Can Crying ever be cute?

My daughter is going through terrible two's right now.Wow ! never heard of this term when I was in India and saw so many kids born in my own close family and going through the same age.

I have no idea what goes into the brains of toddlers of this age that they are always at the verge of severe melt down and nothing you can do at that time to mollify them.They just decide to cry and cry and yes keep crying.
Anytime I say "no" to some thing I am prepared to get the shrill crying for at least 15-20 minutes.This becomes even more horrific at night when I cant apply the policy of "cry-it-out".

Oh My God ,I am going through that terrible situation right now.It is as if she disagrees with every thing and anything I say or ask her to do.Seems like she disagrees with her self too at times.Now there are thing she can do on her own and there are things which she cant do.Her problem is she has got a very independent mind(that is good to some extent) and wants to do every thing on her own,for example make oatmeal for her self "on her own".There are several such things which I dont even have the list for.Of course I will say no to those risky things and there she goes again .

One of the major reasons of meltdowns is putting her in the car seat.She wants to sit like mommy and daddy.Now here we have to be very stiff and forcefully put her in the car seat even if she does not want to.This has become so annoying that we avoid going out to places unless necessary.
All these so called "terrible two's" got me to thinking why is this concept not so well know in India.I came up with few logic of my own.Firstly there are so many people ,family , friends and kids around that children get distracted easily from their own tantrums and secondly there are several less reasons to give them the chance of crying.There is no theory of child cars seat so from the very beginning they know that they have to sit on elders lap.Their mental frame is set up like that.Here once they get their own toddler's seat now they want more than that.It is like offer some one to sit on the floor and after some time the person becomes so rightful that asks for the chair to sit even though he is not allowed to do so.

I am trying to keep my composer and tackling the situation as calmly as I can but I need to vent this some where.

Sandesh

Never in my life had I thought that I would ever love cooking. Yes before getting married I would cook things every once in a while just to flaunt my cooking skills (which I guess is ingrained in my genes ha ha: D).

Over this weekend, here is what I made, and it turned out to be an absolute hit. Since early childhood, I happened to live with lots of Bengali friends and families and their sweets are well known all over India. Sweet, simple, elegant and delectably pure sweets. One of them is “Sandesh” or “Sondesh”.I remember my father bringing packets of these sweets and they would disappear overnight .However I never got to eat more than 2-3 being the youngest sibling and smallest tummy. Without going any further, I would love to share this recipe with all the sweet lovers who have the real taste for just simple milk based non-complex sweet.

Here’s what you are going to need:-

Milk – 8 cups

Lemon juice - 4-5 tablespoons

Saffron

Sugar -1/2 cup

Cardamom powder- 1 teaspoon

As simple as this.

1)Bring milk to a boil and spoil it using the lemon juice.Once the milk is curdled do not over cook to avoid making a tough kind of "cheena" or cheese.Once the milk is curdled drain out all the water using a cheese cloth.Run cold water to stop further cooking and to also remove the taste of the lime juice.Squeeze out all the water as much as you can with your hand.No need to use the heavy pressure to extract excess water .The drained cheese should feel very soft in texture.

2)Now mix the cheese with your hand and bring it to even smoother texture .A good exercise for your arms and hands.It Should look just like the log below.


3)Now add 1/2 cup of sugar and cardamom powder and mix some more gently.No need to be vigorous this time.Just mix to bring cheese and sugar together.




4)Heat up a non stick skillet and on medium high heat drop your cheese and sugar mixture in it.Keep stirring constantly.

5)After 2-3 minutes your will see that mixture has started melting .This is because of the water released from the sugar in the cheese.Keep stirring constantly as even a blink of an eye can stick the cheese into the pan and cause the color change which would not look appealing to the eyes at all.
6)It takes around 7-8 minutes to dry up the sugar water and you will see the cheese mixture coming out like a dough while still looking a little sticky.Please resist the urge of cooking more to make it absolutely dry.This is the very crucial point where if you over cook the cheese mixture will become crumbly.This sweet is supposed to have a little raw earthy tasting cheese.
7) Put the mixture back on the wooden board and use your muscle power one more time(Dont worry not much this time and this will be it :) ) .Bring the mixture into a smooth consistency.You will see that the dough will start leaving the surface of the wooden board and your hands will become very oily.That is because the dough will start oozing oil once achieving the right texture.
8)Just like the picture below.
8)Now divide the dough into 24 parts just like below.
9)Using the pressure of your both palms press and form the ball at the same time.Once you see that the balls are smooth without much frays ,press a little with your palms to give it a flat look.Give your thumb impression in the middle.
10)Stick some saffron strands in the middle to give the real look of a real Sandesh.And here you have it.
There are few tips which I think are important in making this sweet:-

1)Always use wooden board to mix the dough as the wood brings the right consistency in any milk and oil based sweet.This I learnt from my teacher who always said that wood soaks up the extra oil and gives the product the right texture.
2)Do not over cook.
3)Using home made cheese gives the real authentic taste and smoothness to these sandesh.

