Mommnesia is fine but Mommania is embarassing

Momnesia blog post was very enjoyable. That reminded me of one of the embarassing situations I have been in.

We were setting up the kitchen for our new Calcutta home. Hence a visit to the utensil store was all but necessary to buy the basic cooking utensils. The shop was all but swanky. Resembled more like a wholesale dealer's warehouse than a shop. When we entered, me, Mom in law and my son little R, there was barely place to stand. Three or four rickety stools were kept for the customers, already occupied. My son was already pretty irritated with the sweaty summer heat and hence was irritated. But he as always decided to express his irritation by irritating others.

And the most potent way to irritate me is by constantly humming some odd tune(or out of tune). But since the shop was too small, and with each one breathing on the other, I spoke under my breath and scolded him, "Don't hum.."

I then continued struggling to get attention of the reluctant sales man and get my stuff. All of a sudden saw a newly wed girl(rather boyish) looking wide eyed at me. Confused, I settled my eyes on her.... and so she spoke. She said, " Excuse me Ma'am. You scolded him for humming... but he did not hum. It was me"

I really did not know which way to run or vanish!...Height of embarassment I faced that day

Happy Woman's Day

"A tactful wife is one who ensures she spends so much that her husband can't afford another women"

Wishing all the DMC mommies - 'Happy Woman's Day'


Regards
Batul
(http://scribblermom.wordpress.com)

So that's what it is!

Hiya, all.

I read this article today on mnbc, which discusses the forgetfulness many moms experience after having children, and found it very interesting.

I was particularly tickled by the one where 'mom' cut up her husband's grilled chicken into tiny little pieces 'because that's what a mom does'. Right? Right :). I very nearly did that to my husband's omelette this morning.

"There’s probably not a new mother alive who can’t identify and share a smile with Andi Silverman’s stories of memory lapses. Like the time she went shopping and left her groceries in the store. Or when she went on vacation with her two small children and forgot the diapers.

With two toddler sons, Nate, 3, and Teddy, 2, commanding her total attention, this kind of forgetfulness is to be expected, say medical experts. They even have a name for it — “momnesia.”

“It’s a state of the female brain that is a bit forgetful after she’s had a baby,” Dr. Louann Brizendine told TODAY correspondent Savannah Guthrie."

So that's the word - momnesia !

Theme for March'08

(This post by Sandeepa)

Thanks to Poppin's Mom for the "love" ly Feb Theme and thanks to all who participated. It sure did help us Moms to write about our strengths and hear others.

This month’s theme stems off from Kiran’s Nursery post some days back and the fact that getting into a nursery school in the bigger cities in India is still a harrowing and expensive experience. Add to this, the pressure on the small child and the whole rigmarole he/she has to go through.

Contrast it to the US where the good daycares/ pre-schools are expensive, though getting in is not a big deal and then education comes easy & free in shape of public schools and “no child left behind” where every child is treated on the same footing and given same opportunity. But there is a small catch though, there are better school districts and not so good school districts. So though you do not pay anything for the public school, depending on all the other factors that chalk up the house price, the rank of the school district adds a further notch to it.

Yes there are preppy private schools but the public schools usually provide pretty good & standard education.

However, the good point I see here is that that the child does not have to bear the brunt or pressure of any of this though as a parent you might have some decisions to make.

As a parent at some point during your child’s toddler years, you have to decide on “Which daycare/Which Pre School/ Which Kindergarten”

Most of us have made some decisions or would do so soon and I would like you to discuss – “Why you decided on a certain Pre School/ School for your child “

What was it that made you think this would be the place where your child would be happy and you would be happy?

When given a choice of schools, where your child starts kindergarten, what are the factors you think are of more importance, the education, the class demography, the activities, the school for rich & famous, what is it?

Do you really think, that the "right" school matters, or the whole thing is hyped these days ? Afterall admissions were never a nightmare when we were that age.

How is the whole “getting into kindergarten/nursery” process in your part of the world ? Would be interesting to hear about Ireland from Mummyjaan and Dutchland from DR and other Moms out there.

So here is Theme for March’08 – “Is this the Right School, baby??”

Substitute school, with pre-school or even daycare as your case might be

Please post during the month of March and don’t forget to tag with “Theme for March’08”

The first baby step

Posted by Batul (http://scribblermom.wordpress.com)

Hi

I have recently been added to DMC and wanted to say a quick hello to all.

