How I spent my New Year’s Eve - 31 Dec 2013

While the whole world was partying hard, getting drunk, having fun or generally busy in bringing in 2014, I was in the surgical ICU of a hospital, post an emergency caesarean section. Our little boy (who will be called Peanut on the blog) was born at 2:23 pm and he was also in the NICU for observation because he arrived in style (gate crashing our non-existent New Year’s Eve plans) about a month earlier than expected. His birth and my pregnancy stories deserve separate posts which I hope to document soon.

As it was the New Year’s Eve, the surgical ICU was almost empty, baring me, another girl who also underwent a c-sec and the nurses. It felt very strange to bring in the New Year with a bunch of complete strangers, confined to the bed as I could not move an inch without feeling immense pain. Many women define the happiest moment of their lives as the ones where they delivered their kids. How did I feel? It was a mixed bag of emotions. I was definitely super-excited but I was worried about Peanut being in the NICU, apprehensive about the pain that I would have to go through post surgery and anxious about the next few days. I made the nurses call the NICU time and again to check status, and they kept telling me there is nothing to worry. 

Come New Year’s 2014, and finally I was sent to the room and pretty soon, Peanut was also released from the NICU. Have things been super smooth post that – oh, definitely not, with all the feeding challenges, recovery from surgery, sleepless nights, nappy changes, Peanut being on antibiotics and so on. But yes of course, it has been the most adventurous and exciting event in our lives so far.

December Reflections - 2

Back here and time for the next two prompts.

Fellowship - Oh yes, some new friends came along, and some old ones have gone out of touch and have now become just acquaintances. The close ones still remain close (touch wood). With some of them, I don't need to keep in touch that often, but one ping or a small email, and we are back to where we were. This happened just yesterday when a friend pinged after about 5 months and it was so therapeutic to just catch up with her. Also, met some wonderful folks on twitter. 

Cook - Well, this one asks me to describe the best recipe that I cooked this year. Now, that is a tough one, because I am bad with recipes. I call mom to ask the same recipes over and over again. I also keep some blogs open when I cook. Here are some of my favorite recipe blogs.

Sumthinz Cooking - My friend Reema's blog. My go-to place for all things that are simple and yet exotic. She makes even seemingly complicated recipes look so simple. Don't believe me? Check out the Palak Paneer recipe on the blog. 

Spicy Chilly is another favorite for South Indian stuff and I rely a lot on Shab's Cooking for Malabar recipes. For desserts, it is usually Ria's Collection that I turn to.

Will come back in a couple of days with the next two prompts.

December Reflections

Now that it has been ages since I have blogged about anything, here is another attempt at what could get me going again. It is almost the end of the year, and what an year this has been - one where I have been so down to the pits that I thought I would never emerge out of it, to one where I have felt to be on top of this world. What this means is that I have enough to reflect about and I decided to participate in  Weverb12 - which gives you a prompt everyday to reflect and move forward. As expected, I missed the prompts for the first few days and here goes the first 4 prompts collectively. Also, I won't be following the prompts strictly as per the instructions, I will just look at the prompt and write about what comes to my mind when I hear it.

1. Compose

Retaining my composure is something that I am really bad it. I panic easily and get nervous in less than a minute for the silliest things. I tend to imagine the worst that could possibly happen. Surprisingly, I manage to keep this nervousness to myself in most cases, but ya, it does spill over at times. The next year, I want to see myself understanding that there would be situations where all I could do is to wait and watch. Panicking won't do me any good.

2. Watch 

Like I said earlier, wait and watch. Take a pause. Watch the rains. Watch the early morning sunshine. Watch a school bus full of excited kids go by. Watch the cake rise in the oven. Watch the beautiful formation that birds fly in.  Just watch.

3. Stay

Staying in the moment is so hard. The anxiety of what will happen next takes over and almost ruins it. Both me and S are people who always think about future rather than just being in the moment. Hopefully 2013 teaches us to just stay in the moment and relish. 

4. Experiment.

We experimented with impulsiveness. Yes. We have been crazy with some stuff this year. Last year, this time we had not even thought about buying a house and here we are, moved in to our own home. It was such an impulsive decision that we don't believe we managed to pull through. Here is to more such experiments.

Here's hoping that I will continue posting through this month.

