She's gonna get a name!

Tomorrow is our daughter's naming ceremony. The 28th day after she was born, according to Malayali traditions. Well, we followed everything tamil for Kachi and Kautu and this time, I wanted whatever I could have to be the Kerala style..like it was done for me.
And she's going to be named 'Kritika C Karthik' where C stands for Chakiyat, my family name. There's a small story behind Kritika too..I don't know if I have mentioned this, but after coming to see the new born baby in the hospital, for another 4 days Kautu kept singing 'Kritika'. For that time, everything in the house was Kritika, all vegetables, tv and in fact, all his toys too! My mom asked him what the baby's name was, and he repeated the same...Kritika!!! After 4 days, he hasn't repeated it till yesterday. Infact, yesterday and today, he's again been singing this name, and I have a feeling he will stop after the naming ceremony!! To add to this, another four people have inadvertently asked me what are you naming her? Kritika? !!!! Imagine our surprise! We asked them if they had heard us mention it before and they all said they had thought of this name just then.
After all these coincidences, how can we not but name her 'Kritika'? Agreed it not a very uncommon name, but it does have a poetry to it, and Kritika Karthik does sound strong and independent, like what I am hoping my daughter would grow up to be.
The preparations for the function is hardly done, lots of vegetables to buy and her black bangles and Kajal. But I went out today and got her what I wanted the most. A lovely infant dress from fabindia. What I had been eyeing the past few years. So, no matter that my back was aching and that its been just 3+ weeks since the c-section, I just had to take a rickety auto to the shop, pick out a printed floral cotton frock and a printed shirt with bloomers for the baby and completely averted my eyes from the XL kurtas that lie just across the aisle!
So, please send in your blessing for my daughter (I shall formally start calling her Kriti from tomorrow) and all your good wishes!

A sighting too rare

Kautu and I were standing by the window just a while back and looking out into the courtyard of the commodore (theres a lovely lawn there and an alsation which is a prime favorite with the kids) when I saw a huuugggeee black striped snake crawling in our garden! Well, the garden below our bedrooms belong to the house below(we stay on the first floor) and the one to the left of our house is ours. And there it was, crawling from our garden, under the wired fence to theirs, right below our bedroom window, stopping on the way to sun itself. By then I was frantically shouting for my mom(she had taken Kachi to the bathroom) who came running to see what the matter was. We showed the exited Kachi and Kautu the snake which was trying to climb onto the wall and get to the neighboring house! It could lift its body to almost half the wall .....and shattered my belief that snakes can do only the crawling bit!
It then decided that climbing walls is not its thing and found a tree nearby to be more friendly. It lifted itself again and wrapped itself over the lowest lying branch. From there, it was a piece of cake for the snake to climb over the tree and onto the adjacent wall. Till it disappeared from view, the stunned lot (me, mom, Kachi, Kautu and the maid) couldn't take our eyes of it. Inspite of our fears, we spent some time marveling at the sheer beauty of its movement and true to his style, instead of fearing for our safety, my husband, on being called up immediately to relate the incident, enquires why I didn't click a snap of the snake!!
I wanted to come close to nature and thats why we picked up this house. But I really don't think I fancy being this close and I shudder to think of even opening the windows to the right of the house all of which have trees touching (more than just touching, the branches almost enter the house) the window through which our acrobatic snake can easily make an entry!

Heres a snap of the lawns our bedroom overlooks. The garden I am talking about is in front the wall, not visible in the snap.

