Second

Today the son finishes two years! That seems like a long long time. And yet, it is just two years!

The brothers are worth watching :) They fight, they pull out each others hair and they also love. Especially the older one swings from one spectrum of being extremely possessive of his toys and getting really upset with his brother for playing with them to the other end where he can entertain his brother for hours on end. The younger one just blindly follows the older one. Period. Anywhere he goes, anything he says, he will follow and do it!

That also marks one year of moving into the current house. Its been a good stay so far, the teething issues notwithstanding. Looking forward to many more!

Today I ran 10K for the first time. One of my colleagues wanted me to run the TCS 10K happening later in May and I was not at all sure I could do it. Plus he wanted me to enlist for the corporate team challenge where you had to have a competitive timing et al. So I told him that I first wanted to check if I can even run or not and off I went early AM on a Sunday to test my mettle! I finished in 56 minutes and a few seconds and he was very happy and registered me for the TCS 10K! I could have never imagined this even a year ago! Me running 10K in one shot in under an hour for the very first time! Again, nothing but gratitude to my body for performing these unthinkable feats!

Thirty five and how!

This week I marked being around in this world for 35 years. Funny as it seems, I rather don't feel that old. Yeah, I know what you are thinking. But really, it is true!

Around this time last year, I had resolved to lose most of my post pregnancy weight and then some more. So this past year has seen me shed close to 13 KGs and I think its fairly visible now. I get a lot of comments from "you are looking weak", "you are looking fatigued", and even "you will look old if you continue on this trajectory" to "you look like a college kid", "for a moment I didn't recognize you, I thought you were a new college hire" "you have two kids?!, I thought you had just one" and anything in between. All in all feeling really fabulous these days ;) Never better.

But more than anything, my life has always been happy. I don't ever remember my life being sad. Troubled yes, but not sad. There were a few years in my early 20s that I wish would have been written differently, but as years go by I feel that for having struggled and fought and kicked and survived then, I'm still being repaid in kind with a peaceful and happy life now. As an added bonus, parents are now with us all the time, and every evening, I think about and thank this one aspect of my life. But all this sunshine aside, the past 2-3 years have been particularly peaceful. Not at war with anything or myself. Somewhere I feel, this quiet contentment and overriding peace comes as a gift from my mother-in-law. I don't know why, but that is how I feel. Somehow since she passed, she has used whatever higher-than-us power to grant us a really peaceful state of mind and life. It is not to say that life hasn't been without its ups or downs. But just that no matter what happens, what comes and goes, I never find myself fretting or being robbed of my peace at all. Ever. Very strange and yet very true.

Here is to a cool, next 35!

Conversations

Me and son yesterday - when the house-help dodn't turn up and I was mopping the house

Son : Amma, I want to do.
Me: No, you cannot.
Son: But I like to do it
Me: Anyway when you grow up and you go away for studying and then get married etc, you have to do all these, why do them from now?
Son: But I want to learn from now
Me: It's too early baby
Son: But if I dont learn from now, how will I do it when I grow up.
Me: When you are a little older, I will ask you to do it myself, not now.
....

And so he nagged and I refused and he nagged and I refused and I finally gave in and he mopped his grandmother's study. It was such a proud moment!

Summer vacation!

Rohan has his summer vacation now. Started yesterday. The simply most special part being that this  is the first break he is getting from school after 4.5 years! Ever since he's  been 13 months old, he's had to go to school every single day of his life and it's been zero vacations except Cisco's annual shutdown for  about a week. I am very happy for him and maybe that's why a little reluctant to send him to any summer camps. 

Of course, grandparents are contributing most to it and taking the brunt of two warring boys in their stride! Hats off to them!!