I am right now at my peak impatient-irritated mood. I wish I could give a nice long lecture or launch off on a yelling spree to my kids about how they should listen to what I say and stop watching TV and play and eat properly instead. But I know that there is going to be no use whatsoever.

I had already reached my threshold limit for asking/pleading/fighting with my daughter to make her eat her breakfast in the morning itself.

I had planned on taking them out to the play area at least for a couple of hours in the evening and just when I was about to leave, my son poured at least a half glass of milk all over the floor and all over me too! I immediately had to seek the help of my babysitter that Nick Jr channel is and launch off on a cleaning spree. Four rounds of mopping the hall with different rag cloths and mop and after a nice, long bath later, I sit to feed my daughter her food when she refuses to start eating and refuse to turn off the TV too.

I am irritated, tired, frustrated and all that. Rather I was. Writing these trivial, everyday happenings here has made me calm down. Just like all those calming deep breaths are supposed to.

I am all set to launch off on yet another fight to turn off the TV, except that this time it will be a calmer-me handling it.

Visiting the River Safari last week, we saw these monkeys (or whichever specific type of monkeys they are) happily eating cabbage. Seeing that, a father was telling his toddler, ‘Look how the monkeys are eating greens. You should also eat from now on.’ The fuss that kids make to eat! And, more importantly, the fuss that we parents make! The obsession to make them eat well seems to overpower everything else. We don’t stop, do we?

Publishing those two lines on why sleep is eluding me, I am now reminded of the lines ‘Good Night, Dear Void’ from the movie ‘You’ve Got Mail’.

Sometimes I wonder about my life. I lead a small life – well, valuable, but small – and sometimes I wonder, do I do it because I like it, or because I haven’t been brave? So much of what I see reminds me of something I read in a book, when shouldn’t it be the other way around? I don’t really want an answer. I just want to send this cosmic question out into the void. So good night, dear void.

Did I tell you that these lines are my favourite? A small, but valuable life. More thoughts on perceptions, opinions, personalities and traits follow. But I don’t want to write anything here now. Maybe I should also send the message to ‘Dear Void’? 😉

Sleep eludes, quite often, nowadays. This blog itself stands testimony to that. I wonder why….

As I clicked on the ‘Publish’ button of the last blog post, it struck me that I had written quite a few posts here this month. I saw that I had written 14 posts so far. A scroll down the archives showed the last time I had written these many posts was in October 2013!

Rereading those posts now (Yes, I like looking back at the times that were), I remember how happy I was back then about finally joining a Masters Degree course, how happy I was at my work, how happily I was enjoying the time with my daughter and how confused I was about what to do with my job – to resign or to patiently wait to get a transfer to Singapore. I was having such a great work-life balance then that for a mother with a toddler, that seemed like the perfect place to be. But family takes precedence to me anyday and a series of circumstances eventually had me choosing to take a break and I resigned my job.
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October so far has been filled with a lot of patience-testing moments, tantrums and minor setbacks.

The daughter has been having Annual Day Dance practice almost the whole day everyday in school. This has resulted in tiredness, leg pain, frustrating meal times and a full-blown return of her tantrums and crying spells. I have been having a tough time controlling that impatience of mine and have been talking more than I should at more instance than one.

Then there was (is) that nagging lower back pain which had me struggling through most of my everyday chores. Even while the body craved for a much-needed break, I just couldn’t give it that. Add to it the side-effect of the muscle relaxants that I had for the pain! I generally avoid taking medicines and go for it only when I don’t have any other option. So, there I was, all drowsy and dizzy for two full days and struggled to remain awake all through the day.

Even before I could fully recover from the drowsy effect which made even the back pain a lot more tolerable, Diwali was fast approaching and that meant more standing and more work.

So I made a yummy Mysore Pak, a super soft Badam Katli, omapodi, the classic mixture and, finally, the Deepavali Marundhu which took up almost a whole day of mine by, at first, becoming one solid hard mass which refused to come out of the box into which I had poured it to, to later becoming watery all thanks to the multiple rounds of warm water that I had to pour on it to liquify it enough to take it out of the box. But despite all the time and trouble, the final result turned out to be perfect in the correct texture.

On Monday evening, as I was washing the last of the huge number of dishes, I heard me telling myself that I wish I could get a week’s rest for all the exhaustion resulted from the last few days. That’s when I came to know that my daughter was having school holidays from Wednesday till Sunday! Wow!

Later, when my sister asked me if it will be really a rest for me with so many days school holidays, it struck me how we sometimes prefer the routine since there will at least be some predictability in it, making it seem easier to tackle. My daughter loves going to school, but given the tiredness caused by this Annual Day Practice, I am sure that this time, she will love this break from it.

As for me, yes, it will be tough keeping both away from TV for long, but given all the physical and emotional exhaustion that I have been going through this month, I know that I will enjoy every moment of this much-deserved break.

Yes, every mother goes through it at some point of time or the other. You wake up in the morning, take one glance at the clock which has you running into the bathroom to take a shower and get out of it in a jiffy, rush through the preparations of cooking at least a basic meal and finally run to the nearest fan with the cooked food in your hand just so it could turn warm from hot sooner so that you can feed your kid on time before his/her hunger pangs could turn into tantrums or crying spells. That’s when comes the first refusal and then total rejection from the kid who outright says that he/she will not eat the food.

This everyday struggle at almost every single mealtime, including in the form of unfinished lunch boxes from school gets on your nerves enough to launch off into a rant on why you even cook anymore, doesn’t it? I really wouldn’t mind if either of my kids didn’t eat properly at a few of their mealtimes if it didn’t result in all the crying or naughty acts from them. While my 5-year old resorts to crying for anything and everything, my 2-year old launches off into full-blown naughtiness, throwing things, biting/hitting us and jumping on the sofa. Diversion from it all and having a backup food like Magnum icecream or Lays chips ready for such times is what works most of the times. But, sometimes, even that doesn’t work. And that’s when frustration sets in on us. Ah the immense level of patience that is required from us! Just what exactly do kids love to eat???