I decided to take a break from all my pregnancy related banter and talk to you today about Rummy. For the past 6 weeks that my FIL has been staying with us, Rummy has had a one way love affair with him. As in, Rummy tries to get every opportunity to lick my FIL’s hands and wags his tail at him in the most doggily seductive manner, but has been suitably ignored by FIL. All this rejection my poor dog has been taking pretty well, except for one fine day…..

Well, my SIL had come over to visit my FIL when me and K were away at work. Now, Rummy conducts a one way love affair with my SIL also. Except that she does not respond because she is still a little scared of Rummy (which I have tried to explain to her is like being scared of something as harmless as cookies…but still ). Anyways, SIL and FIL were both talking away, ignoring Rummy like they usually do. And my dog as usual was sleeping on his bed pretending not to care, when in reality he would have come running to them if they even looked in his direction. And then it happend. When sending my SIL away, apparently FIL and SIL had a small argument at the door. Now, Rummy thinks he is a peacekeeper from United Nations, only that he is of the canine variety. So he ran to the door and stood between both of them. And they both got a little scared. Soon, they got over it and my SIL tried to get into her van. Rummy decided to take the opportunity to get a ride for himself and hopped into SIL’s van and was uncermoniously kicked out.

This was the trigger for Rummy who loves car rides more than anything else on earth. And I guess his feelings were a little hurt too. So in true Gandhian fashion, he went and threw himself on the road in front of SIL’s van. And refused to get up. For two people who are a little scared of dogs, moving a 80 pounder off the road is no easy task. My FIL tried yelling at him, calling him softly. Nothing worked. He even got a nice banana from his personal statch and offered it to Rummy. But Rummy was ofcourse too hurt to even consider it even though normal circumstances would have him drooling at any food.

Finally after 15 minutes of dharna, I guess the road got a little too hot for Rummy’s comfort. So he got up and cooly walked back to the house to claim his spot under the fan.

When I came home and my FIL told me this, my first reaction was to let out a laugh. But it was quickly stifled by the look on my FIL’s face. But I am sure one day he will see the humor in this story, maybe even tell it to his grand kids. Why, he has already started feeding Rummy a small piece of his dosa every morning and I can almost see his face widen when he sees him every morning.

Here is an “innocent” pic of my drama queen…

I just stepped into the third and final trimester of my pregnancy sometime back. And I have 10 more weeks to go before I become a parent forever. As wonderful as pregnancy has been, with all the “glow” and shiny hair, the truth is that it does get uncomfortable at times. From back aches to heart burn to shortness of breath, and sometimes all of the above happening at the same time, it can get pretty overwhelming.

Once, during dinner, the soccer star currently residing in my uterus promptly gave me a kick in the ribs which made me whince in pain. And it started off a topic of discussion between me, K and my FIL. K asked his dad fondly if he too had been the source of such troubles to his mother – to which my FIL replied “I never heard her complain”. Not “she did not have pain”, but “I never heard her complain”. This really got me thinking that even a few decades ago, either women never really expressed what they were going through, or they simply thought that it was a part of the process and needed to be put up with. I mean, think about it – how many of us have no discomfort whatsoever during that time of the month? And yet, how many men of the older generation actually knew what their wives were going through? Even those darn old movies showed the pregnant lady throwing up – like – once, not for entire 4 months. Then after a quick bite of the raw mango, she was soon whisked off to her parents’ home and then the scene ended in the hospital where an anxious dad was waiting outside closed doors and then suddenly a baby was brough to him and declared his! Never once have they shown the pregnant lady not eating some kind of food because it now gives her terrible gas, or when she has heartburn and feels like a dragon breathing fire. Even in the so called pregnancy movies and sagas with women as the central character. No, pregnant women are always supposed to be happy and smiling and hormones messing with their body and mind is an urban legend that these doctors with fancy degrees just make up.

I think women in India have been raised with the super hero complex. That they can do everything – or that they must do everything. From going to work to cooking in the kitchen to raising kids, everything seems to be on their plate and everything must be taken into their stride. Motherhood is supposed to be always glorious with rainbows and unicorns and any downsides must be quietly swept under the carpet so that we can continue to pretend that it is always rainbows and unicorns. If there is one thing I know, it is that I am not a super hero. I am a person with no super powers other than to probably predict which exact bush Rummy is going to unleash his pee on – that too with only 70% accuracy. For me, it is not a matter of pride if I need to ask for help on days when I cannot do things on my own. I do not feel guilty being indulged. And I feel no shame or shortcomings in letting people know that soccer baby is at it again – and it hurts like crazy when the kicks lands in the right places.

