My Lady of the Lantern

Every evening, daughter and I rush out of our flat like ants out of a soaked ant hill ( I am obsessed with ants. ). And well, in an attempt to discourage her repeat begging to be lifted in my arms, I let her wander once we are down the stairs, rather than to pick her up/ or make her walk, take her to the park and deposit her there, expecting play from her. Of course, children rain down and my daughter fights off all that hugging, touching, prodding by running to Mommy and asking to be held. So I let her wander. Suits me just fine. She plays as she pleases, and I get to supervise and intervene only at points of alarm. Sometimes, we even make it to the park.  The best thing is that 'pick me up' frequency has gone down. A few evenings before, dear daughter added a new item to the list of ' Things my mother never thought I will eat '. She got down to her knees and bent her face in a thing I won't mention and munched in a mouthful of loose gravel. Epic spitt...

*TMI Alert - reference to bleeding* When I woke up today morning - a jolting realization of 'wet', I immediately rushed to the next room to change my tampon. It was not wake-up time yet. The clock showed that it was just past 3 a.m. Once I was done, I roamed about the dark house, and came back to bed. In the darkness I saw two silhouettes of different lengths on the bed. The baby continued to sleep, and I slipped onto my side of the bed and tried to get back to sleeping.  I was so happy to be far away from that time when I bled like crazy, and I was frustrated not just for the bleeding but because after a whole sleepless night of disgusting battle with menstruation , the child was stirring and ready for a feed/activity, and I was utterly drained.  I felt better for the very fact that I could go back to bed.  This aspect of post-partum bleeding is one of things heavily weighing on my mind regards another pregnancy. I am completely wiped off and do not wan...

The timesuck that the book of faces* is, it's been adding to another sort of agony lately. How do you block someone who is not on your friend list? I mean, the other lady is not sending me any spam or doing anything. She just sits on the profile of hers, and yet her mere mention turns me into an agitated porcupine.  I was not kidding about the negative looping inside my brain. This lady, let's imaginatively call her Mary. Mary attended the same school as me from the word "start school" to "pass out from school". I knew she existed and the feeling was mutual. We never did have any anti winds flowing between us. Mary was on the plump side and wore thick spectacles. We smiled at each other and that was that - hardly any other interaction. We met in another kind of academic setting four years later. I enrolled in a short-term computer course, and attended evening classes. The batch size was small.  And there was Mary. Mary had lost the puppy fat...

It has taken me a brief while to realize this, but Figlia has pushed her sleeptime by a good 90 minutes.  I mean, there was once upon a time when I would take her to bed at 8, and she would be asleep max by 8:30, or at most by 8:45, but it appears that she is not interested in the bed thingy till 9:30 p.m. lately. Since, her morning wake-ups are dodgy (her sleeping late or early does not affect the fact that she sings rooster around 5:30), I like her to be in bed earlier than later. (But hey, lately even though she wakes at 5:30, she is interested in closing her eyes again.) The plus side of this is that she gets to meet Daddy in the night before she sleeps.  I can only go with the flow, and that is all that I am going to do. Last night I attempted to take her to bed at 8:45 pm. She got down from the bed, opened the door and walked straight out. Then when I tried to take her to bed half an hour later she got down again.  Go with the flow, obviously. ...

I was googling about 'Eye of Cassandra' when I chanced upon texts related to Hector and Andromache and the Trojan War.  I have read about the Trojan War. I know through that reference about Helen and all of that. Beyond the story of the crafty horse, I had also seen the movie . Incidentally, I believed the movie version of the story, especially about what happened to Andromache and remaining royals.  In the movie, it is shown that the remaining royals are leaving through some secret door. There have been deaths far too painful and many, but these people are shown escaping. Later, there is the scene of Achilles being shot an arrow in his foot.  I vividly remember Hector holding his infant son in one of the movie scenes, after his return from Greece.  And just like that, reading about Cassandra led me to the story of Andromache's son from Hector, Astyanax.  After the war, Astyanax was hurled down the walls of the Fort . I felt my heart jolt, j...

I look at your picture, and sometimes, like it just did right about now, my heart twists at those eyes tight shut. I wish I saw you with your eyes open. How were they?

Figlia has diarrhoea. I lose my marbles when she has diarrhoea. Her December problems were an offshoot of the diarrhoea then. And that memory is pretty fresh.  Thankfully, she has responded well to a medicine  this time. Her frequency went down from 8 times a day to 3-4 times, but if I withdraw the medicine, the frequency increases.  The better part of this post is that she is eating well, and is playful. Her activity has not taken a hit, but I am definitely looking for a way to get over this diarrhoea business soon. It has been a little more than two weeks now, and it is a good window for the darned thing to go away.

Figlia has found her voice. She tests it with -  a) shrieking b) screaming c) shrieking She could just stand in the middle of the room, and test it out. It was funny a couple of times, but today DH told her that it was not a good thing. Well, she responded by shrieking about 30 minutes after the thought was transmitted to her in adult language.  - - - -  It is amazing to watch her trace her path to the neighbourhood's daily needs shop. The park is close by and she just takes off, enters the place and points at their refrigerator. But she has learnt the way. She locates that  place. Awesome! - - - - Diarrhoea still persists. She has responded well to a particular medication, but as I experienced recently, if I withdraw the medicine, the frequency increases.  - - - -  I let Figlia play as she would like in the park - which includes her playing and rolling and beating the dust and raising clouds, but not mud.  (Figlia ...