I, me, myself. And my pelvis.

Almost every parenting handbook, website and mommy blog worth its salt will tell you that the most important things a new mother needs are a) maternity pads b) a lifetime’s supply of Lanolin cream c) a supportive partner and d) me time.

Now, the first two things are readily available at a pharmacy near you. The third item on the list can easily be replaced by a well-timed martini. But the fourth item on the list is the most elusive of them all.
Me time.
After the birth of my first son, many well-meaning but clueless people would come up and ask me “How are you doing? Are you lactating well? I hope you’re getting some me time. It’s so important you know?”
Me time is the stuff of legends. Whisper the two words in a newly minted mothers ears and she will begin to envision herself in a fantasy land where George Clooney waits on her in a home fashioned purely from Haagen Daaz ice cream.

The reality is very different. When I was a first time mother, my me time consisted of a two minute shower in the morning and one in the evening. Of course, one could ask what I was doing when my son napped, but as all parenting experts and the Sri Lankan man who owned the corner shop told me, when your child is asleep you too should be sleeping. And sleeping does not constitute me time. For me time to be valid, one must be awake when spending time with oneself.

The elusiveness of me time is directly proportional to the number of children you have. If you have one, it’s doable like Kim Kardashian, if you have two, then it’s like trying to have Madonna’s biceps (very, very hardand really, is it worth the effort?) and well, if you have more than two kids we all know what you’re doing in your me time. People with no children have limitless access to this gold dust and the rest of us hate you. We may seem smug and self-satisfied with our brood of snot nosed kids, but we hate you.

Now that I have two children, I find myself seeking me time in far more subtle ways. I no longer need hot stone therapy or a latte at a quaint cafe. Now I will take whatever I can get. Do you need someone to go and pay the phone bill? I’ll do it? Want to see if there’s any post in the letter box? I’m your man. Are we out of milk? Please, I beg of you, let me go. I will even exercise.

Basically any situation in which I can spend more than a minute to myself without a child wailing, whining or whinging in my ears is considered me time.

So you can imagine how pleased I was the other day when I found myself all alone for two hours.TWO HOURS. I even had the car to myself. No juice box leaking on to my trousers. No child using my hair as a hold to hoist himself up and get a better look out the window. No small plastic dinosaurs being thrust in my nostrils. Just me. I was overwhelmed to say the least.

“It’s finally happening,” I sobbed to my husband on the phone “I’m so happy.”

“But I thought you hated pelvic exams,” he muttered.
But not even a stark reminder as to where I was headed could get me down. Not even the sight of a speculum better suited to fixing a leaking sink than examining the female body could squash the bubble of joy welling up inside me.

When it was all over the doctor came up to me and cooed, “There, all done. Now, why don’t you just lie back and enjoy some me time?”

(This appeared here.)

Random

1. I know I’m back home from a holiday at my mother’s when I find myself using profanities at 5am. Four letter words beginning with c and ending with t and with a u and n in the middle are usually floating in the air. This could be because a. I suffer from early morning Tourette’s b. my nine month old is awake and wants to play peekaboo. ( please note that I am not directing the four letter profanity directly at my son, but at the powers that be that decided both my children would be morning people)

2. Playdoh does not digest in a baby’s system. So if you were to ever discover little blue balls in a 5:15am poopy diaper it is nothing other than playdoh.

3. Point 2 has lead me to a wonderful idea. If I made small flowers, animals and cute bees out of playdoh and fed them to my nine month old would they be pooped out intact? If yes, I am thinking of then taking a series of highly stylised and artistic photographs of the resulting diaper and holding an exhibition at the white cube or some other stark intimidating space in east London.

4. Is there a law that bans the use of nursing bras long after you have stopped lactating? Well then sue. My girls are happy. Sagging. But happy.