A diary entry..of doubts and fears

When I hear of how children are like clay and we, the parents are the hands that mould them, it fills me up with a lot of fear and misgivings. What if I have moulded them wrong? What if the way I am raising them, as against the wishes of their grandparents (who forever want the kids to be raised the way we were, the traditional Indian way of running behind them with food, letting them watch TV to their hearts content, sleeping with them both during day and night and feeding them milk as many times as they want in the night) turns out to be wrong?
Both my husband and I have wanted the kids to be independent. We love it when they eat on their own, when they take their bottle of milk and sleep without being sung lullabies for an hour. We feel great when we take them to a restaurant and they sit with us and eat without attempting to get on the table and sweep everything to the ground. But the grandparents differ. In fact, my mother feels that the emotional bonding between me and the kids will be less because I don't sleep with them in the night! What?!! Here I am, working from home, managing to spend most of their waking hours with them, when, my parents left me with my grandparents from when I was 3 months old to go to work. So, where is the justice in her statement? On reflection, I told her that because she didn't get the mornings with us, she was making up for it by having us sleep with her and dad till we were atleast 5-6 years old. Here, my kids are pretty stable and contended and I have no issues in them sleeping alone, as, when they wake up, be it morning or night, I am there right at home for them. And about running behind the kids to feed them. I have pointed out time and again that she had only one infant/toddler at a time to handle. I have two toddlers and an infant to handle simultaneously. So, the only way I can do justice to all of them is by making them independent enough to eat on their own and not waste everyone's time by taking an hours running around to feed. We use the saved up time effectively by indulging in rhymes and games. Isn't that the way to go? Justify as much as I can, it still doesn't erase the sprinkling of doubt that...could they be right? Will my children feel less attached to me and their dad because of this? I don't think so, but......

Two weeks up and here I am

....holding an infant in my arms and wondering how we are managing the boisterous twins and the infant alone!!! Yes..my mom left day before and after that its just been hubby and me. And its not been bad. True, kautu took a fall from his chair and hurt his lips and Kachi managed a small poke at the baby's eye..but other than that, its been fine, no..rocking! Baby's been giving me 3-4 hours sleep in the night and the 'vanarams' (this is how karthik and I refer the boys, means monkeys in tamil) are now sleeping on their own. No need to lie down with them and sing lullabies, we give them their bottle of milk, make them lie down on their bed, tell good night and bye and close the door. In a few minutes, the milk is done and they are asleep! This new development is the biggest relief for us. Frees up ample time to do the nightly house cleaning and taking care of the baby..who prefers the 8-10pm time to play. But more than anything else, it has made us really really proud of our two independent boys. Sniff....gone are the days when they used to cry for me...gone are the days when I had to run behind them to eat (Oh yes..forgot to mention this..they started eating on their own on the table too...we keep two plates and food that they can pick with their hands and they mostly manage to eat till their hunger is apeased!)..and gone are the days when I used to think of them as babies...they are now BOYS!!!!

That's it for now...a slight headache today has left me tired, but not so tired as to capture the latest the kids are up to...so long, goodbye. Till they make me proud again!!!

The results are out..and I have passed!!!

Yipeeee............its a girl!!!!! A 3.2Kg bundle of all that I had been waiting for! Thank you all for your wishes. Baby's doing great...least fussy of all, peacefully drinks and goes to sleep, giving me ample rest, unlike the brats she has for brothers. Kashyap so far has reacted very positively. He imitates how she drinks, howls and sucks her fingers, but Kautu!!! Thats a totally different story all together. All he wants to do is get his hands on her and wring every part he can get. Telling him 'no' makes him angry and he begins to pounce on her, so, the tactic we are trying now is to get him to touch her leg, hair, hands softly( unfortunately, soft is not a word in his dictionary!). And we do this with our hearts in our mouth. It would just take a fraction of a second for him to harm her, but we see no other way out!!!
Iam feeling better today, the stitches do pain if I sit for a while and my back has gone for a sixer. But considering the last time, we returned back from the hospital in four days when we had spent close to two months for the twins, I just had a c-section pain to suffer not an OS stitch one too...and the baby was shipped with me to the room when the last time I had to see my kids on IV and express milk for them in the NICU. And all the while I have been thanking the lord for having given me this chance to have a normal pregnancy and experience a full term baby else, my only memories of pregnancy would have been the horrifying twin one.
So again guys, thanks a lot for your wishes..it's all certainly helped for me. Shall respond to you all personally when I gear up energy. Bye!!