I am a first time mom to a 22 months old girl Genie (her nickname), living in Mumbai with my hubby and IL's (in-laws).

After a sabbatical of 16 months with freelancing and part time work thrown in, i have recently (nov 2007) started working full time and will go back to being a SAHM from April. I will be studying from this April for a period of 3 months (basically upgrading my skill sets).

My life's journey till i met my DH (darling hubby) with more of downs and less of ups and now the metamorphosis from being a workaholic to happily married mom has just been great. I wrote my first blog on 11th Feb 2008 after being inspired by a year old Mommy Blogging article in LiveMint. Previously i used to read loads of fictions (mysteries, thrillers, family drama) and now my reading comprise of Good Housekeeping, a really excellent mag for all genders. I loved reading Jhumpa Lahri's Namesake.

My kiddo - Genie is a cherubic girl, full of life, constantly moving, running, jumping all over the place, never still except when she is asleep :). Genie's terrible twos started this Jan and being the most impatient mom, i do spank her (hubby & IL's hate spanking, but i just can't help it).

I will end this post this quote - for all the parents... I don't how i stumbled upon this one.

"Parenting, at its best, comes as naturally as laughter. It is automatic, involuntary, unconditional love."

Ciao

Greeting, Namaste, "you talking to me?"

I have been reading the posts on DesiMomz for the past month, and have enjoyed the heart-felt sharing of anecdotes, the sisterly problem-solving, the recipes, the grouses.... It helps me remember that there is truly a community of us out there -- not just the professional, neighborhood, or parochial communities that surround us, but a community that shares similar day-to-day activities and associated emotions in so many ways. The community of professional, South-Asian moms, often far from their homelands and committed to giving their kids a deeply nurtured childhood.

I'd love to talk to you a little about my blogging experience. For more than a couple of years, I've gone online searching for inspiration as I stand in front of the fridge trying to figure something nice, nutritious and nosh'y for the kiddies. I finally decided that my Amma's recipes were just fine... but I did have to change them around to suit the sensitive palates of my 4 year olds. I then started chronicling our adventures with a blog. Yes, it was truly "our" adventures. I hated all those Jessica Seinfeld approaches - "hide the realities of good food and fool your kids to eat healthy." No way, no how...not in my house! I have kids who help me create my parota-based pizza layered with carrot slices, peas and cheese. They know their veggies and love them too. Hopefully, my blog can help other moms...and for that matter, anyone looking for some serendipitous food ideas. More importantly, I'm hoping people will give me advice -- some have given me tips on where to buy ingredients, others suggest variations. I'd love to hear from you!

As a working mom in NYC, I've tended to make the kitchen and cooking a dynamic part of my time with the kids. They hang out on tall chairs on the other side of the counter, chatting with me, snacking on ingredients, and more and more these days helping me cook! When the kids were younger (...and not quite up to the task of sitting up, etc.!), I would wake up at 5 am and cook up breakfast and lunch before leaving for work. I made sure that I hung out in the morning and fed them breakfast, and used that time to chat about the day, their friends, and bond over their fruit, eggs, cereals.... They still cried copiously as I left and I still ached as I got in the elevator. Knowing they were eating well was one of the many things that got me through the days at work (apart from the cool work I was doing!) Nowadays, I make sure to cook lunch and dinner about 3 days a week, and of course the weekends are cook-fests! The kids have their own spatulas, and aprons, and are real mini-chefs, and it's one big party most weekends!

My newest experiment is with video-blogging. I use the Flip (http://www.theflip.com/) - it's truly handy-dandy, easy and now difficult to get hold of now that Oprah put it on her list of coolest things around. I'll keep you updated on how we all fare! Also, I suspect I'll be telling you more about our political conversations (my daughter like "Hemalee" Clinton - one of our pals is called Hemalee - and my son like McCain. These are very opinionated 4-year olds!)

