Some BLOGGING thoughts and more of my FLIGHT TRIP with my two year old daughter!!

So I have been dormant for about a month not been writing here,so much for my consistent blogging!!! Although I have to say I had other things to consider such as accounting to my other responsibilities of being a stay at home mom and staying consistent with those. For more on my struggles of stay at home mom you can read my previous blog 'The struggles of a stay at home mom - Its not easy for me!'

Blogging
As per blogging, I have my moments of guilt when I haven't blogged for awhile, especially the times I have wanted too and can't . Nevertheless I talk aloud in my head to compensate for the times I don't blog. Writing has given me a voice when I feel at times I don't have one. Sometimes however strong my opinions are on a matter I can be easily convinced otherwise. Sometimes this frustrates me because later on I feel my opinions are always overlooked but in someways you can see this is my own doing. So yes I prefer writing, I don't feel my opinions being revoked. More so I find in blogging, people do put in their opinions but at least mine hasn't been overlooked. Now I didn't want to be writing about blogging but I did it miss doing these past few weeks.


Flight trip
Now the other reason I haven't done much writing is that I was planning my holiday trip to California with just my little TWO YEAR OLD and ME!! We were making our first trip to visit to Porterville, CA to see my folks and as for me I was dreading the 10 hour plane journey. I know I shouldn't have been nervous since I did take a flight with her from India to London when she was about a year old. That flight was a smooth journey since she slept all the way until the last one hour when we had to land and she refused to be seat-belted on my lap. We kicked up such a fuss and everything I tried to do to pacify her backfired on me. I felt so futile and cringed while others stared at me - giving me that look that oh my god she can't take care of her own kid!! That one hour was the longest hour than the total 8 hours we were on the flight. So this time I was just expecting the worst but I have to say the flight to California went off to a great start and realised I was unnecessarily fretting. On the flight, she had her own chair and we brought along Mickey Mouse and her little baby doll. We played a lot of pretend games till she was exhausted and went to sleep till we landed. Not once did she want to come out of her seat or cry, she also ate well and since we had woken up early to catch the flight we were bit tired but being overexcited about being in a plane we took our time. We slept a good 5 hours on the flight and although while landing she was little perturbed, I told her we were going down a bumpy slide weeeee.....she clutched on my hand but not a fuss. As for me I was glad everything turned out well and now i only need to fret about the long flight back but for now I will take comfort in that this one went so well. I was very proud of my little girl and hopefully the flight back would be as good as this.

The struggles of a stay at home mom - Its not easy for me!

Most mothers I have read find it much easier being a stay at home mom. For me not so much, I struggle day in and day out with this - I am much more organized and happy when I am working. For the past few days I have been trying to gather why its such a battle for me living at home.  And these are the notions I get:

• I feel lonely, depressed and restless
• I have no control over my life and that makes me feel really uneasy about my future.

I know what I lack is some organization but staying at home is not easy without any structure. And although I come up with schedules and plans, they work out for a while and then I am back to square one and feeling much more like a failure than I did before. And this cycle keeps repeating itself. So  in this quest of finding out why the stay at home mom doesn't work for me or my behavior towards it - I look at my younger years to see what home actually meant to me.

The Younger Years

When I was young, home definitely meant that it was a place for me to be as lazy as possible. For most of the time in a year I was at boarding school where there were classes held on Saturday as well. We had holidays about every two and half months in a year where I went home. I had no ground rules laid out for me, no chores whatsoever - I did what I wanted to do, I could sleep in almost everyday  and no strategy of how my holidays were spent. Mostly from my recollection, I would be quite bored and couldn't wait till I got back to school. But I think this is what set precedence in my mind that home was a place where I do nothing. I am not saying this is an excuse but its my perception on my behavior mindset why I am so hopeless when I stay at home. I bound to incline myself to laziness.

The Change

So my first inclination to be a better stay at home mom is to change my mindset. I need to believe that I am doing this for myself. For the past few years, I have made myself believe that any change positive I do is for my husband, my family etc but I believe if I am going to make any progress it has to be for me alone.

 One to schedule my normal activities and not bombard it with everything possible that needs to be done. Take baby steps, add in one responsibility into the normal activity and master it. Only then add another one. Reminder is to never over schedule because if I can't achieve I always end up feeling like I failed.

