A Bizzare Experience

I had a really bizzare experience today.

Let me start at the beginning.

Last week, hubs and I were walking around in the mall and we came across a bargain priced book section in Barnes and Noble. I picked up a Jefferey Archer as I can never really say no to him. Plus, the bargain price? There was no way I could win that one. I had never heard of that particular title before, but I had enough faith in him as he has never disappointed me before. True to form, it turned out to be a really good read, but I was trying not to binge. So I stuck to just couple of chapters a day. It also helped that I was really too busy to do any reading up until yesterday. Yesterday night I was casually reading my two chapters and then could.not.put.it.down. Just kept reading and reading and reading. It was very reminiscent of the teenage years when I was supposed to be studying, but would stay up late reading. Anyway, it was 3:33am when I went to sleep. It was all fine and dandy when I was in 6th grade and I could sleep through the biology class to compensate staying up till 3:33am. Not the same story when my precious bundle of high energy early riser joy would be sure to wake me up at the unholy time of 6:30am. He has very good getting-you-out-of-bed tactics too. He would stand up in the bed and then tumble on you. If you haven't had 24 pounds falling on you while you are in an early morning daze, why, you haven't really lived.

I stumbled out of bed, changed him, and took him down. I fed him a banana (I think) and slowly came to life. He showed signs of sleepiness around 10:15 and I put him down for a nap in his stroller. He slept off and I came up, did some stuff and had some time reading God's word and praying. I haven't had such a long, uninterrupted quiet time in a while and it really refreshed me. By 11, I decided I should get a nap as I knew I was going to be crazy tired in the afternoon. He only takes one nap now and I took the opportunity and lay down.

Ok, now here is the bizzare stuff.

I must have gone to sleep immediately. All I remember is I woke up very suddenly and jerkily. I looked next to me and didn't see Neil. I immediately panicked and ran to the bathroom, glancing at his bed on the way. (Bathroom is a prohibited area and consequently where he makes a beeline to). He wasn't there and I just cannot explain this, I started calling out his name loudly and was almost sobbing it. I thought he fell into the toilet, fell down the stairs and hit his head and I felt all weak. Suddenly, I heard him cry (possibly from all my yelling) and I remembered I had put him to sleep in the stroller, it was morning and he was fine. The whole episode of panic lasted probably 30-45 seconds. But the shaking didn't subside for another 2-3 minutes. I felt too weak to actually pick him up, so I knelt next to him in the stroller and put my arm around him. I sat there until I was calm and then everything was fine.

I felt so bizzare, I had never had an experience like this and don't care to have another one ever again. I am thinking it could be the lack of sleep that caused it. Unless you can suggest an alternative explanation.

Except tell me I am a tad crazy.

What is the point in stating the obvious, afterall?

Weekend Recap

It was cold here today for this time of the year. Sometimes I harbour romantic thoughts of living in colder climates. When the slightest cold hits around these parts, that is when I embrace my inner wimpiness and be very happy about living here. It is difficult with a child also, when it gets cold. Especially if said child would rather be taken to the torture chamber than put some clothes on. He is happiest if he runs around in a diaper. My mom told me that I was the same way. I would be running around in my petticoat outside the house even when I was 10 years old. (Although it is to be noted that very endowed adults here walk around in much less). Oh, the sins of the parents!

Today we had worship and had some missionaries speaking at the chapel. I was supposed to bring refreshments and no one told me about the overage of guests. I had a heart attack when I walked in and saw 42 people instead of the usual 16. Anyway, we managed. The message was great and the even better part was that Neil slept through. Both of us were able to sit in and that was an answered prayer. This was a ministry we support and I really wanted to hear him. Last week, we tried to stay and a friend took him to the nursery. The sanctuary door was closed, and way down the hallway, the nursery door was also closed, yet we could hear him screaming. Finally, my husband went to get him. His separation anxiety is the worst. He will not allow anyone, especially other women to take care of him. He does better with men.

Yesterday, I had some Mommy time. It was so nice not to wrangle the car seat, baby, diaper bag, stroller, food, drink etc. I went to the mall, looked around, bought some stuff, did some errands etc. It was just really nice. I was really looking forward to seeing Neil by the end of it. I was smiling just thinking of his face. Anyway, when I got home, he was fast asleep and I got to have some lunch also. I barely ever get to go out without Neil, so I savored every moment of it. Totally gave me the energy for the next 8 hours.

So, I bought a red and brown sweater, pants and a couple of tops. So I modeled all that for my husband and he said the red is perfect and brown is loose. I thought red is too tight, brown is comfy. I figured what does he know and put the red for returning. Later that evening a friend, who is the queen of all things fashion, came and said the exact same thing hubby said. I was mortified that I have a worse sense of style than my husband. I realized I have reached a new low.

