written a month ago, published now

oh well. there goes another year. I suppose I should be feeling a) nostalgic as my 20s bid me good bye 2) a sense of importance as I stand on the threshold of a new decade. but all i really feel is “why is my hair curling up at the sides all the time?” and “will i actually manage to do something of importance this year other than rearrange my sock drawer?” so go on people, you know what to do. (wish me a happy birthday and tell me how wonderful i am for those of you who don’t)

(warning: some of these stories are depressing)

There are days when I think that I would enjoy being a mother more if I saw less of my son. I realise how terrible that sounds as I read it back to myself. But it’s how I feel. There I days I think, if I went to work and could get away from it all for so many hours a day when I came home in the evening I will be more patient and loving with my son. Then there are days when I think, this is it. he is only ever going to be at this cute, cuddly, annoying, irritating and interesting stage of his life once. And if I went to work I would miss it all. And that I should embrace and enjoy staying at home with him. And then he throws a plate of sambar rice on the floor and I’m back browsing job search and boarding school sites. But I realise I’m lucky in that I have the luxury of choosing what I wish to do. That if tomorrow I wanted to return to full time work I would have the support of my husband in making that work. But a lot of people don’t have that choice. Not every one’s jobs will cover child care costs. And some people can’t afford to not work. Read these two stories at the Motherlode blog and you’ll see what I’m talking about. Regarding the first story I do have some questions/thoughts about the situation, but the bottom line is that that shouldn’t have to happen to any child.

Also on the motherlode blog (which I love reading) is the story of Anita Tedaldi who have away her adopted son. Now I’m torn between feeling terribly sorry for this woman, her adopted son, her other children (how did she explain to them that their brother was no longer going to live with them) and also a bit puzzled as to why she would want to adopt a child when she had five of her own kids and an army husband away on a tour of duty. Noble and wonderful as her intentions may have been five kids is a handful in itself,why would you want one more?

I don’t know if any of this post makes sense or even what it is I want to say. It’s hard when to think straight when a 16 month old is biting your elbow and drawing on a peach with a permanent marker. Oh well.

(Apologies in advance for typos etc. Please don’t point them out to me. I know they are there.)

Does your son refuse to eat everything orange? Does your daughter have a conniption if the peas on her plate touch one another? Are your kids getting by on a diet that consists of cheese, crackers and little else? Is there anything worse in life than having a fussy eater for a child and unevenly shaped eyebrows? (If I had to choose, I’d take the fussy eater)
Perhaps there is. Presenting, ladies and gentlemen — the indiscriminate eater. Now I know that all children put things in their mouth, and that it is our duty as parents to snatch the
offending object out of their hands before it makes its way down their oesophagus. But sometimes you’re just too busy watching America’s Next Top Model to realise that your Ikea Allen key is making its way in to the gaping black hole that is your toddler’s trap.
Now most kids, dumb as they are, will realise once the Allen key is in their mouth, it is not a silver-coloured cheese stick. And then they will spit it out. But what does it say about your child, and more importantly about your cooking, if the apple of your eye does his best to repeatedly try and consume the dratted thing?
For instance, last weekend, we were woken up by the alarm, which you can’t throw out the bedroom door (it’s not like I haven’t tried) — our son. Being a Sunday and 6 am, I decided that I would rest along with the Good Lord and kicked my husband and son out of the room and went back to sleep.
As I settled down in to a nice dream that involved me, George Clooney and a rather large quantity of Limoncello, I heard a rattling near my head. Like any woman in the middle of a dream involving George Clooney and strong liqueur, I ignored it. The rattling went away, but then in wafted a strong, pungent smell. This, I was sure, was not a part of the dream.
I found myself staring in to my son’s eyes; they widened in surprise as his brain registered the rather peculiar taste of my Body Shop Hemp foot protector cream. Yes, you read that right. The rattling had been the sound of him opening my side table drawer, and not as I had erroneously imagined, Gerard Butler trying to pry open my bedroom window.
My immediate reaction was to of course ask George to wait, yell at my son, jump out of bed, rush him to the bathroom for a thorough mouth washing and return to my bedroom and check how much of my over priced foot cream was left. Ok. So I checked how much cream was left before I took my son to have his mouth washed, but why nitpick over small details?
You would think my son would be more grateful for having his life saved. But oh no! Instead he cried, kicked and screamed in anger. My husband said it was like watching a very small version of myself when I find out there is no more Ben & Jerry’s Chunk Monkey in the freezer.
Since then, the foot cream has been perched high up on the window ledge. My son points to it every morning and says ‘Mamm mamm’. Who wants dosas for breakfast when you can eat recreation drug-flavoured unguents? I have considered giving him some for lunch though. He was very mellow for the rest of that Sunday.