I can not tell about you but for me I have the real taste tester at home all the time standing just behind me so that I can finish cooking and give her some to taste.She can sense when I am cooking ordinary chapati-sabjee and when some thing special.That is the time when she dosent even like to watch her favorite program "Barni".She will keep standing with both her hands spread and a shuttle twinkle in her eyes telling me "mommy your dish is not successful until I approve it".
11)She eats and gives me an honest smile of approval which tells me that she liked it and I feel all the work I have done to cook some thing nice was worth it.
This post is my contribution to JFI - Saffron event hosted by DK.

My 11 month old Baby

Earlier I used to write about my daughter’s monthly progress. Recently I have noticed that I have stopped that either because she is growing up very fast and her progress in so overwhelming that I do not know from where to start, what to write and what not to write . Her every single activity makes me astonished and leaves me mesmerized.

In short, I am trying to put down her progress.

She is very active and full of energy. She is always in a blur of movement. One moment she wants to sit with us and the next moment she wants to play on the floor. Recently she has learnt to smile a lot and would always keep dazzling every one with her cute smile. The other week we went to the doctor’s office and for the first time she responded to the doctor’s hello. She smiled back and made me extremely happy. Her curiosity has no end at all. She wants to touch anything and every thing.

These days like a mouth purifier she always has to have some thing in her mouth. I keep giving her pieces of apple to chew upon, so that her mouth would not be empty. If any time it is empty, she picks up any thing (most of the time dirty things) and starts chewing. Out of habit, I keep asking her all the time to open her mouth so that I can check if she is eating anything dirty. She has found out that trick and every now and then, she will come to me and even without asking she will open her tiny mouth saying “AHH-AHH”. However if she is chewing unwanted thing she will make me run around her and hide from me and wont open her mouth easily. I cannot describe that fight between daughter and mother; you will have to see it to believe it.

Her vocabulary is increasing every day.It has around 10 -20 words. Like mama,dada, tadan,kagan atta-ta, baka-baka,aga-aga etc-etc. Some times she want me to hold her and if I am in the middle of some thing I keep consoling her saying “I am done” and that I will soon come and pick her up .So she also says “I ang done” of course with lots of drag. Whenever we go to a store, she starts babbling and my husband is totally against shutting her up. So if she is with her daddy and I am in a far away aisle it is never difficult for me to find them, I just have to follow her “ tadan-tadan”.God know what that means. We are yet to decipher “tadan-tadan” and all the words she speaks.

Today I was getting bored so I thought we would play hide-and-seek. I asked her to hide at the corner of the table and I pretended to seek her. Now teaching her this game has become a big headache for me. Since then she wants to hide all the time near that corner and wants me to seek her. Whenever she is not around me for some time, I immediately realize that she must be hiding there and not to my surprise, she will be there. So now, baby has learnt how to play hide-and-seek (yay!!!)

She can now point out some of her body parts like head,tummy,hand,nose .She can clap her hands, pat her head ,rub her tummy and tap her knees when asked .I am so proud of her. Babies at this age just begin to point out things but this baby is one step ahead.

She rotates her wrist to say “ta-ta” to her daddy. In fact as soon as I will take her out of the door she starts rotating her wrist to say ta-ta.So I am not sure if she is connecting departure with “ta-ta” or she is just being a parrot. When I ask her to call daddy she takes her hand to her ears and pretend as if she is saying hello and calling daddy. She looks adorable at that time.

She points out where milk comes from and that always breaks me into a big laughter. At night when she gets hungry, she just screams, lifts my shirt until I feed her. Later she buries her head in my shoulder and then calms down.

I am writing this specially because when, a few years down the line, she will be ashamed to be seen with me in public, I can read this and comfort myself with the memory that there were such times too!

When did you feel more freedom?

A person like me will always have a very hard time to live the life without feeling restricted. Some times, it is better to open up, put your heart on the table, and put your priorities first. The outcome may not be pleasant all the time but at least you will not loose your identity as an independent person. However, independence depends on several other factors like financial freedom, your confidence level, the responsibilities you have and most importantly how you choose to pursue those responsibilities.

