Blended by Demand

Akshar  is always Daddy’s boy. He even words out “Nana” when he cries.  Amma  is always a plan B to him. But,  Saharsh  is on the other territory (for now). Though he follows “Anna/Big Bro” in all the activities, he picks “Amma” as his priority. And he is possessive in most of the aspects about “Amma”. I kind of liked that closeness especially, when the elder one is like touch me not when Dad is around. I joke around saying we don’t need even glue and that how much he sticks to me when he is at home. That kind of opens another door to his personality. When I drop at day care, it is usually a scary  sight  with screams of crying and gallons of tears. That makes my day worse. Today is one among those days. He has to change places (day care) and yesterday was his first day at the new place (Sanctuary Kids care). I  was tensed  since Monday night and barely slept thinking about the next morning. And why it is? See the story below.  😉 The day he started recognizing people (~ 4 months), he

I like planning and loves to see when things get executed perfectly according to my plans. I am not talking about 7 figures related Engineering project works. It’s about    the 4 people household project I am referring to. Being a working mom it’s a bigger challenge trying to balance house hold work and office. What I have learnt over the years is that task will be easier if your planning is well done. Be it grocery shopping, meal planning or cooking, everything  can be  made easier. And the strategy behind that is a well-designed plan. Am I sounding like a design Engineer. Well I am one of them so I can’t put together a post without those techie terms. OK, Enough of Engineering crap. Let’s get back to my post. How I start and execute. Below are some key tactics that helped me succeed as “Mommy” Program manager. 1.        To start I always plan my weekly lunch and dinner by Friday of the previous week. Do you remember that Yawn we experience on Thursday/Friday afternoon during the wor

Childhood is one of the precious stages of life where your soul is pure and free from egos. Everything you see and do is from the view of a brain which do not have a single spot of darkness. No wonder why children are sometimes considered God’s replica. My kids are no exception and when I have a chat or  hear  to their stories my heart fills with pure joy. Sometimes they make me chuckle, melt my heart or leave me dumbstruck. Here I want to capture some of those notes from my 4-year-old which came out of pure innocence. 1.        During summer of 2019 we visited  Wilstem  Ranch one of the places where kids will have educational encounters with few animals. After a tiring morning, kids are full of hunger and want to satisfy their appetite. I am trying to feed them as fast I can so that we can continue our next quest of the day. After a spoon or two my Strawberry-blueberry (Akshar’s new and favorite nick name since July 2019) suddenly poses a question:  Amma , why are you not eating. Des

Life has been getting busier. Having two kids who are 4 and under, life is more juggled. They need our constant attention, care and love. Though I barely get any time for myself or get any time to spend with Krishna, I am cherishing each moment. I feel my life filled with their bonding, mischiefs, tantrums and funniness. Makes you realize life is bitter-sweet. Akshar  had his first training camps this summer. It started with T ball, followed by Swimming and Skating classes. This Pre-Ker is enjoying all those classes though his concentration, focus is still developing. I was amazed  by the coach’s patience and zeal to train these little kids (4-6 year olds). It is fun to watch these little kids as they try to grasp the basics of each class and then try to repeat the newly acquired skills. Through the process they try to cheer, pick and congratulate each other. I noticed  Akshar  started moving away from the “Stranger-Danger” zone to “Comfort/Friendly” zone this year. He started makin

I am not a stranger to travelling alone on flights. But for the past 4+ years my travel is always with my two little munchkins.    I did take couple of work trips in domestic flights which are short and my colleagues were with me providing company. So when I started planning this trip to get  Saharsh  back to Columbus, I realized I have to travel alone one way. And I assumed I will enjoy that quiet time or me time. I am wrong and I realized it in the first leg of my flight. I hated each lonely moment, hated the silence since there is no crying or continuous chatter with never-ending questionnaire, hated when I ate my food where there are no spills or gulping, hated sleeping long without the little warm body touching me or disturbing me every 5 minutes, hated navigating easily through the layovers without hands full of luggage or restroom breaks, hated for not able to use the tiniest bathroom multiple times, hated when I was able to use bathroom peacefully since there is no 3 foot perso

Its tough reading and completing nonfiction for me. Talk about autobiographies.  😖  Autobiographies are not easy to read through. In my view, it’s like reading through their personal life which is neither exciting nor fun. Some find it interesting but after some 30/40 pages I lose it. Becoming is a bit different from my experience. I don’t know if that is because of gender or working mom or because of her honest voice. Couple of months back one of my good friends in Columbus generously lent me this book. At that time, I was in the middle of a nail-biting fiction book. So, could not drop it and took my time to complete my current reading list and then picked up “Becoming” few weeks later. It was one of the good books I have read in the last few years. I cursed myself for not starting it earlier. Choked reading some of her experiences, liked her  wittiness  and got inspired in many instances. I decided to list few of my takeaways since everything is fresh in my mind. This will serve as

