I do have this annoying habit of going for a walk in my mind. This morning I was walking down the KK road in Kottayam, pass the saw mill ( across the Ascension CSI church). Next to the saw mill there was a two level office/retail block. And in one such office in the 2nd floor was Kochamma’s office.
Now, I don’t know what is Kochamma’s real name. She was always Kochamma, my mom’s buddy. She ran the local “cooking gas agency”
To get to her office, I had to go through this narrow dark and dingy staircase. I was also warned my mother that, I must make sure that Kochamma in the event Kochamma looks completely “zonked” when I approach her, I must then remind her who I am and recite my family geneology history, so she hopefully won’t forget when she recovers from the effect of booze.
In those prehistoric days of my childhood, we only had one cooking gas cylinder, which incidentally had the tendency to stop working just when my mother was in a mood to make something elaborate like fish curry. And I being the family courier/messenger/etc etc was always the one who has to make a mad dash to Kochamma’s office and beg her to send a new Gas cylinder to my house.( the normal wait time was 2 to 3 weeks)
Kochamma’s office was also very dark and dingy. She had this huge metal ( Godrej) table in her office and although I can still see her sitting behind that huge table, I can’t picture her face. I was so afraid of her, not because she was ever mean to me, but because I was judging her through the eyes of everyone who knew her
She was the odd one in the conservative Malayalee community that I inhabited. She lived alone, drove a white fiat car and rumour was that apparently she drank alcohol every evening.
Imagine that !

Her husband was one of 196 that Perished when INS Khukri went down on Dec 9, 1971.
He was a hero according to the Indian Navy.
But I honestly think she was/is the hero.

The one thing that I am absolutely terrified of is the question “Mama, can I go to so and so’s house for a sleep over?”
Sleepover was something I never had to worry about when I was living in Malaysia. we never had a sleep over in Malaysia..
Basically there are two things that concerned me.
1. I don’t trust others when it came to the safety and welfare of my kids.
2. Using TP.

Toothless had the first invitation for a sleepover party when he was in Kindergarten. There was no way I was going to let my 6 year old son stay overnight at a strangers house. So I let him go to the party and picked him up at 7.30 pm. He wasn’t very pleased., I didn’t expect him to be.

Then Yaya was invited to her best friend’s house for a sleep over and I felt my world was about to fall apart. I tried to find any reason, any reason at all to prevent her from going, but there was nothing.
Her best friend’s mother is my friend and I knew the family well enough. I felt I was trapped. I didn’t want her to spend the night in someone else’s house because I was worried about her safety even though I knew my friend wouldn’t harm my daughter in any way.

What was I going to tell my friend? that I don’t trust her to take good care of my daughter?

I spend the next few days talking to my daughter about being safe. What is appropriate and what is not appropriate. I told her she can call me any time of the day if she was not happy at her friend’s place and I will come and pick her up.
I wrote her care card number and all the emergency phone number in a card and gave to her.
I bought her a box of flushable wipes.
Yaya couldn’t wait to go to her friend’s house and shooed me away when I tried to linger on.
Then I spend all night trying to keep awake, so in the event my daughter called, I won’t miss hearing the phone ring..
It was mentally exhausting and I wanted to kill the person who invented sleep over.

Then I had a Eureka moment.

Instead of my child going to someone else’s house, why not invite them to my house?

We have regular sleep over party at our house now.
I usually have it on Friday.
Friday is usually “any time O’clock” at home. ie the kids can go to bed at any time they wish to. (Sunday to Thursday they go to bed at 9PM).
So I don’t have any issues when the kids don’t go to bed on time on Friday. I usually buy pizza and bake muffins and make some salad. Then we rent a “surprise” movie( Surprise for the kids because the movie probably was released before they were born and a big deal for me as I don’t have to pay an arm and a leg to rent it) and I make some popcorn and let the kids watch the movie.
Last Friday we had seven kids for sleep over. It was fun.
They watched Chicken little. They had fun and I had peace of mind.

tp: toilet paper

One of the things kids and I miss the most is going to Tim Hortons and eating donuts..
It is very hard to find donuts here and even the ones I find are so damn pricey. I can get a good bottle of wine for the same price as cost of 3 tiny donuts.
So I decided to make donuts..
not an easy task, mind you.. There are so many recipes..

It feels like I have just walked in to a different world and I am petrified. It feels like a nightmare, but I am very much awake..

