we are off!!!!!!!!!

We reached Cambridge late yesterday night...still feeling like a Queen with the chauffer driven BMW that came to pick us up at the airport and the wonderful apartment we are in, courtesy of the company. It has a wide balcony with a beautiful view of the cambridge river and furnished very asthetically. Kachi and Kautu were so thrilled with their experience, that they slept together leaving karthik, me and baby the other bigger room. We are still exhausting the welcome pack that we still haven't wandered outside. When our shipment arrives, we will be moving into the house we have taken for rent, so, it is a case of enjoy the good thing while it lasts..I am too tired to even think about opening the door and looking outside, so, sleep, sleep and eat is going to be the manthra for the day!

On route in Dubai
Kids had a blast exploring the airport. Took us more than an hour to reach the departure terminal from the arrival one. I dragged my feet near the duty free shops and the kids dragged theirs all along.


On the flight. Emirates had a wonderful collection of movies, and the guys ended up watching ants and cars throughout. They slept for most of the journey and watched the movies for the rest, so, things were fine for us.


More pics n updates coming on...

The best gift i could give them..

is themselves! What a company and what a sheer delight it is to see them play among themselves. I have often just sat there beside them, watching them play games of make believe, assuming characters and enacting their favorite stories, with a never ending chatter and watching baby's innocent face reflect the moods of her brothers and wondered at the beauty of watching her pick up roles as though she was a year older and silently join her brothers in all their games......and sent a silent prayer of thank you to whoever it is that made me blessed enough to watch the three play and felt that this is the biggest gift i could ever give them...company for life.

They have never needed any one else to play with. They make friends easily, but don't really need them as yet, they are always supporting each other the moment one of them is hurt by an outsider, they make houses and sleep inside it and name them 'kachi,kautu and baby house', they scold me when i reprimand another - baby even cries if one of her brothers are hurt, they have enough numbers to play ring -a roses on their own, they eat competing with each other and even sleep all cuddled up in their house on some days. They are now an entity and baby is no longer a baby to me. She is a part of THEM. I dread the day when the boys will go to school leaving her behind, for she's never been without them for a long period of time. Whatever the future holds, let it at least hold that these three remain together and with the rapport that makes them play for hours on end without a single call for help. This is the silent prayer that i send up everyday and the silent gift that was given to me over the last 3 years.

Amma...your food is yummy!

They say this for a few of their favorite food...Well, like almost everyother kid, they gobble up what they like and hmmm..hawww over the others! So, i try my level best to cook up something their varied taste buds will like. Its better now, since all of them kindof like similar stuff, but a year back, kachi, kautu and baby had their own tastes that were mutually exclusive!! A mothers nightmare!
Here are some stuff they love as of today

1. Pasta with white sauce (I sometimes grate carrots or potatoes, or add finely sliced tomatoes, or at times, put in a vegetable mix to make the white sauce healthier)
2. Birpulao - kachi was asking for this again yesterday! This is a mixture of biryani and pulao...ie, Biriyani without the spices and pulao with briyani base!)
3. Microwaved french fries - which are in reality just potato pieces finely cut and microwaved with butter!
4. chapathi and subzi- as long as the subzi has a tomato base and is non spicy
5. Potato bhajji - deep fried potato with besan coating. They love this, and consume almost half a bottle of tomato sauce.
6. Muesli - yeah..from when did kids start liking my non sugar fat free muesli?? Well, they seem to love it and would have it any time of the day!
7. Brown rice - finely cooked, they like eating it plain, with just ghee and salt. No side dishes allowed.

And i get a praise for any of these, even if it is the muesli that I told them the shop uncle makes! If they don't like something, its just a gentle shake of the head. So, i'll just bask in their praises till they grow up enough to tell me ...mummy, this food s**ks!!