Two be consistent, I believe I am bound to slip and fall but to keep consistent in the framework of the general schedule. I need to get a stage where when I get depressed I don't let everything fall into pieces. I always self-encourage the small steps.

Three -My husband always reminds me that a lot is riding on me as a parent. My young one is going to look up to me and see how I am going to do things. I definitely can't while my time away sitting around doing nothing while the house descends to shambles. I want her growing up to be productive and hard working - definitely not lazy!


The Outcome

For the past few weeks, I am honing on these changes of my mindset to keep on reminding me that the positives are going to outweigh the negatives. It keeps me to having a happy husband, happy family and most of all a happier me!!

Two years ! How swiftly the years pass by when you have children!

Just like that, two years have passed by, two years of bringing up little one, two years of not going to work at all, two years of stay at home mom - The two years have definitely passed away quickly - just like a blink of an eye. Now my little one is grown and I am not ready for her to grow up any more - I know she is still tiny and she is still my baby but sometimes as a year passes me by - I just want to hold her and let her be young. I have understood that these few years before she turns into a teenager and then an adult, I believe she is mine and I am hers. Soon when she grows up she will have her friends and slowly they might become the center of her world while we fade away a bit.

 For now I treasure some of these moments: both the good and the bad...

• I remember the day she was born and they brought her to me and she opened her big brown dark eyes and looked at me - and for that instance it seems like time just stopped still and I felt that a bright radiance just filled the room and surrounded us and to me it seemed magical. She was magical for me.
• I remember  the tireless nights I woke up to her cries and couldn't soothe her until I put on the Disney mickey mouse cartoon just to wake her up so I could calm her down. 
• I remember when she was still a baby during the day she would wiggle her hands and legs in rotation for about two hours until she got exhausted and fell asleep for another two hours, woke up again and did this - we call her rotations - her exercise.
• I remember our trip to India on the flight, I had my aunt with  me so all was fine, it was coming back with just me and her, and she continuously cried for that last one hour in high pitch before landing. Nothing I did pacified her and as everybody looked at me - I just wanted to disappear into my seat.
• I remember in India, she was curious about all the noises. Usually here in London, it  only me and her  spending  the day together mostly but in India there were tons of relatives and family members and I was so she acclimated herself quite socially with others.
• I remember all the times she went from one stage to another until she could walk - she was always persistent to get to the next stage. I think even though she had started walking, for awhile she preferred the crawl, only because she was faster at it.

And for the now

• One of her first words were daddy and not mummy but when she finally did say mummy - it was the cutest thing - even cuter than the way she said daddy. Now we converse - mummy - blah blah blah but mummy....and so on we go...
• She understands much more - she give hugs and kisses, she listens to instruction and she loves getting kudos. She give mummy the general hug and pat on her back for her not to worry!
• She understands what it means to be hurt  and if mummy and daddy don't know about it - she makes sure we sympathize with her, she points out where she got hurt and how.
• She still wants to get her way and has a small tantrum routine which is ignored by mummy and daddy and as parents we are happy its not much as before but its still there.
• She gets easily frustrated - she can't understand why her teddy or mickey can't sit on one of her building block. 
• She hates getting messy with food and is such a fussy eater -  rice and lentils are the only healthy thing she eats - of course I mash the veges and add it to the lentils - she has no idea! She loves chocolate and ice cream.
• She loves the Ipad we have - she thinks its hers - she perfects her gangnam style moves by observing the PSY on youtube.
• She knows her please and thank you's!

Oh golly! There is much much more - but for now these should suffice - since that's how much my memory can stretch of the last two years right now - I am sure I'll come up with more later....

Trying to follow a LOW CARB, HIGH PROTEIN DIET - are we doing it right?

