My Lady of the Lantern

This week's been zipping by. It was Monday when the week started, and today's Thursday already! DH has been coming home from work later than usual for the last couple of days. The first night this happened, I let my irritation show (and hence undid the entire exercise I am doing to hold my temper). I was more balanced last night, and didn't really talk about it till much later. The only reason why I haven't gone full baboon on this is because my mum is here. And so there is help at hand with Figzy even when DH does not show up on time.  At work, I am wrapped up in an assignment that pertains to the workshop I coordinated last year. The 'things' had to be finished earlier, but I sort of got busy with other things as well (I promise you I was not hibernating), and a good six months plus have passed. The delay is significant (However, it is not anomalous with this workshop) and hence the publishing bit is now really on my head. This pressure is when I ...

It's been a while since I did ICLW. And a way longer while since I wrote an ICLW introduction. Hi to everyone who are coming over from ICLW (and otherwise too)!  I am Elsie, and currently parenting after infertility. My daughter just turned two years old. I went back to full-time work when my daughter turned six months old.  I am mother of two, but parenting one because I suffered neonatal loss with my first-born. Before that, I grappled with unexplained infertility for a few years (count the entire bracket of time I was trying for a child), and underwent all the joyful prodding, pricking and fancy wand treatments that go with infertility.  My kid is quite the handful, and we hope to have another child, (though I keep going back and forth on this), and well my body's cooperation is legendary in this regard.   You can read my entire bio on one of the zillion tabs on my blog for a more detailed timeline.  Have a good day!

I have been on the mend.  I am not sure if that sense did escape my previous posts, but I have just passed a good dose of the blues. I cannot pin-point what triggered it, but a multitude of otherwise small things made it worse, and it wasn't good when I was in the thick of it.  I am much, much better now. And two big things happened over the last couple of weeks.  The first thing was that I deleted Whats.app from my cell phone. It was an instant sigh of relief. The other thing was that I started a "Swami" kind of book - a first of its kind for me. (I despise reading motivational and/or Paulo Coelho-ish and/or all that Guruji blather books) The latter thing led me to exploring Chakra meditation, and I haven't loss steam on it till now. - - -  Reference in a different line of conversation led me to think a person I was once close to. I haven't been in touch with her for years now. But we have mutual friends, and that leads snippets of her li...

My mum and I have a dream connection. There are instances when unbeknownst to both of us, a related theme has been seen by us and the connection unravels only when we share the dream days later.  Sometime in the latter half of December 2010, my mum and I intersected on the dream line again. Her 'story' was different to me. My 'story' was different. However, the driving emotion of the dreams was same to both of us.   So far, I had been looking at her dream via her interpretation of it.  The truth is I hadn't thought of this in a few years now. Except that today in my sleep, in early dawn hours, my interpretation of her dream just unraveled itself. It brought out a cold fact. It brought out something I refuse to let myself dwell on in my waking life, chapters blocked indefinitely.  I have never stopped myself from hovering over those months ever. But it appears to me that I automatically skip tracks.  I don't plan to tell my mother ov...

This week has just rolled hard on skates for me. I can't believe it is Saturday already. -- Figzy overcame a bout of bowel upset in the early-half of this week. I had no clue as to what caused it till someone told me that their similar-aged toddler was cutting molars. It's the same for us. Second molars, I think? -- We are now done with major vaccinations. What a relief. -- I haven't really taken up potty training actively with her, but this week has been quite good in that department and I hope to sustain the momentum. Figzy came home diaperless (as she sometimes does) from the daycare on Thursday evening. Rather than making her wear the diaper, I took her to the loo every hour or so. She did the deed, and well, there were no accidents whatsoever. Her first trip was a blank call, but the rest were spot-on.  Yesterday evening, she was wearing a diaper (pant-style, the usual) and I still took her to the loo. She did the deed and then pulled u...

Want to know how my Sunday is like?  Ever since Figzy discovered that there comes a time every week where mum has an off and Dad goes away to work, she cries to see him going or gone. I haven't set up a tally, but for very long, every Sunday, I take Figzy out of the house (that's around 9:30 a.m.) and we roam the neighbourhood, while her Dad pulls out his car from the parking lot and departs for the day. This routine ensures that we completely skip the "I am crying coz Daddy's gone" activity. Eventually we land up in a park close to our home, which has a few rides. There are no swings, but a few things that Figzy can now play with without much intervention from me. That's when I get to sit for a while. A family often invites Figzy (and hence me) to play with their kid who is almost the same age as Figzy, and we easily kill an hour or more there.  But us going home is completely Figzy's turf.  When we come back to home "as usual"...

I was involved in a tiff with someone at work.  I actually had no idea that I had rubbed salt in her eyes till I landed in her cabin for some routine follow-up and got tonged by her. She yelled at me. In hindsight, I feel I should have kept quiet, but I acted on impulse, and lost my cool. And then there were two yelling orangutans in the cabin. I gained my senses fast, and I came out from the cabin.  The wisest thing I did was to immediately report to my Director, and that saved me any chances of her reporting the incident first and dressing the whole thing her way. But she has made me feel very small. I felt slighted. I tried to forget the episode. As the days have passed, I have felt better. But just looking at her makes me feel stressed. She is pretty slick. My sense to speak to my superior was really the wisest thing coz her special talent is presenting facts her way.  How do you deal with such people? What if avoiding them is not an option? ...