The Cat Stories

Rysa is going to be two years old in a fortnight. Our darling baby is now a toddler with a mind of her own. Her vocabulary is rich with more than 100 words and she speaks in complete sentences. Why, she even sings now ! Till about 3 months back her favorite song was "pappu can't dance.... ". This song turned out to be her favorite lullaby as well. While putting her to sleep if I ventured into singing anything more conventional she would steer me to this song by repeating "No, no.. .pappu pappu". This song ofcourse is no lullaby, its one of the recent bollywood hits. She has moved on from the "pappu song" and her recent favorites are "happy birthday to you", "Daadi amma daadi amma man jao" & "Shirdi wale sai baba".

We know that Rysa is growing because now she asks us to tell her "cat stories" rather than songs at bed times. Some months back, there were a few kitten & their mother cat which used to loiter around our house . This is how Rysa first took fancy to cats & kittnes. Few days later, we were invited for a dinner in somebody's lawn. The dinner was concluding and we were enjoying our icecreams in the cool summer breeze. Just then, guess what Rysa discovers ! At one of the tables in the far corner laid a plate of left over icecream. There was this cat sitting snuggly on the table top and licking away the icecream. Rysa couldnot find anything more amusing and she was completely entralled !
When she came back home she would mimick the cat and show us how it was licking the icecream. Seeing how interested Rysa was in cats, I made up a cat story for her at bed time. It was a hit with her and now every night she asks me to repeat it over & over till either of us falls asleep. Her usual dialogue at bedtime is pretty endearing "Cat story sunao!".
This is how the story goes :
One night Rysa was drinking her bottle of milk and fell asleep. Along came the cat from the window into Rysa's room. Meow,Meeeooooow, Meooowww ("Rysa loves it when I mimick Meow meow "). The greedy cat licked away all the leftover milk. Meow Meow. Mumma finds the cat stealing Rysa's milk. Mumma boxes the cats' ears. Meow meow. Mumma scolds "Why are you stealing my baby's milk, naughty cat ? you are very naughty !!" Meow Meow. The cat begins to cry. Meooow Meoow. "Cat, if you want some milk, you should ask Rysa or Mumma for it. Come take some more milk ! dont cry !" Mumma gives some more milk to the cat. The cat drinks away all the milk. Burrrp. The cat is very happy now ! Meooow Meooww. The cat jumps out of the window & goes away.
Inspired by the immense success of the original cat story, my husband made up another cat story for Rysa. I will request him to pen it down for my blog.

Daddy's Girl

Coming back after a long hiatus. It takes some discipline and time to sit and put together words and I am short on both. But this is something that really needs to be done. When Rysa grows up I wish her to know more about her baby days than videos and photos can tell. So you know now, we have named her Rysa.
Her dad found the name for her. It means 'laughter' in Latin. It has an origin in Russian & Sanskrit as well but that will be a topic of discussion some other day.
As I sit here typing, Rysa is giving me a naughty smile as if she knows she is being written about at this very moment.
I joined back work 5 months back when rysa was about four and half months old. The first day to work, I was really homesick and how I missed Rysa ! However, that was something that had to be done. To be at work is very important for me. At some point during my pregnancy I used to wonder if I would want to take a break from work and be a full time mommy. I have the answer now, I need the professional me to be complete. I am fortunate that the decision for me was not difficult and I have Rysa's grandmother to thank for it. We also have two girls 'Poonam' and 'jeevanti' at home who help us with our household and bringing up Rysa. Rysa loves playing with them and I say this with almost a hint of envy that at times she enjoys their company more. Needless to say the whole household revolves around this nine months old and I am afraid she almost knows this ! Her daddy call her 'naughty king' for all the tantrums she has already learnt.
These days her favorite object is a cellphone. We even got her a toy cellphone which actually rings and speaks but our girl somehow can makeout that its a fake. She wouldnt settle for anythng but my cellphone. Today she chewed on it and I think most of her saliva sipped into it. The poor phone has lost its sound and wont ring loud enough. I hope that once it dries it starts functioning properly.
Until sometime back everybody in my husband's family thought she resembled him and had no trace of me. The good news is she now resembles me more than anybody else and it almost gives me a great sense of privilege and achievement that she chose to resemble me aswell !! (giggle)

Its her ninth month birthday tomorrow. We have been celeberating her birthday at home every month. This time we will go over to my parents place to celebrate her birthday. Being away on an official trip, her dad is going to miss this one.