Which brings me to one more thing I love about the country I am currently in. It gives ample opportunities for the dad-to-be to be involved in the entire baby making process. From visits to the OB to child birth classes to actually being in the same room your wife is laboring in and watching your kid being born – everything is encouraged. I am no longer just the woman-with-increasing-girth. I become the woman accomodating baby inside her – a baby that is alive and growing and kicking and burping. A woman who is going through things mentally and physically and needs some extra TLC. And because of this,  K does not suddenly become a father one fine day in January 2010, he is already one.

Clueless!! Thanks so much to lovely Dee for giving me an award! Nothing removes writer’s blocks quicker than a tag and an award. And she has given me both!!!!

All the people I do want to pass on the awards to, Dee already has! But still mentioning them here because I really enjoy their blogs…

Dee : Like she said…we both are crazy, especially when it comes to our pets ! And mostly agree on everything!

AHK: My fellow MTB blogger! We both are barely a month apart in our pregnancies (I think) and I love to hear what she has to say because it resonates so much with me!

La Vida Loca: Please send me the invite to your very private blog!

And now for the tag….Since I am too lazy…please follow rules posted on Dee’s blog and anyone wanting to take this up is most welcome!

1.Where is your cell phone? Purse

2.Your hair? Black

3.Your mother? Excited

4.Your father? Exasperated

5.Your favorite food? Thai

6.Your dream last night? Garage!!

7.Your favorite drink? Bailey’s

8.Your dream/goal? Environmentalist

9.What room are you in? Office

10.Your hobby? Reading

11.Your fear? Birds

12.Where do you want to be in 6 years? Home

13.Where were you last night? Home

14.Something that you aren’t? Traditional

15.Muffins? banana-nut

16.Wish list item? This

17.Where did you grow up? Bangalore

18.Last thing you did? Ate-apple

19.What are you wearing? Maternity-jeans

20.Your TV? Samsung

21.Your pets? Rummy

22.Friends? Always

23.Your life? Changing

24.Your mood? Hungry!!!!

25.Missing someone? Mommy

26.Vehicle? Scion TC

27.Something you’re not wearing? Sexy tight top

28.Your favorite store? Papaya

29.When was the last time you laughed? Morning

30.Last time you cried? Yesterday

31.Your best friend? K

32.One place that you go to over and over? Hawaii

33.One person who emails me regularly? FIL

34.Favorite place to eat? Dish-Dash

Of late, I am living out some of the scenarios I will be facing as a parent. Pretty normal you might say, except that these scenarios have nothing to do with baby sitting or poop or kindergarden like most parents would be worrying about. To give you an idea of what I am talking about

Scenario 1:
I just discovered that I no longer remember various method to solve integration problems. Yes, Integration as in differential calculus. I remember some basic stuff but nothing that we needed some special tricks to solve. I tried and tried but could not remember anything. I even asked K and he promptly told me I was having one of my “moments” and left it at that. Now, this is when it began to grow into a small panic. What if I am not able to teach calculus to my kids? I mean, how would they deal with a mother who would stare at a calculus problem and give a blank look? I did not want to google stuff and cheat, but this was worrying me a lot. I even resolved to borrow my nephew’s 12th grade advanced math text book and work out all the problems in them. Only the next day morning I realized I might come across as a tad bit silly and gave up on it. And every now and then, I keep worrying about different theorms I have forgotten and try and remember them. Oh, btw did I mention that I am a total nerd??

Scenario 2:
I have a dog, a big one. And now I am having a baby. Instead of worrying like a good Indian parent about how the dog will affect my baby, I worry about what my baby is going to do to my dog. Like this one time I had a dream that my kid was around 2 years old and Rummy and baby are playing together. I am puttering around the house and I come back to find that my lovely black and white dog is now multicolored – because my baby decided to use Rummy as a blank canvas. I keep worrying about how baby might pull Rummy’s ears or hurt him when in all probability the whacks that a 15 pound child metes out probably won’t even register in my 80 pound dog’s brain.

Somebody please tell me it is the hormones.

In other related news, Baby has decided to join United Manchester or some such fancy league, for which practise has begun right now in Mamma’s belly. Especially when she is in meetings where she cannot even make appropriate facial expressions. Everything needs to be answered with a kick – hungry?? Kick Mamma. Don’t like the position she is sleeping in? Kick Mamma. Getting bored? Kick Mamma. You get the drift.

