The P Word

I haven't blogged in the longest time. That is because I won the lottery and so decided to travel the world. I'm writing this from a tree house in South Nambisia. Ok, no that's a lie. I didn't win the lottery. I'm writing this from the foot of my bed, at home. I haven't blogged because I got pregnant and had a baby. Surprise!!!!!! Well for the readers who aren't my friends or family who didn't know about it. That is if I do have readers who aren't my friends or family.

This is sort of part 1 of my whole pregnancy-baby series. I've run out of people who wants to listen to me go on and on about the whole thing so I'm just going to force you all to read it here.

Pregnancy, for me, was wonderful. I did have a tiny bit of throwing up and bloating and all the icky factors going on. But, for the most of it, it was pretty nice.

Here is a bunch of stuff I liked and didn't like so much about being pregnant.

Food 

 I came, I saw, I ate... And then I ate some more. I ate more than I had ever eaten in my whole life. I like to think I maintained a nice balance between healthy and not-so-healthy food. ( H (my Husband) is probably going "Yeah, right!" ). H did try to keep me off junk though as hard as he could. But he wasn't very successful, though.

"Are you telling me I can't have a chocolate doughnut? Me, the woman who is carrying life within me, the life of your child, who I have to push out of me. All by myself. One chocolate doughnut?"

It wasn't like I was eating like some sort of unstoppable monster, but this one time we went out with some people and I ended up eating off my plate, H's plate and everyone else's plate.  I don't think they minded, though. I had my baby take the bait for me.

Once when I had finished a pack of Kitkat,
H says: You finished the whole thing???
Me: No, I gave you two and I ate two."
H: Uhhh, it was a pack of five.
Me: Uhhh, the baby ate one, duh!
Which is technically not true. Baby had two, I just had one.

I stopped watching MasterChef or reading any books or watching any movie that had any association with food, because it literally pained me to read about food that I have no access to. I may or may not have cried looking at a picture of a cupcake.

Belly: I loved my belly. My big round belly, which was so so big around the end that people would just get uncomfortable looking at me. I loved it. While some people choose to hide it, I loved to flaunt it. 

Sure, there were some days where I felt like a big huge whale, especially when I once took a good 5 mins trying to get up from bed, trying to roll myself out.I also got stuck on a swing once and had to wait till somebody could come and pull me out. But on the other days, I felt beautiful. Like I had never felt before. 

I haven't done a lot of things in my life that are mindblowing and that takes a lot of responsibility. But this, growing a human life inside me was one of the hugest and scariest thing I had taken up. And it made me proud. And it makes me feel beautiful.

Plus, I love maternity clothes! I don't know why I haven't been wearing them my whole life. Super comfortable and really cute too.

Mood Swings - I had some really bad mood swings. My first trimester was filled with paranoia and fear and a lot of bitchiness, especially towards H (Sorry!). 

The second trimester was more mellow and less like a deranged person. It was more of random bouts of crying and laughing, so basically pretty much like how I used to be before I got pregnant. 

This one time though, I was showing H this really dumb, not-even-that-funny meme that someone sent me, and I just couldn't stop laughing. H laughed along with me for a while and then stopped and just sat there waiting for me to stop. Except I couldn't. I was going on and on that I literally couldn't breathe. And that scared me and so I started crying before I had even stopped laughing. Poor H. I don't think he had any idea what was going on but he managed pretty well.

Life within me 

There is literally no way to describe how it feels when the baby kicks. Like someone inside you poking their fingers or toes on your insides, so hard that you can see it from the outside. Freaky.As.Shit. 

I once described it like aliens and said it looked like how it would if you had a snake under your blanket, and then felt really guilty about having compared my baby to aliens and snakes.

 It's precious, it makes you feel wonderful, it actually is when I felt certain that ok yes, there is definitely a baby inside me, these guys aren't like pulling a prank on me or something. 

I have so many videos of my tummy moving that I send to my folks until they're like "you really don't have to send us a hundred 20-minute videos of your tummy everyday! We get it!" 

You're so happy and emotional at each kick.. And then, the baby discovers your bladder. And thinks "ooh look, a trampoline!!" And literally bounces on it so hard that you feel that you'll probably be giving birth to your bladder first. Bladder kicks and backbone kicks are Not fun.

