Bath Tales.

So the small kid in my house does potty. The big kid claims he can clean it up, and give him a bath (Since i do it all the weekdays). SO here’s what happens. Every time.

‘Addu, potty over? Come lets go to the bathroomm, lets play rain rain. ‘

Kid refuses to go, Papa lifts him up and takes him to the bathroom.

‘ Addu, noo, dont touch that. that is cheee..dustbin. Nooooo addu, dont sit down, let me take out your diaper. Now stand up, hold me. Good boy. Now diaper is outt…nooo..waitt..addu potty will fall off, ayyoooo. Shivaniiii please give me a tissueee.  Addu, bad kid. noo..dont step on it..o god..woman get a tisue faster. ‘

I run from kitchen to give him a tissue. The pesky kid sees me.

‘Shiaaa….’ ,and he starts running out. Papa cleans the badly spread potty from the floor.

‘Adduu..noo..waiit. finish your bath’ , papa pulls addu back inside. ‘ Ok, this is hot water. Lets clean your bum addu..yayy..ooooooo..water…lets put the soap now..where is soap addu? ‘ And the kid picks up the soap and starts breaking it. ‘ Nooo..addu this is soap, you wash your hands and legs and..o god!! you cant eat it..ADDUU..NO EATINGG.! Give back the soap. ‘

The kid meanwhile goes to the tap and opens cold water. ‘Addu, that is cold water. Lets play with hot water’, and the kid takes cold water in a mug and splashes it on papa. ‘ADDUUU, u bad boy. Dont do that. Come here, lets play with shampooo. Yes, you open, put on papa’s head. Good boy, now put on addu head. Good boy, now wash your hands, nooooooo not with cold water, ADDUUUU, comeback here. Noo, dont pour water in the dustbin, o god dont put your hand in that. Shit, we have to take a bath again addu now. ‘

And the kid starts shouting shit, shit. ‘ Addu, sit down. Please sit down.’ , and papa gives him a mug and bucket, pours hot water. Kid starts playing with mug and water, When papa decides to take a bath himself. He spplies shampoo/soap, suddenly to find the shower stop. He looks down to see the kid switched off the shower.’ Addu, press on. ONNNN.’ Kid presses on, and off, and on, and off, and on. ‘Addu, i want water, press on.’ Papa switches on shower, kid starts yelling and storms out of the bathroom, all wet, leaving papa covered in soap.

Papa hurriedly starts shouting ‘ Shivaniii…addu is running out, please take care of him’ .I turn deaf. ‘ Shivaniiii, my bath is not over, u have to wipe addu.’ I am still deaf. ‘ O god, cant i have a bath in peace, one day. Addu, you damn kid, i am coming. ‘ . I am still deaf, and now invisible also. Papa cut shorts his bath, runs behind the kid all around the house, both of them in towels, and then after half n hour i see them in clothes.

‘Where the hell were you, i wanted you to clean addu, my bath was not yet over.’

‘ What do u mean where was I? I dint hear anything,was right here reading this book 😉 ‘

Love is..err..

Me and pati fight a lot. Especially after the kid, our disagreement levels have increased. And so have my patience levels. So, the complementing, the good dressing up, the look-sexy-for-each-other times have certainly gone down.

So this day, i make the authentic tamil dish ‘x’ , since i had time. I was not sure how it would turn out, so i confirmed the recipe from n ppl and finally made it. That evening when pati came, i proudly showcased my dish, he was happy eating it. No special comments as such, but i was glad it was eatable.

The next day, i tried giving the same to addu, and he, my jackass of a son, spit it everywhere. My first thought was, o man, somethings wrong. I tried, he spit. Sad i was, i give him something else.

After pati comes back, i ask him, whats wrong? wasnt the dish nice yesterday? He replies saying it was good. (I was expecting  mind blowing). I tell him that addu dint like, he spit. He calmly replies ‘ Then its his fault. There is nothing wrong with the dish at all. It was amazing.’

Love does not decrease. It just circulates among different parts of the body.

That first sip of uninterrupted tea.

Working moms. Stay at home moms. Moms working in day care, moms staying with inlaws and managing kids. Moms working part time from home. Moms working all night. They all have one thing in common. The ability to maintain sanity in the hardest and chaos-est of situations. I am a mom. I know.

The whole night when the kid keeps getting up, and this woman, even in her deep sleep listens to every single cry of the baby, picks him up and swaddles, or feeds to put him back to sleep, not because she wants to sleep. Because the baby needs to sleep.
She gets up early, only so that she can complete cooking before kiddo gets up, so that she can give her complete attention to him.
She makes his bath time and eating time as interesting as possible, even with a 2-3 hr sleep the entire night. She knows the child deserves it.
She feeds the baby slowly, while reciting rhymes, when she knows that she is late to work and she will have to attend a morning meeting for sure, and has a bad day ahead of her.
She cleans the baby poo after eating, after she has worn her ironed dress, not bothering about crampling the dress. She is happy as long as there is no poo on her shirt.
She feels tard guilty the moment she leaves the baby in the day care, puts down her heart of steel and runs like crazy to work. She checks her emails and replies in 5 min, and then she takes what she waited for, the whole day.
One sip of uninterrupted ,hot tea.

That sip, which gets her through the entire day, rushing into meetings, rushing into lunch, quickly finishing all the to do tasks, to meet the 430 deadline, where in her son would be waiting for her. To meet that deadline, she sacrifices team lunches, evening pizza parties, board games, after noon yoga classes at work, weekend bowling tournaments.
That sip, which reminds her how much her toddler cooperates to go without crying, eat without mom playing rhymes, and sleep without swaddling.
That sip, which reminds every mom how lucky she is, to get that 3-4 hours of “me” time, which is refreshing enough, to do the same exercise the next day.
That sip, which makes her rush at 430, to find that gleaming look on his face, waiting for his mother to pick him up and give him something to eat, and may be a balloon to play. Its worth the world.
I am a mom. I know.