Honey Mustard Chicken and  Baked Parsnips

Stuffed Bell Peppers with Red Cabbage Salad

So this happens occasionally in our household- every few months - we go dieting - so far we have tried the Dukan diet and the exante diet. Now we are in for the LOW CARB, HIGH PROTEIN diet, I am not sure if I am doing it right. I am first of all 'A not so good cook' and to try on recipes with healthy dieting, I surely come up short. But here is what I have made so far the past two weeks, I have made some effort in this so I thought I would share it along and these are the successful ones so far. Now my resources for some of these recipes are from Pinterest and of course some are just me dabbling in some food experiment and if it comes out tasty - I  do a whoppdeedoo dance in my mind!!! The judge always happens to be my husband and I am telling you I have had some bad experiments as well and hubby  truly gets unhappy about those. Now most of the food I posted I think qualify as Low Carb, High Protein diet - from my knowledge yesterday - we learnt that parsnips a little more higher on the carbs as a vegetable - but I know at times I am going to get it wrong but I am trying so it +1 for effort.

Chicken Cutlets with Spinach Salad

Sweet Chilli Mince Beef with Lettuce

Now why do we do this dieting - mostly my hubby's idea and I just join along  - he finds that he has put on some weight and wants to be healthy - i suppose same reason as every one out there who goes dieting. Also we being Indians - we loving eating our rice and curry every day. That happens to be lot of carb going in - and it extensively shows because we both happen to have stout little bellies. I usually do it yes one for healthy reasons and its something both my hubby and me are doing it together - it gives me a happy feeling.

So for you readers you can let me know which food plate is your favorite and if you are looking forward for the recipes too- let me know that as well!

Now for my HEARING and a bit MYSELF story...please read on....

My new hearing aids

So I have learnt waiting later in the day is harder to write, I have been mulling over ideas on what to write about today and I know what I want to write about  but I still have left it for later in the day like I usually do with things that needs to get done. So through out the day  they are constantly hover around my mind - ' You haven't done it yet' - Now is your chance go for it. So now its 10 am in the night and here I am finally gotten myself to blogging and for you to know that topic that is been mulling in head.

Teenage years
Okay here I go - I learnt about this during my teenage years that I was partially deaf - there was a preliminary test done when I moved  from India to start high school in the US. Before then I had no idea, my speech was fine and I didn't feel any different in the sense that I was like every normal child there going to school or I mean I didn't feel that I was lacking in my hearing sense. But that summer when I moved to my aunt's place in Los Angeles, I was given the very back bedroom which was fine with me, I was feeling quite different moving to a new country, new  people - it was a bit too drastic for me. I still thought my hearing wasn't bad because I could still converse with  people but overtime if I look back now, I did hold myself back, more so I thought because I was shy and reticent. I lived in a family where everyone was highly educated and the talking smart critically about worldly events was the norm. I struggled fitting into this I just felt I was the dumber of the lot and more shied away from verbose intellectual conversations. I don't know if it was this or whether I really couldn't hear that made me back off socially - it could have been both.

The Marriage
During the year I got married my father was adamant to get me hearing aids. We were in India and as I know with my dad he always buys the most costliest one and although I tried to deter him - he still bought me the priciest hearing aids possible. But my first experience wearing them, they were very loud and especially in India with the traffic - the horns are blown every few minutes, - it was taking a toll on my ears. But just being in India and with a whole new group of my family - I felt like I was back home and I was back conversing as I usually did.

Another new destination
Then after marriage my new destination - London. I think I was here for a year and it was one miserable year because it took me a year to get a job here. And being by myself in that one year - I became under confident, I hardly wore my hearing aids - I was with myself - I didn't need it to converse with and I believe my whole attitude changed towards it. I wanted to feel normal, I was normal, I could hear per say, I didn't need the hearing aids.  I would wear them only when my husband was around because he hated repeating things to me. Over time I wore them occasionally, until they broke just about few months back .Slowly I realized that my hearing had gotten a bit worse, this being when I tried participating in conversations, I was talking about something so off the topic that my friends were speaking about and I was most naturally embarrassed by this.

Here I am now
I got my new hearing aids - thanks to the NHS just a few days ago and I think having them now I feel a resurgence of new energy that I can confidently converse again. I believe overtime that my environment and my attitude shaped my perspective about my HEARING. I decided to let it go and be okay that I have a sense of disability - and its not so bad after all - its okay not to be NORMAL.

Making a push in the WRITE direction, LOOKING for advice, tips and ideas to BLOG from fellow bloggers and writers!!