Winds of change

have swept through my land...we had planned a relocation to UK for a while and now its all falling in place!! Karthik has already left and joined work in Cambridge and we hope to get the visa for me and the kids by december mid...Five years and growing up three kids in Bangalore later, we wound up our house and bid goodbye to friends and the city last thursday. In the two weeks after we got his visa, we visited all the favorite hangout places in Bangalore, (they turned out to be mostly hotels!!) brindavan, woodys, krishna cafe, little italy, ramanas and then chilled out in RMZ infinity where we must have spent atleast half our parent life chasing the kids around the fountain and watching them dive and jump from the small inclines, given them dripping icecreams from MacDs and delved into our subs. We hosted all our friends one saturday with almost 10 hours of rigorous Poker (Ah..I was winning till the dinner break, and wosh....lost all my money after that!). We went for dinner to a friends place almost every day and treated others on the rest. We went shopping in the morning, afternoon and night and bought a lot of stuff which made us feel like the newly weds. Wardrobes, cloths, utensils, vaccum cleaner, mixie, grinder..and so on...we are discarding most of our old stuff here and getting new ones...for a new beginning, not that we will not miss the old one, just that a change is always refreshing! Kids are missing their dad and wake up in the middle of the night crying. He came on skype yesterday and had to see Kautu weeping his heart out for him. Krithika and Kachu were fine, they chatted with their dad and kept asking him when he will be applying visa for them!! Now begins our next target, find a good house next to a good school, close to grocery and office and within our budget!! Hah..quite a lot of conditions, huh? Anyway, one thing I am sure of, the house should be isolated enough to give us and the kids the freedom to yell our hearts out!!

Now, thats the update for now, quite a big one, isn't it?

Celebrating the 3s

I missed writing a post on their third birthday and was waiting for this milestone to give an update...Kautu and Kachi are 3 years, 3 months, 3 weeks and 3 days old. The only thing they have common between them is this, their age. Kautu is forever upto mischief, his latest today was mixing turmeric and mustard, mustard and urad dal and spilling a lot of the turmeric around. Other activities include tearing the page of the calender and stuffing it in the sink, brushing his teeth five times today just because he loves the strawberry flavor, throwing a stick, measuring cup and spoon into the grinder while the batter was being prepared and finally, opening the shower on Karthik when he took baby to the bathroom!! Thats a small sample of what all he can be up to in a day. On the other hand, he is the entertainer of the family, with his antics on his pushing car ( I don't what its actually called, its this thing which you sit and push with your legs), he comes real fast and then turns the thing around on one leg ... I nearly fell off my chair the first time I saw it! He dances a weird dance every time we ask him to, but almost never when he listens to music, but hums along with every song. And...when he cries, he really really cries, like in cries his and my head off...the loud wailing goes on for hours and what it originally started for, is forgotten by the end of it! Everything he talks becomes a cry and god help and forgive me, my itching hands do get an outlet once the patience has worn thin. Well, I am able to write with such feeling cause he's at it again ... in the background and I am venting it all out here!
About Kachu... he's such a darling,..... when he wants to. But an equall 'noi noi' case..yeah thats what we call him, cause once denied something, he'll go on cribbing about it, till, like his brother, he makes you want to stuff cotton in your ears and dream of retiring to the Himalayas. But, he's the one who takes care of his sister, calls her pet names (Kutta) and even puts her to sleep. He is deeply ashamed if he drops something, or does anything that we would not be pleased with (unlike his brother, who gives a damn) and I have to put aside my rage and quitely tell him, its ok, nothings happened, else, I'll have a crying boy in my hand for the next half a day! He says the cutest thing, in the best possible grammer and when everyone else are asleep, he'll just hang around with me, sitting by my side when I read, looking on when I cook and giving his opinions in that quiet way of his that I feel at those times, that I've made a friend for life!!! At the same time, once his brother and sis are awake, he does refuse to share his things, like the way Kautu does too, and Krithika is forever trying to get things away from her brothers that, all the good things vanish and I am left with the urge to bury myself and plead I don't know these kids!!!!!
Anyway, this is the terrible 3s post...and I know it does sound terrible....but my fingers are crossed, maybe, it might get better by the 4s!

This is why I love my blog

though I am quite irregular in writing and even more in checking out my favorite blogs. I just happened to read a post of mine written a few years ago, and there....I find a lot of my questions answered, a lot of doubts cleared and memory refreshed. I have just forgotten how Kachi n Kautu were when they were less than a year old. Yes. If not for my blog, I would not have even recollected a single character trait of theirs. Do all mothers forget their kids early stages, or is it because I had Krithika when these guys were just coming out of theirs and so, hers and their childhood have all merged into one? Don't know.

They seem to be frozen at 3 for me, but equally, krithika seems frozen at 1.5! Now I can't seem to remember her little traits, brought back to me when I found a long lost video (in fact the only one we have of her the first year!). She had a peculiar habit of hitting her mouth with her hand periodically, and it looked just damn cute. Will it all come back to me when I am 80 and dying, like in your life flashing by you moments before the final call? Then the wait is well worth it, such beautiful memories for me to recollect. Or, will it happen when they get married and go away, or when I see their kids? Maybe I should ask my parents, but I wonder if they have ever thought about it. Their generation, without generalising, have generally been concerned with making ends meet and providing sustenance rather than think deeply about stuff that we seem to have ample time to think about! Anyway, I have tried to follow "Think deeply, yet live lightly" principle and what better way to have an outlet than this blog!!!

cheers!!

