Mixed bag

Jacarandas are in full bloom.. It is such a delight to drive and find trees full of purple flowers. I always have this thing for trees that bloom once a year. It was the flame of the forest in Bangalore, cherry blossoms in Canada and the jacarandas here.
I know I won’t be here to see the Jacarandas bloom next year. I wonder where I am heading next.. I was reading about the aussie bloke who travelled north to south and east to west in Thailand on foot!! How I envy him.I neither have the guts, not the ability to do such a thing. Though there are moments I am so tempted to pack my bag and just go. Kind of having a NIKE moment..”Just do it”

I have always wanted to ensure that there won’t be a generation gap between my children and I. It was all well, till Yaya came to me and told she is head over heels in love with Cody simpson. And I asked her, Cody who? For the love of macaroni, I had no idea who is Cody Simpson. I read Courier mail and Vancouver sun every day without fail. And I had neer even heard about Cody Simpson !!!! She rolled her eyes and told me that I live in pre-historic times. ( Actually to be honest, I did a better job rolling my eyes, when I told Amma that I am so in love with Rahman( 1983) and Amma asked Rahman who?)

So now I am officially a Jurassic mom.!!
Just as my own mother had been to me.. and it hurts !!
Motherhood isn’t easy.

Next few weeks are going to be a nightmare. Yaya needs a grad dress. She is PICKY..so is her mom. And I am waiting for the fireworks to start!!

I can’t believe the baby weighing 2.3 kg born 12 years ago is now as tall as me and graduating middle school and entering high school. Where did the last 12 years go? Time flies eh?

I don’t usually read the same book more than once. ( Prophet is an exception. I actually know the whole book byheart, so I simply close my eyes and read it in my mind now a days.).. But lately, I have been wanting to read the books I read years ago. Today I woke up wanting to read Shiva’s pigeons. Anyone read it? I always gave my books away and now I am beginning to regret giving away my copy of Shiva’s pigeons.

The pain of waiting

I am actually trying to figure out what is the root cause of my fear of waiting. I hate to wait. Not because I am impatient, but because I am afraid.

As a child, my parents often vanished in the morning during weekends leaving us with the Ayah and don’t come back till very late in to the night. They never said where they were going or when they would come back.
I used to wait for them to come back.( Mostly because I know how my mother can annoy my father and how fast my father can lose his temper and how it will end)
By evening I would start panicking and by night time, I had already imagined all the worst scenarios, including being send to the orphanage!!
I know I have a very fertile imagination..
But try as I might, I could never accept that nothing untoward will happen and that my parents would come back home safely.
I think Amma knew of my fears, cause i remember her often leaving the house in the morning telling us that she had enough of raising us and would leave. Again not telling where she is going or when she would come back.
I don’t remember if I had already written about the most harrowing time I had waiting for my mother. I was in the 10th and it was raining heavy that day. Amma left in the morning telling she is going”just over there”. By evening the power went off.Full blown thunder storm. Just me and my younger sisters, alone in a big house. To make matters worst, some idiot howled like a banshee and ran down the street, scaring the living day light out of us, which made my sisters cry and I had no choice, but to lock the house and go to my neighbour’s. I had to tell them Amma didn’t come back and we are scared.
Amma did come back. Late at night. She never forgive me for going to the neighbour’s either!
The death of Beautiful Eyes changed everything..

I am pedantic when it comes to keeping my word. I always, ‘ALWAYS’ pick up my children on time from school. I will never let them go through what I have gone through waiting for my parents. I always tell them where I am going and what time I am expected back and they know exactly what to do in the event something happened and I am delayed.
I do hate it so much when someone tells me that they will call and then don’t. Of course, there could be perfect reasons for not being able to make that call. But I will be waiting for that call.. and my stupid mind would imagine the worst possible scenarios..
It is is trip to hell and back.
All it takes is one simple sms..Just let me know.. that is all I ask..

The worst is, I have to endure it over and over, cause no one ever understands what I go through..

The Void

The emptiness.. it never leaves you..

It is odd, because until I had the miscarriage, i never really knew how much I wanted to be a mother. I carried the baby for 16 weeks. In those 16 weeks, i dreamed what I would name him or her each night. I wondered if he or she would inherit the hazel eyes. I was already looking for baby furniture in the thrift shops.( International students from third world countries paying first world tuition fees!!)
I dreamed of holding him or her, nursing, singing lullaby’s, holding her/his hand and walking, watching the baby take the first steps..so much of dreams
It was over in a moment
Then all you are left to hold is is this empty shell.. U can’t keep it anywhere
Nobody remembers it
People think that having other children somehow should compensate the loss.
They think it is silly to grieve when I already have three wonderful kids
But they don’t see the empty shell that will always be with me..

Karma

Having children is certainly life’s way of returning Karma manifolds!

I had the first ‘serious’ teenage angst last night.
It started with Yaya doing her school work on my pc, then coming to me and telling, I did the work, saved it, now I can’t find it.
Upon asking her where she saved the work and what name she used for the file, she replied
“I don’t know”
Before I could even touch the computer to see where she could have saved her work, she hollered at the top of her voice, how much she hates me and my stupid computer.
I tried to tell her, I know she is upset and is worried that she lost the work and probably will have to redo it, but give me a chance, let me look and see if I can retrieve her file.
I thought I was pretty understanding.
Well not so
I was told, I am a horrible mother and that she can’t wait to be 18 and be out of this ‘mad’ house.

