In the past six months, I have
experienced some of my highest highs and some of my lowest lows. The extremes
are really deep and wide. Sometimes I feel as if I’m a total freak show. Crying
one minute and laughing the next. Angry and then happy at the flip of a coin. I
don’t even know how I feel about anything half the time. I have also caught myself feeling like a zombie, so sleep deprived I am. I thought I was a train wreck while
I was pregnant with all that nausea, weird sleep cycles and food related
troubles, but I think I might be more of a train wreck now that Vrinda is
reaching her ‘Terrible 2's’ milestone in a few months time. I wonder what’s in
store for me when the destination arrives, as on the face of it now, I am in
for a roller coaster ride. And I must admit I am a bit scared.
Vrinda is on an energy absorbing
spree. She eats half a potato and runs for three hours. She eats two slices of
apple, and I run for three hours. Don’t even ask what happens when she eats a
slice of cheese. It’s like a relay race. Eat. Run. Eat. Run. Eat more. Run
more. There is no room for a ‘stop’. At times when I am driving, I go into a
trance and am not able to make a stop at the red light. Why? Because, All I see
these days is ‘Green’. Run, run, and run!
The day starts with her waking up
between 7 and 8 am. I fail to understand how she is able to start her engine
right at the moment she opens her dreamy eyes. The glow in her eyes as she
wakes up immediately forecasts the amount of running I’ll have to do that day.
I wonder why she can’t lie on bed for a few minutes before finally getting up.
Why can’t she cuddle with me or Anuj, give us those perfect filmy cozy moments?
And as I am thinking this, I find her already on the floor with her blankets,
trying to pull me down from the bed. This takes not even a minute, and if I
don’t budge, her howling starts. I take a deep breath, the deepest for the day
and get out of my ‘oh I so wish’ sleep and embrace the days blockbuster events.
As mentioned earlier about her
‘Blankets’, THE BLANKETS, let me tell you that no toy in this world can provide
the love, warmth and comfort to her, which these blankets do. From bed, to
living room, to kitchen, to all the places possible, they travel with her, in
her arms, as if they are her soul mates. One attempt to transport her from one
place to another without her blankets prove to be fatal for us. As it is feeding
her is a mammoth like task, so when she takes her milk with them, her breakfast with
them; sleeps in her swing, or on bed only with them, imagine the kind of weight (and irritation)
that I have to carry around whole day. Vrinda+blanket1+blanket2.
Only the spell of a bath can separate her
from them, where begins my second tussle for the day. Forget about the N number
of chair climbing rounds to fetch utensils or anything possibly lying on kitchen
slab from knives to cook ware to water to scissors to gas lighter, or to climb
and open cupboards to pick up markers, pens, files, my make up or play 'on and
off' with LCDs or drag dining table chairs to wash basins and play with water
hot. The list goes on.
Simply put, keeping her away from
water is difficult. The moment her milk finishes, the song for ‘nahai nahai’
starts rolling. And I have to give in and put her in her bath tub no matter
what I am doing. Additionally I also have to watch over her so that she does
not drink water from the tap. All those times that I have missed closing bathroom
doors, have let to more baths, the count can go upto 4 times a day. a minimum of 3 days in a
week I eat my breakfast standing outside our bathroom.
The day goes on, from bath to
lunch to sleep to evening stroll downstairs between the meal tussles. It’s been
raining in Mumbai since June. And it’s been a pain for me taking her down for
playtime each day. Here’s how it goes. I dress her up. I take her down. Splash
splash!! She gets all dirty with rain water and we come back home. She takes a
bath, gets dressed again and we go down, only for a repeat telecast. Earlier
there were repeat sessions of this kind, getting
dirty again and again. But not anymore. Now, I take her down only once she is at the
extreme end of crankiness, only when she has stared down long enough from the
window and can no longer be kept at home. I let her do her thing for as long as
she wants, for as much as she wants, for I know that any attempt at asking otherwise, will fall on deaf ears. For she is in Bliss and doesn’t care
about anything I would say.
As we return back home, I am almost dead from the
tiresome running around episode. I put her in her bath tub yet again and take a
chair myself to sit and watch her as she gets engrossed in her water sports. I
wish the rains to go away quickly (so I won’t have to go through this dirty
water playtime), with a deep guilt for wishing so, considering the water
shortages people face with scanty rains these days.
Soon its dinner time around 7:30
pm, and I can already feel my spirits lifting up from the sheer thought of
having some ‘me time’ post I put her to sleep by 9 pm. But I am being too
optimistic. This is only possible if she has not slept during the day or slept
less. But if she took a late afternoon nap then I know my dreams are already
crashing. As I wait for her to sleep in the bedroom and sing her goodnight songs, the time seems
to have stopped. I wait more, with my patience coming to a boil. I try hard not
to let it spill and put up a brave front. I smile and keep calm. She jumps on
the bed, rolls over everything in contact, asks for water 10 times in 5
minutes, kicks down the cushions and pillows, but I keep calm. I wait. It seems
unending. But I wait.
Coming back to my plans, if I am
lucky then she sleeps within 1 hour of going to bed. Yes 1 hour, which makes me finally feel like
taking on the world and cheer for my freedom; watch something nice or just surf
around or get on to tidying the house. WAIT, on the other hand, half of the
times, my planning goes for a toss. In the process of putting Vrinda to sleep,
I crash down along with her, sometimes even before her. The day takes a toll on
me. When I wake up it’s about 1 or 2 am, and she is asleep. Anuj is asleep too.
That’s when I go back, brush my teeth, change clothes, put on my alarm for 7 am
and crash back into my bed with an even stronger wish than yesterday - ‘only if
we could have 20 hours in a night’.
So this is a typical day with a
toddler about to be two years old. Apart from all the happiness and beautiful
moments, the baby parcel also comes with a long list of difficult times. Who
says motherhood was easy?
