ever before, and we can't imagine a better way to have it !

Sometimes Appa and I try to imagine what you will be like when you're older . We just cannot even think that far ! You are a very smart girl and you love to make people laugh. You are curious by nature and seem to love learning new words and ideas . You look at the world around you with such wonder in your eyes ! Our prayer is that you never lose that sense of wonder when you see God's creation and that little things in life give you pleasure all through your life. The God who created you and brought you so far has a plan for your life. And I hope and pray that we will be able to lead you the right way through the first few years of your life.

You're growing to be a big girl Nanma, but whenever I wrap you up in a towel after a bath, and I hear you say "Adhu pola kochu baby" I am reminded of Robert Munsch's book "I'll Love You Forever" ** and I sing that song in my head.

“I’ll love you forever,

I’ll like you for always,

as long as I’m living

my baby you’ll be.”

Love,

Amma.

** Please go over to Robert Munsch's website . I am in love with his books . I personally don't have any for Nanma, but when she's old enough I can borrow some for her from my school's library. Every time I read one of his books, I feel like I'm back to being a 6 year old again! If I ever get to meet this man, I will go and give him one big bear hug!

Oh, P.S:

Nanma's birthday is on the 19th and that is Saturday. If you want to pass on wishes, hugs, cuddles or kisses, I'd be glad to!

My babies

I am a mother.

Even as a toddler I was mother……to my dolls.

At 16, I preferred rocking our neighbor’s baby to sleep rather than prepare for my board exams.

I have one daughter, and faith that God will give me more.

But….

I also have many ‘children’ scattered across the globe. Babies I’ve played with, become a part of my life. My mother used to find it amusing that every baby I played with would be the “cutest baby I’ve known”.

Some of my babies are all grown up now…That’s because I was 5 years old when I first started feeling a sense of ownership over the babies I regularly played with. My first baby will soon become a dentist!!! My second baby now volunteers with children living in poverty in the Philippines. ( I had the pleasure of having her at my home for a couple of days last week) Another baby, now in her teens is admirably strong at holding on to her faith and values amid peer pressure. She dreams of being a mathematics professor in Oxford!!!

The baby of the whole T clan is now finishing high school (though she calls it pre-university) and writes a blog where she comes across as someone wayyyyy beyond her years.

And me? I’m so grateful that these kids know me and acknowledge me as a part of their lives. I am proud of all they’ve accomplished and pray that they will continue to shine their lights for Jesus!

I am grateful for the community where I grew up. I know I am the product of my parents’ reliance on God and the investment these babies’ parents and others put into my life.

It truly takes a village to raise a child!

Mirror Mirror!

'The scariest moment in parenthood is realizing your child is turning out to be just like you.'

I read this on a blog today, and I know its true of me!

Our lil angel has tried testing our limits from the day she was born, but never with as much intensity as she has over the past two weeks. Paunch and I have been to a parenting workshop, and read our fair share of books on it. We get parenting advice from our parents, experienced and inexperienced friends and even strangers in the supermarket! Basically, we are fed up to our teeth with advice!! But nothing has prepared us for this battle of discipline.

The most difficult part of this battle is looking into the eyes of this little girl we helped create and seeing ourselves in her! How I wish children inherited only the nice things from their parents! When I tell her not to do something, I realize I am guilty of the very same things I tell her off for!

It's humbling.

baby see, baby do.

I've always been the Big Sister to all my cousins, and have always been the 'pleasant girl' who my Aunts would ask their daughters to follow after. But my own daughter sees me for what I am, and she imitates me. As she grows older, I feel like I am mother to mirror. Well, that's just a metaphor. You get it right? ha ha

So, over the last 2 weeks, I've come to realize that the most important thing I can do as a parent, is to make my life one that my precious daughter can model hers on.

Wish me luck!

P.S. This is a oooold picture, taken when lil girl was 10 months old. She will soon be 18 months!

Update

Presenting...........

The ever smiling little lady of our home, who loves sitting on her best friend's chair, allows her Amma to do up her hair, only to take it all off 5 mins later,

Who loves, eating fruit, and when asked to share, will give the tiny piece in her mouth rather than offer a bite, whose high chair is lying unused in our balconey,

And who sweetly allows her Amma to disguise her as a local roadside rowdy, and whose "Ai La bees" (I love you) and "I Love aah's" Fill our hearts to the brim.

She is a living reminder that God indeed, is good. She is a living reminder that the best is always yet to come, and that God cares not about our past, but our future. She makes me want to be a better person. She does! And for her and only for her have I been the least scatterbrained Ive ever been in my life.

I love you baby girl!

Guilt, Regret & Healing

Writing this post has been difficult. This post had to come up sometime, because I knew it had to. It was hard, because I wasn't sure how I really felt about the things I'm going to be writing about.

I am a normal human being, with normal emotions (OK. maybe a little heightened emotions, but I'm sure there are others like me)

And I have regrets. Some HUGE ones, some not so significant, still they make me go "Cha! If only!"

