Monday 17 September 2007

To all the girls who stay at home..

The past week has been a remarkable one. I got an idea of what it would be like to be a stay at home amma.

On Saturday, husband was in Hyderabad. We went grocery shopping and she insisted on Good Day biscuits. We returned home and I gave her a Good Day biscuit, she refused it saying that is only for the day care, not for home.

On Sunday, husband slept late. We did some colouring. She used all the green coloured crayons on the capsicum (drawing) and I gave her a score of 4/10 for the effort.

On Monday, I took her to the pediatrician. She was very happy to see him. When we returned home she sneezed and a foot long piece of snot was deposited in my cupped hands. We went to my office to pick up my things and she broke my white board markers.

On Tuesday, we again spent the day at home, and she did and re-did the Pooh Jigsaw five times. I felt like Yossarian when he was watching Orr. But I am not insane (was Yossarian insane?). We went to a meeting of mine in the evening and she said she was hungry. I tried to feed her the Maggi noodles they gave me in the meeting, but she said it was too spicy.

On Wednesday, I gave up the pretense of work and we decorated a box, slapping on oodles of fevicol on papers, and stickers, and so on. She did and re-did the Pooh Jigsaw seven times. We tried to watch MTV but both of us felt disgusted at Shah Rukh Khan since he was naked. She threw up some spinach into my cupped hands, later that day.

On Thursday, I felt sick too. My nose was blocked and throat scratchy. It was day two of antibiotics for her so she was feeling better, I guess. I took the morning off and went to work, while husband watched her. I returned home at noon to find a tsunami-struck house.

On Thursday afternoon she woke up from her nap in five minutes and did and re-did the Pooh Jigsaw, and I could not take a nap which was sorely required for me because of my cold.

On Thursday night, I took her to the nebuliser because (a) she needed it (b) she loves it. When we returned, I was tired and wanted to sleep. She wanted to be awake and scratch me. Or do the Jigsaw.

On Friday morning, I woke up at 6 am, did my kitchen routine and went to sleep on the sofa. Bliss lasted till 7:30 am. Then she dragged me back to bed and piled all the pillows in the house, on me. I continued to sleep although something felt heavy. I woke up to find her doing the Jigsaw.

On Friday mid-morning, I desperately borrowed a few jigsaw puzzles from my neighbour, who thought we are both really strange. She did them (there are five of them) twice each.

On Friday afternoon, I dropped her off at the day care, where she had tearful reunions with kids and teachers alike, and immediately joined the snot-nosed monsters watching Tom and Jerry. Some of the other kids tried to chat me up but I escaped.

How do you all do it?

6 comments:

Vanessa said...

Lol....
Now its my turn to answer the "how do u do it" question.....
Its not that bad. You are describing the classic not-well beahaviour. They get really cranky if they are not well. Otherwise, its not that bad in a set routine comprising of bath time, TV time, play time etc.
I am certainly not a child-care expert...have my moments of frustration. but its fine..natural.

I like the post....:-)

Airspy said...

kbpm,

I work part-time and its crazy. Initially I used to suffer heart-aches, every morning, when I said good-bye to my kid at creche. Now I go through the same - when its 2:30 and I need to say good-bye to my office for the day. The very thought of getting back into teeny-tiny world - making plans about nutrition, wholesome non-TV entertainment, answering questions about why octopuses have three hearts (do you have a ready made answer? I am yet to google on it) - It makes me want to continue in the make-believe world of office.

Preeti Aghalayam aka kbpm said...

vanessa-
thanks.. the frustration i suppose is normal, my problem though is that mothering expands to fill all time and horizons and suddenly you find yourself moving heaven and earth to find the missing jigsaw piece. when you could be soaking your feet in warm water and watching re-runs of Friends, in calm solitude.. or, for that matter, obsessively reading Luck of the Bodkins for the tenth time. aaah...

i was inspired in the format of this post from a book about a Little Monkey who goes from day to day in the week and learns some manners. see how stupid my life has become, i am inspired by kiddie books. :-(

Preeti Aghalayam aka kbpm said...

airspy-
first of all, dont know about the octopus hearts. god, why is the world inundated with such facts. :-)
part-time i agree is extremely tough, cause in short periods of time you have to do the mind-switch between work and parenting. and of course the work work is so much easier to do than parenting.
although i generally hate the adult world with all its resident high heels, jealousies, back-stabbing and depressions, my problem with the kiddie-world is that its just too intense! you have to be climbing, thinking, jumping, eating, avoiding Jhalak Dikh Laaja or Jodi No. 1 (YUCK!!) that everyone else is going gaga over, and constantly answering these damn questions. because of new-age parenting you cannot get away with things like 'God made it like that' or 'If octopuses did not have three hearts, you could not have become strong enough to finish your milk in one gulp' No we cannot say such things, we have to google, find the answer, figure out a vocabulary to explain this answer to them, and anyway at the end of it they will say 'yeah if it did not have three hearts it would DIE, I know, my friend told me' way too stressful man.

Choxbox said...

LOL!

i think its just that you get used to whatever you are doing all the time!

Neha said...

I'm not sure, but I THINK an octopus has three hearts because its blood pressure would be too high otherwise. Two hearts pump blood into the gills, and one into the body. I'll have to look it up anyway.

keep up the good work, kbpm. and good luck!