to gym or to shake.

Knew that I'd been bloating up over the years, when my trousers went from a 30 to a 32, to a 34 waist size. My waist is still a waist, but I need 34 to lug the damn thing over my hips. Its the one place where I can claim to look like Sreedevi!

Have been meaning to exercise, but.
Morning walks are out, cos I'm too lazy to get up. 6.30 is early enough for me, thank you.
Evening walks are out, cos I'd still be stuck to my desk/client's desk in the evenings.
Nightly walks are out, cos the mad dog wants to pause here and there and everywhere to sniff. So its a nice (for her more than for me) stroll rather than an energetic swinging walk.
If I were that focussed a person as to drop her back and then come down again for my exercisewalk, I would never have gotten into the shape I am now in.

But then, my husband offered me an alternate career option.
A belly dancer.
He said I'd give all of 'em a run for their money.

Hmmm....
I can either divorce him.
Or join a gym.

He's been at me to join one for ages now.
But knowing me, I'm afraid it'll be good money gone down the drain.
Pliss to advise, bloggy friends.

Thou shalt feel Guilty...

Mommy guilt didn't exist when Sonny boy was small. He was an amazingly sweet baby and never gave me any sweat. From potty training to feeding to sleeping, he was an utter sweetheart!

But with the school years, entered the frequent trips to Guiltyland.

Firstly, I joined back to work once he was old enough for school, so number one guilt was how can I leave my baby to cope on his own?

This was definitely reinforced by the fact that his teacher at the time told me that children of working parents all had problems in adjusting. Despite the fact that I thought Sonny boy was adjusting beautifully well. She told me that I needed to spend more quality time with him and that there was no substitute for that. True, that, but where was the time?

And then that monster made his appearance- Homework. Brrrr. I have never dreaded my homework in the way I dread Sonny boy's. I still do. Bad enough that I could only give my son whatever time was leftover from office hours. Those couple of hours, I had to make him do something he disliked, had to yell at him and make him cry. The 'quality'time spent with my son on some days made me feel truly wretched. I spent more time on it, because I didn't want the teacher generalising that his working mother had no time for him.

And then, as he grew, the reasons for guilt grew too.
I was/am always bad cop. While the Acha was/is mostly good cop. This is because he has wayyyy more patience than me, but also because he doesn't even NOTICE some things that simply glare at me.
Like making his T's go over the line and his Y's go below. If not neat, at least correct handwriting?
Like putting away his stuff after he's through with it.
Like being more careful with his toys and stuff.

I wish the Creator had given me a man's mind while at it. Amazing how little they notice things!! Bad enough when it comes to the house, but worse when it is with regard to Sonny boy. The 'mistakes' are left to me to correct.
If I correct, I am the non-fun mother. If I don't I am the un-bothered mother. Guilty either ways.

I also feel guilty that I don't 'network' enough with other mothers in the complex. I am the last one to know of the dance class, the karate class, the yoga class in the clubhouse. When he was a baby, Sonny boy had a lot more friends cos I was friendly with a lot of the mommas. We tended to get together in the evening, and naturally the kids bonded too. Not so nowadays, when once I get back, I have work and a little bit of me-time as well ( books, FB, blog), without which I think I would divorce the husband!

I have not the leisure to know his friends, whether to approve or disapprove. When my Mom comes, it is she who tell me the little tidbits about them that are so invaluable in knowing them. I heartily disapprove of one particular kid who GETS ON MY NERVES. But then, I don't have the time to introduce Sonny boy to other 'better' kids. Introduce because Sonny boy is bad at going out and making friends. He tends to stick to the few he knows and then makes them the axis around which his world revolves.

It is my Mom (or my maid) who knows whether he finishes his snack/lunch at school. Who gets first chance at hearing what went on in school. If at all they manage to get something out of my clam son.

Come to think about it, almost ALL my guilt centres around me being a working mom. But then, I know of at least a few mothers who wish they were in my shoes and could contribute to the family finances, or have an extra piggy bank to dip into for the luxuries. And then I read about this lady who felt bad about not DOING something and BEING somebody.
On the one side, there's her who feels like that, and on the other, there's a me who IS somebody other than a mother, and DOES something other than mothering, but wishes she didn't have to. Incidentally, that post of hers so resonated with me. I could empathise with every guilt she mentioned other than the doing and being somebody. Even that, except that she felt guilty for not, and me for.

She's made her peace with her guilts, I am yet to.
Mothers in blogosphere (fathers too), if you want to get that guilt off your chest, let the words spill out and take part in this contest for Mommy guilt initiated by Apu.

english o english.

Sue handed me a big red marker quite some time back. I'd been lazy to sit and make make a note of all the bloopers, but then here goes...

Mails written with the intent of sounding official more than communicating whatever quite make me see red.
Not the perfect example, but something like this- where....
instead of asking the person - could I know your name?
you go to the extent of asking- I wonder if your honorable self could do me the great pleasure of letting me know your good name? .....
makes me go aaaaarrrgghhhhh!
I don't know if this is the accepted mode of writing in officialese, but it gets my goat that simple English is disallowed when you are writing to an official in a bank/PSU.
They don't TALK a different English, then how come they're supposed to READ a different English??