Niceness  - I love how everyone is so nice to you when you're pregnant. My dad didn't yell at me even once during the whole nine months. H put up with me and all my nonsense cravings and mood swings and didn't say anything even when I annoyed the hell out of him. 

I got pampered like hell. I think the only two times a girl really gets pampered by everyone is when she's about to get married and when she's about to pop a baby. Everyone is like oh Don't stand too long, sit, lie down, relax, eat whatever you like, sleep, smile and listen to music. Things that I'm really good at doing!

What's in a name? - I Hated picking baby names. It was by far the most stressful thing during those months. It is so much easier when you're looking for names for your friends' kids. But when its your own, nothing is good enough. I would absolutely love a name one day and then it would make me want to throw up two days later. 

I must've gone over a thousand names, read through name books and browsed baby name websites. I started paying close attention to the credits that roll out at the end of movies, scanning for nice names. 

I made my cousins and nieces and nephew list out the names of all the kids in their classes. I even had a dream once where I have the baby and then we name her a particular name. And for a while we decided on that name because it seemed like a sign, me dreaming about it and all. And then that name made me sick after a while too. 

I also had a weird habit of typing out a name I like on Facebook search and seeing if the people with that name look like nice people or not. We finally managed to pick one boy name and one girl name, after picking many many chits. And I'd randomly call out those names when I go out for my walks. In my happy voice and my angry voice. We finally ended up naming the baby the first name my husband had ever suggested.

And that's all for the first part of this preggy-baby series. Pregnancy was actually quite nice. I really wouldn't mind being pregnant again if someone else would do the delivering the baby part for me. There was nothing "fun" about that part. But more on that next time!

Life After Marriage

I started writing this post ages ago. Never got around to finishing it. I figured I better post it now before my life changes all over again and this would seem irrelevant. 

It has been a year and a half since I got married. And I don't think the fact that I'm a wife has still settled in. Though there has been a few random changes in me. Few things that were new or weird to me. Here are the things that are different since I tied the knot.

FAT : For people who thought "This girl is so skinny, when'll she ever get some flesh on her bones", your wait is over. I am officially fat. I know slightly overweight people will look at me and scoff thinking "you call that fat?". But for a person who could still fit into her 6th grade tights at age 27, yes I am fat now. Forget bout 6th grade clothes, I don't even fit into the 100s of clothes I got just before the marriage. At first I thought my clothes were shrinking because of the water or something. Then in a picture, I noticed my upper arm is now the size of both my upper arms together. And I had to throw away 3 pairs of jeans because I couldn't put the button on. These are things I have never ever witnessed before. It was almost scary. All of my sisters' clothes used to be too loose for me. Now I don't even fit into their tiny-miny clothes. I've become a friggin giant! The saddest moment was when my collar bones were no longer visible. They were the favouritest part of my body. And now they've gone, without a warning. All the aunties who kept bugging me to put on more weight are now like "whoaaaa, don't put on any more, okay?" I thought I was the kinda person who'd never get fat. Apparently not. Thankfully, my husband has also joined me in this fat journey. So we don't look weird together.

PET : The only pets I've ever had up until then were dogs. That stayed outside. Who I pet and played and fed on some days. My dad took care of them all the other days. I was completely oblivious to their existence on most days. Until I got married to a crazy animal lover. The first thing he got was a tiny little frog. Which was cute. It hardly ever did anything. Feeding it was fun and I didn't have to do the cleaning. And then we got a tiny little turtle. Which was adorable too. It kept escaping from its container and we'd frantically search for it. We figured the frog and the turtle could be friends. All very cute until the turtle chewed the frog's leg off. After a tearful burial of the frog, we went and got a rabbit. A tiny lil adorable fur ball. Who would climb up our back while we were sleeping and curl up in my arms like a little

baby. Who shit like crazy and peed all over our until then clean room. Who died on the third day, before we could even name him. The rabbit dying was just too much for me to take. No more pets, I said. And then proceeded to get two more rabbits (both which died), another turtle (who died) and finally a snake. Yes, a snake. Wasn't my idea. Don't even ask. And no, I do not touch it. We now live with a cat. And people who know me knows that I'm not exactly a cat-lover. So I'd rather not comment on the cat. Or this whole blog post will end up being about it.