Akshar is celebrating his 4 th birthday today. I can’t believe this little one is a Pre-Ker now. Where did the last 4 precious years go and feel the clock is ticking too fast? I am one of those greedy mommies who wish for an extra 5 minutes at the end of each day to spend more time with their little ones. I still remember his first cry after taking him out of my womb. And then his big eyes made me fell in love with him instantaneously. I had a rough pregnancy because of a prior loss. As a result, every day was a challenge in that 9 months. To add it up, Akshar’s dad traveled for his job out of town every week and my dad has been diagnosed with Multiple Myeloma in my first trimester. In those days it will be surprising for me if I don’t experience a panic attack frequently. All these masked my personality in a way throughout the pregnancy. But this little one’s entry did bring lot of joyous moods and changes in our lives. Akshar helped me in looking the world through his innocen

ABCD – If you are one among the Thousands of Indians living in USA, this term is not a new one to you. American Born Confused Desi is a sarcastic term used to address the kids that are born to first generation Indian immigrants. Couple of years back my best buddy introduced me another counteractive term to address the people who use ABCD. DCBA – Desi Confused by America. At that time, it did not make me any sense but felt more humorous. But as I spent the next 10+ years of my life in USA, I am understanding the significance of this term and its applicability towards me. But in a slightly changed way… DCBH – Desi Confused by Home. Every year around December my workplace is shut down for a week to 10 days which makes everyone to plan trips or have vacations. At that time, one question I get bombarded with(from my colleagues) : Are you going home? Every time I hear that “HOME”, my brain starts playing a tricky game and confuses me more. And this home thing stings me har

If Akshar is my cheerleader then Saharsh takes the role of my therapist aka confidence booster. While Akshar’s pregnancy was a winding emotional roller coaster, Saharsh’s was somewhat easy except for minor instances. It was still a high-risk pregnancy but my emotions are under control and manageable because of prior experience. In fact, I did all my routine tasks (including carrying Akshar) until the day of my delivery. Everything went good with the C-section but there was an issue with my milk supply which led to Saharsh’s drastic weight drop in the next two days. I was hoping not to have this scenario repeat as happened it with Akshar and we have to keep up with multiple doctor checkups in first few weeks of his life. I was drugged with pain killers, high on hormones and started arguing with everyone. But when I saw Saharsh’s weight dropping, I no longer can control and had a breakdown. Looking at my situation my primary incharge nurse panicked and rushed to the available doctor s

One of Akshar’s favorite desserts is gulab jamoon and he has been constantly requesting me for this laddo(anything round it is laddoo in our home 😉 ). I bought air fryer few months back which resulted in upping my cooking experiments. I wanted to try gulab jamoons in air fryer instead of oil to make the dish healthy. Well half healthy because I still used sugar syrup normal. But this experiment turned out to be disastrous(according to me) and the result can be seen below. I was embarrassed on the outcome and shyly showed the above result to him. To my surprise his face lit up and he wanted to eat it immediately. I was not happy but still went ahead and served this disaster in his favorite mickey bowl. As he pushed his fork in to the brownish blackish ball my heart beat in high rate. I was biting my nails(in my head) and eagerly waiting for the verdict. Lot of thoughts ran in my head and was calculating low how much he will be dissatisfied with the taste. I almost looked lik

By now we all know how social media has taken the grip of our life. Especially on all those “Special Days”. Do you know what I am talking about? Yes, Women’s day, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day or the recent hot pick Girl Child Day. I see bunch of my social media friends (as well as so called celebrities) getting to their accounts and recognizing their kid’s on this day with captions like they adore or love or treasure them. Who is not going to do with their children? Is it what this day is calling for? To treat the child as treasure on one day in the year? Let’s talk little bit on Girl Child day. India saw lot of female foeticides in 80s to 90s. Great reason behind the current gender ratios. Females are considered or weighed in as burden because of wedding(and post wedding like deliveries etc.,) expenses and not supporting aging parents later. All these led to unlawful checks and terminations. And finally, Indian government has to step in to improve the ratios and educate citizens

10 Year Challenge!! This is the hot trending contest which is swamping through the social media. Its to share the pictures of 10-year-old to current. It includes self or best buddies or changes in their life or environmental effects. It is very nice to look and read through all these posts. In a way it helped me understand about some of my new friends whom I met in the last decade. Reading through all these pushed me in to my memoir mode. What have I done or achieved in the 10 years. A Lot!!! Not because I got married or had kids or went through life changing moments. But I did see lot of changes in my PERSONALITY . 1.      Extroverting : I am an introvert by nature but in the last decade I have been drifting slowly to other side. Not saying I am an extrovert now, but I can feel some change. My meter is slowly moving down in one while counting up in the other. This might be from my experiences or situations. If people from my previous decade met me now, I can confident