So I ran to Chennai

to see my cousins, born to my mom's brother after 17 years of marriage and innumerable difficulties! Its not my story to tell, but its a difficult one with a twin happy ending! A boy and A girl. And I was in an elevated state for most of the afternoon after hearing the news. When I heard that my bro and his fiancé were driving to chennai, I just had to hitch a ride. So, Krithika and I left the boys here in bangalore and went to chennai. After an eventful ride, wherein we went half way up to salem and then took the rustic village road to join the highway 3 hours after we left it, we reached Chennai late saturday night. I went the next day to see the kids, spent a lot of time giving unwanted advise on bringing up twins and came back the next day by bus. Travelling with Kishu is a lot better than travelling alone! She provided ample entertainment for most of the co-travellers. First it was pulling the little hair left on bald head of the person in front. Then it was playing hide and seek with someone right at the back of the bus and then hiding away shyly when the guy next to me so much as smiled at her! The rest of the time, she slept peacefully, giving me my much wanted rest.
Now, what were the guys upto in my absence? Having a ball of a time here! The three of them were out the entire day...first they went to our old house, met up with all the neighbours, then went to their dad's friend's house for lunch and then spent four hours hanging at RMZ mall by the fountain. Leaving you with a few pics of the boys day out...maybe I should go away more often!!

Must do before you die

is a dharma darshanam at Thirupathi on a festival day. And we did that, last sunday! We were assured a ticket for a puja by an agent, who, after we reached Thirupathi said he couldn't manage one. Well, Karthik and I left my parents and kids in the room and went searching for some seva tickets. The thing there is, either you need a VIP pass for which you need to bribe a VIP or, all the members need to get their fingerprints done to get the tickets! So, we rushed back (by now it was 9.30 in the night) and got everyone to the booth to find that the tickets have all been sold. We took a call then and there and decided that Karthik and I would go for the Dharma Darshanam (free darshanam) and took all the money that various people had entrusted us to put into the Hundi. The Q had no beginning in sight. We walked for almost a half hour and then someone thrust us inside the Q. The time was 10.30 PM. We walked and stood alternatively for another 2 hours. Then we were all hearded into a cell and locked up! Really! There were some 400 odd people in the cell which was shaped loosely like an amphitheatre. Luckily we had taken a bed sheet which we spread and used the money bags as pillows and slept. Till 3.30 AM. Which was when an old lady with rings all over her ears and nose decided that she wanted to lie down in the minute space between the wall and my leg and started pushing my legs about. I got up in a dash, and with neither of us understanding each other, we managed to work out a solution. I huddled away to sleep another few hours and was woken up by a huge cry and rush in the cell. Breakfast had arrived! Karthik managed to snatch a plate of Upma while I decided to fast till darshan. Another two hours of sleep passed by. By 11.00 AM on sunday, we were wide awake and wondering when they were going to open the gates when someone opened up the entry gate and two people came inside. Looks like they managed to bribe a gaurd and get inside. We might be let out soon! Both of us rushed to the exit gate, reserving our positions and getting ready for the run. In a while, someone came rattling the keys and started opening one cell after the other! And we dashed. Hand in hand through all the people for 10 mintutes. By when my knee was beginning to ache a little bit. We finally reached a point where all the seva ticket holders merge and from then on, all we need to do was stand. The crowd just carries you forward. Almost 14 hours after the start of our wait, we got an amazing darshanam, made much more sweeter by the ardent wait and longing.
Govinda.....Goooovinda!!!!

