Welcome Wiggles!

After waiting for what seemed like forever, little Wiggles arrived 2 weeks ago. Welcome!!! So Squiggles now has a baby sister :)).

Here are the important facts -
DOB - 24th Nov'11
Time - 6.15am
Height - 55cm
Weight - 3.76kg

Yes, Wiggles is a big baby but oh so cute! Check her out for yourself :). More updates later.

A sweet gesture

Squiggles did something really sweet this morning which made my heart go all mush. We have a rocking chair but no foot stool and she often sees me pulling up the chair closer to the bed so I can rest my feet.

Yesterday DD bought a small footstool for the study and as with everything new, S got a new toy to play with. This morning I saw her dragging it out of the study. I was about to admonish her for moving it when I thought of asking her what her plan is.

To which she replied that she was placing it in front of the rocking chair so that I could rest my feet comfortably :). That was the sweetest thought ever and she got a star for that!

Message to baby

It's 2 days after my due date and you are still not here. In fact, there are few signs that you are going to come out voluntarily! And this leaves me feeling angry. Yes, I am angry and frustrated and tired of waiting and a whole lot more :(.

Everything is ready and waiting for you. And I don't just mean your clothes and diapers and stuff. Even I am ready. Waxing - check; threading - check; Mani-pedi - check. I had my hair cut a month ago in anticipation of not having time for it when you're here. That was a month ago. In fact, this is my 2nd round of waxing, threading, nails etc. I sorted out stuff at work and went on leave. All for you! But instead I'm waiting.

I've also eaten all the things I wanted to eat before you were born. Can't really afford to do round 2 of that, given how much weight I have put on already! Actually, I'm on round 3 of the butter cake and round 2 of the tiramisu! Come fast otherwise the 10% of people that can still recognize me will also lose the plot.

This waiting has also made me irritable. I'm snapping at Squiggles and DD and Grandma and Aunty Marita. No one is spared. Sigh. No one likes me very much right now.

Puneet Mamu came up with some ridiculous trip plan which means he is in Singapore only for 1 day. That's in exactly 3 days. If you're not here by then, you won't get to see him! Or rather, more importantly he won't get to see you. What a shame that would be :(.

So you see how important it is to turn up on time??? I know it's cosy in there but really!!

Well if you're going to be stubborn I shall have to employ harsher tactics and threaten you!

Do you know what happens to babies who trouble their mommies even before they are born. You might just find out!

1. I will ask squiggles to change your diapers and given that she finds the thought abhorrent, it means that you will be stuck in soiled diapers all day!

2. I won't buy you any new toys. You will have to settle for only hand me downs. Huh!

3. I will love Squiggles more. Aha! That hurt, didn't it? Well are you going to move your tush now???

Ok, if you want more.

4. I will keep kissing your kissable cheeks till you cry. Hah.

Oh forget about all of this. Come out now, will you?

How will we know if it's a boy or a girl?

That's the question S asked me first thing this morning. A very valid question given we have decided not to find out the gender of our baby.

But what do I tell her???

Are you sure you want to leave me at grandma's?

Usually when I want S to listen to me or to follow an instruction, invariably I find myself telling her that I will take some privilege away or threaten her with dire consequences.

I was surprised by how smartly she turned the tables on me this morning. S has been running a light temperature since the last few days, so when we decided to head out to do some Diwali shopping, we decided to leave her at her grandma's place since we also wanted to take our helper along to help out. S wasn't too happy with this situation. She started insisting that she wanted to come along too. I tried explaining to her many times that we weren't taking her because she wasn't well and didn't want her to get more sick. But none of this seemed to register. The pleading continued for a while.

Suddenly she changed tack and told me that if I left her at grandma's she would watch a lot of TV, implying that it wasn't something I would like and hence I should reconsider my decision. Tv watching at grandma's is usually uncontrolled and it's a bone of contention between my mom and me, which she is well aware of. I replied that I didn't care and she was definitely going to grandma's.

But it didn't end there. Her next words were - "I will watch so much tv and eat candy"! When I replied that I didn't care, she retorted, "I will eat 2 candies, and 3 and 4! How about that"? All this with a wicked twinkle in her eye. She knew all the things I didn't like that happened at grandma's and was throwing them in my face!

I was pretty impressed that she knew which things would bother me the most and was using them effectively. Very smart, don't you think?

Mama is laughing at me

It was a deja-vu moment. S was playacting and I found the incident vastly amusing and couldn't stop myself from laughing. She got upset and started howling seriously.
Apparently I had hurt her feelings by laughing at her.

Rewind 28 years. Similar set up. My mom and brother were playing some game and ignoring me. My protests and attempts to capture their attention all met with amusement and laughter. The laughter further angered me and in true Hindi film style I decided I would commit suicide and that would get their attention.

I marched smartly in to the kitchen and picked up a long sharp knife and dramatically stretched out my small arm and aimed the knife at my tummy. My mom who had decided to take me seriously after all, followed and calmed me down. She got me to give up the knife. I felt I had achieved success, I had her full attention. Before I knew it I received the loudest, tightest slap from her and in a really scary voice she warned me never to try anything stupid like that again. I was shattered, even my little drama hadn't managed to get me some affection. I went to my dad and sobbed my heart out.

I was thoroughly ashamed of myself and lived in constant dread that mom would share this incident with everyone. I took to eavesdropping whenever she was on the phone or she was meeting someone. This, of course, she found even more amusing.

It was only when I was in my late teens that I was able to see the funny side of things and it remains a vastly entertaining story!

Hearing S lament that "Mama is laughing at me", took me back to my own childhood and that day more than 28 years ago :). She is my daughter after all!

Of dinosaurs and princesses

S is going through her girliest phase ever and this is driving DD nuts, to put it politely. He wants her to think about counting, spelling and stamp collections and all she enjoys is makeup, princess games and nail art!

Take for example this lunchtime conversation. S was busy playing with these cut outs from her dinosaur book as she ate her lunch and decided that naming the dinosaurs would be fun. So, one was christened Sophie and the other was named Rose.

But this was too much for DD to swallow and in exasperation he said, "S, that is a T-Rex and the other one is a brontosaurus!"

To which Squiggles' look of exasperation was worth capturing, "Papa, they need to have a name". And she continued with this irritating naming convention :) which bugged DD no end.

He tried again for a few more times before admitting defeat!