Terrible Twos

As soon as Adya crossed the 1st birthday bench mark, we started realising that they don’t call it ‘Terrible Twos’ just like that!!!

This year was a mixed bag of excitement, learning new parenting tricks and dealing with separation anxiety....I still cant forget those tiny fingers grasping my hand tightly on her first day to the Nursery since I started work already…couldn’t stop myself from crying when she cried out for me as I rushed to office…this is the toughest test till date…but she soon got very familiar and misses her Giggles Nursery now on weekends..I can guess her lunch menu from her clothes and hair....

Jokes apart, I am very grateful to them for helping me to make my career survive. She has learnt so much there including her first success with potty training and made grown up already into a mature lady…love you guys for being my lighthouse at sea!

She has started talking non stop in a language I am yet to decipher…her first word was ‘Dadda’…no prizes for guessing that...she can blabber all the nursery rhymes possible even at 10 pm at night and at times I am terrified that we may get arrested for high decibel noise pollution complaints from neighbours!

Adya has a very cute idol..her name is Upsy Daisy..she is tiny, sings and dances all day, kisses all the things in a magical place called Night Garden..has loads of friends and has a bed that follows her everywhere…in short : My bribe to her for finishing her lunch without making mommy insane!

Miss Posh Spice has started realising the girly features within her by gazing at herself in the elevator mirror every time she ventures out…she likes wearing Bindi from her Thamma…She just loves fashionable clothes and matching sunglasses and hats and other accessories which her mommy has no complaints about…

She is a complete Gemini like her mommy and has already started showing traits of being flamboyant, popular and pompous amongst her nursery friends…

Adya loves to read and has already managed to conjure up a mini library at home..she loved to listen to stories read by Dadu about Murphy horse trips to Windsor…

She is my little mathematician and puzzle cracker…taps away at her laptop gifted by dad …I sometimes I wonder if she may grow up to be a nuclear physicist one day..

But she is equally inclined towards art....loves to sketch wherever possible and everything including the walls and flooring becomes her blackboard…

She is my lil poetess and stares out at the sky and trees since her pram days and hums away lovely tunes..

She loves music since my tummy days and loves to play her piano and xylophone…A budding rock star, maybe??

My little water baby is very fond of bubble bath ever since Nani used to oil massage and bathe her…she is a champ swimmer in her batch and has already earned her second Duckling Certificate…

My lil angel loves to get into pray mode and joins me at the evening puja at home…she gobbles up the Prasad as a gift to ring the temple bell…I simply love to watch her close her eyes and join her palms to get my kiss after lighting up the house…

Every moment with Adya till now has been extra special and she has captured every square foot of our life and every thought process: Her 1^st kiss on my cheeks moments after her birth, her wonderful deep hazel brown eyes gazing at me with zillion questions, her Bhangra dance movements on seeing Joy back from work, her 1^st birthday ear piercing, her copying my cough and aping granny’s snoring, her love for Pooh, watching me dress up and trying to taste my lipstick, jumping for her water bottle …

I will miss you so much my baby when you will grow up and one day move out to seek your future and leave your mom with just your fond memories….You will always be my Bhuntimama…

From Nappies to Skirts

I can write a zillion lines on her every cheeky move, but here are just a few ones on her year 1….

Miss Adya Bhattacharya is the 1^st girl child to be born after 65 years in our family which definitely called for Super Duper celebrations…Her arrival announcement appeared in Times Of India at her birth. She is a complete clone of Joy…complete Daddy’s girl…with Mummy’s Blood Group as the only gene factor contribution to her creation!

Having a lil girl is really a gift…you just fall in love with the Pink Section of Mother care…so many options…so little time...hair bands, skirts, shoes, leggings, tops, halter necks and Yes…every accessory needs to match up!

My starry eyed Queen Victoria posed for her 1^st passport

photograph on Day 5 followed by constant chase by the Paparazzi (Read: Mommy with her camera: 24 x 7) since Daddy left for London and demanded to know what was the dress, hairstyle and food of the day every few hours!!!

I still remember the 1^st vaccination rounds…wanted to kill the Nurse for piercing your tender thighs with that massive injection syringe…my brave girl hardly shed a tear wile mommy wept like crazy…

My sweety turned for the 1^st time when she was 3 months old…but she is a real lazy bum…could hardly support herself and held her neck high after ages…once she sat up…would take an eternity to crawl and went in the reverse gear in backward direction first…she stood up for the 1^st time on my birthday in her cot and don’t ask about her first steps her own…she still walks like at Penguin at 2!

