Whoosh

One feels that time is rushing by. I feel it the most when I look at my children. The two babies I held in the crook of my arm, one too big for me to carry already. The hugs are slowing down from Big V and Lil V who wants to copy his brother so his hugs are slowing down. In a typical paradox of parenthood - I wait for a moment when my children don't need me, and miss them when they are off doing things by themselves. 

The way time seems to be rushing by I feel it will be tomorrow that they are off to college and I will be looking back at this blog post with nostalgia...

Milestones

About a month ago today we hit a couple of milestones in the house of V & V. Big V started public kindergarten and Lil V turned 2. This means we can officially stop counting his age in months and switch to years!!!

Big V has been taking the school bus every morning and this involves frantic morning dashes to make the bus. As I am getting stuff ready in the morning for him I wonder if mornings were this challenging for my parents. I don't remember being packed meals which came in thermos's for hot food and variety everyday and a fruit and a desert. I got one thing in a stainless steel dabba and that is what I ate. When I was older, occasionally my mother would give me money to buy food in the canteen which was this rickety old tin box with a man in it who sold samosas and chocolates etc. But here I am planning out meal plans and ensuring that there is a main meal and there is a desert and there is a fruit.

Silence

One day when Veer was about a week old, I was holding him in my arms and putting him to sleep. There was no one else in the room with me in that noisy house. It was just him and me and for a moment, just a moment I felt the presence of God in the room with me and my child. Everything went quiet and all the fatigue & frustration faded away and for that moment I felt a divine presence and a oneness with my son. 

With Vaasu on the other hand, I have not been his primary giver until very recently. Plagued by health problems, I just haven't been able to give him the one on one attention that his brother got in his early stages. But yesterday, in the warm sunshine of a New England spring Vaasu and I were sitting on my porch watching the construction workers and hearing the neighbour's chickens and again for a fleeting moment, I felt the same divine presence and a oneness with this boy. It was about 20 months in the making but the exact same thing happened where, all noose ceased to exist and it was just me and my smiling baby.

Musings on a childhood

Someone once asked me if I felt I missed having siblings and was fine being a single child. How does one answer that question? I don't know anything else. How can I miss something I never had? To their credit my parents never made me feel that I missed out on anything and I don't ever remember asking my parents for a brother or sister. When I was very young ( the age when I could probably have asked that question) we lived as a joint family. My cousin brother is 10 months younger than me and he was pretty much in the picture since I could remember and as I got older being a single child was/is the only life I know. 

I have been blessed with an AMAZING set of cousins. My maternal cousins and I are quite close and I know that if I am ever in a situation that would warrant sibling support all of them have got my back. Most of my childhood memories are of summers in my uncle's apartment in Hyderabad. All of us cousins would somehow fit into a two bedroom apartment and have a ball. We had the typically indulgent grandparents both of whom were amazing cooks! I remember sitting down to card games after dinner and playing well into the night. I remember my uncle invariably yelling at us to keep the voice levels down so as not to wake the neighbors. I remember my aunt bringing home cream puffs home from work.  I believe in the energy of places and to me that house is a place filled with love and a whole lot of positive energy. 

I make friends easily. In school I straddled two rival gangs quite easily. But I find it hard to open up 100% to anyone. I can't say I had a best friend to whom I could bare my soul. Maybe this is an offshoot of being a single child but I used to try to be Ms.Congeniality. I didn't pick fights easily. In fact I rarely fought. In all 14 years of school I remember one fight in 4th standard and I am good friends with that girl till date. Kiki is my best friend from school. A very unlikely friendship, it has lasted through the years and we can truly go years without talking to just pick back up where we left off.

My school shaped me into what I am today and even though I may have forgotten how to balance chemical equations, the values that my wonderful teachers instilled in me are still there. I took part in a lot of debate and dramatic competitions and had the gift of the gab! I was house captain of my house and I have a trophy to prove it. My mother wasn't too happy about this as she felt it would take away from my studies in 12th standard but it was a dream and she was very proud of me at the investiture ceremony. Only the parents of the school leaders are invited to attend and I have a picture of my parents standing on either side of me beaming proudly as I held the house flag in my hands.