Crinkle Toes

Sweet Bobby boy now has a few friends.

I have to mention the Crinkle Toes. The friendly neighborhood yellow lion with crinkly toes. Bobby boy first met him when he got his new play mat. And there on one side of the play mat was Crinkle Toes hanging from one corner, looking kind of interesting. But once Bobby held out his hand to touch the yellow lion, he came alive in all this crinkly golden glory! Especially the toes! And so the friendship began, where Bobby boy feasts on soft crinkly multi-colored lion toes, and the lion hangs in there and gets eaten :). 

In another friendship news, we have on the crib, pads on all sides that feature Winnie (from Winnie the pooh), and Tiger, pots of honey and buzzing bees around the inside on the crib. When Bobby boy is laying in his crib either fixing to fall asleep or just having woken up, he has long conversations with Winnie and Tiger. They make plans of what games they will play in the dreams next: climb aboard clouds, grow some wings and hop on tree to tree, i'm sure. 

Pool Party

Yesterday after a long day (i'll cover that in another blog) little miss Haana got out of the house on her bike to play with her friends. Soon she ran back indoors to ask if she can hang out with her friends in their inflatable pool. I stepped outside to look down the lane and I saw it. A 4 feet wide inflatable pool in front of their garage. There were 3 of her buddies already in there rubbing elbows with each other. Rajesh and I looked at each other in dismay. 'Why did they do this to us', is what came to my mind. 

Normally, its summer, and I would be totally fine with her hanging out in their little pool especially since it meant i don't have to watch her the whole time. However, this was not a normal summer, not this year. And due to Covid, we had been trying to be more cautious and avoid certain settings. Being in a tiny pool with other kids up close was one of those settings. 

Little miss Haana had had a long day and had been looking forward to playing with her friends like a jail bird just released. Only to find out all her friends were playing a game she couldn't partake in. Poor thing cried and we felt for her, but there was just nothing to be done. She was pissed. No one was happy that evening. And unfortunately that included the little Bobby boy. 

That night Bobby boy was fussy for usually long, didn't feed well all evening. A phone call to the after hours pediatrics nurse gave us a recommendation to head to the emergency room. All of this made it even more stressful. Lots more of walking with him, driving with him, more walking, singing and finally he nursed and fell asleep close to mid night. Just one of those days. 

Next day, it was saturday. After breakfast, I asked little miss Haana if she wanted to sit in the bubble bath for our very own pool party. Of course she did. I decided little Bobby boy needed to have his first pool party as well. So we sat in our pool party, the three of us. Little miss Haana taught me how to make waves that will send the yellow ducky scoot to the other side of the tub! The boy sat on my lap, and initially, watched cautiously with knitted eyebrows as the bubbles floated up his tummy. But soon, his legs were cycling in the water and he even threw his arms that made tiny splashes. I figured if he's not crying or fussing, he must be enjoying it. 

The peak of enjoyment for little miss Haana and i came, of course, when we witnessed the fountain: the peepee fountain that is! We laughed and also cheered for some reason. But that was my cueue to head out of the tub with the boy. A towel dry, followed by massage and a tummy full of milk later, the boy was in sweet dreams of lala land! And i felt i somewhat redeemed myself of being the previous evenings' pool party pooper. Not that I will admit to it!

Are We Gonna Be Friends Again

This week little Miss Haana got in some trouble at home. I got really mad at her. She got an earful. A few minutes later she came up to me and asked, "Mumma, are we gonna be friends again?". I was still very mad, and even though I was melting inside, I held on. I said, "I'm still mad at you". She shrunk away.

A bit later it was bed time. Without saying anything, I got into bed and picked up our reading book, getting ready to do our bed-time reading. She cuddled up to me and said, "Mumma, i thought we are never going to be friends again". I hugged back and said, "But Gugu! Mumma always loves you, even when I'm mad at you. Just like you love Mumma even when we have a fight!". By this time, the hugs are more intense - she's climbed over on top of me quite literally. And now her tummy is on my face! I remind her I can't possibly read with her tummy on my face. "Oh ya, I forgot", she said with a giggle.

I start reading. We are all smiles.

Bird House

Following up on the Tree House story with a Bird House.

Little Miss Haana's friends came over last week eager to build something together. Although, let's be honest here, mostly they were just eager to run around, jump around and play!

