Musings - June 2012

Not sure if it's the pregnancy hormones, or anxiety, or anything else (growing up :P?) - but I've found myself being a lot less tolerant lately. For example, I visited a friend last weekend....I've known her for 18 years. Our personalities are quite different but whatever time we spend together....with families, siblings, spouses, children - is good. There are many things about her that I do not like....they are not new so I simply ignore them and focus on the positive. But this last weekend, I somehow had decided that if she taunted me unnecessarily for anything, I would confront her - something which I have not done in 18 years. Maybe I knew she would, coz she always does? Anyway, so she did pass a comment which irked me beyond measure, and I politely but candidly confronted her. Things were okay as we left her place soon after, but I'm sure she is shocked at my behavior (the confrontation) as it's new. I think my confrontation was also a result of few of her parenting choices that I observed during the weekend, and were totally opposite to my choices. One thing they did with the kids was completely unacceptable to me.....I wish I had the guts to voice my opinion when it happened itself.

On the other hand, Pregnancy and motherhood have made me a lot less judgmental about people than I used to be. I also speak less in situations where there are people I am not very close with, just so that I am careful not to offend or hurt anyone unintentionally. With my spouse, family and close friends, I am still very much myself - I share my thoughts and opinions very openly. However, I have also become extremely protective of my daughter and people close to me. I hate it, absolutely, when someone does not respect my privacy and shares information related to me or my family to anyone else without letting me know. One other thing that bothers me is the fear of losing close people from my life, now that my daughter is part of it too. I would hate to see my child getting close to someone, and then that person moving away from our life for no fault of hers. I can bear the pain and hurt, but I cannot bear to see my child deal with it. Fortunately, she is still too young to get too emotionally attached to anyone, but the thought does come to my mind. An ex-friend of mine is one such example. I shared a lot with him during my pregnancy and first year of my daughter's growing up. We grew apart, and still, sometimes, it bothers me that he never remembers her or feels like meeting her. It's been more than a year that we saw each other....and it's clear that we are not part of his life anymore. I've moved on from our friendship....however, when I think about how close this person felt with my child, I still wonder how that feeling vanished so easily.

Also, I have started to find more and more people unauthentic. You can say its a negative way of looking at them, but my experiences say so otherwise. I try very hard to keep a positive outlook in life, and always try to look at the positive side of people or situations, so it's simply not me. People who are sneaky, do a tit-for-tat, monitor all my updates and activity on FB and use it negatively against me, check my blog just to see what's going on with my life but never bother to leave a comment or say hello in personal life, pretend that they are good friends but they are far from being one (infact, if I ever ask them for help, I know I'll be sorely disappointed), and people who are just jealous of me for no reason whatsoever - I'm surrounded by so many of these non-genuine people....Indians in particular (which is a sad thing to say, really).


A lot of deja-vu events have been happening to me. I have thought about people to call or email and within minutes, that person would contact me. Even people who I am not in regular touch with. I have vivid dreams and some of the stuff from my dreams is coming true. Thankfully it's all positive stuff so I'm good. The other day, the kiddo was jumping around in the house and I had a thought that she will do a somersault on the rug....and in a couple of minutes, she surprised herself (and us) with a full somersault. Our family room floor is tile so we usually don't let her do stunts there....we do it in the bedrooms which have carpet or on the bed.


My non-Indian friends have a hard time dealing with the hot weather, but I simply love summer, and I prefer it over other seasons. I don't feel chilly when I leave work in the evening. I don't have to turn the AC on (yet) in the house - a fan running at low speed and the window/patio door open keeps the house at 72-75F, which is just perfect. I love the cool breeze in the evenings, and going for walks after dinner is so relaxing. Lots of flowers are blooming everywhere, and it's generally a pretty time of the year. We have a kayaking team-building event planned next week at work, and I am so looking forward to spending time at the lake.

This will sound bizarre - but I find it true. I have observed that couples start looking like each other (physical features) after a few years of living with each other :). They start behaving and dressing up similar soon after getting together....but even physical attributes, which might be very different when they got married (think shape of their noses), start looking similar. As I said, it's bizarre and I have no logic/rationale for it.

Our 22-month toddler TALKS so much. It's mind-blowing. Our daily bedtime routine is to listen to her blabbering non-stop for 30-45 mins.....by then, we are both sound asleep and she then realizes there's no one listening so she goes to sleep too :). If we are having an adult conversation, she yells to us on top of her voice: "BE QUIET"!!!!! Today, I took her for a walk with a huge bouncy ball on the street in the morning....it was windy so the ball kept rolling away from us on the street....she was so tired by the time we caught it and were returning back home, that she sat down on the middle of the road and said: "Ruhi siddown, Ruhi tired" LOL! Then when we came home, I gave her a bottle of water to drink, and after a few sips, she says: "Soooooooooo gooooood"!!!!! She also repeats/imitates every.single.day we say. She will ask questions in style like this: "where is museum, ummmmmmmm? where is park, ummmmmmmmmm? Where are the keys, ummmmmmmm?" I am enjoying every second of her toddlerhood though :)

Here is a collage of the kiddo from last weekend....for a change, she loved wearing this western Indian outfit which was gifted to her by a close friend of ours! In the center picture, she is trying some dance move, in between chasing bubbles (we had the automatic bubble maker on) and playing football with daddy!