Change : Boon or Bane for Moms

Once upon a time my son would take two naps a day and I had pretty much gotten used to this timetable and planned my chores around his schedule. This worked very well for me, as I got to have time for myself , do my chores and at the same time give a lot of undivided attention to my son.

But off late my son was been beginning to skip his morning nap , throwing me off the hook completely.  I then hardly had any time to do the household chores , and spend time with myself.

I spent most of my time entertaining my son, getting him to do activities and spend less time with the T.V. Being stuck indoors because of winter and having a lot of time on hand I was running short of things to keep my toddler busy .

I was like a crazy woman scouting the internet for activities to keep a toddler engaged and busy, but to no avail. My son wanted me to do every activity with him, he just didn’t want to do anything by himself. This was pretty tiring .And this being his first winter,in Wisconsin, he was getting awfully sick with cold and cough, forcing us to be home all the more.

This was  getting awfully frustrating with me, and instead of looking forward to spending time with my son, I was beginning to secretly resent it. And at the same time was dying of guilt, I mean come on what kind of Mother am I ? who is resenting spending time with her son. I was not prepared for this change. I missed having some time for myself and was beginning to freak out.

This then got me thinking about changes. Changes they say are good for us , especially when we are prepared for it. But what about changes which we are not prepared for ? A sudden death , a loss of job , a catastrophe, a change in the baby’s schedule etc

As human beings are reaction to unprepared changes be it minor or major is self pity. Try as hard as we may we plunge into this dark ocean of self pity. And remain in it for quite sometime, unless we get really tired of it.

And one day just like that I got so tired of all this self pitying.

Ok so what If my toddler is not sleeping more, I cannot live like this rushing through my chores, being tired and not enjoying this time with my son. I get to enjoy his childhood just this once. I am a lucky woman to get to spend so much time with her baby, I should be making the most of it and not cribbing about it.

Since then I have worked around my schedule to get things under control.

I try to get up earlier and get some work done, sometimes I let the chores just be and play with my baby , sometimes I manage to juggle both. I have learnt to stop  being harsh on my self and bid goodbye to self pity the minute I see some signs. When it gets a little too much, I just leave the baby with my spouse, and go away to the gym for an hour, that refreshes me totally. I am getting used to this phase now and thank god that he naps atleast once a day.

Staying at home with the baby sometimes is not so easy 🙂  It is a lot of sacrifice but in the long run is worth all the effort 🙂

Forgiveness : What Does It Mean To You ?

Today as I was sitting between two old ladies listening to the long sermon given by the priest , my mind drifting off and on to various places, the priest caught my attention by asking the parishioners ,what “Forgiveness” meant to us. He described the word so beautifully , this is something I heard for the very first time in my life. He told us that the word forgiveness is incomplete without the word “Give”. To forgive is to “Give away a part of yourself to the person who hurt you ” and this is not easy.

Yes, forgiving is  not easy, tell me about it. I have been having struggling with it for the past 6 months.It takes every ounce of will power to be nice to the person who has hurt you. Forgiving involves sacrifice , one needs to sacrifice one’s ego, one’s pride and step down from that pedestal of  hurt, anger and grief and reach out to the person who is the cause of your misery.

It takes time to reach that mental state where one decides “Enough of this mental agony, let me try forgiving this person, maybe then I can find some peace”.

Months and months of piled anger and frustration eventually leads to this stage of forgiveness I guess. And trust me its worth it. I have experienced this part too, and it is such a relief from the negativity.

Eery stage in this part of forgiveness is important and necessary to shape up our personality

1) The phase of realizing that one has been ill-treated

2) The Anger at the other person or one self.

3) Times when one’s mind replays the “Scene where one was hurt ”

4) Efforts to block out that pain and agony

5) Anger, Pain and Hurt

6) Giving up

7) Seeking a way out of this mental agony

8) Finally seeking to Forgive.

It does not happen instantly, one needs to suffer through all these stages and then realize the beauty of “Forgiveness”

I would like to hear about your views about forgiveness , what does it mean to you, has it been easy , what is your journey ? maybe it can help some of us.

Child Sexual Exploitation – Every Mothers Nightmare

(A Dutch child-rights organization has opened my eyes to a new form of child exploitation. This video is safe for work but will hurt your stomach.

Watch how they gauged the scale of the problem with a 10-week online sting using the help of someone named “Sweetie.” )

Came across this video, and just watching it, broke my heart. The first thought that came to my mind was “Oh my, what if this happened to my son” I cannot bear it.

