Tag Archives: Children

Back Again!

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I’ve been missing from this, my online diary for a while.

The biggest reason is that I am a SAHM (Stay At Home Mom). This was somthing I had been wanting to do for a while, but didn’t really follow through. I’ve been a SAHM for about 3 months now and life has taken a 360 degree turn. I was forced to leave my previous job (which I did with joy) because of issues with my domestic helper. I have sent her off and am maidless now.

It’s taken me this much time to sort out my head and so I’ll blog more often now. Hopefully have more recipes and also stories…..

Puss in Boots – Movie Review

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I just realized what a boring life I live, when the highlight of my week is looking forward to Friday evening, so that I can sleep in over the weekend! Gosh! My life also does not give me any material for my blog, unlike the other parenting blogs I come across.

So what do I write about today? I know, let me review Puss in boots which we caught at a matinee last week. We saw the 10:30 show at the Cathay cinema in Causeway Point. If you are a Passion Card member, note, you get the tickets at S$7 with a small popcorn for two tickets purchased. This took care of the popcorn that BB & GG expect when they go to the theatre. Since we were going back home for lunch straight after the movie, I didn’t want them to eat anything else which can spoil their apetite later.

Set in the western town of San Ricardo, Puss in Boots tells the prequel story of the character in the Shrek movies. Voiced by Antonio Banderas, this Spanish speaking kitty wears heels, is a lady killer and is an outlaw. He has been searching for the magic beans which he learns is with Jack and Jill. He goes to their hotel room and tries to steal the beans but is thwarted by another cat who soon escapes the place. Following her to a cat traven, they have a dance-off cum fight, where he finds out that he is actually Kitty Softpaws, the softest paws any kitty has. At the same time, he also learns that his estranged childhood friend Humpty Alexander Dumpty is behind this meeting and wants the help of Puss to find the magic seed which has been his childhood dream.

So Puss, Kitty and Humpty plan and steal the magic beans. They plant it and go to the giant’s castle in the sky and find the golden eggs. When they realize the eggs are too heavy to carry, they carry the goosling which lays the eggs, eluding the terror which guards the goose and the eggs. Once back on earth while celebrating their victory, Jack and Jill catch up with them and hit Puss and decamp with everything – Humpty, Kitty and the goose.

On awakening, Puss tracks them back to San Ricardo and learns that all this was a plot by Humpty to take revenge on Puss for abandoning him when Humpty’s heist when they were children went wrong. Kitty was also on this plot. Puss then turns himself to the authorities and is put in jail where he meets the real Jack and realizes that the Terror is in fact the mother of the goosling who will stop at nothing to get her child back. Kitty helps Puss break out of prison to try and stop the Terror from demolishing the town. In the fracas, Humpty gives up his life so that Puss can save the goosling and when his shell cracks, he is found to be golden!

The verdict – the kids both GG, BB and all the rest in the theatre loved the movie. I was not sure what was there that made the censors put a PG classification, guess the slightly adult theme and fights was the answer. All in all, a movie worth watching, atleast once!

Woohoo…Friday’s here…

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It’s the end of another work week and a week closer to my holiday! You must know by now how excited I am about it (I can’t stop talking or rather blogging about it!)

Image from Pinterest

This week has been a mixed bag one with a dash of mommy guilt thrown in for good measure! GG has been pestering me to do something special with her, but other than shopping, which I’ve promised her soon, I can’t think of anything which I will be able to exclude BB. The thing is that I am incapable of doing something with one of them and excluding the other. In fact I am scrupulously fair to the two of them – even if I buy someone something, the other will get something else of the exact same value!

So what are we planning for this weekend? We’re going to take BB & GG to watch Puss in Boots tomorrow morning. I’ve heard many good things about the movie and so will review it later. My only concern is that it’s been rated PG, but hope any fears are unfounded.

Then later, it’s some spring cleaning time (time to clear GG’s closets of the clothes she’s outgrown) and then maybe the library!

See you on the other side of the weekend!