So I have turned a year older just yesterday, I
don't look forward to birthdays anymore - it reminds me I am growing old. I am not one of those who think ooh...yes older and wiser...is doing me good. I want to wish my slim figure back with the propensity to eat anything I want and still remain slim. Now I need to watch that weight which sides are they appearing on - for a long time - till I turned 30 I could pass off as a teenager - now  I actually look older - I feel older -and I am yet ambivalent on whether I am comfortable with the older look. And yes with age comes maturity and responsibility which I lack immensely - everyone has taken care of me - and now I know that I need to push myself to do the same for others and yes for me, myself as well. Unfortunately I am so lackadaisical about the whole thing and I think that worries me. So I am going to start with a little push -I am going to blog every day of this month - I am a little late for this month but its still the first week. There is no harm by starting now, this push is on the writing aspect of things I want to get done to be a better writer. There are other things I would like to push myself to do but I guess I will surely blog about them later for now I will stick to writing.

This for the Readers

So for those of you who stop by and read this post - let me know where I need to grow. I am talking to those mommy's like me who have blogs or for those who have  accomplished blogs to give me some advice - let me know how you came about starting your blog and what you have learnt along the way. I am a beginner and I want to learn!! I do read a lot on blogging and writing  and sometimes there is such a flood of information that I  sometimes feel I get a brain drained and confused.Its then I take a break. Do you writers and bloggers ever feel like that?

Ideas for Blog Writing

How many of you bloggers struggle with getting ideas to write on your blogs? I do. I was given advice to have a little book and pen and write down everything possible that popped in my head. But needless to say I have a two year toddler who is going through a phase of creative artwork on walls and papers - so every time I have my book out - there she is at my side - whining to give her my pen and book. So for now, I have the pen and book put away because I hardly can pop in that idea of mine in the book with a whining toddler. And I do lose a few ideas here and there but I am also looking for other bloggers to help me come up with ideas...maybe we can write about a topic...and read each others..what one has to say and have a discussion of sorts.

I do want to blog socially and learn about whatever there is on writing and blogging. I am hoping for anyone who comes by to journey it with me - whether you are new or a proficient blogger. I am looking for advice and growth and hopefully as I travel into this writing world I will be able to give back what I have journeyed along to others.

Have you had your child's haircut? The horrendous haircut that scarred my daughter !!

The start of the hair story!

my baby girl's hair at 8 months

When I had my baby girl, she was born with quite a bit of hair on her head. By six months it was long enough to tie up little small ponytails. Yes it was a little fuss...but I would quickly put her in front of the TV...do her hair and that was it. Usually by another few hours it was a mess...with the hair covering her eyes...and still I didn't want her very first hairs cut off.  By nine months the hair grew near shoulders with small curls at the end and I absolutely loved them but doing the hair was becoming a more surmountable task.

The aunt who loves cutting  hair!
It was around this time my aunt-in-law from India made her first visit to London to stay with us. I was a bit nervous because she happens to be very career oriented and savvy interior designer in Chennai. I was relieved to find out that when she is on holiday she tends to take a step back and have fun. We loved having her over and as I have grown to know her more - I think she happens to be a closet hair stylist - I say this because every time she is here - she either wants to cut my hair or my daughter's. So while her first stay here, she was adamant that she cut my little girls hair so after a while I conceded. So as I kept my little girl busy, my aunt in law chopped of her hair and we realized she looked much cuter with her hair short.

The lady barber who scared my daughter!
 So from then on, every few months as they grew, I took my daughter to the lady's barber who does my husband's hair. My daughter sat on my lap and the lady cut her hair. So far first trip no problems and I was happy that I didn't have to bother about doing up her hair anymore. I think it happened to be her third visit to the barber when she was a bit petrified of her hair being cut in front and wasn't too happy about it falling on her face. So she started to cry when the lady went right to her face and in her polish accent militaristic voice loudly told my daughter  Shh...shh...shh..NO! NO! NO! .stop crying stop crying....now my daughter was even more petrified that she started balling away. More so I  haven't been a situation like this before I wasn't sure what to do, I tried to pacify my daughter but the lady kept on telling my daughter shh...shh...KEEP QUIET!! We were nearly done with her haircut and I just wanted to take my daughter home. After a few months I went back, hoping my daughter had forgotten about the event but she took one look at the lady and she refused to have her haircut. She pulled out such a tantrum that I had to take her home. We have tried cutting at home but the event for now had scarred her from anyone approaching a scissors through her hair.