We moved to London when she was just 3 months..in fact the 10 hour flight from Mumbai to London Heathrow was her 1^st outing in her pram. She was so awed with the many lights and people around her that she stuck her right arm up all the way as if saying: ‘Hail England, here comes Queen Victoria!’  

Thus, began my battle of survival in this cold land filled with strangers and no support system except a confused yet adorable and globe trotting yet comforting husband who tried his best to calm post partum depressions along with smelly nappies and midnight wails!

Post Its and Disposable bibs and Microwaveable meals are just like Genies for super busy moms juggling 1000 household chores, job hunting and managing to put a smile on the two most important souls on earth…so even after emptying the never ending laundry wash basket for the 10^th time in a week and sterilizing the zillionth water bottle..u still needed to look good and wear your makeup right and be ever ready for a quick snuggle up session while the baby is asleep even though all u want is plain vanilla SLEEEEEEEEP!

It is a Balancing Act indeed!!

Yes, its unfortunate but true…kids don’t come with instruction manuals nor with remote controls to press that Mute button at midnite…New moms will quickly realise that you gotta develop some long forgotten skills very quickly:

·       ‘Patience is a virtue’ needs to become the motto in your life!

·       No energy or vitamin supplementary capsule can provide you the level of activity that a 5 month old is capable of..so no point trying to get them tired out!

·       Your brain can never actually switch off for the next 5 years and need to become multi tasker of your 5 sensory organs

·       You need to get immune to nappy stinks and cleaning up the throw ups that defy Newton’s Law of Gravity largely. As a positive side to this, you may end up getting a part time job in the Fire Dept or Bomb Squad for your sharp smelling sense! 

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  You will do things you never ever dreamed you would-   lick chocolate or any food off the kiddo’s fingers capable of making another Surf Excel advertisement, pick up toys tossed inside the potty and clean it for its next turn, carry non-Prada unfashionable and boring bags but spacious enough to carry your baby world with you wherever you go, search for the Baby Change sign in every shopping mall before the Sale sign!

You must be thinking it cant get worse at this point…you are still naïve…When you have to deal with Ego and Tantrums from a 6 Month old…you will think again…

Adya was downright and No-Nonsense girl right from the start…her pet hates are long boring dresses, old music numbers and the sun on her face or brushing her long hair…

Her teething issues nearly drove us insane…her moodswings had us startled…fever, soreness, temper and my jolly lil baby turned into a grumpy granny!

She had her 1^st solid food ceremony:

Annoprashan at 7 months with first bite offered by her Mamu. She has been a fussy eater always and still bugs me to the core to finish off her dinner..she has inherited her carnivore non-veg genes so very aptly that she wont touch anything green unless accompanied by Tuna, Turkey or Chicken slices…the only veggie factor she loves is Cheese and French Fries…and off course that latest Hindi Item numbers playing on TV!

At this phase, we had to go into total ‘Baby Proofing’ mode for the house, removed all sharp ended furniture and edible/non edible stuff (buttons, shoes, pens, batteries, newspaper, coins…she has tried chewing up everything!)

Adya has a fascination for water as if she was a camel in the Nevada desert in her last birth…simply cant resist water and can spot her water bottle hidden behind anything!

Our new home slowly turned into a miniature Hamleys store with toys of all shapes and sizes…some of her favourites are her Car stroller, Penguin and Doggy and of course the greatest Winnie the Pooh in multiple sizes and appearances in bottles, plates, sippers, clothes…and also landed on her birthday cake!

 And finally came the Milestone we have been waiting for: Her 1^st birthday was celebrated with great joy and fun…all her grandparents gathered to bless her and total mayhem with wailing kiddos who had no interest in the birthday cake but to burst all the balloons and then cry for more; Lucky girl got her 1^st diamond studs as a gift from her Mom and dad…girls do start quite early nowadays, don’t they?  

Battles of a Super mommy!

Battles of a Super mommy!

I had finally made it to the 3rd Semester…now I was starting to get really impatient…the wait to EDD seemed like an eternity!

It was an extremely difficult phase for both of us…we were relocating to UK and Joy had to enter the country in next 15 days from the date of visa issue. I decided to move to my parent’s place in Mumbai for the delivery and thus began our ‘long distance relationship’…..

Spent long hours on Skype just to get a glimpse of each other, managed different time zones and coped with each other’s tantrums and anger outbursts to win the battle of survival in a new, lonely and cold land without family and friends..

Can’t thank my honey enough to take up this Herculean task of jumping into the unknown and risking his future leaving behind his wife and unborn child without a secure job in the most expensive city in the world…But, it was because of this risk that we took that has made us stronger as a family and made us fall in love all over again!