Friday, DH has meetings till 8 pm and so we don't have fun Friday evenings to ourselves anymore. So I took Neil with me and we went shopping. First stop was Ross where I had to return a table cloth that wouldn't fit. Next was Target where I bought a gift for an upcoming birthdday. There I realized Neil had lost one shoe. When we got back from the store, I realized, he had managed to get his other shoe off too. That was in the cart though, and I rescued that one. (Although for what purpose, I am not sure). Then we stopped at BabiesRus for a sippy cup and when I opened the door, he had his one sock off. I put it back, we went to the store, got that and for kicks, I asked if they have turtleneck shirts for him. And they had. At $10 a piece. I wasn't happy to fork over $20 (I needed two colors), and was going to walk away, when I just picked and decided to find out the price anyway. Turns out, it was only $5 a piece. Why would they not advertise 50% off or something? To theink, they almost got away from me! I am not exactly sure why I shared all of this useless information with you, but I just can't seem to stop talking. You will have to excuse me. You might understand my excitement maybe if you knew that I had been searching for turtleneck shirts for him for a while and Old Navy, and Children's Place didn't carry them and I badly wanted them for a picture. Finally, went to Chipotle to get my dinner and then we headed home. By the time we reached Chipotle, he had both his socks off and was sitting and biting his feet. When I left out with Neil, the plan was to let him play at the play area in the mall. Instead, poor guy had to travel town for returns and purchases. Good thing he is too young to have any idea.

I pretty much gave a weekend recap in the reverse order. If you hung in there with me through riveting information about returns, and turtlenecks and sales, bless your heart! I will soon be back with more information like this. That is the promise of my blog. You can depend on it.

No point taken

It is hard to keep up with this blogging thing. When I am in the mood, I don't have time. When I have time, like I do right now, my mind is a blank slate. So I have to warn you at the outset that this post is going to be a big rambly no point nothingness. I am not even going to pretend there is a point.

First off, I can't believe how fast Neil is growing. I mean he is 14 months old now. He hasn't started walking regularly yet. He did take independent steps 4 days before his first birthday, and he has taken lots of steps since then, but he still moves around by crawling most of the time. He is venturing more and more by taking steps, but he still hasn't developed complete confidence. My mother and mother-in-law keeps asking every phone call, is he walking, is he walking? Since he is active and healthy I guess they need to worry about something. He has the most fun personality and I love being with him. Except that he wears me out by evening. Morning when he wakes up he grabs my face and showers me with kisses. It is pretty much the best part of my day. R is so busy, it is unbelievable. He works from home, but I haven't really seen him in 2 days. I am only slightly kidding. That is how busy he is. I hope it slows down a little soon.

There are some things on my mind which bothers me at times and one of it is the house situation. I like our house, it is a great neighborhood, and the house is actually cosy, but I have been struggling with the space issue. R works from home for his regular job, plus he has a home business. So, one room is pretty much full of things relating to that. One room is Neil's which was also the guest bedroom, and we really want to move him there. Currently, our bedroom is so crowded with the rocking chair, crib, dresser and our bed. Literally we bump into stuff moving around. After both our parents left after their visit, we moved the guest bed into the office and made it into guest bed/office/library. Now it is really congested and it is a really tiny room to begin with. R gets a backache working there and so he moves all his stuff into the living room and works from there. So it gets cluttered very fast and that bugs me. Plus, when he is working there, Neil and I can't be down as R needs to be on calls pretty much the entire time. All of Neil's toys are in a corner of the living room and that is his play area. The high chair is in the dining room. It is difficult to keep him entertained upstairs as his favorite thing about going upstairs is that he can slide down the stairs.

We are not at a point where we can move as there is no way we can sell this house in this market. Another aspect about the house is the school district. We were young(er), stupid, childless and clueless when we bought the house. So we had no idea how bad the schools were. Now that we know, (and I was told by a lady who is a teacher in the elementary school!) and Neil is growing up, it is getting to be more of an issue. We never thought much about school when we bought the house mainly as we were planning to send our children to private school. But we never thought if there were any good private schools in the area. Now we know. Also, there is the aspect of expense of private schools for multiple children. One is okay. But it will get unaffordable if we have more than two. So, all these things sometimes unsettle me. I know I am borrowing trouble and I really don't have much to complain about, but I am just being honset here on this blog. This is something I think about a lot, so it just came out.

I started writing a while back, watched a movie in between and now it is the next say. So I am turning in. I have to get up early tomorrow as my baby does not know the concept of Saturday being sleeping-in day. :)

7 Quick Takes

I am participating in 7 quick takes over at Conversion Diary. I just seem to blog better in numbered or bullet points. What can I say?

1. We decided today that we are not going anywhere for Thanksgiving or Christmas. I am really relieved. I love traveling, don't get me wrong, but traveling with a small child, it is more work and less vacation. I am happy and looking forward to spending both holidays at home.