Its the D day tomorrow

The wait seems finally at the end. Tonight I get admitted and tomorrow morning is the C-section. It feels like I have been waiting an eternity for this moment. And to ease the tension, Karthik and I went for a gold class experience of Taare Zameen Par. Truly, I didn't know whether to gasp at the movie or the lazy boy or the service or the ambiance. Had a wonderful, out of the world experience today morningr. The movie making me wet in the eyes and the wonderful chair...automatic recliner giving a pregnant woman just a day from delivery her most relaxed time.
Anyway, this has served to take my mind off the upcoming ordeal for a while, but now its all bursting back. As I pack the bag for the hospital, I can't but help think that in 24 hours I will have the next baby in hand and would have gone through another surgery. Anyways, do keep your hands crossed for me and send up a small prayer. Shall update you all after a few days.

Its been a while and too many things to say

Its been some time since my last post and a few things have eclipsed everything else thats been happening the year round. A few days after my last post, I got severe cramps on the left side lower abdomen and slightly panicked, we ran to the hospital. The doc suspected a scar thinning and kept me under observation while mentally preparing us for an emergency C-section anytime that day. Luckily for me, by afternoon the pain was gone and so they concluded a cramp and not scar thinning and let us go free!! I've been a bit more careful about bending, lifting and sitting in odd positions after that!
Another very very important and psyching incident happened on Christmas day. Kaustubh had been suffering from fever the past one week and we took him to the doc early 25th morning. He asked us to keep giving crocin every time he has fever and wait for another 2 more days before starting antibiotics. Now, by 5 in evening his fever still hadn't subsided and we were due for another round of crocin by 7 in the night. Karthik was carrying him when his eyes suddenly rolled up, hands and legs started shaking and his head was rolling back and forth without any control. Karthik and I were screaming 'kautu' 'kautu' at the top of our voice as though the level of volume can somehow make the nightmare go away. The din woke up my sleeping mom and she came running out to catch us both shouting and patting the unconscious baby. While I called up the doc in panic, Karthik and mom ran with kautu to the car and sped away. Without taking a cell in hand. Later I found that kautu had gone blue in the face and his hands were stiff. My mom, in panic had done the right thing of giving him mouth to mouth resuscitation at the back seat while Karthik was driving, screaming and crying at the same time. Kachi was crying for him to be taken too and I was crying miserably for my child. He say be so broken down and stopped immediately. I took him and my Hanuman Chalisa book and sat by the pooja room crying and singing all at the same time. I was imagining Kautu's smile, his voice everywhere and praying with all my heart and waiting for the cell to ring. But when it did, my hands were shaking and it took some courage to lift the call. Karthik had been to the emergency of the nearest hospital and they had put him on oxygen mask and given an injection. Kautu was breathing normally, and was either asleep or unconscious, but the situation was not serious. Thats when my breathing turned normal and I rested my hanuman chalisa after half an hour of singing and crying. He had suffered from Febrile seizure which normally occurs due to increased body temperature. We transferred him to a bigger hospital that evening itself. My uncle came over and I went with him to the hospital. Karthik and I stayed back with him in the hospital that night, infact, he was there for a full two days. Some investigations, an EEG were all normal. An infection was found to be the cause of the fever and he was started on antibiotics for that. I too suffered from fever, chest congestion and sinus in the hospital and the ENT prescribed the same antibiotics for me too. All's well that ends well. We now need to be really careful anytime he gets fever till he is 3 years plus, cause once this convulsion happens, there is increased possibility of it happening again.

An experience we will all remember for a lifetime, talk about for a lifetime and with all this, how can we not but treat the kids as though they are the most precious things in the whole world? Now when I see both of them running around and playing, my mind automatically goes back to that incident and a small thank you is send heavenward for making it end up like this.