Reaching “Terrible 2’s”, and already a Wreck!

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?