10 day challenge - Bring it on!

Exactly the kind of thing that one needs to get back to blogging. I saw this challenge at Athira's blog and decided to take it up. Though I have done the Quirk Tag before, here I start off again with ten secrets of mine.
1. When I feel extremley angry, my eyes fill up with tears giving out the impression to the others that my anger is melting away. Well, actually the anger still lingers! 

2. Like most people, I feel very jittery and restless without the internet.

3. Talking about the internet, I am obsessed about having a clean inbox. I do not like any pending notifications or unread email in my inbox, so I check them as soon as I see them, even if they are spam.

4. A year back, I went through the biggest footwear obsession in my life where i bought around 8 pairs within 2 weeks. I have not shopped for footwear ever since.

5. I am really scared of chicken pox, to a level that I willingly go and get preventive injections every year. I hope I can evade it forever *touchwood*.

6. Dairy Milk Fruits and Nuts continue to be my favorite chocolate and I think all the Godivas and Ghirardellis come nowhere close to it.

7. Even though I have phases where I got out and shop like crazy, I can be extremely determined about not spending a penny when I don't want to.

8. I am the queen of clumsiness. Spilling water, dropping the spoon and knife, slipping off, breaking the heel of the shoe - all this comes to me naturally.

9. I get very attached to inanimate things like my comb, my books, kitchen equipment and so on. I think of them as living beings and even talk to them at times.

10. I studied some mathematics questions by-heart for me 10th board exams because I was very terrified of flunking. I scored 85 in the end, and I am super proud of it.

Of Parents and Kids!

The usually boring and quite Sunday began was disturbed by the wails of 'Mamma, Mamma' from somewhere in the building. I am a nice neighbour, I never crib about kids crying or making noise. So, I chose to ignore it thinking it must be some kiddy tantrum. After 15 minutes, I continued to hear the cries so I thought I would just check and see. Opened the door and I saw a little girl, about 2 years old, wailing her heart out. She was all alone. I went near her, but the moment she saw me coming, she moved further and kept on crying. Now, I definitely know that she does not live on the same floor as I do. Neither have I seen her play with the building kids. So, I rang the bell of the neighbor who has a 3 year old in the hope that they may recogonize her. No one answered.

This little one, meanwhile, sneaked into the lift and started crying again. I ran to the lift and stood in between the lift doors to block it. Meanwhile, S also came out. Together, we both tried to pacify her and ask her where her Mama is. Any attempt to go near her resulted in more crying. She was also hitting her own face, may be because she was really scared. We moved into the lift and decided to go to the ground floor to call the security. They came in, but they had never seen this girl before. Glances of panic exchanged between S and me. Then, we called the occupants of a ground floor flat to help us identify the girl. They too had no clue. The lady of the house, who is a mom decided to help me out to get the kid out of the lift. She offered her a chocolate, asked her son to get into the lift to get her out, tried singing. The kid wont budge. Finally she barged in and picked up the kid, ignoring all the kicks and cries.

No one knew who this kid was and we all were panicking by the moment. I thought for a moment about her parents, wondering if they would be running around searching for her. A good 20 minutes passed and many residents gathered. Finally, someone decided to check in the play area and ask the kids there. When we reached, a four year old came running and said, 'yeh hamari hai'. This little girl was a guest at his house and had come down to play with him. He saw his regular group of friends and forgot all about her. We went to their house to drop the girl and saw that the parents were not aware, they all were eating happily and enjoying. When we told them what had happened, the started scolding this 4 year old saying you were not careful. That is when many of us lost it, we said he is too young to take care of another kid. What remains a mystery is how she managed to reach the 2nd floor from the ground floor.

Is it okay for parents to leave little kids unsupervised during play hours? So many people move in and out of the apartment complex apart from the residents. There is a swimming pool in the apartment complex which remains deserted because of the chilly Bangalore weather. The fact that she is a guest and not a regular resident also makes it tough for the girl to trace back her way to the house. Needless to say, we all were shuddering at the possibility of what could have happened. Leaving a 2 year old to be supervised by a 4 year old is never a good idea. Wonder what the parents were thinking. I was too tempted to give them a piece of a my mind, but resisted because of their worried expressions.

Meanwhile, the little girl was too happy to be with her mama and comfortably slept on her shoulders.