2. R has been working crazy hours and has been traveling a lot. The first week he was gone, Neil got sick and was very clingy so I had to carry him around a lot. He would be up from 2 to 5 - IN THE AM, PEOPLE. Anyway, that really exacerbated by separated stomach muscle pain and by Sunday, I was in bad shape. My sister had invited me a while back when I told her that R was going to be gone for 2 weeks in a row. By monday morning, the pain had gotten so bad that I could barely walk. I looked up tickets online and it was the same price it was 2 weeks ago. This was for a flight leaving in 2 hours and I jumped on it and started packing. That was one of the best decisions I made. I got a week of solid rest the likes of which I never had since the delivery. It was a lovely, peaceful time and honestly, the best gift I have ever received. I didn't even have to change one diaper or give him a bath. My sister and family fed, changed, and entertained him and all I did was eat and sleep and rest. I truly needed it the first two days. Once the muscle relaxants kicked in and the worst was over, I just got lazy. I am so blessed to have such loving family here and may the Lord account this to them for righteousness :)

3. You know what I love about Indian clothes? That they are mostly pretty. Love the colours, patterns, styles, there is plenty to love.



You know what I don't love? The fact that it bleeds. Yuck!

This, my friends, is the fourth wash water.



And because of that, it always needs to be handwashed. No, not a big fan. Guess I know what I am NOT wearing in the next two years.

4. We had our laundry room all redone and it looks great. It totally deserves a post of its own with before and after pictures. Except I don't think I have before pictures, but I will certainly take some after shots. After it is done that is.

5. I am so glad to finally have my own laptop again after giving my old one to mom. I was tired of having to beg, borrow and steal from R all the time.

6. I am loving the fall climate. Low 80s, high 70s, beautiful for morning and evening walks. I feel I am really missing out, the days I don't go for a walk.

7. Neil is going to be a tiger this Halloween. Neil is Indian American, tigers are native to India and Halloween is celebrated here in America. That is the complex thought process
by which we (by we I mean I, because R couldn't care less if he tried) decided he is going to be a tiger. I actually made this all up. Well, actually he is going to be a tiger, but that is because that was the only outfit below $10. But talking about tigers and India sounds a lot better than saying I am a cheapstake. Doesn't it?

Neils Birthday Party - The details

If you are coming over from Kelly's Korner, a warm welcome to you.


Neil had a party here in US for friends. A party in India (actually 2) and then one here for his first birthday. Someone asked me if he will have 6 parties for his 2nd birthday. :) Okay, so he is really spoilt. Anyway here is a detailed account of his party here so that I can remember it for later.

And yes, this post is really late, but better late than never. I started it a long time back. I have a host of perfectly excusable excuses, but the post is too long already, so you are spared.

WARNING: PICTURE OVERLOAD

The is is the invitation that we made for the party.

Outside:



Inside:



R and I wrote the poem together and since the theme of the party was the book "Happy Birthday To You" by Dr Seuss, I had the book cover outside the invitation and the details inside. The colors I chose were yellow and red like the Birthday Bird in the book. Once I chose the colors, I went wild. ha ha.

The party was held at the chapel we attend, as there were too many people to accomodate in our home. The party was in 2 rooms. One was the foyer where people came in. At the entrance, I made some pom poms that we hung there.



We had the candy and smash cake table in the center of the foyer. I also made a fruit platter with his name spelled out. Three kids from church along with R, cut all the fruits and I thought it looked really nice. They did a great job.





At the back towards the wall was the monthly photos displayed. I did the craft for that and because I am an amateur when it comes to crafts, it took me a really long time to do it. But I loved doing it and I had such fun thinking it all out. I used his old food jars (when he used to eat jar food) and some tulle that my friend gave me. In yellow and red craft paper, I wrote out the best lines in the HBTY book for each month. Luckily for me, there were 12 lines and it all fit perfectly. The whole project cost less than $5 :) I obviously didn't buy the food for the jars. The jars were just lying around.



To the right of the entryway was a table with the guestbook, (a copy of Happy Birthday To You by Dr Seuss) some balloons, a red and yellow pom pom. The table had a white tablecloth with a red square cloth overlaid on it.



To the left of the entryway was the favors table for the kids. The favors were Dr Seuss pencils, pens, notepad, markers etc in red and yellow goody bags. I also had some small pouches available for the adults to take home the candy. For candy I had cherry slices, lemon drops and jordan almonds, all in red and yellow.



At the entrance of the hall where the main food and tables were, I hung the birthday banner I made for him. R helped with the hanging.



A closeup of the banner. It was easy peasy to make even for a super amateur like me.



