My Lady of the Lantern

Some moments require far more thoughtful responses than others. And one such moment presented itself recently.  Figlia has been all over the place recently. We found a clump of dark hair, about four inches long, that had been hastily pushed under a bed in her grandfather's room. She wouldn't own it, and then she admitted to chopping her hair. "But it's just a little bit". Unless that hair were found, there was no way that we would have realized what she did. She swore off it. She assured she would never do so ever again. Then, on Saturday morning, while I was getting ready, she told me about "a dirty thing that P (the neighbour's six year old daughter) makes her do". I think all my senses went racing at the same time. I sat down, and asked her. She was like : "You will scold me, I know you will". And I was like, "No, I won't". Ultimately, it turned out that P dances with Figlia, and two steps of that routine are d...

~~ TMI Ahead ~~ That infection that I had been having every cycle last year, has returned. I had an evil bout in December, and since then, I have been having a recurrence again.  Last year, I did have some investigations, and while a bacterial infection was identified, no other levels went wonky. I don't have thyroid issues, and my blood sugar levels are absolutely in range. I do not have hygiene issues either. Then why was the infection recurring? I had to take antibiotics in December. In January, I only used an ointment, and did not take antibiotics.   I now strongly suspect that wonky hormone levels during the cycle are somehow causing this? I think that the stressful episode from a couple of years ago, has somehow thrown my endocrine system off-balance because it is from that time of discovery that this whole every-cycle-joy started. That anxiety produced a lot of health issues in these two years, and I think this is just a lingerer I have? In...

Figlia has again picked up the topic of death and dying these last few days. Since my MIL keeps asking her to not ask about "such topics", she follows me and asks her questions in hushed voices. Asking he to not ask a question is actually not such a great idea at killing the topic. Answering her is. But death is not an easy topic to talk about. So there is a neat barrage of questions she has: Do I have to die? Why should I have to die? When will I die?  She has a theory that people live upto 100 years, and she keeps asking people their age lately, even the visitors to our house! Little do the people know that she is probably calculating how much time they have left.  Her questions on dying go a bit deeper. What happens to us after we die? She has discovered the concept of body and soul, and that the soul stays even if the body is gone. What will I become after I die? What will they do me after I die (that is, with the body)? She has been alternating b...

A couple of days before I was to depart, I had been considering taking a hotel accommodation (specifically for the day the conference ended because my train the next day was early morning). Since the venue was about an hour away from the train station, I thought I could max out my sleeping time, by shifting from the venue to a hotel within the city. My second issue was that organizers were giving shared accommodation, and I was not sure of who I would get saddled with (I have never shared accommodation with someone else in any of the conferences I have attended before), so I decided on a better idea.  In the three day conference, I shifted to a hotel, on day two, rather than the third day. It was too good of me to have followed my gut feeling. Accommodation at the venue was shizzed out, and staying at the hotel gave me the privacy, freedom and flexibility I needed, and a great bed, and a great view. I used up my first hotel night to go to this plush buffet that was highly reco...

I leave today afternoon to attend a conference outstation. And this trip was not planned. December end when I travelled to attend a conference, I had met someone who said she will send me details of a conference at her institution for February.  And she did send me the details, and here I am, going away for the weekend. Not shoddy at all. M had fever, these last couple of days. He has become extremely naughty.  Figlia, it turns out, would like a very very very slow start to her morning, but the world gets in her way. Every morning lately has been a struggle to get her ready for school. I really feel like a wound up doll, just operating as the functioning part of a well-oiled machine.