When I was in college, I would hear from people that women are never self-dependent and at that time, it did not make any sense to me. I always thought that after finishing college I will have an independent life of my own in which I will do whatever I want. I was always very confident to get a decent job, have financial freedom and live my life .Unfortunately that did not happen. As soon as I got married, things just changed. I left India and that changed almost every thing. Firstly, the legalities did not let me work and then along with that I developed so low confidence inside me that now I think I am capable of nothing. People will say that I am just making excuses not to work hard enough and indulging myself in self-pity but in my heart, I know that is not true.

Simple things make me feel that I am just not fit for any thing. For example, the thought has been injected inside me so many times that I cannot even learn how to drive a car that now I am scared to death to even touch the steering wheel of the car. In the U.S. if you cant drive a car ,specially in a city like I live in, half of the freedom is gone just there .Since you cant go any where ,unless public transportation is good, your desires and demands are all suppressed. If you do not have some self-respect and if you do not mind bugging people it is fine.

Diminishing confidence depends on how much faith your loved ones have in you.Some things are not spoken or said ,they are just understood. If you feel that people think you are stupid, it is natural to develop low confidence and that takes away all the freedom from your life in one way or the other. Just the thought of being worthless ruins the whole life on the other hand just the thought of being worth full brings glimmer of hope and happiness in life

Life Security!

People want to get a job to achieve financial independence and at the same time also security for the future.People should think more about the future than the current age as according to me old age is more important and miserable in several respect.People need more help and that requires more money.When you are young body can take all kinds of hardship,but as body ages it needs more pampering.

Therefore one of the important economical planing should be to calculate enough saving to live a carefree life once you retire.This is a safe strategy to keep in mind.The maximum age at which you retire is 65 and most likely your life expectancy will be 80-85 considering the fact that you live in the U.S and have better medical care .

All the above is right.However you cant get a sleepless night just because you think that you have saved enough money to live carefree after retirement.The value of money is going to keep decreasing day by day.The very well known fact of "Inflation" is mind wrenching.The amount of money which you think will be enough after your retirement now wont be enough 20 years from now.Even if you buy the same things your estimated savings done at the age of 65 wont be enough at the age of 80 .With the increasing oil and food prices ,your estimated savings will just be blown away in few years.

Isn't this spooky.Life will already be hard because of aging and God forbid if you get any kind of major illness then all the saving for the retirement will be gone before we even relize.

Show the right direction Doctor!

I often listen to a talk radio program which is based on health and health problems.The host is a board certified chiropractor and also a nutritionist.Every morning starts at 8:00am for 4 hours.Since it is only on Saturday I listen to it very leisurely,listening along with finishing my morning chores.

First few times I listened to it because I thought it could be informative.Now I listen to it to make fun and just have some entertainment.What makes me laugh a lot is the way the doctor(the host) promotes the supplements and dietary formulas.Americans are already addicted to medicines and supplements and if they do follow this doctor's suggestions then people would become like a walking pharmacy.For every thing and any health problem this doctor asks to take some kind of vitamin supplement.For a change some times he also asks to eat certain vegetable but that is very rare.

His talk show makes me think that how perverted the medical profession has become where doctors are just to earn money by promoting the pharmaceutical companies and medical stores.It is a travesty and that should be stopped.He asks to take those vitamin supplements which you can get by eating the proper food source.Even a novice knows that under normal condition body can absorb vitamin and mineral from food sources better than supplements.

According to my mind he is making mockery of himself .I dont know how many people follow his suggestion but there are certainly people who are following his suggestion because he gets callers every once in a while.
Today he moved one step further,he was suggesting parents to give their kids a kind of daily supplement .According to him since kids do not like to eat vegetables ,so to provide them enough vitamin parents should give this supplement.That was too much for me to digest so I turned off the radio and looked at my daughter ,thinking what supplement should I start giving her !

My Choice!

Life is never what you have thought for your self.At least for me.In some sense it is better than what I thought and in some sense worse than I thought it would be.Most part of my life is very pedestrian.I have a fixed routine for every thing.Read the news papers,read books,learn new words etc-etc which at times becomes very pedantic .The only excitement in my life is my daughter.

I feel the ineffable joy and happiness when I see my daughter walking,making baby noises and roaming around the house .At the same time ,I also think about my parents especially my mother who must have done nothing less for me than what I am doing for my daughter right now .After becoming a mother myself ,I understand the emotions very well which was just hidden inside me for a long time.2-3 days back my mother was very ill,she was almost at the verge of crying when I talked to her.Even though she knew that I wont be able to do anything for her still she could not stop herself from telling me every thing.I felt helpless and the first thing came to my mind was that will my daughter also be in the same situation one day .I become very pensive when ever I think about my mother who loves me with all her heart.

