Dear new mother ...

There is hardly anything about motherhood that has not been said or written before ...
and yet , its all NEW for a first-time mom-to-be.

So I will still say the same things , but in a way I have felt it ...

First time around , when you know you are expecting you have a whole bundle of emotions welling up inside you - happiness , excitement , worry , fear, anxiety , curiosity and on and on ...
Everyday seems different , your body acts weird , your mind plays tricks , your emotions go out of control. But you take it in your stride , attributing it to the new life growing inside you.

For some lucky women , 9 months is a breeze with not much to remember and for others, it is living hell - nausea, vomiting , backache, leg cramps, high BP, over-weight/under-weight ... and there could be a whole lot of other complications too. Then again, you endure, because you are determined to bring this new life to the world - this baby , YOUR BABY !

If pregnancy was an ordeal , post-delivery is another challenge to face. Feeding, cleaning, bathing take up your whole day and night. Before you realise what you have been doing, your baby has turned 3 months. In the short breaks you get when your baby is asleep, you tend to think if this is all there is to life , but let me tell you ... no, there's more coming , lots and lots more. To see whats next, you will have to bear this 'boring' phase of tending and caring.
You will actually start to enjoy motherhood when the baby starts responding to you, when it starts to differentiate between Mom and Others , when it smiles at the sight of your face.

And then there are the milestones - first crawl, first step, first word, first song, first dance ... a first for everything and each step to be celebrated and remembered :)
Sending the kid to creche or playschool or school for the first time is as new to you as it is to him/her. You will also feel the pangs of separation , you will also cry out of helplessness.
But you will grow up and learn to accept change , to accept your child's growth. Your kid is not as dependent on you today as it was yesterday ... but that will soon be okay with you.

I have celebrated 4 birthdays of my first son , but the novelty of motherhood has not worn off; because each day is different , even now. One moment he is all-wise and the next, he is just sweet and innocent. With the second one soon to come, there is a sense of newness again, a fresh feeling.

Now I think I know why women crave for motherhood - I think its a chance God gives us to be reborn, to reinvent ourselves, to see the world through a child's eyes and most important, to see ourselves in an entirely different way , to stretch our limits , to endure, to be patient , to teach and to learn.

Celebrating Love

Love is in the air !!!

Hey wait ... did I say it right ? may be not. What I meant to say was " Love is on air !".
Thats true , none publicized Valentine's day more vehemently than the FM stations ; from daybreak to night of Feb 14th all FM stations were competing with each other to be the most romantic, most 'in love' station. As there is no dearth of love songs in our movies, all they had to do was play them, with useless trivia thrown in between. For all my cynicism about celebrating Valentine's day I have to admit, I did enjoy the romantic songs ;)

" Pehla nasha, pehla ghumar ..." even now transports me to my dream world, but thats just me.
What is beyond my comprehension is , whoever got the idea of celebrating Valentine's day in India ? In the Western world there are fewer festivals so they make the best of the few occasions they get , but not so in India ... what with festivals round the year, weddings, pre-wedding and post-wedding festivities, house-warming ceremonies, naming ceremonies, scores of Jayanti's, national holidays, birthdays, anniversaries and the rest, can Indians really afford to spend money and time for another celebration in the name of 'love' , and if so, what are other festivals for , I would call them "celebrations of love" too ... and not just between two individuals, these are events that bring different sections of the society together.

This reminds me of an incident , it was during my husband's cousin's wedding and my parents and sis had attended it. The cousin was being married off to a guy whose family had settled in the US. When her new father-in-law was introduced to me and my family, he was very happy to see the "extended family , that these things happen only in India".

So let the spirit be alive, let love light up lives ... but lets not make it a ritual; lets be generous with gifts of smiles, hugs and understanding , and not restrict it to red roses and balloons. Lets love and be loved in return , every day and every moment, lets not restrict it to a single day.

With this thought I start 2011 ...

Just when I was thinking of what to write about the new year, I saw this forward from a childhood friend whom i met recently , after decades ! It amazes me time and again that what I'm thinking of , in my subconscious, somehow appears as an article or a blog or a TV program, it seems like there's always some kind of link between what goes on inside you with whats going on outside. Anyway, thats not the point of this post ... So then, here's a message to start the New Year , I'll come back a year later to see how well I have succeeded in following these 'simple' steps.

" ... Life if full of imperfect things ... and imperfect people... learning to accept each others' faults - and choosing to celebrate each others' differences is one of the most important keys to creating a healthy, growing and lasting relationship. Learn to take the good, bad and the ugly parts of your life and lay them at the feet of God. "
"If we hold contempt for anything we wish to change, we block our ability to change it"
How true ! why didn't somebody tell me this before ?!!
When I look back at last year, I feel I've wasted too much time complaining about the system, about other people, their inefficiencies, their thoughts and opinions. Maybe, just maybe if I hadn't been so judgemental , it would have been a little smoother for me. But then, forgiveness and acceptance are very subjective, I cannot be so all the time in all circumstances, and if I did, wouldn't that make me God ? :)
The words that spring to my mind when I think of 2010 is 'work' and 'stressful' and needless to say, I had an overdose of both. At the same time, the positive aspect is the project is successful and I know of atleast a few handful of people who look up to me, that makes the effort worthwhile.

Still more lessons to learn, more life skills to master ... so looking forward to the New year and to the New Me !