SILENCE : The place where I live now is very very quiet. My in-laws are quiet people and everyone does everything quite quietly. Back in my house, I usually wake up to the sound of a toddler singing at the top of her voice, another one crying out her lungs,the neighbor and his singing class, the mixie in the kitchen whirring, the maids chattering, the t.v blaring, the dog barking madly, my dad yelling at someone or the other and my mom laughing hysterically on the phone. We also have a radio in every room. There are days when I'm back home and I miss the silence. But on most days, the silence here is almost deafening. I find it especially hard to fart or burp loudly because I feel the sound echoes.Although sometimes I feel the silence is soothing.

LIVING WITH A BOY : I grew up in a house full of girls. Even if I go visiting my cousins, I have a total of 38 girl cousins and some 9 or 10 boy cousins. (It took me a while to calculate that) So life for me had been predominantly around girls. Most of my closest friends are also girls. So life with a boy, I figured was going to be really really new for me. Surprisingly though, the boys in this house are a lot like me. In fact, I feel I'm messier and slobbier than them. Boys are surprisingly neat. I'm the one who usually leaves the wet towel on the bed. And the leaving the toilet seat up doesn't really bother me because it makes sense to do that because there are more men in the house. But then again there has been so many instances where I've been surprised by something my husband or his brother does which has had me raising my eyebrows like "Really? You're allowed to do that?"
Boys don't seem to care much about a lotta stuff like girls do. Like they don't go out and buy a new pair of shoes and then find the need to show it everyone in the family and discuss all its wonderfulness. They're very particular about their stuff. If you move their things from the middle of the room into a more reasonable location, they get all mad about it. And its not like you mean to forget where you moved it. I discovered a lot about boys and their underwear habits. Which I'd rather not discuss here and get murdered by my husband.

FOOTBALL, CARS AND BOY MOVIES : I used to watch football even before I got married, but then that was because this game was so much easier to understand than cricket. And also, David Beckham. Now I'm proud to say, I know names of players who aren't David Beckham. I know most of the teams in English Premier League. I know what an English Premier League is. I have watched matches from the beginning to the end without siding with the team who had the cuter players. I have watched a match in a public place around other football enthusiasts and not felt completely out of place. I have also worn a football jersey on many occasions. (Though my husband is always scared I'll spill something on it) And I also somewhat kind of know what offside means too. Its when someone scores a goal and noone shouts and scream excitedly.

I didn't know much about cars at all. When someone once asked what my favorite car is, I googled the most expensive car or something and learnt the name Lamborgini. Now, I can identify some cars. And I get it right most of the time. And I found out that the year makes a difference in the model of the car. And now when I hear Ford, I don't always think of my dad's dear old Ford that he drove us around in for 14 years, I think Mustang. I think of Shelby or Cobra.
I used to be a hard-core fan of chick flicks. I change channels until I see a movie with nice bright lighting and and upbeat background music. My action movie knowledge is limited to Speed and Mission Impossible, maybe. In the past two years, I've watched more action movies to make up

for all the action movies I've missed out on my whole life. And I've found that I loved most of them. I was completely floored by Iron Man. He is absolutely the coolest superhero ever. Sometimes I bargain with my husband and make a deal for one boy movie if he watches one girl movie with me. But it doesn't faze him. He falls asleep sometimes but most of the time he holds his court pretty well. Once I made him watch Pirate Fairy, a Tinkerbell cartoon, as a joke because he made me watch a lot of boy movies in a row. And he got more interested in the cartoon than I did. I thought I'd just make him watch for a few minutes until he begs me to stop it. Instead he made me watch a good half hour and watched the rest of it on his own. My evil plan completely back fired.

LATE NIGHTS OUT : My dad wasn't exactly strict. But he wasn't exactly  the type who'd let us roam about outside after a decent hour. It wasn't really a big deal because I didn't really have anywhere to go either. But after marriage, when my husband suggested we go eat an ice cream at 2 in the morning, I was surprised and beyond excited. I've seen stuff like that in movies and I knew guys from my college who'd tell me about their midnight long drives and junk food rounds. Walking down that road in the silence of the night was one of the most romantic and exciting things ever. My husband was surprised and I'm not sure he understood what it meant to me. What I loved the most was that I felt safe.