Just here just now

With their LEGO set scattered between them, all three of my kids are sitting in the balcony. As I sit typing away before them, the thought that pervades all through me is that, there is nothing I would be doing other than exactly this at this point in time. It is such a pole apart from where I was a year back. The rush home every two hours to feed Krithika, the minutes I grab to just be with the kids, seeing them play in between the cooking and feeding and the constant rush of thoughts about work. It would be a rare day that I would get to sit like this and just relax with no thought other than what I am typing away. This is not to say that I don't want to get back to work! I do. But if I do, it will have to be either part time, during the morning when the boys will be in school and when I can permit myself to leave baby in a day care, or, a flexiblilty of work from home when I can be at home during the afternoons. It is just not possible otherwise! After having had the luxury of being with them throught the day, leaving them to someone who will not enjoy them, and sees them with the same eyes they see other kids is just not possible!!! I can't describe the pure joy I feel when I lie down with them for their afternoon nap. Both Kachi and Kautu have to hug me to sleep and I lie straight down, like a log so that they both can take their share! Today was special, coz baby too wanted to sleep with her bros. I usually put her to sleep either before or after they have slept. Today, Kachi wanted her to sleep with him, so I put her in between me and him. To my surprise, he started singing the lullaby I usually sing for her, and slowly, her eyes drooped and she slept! He got up to see if she has slept and then turned around and went to sleep! Wish I had a cam to capture these moments! I was touching all three of them till I too dropped of to sleep and what more do you need to make your day?
Well, Krithika has just gone to put her hands on to the mud (she is fond of eating it, and such other dirty things!), so let me bid you good bye!

Summer camp before school!!

The boys are almost 3 and we thought we would enroll them in a summer camp to pass the time till they join school. The school we finalised is a very small one, a montessori run by a lady who reminded me so much of my mom, the same dedication and energy that the moment I talked to her, I decided to put the kids there.

The 'white vandi' (a white omni) comes daily at 9.20 and they are off..just like that! The first day, I was wandering around the house, wondering at the silence and the time, I didn't know what to do with! I was counting the minutes till 1.30 when they would be home. Baby and I would wait down and greet them. There's something very brave in you when you first entrust your kids to an absolute stranger and pray that they take them to their destination safely. It was that first letting go that was difficult, days after that were easy. I think I just got a preview of what it would be like when they leave home for college and more so when they get married! I wouldn't want to be like the clinging parent, trying to force myself on my kids life!

We then came to the next milestone, their talent show! They were to dress up as animals and I lacked the energy to make up something, so we drove half the way across the city to rent them a costume. Kachi was pig and Kautu lion. The D day arrived and they went happily to their teachers when we dropped them at the venue, which was a restaurant inside Country Club, ORR. We returned half an hour later to find them decked up really sweet, with lip stick and roughe and whiskers. True to ourselves, we misplaced our camera, so had to borrow another parents and take snaps of our kids on stage, doing absolutely nothing! I was waiting for the parent to send us the snaps before writing this post, but, as that hasn't happened as yet, couldn't wait any longer! Well, to give them credit, they didn't cry and run to us, nor did they remain absoulte statues, they did jump, and roar and kachi the pig, shouted Oink..Oink. And we were so excited! The principal even called all the mothers on stage and made the kids give us a mothers day card, with their pictures taken in school on it. She did go through a lot of effort for the summer camp, and her whole family were backstage helping her with it, which made me think of my mom so much!

Theres another two weeks left for the camp, I certainly am going to miss it once its over!!!

Feeling good

Feeling really good after changing the look of the blog. Wanted to do it ages back, but was always either too busy or absolutlely jobless, but without a comp! Got a new laptop after ages of nagging and wow...feels like I gained an extra limb!

Now for a few updates...
Kachi and Kautu have been going to a summer camp. Now I know the difference between sending your kids to school when they are two years old and when they are three. They cried and cried and looked so lost the last time round and finally we pulled them out of school after a month cause they fell sick so often, and now, they wave a biiig bye and get into their school van and speed of to school. They come back at 1, all ready to eat a marraige meal and fall asleep almost instantaneously, which is all making me feel superflous. Baby is missing her brothers a lot and keeps asking for them! The kid who doesn't give me a trouble when everyone is at home, is forever on my lap once the brothers have gone to school!!! Huh...shall I send her off to a day care and get back to work??? Though she is the greatest fun to be with, I have a feeling she's going to enjoy herself where there are a lot of other kids to keep her entertained!! What say? Maybe its all just wishful thinking, when it finally comes to taking the final step to put them in day care, I will cry off. But then, the restlessness has started to come back...I am missing my job and all the challenges that come with it. What about part time, lets say from 9-1?? If anyone offers that on a platter, I will eat it up...but till then, let me keep dreaming! But like what Karthik keeps telling me, the first three years of the kids life is never going to come back, so sit back and enjoy, but again, like how I keep telling, I am doing just that, but at a few times like these, they just seem not enough!

We have been doing a few trips lately..been to Yercaud last month, and to the mysore zoo last election day..had a blast at the zoo, the kids still ask me tell zoo stories every time I put them to sleep!!
Leaving you with a few snaps...

We just managed to keep them off the water..surprisingly, Kachi n kautu were extremely well behaved, Krithika wanted to try her hand swimming...

