My Lady of the Lantern

I had taken an impulsive off on Friday, and my plan was actually unwinding and shopping. But I sort of had this brainwave that morning when I was dressing up and I followed through. The thought came to me that it was today. It was the day to do it. It was my first visit ever to her grave. I can tell you this much, that I was tingling especially just before I entered the last patch of roads that led to the funereal ground. Once there, I had to ask the caretaker for directions to the spot where they lay infants to rest. The assigned land is enclosed by iron railings on two sides, and a high boundary wall on the other two sides. I really did not know what to do once there. I just drank the geography of that place. I cried. Someplace within that perimeter, lay the mortal remains of my baby.  I tried to remind myself that she was not the only baby there. I spoke to the caretaker, and there is no documentation or markers for infants buried there. I know her b...

We are very (as in very) close to Figzy's second birthday, and we have planned a proper party this time around. The venue is decided, the menu is fixed. The cake's been ordered. The guest list for the main party was an interesting exercise. We planned to call in some of our neighbours, either side of the family, our friends, and people whose invites we need to reciprocate, since we have been part of their dos in earlier years, even when we did not have children. DH sent an invite to his whole office (he is in a superior position) and had it easy.  I am a minion in my office, and I chose to go through the entire employee list and then pick just a limited number of names, rather than an open for all. My problem was that I felt a little guilty and "exclusive" at not calling some when I called the others, but I would rather keep it that way. I intend to hold a smaller do in Figzy's daycare later.  Figzy's little finger felt the brunt of a closing ...

The transition week that took us from 2013 to 2014 has just been meh....nothing extraordinary happened. And things inside the house are meh. The weather has been awful. Winter is not my season. And it has been raining off and on, and that's not making anything better.  Figlia has cold and cough. She had diarrhoea too, but thank medical science for Ent.ero.germina.  She is again passing through a tantrum-y phase, and it is no fun. I really really really feel like scratching a wall sometimes. Figlia has also been passing through a sleep disruption thing, and on the night of 31st December she woke up crying, and then she stayed up from 2:30 a.m. to 4 a.m. crying and whiny. My co-sleeper not only pulls down and turns away the blanket for herself but for her mumma too, who desists waking up cold bottomed.  Figlia is also asking for milk during the night, a habit that was lost for a few months now and I was not missing it at all. When she did it before, I w...