Also, I am becoming obsessed about whether my face is swelling up. K is most uncooperative and gets away saying that he sees me daily, so he won’t be able to make out the changes. So anyone who has not seen me in a couple of weeks – I immediately get to asking them if my face is getting bigger. I guess secretly (or not so secretly) I want to be preggie like Heidi Klum. When she was pregnant, she was still stick thin with a soccer ball thing where her stomach was. And she wore those awesome dresses that made her look even better. Truth is much much further for us ordinary mortals. Sigh! And yes, the truth still does not stop me from polishing off plates of kesari bath or that nth cup of icecream – even when the doc keeps telling me that I need only 300 calories more than my regular intake when I am pregnant. I half believe the doctor is lying because I am hungry ALL THE TIME.

And last, but not the least – random strangers come up to me and touch my belly. I cannot tell you how much I HATE that one. I feel like one of those laughing Buddhas whose belly gets rubbed by all and sundry for good luck. I am sure people find my belly very fascinating, but think about this – I find lots of male and female body parts amusing / amazing all the time. You don’t see me running up to people and touching them do you??

Of late,  I have been craving for Aloo buns from the Iyengar bakeries of Bangalore. For the non-Bangaloreans, Aloo bun is a bun stuffed with potato curry inside and at the right temperate, it is just a handful of mouth melting goodness. Now, as it happens, my FIL is landing here this weekend, so I thought I will take the opportunity to smuggle some Aloo buns into this insipid country – and because I am preggie and all that, such ridiculous requests of mine are being entertained by everyone for a limited time.

So, I picked up the phone and called Amma and let her know that I wanted Aloo buns. She promptly called my FIL and told him she would be bringing some buns for drop off just before he leaves so that I would have the freshest buns. And that is kind of where her chain of thought ended. But for my FIL, the process had just begun. He called back Amma and told her it would be easier for him to buy the Aloo buns himself since it would have to be last minute and everything. Even then, there was some more room for improvement. So FIL decided that he would buy the Aloo bun on the day of travel and then FREEZE it so that he could carry frozen buns and by the time they crossed seven seas they would be perfect and ready for consumption. But such a process had not been tried before and FIL takes my food related requests to heart. So the sweet soul decided to buy an experimental Aloo bun, freeze it, let it thaw, heat it in the microwave and see if it would still remain fit for my consumption!

The Aloo bun experiment is currently under way and I am awaiting results. Sometimes, in momemts like this I KNOW why I married K and by extension his family. Because they go where no Clueless has gone before!

Edited to add: Method to get Aloo buns on transatlantic flight

1. Buy buns 24 hours before departure and freeze them

2. Just before heading out to the airport, taken the frozen aloo buns and stuff it into luggage

3. As soon as you reach destination, aloo buns are promptly rushed into the freezer again

4. As and when needed, pull out an aloo bun and pop it into the oven. Once sufficiently thawed and warm – gobble them up quickly

I have been hee-hawing about how to do this post.  I mean, I don’t want to make an “announcement” as such, and I have tried various permutations of stories it can fit into. But I guess there is no other way to do this than give it to you straight. I AM KNOCKED UP.  There – it is out of my system now. I can scamper off and comment on all those preggie blogs saying “me too!! me too!!”

PS: I will not be saying “I am starting a family” or “I am going the family way” because I believe I already have a wonderful family and in that sense I am already IN the family way. First-born definitely is a most anticipated add-on.

I am 20 weeks along now and by about 15 weeks, I started showing. Everybody who looked at me believed that I must be preggie, except for dear K. WHO THOUGHT IT WAS GAS. I mean you can’t have gas for 2 whole weeks can you? But Sir was still skeptical. Until we had the first ultrasound that showed a tiny alien looking creature wriggling around in my belly. My baby! That moment was the most awesome one I can think of till now.  A whole new life inside me! And yes, K no longer thinks it is gas.

My mom has been pretty helpful so far.  She has been trying to look up baby names on the internet and she even called up all excited because she had found a few good ones:

Mom: Clueless, I found some really nice names online

Clueless: Thats nice ma…which alphabet?

Mom:  I want to find some in every alphabet! I am getting there!

Clueless: OK..tell me the ones you found

Mom: I forgot

Clueless: Whaa??