In chennai, Kachi is being the obliging elder bro, taking baby for a ride..

Caught snapping in BITS

Utop Pahadi .. the Hanuman temple...the real reason for us being back in BITS. I wanted to be back here after I married, and finally made it after three kids!

Need I say anything?? I have always felt the clock tower lawns to be the most beautiful place in the campus...


Sky...been there with loads of dear people and now back with the dearest of all!!

This one is for you guys...

all of you who share a multitude of BITS memories with me n karthik!!!
..some tit bits...
...dearest wingies ....did you know that our rooms in MAL (oh yes..it has again been converted into a boys hostel due to the sheer decrease in the number of girls since BITSAT was introduced!!!) are now being habitated by the chowkies!!! Well..Karthik took snaps outside his old rooms and I went to take mine...and the chowkie says.."bhai photo ley lo...ab ye mera room hai"!!!

and something to cheer for the guys..seems the percentage of girls (it was 40% in my time) is now 18 % which is still ahead of the IITS...(is it 7-8% ?). The question being asked around by the faculty is ..why is it that girls tend to do poorly when there is an entrance test involved, but crack their boards?? Any answers?

For all of us who grew up there listening to ample amounts of Tamil and Telugu, the complete Hindi culture might baffle. For a while Karthik n I just stood around trying to forge our image of a BITSIAN to those we saw around us and failed. But, we soon got used to that, and learnt that there are still a sizable number of kids from AP, but a meagre few from TN. Why??? No one from the TN board this time, the handful of guys from Chennai were CBSE. Is it that the kids are just fed up of preparing for umpteen entrance exams? IIT, TNPCEE, BITSAT and what not? Maybe they prefer the good enough colleges closer to home than travel all the way up to Rajasthan? Hey..you guys are really missing something. (There were only some 3000 applications from TN compared to 40,000 from AP!)

The new Students Activity Centre is worth drooling over. If you could see our old SUB (Students Union Block) now, it feels like a pebble in the vast desert that is the SAC. The night I visited the SAC, there was a ROBO football going in the ..hold your breath....the amphitheatre!! If dreams could come true, this is what would result. I just couldn't locate my dearest place, BSL (Bits Students Library) anywhere..so, if any of you have any info..let me know..I hope it is not one of those things that got blown away in the winds of change.

.. Shall get back to you when I remember something else!! take care till then!

Back to those days....

Ah...what a fantastic journey it was. A journey made memorable by the sheer memories it evoked and by the place we went to! Karthik and I took a long pending trip back to our college, BITS, Pilani and came back, refreshed, and younger by a few years!! We relived all the places we'd been togethter, that held memories for him, his hostel rooms, right from the first to the last year, the radi wallas, ratan ji, munna and so on, on whose endless sam chats and shikanji he and his wingies lived, who actually remebered his room number after all the 10 years that has passed in between, to all the places that held a lot of memory for me...the mime club, I had been the coordinator of which in my psenti year, met all the kids, took them for a sky treat and saw their run through (the mime and dance club performances are held during the cultural night, Mithali for Apogee, the academic fest), Institute Canteen, visited c'not place, had Chimpu's M & B and sharma's Gulab Jamun ...ah.... it was a true dream come true for us. We walked for the entire two days that we were there...woke up in the morning, took in the crisp fresh air and then set out with a bag and caps to explore our much beloved huuuugggeee campus. Its become even more sprawling now, with the latest lecture theatre complex and the beautifully done central library. The very first night, we reached Pilani at 11.30 P.M and all the journey blues, the ride in the haryana roadways bus with the conductor smoking his beedi into my face and the hour long wait in Bhiwani to catch the connecting bus to Pilani, just slipped away from us. We were the kids we were 10 years ago...washed our face and walked hand in hand through the rain to the night canteen (ANC). Just sat and observed the new kids on the block...and all illusions and delusions fell away. Hah..do I still crave to be the person I was in college, free, easy going, no responsibilities and having oodles of fun? Not anymore. In more ways than one, the trip back to BITS helped me clear a few cobwebs and remove a few ghosts. I cherished the saraswathi temple, a particular tree beside a particular hostel, certain spots in the insti, the canteen, some rooms and so on..held them sacred and always wistully thought of them and had a longing to always rewind the clock, but this visit helped me to see that I am extremely happy to be the person I am now, so very different from the girl who roamed this beautiful campus 10 years ago, yet, it is that very same person I was who enabled me to take in all the challenges these years have thrown in and grow from it, earning the self respect and the love and respect of my husband. Every dear place I visited, I talked to the girl I was, saw her in my mind, that ever smiling face, saw my friends and dear ones and wow.........it was an experiance like no other. I laid so many ghosts to rest this one trip that now I feel I can just move on with like without looking back, it is like wiping the slate clean so that I can create many many more treasurable memories together with my family.
I have deviated from the travelogue, but hell, I wouldn't want to bore you with it all...many are extremely personal, like the visit to the mime club practice, sky treat, talks with the raddi wallas, the pahadi trip, visit to Guru and Gsu's house and finally the extremely tiring Jaipur trip........
By the end of it, we were thirsting for our kids and quenched ourselves back in Chennai!!!!!