‘We’ missed him crazily…stayed alive with the hope of him hugging me tightly again and making it in time from London for the arrival of our bundle of joy…

Our friends and family stood with us as our pillars of strength throughout this testing period without whom we wouldn’t be what we are today...Thanks guys once again making US happen!

Life seemed to crawl with watching my zillionth movie DVD at home, attending Antenatal exercise classes (highly recommended to cope with labour stress), and discussing curious experiences with other Mommy-to-be members.

It isn’t an easy task to stay stylish when you can’t see your own feet neither eat properly without gulping down crates of fizzy colas to digest it nor sleep on any one side for more than 8 minutes….

I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw her chubby cheeks and head full of hair…a big thank you to Dr. Kiran @ Lilavati, Mumbai and the latest 4D Sonography technique that enabled me to see my cheeky baby smiling and even sticking out tongue at my mom and giving us the Thumbs-Up sign as if to say ‘All ok in here Mommy; Relax, Don’t worry’…This made me forget my Stretch marks and back aches immediately…..Daddy called me from London to say how much baby resembled him, hence obviously good looking..LOL… I decided to present this DVD recording to my baby on the 18th birthday to show how tiny she was….

I was really freaked out after reading /listening to Labour horrors and realised they don’t called it LABOUR for just fun! Then began my endless nightmares about Joy not making it to the Delivery room due to missing his flight back home, or an Alien coming out of my tummy and the most reoccurring one about me not reaching the hospital due to water logging and traffic jams on Mumbai streets….and the list goes on…

As a distraction, my family and friends threw me an amazing Baby Shower…Papa organized my all favourite items available on the Mainland China menu….(no wonder my baby has Chinese eyes) and whistled the tunes to which the baby responded my kicking harder and faster…Ooooof!

But, all is well that ends well they say…


Joy did fly down two days earlier, I did get into the hospital on time, went through ‘Best of both worlds’ with nearly 3 hours of labour pain and then Emergency Caesarean Section, Joy almost threw up with the smell of disinfectant and sight of surgical instruments in the Labour room, I did make the entire OT staff crazy with my queries and hygiene panic utilising my ‘Medical knowledge’ to the fullest insisting on keeping my glasses on to witness that they were just taking out my baby and not any other organs….


And at last, there I was looking at the most precious gift of God I ever…our Masterpiece creation….Miss Adya Bhattacharya!


She arrived on 18th June,2008 at 4.07 pm, weighing 3.75 kg with jet black hair, hazel brown eyes and a smile to die for…She kissed me on my cheeks and stopped wailing the moment Joy picked her up and then our lives changed forever….

I Love my Bump!

I was finally into my 2nd Trimester….got rid of those nasty throw up bouts, mood swings and tenderness all over my body…I can claim to finally enjoy the amazing growth inside me.

I followed all the possible Mom discussion boards and enjoy reading weekly newsletter updates from Babyfit.com informing me with all the intricate details about the new developments inside my bump…its fascinating to know how fast a single cell has multiplied into forming major organs and all sensory nerves…it helped me a lot with sensible guidance to flex my work and rest times with the right diet charts and exercises and even sleeping patterns to ensure maximum foetal blood supply..

I had developed very painful swollen feet by the 5th Month itself and waved goodbye to my high heels. My office folks really helped me cope with putting my feet up during work hours and accommodating my frequent loo trips.

Then, one fine Sunday evening, Joy and I were watching TV on the couch and then I felt it….my baby’s first kick! It was the most amazing fluttering sensation. Then I started feeling movements…I could make out when the baby was awake and when asleep. I kept track of the sleeping pattern and started getting hunger pangs in the middle of the night. Joy used to keep my favourite cookies next to bedside for my midnight snacks!

And of course, our endless shopping trips for purchasing 2/3 sizes larger outfits to accommodate ‘US’. Joy always made it a point to make me feel sexy even I looked like an upturned flower vase….still called me names he did when we were dating...he bought me new Makeup and great books to read and listen to Yogic chants to calm my senses for our baby…

I really enjoyed the tender, caring partner that Joy had metamorphosed himself into…helping me climb stairs, never missing a doctor appointment or scolding me for not taking my vitamins on time and taking me out for evening walks and surviving all the mushy Shahrukh Khan films I wanted to watch.

And it really helps, you know to have a support system in your hubby who is actually the most confused character in this whole episode…guilty to see his wife going through so much….apprehensions of his love getting shared with his baby and excited to be play Big Daddy all at the same time!

Our friends and family started to play ‘Guess me if you can’ with old wives tales and legends of whether it will be a Boy or Girl. Ring game, size and shape of my bump, eating patterns etc etc…Every passing old lady commented…..’You will get a bonny boy’ that used to annoy me so much….coz I wanted a girl so badly…and God does usually hear my prayers..LOL..

