One quick question...

... as my faithful pc gets a new lease of life, as I finally get around to finishing Chox's handmade tag while wondering why dumpers must always be in plastic, and as Bejan Daruwala finally has something nice to say about my week after what seems like horror-scopes for months, I've one quick question...

CBSE, ICSE or IB and why?

Around the world in 80 clicks

First, apologies. I haven't been away, just in a place within myself where I'm observing my own life as a spectator, part amazed, part amused, partly soaked in hindsight wisdom.

It started last month, when I turned 28. I've never been a happy b'day person, and I generally use the days and the lead up days to the d-day to maul over my spiritual and emotional achievements (lack of them, mostly) in the year. It irritates the husband to no end, and I must admit it can be quite masochistic. This year, something changed. Maybe the butterfly finally bloomed free of the tightly wrapped cocoon. This year, I was at peace. With myself. With the fact that it was a Monday, that meant I spent the evening alone with Nino, Nino's Dad busy at work. I won't say I'm content with who I am, but I will say, I've realised I'm walking down the right path, and someday, I will get to that answer. I don't know what sparked this new me, but I do know all of you had a role to play. Really. And I knew you'd be here when I get back. Hugs girls.

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Now, for the tag.

This is a tag from VJ, Chox, Tharini and Momstir. It originated at HBM's who is hoping to connect blogging Mothers all over the world in 80 clicks.

Here are the rules: Just write a post of your own (5 things that you love about being a mom) and find someone to link to and tag - someone from your own country, if you like, but definitely someone from another country - and link back here and leave a comment.

5 Things I love about being Nino's Mum:

1) I get to play creator here, for real.
I've never experienced such an utter and unquestioning power to actually 'make' a person as I seem fit. True, there is nature to contend with, but there's so much shaping left to me, with all my limitations, that even as I add and chip away, marvel at my child's growing body and soul, it's a heady feeling, one that is inspiring, humbling and absolutely irreplaceable. Before you think I'm a power-hungry freak, I've a few good reasons coming up! This absolute power had made me a better human being, one who admits her own limitations, one who thinks twice about passing on a conditioning, a blinkered view.

2) A fresh set of senses.
Know that phrase, seeing through a new set of eyes? For me, being a mum has been exactly like that. I look/feel/hear/touch/experience everything anew, seeing it through mine, my past's and Nino's eyes, all in one go.

3) A heightened quest for spirituality.
No, not god-fearing. (Although you guys would crack up silly if you saw me driving, because I chant every know hymn, sloka, mantra from every religion I know. And I chant it loudly. Somedays Nino can be heard chanting it too, as he aligns his train tracks for a 'really big accident, mumma!') Let's just say my quest for spirituality, that has so far been more Signs and Contact kind, is as much looking inwards these days. It's something I read at Tharini's a few week's back: about being blessed with the kind of child you were intended to raise. Someone who'd push you, make you discover new areas of yourself, stock up on those nice virtues you'd previously given a miss (aka patience). Something like that.

4) I'm the cool one.
I'm looked up to, I make the best dough ornaments, I make good orca drawings that make up for my 'rubbish' robots, I may sing off-key, but I'm still better than Uncle Raffi. I cook well sometimes too :) Plus, ever since Nino discovered that Superman moonlighted as a journalist, I couldn't get any cooler.

5) I've re-learnt how to make friends.
I wouldn't be here if I hadn't happened to become Nino's mum, right?!

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Most of you have already been tagged with this, so I'm going to look around for five mommy bloggers to tag. In the mean, I tag

Jo in Japan
Laura in the US

I've been tag-ed and I'm contagious

VJ, Chox and Tharini tagged me last week to list the five things I love about being a mum, and I just want to tell the girls that I'm going to do this tag pretty soon, just as soon as I'm done doing the things I seem to be doing endlessly these days.

I've almost written and re-written the post in my head, mostly while drumming my fingers on the irritatingly insufficient Times of India while on the pot, but getting the right words to queque up for the keyboard is taking a while. Hunting for five women in five different countries is part of the problem, but only a teeny part of it. Like the rai ka dana in my sabzi this afternoon. Sigh.

Chin up, Nino's Mum and girls, thankoo. *tight hug*

The first time I walked down this road...

... in more ways than one. This tag talks about Nino who is my first born, (and if the damn husband has his way, there will be no more Nino clan to write about, grrr) and it's also my first tag, thanks to Tharini and one that I've absolutely loved doing. I will also do this with absolute honesty, and I'm not proud of all my answers.

1. WAS YOUR FIRST PREGNANCY PLANNED?
No. Nino also was not planned, not expected and not wanted at that particular time.

2. WERE YOU MARRIED AT THE TIME?
Newly :)

3. WHAT WERE YOUR REACTIONS?
I cried my eyes, heart and lungs out. Huge, embarrassingly loud sobs that seemed deafening in the silence that Nino's Dad greeted me with.

4. WAS ABORTION AN OPTION FOR YOU?
Yes and No. It's complicated. The line between the right no and the wrong yes.

5. HOW OLD WERE YOU?
25.

6. HOW DID YOU FIND OUT YOU WERE PREGNANT?
My periods are timed. They even stick to the very second they're expected to arrive. Needless to say I knew within 24 hours that it was time for a test kit. Even though I never really expected to see two lines.