Celebrating the ones!

I just happened to change my lillipie tickers (a much pending event) to notice that Kishu is exactly 1 year, 1 month, 1 week and 1 day old!!! So, here's an ode to my dear daughter...

One year of laughter
One year of joy
One year of pure love,
which made our spirits buoy!

One year, and still a baby
One year we've seen you grow
One year not too less
to say amma, appa and bowbow!

One year I've struggled with work
One year you've never let me go
One year was worth it all
Just to cuddle you through high and low.

One year Kachi and Kautu learnt to give
One year I saw them molly coodle you
One year they were such sweet big brothers
that I longed to be in your shoe!

For that one year, we thank you
for, you showed us what 'a bundle of joy' is
Showered us with your kisses, enriched us with your smiles
Made us feel blessed, you are god's special kiss!


...Amma...

Krithika

kishku moshuki.... (how I call her)
kishu... (Karthik's name for her)
papaneni shoni shoni (this is a name that Kachi has put for her)
beba (this is kautu's pet name for her)
has started walking!! One year and a month old, my darling has started walking full time!! Forgotten all about crawling and is now racing with her brothers!! If you ask me how it feels to have three kids under three and all walking and about.....there are just no words to describe it. So beautiful and so filling, that there is hardly a time except when all three are sleeping that you can walk about the house without tripping on one! Kishu is almost always wandering off on her own now a days, exploring to her hearts content the places she couldn't reach when she was crawling. Her interest for squatting by the kitchen and playing with the cooker and other vessels is over, she is now determined not to be in one place for longer than five minutes. And she is stubborn, fights with her brothers to get her way out and surprisingly, almost always wins!!!! She manages to grab things out of their hands and pull them out of my lap and place herself securely on me! Extremely jealous, I am just lucky that her brothers are secure enough to let her be pampered and not feel a thing besides that she is the baby of the house! Oh yes, their love does become violent and does get an occasional beating or pushing, but its been to the frequency of maybe around once a day, so I guess it should be fine for now. Well, all of them are in their bath right now, and thats how I am getting to share all this with you, before the brigade is back, let me bid adeu...good day to you all.

Not so brainy anymore?

What is with the moms who have quit their jobs to be with their kids? Do they really feel the need to proclaim to the world that they were intelligent before, and have lost all their brains by taking the very intelligent decision of being at home with the kids? For reference, do see the comment by an anon for the previous post. I know that it is considered beneath anybody to actually reply to an anon comment, but this one set me thinking a lot. All the complexes of that writer has been displayed in that such short a comment. The fact that she now feels inferior to women who are actually continuing in the embedded software industry and the fact that she has made a big deal of her choice of staying at home, a decision that has to be applauded, but in no way should be considered a sacrifice. I would certainly not make any decisions that can be called a sacrifice just so that I can hang it one day over my children's head ...quite literally" I have done so much for you...given up my challenging career " and so on. It is absolutely my decision taken because I loved being at home with my darlings any day that being in that stuffy office with poor ventillation and a computer to interact with. As to considering myself intelligent, I do. If the fact that I have been able to aquire a degree from a prestigious institute, have been able to bag projects that have been challenging in the extreme, and those that were vied by collegues much senior and have managed an amazing performance review constantly all the years of my service, does not indicate that ofcourse I am brainy, dammit, then what else?!!! Oh yes, this is just the academic quotient, I might be lacking in a lot of other spheres, but that is not a topic I would like to bring out in this forum! But to get back, dear anon, you don't have to feel that taking this step of being at home is a big thing, as it is something you have obviously taken with a of thought and so, it is something that you wanted to do with all your heart, and so, it is nothing to be made a big fuss about!! And yes, being at home in no way makes you less intelligent, rather it expands all your intelligences to a large extent. I hope you are happy in the choices you made, and I hope there are others out there who feel the same with me!