But, the USP of the 2nd Trimester was our intimate chats with our baby. Joy and I spent hours discussing our future plans as if our new family member was already listening and understanding every word spoken...Strange but true...whenever the baby got hyper active and started kicking violently, Joy just stroked my tummy and spoke to the baby and there was calm almost instantly… Sometimes, I used to wake up with the pushes and cry…And say, ‘Baby ur mamma is sad ..pls don’t hurt me’…and I felt the baby respond….Such is the miracle of parent and child bonding…I can imagine now how my parents miss me….Love u mom and dad..

The magical blue line…

Seldom you would come across something small as a 2cm bleak blue line that would change the way you live, breathe, eat, dress and just about anything you have been doing till this moment in your life…

For a moment I froze in the loo….looking into the pregnancy kit result…can’t be true…so I retested…the same result!

I looked into the wall mirror…hello Mommy!

I woke up Joy from the middle of his sleep and broke the news….Obviously, he thought he was in the middle of a dream and asked me to go back to sleep…so I shook him again and this time he opened his eyes wide and sank it in!

We hugged each other and wept in happiness for the start of a new life….

So, the journey began…informing family and friends...preparing mentally and physically for the new member in our world..till now I believed that nothing could take my place in Joy’s life..but slowly I realised that the little heart beating inside me had already captured his mind and soul…


Every conversation, every action and reaction whatsoever revolved around this new ‘Arriving soon’ character.


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1st Trimester:


Pains:

• Endless list of unwanted ‘Free’ advice started floating all around us (Don’t have papayas…have 3 litre of milk daily for the baby’s fair complexion, no sex…blah blah…)

• Thou shall Do this and Don’t do that declarations were galore (Anyone heard of the saying: Rules are meant to be broken?)


• Whoever named it ‘Morning Sickness’ never thought of all the afternoons and evenings ruined by this syndrome!


• Mood swings and tantrums really made Mr. Husband wonder if pregnancy had side effects of insanity associated with it…


• Blood tests and Tetanus shots and dead tiredness out of doing nothing heroic were a real spoilsport in the 1st Trimester…



Gains:


• I could (without any guilt) eat all the spicy, deep fried and chatpata items on the menu card without blinking an eye on the calorie counter.


• Husbands and dads spoil you rotten during these 9 glorious months…so make the most out of it! (I really miss Joy fetching me a glass of water even it was just 2 metres away and my dad tying my shoe laces like when I was a little girl coz I couldn’t bend!)

• Catching up on some quality reading and pursuing that long-forgotten hobby (Painting/ singing/writing…) while playing the role of a dedicated and attentive wife all this while.

• The Out-of the World expression on Joy’s face when he heard the baby’s heartbeat first time@ Sonography and asked the Doc if there was a train chugging in my tummy? Or the time when he wanted to Work out even more in the Gym to prepare for running around with the baby since he had never held one till date!


• The power of being a woman and ability to create life out of your own blood and flesh is truly overwhelming…Its something every woman must experience once in their lifetime..I thank God for blessing me with this gift and making me a complete individual…

Transformation of two free soul lovers into mature, patient and responsible parents and an even stronger team as a couple to battle this likeable approaching storm…That is what a tiny blue line can do your life….

Journey to become Adya's Mommy: Welcome to my blog!

Journey to become Adya's Mommy: Welcome to my blog!: "First of all, let me thank you for taking time out to visit my first attempt at penning down all my ga-ga..which annoys the hell out of most..."

Welcome to my blog!

First of all, let me thank you for taking time out to visit my first attempt at penning down all my ga-ga..which annoys the hell out of most people who know me closely enough to suggest me to write down all the blabber rather than bothering them(Courtesy: My poor hubby: Joy...Thank you honey for the true inspiration and being my critic board!)

The real picture is however like this...I am the first mommy in my entire peer group.(Yes, I took the plunge and glad I did before anyone dared to set foot on this unpredicatable terrain...)

A bunch of my closest friends are expecting their first offsprings this year and some have just given birth to pure angels...so I decided to share my Mommyhood woes and wonders and what actually goes on in those 9 magical months and the aftermath that follows...

So, now that Adya has officially entered her 'Terrible Twos' and I can claim to have seen the worst...I can offer my shoulder, pillow,advice,tips and tricks and some occasional sound advice to play Agony Aunt to all those yummy mommies in the making....

Of course this blog also aims to offer the dads-in-making , some warning signs to watch out for in their wives and the way your life is going to change forever when you first hold your newborn in your arms....

So tighten your seatbelts and get ready to dive into the wonderful journey and realising the value of God's most precious gift to mankind...Creating a new life...