2 year old mom!

Today my son turns two and I turn a two-year old mom :) When did I turn a two year old mom? Am I still not that girl of seventeen?? (which somehow my brain is always stuck at, and also which happens to be the age when I first met Subhash ;) )

It has been an eventful year. One where I have seen my son start talking, saying his alphabets, numbers, rhymes, songs etc. Also seen him fall sick (yeah, first one year he never knew sickness at all!), thanks to the daycare and other things. I once had a really scary moment when I was alone with him in the house and Subhash was in the UK. I fed him at 1.30 AM that night in the hope that he wouldn't throw up and absorb that energy to survive the night (he was repeatedly throwing up anything I gave him and also had diarrhea). Somehow when I think of this past year, that moment is poignant. It feels like the moment I grabbed my son from the mouth of sickness and brought him back :)

He started going to daycare and has been a remarkably fuss-free child. He did cry a few weeks into the routine but by and large he has adapted like magic :) He has a lot of friends and can also name all the 13 children in his class and sometimes this amazes me :) Whenever you ask him though, only the girls' names pop out unless you show him pictures of the other boys in his class. Surely he has his priorities set.

I have a lot of dreams for him and I hope I can give him the best in whatever he needs :) I also wish him a sickness-free next year and many more happy, healthy and prosperous years ahead :) I hope above all to always remain a friend and confidante to him and be able to move along with his generation so he never feels distanced from me :)

Here is 2 years of being a Dad to Subhash too. The best ever (even his son says so - Naanna best). Much better parent than I am myself I would dare-say :)

Celeb spotting

So I was at the salon and I saw this person walk in. She had short hair and said she wanted it trimmed since she had a family function to attend tomorrow. In the course of the conversation, she asked how come the place is rather empty to which my hair stylist said it is because it is a holiday. She said, "ohh my I forgot, we are working today, see". Then I figured that she might be some big exec in one of the nearby companies since it looked like she hopped in from work and was going to hop back (no hand bags etc). I did see her before and then I started wondering. Leela has Huawei in its premises, but I was not sure if she was from Huawei, then I kept thinking, Titan, Britannia..and suddenly when she was leaving it struck me. Of course, this was her! I then remembered seeing a very small thumbnail of hers in one of Cisco's Women's network thingies that they do, where she was a guest speaker on career and women or some such topic. So when Arlene came back, I asked, that person, she works for Britannia, right? She said yeah, she is GM, I added yeah, she is MD and CEO. Vinita something right? And she said, yeah, Vinita Bali!

It took my breath away, my realization. This CEO was sitting right next to me for a full half an hour and I was a dud enough to not realize this earlier ;)

One more addition to my celeb spotting (other famous ones include our very own Wim Elfrink, Vivek Oberoi's grand-mother-in-law etc).

One hour

I thought I saw the worst traffic in my life on 880 (237 E to Dixon Landing moving towards Fremont) at rush hour. Today came very, very close to that nightmare.

Left campus at 4.40 PM and reached the other end of the Kadubeesanahalli junction at 5.50 PM! This stretch is 400 mts! Effectively it is just like crossing the road (earlier there was a signal where I could just go straight, but because of construction I have to turn left, go further, take a U-turn and come back to the same spot where I started on the opposite side. And this took 70 minutes!!!

Outer ring road was bad last week in the morning when I landed there by mistake instead of sticking to my shortcut from behind the airport. It took me 40 mins from Marathalli to Kadubeesanahalli (<5KM). And I thought that was bad!

Also, today, there was a couple of places where the median sort of broke down and I could have turned but I did not. To go 200 mts and come back to the same point took a painstaking 53 minutes! And I was stuck at the official U-turn, just 3 cars behind, purely because of senselessly created human deadlocks for a whole half an hour. Just 3 cars away!! Can you imagine how much I cursed myself for not chucking the rules out the window and just taking a U-turn where I could?!Thankfully the son got very cranky only in the last few minutes and I was able to do damage control by giving him my phone with some videos playing.

To compensate for the one hour delay in reaching home though, today Subhash was at home to welcome us, he took care of giving the son his milk while I changed and started cooking so that effectively, I was just 5 minutes behind schedule for the son's dinner! AND he ate so fast today that I wish I was stuck in jams like this every day as long as they promise to ensure son's dinner is done so fast as compensation!! ;)