I feel I have too much dependency, both emotional and financial .I have very few of my own likes and dislikes .I am enjoying all the colors of motherhood but I do not wish for this kind of life for my daughter.I want her to be independent both financially and most importantly emotionally.Caring for every one else is good but not at the cost of giving yourself pain and anguish and making just every one else happy.

There are several emotional,physical and mental requirements.There should be some kind of rule to prioritize them.Need to decide which emotions,you are going to let fall by the way side and which ones you are going to embrace.That way life will become easier and less painful.

Mental Anguish!

There was time when I was so much into genetic studies ,scientific researches and current news.It has always been very amazing to me as how genetics plays such a big role in peoples life and social well being.You are most of it what your parents and ancestors are , not only with respect to anatomical makeup but also from the physical appearance point of view.

Ironically few medical problems existed in my family too ,however not in any of my immediate family member . Fortunately so far I dont seem to have inherited any of them and am very thankful to God for that.My maternal grandfather had high blood pressure and my aunt has eczema.As I grew up I was very sure that at some point I will get eczema but thankfully it never bothered me so far.When my daughter was born she was as pure,smooth and creamy as butter.There was not a hint of flaw in her skin.After about one month she got few rashes and I thought it is just minor baby rash.I started keeping her cleaner than ever and that happened to aggravate her problem even more.Later it started getting worse and giving her too much trouble.Doctors say that she has baby eczema.My husband has very mild form of eczema. Apparently my daughter got double dose of eczema one from my family side and one from her father.

So far I have managed to control it by restricting diet and full bodied cloth.She is still breastfeeding so I dont know if she is allergic to some thing I eat because her menu has very few items and that too consists of no item which can be considered allergic.Now my menu has so wide selection of foods that I dont know to which food she is allergic to.

If you go to the doctors for skin problem they prescribe steroid based cream which will definitely cure the skin problem temporarily and cause several side effects.Therefore not a smart idea to follow.
This problem is causing me a lot of mental pain.This thought has occupied my brain so severely that when ever I sit on the net for any work ,after 10-20 minutes I find myself reading stories ,cures and causes of eczema.It is taking too much of my time giving no result so far.This is the most frustrating physical problem I have ever encountered in my life.Even though right now my daughter's problem is very minor and I am able to control it .But when I think about her future I get worried as she will have to through hardships.Doctors say that most of the time approaching age 2 ,babies outgrow this problem.Now that is my only hope .

I wish one day I will see her as clean and buttery as when she was born.

Memory refreshed!

People say that your likes and dislikes change with age and time. May be some of them are so close to your heart that they never change. One of the likes or you can say a dream of mine to carry my baby on my back never changed.

I know it sounds ridiculous but this is true. I remember when I was a teenager, a tribal woman used to come to our house to help my mother in household work. She had a daughter, which she would tie on her back and do all the work. She would come once in the morning and again in the evening. I would wait for her to come in the evening, so that I can play with her daughter and tie her on my back as her mother did. In the morning, I would easily miss the school and play with her. But I knew that is not going to happen so I never insisted.

In the evening, I would force that tribal woman to tie her daughter on my back the way she ties her daughter on her back. She would tie her daughter on my back with a long cloth. At that time there was no fancy sling like these days in the U.S to carry babies on the back. Even if it was, that tribal woman was so poor that she could not afford it. More over slings are not so popular in India, at least in the city where I lived.

It gave me so much pleasure. I would play around, look at myself in the mirror and feel as if I have grown up so much to carry a tini-tiny baby all by my self. The funniest part was that I would insist my mother to give me some household work to do, so that I can do that work while she was still tied on my back. I would act just as her mother did.

Now that I am a mother myself of a tini-tiny baby, the first thing I did after delivery is that search for a suitable sling to carry my daughter. I have seen many women in the U.S carrying babies in a sling but in the front or on the hip, which I never liked. I wanted some thing comfortable and less strenuous on my back. Moreover, the front sling is not good for the baby either as they baby keeps hanging. While in the back sling, the baby can sit comfortably. However, it is just my choice and may be others may not agree with me.

To my utter happiness, I found one on Amazon and I immediately ordered it. I have not tied my daughter yet as she cant hold her head yet. I have to wait for one more month and then I am ready to go anywhere I want with my hands free, work at home. I do not know how I will feel, but for sure, it will remind me of my several childhood memories of .