5. This post was typed on my shiny happy new iPad.

What I think about when I think about Running (With apologies to Mr. Carver and Mr. Murakami)

I just finished re-reading Haruki Murakami’s “What I think about when I think about running”, so of course I thought you’d all love to know what I think about when I run. (No, I know you really don’t care… but it makes a nice change for me from writing about limited shower time and goat poop)

People are always telling me what great ideas they get when they run. How it opens up their minds to new possibilities. Either I’m really shallow or I’m not running right. Because my thoughts usually range from “I wonder if that sleeping cat is really sleeping or it’s de…” to “Oh God… how much more running before I can go home and have some cake” (So what if it’s 9 am… don’t you judge me)

When I’m running, I’m usually thinking about time and distance. Now I’m not talking about how far I’ve run and how long it’s taken me (though, those depressing thoughts occasionally flit through my head) but about the ‘Time and Distance’ we learned in … I think it was class 6 or 7. Remember? No? let me jog your memory.

“Two men (it’s always men) are walking along a circular track 25 metres long. X is walking at a speed of 1 mile an hour and Y is walking at a speed of 3 miles an hour. How much time will lapse before X and Y meet a) if they are walking in the same direction and b) if they are walking in opposite directions?”

I used to HATE these questions. HATE HATE HATE. I could never really see the point to it. How it was going to help me in the ultra glamorous cool life I was no doubt destined to lead one day. I managed to head butt my way through the subject and heaved a huge sigh of relief when it was all over. Only to have to bump in to the damn thing again many years later when I had a brief and ill advised dalliance with the CAT.

But for some strange reason, now, when I run, all I can think is “When am I going to bump in to red t-shirt again? After how many rounds will I overtake double chin? What is he thinking wearing his Jockey boxers on his morning walk (more on that topic later)?”

Perhaps if I had paid more attention in class I would have the answers to all these questions, even the last one. But I didn’t. I’m not complaining. At least I have something to think about when I’m running.

Harmony Time

This is what my current bottle of shower gel says. Harmony Time. Every day as I reach for it in the morning and evening, I can’t help but smirk at how far from the truth those two words are, when compared to what passes off as a shower for me.

I remember a time when I used to linger over the bath products aisle at the supermarket. When no trip to The Body Shop would be complete without a purchase of bath bombs, shower gels, scrubs and unguents that were guaranteed to ‘soothe’ me or ‘infuse me with calm’. Of course all this was in the era known as BC (before children) or what my husband wistfully refers to as ‘the time when I was sane’.

Now with two children (heck, even when there was just one of ‘em) it takes me less time to have a bath than it does to… make oats. Why, what did you think I was going to write?

A shower must be carefully time. The elder one must be in school. The younger one must be asleep. It must be after my help has arrived so I don’t have to answer the doorbell mid way.

Usually it’s enough if one of the conditions is satisfied. If all three are satisfied I consider it a bumper day. Other days, like today, none are satisfied.

Help is late. Elder son has a holiday. Younger one has decided that naps are boring and it’s much more fun to eat mud from the potted palm in the guest bedroom.

So of course, either I don’t shower till God knows when or, I boldly tread where few have gone before and venture to have a bath with both of them awake in the house. Unsupervised.

This of course is dangerous. The baby could eat more mud. His brother might decide to be helpful and hand him a spoon. The bell might ring and my son could let a murderer inside. My elder son might decide that his brother’s head is the perfect helipad, racetrack, or trampoline. Wires could be chewed. Heads could be used as battering rams. Pigeons could be lured inside with bread. Anything is possible.

But of course none of this will really happen. This is what will happen.

Both my children will station themselves outside the bathroom door. The younger one will cry. The elder one will decide that it is the perfect time to play twenty questions.

“Amma.”
“What?”
“Amma.”
“What?”
“Amma.”
“What?”
“Amma.”
“What?”
“Amma.”
“WHAAAAAAAAAAT?”
“Amma.What are you doing?”

What do you think I’m doing you numnut?