Looking forward to further discussions and posts.
Roopa Unnikrishnan
http://rooparecipes.blogspot.com

Friends are...

contributed by Priya of Dreaming in Suburbia

Friends are funny beings. You don’t really know someone is your true friend until you’ve shared an experience, a situation or perhaps a problem that’s been eating away at you and they (the friends’ I mean) help you solve it. Well anyway, while I was killing myself over whether I should finally take the plunge and become a SAHM - with all the emotional baggage that went with it - I remember speaking to many many women - but two of them stand out in my memory. Suprizingly, both of them did not have children. One of them was not even married ! But they both taught me something important, and when I look back now, I think were instrumental in shaping my decision to become a SAHM.

(NOT that I’m a huge fan of all mothers being SAHMs. I am however, very much in favor of each mom doing what she feels is the right thing for her own family. So please don't think of this as a flame. Its just something I'd like to share with all of you.)

The first, N, was a colleague of mine at the place where I worked. She was born and brought up in the City (that’s New York City for those of you that don’t know) and lived there until she was well into her twenties. She had a manic depressive mother, and was often had to act as the grown up in the family from the age of 13 onward. By the time she was thirty, she was trapped in a marriage that was going nowhere, a career that was going nowhere, a life that seemed permanently derailed.

So, she sat down and wrote a list of all the things she wanted to do in the next twenty five years of her life. Surprizing, even to herself, she found that she wanted to be a farmer. Have lots of animals, be a homesteader and still have a day job doing something she loved. She quit her then job, divorced her husband and moved up to Connecticut. For the next eight years, she worked toward her degree, she found the rules and regulations concerning owning and operating farmland and began saving up to own a farm. She met her second husband while wish-driving around the neighborhood where she would have liked to buy the land for her farm. For the past eleven years, they are both proud owners of a seven acre farm, two pigs, three cows, two goats and innumerable chickens, ducks and turkeys. They have a proper farmhouse, complete with barn, sty and pond. And she works full time doing what something she loves.

When I asked her, “But what an awful risk. What if you failed? What if you ended up in a worse place than you were before ?” And she told me,”I had two choices, I could either change my dreams and hopes and then make the best of what I had, or I could break out and start fresh. I did the latter, because I could never live with myself knowing that I never even tried because of fear of failure. You have one life, you can’t be afraid to make the most of it”.

I said,”You say that now, because everything turned out OK”. And she told me,”Yeah, but it wasn’t always OK. When you are struggling against something adverse, you don’t know that things are going to be ok. They may actually be going down the pooper. It’s your attitude to change that matters. If you feel like being a SAHM, think carefully, plan accordingly, take the plunge - and don’t ever look back.”

The second person who really helped me was Lynne. She worked at her mom’s sandwich shop (which, by the way, serves the best sandwiches on the entire Eastern Seaboard). She was in her mid-thirties, had quit her job as a junior partner at a prestigious CPA group two years ago then, was not married and had no prospects of doing so. But she was so bubbly and effervescent that I couldn’t help asking her,”Don’t you ever regret quitting your job?”.

She said,”I regret losing the big bucks, but not the job. I was working 100 hour weeks, with no life, no time and no happiness. Look at my life now. Sure, most people would say I’m nuts. My own mother was dead against me quitting my job. I make minimum wage, live with my mom and I’m not married. I’m not pretty enough or rich enough to tempt anyone to make me an offer. I’m thrity six and I don’t have children - probably will never have them. But you know what ? I am happier than I ever was in the ten years I was working. Its about what you want - not about what everyone expects you to want. If you want to become a SAHM, go ahead. Just remember not to compare your life as a Working Mother to your life as a Stay At Home Mother. That’s the secret to happiness - compete, but never compare”.

And because she’s such a funny person, she shared the story of how she quit her job:

One evening she was working late (as usual) getting somebody’s books in order, when she fainted. Clear out of the blue, she fainted. Everyone rushed over to her office and after the first aid was administered and she regained consciousness, her boss called her into his office.

Boss:”Lynn, are you OK ? Are you feeling tired ? Are you planning a little vacation?”
Lynn: "No, I’m fine. yeah, I’m tired, but that’s because I work ten hours a day, for not very much money. Now if I was senior partner….”

By this time Lynn realized her Boss was struggling to say something. She stood by expecting the worst,

Boss (blurting out): “Your pregnant isn’t it ? That’s why you fainted isn’t it ?”
Lynn (with a totally disgusted look on her face): "O my God, like this job leaves me any time to get pregnant ! You know what - I quit.”

Amen to friends like that. :)