First of all we have the constant tears to deal with. This morning it was the hair. Yaya simply hates her hair. According to her, she has the worst hair on earth. This morning she wanted to tie her hair in to a pony tail and it simply didn’t come out right.
The tears were just rolling down her cheeks and my heart was breaking.
I knew there was no point in me telling her that she actually has gorgeous hair with natural brown to copper colour highlights.
If I tell her that she has lovely hair, she will reply that “You are my mother, you are supposed to say that”
If I keep quiet, she will say that ” See, even you agree that I have the worst hair on planet earth”

So I stood there like the “inji (or was that andi?) kadicha annan.. Which obviously made Yaya even more mad and her rants progressed to “You are the worst mother on planet earth, You don’t understand anything, I HATE YOU”
Which made the in house police man( AKA toothless dragon) mad and he started to tell his oldest sister how to behave!
Which progressed to heated discussion about constitutional rights! and ended with territorial disputes and slamming of the door.
I kept chanting, ‘this too shall pass’ over and over in my head.. But the thought that I will be going through this for another decade has seriously dented my confidence.

Then my younger one wanted me to listen to her favourite song on You tube and after listening to the lyrics, All I wanted was to cry.
My 7 yr old is listening to this song. I am sure( rather, I hope) she doesn’t understand the lyrics. I honestly want to smack Lilly Allen.
I am in a catch 22. If I tell my daughter not to listen to the song, she will be curious to know what was in the song that ticked me off. So not much of use telling her not to listen.
But the Mallu in me can’t stomach such sexual overtures in a song, especially when it concerns a 7 yr old.
The mallu mother in me want to protect my children from the big bad wolf. But short of going to the moon , there isn’t much I can do.. and I am still standing here like the inji ( andi) kadicha annan.

I know it is been a long time since I updated the blog. Thank you all for your mails and comments.

My life is totally turned upside down..( Which is nothing new)

First of all, my stuff is still with the shippers in Vancouver. The wonderful shipping agent told me that it will take 6 to 8 weeks for my stuff to arrive in Australia.. I being the first class idiot, fell for her charms hook, line and sinker. What the agent conveniently forgot to tell me was that the 6 to 8 weeks is from when the ship actually sails!

So now I make idli’s in an egg poacher and roll rotis using wine bottle..( And of course wine being cheaper, I buy a new bottle every time we have roti for dinner.. There is no fun using the same bottle, right?)

Apart from an elderly cousin, I don’t have any relatives nearby and my cousin has gone to India for her annual visit. Amma and my sisters live almost 2000 KM away! So no point asking them for help. ( Don’t forget, My ego is bigger than Titanic, So I wouldn’t ask for help)

If it wasn’t for freecycle ( freecycle.org) I would have been bald by now ! ( plates, egg poacher etc etc were all picked up from the local freecycle.)

Then the kids.. all of a sudden they grew up.. I don’t know how to explain. They were little babies, who still believed in Santa when I left Vancouver.. in a span of 8 weeks everything changed.
Yaya came back from her school camp few weeks ago and was sitting across me drinking milo and updating me about all the things she did at the camp. Then out of the blue she asked me, what age would I think she can go out for a date!( I am sure the girls in her class was discussing about boys and dating..

Bloody hell.. Mothers should be given some sort of warning before a question like that are asked!
Now, I am not a traditional mother who thinks it is blasphemous to date. I also remember all my crushes..But still, I honestly wasn’t prepared for that question.. What do I tell her? That 11 is too early? But I knew if I had told her that, then I was just giving more fuel to the teenage rebellion she is storing to unleash on me the next few years.. So I did what I thought would be the best. I told her
“Baby, I can’t tell you when you should start dating. That is such a PERSONAL ( very powerful word for a pre teen) decision. You will know when you are ready and once you think you are ready, come and talk to me and we will see what we can do”
She was pleased with my reply.
I felt good after telling her that.. but now I dread that any of these days she will come and tell me that she is ready to start dating…

Yaya and toothless went for a school disco.. and 3 girls requested toothless to dance with him. His sisters and I have tons of fun teasing him.. but in my heart I know he is growing..I know I have to let go..but I am not ready.. I wish I can wave a magic wand and pause my life.

Then Patrick Swayze died..I watched the movie dirty dancing in 1988.. I had such a huge crush on Swayze.. I dreamed of dancing like him..for him.. with him..( you get the drift No? Ah those teenage days!)

Then we had the mother of all dust storm..It took me days to clean up..

I read a lot of books by Aussie authors..
But the book I absolutely enjoyed was the housekeeper and the professor by Yoko Ogawa.. ( it was nice to know that I am not the only one who like to spell words backwards!)

So that is all for now..