It is very sad that some perverts find pleasure by exploiting children. Oh how I wish I could just protect all these children.

I am glad to know there are people who are willing to get out of their comfort zone and do something about this problem.

A big salute to you guys !!!!!

5 Things Every Stay At Home Mom should do for herself !

Ever since my baby boy was born I decided to stay at home full time and take care of him. Well, apart from taking care of him these are my official duties for the day

1) Prepare and serve Breakfast , Lunch , Dinner

2) Vaccum the house

3) Do the Laundry

4) Throw the trash out

5) Do the dishes

6) Apart from preparing meals , also prepare snacks for the family

7) Bathe, feed and Clean the baby

8) Entertain the baby ( since its winter now and we cant go out much and are stuck at home, I am eli’s official clown ) etc etc etc

I realized I hardly had any time for myself. Everytime I sat to relax either eli would either poop or would be bored and would end up crying. I was constantly doing things around the house and would hardly ever find time for myself and the end result was though I was so needed and busy I was often left lonely. I hardly had any exciting things to share with my husband at the end of the day . With Winter around I could not even go out much with my toddler. And since we are in a totally different country with family and friends in India there was no body whom I could call and talk to also.

And so I was beginning to get really depressed . I had to find some way to breathe , some way to let go of my negative thoughts and over time through trial and error I have found out ways that helped me come out of my shell.

1) Prayer and Meditation : With my baby around and his erratic schedules I hardly found 5 minutes of peace time for myself. I couldn’t even get up early and pray because of the disturbed sleep I would have with my son. He would get up around 2-3 times crying out aloud till we would console him in the night. However through past experience I found out that prayer and meditation was a big stress buster for me . So, I decided that since early morning was the only time I had for myself, I would get up early around 6.30 -7.00 and spend some time in Prayer, surrounding my entire day , my family and my baby to my God. This did wonders for me. It somehow helped reduce the lethargy and made me more cheerful.

2) Dress up : Now that I am at home, I didnt feel the need to dress up and rush to my workplace. And since there is no one judging my appearance I would roam around the whole day in my pajamas and get the housework done. Besides who dresses up to get housework done. But then at some point I realized that every time I dressed up, combed my hair or put on a lipstick a very nice feeling would seep inside me. It gives me the feeling that yes I am getting ready to achieve something. And so though I am at home, the simple act of combing my hair, putting on simple jewellery, perfuming myself up and putting on some mascara would make me feel great and ready for the day ahead with my toddler and housework.

3) Don’t Be Guilty : Since I was at home and my husband was working, I would feel guilty every time I would ask him to do some of the housework. (My husband is a real gem he never refuses me ) but the guilt would kill me. Morever, it is Indian mentality that housework is for women and not for men. But then if one actually see’s as a Stay at Home mom, there is hardly any rest time, it’s bham like work one after the other. And there is hardly any rest . Atleast when one works , one gets to take a break from the chaos from home, breathe and jump back again in the non stop hustle. And so I stopped feeling guilty and when needed not hesitate  and ask for help , rather than doing everything by myself. This was a big reliever and bought me more close to my husband.Most of the time we Indian women hesitate to ask our husbands to do any work, it is considered “inappropriate” but times have changed now and so should we ladies.

4) A little Zumba, Walking and Swimming : Now that I stopped nursing my baby, I have started gyming and wow what a great feeling it is. At the end of day I feel really drained and want to back out from exercising but then a few moments of willpower and I am in the gym and after a 30 minute workout I feel so charged and good. Also a good work out is equal to weight loss which is another great feeling. Small things but they make so much difference.

5) Talking to a loved One : The moment I open my eyes in the morning, my brain starts planning the various tasks ahead me and I am in rush to get things done: Feed my son, prepare lunch, vacuum the house etc etc etc When I was working I hardly had time to talk to anyone but now that I am at home I realized why not take the advantage and even though its for a few minutes I take some time to talk to my mum or friend or relative just everyday and hmmmm that’s such a breather.

6) Do something New : When my toddler takes a nap and when I am done with the housework and have nothing to do, I take some time to watch TV but then I realized I wanted to do something more, something more productive and so yes I started blogging and I am just loving every bit of it . This is something new for me and I look forward to doing this so much 🙂 it makes my day worthwhile.

As I said before”Small things but they make so much difference in one’s life” . Life is short let us make the most of everyday 🙂 ladies, because if the lady of the house is happy , the whole house is in great shape.