I'd like to think I am someone who doesn't care what others think of me, but I've come to realise that I do, and that it actually governs what I say and do much more than it should, and much more than I'd like it to.

Here are my biggest two.

Regret No 1:

I am a working mother. All through my childhood, I thought I'd be able to manage being a mom and a teacher. How hard could it be? Then I grew up and everyone around me was telling me the best thin I could do for my child was to stay at home and spend every minute with my daughter. I believed them. But circumstances dictated that I had to be a working mom. My best friend and all the other moms from my church are Stay at home moms (SAHM). Though none of them ever said an unkind word to me, I felt like I was shortchanging my daughter. regrets, guilt, regrets.

Regret No 2:

Might seem strange, but I always was a supporter of breastfeeding. Even as a teenager. I knew and believed it was the best thing that I could feed my child with. I never thought it would be a problem for me. But it was. right from day one. It was painful and my little girl just didn't take to it. I bore the pain amid well wishing aunts and other women intruding upon my privacy, trying to "teach" me the right way to nurse. In time the pain went away. But I couldn't nurse beyond five and a half months. People around me said "If you really want it to work, it will". I really wanted it to work. I believed bottle feeding was bad. I took natural medication to help. But it just didn't work for me. Eventually I switched my baby over to formula and bottles. Big regret. Felt terribly guilty. Made me cry each time I thought of it.

In my effort to be known as a "good christian girl", I have been doing just what Jesus doesn't want us to - look to others for appreciation. I am just realising that I do so many things, even like dragging myself and my sometimes reluctant husband to church, just because I want people to see that I'm going to church. I wanted to be a SAHM because I'd fit in with my christian friends, and because people I cared about thought it was the right thing to do. I found it hard to reconcile with bottle feeding because I was brought up to think it was wrong.

What a farce!

I am in the process of dealing with these regrets though. And as I begin to give up these guilty feelings and regrets I have into god's hands, I am beginning to see the lightness his healing brings. Once again, I am in the process of finding my healing in God. Every now and then I pull back and want to lick my own wounds. But I am learning. And I think I am finally moving in the right direction. Soon there'll be no more wounds to like. I'll be healed.

And I just wanted you to know!

Hugely Humbled

It’s been 8 months and 6 days since the Lovely, Likeable, Loveable Little Lady & I met each other face to face.

It’s been 1 year 4 months and 18 days since she was created.

It’s been a million times infinity years since God planned her birth and the way she’d impact mine and Paunch’s life.

These are the very thoughts that have made me gasp in awe several times today at that indescribable, uncontainable person I love so much and whom I call my God!!!

This is where I DEMAND my readers to stand up and show me what they're made of!

hah!           just kidding... no.. 

All I want you to do is comment on my last post on my lil one's nicknames.

Here's what I wrote as a response to the comments I got at 2:16pm IST.  And since I know that putting this up as a blog post instead of a comment will gather more comments, that's what I'm doing now!

Hmmm....4 comments.

ONLY 4 COMMENTS?????

waaaaaaa!!!(crying like my baby! By the way, another of her nicknames if "Nwaaaaanma" -thanks to the way she cries!!)

I know I have more blog readers than these faithful 4 who commented.

Right now, its a tie between chakakuru and L5. So ppl, u better hurry up and give your choice or else she shall be nick-nameless and be called baby (which is horribly boring) or she'll be called something different on every blog post and you'll be throughly confused cos I might even call her different names within the same post!!

ok... stop procastinating and give me your comments!

What do I name thee?

You want to know why i've put off blogging for so long??? It's cos I can't think of a nice nickname for my baby.

So I thought why not ask my readers to choose from her already existing truckload of names??

Here they are!!!

1. Kadugu kuttan - This is my creation. I think I picked up the idea from a blog I read. 'Kadugu' means mustard seed - tiny, round and cute. 'Kuttan' is a malayalam endearment meaning something like 'little darling'                                                                                                              
2. chakakuru - means 'jackfruit seed' in  malayalam. My best friend, Kavitha named her this. For those who don't know here's what it looks like! you could also click here to read what wikipedia has to say about the jackfruit.                                                                                                                
3. Bean pod- she looks like one when she's all swaddled! Here she is looking like a beanpod in one of her newborn pictures!    Actually, doesn't she also look like a chakakuru here?                                
4. Squiggly Wiggly/Squirmy Wormy - Ever before she was born, we knew she was a restless spirit. Paunch and I would watch her 13th week ultrasound scan just to see her squiggling, wiggling, squirming and worming inside my tummy! Right after birth she found a way to wiggle her tiny hands out of her nice cozy swaddle!!                                                                              
5. Red Indian - For the first three weeks since she was born, she was pink!! (unusual for an Indian baby!) and when she cried, her whole body would turn red!! My cousin, who visited us then named her 'Red Indian' for this very reason! Here's a picture of her crying her lungs out.  (She was a very very tiny full term baby, hence the skinnyness. Don't worry she's all fleshed out now, a cute and chubby lil joy!)                                                                                                             
6. Oh... I'm getting tired of this.... so let me finish off with the last one.... LLLLL . Whozzat?? My Lovely,laughing,loveable little lady of course!!!  I removed the 'light' from the name because I know that's going to change very soon. And, light is not as nice a descriptor as 'laughing' is it?  I leave you now with a pic of my adorable L5 taken 2 weeks ago.