7. WHO DID YOU TELL FIRST?
The husband obviously, who was waiting impatiently outside the bathroom door. He checked the kit instructions several times over to make sure he was seeing what he was seeing!
Then the sister-in-law, that is, the husband's sister. This was right after the test. We were driving down to a much awaited sale, and I told her and she whooped and gave me the first of many sane advices I was to receive from her. 'Don't buy the belts and the heels,' she said.
Then I saw the doc. Then I told my mum. I was really really worried telling her about it, and her hesitation in answering killed me. She thought I'd been too careless, too young. I thought she was right.

8. DUE DATE?
January 8, 2006.

9. DID YOU HAVE MORNING SICKNESS?
Nope. I had nothing. I was working with a newspaper at that time, heading a team of four people, and I did 14-hour days most of my pregnancy, happily.

10. WHAT DID YOU CRAVE?
Okay, this is corny, and not inspired by movies. Very Berry Strawberry ice cream by Baskin Robbins. At about 11:20pm every night.

11. WHO/WHAT IRRITATED YOU THE MOST?
Three suspects here. The only possible negative side-effect of the pregnancy was that I completely and totally lost my sleep. I must have slept six hours across nine months. That irritated me a lot. And the fact that I couldn't wear the kind of clothes that I was used to wearing. Somehow that bothered me to no end. I have always been a top-heavy girl, but I discovered the pain of an abundant bosom far outweighs the seeming attractions during this time. I was in pain, no bras would fit me, I'd have deep gashes on my shoulders from the straps weightlifting.

12. WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST CHILD'S SEX?
Male.

13. DID YOU WISH YOU HAD THE OPPOSITE SEX OF WHAT YOU WERE GETTING?
A bit. Though somehow I always knew I was going to have a boy. I think I just like girl's names better. I had already chosen Radha/Uma in my head :)

14. HOW MANY POUNDS DID YOU GAIN THROUGHOUT THE PREGNANCY?
I was 45 kilos when I got pregnant, and was strictly instructed to put on some serious weight. I put on no weight in my first trimester, worrying the family to no end. Then the kilos started piling on, and have yet not left! I put on 20 kilos.

15. DID YOU HAVE A BABY SHOWER?
Yes, two of them! One for friends with all the typical baby shower games including a sipping-from-the-nipple beer competition. And a traditional one organised by my grandmum. Lots of flowers in my hair, green bangles on my wrist, and a lap full of fruits :)

16. WAS IT A SURPRISE OR DID YOU KNOW?
I knew about both - and I planned the first one to perfection!

17. DID YOU HAVE ANY COMPLICATIONS DURING YOUR PREGNANCY?
No, it was as smooth a run as could have been. Though I did spot a bit in my first month and was given a bed rest for five days out of which I worked for four.

18. WHERE DID YOU GIVE BIRTH?
In a hospital's cold, colour-less and disinfectant-smelling room. I will never forget how cold it felt.

19. HOW MANY HOURS WERE YOU IN LABOR?
I think six to seven hours. My water broke at 6am, I was induced at about 9, the contractions started kicking in at about 11. They kept coming till about 6:30pm, but were not strong enough, medically speaking, although they almost killed me. In those hours, I'd dilated only ONE measly centimeter. The old matron on duty told my mother I was not letting my body open.

20. WHO DROVE YOU TO THE HOSPITAL/BIRTH CENTER?
The family. Husband, mother-in-law, sister-in-law, father-in-law. My parents, who live in a neighbouring city, joined me an hour later.

21. WHO WATCHED YOU GIVE BIRTH?
My sister-in-law. The doctor was adamant that nobody would be allowed in the operating room, and I was shrieking my head off, calling out to Nino's Dad. They finally came out to call him, couldn't locate him, and the sister-in-law held my hand instead.

22. WAS IT NATURAL OR C-SECTION?
Unnatural c-section.

23. DID YOU TAKE MEDICINE TO EASE THE PAIN?
I was squashed into a foetal shape and jabbed. So I guess, yes.

24. HOW MUCH DID YOUR CHILD WEIGH?
The weird part is, two days before I went into labour, we'd gone for an ultrasound, where the doctor said the baby's weight was 2.7 kgs. The doctors were a little concerned about the weight when I went into labour. As he pulled Nino out of my belly, the first thing he said, no, slightly screamed was, 'It's a big baby, oh my god, it's a big baby.' Nino was 3.6 kgs. Very chubby. He had layers of fat on his thigh that I kept kissing! You can hardly say the scrawny thing that stands next to me as I type this had such a deliciously cuddly beginning.

25. WHEN WAS YOUR CHILD ACTUALLY BORN ?
Two days after Christmas. One of the first sms-es I received for his birth came from a colleague I despise who wrote: 'Do din se mother mary hote hote bach gayi.'

26. WHAT WAS YOUR REACTION WHEN THE DOCTOR ANNOUNCED THE SEX OF THE BABY?
They din't announce it, I actually had to ask them! I said oh, and gave in to the anesthesia and slept for the first time in months.

27. WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST REACTION ON SEEING THE BABY?
I din't know what to feel. I spent the whole night checking if 'it' was alive and breathing. And then I started to cry because I had never felt this torrent of love and protectiveness that has started to claim my soul.

28. DID YOU CRY?
I just gave the answer away!

29. WHAT DID YOU NAME HIM?
His alphabet was chosen according to the Hindu Rashi calender and its Sanskrit root means ascending.

30. HOW OLD IS YOUR FIRST BORN TODAY?
Three years and almost three months.

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Phew, what a bag full of secrets to let out. Very vindictively, I tag Swati, Momstir and Manjushree, if they'd like to take this up. I love these three women and their ideas, and I'm dying to know how they walked down this road that has bound us all, the first time!