Everything about her is white. Her skin, jeans, the flash of her lace thong,the snake skin boots, the sleeveless t-shirt that revealed a milky cleavage in the front, and a white bra in the back. Even her hair was a bleached blonde that shone white in the sun. He feels a stiffening and is grateful for his long black coat. He watches fascinated as she collects her ticket and walks towards him, long limbed and elegantly clumsy. He stands up and offers her his seat. She ignores him and moves to the back where he realises there are plenty of places. Wilting, he sits back down next to his mother. Brown, dour and smelling of the kitchen sink, her bra is a non-colour, held together by safety pins and a miracle. He looks out of the window, ignoring her smirking eyes that have seen everything, hating that she knows she will have wash the sheets tomorrow.

Today I completed an 8k run. And I actually ran. All of it. That is the distance between my parent’s place in mylapore and somewhere in thiruvanmiyur and not as i had initially and naively assumed the distance between my parent’s place and kapaleeshwarar kovil. i was never very good at all that time and distance stuff in school. so. thanks to ammani for getting me to join, and running the first half k with me before she zipped off ahead and joined the real runners! it was a pretty great day. more once my thighs stop crying.

1. Is there an age limit on wearing Ugg boots?

1.a) Are Uggs i) Naff ii) Cool and snug iii) For 8 year olds

2. How much detergent powder can a child consume before his parent has to start worrying?

3. What is the appropriate way to deal with a child who insists on climbing on to the luggage display shelves at John Lewis? (This one is multiple choice)

a) Tut tut loudly and ask “Who does this child belong to?”
b) Buy a very expensive piece of luggage in an attempt to appease annoyed looking staff?
c) Make do with online shopping for the next 10 years or so.

So it’s 9:47 in the morning and so far I’ve had 4 VERY LARGE spoons of Betty Crocker Ready to Spread Icing (Buttercream style don’t you know). This is how the woman makes her money. Preying on the weak-minded who cannot resist the siren song of a good buttercream icing.

Can the above be counted as part of a healthy balanced diet if I don’t eat anything else?

Presenting my son, the surrealist genius. Or something like that.

Every now and then I get an email from a reader asking me “Why don’t you write about art and culture?” or “What is your opinion on art and culture?” (Random guess at an answer to the second question : “Umm.. they are both good”?) I suppose I am asked these questions because the byline for this column says “Menaka Raman lives in London and writes about art, culture and motherhood” and so far my column has largely been devoted to the ‘joys’ of parenting. This is primarily because ever since my son made an appearance in my life, much of the art and culture I’ve been exposed to includes Mick Inkpen’s illustrations of Kipper the dog and Wibbly Pig and making up my own words for Incy Wincy Spider.
But this week, after another email arrived wondering if I “…no longer liked art and culture” I decided to venture out with my son in search of some. This is not a difficult thing to do in a city like London where there are enough museums to satisfy every possible interest and passion. Art, modern art, artillery, history, natural history, gardening, design and even childhood have museums dedicated to them.
Which is how I found myself outside the Victoria & Albert Museum with my son last week. With him fast asleep in his push chair I felt bold enough to venture in to the “Telling Tales: Fantasy and Fear in Contemporary Design” exhibition. The 50 pieces explored “the recent trend among European designers for limited edition pieces that push the boundaries between art and design.” Once upon a time, when faced with a vase called ‘Made by Bees’ and a meditation chamber called ‘Sensory deprivation skull’, I would have been tempted to tilt my head back, peer imperiously down my fat, stubby nose and say ‘interesting’. But motherhood doesn’t just change the way you look at hemorrhoid cream, oh no, it pervades every crevice of your mind, so that soon you find yourself looking at Todd Boontje’s Fig Leaf Cupboard and think ‘but where would I keep my burping cloths?’.
Of course, my son decided to wake up in the section titled ‘Heaven and Hell’ (great name for an exhibition on children if you ask me) and began to share his opinions with a gallery mos tly filled with rail thin men and women dressed in black who looked like the hadn’t been out in the sun in the last thousand years or so. While these connoisseurs of art hemmed and aahed, my son, I am proud to say did better. He shrieked. He clapped his hands. He ululated. He clearly approved. Though perhaps the other visitors didn’t so much. Of him I mean. We had a similar experience at the Serpentine Gallery where an exhibition of Jeff Koon’s work that included inflatable rubber floats, monkeys and lobsters cast in aluminium had him jump out of his pram and rush towards the exhibits. Something tells me they wouldn’t have accepted a Pondy Bazaar replacement if he’d broken anything. I’m just glad he didn’t get that excited when he saw the collages of busty naked women. There’s still time for that.
ook