So that's some of the changes I've gone through after marriage. There are so many many more, some mention-able and some not. But the fact is that I'm still changing. Everyday. I'm figuring things out as it comes, I'm making new discoveries. And I think that's what marriage is about. I'm not the person I was one and a half years ago. And I'm sure one and a half year from now, I'm going to be even more different. Life never seem to stay the same for too long nowadays. I'll see you guys at the next milestone. :)

Shame On Me

I know I haven’t posted in a while. (Well, that new year’s resolution sure bombed.) I keep thinking of stuff to post and I’d be like naah that’s no good, noo, that’s too personal, uh noo, that’s too embarrassing. And that’s when I came up with the idea for this post. A bunch of embarrassing things about me. For your enjoyment. And also because I’m hoping to go into hibernation and by the time I’m back everyone would’ve forgotten about this post.

-I cannot tell time

Well, this isn’t entirely true. I can tell time. In a second if it’s a digital watch. After a minute or two or three in an analogue one. I hate when random people come up to me and ask for the time. I wore a digital watch all the way till 12^th grade and I think for a while in college too. I don’t know why people still don’t wear them. They are the singlemost amazing inventions ever. I mean a watch with a build in light… and an alarm!! How ultimately cool is that? I hate those watches that don’t even have any numbers in them. Though I own one of them.  K

-I thought anonymous was a person

You know how you sometimes read quotes and in the end its written “By Anonymous”. I always thought Anonymous was the name of a great scholar or poet or something. It does sound an awful lot like one of those kind of names. Like Archimedes or Achilles. Anonymous.

-I have put a lot of crap on my face

I’ve been pimple prone for over 15 years now. And I admit that I’ve put a lot of weird stuff on my face to try and get rid of my ache. Like tomatos or milk. Or chalk powder. Or Chocolate. Vicks Vaporub. Lipstick. Toothpaste. And… ok I’ve also put saliva on my pimples. My own saliva. A girl in my school told me that works. I’m not proud of it. And also it didn’t work. Nothing does. L

-I hate bath time

I have always hated baths. My dad literally drag me and lock me up in the bathroom until I took a bath. I’d just sit there for a while, look at myself in the mirror, splash a lil water on my feet and face, wrap a towel around my head and walk out after 10 minutes. When I went to live in hostel, It got a little complicated because there were a few of these judge-y girls who had nothing better to in life than to sit and figure out if I have had a bath or not Or when if I would ever do my laundry! (Uh, that’s what people go home for, ya idiots). I’d do the same trick I did with my dad. But those girls figured it out. And they actually asked me about it. I was a little embarrassed. But then I got over it. And they got over it. I only ever felt the need to shower when its unbearably hot, if I’ve gotten baby pooped on, If my hair smells funny, If its my birthday, Or somebody’s wedding or my wedding. Or if I’m married. Yes, I take baths everyday like a normal person now. For the sake of my husband atleast.

-The 199 kind of prices work on me

You know how shops price things one number lower than a round number? Like 99 or 199. It never clicks for me that that’s almost like a 100 or 200. I see 99 and I’m like wow only two digits, so cheap!!I guess they invented that system for suckers like me.

-I have tied heavy objects to the ends of my hair to try and straighten it.

I have also tried to iron it with an actual ironbox. But then I guess everyone has at some point.

-People dressed as animals or those huge mascot things scare me a little because I was chased by one when I was little. A round creepy purple thing. And also a clown told me not to pick my nose.

-When people join together and pray loudly, I sorta just move my lips because I don’t know the words to too many prayers. This is a little troublesome especially during my wedding, where we had all these group prayers none of which I knew the words to, and the camera guy kept zooming in on my face when I was trying real hard to lip sync. They helped disclose that little secret of mine to a lotta people with that video.

So that’s all the embarrassing things about me. Or atleast the ones I’m willing to put up on the internet. I have a few more posts on the way, which needs a little bit more tweaking. So don’t write me off already, ok?

If you want you can comment and tell me about a few of your embarrassing secrets so that I don’t look like the only idiot around here. J