Its a baby girl !!!

Its a baby girl !!! Baby, you came to us 10:32 am on July 11th. Your daddy was with us in the operation theatre and he saw you before I did ! I had to satisfy myself with hearing your cry for the first few minutes.

This is your picture when i held you for the first time. You look so cute !

We stayed in the hospital for a couple of days and we bought you home on 14th. The next two days you wouldnot let me sleep either at day or night. I was going completely insane ! Soon we both adapted to each other and now you get enough feed and I get enough sleep .

We have been searching names for you for you but nothing seems good enough. That you happened to us is nothing less than a real miracle. I shall talk about this in detail some time later.

Life has changed. I am a mother now !

The Day Before

In another twelve hours or so, we will have our baby in our arms. Its so hard to believe that the day for which I have been waiting so long is so near.
Last couple of weeks have been the toughest days of pregnancy. Some infection decided to visit me and thanks to it, I was subjected to dozens of injections. Yesterday, when we saw the doctor, she said we shouldnot be waiting any more as the lycre(dont know how to spell it ) has become very low. So baby you come four weeks before your due date. As impatient as your mumma ? Huh !
We have packed two bags, one for the baby and one for Mom & Dad. Daddy has done the packing and no prizes for guessing whose clothes and accessories dominate the bag space.

We have to reach hospital at 7:30 am tommorow, which means I should have been asleep by now. But is it easy to sleep tonite ? Not for me !

Ok.. This was a long break.. Not that I didnt want to write, but I guess my brain is too hyperactive these days to concentrate on any one activity. I want to do everythng and nothing ! I already have the god gift of impatience in everything I do. This pregnancy has made me a zillion times more impatient. I look at the calendear on my laptop and I wish i could sit on the cursor and jump to July 15th. Yes, July 15th is the tentative date for the baby of my dreams to come in this world. My due date will be end of july or 1st week of Aug, but the doctor says she would do a elective ceasarean around mid July.
Last few weeks have been quite eventful. Last tuesday, I realized I could not feel the baby's movement as much. Now my baby is as hyperactive as me and normally keeps kicking around. That day was unusual. The baby hardly made any movements. We rushed to the doctor around 10 pm in the night. I was monitored for 30 mins or so and thankfully everythng was fine. Next day the baby movements were normal. Yesterday, we went to the doc for routine checkup. I have gained around 10 kgs in my seven and a half months of pregnancy. The doctor thinks thats not good enough ! So she sets a target of another four kgs in the next four weeks. I have been given some protein drinks and tablets. The protien mix is as yucky as expensive it is. I need to take it two times a day. After I have taken it once the rest of the day is spent in anticipation and horror of the next dosage !
I have been working from home for some months now. Most of the work that I do has been transitioned to my replacement and there really is not much to do. To kill the boredom, I have surfed through numerous sites, read numorous blogs, made phone calls to all my acquaintances, watched movies back to back, read novels , and I still AM BORED AND RESTLESS. I thought of doing some knitting though I hardly know what it is all about. My husband forgets to get me a knitting kit everytime. I tried cooking but that leaves me very tired. I used to paint a little. May be I will try my hand at it tommorow.
The next appointment with my doctor is on 26th June. We will get a 4D ultrasound scan done for our baby. I will get to see my baby in colour and that makes me very excited. But that will be another 13 days of wait.

Almost there !

Yes we are almost there !!
We will soon complete 7 months of waiting . Two more months and we will have our bundle of joys in our arms . The last seven months have not been easy and i wish i had started writing this journal earlier. It was on 1st of Dec that we got to know that i might be pregnant. Oh ! wht an excitement that was ! We didnot tell anyone before we got it confimed with the doctor later. The next six months were filled with docotor visits , scans, tests and anxiety. I feel much better and happier now that i am so close to the day.

This weekend we went searching for the ideal cradle for our baby. Most babies in India co-sleep with their parents. I believe it will be better if our baby sleeps in her own cradle which may be attached to our bed. I wonder though how practical its going to be ! Have heard stories of new born babies getting up every two hours in the night ! We liked the cradle with steel frames and looks like we will finally buy that one. We also looked at all the accessories we might be needing and baby clothings.