The main hall of the church, which is actually a gymnasium is where we had the main food and the tables. I don't have a picture of the food, but we had Indian food (super mild) and lasagna for those who could not handle even that. Then there was chips and dip and chicken nugget for the kids and vegetable tray etc. Drinks were red fruit punch and lemonade consistent with the theme :)

The tables all had white tablecloths and I had vases filled with yellow and red Jordan almonds as centerpieces. Since the room was big and the tables were spread out, it was hard to get the yellow and red color scheme into that room. So, for that I had red and yellow helium balloons all touching the cieling. It really added some color to the room, but unforunately, there are no pictures.

I had made a video of his first year and had it running in the background. Some friends who made it for the party. You can see the video in the background and see the balloon strings from the ceiling :)



Here is a picture of the birthday boy digging into his cake. He hates the hat and is trying to get it out.



Life was a lot better once the hat was off.



Family shot.



The smash cake was from Publix (love the store btw) and there was another sheeetcake from Costco. He just smeared himself with the cake and I had to change him afterwards. I bought his monogrammed cupcake yellow outfit from etsy. I am a borderline addict of etsy now. :)

It was a really nice day and things went off well, especially with help from some people in the chapel. I am glad I was able to do this for Neil. I know he is not going to remember it and no, he is not going to have a huge party every year. It was fun to find the creative bone in my body and put together this for him.

This and that

I think I have two readers now and I don't blame people for not wanting to read my once in a month posting blog. Why the silence? I am not sure. I always think to myself, I really want to blog, but recently in my thoughts, I have learned to drop the really. Because if I really wanted to do it, I would find the time. Blogging for me is like exercising, I mean I like the end result, but actually finding the time to do it, I guess it keeps falling on the list of things to do at the end of the day. I want all the stars to be aligned to blog. Neil should be sleeping, the house should be tidy and quiet which means R should be sleeping as well, the laptop should be free etc. I should be in the mood and let us say, all these things happens once in a rare while like today. I often wonder how these moms of little ones blog on a regular basis. I am assuming that for those of them especially the ones who depend on the blog for revenue possibly see it as a job. I know for sure that it is one thing that I don't want. I have too many jobs as it is. :)

I was in India for 2 months and Neil turned one while we were there. My in-laws hosted a party while we were there and here is some cuteness.



He is not dancing, he was just reaching out for something. I love his outfit, but he hated when we tried to put it on him. After coming back, I had a party for him with all our friends here. I will post pictures of that separately. R was supposed to take those pictures, but he got busy talking to people and we ended up not having many of the pictures of the decorations and that makes me really sad. The theme was Dr Seuss book Happy Birthday To You. The book celebrates the uniqueness of a person and the tagline is "there is no one alive that is you-er than you." More on the party later.

Swimming lessons are not going swimmingly well (excuse the pun). He just screams for the whole duration of the class. He is just really mad that I leave him with the instructor. We are looking at a 2 day MDO program for Neil so he will have other kids to play with and I can get some things done here at home as well. I am just worried about all the screaming.

We are just getting back into the swing of things and there is always such a lot of things to do everyday. Recently, I read this post which really encouraged me. I read other blogs on my phone when I get some time here and there and it was really what I needed to read. R is very busy these days working from 8 to 9 with a lot of travel upcoming and it has been rough bearing the burden alone with a very clingy one year old who does not leave his clutch on my pants for most of the day. Physically it has been a strain too, carrying him as my weak stomach muscles are not helping. It is a good reminder to live in dependence on Christ remembering that I am never truly alone.

30 things for a 30 year old

I am turning 30 today. I thought I would list 30 things about myself. This is actually a result of some self analysis (doesn't that sound like shrink verbiage?) and there are some good stuff and some bad stuff areas of improvement. It is interesting that it was really hard to list the good stuff because, really, I cringed everytime I read it. However much I tried, it seems like boasting, but I have listed only things I have been told. The bad stuff are not things I have been told, but that I know to be true of myself. So here goes.

I

1. Am Hard working
2. Am Fiercely Loyal
3. Love making special memories for loved ones
4. Am generous
5. Get ready in no time
6. Am compassionate
7. Have good work ethic
8. Go over and beyond doing favors for people.
9. Have a sense of humor
10. Am frugal
11. Love all children
12. Am a good planner
13. Always rejoice at others happiness
14. Am good at atrranging a good time (travel etc) or our guests
15. Reasonably good cook who started from knowing absolutely nothing

On the other hand, I

1. Hold grudges
2. Finds it hard to forgive
3. Am impatient
4. Procrastinate
5. Get upset over small things
6. Am shy at parties
7. Am nervous about changes
8. Am opinionated
9. Am a rice addict
10. Do not do things consistently, am always falling off the wagon
11. Am very uncomfortable asking favors, making new contact, putting myself out there.
12. Find decision making hard
13. Am insecure about a lot of things
14. Am ungifted (is that even a word?) in domestic arts.
15. Am grumpy in the mornings.