16 months!

Perhaps his quietest month birthday. I am just glad that he has been doing ok for the first time in 3-4 days without throwing up or having diarrhea. Wanted to give him a break from the daycare so for the next two days, back to our pre-daycare routine. Me goes in the morning to work, comes back before lunch and then Subhash leaves. Hoping that with one week away from daycare, his virus will be completely cured and he will be ready to go back. One of his daycare teachers called today to find out how he was, I told her he is getting better. She was a little worried about him since she saw him throwing up on Monday. How sweet!

Incidentally today is the day I went into a corporate office to work for the first time. 8 years ago. I started out without knowing how it would turn out and with no set plans. I just needed a job which would pay. Luckily it worked out well so far and 8 years by, I am still hanging in there without much to complain about and actually enjoying it :) I do have some lucky stars to thank I guess :)

The endless phase of sickness

So the son is sick. He has been having varying problems since a month. First, in our Hyd trip for the Christmas break, he went on a finger-licking rampage and got himself diarrhea. Which resulted in a bad, bad case of nappy rash, which moved on to thrush, which didn't get cured till we we were a week back in Bangalore. Then Subhash had to leave for the UK for a week from 8th, and I fell sick, the first two days. Then he picked up towards the end of the week, and it made me feel like I was going through the worst week in my life. Ever. Nights would be a nightmare, spent in praying that the son doesn't throw up or have diarrhea or develop temperature. Somehow I revived him with some feeds happening at 1 AM in the night etc. He seemed fine about a day after Subhash was back and so we sent him back to the daycare, and then he was fine that week, and this weekend again, it started. The vicious cycle of throwing up and diarrhea and it goes on and on. Friday I stayed home. Monday he threw up in the daycare so I got him home early, took him to his regular doc and he said it is a viral attack and we just need to wait it out to get cured. Yesterday Subhash and I were both home.Today is luckily an off in India. Tomorrow I have to go to work, and I have no idea what to do. He doesn't seem to be getting any better. He has lost a KG (which, as a % of 12KG is a lot!) and I have no idea how to go about making him regain that weight given that he doesn't retain even 30% of what he eats because of this sickness.

We try to be cheerful, I try to focus on other things, but underneath it all, it is very depressing. I feel so sorry for him that he has to go through all of this at such a young age :(

Pampering engineers

I was taking an after lunch stroll with one of my colleagues who happens to be this great admin. And she now has to take on additional responsibilities for an entire floor. So I was telling her, that might be a lot of work and she said, it really depends on how pampered the engineers are. If the manager pampers them, then they think they can get anything. Anything they wish for is a command and they begin to think that they can wish for anything. So I was a little curious. I asked her how one can tell if engineers are pampered or not. I never had any requests from my engineers (except for once, when one of them asked if she can have a Mac), so I didn't really know if I was the pampering type. So she said, well, if your team can be handled by any manager, then it means they haven't been pampered. But if the team feels that ohh, that manager is gone and now it is not so nice anymore, then it means they have been pampered.

Well..hmm? ;)

Food training

So I have resolved for 2011 to be a better mom at training the son to eat on his own and giving him more variety and nutrition in food.

Towards working on that goal, this morning I gave him his Graduates snack stars (Gerber) and he did pick them up in his hands but he threw all of them down. So I tried once more and this time I ate one and showed him what to do. After I did that he actually picked up one from my hand and guess what, he put it straight in my mouth!!

Whatever!?

Looks like he thinks I am in need of some training :))

2011

Time for re-cap. In the past few years, 2010 I would say, has been the most average. With each year beating the earlier one in terms of the goodies it delivered, 2010 was the one "break".

But 2010 had a lot of stuff I should be thankful for. Stuff that is not hits-you-in-the face sort of ecstatic but the more tenacious, steady sort of good. It afforded me the flexible opportunity to work from home while caring for an infant. This I think should be the highlight and I do have a few people to thank for it. It brought a much needed change at work as well. It saw the son going to daycare. It saw him turn a year old. And many more such "quiet" happy things, compared to the noisy and more visible goodies given out by 2004, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9 :)

Lots of bad times too. Lots of relationship adjustments. Lots of coming to terms. Lots of tough decisions. Hopefully I have emerged more patient, more understanding, less uptight and more tolerant/allowing. Let's see.

Couple of ongoing resolutions to keep - be a more patient mom and get into a better shape (physically) than I am in right now :)  Second part is on good track already. I am almost back to pre-pregnancy weight (sparing a few hundred grams maybe) and people have visibly started noticing this. Fitness levels are back to a high and life feels good :)

Here is wishing everyone a Happy 2011.