“I’m having a bath”

“Why?”
“Because that’s what people do.”
“Why?”
“So they can be clean”
“Why?”
“Because they want to be clean?”
“Why?”
“Because it makes them happy.”
“Why?”
“Why do they need to be happy?”
“Because..”
“Why because?”

By this time I have gone through the world’s fastest parody of a bath and am emerging from bathroom.

The younger brat holds on to my legs and cries as though we haven’t seen each other in about five hundred years, while the elder one studies my face with great concentration.

“Amma.”

Keep it cool. Keep it cool. Don’t lose it.

“What?” I manage to get out through gritted teeth.

“You have soap on your neck.”

An alternative solution

It was in early 2010 that my husband and I put an end to the eternal NRI debate of “Should we move back to India or not?”. We packed the contents of our tiny suburban London two bed in to 70 boxes and set sail for India with our toddler son in tow.
While my husband settled down to corporate life in Mumbai, I thought my number one priority would be to find a place to live. I found out how ridiculous an idea that was at a dinner party we attended during our first week in the city.
“A flat? Sod that. You need to get your son admitted in school. Pronto.”
“But he’s only two” I feebly protested.
“Which means you’re already very, very late.”
“Call the schools now. Beg. Grovel. Lie. Go to their gates and refuse to leave. Visit them every day till they see you and register his name.”
The idea that I would have to stage some kind of Dharna to give my son in to school put me off my crème brulee. But of course this was but the first of many such appetite killing conversations that I was to have over the weeks that followed regarding schools. I was told that interview coaching classes were a must and feeder nurseries were what I should be looking for. Some people just looked at me with pity writ across their face.
I couldn’t believe that getting in to a school was that hard. That there wasn’t one school out there that didn’t want parents to register their fetuses and didn’t require three year olds to know what an asparagus was.
And so began my search for something else.
When I first started researching alternative schools in Mumbai, I remember being asked “Alternative? What does that mean?”, “Please, put him in a ‘normal’ school” and “What’s wrong with the kind of schools we went to as children?”
Ah, but I knew exactly what was wrong with the kind of school I went to. Dull classes where long passages on conduction waves, Moghul architecture and calculus were recited in seemingly never ending monotony. Now, don’t get me wrong. There are some things my very rigid education taught me. The importance of hard work and the mantra ‘practice makes perfect’ were all drilled in to me from an early age. But my schooling also taught me that there is only one correct answer and only one right way to solve a problem. That science and mathematics were more important than history and geography. And that doing well in exams was the most important thing. Everything else fell to the side at the altar of the mid term. No scope for creativity, free thinking or answers that lay outside the realm of the all important ‘syllabus’.
I wanted something different for our son. I wanted him to enjoy learning about the atom and relish e.e. Cummings with equal gusto. I wanted his curiosity to be encouraged not nipped in the bud. While I agree that many of these things can be inculcated at home, the more time one spends in school the more sway those hours have over a child’s brain. I wanted a school that would work with me in nurturing my child’s individuality.
But everywhere I went I met playgroup and nursery teachers who spoke about curriculum and study-play balance and an IB syllabus for toddlers. I was told about preparing children for school interviews and enabling them to face the stiff competition of modern day India. All I could think was “He is only two” and “Will I ever find the kind of school I’m looking for?”
Apparently I would. A chance conversation with a blog friend of mine lead me to the school my son would ultimately enrol in.
“There’s a fantastic school very close to where you’ve seen an apartment. Look up their website. The school’s name is Shishuvan and it’s in Matunga.”
As luck would have it, the school was having an open day for their Nursery admissions and my husband, son and I went to check it out.
I was surprised. Far from the dour office staff I had dealt with at other schools, at Shishuvan people were friendly, courteous and helpful. They actually smiled!
I liked the open door policy Shishuvan had. That we could walk in to their bright airy classrooms and ask their teachers questions.
Shishuvan believes that learning is a shared responsibility between students, teachers and parents. That it should be meaningful, relevant, and life-long for the learner and teacher. The school should feed the child’s innate curiosity, stimulate creativity and concern through actual hands-on, developmentally appropriate experience and reflection. And most importantly, that all children can learn and different students may demonstrate learning in different ways.
Central to Shishuvan’s philosophy is the idea that all of us: students, parents, teachers, administrative and support staff all hold an equal stake in the school. The great thing is the school’s philosophy and vision statement aren’t just words they use to fill the pages of their bright and cheerful website. They walk the talk. Frequent Parent-teacher meetings consist of small presentations on learning followed up by a forum in which parents can give suggestions, feedback and make complaints. Parent Sabha meetings deal with the issues raised effectively. Each and every sports day, school fair and annual day are followed up with surveys asking parents what they liked, didn’t like and what they think could have been done better. And in return, they ask for our a little bit of our time. Our time. We help make the backdrops for plays. We volunteer to man some of the stalls at the school fete. We accompany the class on excursions. I think it’s a more than fair deal.
The question I am most often asked regarding alternative schooling is whether my child will have that competitive edge. If he’ll be able to go head to head with the best of mainstream education in competitive exams and interviews. But if you’re taught from a young age that you are your own competition and that the only thing you need to beat is your own past performance then children will naturally shine. Having said that, alternative schooling isn’t for every one. The more relaxed pace of learning in pre-primary could give some sleepless nights over whether their children are ‘keeping up’ with their peers.
Not to say that they aren’t learning. Frequent field trips, audio visual, music and story sessions have taught my son a number of things this year. There’s a great deal of stress laid upon experiential learning. My son has fed cows, made chocolate laddoos and bought tomatoes from a subziwallah at a time when some schools are asking middle school parents to buy their children expensive tablets as learning aids. At a recent Parent-Teacher meeting, my son’s teacher said “We’ve been focusing on having fun this year.” I’m not complaining.
And neither is my son. Each and every day he comes home with paint stained feet and hands, glitter in his hair and a big smile on his face. His answer to my daily question of “How was school today” is an unwavering “FUN!” And I have a feeling that he’ll be giving me the same answer ten years from now.