I had gotten Dad to order bird houses that they can build and then paint. They started on that right away with excitement. The bird houses were built soon enough and then came the coloring. I left them to work on it, and hoped while they worked on the coloring perhaps i could catch some TV time. After a few minutes, i  heard some giggles and playful banter. I had to forfeit some of my cool mom status to warn them not to play games with each other while they're coloring. After some more close circuit hovering/monitoring (no TV time for me), the coloring was done.

Then the three of them were back to running around and play time. Out of the three of them, we had a knight, a horse (little Miss Haana's fixation with horses continues) and a monster with a sword. After some time the monster wanted to switch roles, but niether the horse nor the knight wanted to be a monster. They came to me with the proposal that i should be the monster. I politely declined. Somewhere in there, they did some math games (strange kids). And then Miss Haana turned on some music. It was around this time that i was made the DJ and requests were made to songs i had never heard of before, and I'm still not entirely sure they actually exist. I don't think i got rave reviews for being a DJ. Few chocolate chip cookies and chips' snack later, the playdate came to an end.

A colorful bird house is hanging on the tree outside. 😊

Back to Work. Day 1,2 and 3.

And finally the day arrived. April 15th. Tax day, yes. But also marked in red on my calendar as the day I join back work. After a break of 6 months and 22 days. And ever since I'd committed to joining in on 4.15, the days have been rolling off at an even faster pace.

It's my third day back at work today, and even though the first day is supposed to be the hardest, it hasn't gotten any easier so far. In fact, I have a feeling this is going to get a whole lot harder. That is because while I'm doing just half days for the first two weeks, I'll move into the usual full day schedules from week 3, and that's when things would get busy.

That said, I do have a lot to be thankful for. I'm getting back to an excellent team - folks I've worked with, known and been friends with for a long time. I feel quite fortunate to know such good people and to work with them. My boss is someone who values me immensely and has been especially flexible towards all my requests and needs. I had been postponing getting back to work for quite some time now, but he's been very, very understanding. I also, requested to do only half days for the first two weeks, to ease into the work schedule and have someone watching the little girl. I feel like I'm getting back amongst friends.

Even so, the drive from home to work on day 1, was the bad. Since the night before, I felt so uneasy. It was as if I were going for a big test. I could barely sleep the night before. And that morning, I felt strangely numb. Little Suhaana was sleeping unaware. She'd gotten up several times during the night, and Raj had taken up the night duty. But as I was getting ready to leave, she was deep in her beauty sleep. Lying on her tummy, a cute little, inviting, cuddle-fest. Anyhow, I tried not to wake her up, and left before 8am.

At work, my team had, quite characteristically, hidden my work computer, and replaced it with a museum grade typewriter from the year 1830 (the latest technology desktop - they claimed), added 3 more telephone lines to make it look like the command center for all defects; and amassed a huge pile of documents-to-be-taken-care-of.. the "In" pile. We laughed about it for hours. Most of the day I answered questions about how Suhaana is. Leading right up to a welcome lunch.

Day 2 starting off was actually worse. The little girl was up, had just been fed (by Raj again) and was busy with her morning round of fun-n-games on the bed next to Raj. It was harder leaving her behind this time.

Day 3 morning was quite similar to Day 2. The tiny cuddle-ball had just gotten up as I was leaving at 6:40am. Just in time for me to smother her with kisses, as she gave me the are-we-done-yet look :)

I might sound a bit weepy, and though I'm glad to see all my good friends and great coworkers; it's still hard getting back to work. And though getting back to work, and into an active technical area was always a given for me, the real question being only when, and not whether; I still question if this arrangement is what is best for Suhaana. Especially as I look for and sift through the options of care centers and nannies for her from her 10th month. (My mom who gets here in 2 weeks, would leave by then.) Yesterday, I went to tour a montessory/care center for her; and I was reading some papers on their policies, that went into detail talking about how early parents need to pick up their sick child, and how long they must wait before they can send their sick child back to the center. Just the tone sounded like the child ends up being a pass-the-buck-liability between the center and the parents. I do realize I'm being overly touchy about this, but for anything else (including work), I wouldn't think of my child as a liability I need to manage between work. Meanwhile, the little girl has more smothering hugs headed her way as soon as I get off from work.