Having photographic memory means, one can see one’s own self saying the exact same thing to one’s own mother 28 years ago. I even remember the blue girl guide uniform skirt and the light blue sleeveless top I wore that day!!
I remember my mother telling me, one day when you have your own children you will understand and you will learn.

Technically, I should have kept my mouth shut, but I couldn’t.
I laughed and told my daughter that, you don’t have to reinvent the wheel, I have said the exact same thing to my mother!
Which made my child even more mad.
I did find her work in the temporary folder.
She still wasn’t pleased.
She didn’t want a hug, she didn’t want to be related to me and she was very sorry that she couldn’t chose a different mother and is now stuck with this horrible mother.
She went to hibernate in her room
I knew how to get her out of the room without much struggle. I made her favourite quesedilla and baked Curly fries for dinner. She loves both and I know there is no way she would resist coming out and having dinner.
I Didn’t go to her room and invite her( if I did, then she would want to up the fight some more). I just gave a general holler, dinner is served! ( I ignored her!)

She could hear her siblings raving about how tasty the food is ( i encouraged them too) and after 10 mints she was out of the room and came and sat with us to eat dinner.
Then she gave me that look.. you know, the sheepish kind of look!!! and I knew all is well, till the next outburst!

I dread the thought that in 5 years time I will have three teenagers in my house. And I do know what goes around comes around..Well.. too late to do much about it, so I shall endure this..

Tomorrow is Oct 7. My baby would have been 14..

Hmmm

Well, kids had school hols the last two weeks. It was raining non stop the first week, so couldn’t go any where. Then last week it stopped raining and kids and I voted ( very democratic!!!) to chose a city to visit.
Townsville had the maximum vote.
So we decided to head to townsville.
Packed all the gear
Got the Car checked
Found the places where we were going to stay.
Left the house at 7.30 AM..
Just as I was about to turn to the Highway, heard the weather forecast on the radio… Raining in the North QLD!!
It was a moment for spontaneous decision..
There was no way I was going to set up a tent in the rain.
So I decided to head to Sydney.( Not so democratic!)
I had no clue, where I was going to go or what we were going to do.
It was kind of Life is highway moment.
My only consolation was unlike heading to the north, heading south is safer cause there are lots more camp grounds.I also had enough food, fuel water etc to last a week!
I decided to drive to halfway mark and set camp.
It was Coffs Harbour.
I stopped at the visitor information and the lady suggested to try Park beach camp ground.
The best suggestion ever.
Was planning to stay there for a night and then head to Sydney.
Instead stayed there for 3 nights.
The place had a nice camp kitchen, so I didn’t have to take out my cooking gear.
Morning we had pancakes and then hit the beach for surfing.
Afternoon we had sandwiches and went for fishing. ( didn’t catch a single fish!)
Evening we went to Mackers for dinner.
I read Jackie Collins Lucky ( I had read it many years ago, but it was on sale for 4 $ at kmart, so couldn’t resist buying and reading it again!)
Yaya read Brassinger.
Toothless played his game boy non stop.
Baby was reading Fire Star by Chris d’lacey ( I am pretty impressed cause she is only 8 and is reading the same books Yaya reads!)
Then on the 3rd night the rain god must have felt I was having too much of a good time. it rained non stop all night. I had a tarp on top of the tent, so we didn’t get wet. But it was a pain to stand in the rain and pack up all the gear. I couldn’t fold the tent because I didn’t want to end up with mildew.
But that was not all.
I decided to take the New England highway.
It really was a beautiful drive.
There was hardly any cars on the road.
Most stretches were 100km zone.
At one stage there was ute pulling a camper trailer ahead of me going at 60 in a 100 zone. The fact that I can hardly see the road ahead of me because his trailer was blocking the view and had no plans to travel at 60 km/hr for the next 5 hours till I reach home, I decided to over take,when it was safe to do so. I never ever take a risk when I overtake. I always make sure there is good visibility and there are no vehicles coming in the opposite lane.
But just as I accelerated to overtake, the idiot suddenly started to accelerate and swerved to the right, almost hitting me,he and his ute occupied half of the right lane, forcing me to the road shoulder. All this stunt, just so that I won’t over take. I was already accelerating and there was no choice but to continue to overtake him.Besdes I kind of felt this guy is a psycho. Steven Spielberg’s movie “Duel” was at the back of my mind!)So there was no way I was going to follow him..
I have never ever honked like I did that moment. The odd thing is, right after I over took him he stopped accelerating and was again driving at 60 km/hr as though nothing happened.
I don’t understand why people do it.
This is not the first time this has happened to me here in Australia.( This is the first time someone actually pushed me off the road though)
A lot of people travel way below the speed limit, but the moment you try to overtake them, they start accelerating. It is some kind of game i guess.

Anyway, i am back home.. still a bit shaken.