(This piece appeared in the ParentSpeak section of www.kiducere.com)

a project

I want to start writing something new. But the tank upstairs is a little empty on inspiration. I’m toying with the idea of looking at my old stories and seeing if I can do something with them. But what if they’re awful? I haven’t read any of them in about 3 years. They might make me want to hide under a rock somewhere.

running rani

Last Sunday I ran the Dream Run in the Mumbai Marathon. It was a 6k run and not much when compared the full and half marathon, but it gave me a real buzz. The atmosphere, the crowds, the music. And of course the pleasure of being able to run down Marine Drive. It was fantastic.

I’ve never been in to sports or athletics of any kind. I was one of those kids who HATED sports day and despised having to do march past and try out for athletic events. I would cower behind my hands when the ball came hurtling towards me when we played dodge ball in school. My idea of exercise for the longest time was walking at a relaxed pace and a few ill fated dalliances with gym memberships. That’s it. The idea that I, hater of P.E and sports day would ever run or be physically active, and enjoy it even, would have been laughable to the me from ten years ago.

But ah. How life changes.

I started running in the winter of 2009 with the Couch to 5k challenge. I would drop my son at day care in the afternoon and then head off. A no doubt bizarre figure, running and walking in completely inappropriate running gear of red fleece hoodie, puffer gilet and tights under my running shorts. Oh and let me not forget my woolly hat and mismatched gloves.

Then spurred on by my dear friend and running fiend I took part in an 8k run at Windsor with hardly any practice. I was one of the last to finish the run, and the only people behind me were a group of senior citizens walking the route for a charity. As I ran the distance at an excruciatingly slow pace the only mantra going through my head was ‘do not get overtaken by eighty year olds. Keep running’.