Protective Parenting

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Ok, here’s where I confess – S and me are very protective parents. With parents being bombarded all around about predators around children, it is enough for me especially to want to pull my children around me and never let them leave the security of my arms untill they are adults! But – and here’s a big but – I also want them to grow up to be independent and confident young people/adults.

GG and BB are not allowed to go out on their own. Period. If S is bringing them home from a class and has to park the car, he will drop them at the lift lobby of our building, see them get into the lift alone and then call me to let me know they are coming up. I’ll be on the phone with S outside my home till they reach our floor and then let S know they’re home safe. This is the extent of their trips alone. If they want to play outside our home (we have a huge corridor outside), they have to play at a place where I can see and hear them. If they want to go down to the playground, they are accompanied by a responsible adult (me, S or my helper at my place or my inlaws if at their place) and they have to play where they can be be seen at all times by the adult they are with. These are non-conditional  terms and any violation of these like going to play in another area means we bring them back home immediately.

When we are out at malls for example, till about last year, BB would come with me to the girls toilets if S was not with us. Now that he is older, he is allowed to visit the men’s toilets, but I make it a point to stand outside and do not hesitate to ask someone about him if BB takes too long inside.

Writing this post made me think of the freedom we were allowed growing up. During the school holidays I think we were at home just to eat lunch and sleep at night. The whole day would be spent either at friends place watching TV or some videos, playing at our building or at the neighbouring one, or the building in the next road (except when it was too hot to do anything but watch videos), go visiting other people (even if it was people you didn’t know at all). All this time, our parents would not really be worried about us except when we didn’t come home for meals. This was an era of pre-cell phones and in most homes in India those days (late 70s to early 80s), didn’t have telephones too (this was the height of the licensing era where you booked your phones and were lucky if you managed to get it in 5 years time!).

Parents those days didn’t worry about children as much as we do today. We grew up healthy and independent. But the reality of today is so much different from those years! In retrospect, do you want that life to this one? I for one am not too sure if I would like to live like how we lived in an India in the eighties, give me technology and today anytime!

What do you think? Are you a protective parent or a more liberal one? I’d love to hear from you.

Dilemma of a mother

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Yesterday at work I got a call from GG. She sounded quite upset and asked me this question, “Mama why don’t we both spend more time together doing things?” I was quite set out by this question and the rest of the work day deteriorated. I spoke to her after I reached home and told her that when we go on our holiday (soon, very soon), we’ll do some mom-and-daughter stuff together like shopping and leave the boys at home

This morning when I woke up and checked my Facebook news feed, I saw that an old school friend had quit her job to be a SAHM (Stay At Home Mom) since her daughter was giving the equivalent of what is the O Levels here in May 2012. She wanted to be with her and give her moral support.

Everyday, especially now that the holidays are on, both G & BB don’t want me to go to work. On Monday when I was at home nursing a cold, both of them were so happy to see me there with them the whole day that it literally broke my heart!

This is an issue I’ve been grappling with for the past year or so. On on hand I do want to be a SAHM and be there physically for my children, but on the other hand, without the intellectual stimulation that work gives me, I am worried that I will mentally atrophy. I think going to work gives me the much needed ‘me time’ I need without needing to be a mom 24/7 and getting called to settle any/all differences/fights (choose the word) at home. The income I earn is useful too, to ensure that we are able to give our children all the extras that we want.

On one hand, I do know that if my current position was as interesting as it was made out to be in the initial interviews, then maybe I would enjoy this a lot more. As it is, the project I was hired for has been moved to mid next year and so i do not have any ‘output’ to show. Also since I leave about 3 hours earlier, the impression I get is that I am not thought as part of the team and things are happening without my involvement. Aah well, the best thing for me to do is to either accept this or quit. I have about a month to think through this well and would have made my decision by the time I am back from my holiday!

In the meantime, here’s something that came on my Facebook newsfeed a couple of days back. It’s an ivillage article about being able to afford to stay at home and what you can do if that is what you want to do.