Mom: Yeah, I did not write them down and now I don’t remember them

Thanks a lot ma! At this rate, the baby names list will remain unpopulated until I pop and then your grandkid will be named John Doe or Jane Doe by the creative hospital staff.  Thats because K and I are so uncreative that we tried thinking up nicknames for the baby and so far we have ended up calling our would-be-first-born all the nicknames we call our dog with. Sigh!

So, finally this blog is going to get some fodder because now I can talk about the things I have been dying to share. From the awesome food my ILs keep bringing over to hilarious attempts at training Rummy the textbook way to be ready for a baby.  Exhale!

This is how he sits….for hours at a time until K decides to look behind and bestow his attention on Rummy.

You know, we all have a dream about how our perfect snapshot in time should be. For me, I always imagined myself walking on a beach in arms with my love, while our dog ran along the beach sniffing at things and maybe fetching a stick. There would be a cool sea breeze and the only sounds we would hear would be the rhydm of waves crashing onto the beach…. And finally, I thought time had come for me to live this moment because I just looked at my checklist and I had

1 husband that I love
1 dog
10+ beaches around where I live
100+ days in a year when the weather was co-operative

But reality always happens to be more intersting than anything I can dream up, which is probably why I would not make a very good fiction writer. I picked the perfect day with the perfect weather, packed our collapsable canvas chairs, got our dog into the car and rode off to the beach for the kodak moment that I was going to experience. Except that, I guess, about 300 other people had the exact same idea and the beach was PACKED. Not letting such things deter me, we setup our chairs on the tiny part of the beach that was still vacant and waited for my dog to do his cute beachy things.

Whenever we try to give Rummy a bath, he tries to run and hide in the most inaccessible corners of the house, from where he has to be physically carried to the hose. It is NOT funny trying to carry a stubborn 80 pound dog you know….anyways that should have given me a hint that maybe – just maybe Rummy was hydrophobic. The beach confirmed it. While other dogs were running with abandon into the water, Rummy was acting like he had just gotten a pedicure at one of those expensive salons. He would not even let the tiniest bit of seafoam touch his feet and stood at a safe distance from the waves with a very perplexed look on his face for most of the time. But if there is one thing that can make Rummy momentarily forget his pedicure, it is food. And I don’t know – but aren’t dogs supposed to love meat? There were barbecues all over the place and yet my amazingly stupid dog decided that the one thing he wanted was the tomatoes that our beachy neighbors were distributing to their kids (who on earth brings tomatoes as beach snack?? poor kids I tell ya). The only saving grace was the Rummy is a gentleman most of the time. So instead of just pouncing on the tomatoes, he just stood in line with the other kids to wait his turn for his piece of tomatoes. It was an “Oliver Twist” moment for me right there. I could almost imagine Rummy going “May I have some more soup please?” and started to giggle. Unfortunately my beachy neighbors did not find it that funny and I had to drag Rummy back to our base camp where he spent the rest of his time alternating between sulking and looking wishfully at the tomatoes. K just decided not to be bothered and went off to sleep with his jacket covering his face.

Disclaimer: It was a dog friendly beach where we can let dog off leash. So please don’t throw tomatoes at me (or maybe you should – I can just give them to Rummy) for letting my dog scamper as he wishes.

I still had one last hope for my picture perfect moment and we decided to take a walk on the beach. I made sure I held on to K’s hand and walk with Rummy following us, except that our dog found lumps of rotting seeweed more interesting than you know – taking a walk with his owners.

Finally, we decided to pack up and head back home. Myself and K were very thirsty while Rummy was just plain exhausted and went right to sleep in the car. We got ourselves a milkshake and an ice cream and started the long drive back. It was almost sunset and we did not even feel the need to turn on the radio. We silently relished our milkshake / ice cream, only punctuated now and then by Rummy’s gentle snores from the back seat. Right then, nirvana happened. I was so much filled with love for my small unit and I felt so content and at peace. If we had probably captured the moment on camera it would show one horribly frizzy haired lady (from all that “sea breeze”), a man contemplating his milk share a little too seriously and a dog sleeping so awkwardly that its mouth fell off and half its teeth were visible. That’s why it is so much better that this moment is in my head and I would not have it any other way.

I am very delighted that the Supreme Court in India decided to overthrow the section 377 that criminalizes homosexual acts.  Finally, a triumph of the constitution over the ever increasing moral police that seems to be opening branches everywhere in the country.