The outcome of that run was this amazing sense of achievement. ‘Wow. I can run. And enjoy it’.

So after pushing Boot Jr. out in to the world and once certain internal bits were back where they were meant to be, I decided to start running again. The 6k dream run was a small goal that I had to work towards. And now I’d like to think that with the right kind of training, next year I can attempt a half marathon at least.

This morning I was reading Ammani’s blog and her piece on why she runs. It got me thinking about why I like run.

Running is mostly a solitary exercise. Sure you can run with a friend or with a running club, but, unless you want to start gasping for air and collapse after a few miles there really isn’t much talking involved. I run, because it is the only time of the day I am by myself, with my measly thoughts which though not earth shatteringly important, are well, my thoughts. For the rest of the day I am surrounded by people. Children jabbering and cooing and drooling and crying and singing and whining and complaining and arguing against the injustice of having to drink milk. House help advising, complaining and gossiping. Phone calls. Milk men, post men, lift men, veg and fruit men and paper men beseeching, greeting and haggling. Noise. I am surrounded by it all day long.

When I run I am alone for that one hour. Even though there are others around me walking or running, I am not expected to stop and say hello and smile.

I can just keep running. Trying to run more than I did the last time. Trying to run faster.

I wish I ran for a more meaningful reason. But I don’t. Even though my reason is a little… well lame, I’m glad it gets me out of the door with my running shoes laced up.

yesterday

Yesterday, my son’s class had their annual picnic. Both parents were invited to accompany the child, one parent’s attendance was compulsory. So my husband and I decided that I would attend the picnic while he stayed at home with the younger fiend.

It amazed me how many people (read, other mothers) came up and asked me where the baby was, and when I said that he was with his father, how all of them asked “Will he stay with his father?”

Well of course he’d probably rather be baby sat by a giant remote control or phone (his two current favourite things to chew on), but I’m pretty sure he’d make do with his dad, given the lack of access to giant remote controls and phones.

So when I say “Yes, he will stay with his father” I am bestowed with looks of wonder.

Why? Do other babies not like their dads? Do they crawl screaming to the door when left alone with them for more than five minutes? That’s weird.

Other weird things: 1. The term ‘hands on father’. Please note there are no hands on mothers. Only fathers.

2. Goat pellet poo. In a diaper. (of a baby. not a goat. a goat wearing a diaper would be weird too)

3, blogging at 5 am. That though is not so weird when your younger fiend wakes you up at 3am to play and then realises at 430 they’re sleepy. But by then you’ve had three cups of coffee so that you can stay awake to play with them. so now you can’t go back to sleep.

Please blame all lack of punctuation, grammar and coherency on the time and caffeine induced nervy fingers.

no crying over spilt milk

so you can put one child down for a nap and entice the other one to watch some tv (not that that was very hard) and sit down to write. but then you think to yourself well it would be nice to have some coffee so you cut open a packet of milk and then you’re not sure exactly how but there is milk all over the floor on the walls and on your clothes

goodbye notebook

hello kitchen rag

discipline

Last year, my word was trust. And I think I did pretty well with that as a theme. Even when the world around me was going in to what can only be described as hysteria over school admissions, we stuck to our guns. I trusted my choice.

This year my word is discipline. I realise that the reason I am not a writer yet (and I don’t even mean this in a ‘published’ writer sense, but more in a writer who just, well, writes sense) is not because of my kids. Or because I’m exhausted. Or because of my kids. Or because I have writer’s block. Or because of my kids. (As you can see my children have been bearing the heavy burden of their mother’s failed dreams for quite some time now). I am not a writer who writes every day because I have no discipline. And that is the truth as pointed out to me by my always better half in the aftermath of a new year, where is my life going meltdown (mine, not his).

So this year discipline.

In writing.

In running. (Half marathon 2013)

In staying in touch with my friends and family.

In doing the things I love.

DISCIPLINE.