Again, its ok if ordinary people can't read/write or even understand English. Its just another language after all. But then, after you've been educated a whole decade in the language, and you hold a senior position in a respectable organisation, you better mind your spellings/grammar.
I LOVE it when my dear 'superiors' send me mails that are supposed to be a sample of the perfect way to comunicate to clients, with these mistakes-
did you recieve my mail? (recEIve is the correct spelling)
don't loose it (lose, not loose)
pls advice (advise, not advice)
revert to me (revert to is repetitive)
I enjoy the few times when I correct the mails and send it out, with a copy to the person who made the original mistakes.


I dislike officialese, but SMSese gets my goat more than officialese.
In our days, alphabets were English, and numbers were Math. But these days' kids seem to have it all wrong.
Dey cm 2 thnk engls n mth put 2gethr is gr8 and d way 2 go 4wrd!!
Gauri is yet to enlighten me on what exactly she meant to convey by the alphabets towards the end, in the post which was her contribution to the blogathon.


By a weird coincidence, I found this forward in my mail last week, that I'm copying here, cos it goes so perfectly with this post.
Enjoy, folks, especially all you MOPS out there. :-D

ONLY THE BRITISH COULD HAVE INVENTED THIS LANGUAGE

We'll begin with a box, and the plural is boxes,
But the plural of ox becomes oxen, not oxes.
One fowl is a goose, but two are called geese,
Yet the plural of moose should never be meese.
You may find a lone mouse or a nest full of mice,
Yet the plural of house is houses, not hice.

If the plural of man is always called men,
Then shouldn't the plural of pan be called pen?
If I speak of my foot and show you my feet,
And I give you a boot, would a pair be called beet?
If one is a tooth and a whole set are teeth,
Why shouldn't the plural of booth be called beeth?

Then one may be that, and three would be those,
Yet hat in the plural would never be hose,
And the plural of cat is cats, not cose.
We speak of a brother and also of brethren,
But though we say mother, we never say methren.
Then the masculine pronouns are he, his and him,
But imagine the feminine: she, shis and shim!

Let's face it - English is a crazy language.
There is no egg in eggplant nor ham in hamburger;
neither apple nor pine in pineapple.
English muffins weren't invented in England ..
We take English for granted, but if we explore its paradoxes,
we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square, and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.

And why is it that writers write but fingers don't fing,
grocers don't groce and hammers don't ham?
Doesn't it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend.
If you have a bunch of odds and ends
and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it?

If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught?
If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?
Sometimes I think all the folks who grew up speaking English
should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane.

In what other language do people recite at a play and play at a recital?
We ship by truck but send cargo by ship.
We have noses that run and feet that smell.
We park in a driveway and drive in a parkway.
And how can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same,
while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites?

You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language
in which your house can burn up as it burns
down, in which you fill in a form by filling it out,
and in which an alarm goes off by going on.

And, in closing, if Father is Pop,how come Mother's not Mop?

I WOULD LIKE TO ADD THAT IF PEOPLE FROM POLAND ARE CALLED POLES THEN

PEOPLE FROM HOLLAND SHOULD BE HOLES AND THE GERMANS GERMS!!!

its a new school year...

I didn't think much of the kindergarten graduation thingie conducted by his school earlier this year. Thought it was making too much of a progression that was only natural. Not exactly a mountain out of a molehill, but close to it.

But today when my baby was all dressed to go to first standard, I realised suddenly that it was indeed a big deal. He's no more a baby now, he's a boy! It IS a mountain!

He was still as thrilled (if not more) about his Ben 10 undies as his new school uniform.
He informed me solemnly that the elastic band of his tie had to go "UNDER the collar, Amma."
New uniform, new Cars bag, new Cars lunch box, new Cars water bottle... Cars seems to be new Ben10, if you get me. Tho' I can't understand why it suddenly seems to have found favour...
Trinity gave the new white Reebok shoes an assessing glance, but then decided not to push her luck.

And the books- phew- don't get me started on the books.
English and Math and Hindi and EVS and Computers and Moral Studies and Art and...this and that ...
I turned a deaf year to my Mom's well meaning advice on getting a tuition teacher for him all of the last year. I didn't want anybody else shoving their ideas of academics down my son's throat.
But this year, am forced to the conclusion that a tuition teacher just might be a solution for all of us. Or I have to quit my job. Teaching my son everything in just 1 hr - which is what I have left of the day after I reach home- is just not feasible.

And Sonny boy is fast growing up.
Just prior to school opening day, this weekend we were brushing up his writing skills and I was giving him dictation with this sentence-
His mother gave him a sock.
after writing h-i-s, up piped a voice- Amma, can I write Mom for mother??

The Amma gave the Acha a speaking look and told the son- MOTHER. not mom.

And yet, he remains a little boy.
While I was putting his folder inside his bag, he told me , Amma, it is called a folder because you have to FOLD it and put it inside the bag.
LOL. The last year, his bag had been a small bag and the folder had to be folded to get inside his bag. So.

I guess this is how the year will progress- a little big with a little small.

God bless that the year is a fruitful one. That above all else- career, housework, wife... I am a good mother to Sonny boy. Right now, that takes priority.