And then, there are these interviews.  With supposedly highly educated people who lead commissions and whatnot. And what is their stellar logic you might ask? That HUMAN RACE WILL GO EXTINCT!!! I mean, have they even checked the population of India recently? Even if the number of homosexuals in India doubled overnight, the Indian population will chug along, almost unaffected by it – like an unstoppable force until it consumes all the resources we have – and then, surely the human race will go extinct.

In all this chaos , I spotted a voice of reason coming from Celina Jaitely who asks the right questions. Like if marriages indeed were for procreation ( marriages because, you know, in India we don’t have sex – we just have babies after marriage ), then the court should order that every man and woman be tested for fertility before sanctioning their union. Ofcourse, impotent men, women who have reached menopause and such will not be allowed to marry. Why only homosexuals?

Anyways, for now, I will take what is given to me and celebrate. That my country is no longer one of “those” countries that go after homosexuals. Atleast legally. Socially, it is a totally different ball game.

You know, I appreciate India more than I ever did. It is a forgiving country. Don’t have ID card? No problem – there is a work around. Don’t have birth certificate? No worries – just ask a bunch of people to swear that you were indeed born to your parents on the day you were born. But then, I am here, residing in the US, where if you don’t have the right paper work, the officials just would not know what to do and start running around like headless chicken. Immigration in particular seems to be the headless rooster of this commotion.

Now, before you think I don’t have a birth certificate, I do. Which was indeed registered around the time of my birth – a rarity in India if you ask. Ofcourse there is a minor mistake, you know, like my entire name being registered completely different from my actual legal name – but hey! its a birth certificate all right and I was able to convince the head rooster without much drama.

That ofcourse leaves poor K, whose family holds the world championship title for orderly documentation of every single event in their life, all neatly filed away in their respective folders which are catalogued for prompt access. So, when the rooster asked for the birth certificate, all K had to do was pick up the phone and call his dad – and the birth certificate arrived promptly as crisp as the day it had been issued. Except. The immigration got back to us and told us what we had was a birth RECORD and not a birth CERTIFICATE and they wanted a birth CERTIFICATE at all costs. Now, K was born in a part of India where no one from the family lives anymore. Infact the only reason he was born there was because the FIL was posted there for a short duration. It was our turn to run around like headless chicken.

So off we went to appease the Google god and see what he would spit up on our small town municipality website search. To our suprise not only was there a website, but you could actually search for your birth record and order a copy online! But like all good stories go, the end cannot be so easy, and our online search resulted in an ODBC error.

Here is another reason why I like India so much (its sarcasm, just incase I sound like a snob). You can get anything done at lightning speed if you have the money or influence. After calling up the municipality several times and hearing the person on the other end just reply to everything we ask with “Speedily! Speedily!” we decided to throw money at the problem. And just for safety, we threw in a good measure of influence too. And since we used both money and influence, we ended up having 2 birth certificates for K. Thankfully atleast one of them was devoid of any spelling mistakes.

If you think the story ends here and the mystery was solved, here is the twist. The mystery had only just begun! Because the final part of mailing the certificate from small town to big town where FIL resides was still left undone. Adresses were given and reverified. The package was couriered and even a tracking number was given to us. But when we decided to track it online, it had just disappeared! We called the big town office – they said there was no record of the package. We called the small town office and they were sure they had never recieved the package. We called our contact and he faxed us a copy of the receipt that he got when he handed over the package! We called and called. We spoke in English, we spoke in native language but there was no clue about where the package had disappeared. Until finally the courier service lady gave us the phone number of THE ONE – the PACKAGE WHISPERER. She gave it to us in hushed tones and told us all will be well.

And then, we made the call. A person picked up on the other end and listened to us. He asked us for our tracking number and we gave it to him. Two minutes of silence. And then he spoke. The tracking number had been changed mid-transit! Why? No one knows. I wanted to ask why the courier service gave a tracking number in the first place if they went ahead and changed it at their whim. But K held me back because you know -  you don’t ask such frivolous questions to THE ONE. So now we had a new tracking number which showed us where the package was and we could obsessively refresh the tracking web page it till it said “delivered”.

Finally, it was delivered. In one piece. To the right address. An overnight delivery that took four days to complete its mysterious journey. And we now have the birth certificate to offer to the immigration rooster. Not a birth record but a true blue birth certificate. What is different you ask? I don’t know. Both contain the same information. But then, you just stop asking such questions and simply produce whatever documents in whatever form they want it in.

The end. Hopefully.