You Choose!!

P.S.  No, Orange is NOT my favorite colour. It just so happens that there is orange in most of my pictures here.

Oh... and I know you haven't had enough of seeing my lil baby, so here's another picture of her! This was when she was 6 weeks old. (she's going to be 3 months soon!! can you believe it????)She's not wearing orange...YAY!!! 

But oops! She's not wearing anything else!!!

Ribbons and Roses

* DISCLAIMER: This post was written in a hurry, in the short time I get while my baby naps! So please ignore spelling or grammatical mistakes and even repeated or missed sentences. This disclaimer is particularly meant for my naughty cousins who will otherwise not let me hear the end of their "and you call yourself an English teacher?" comments!

Some kids who came to see my baby made a comment that she looks like a boy! I know I should just laugh it off and let it be, after all I do know for sure that my baby is most certainly a girl and not a boy! ...BUT...it's been on my mind...I don't like that people (even naughty 5 year old boys count as people, right?) think my little girl looks like a boy! Its most probably because her hair is still so short. So I pestered my ever creative mother to make her a cute hairband. We hunted around and found some old satin ribbon and a button to make her a lovely white bow.

Putting it on her, I was reminded of the last time I had ribbons in my hair. No, it wasn't when I was a kid myself. It was in college!  I got my bachelors degree from  Women's Christian College in Chennai. I don't know if this is a regular feature at most girls colleges, but we had these special "theme days" that we looked forward to. There was 'ethnic day', 'twins day', 'headgear day', 'pirates day', 'wacky hair day' and lots more. My favourite was "ribbons 'n roses day"- our own version of 'friendship day'

It usually was on a Friday  so that hostelers like me could go out on Wednesday ( we were only allowed out of the campus on Wed, Fri, Sat and Sun!!!) and buy a stack of ribbons. We could have bought roses too, but when you're living in the college hostel and feeding on unpalatable messy "mess" food, you want to keep aside a chunk of the meagre pocket money your parents send you to go out and eat! The ribbons were originally meant to be used like friendship bands, and that's how we'd start out - cutting off a piece of ribbon and tying  around friends' wrists. But soon the number of friends would outnumber the length of the ribbon! So we'd cut off tiny bits and tie it anywhere - on the hair, spectacle frames, earrings, noserings, necklaces, bangles, wristwatches, fingers, rings, toes,toerings....U get the picture??

By evening, the girls pouring out of the college would be a sight to see, pretty smiling faces covered in bits of multicoloured ribbons from head to toe, all bearing testimony to the joy of friendship.

A wasted warning

I was warned by some well meaning friends that I'd have to expect feeling hatred towards my husband when I go through labour or during the first month of being a mother. Apparantly this happens because women tend to think its their husbands fault for having put them in this helpless situation.

Of course I did go through a rough first to weeks post partum, but it only made me fall in love with my Paunch all the more! Come one, seriously, how can you not look at something like this and not melt??

What a waste of a warning!

Baby's breath

I smelled it for the first time today! Baby's breath.... and it is the sweetest scent I've known.

Its Saturday and so the Paunch was here. He comes here every weekend from Chennai. We spent about an hour just lying down on either side ouf our little baby, gazing at her perfect little face, watching her little chest rise and fall as she slept, smelling her sweet baby breath. She smiles in her sleep! I know all newborns do that, but each time we see her smile, we fall in love with her all over again! She makes a million faces even in sleep! I wonder what she's dreaming about! She's had just 16 days on this earth and all she has seen so far are the blurry images her still-adjusting-to-this-world-eyes have sent to her brain. The only thing she has tasted so far is her mother's milk. The only voices she's heard are those of her family. Yet, I'm sure she's felt the immense loved poured out on her by everyone who has come to see her.

And that... I guess is reason enough for her to smile!

oh... this post was initially meant to be about her baby breath and then I got sidetracked by her smile.

She's sleeping now by the way and her father is lying next to her watching her sleep! One of our friends asked us how we keep ourselves occupied when she's sleeping (since she sleeps a LOT) and we said "oh! we just watch her sleep!". Believe me, there's not a dull moment when you are a parent! I am beginning to understand that!

Nanma

Isn't she a beauty? I can't have enough of just staring at her and marveling at God's handiwork. We love you Nanma!

I am a MOMMMMMMMMMMM!!!!

Nanma our precious little princess was born on Thursday, March 19th at 5:20 pm. I am a mother......... FINALLY!!!!!!!!

I dont have much time right now but I believe my husband Pauch has written a blog post on her. Here's the link... www.thepaunch.blogspot.com

I'll be back soon with pictures!