oh the new house shit starts again

Sooo, finally we have a new place. we put up with crazy brokers trying to convince me a glimmer of the bwsl is a sea-view justifying 5cr for a crummy apaprtment in prabhadevi EAST!!! the whole bloody sea-view is thanks to my 20/20 vision which is thanks to being on a strict watermelon martini diet anyway!!
so many polite denials later, and crummy houses and head-shaking of brokers assistants, sub-broker assistant and helpers later (i swear this one time i went to marathon omega - repeat visit sometime in september and there were 6 brokers accompanying me, selling me vitures of fully furnished apartment madoo style - velvet dark brown printed sofa with stainless steel legs anyone???)
wouldnt you know it - the last place we saw was the one we agreed on - well, not really!!! i sort of bull-dozed husband into it, because seriously - i need a life that doesnt include being tailed by six brokers, sub-brokers and sundry assistants.

then there was the crazy seller to deal with, but we will not talk about those wretched wretched days. better to gaze into your embpty beer mug, and say here - i need a refill!
So on 22nd dece,mber i sold my lovely flat in sangeeta to minal, got a bit teary eyed at the impending seperation from my treehouse gang, and made the joint purchase with husband of the LRT place on 31st dec. happy new year everybpdy... may the new year bring lots of mood-boards, wallpaper dreams and plumbing tiffs to you too. muah

apartment hunting

so i've been looking at new places - and its depressing!!! not just the prices involved. but just what passes off for aesthetics these days. I went to this new building marathon era, in a lane behind shenoy chawl in lower parel and am expected to be awed by circular balconies and wierd aluminium pipes that threaten to stab me if i lean out too much. maybe i have an old soul living as i do with an old man!!! but what would make me happy was high ceilings, huge compounds, lots of wardrobe spaces. A view of the upcoming shangri-la not cutting it. And then there are my mixed feelings about uprooting myself once again. seems like i just settle down in a place, establish a gym routine - now i have my very own mommy-toddler group (inurface, hopping bunnies) and i'll have to hunt around for a new one.
and so the hunt continues - sigh!!!

birthday and the aftermath

So Amelia turned 3 about two weeks ago - now there's a whole bunch of things she's promised me that she will do after she attains this ripe, adult age - chiefly give up the milk bottle, sleep byherself - without me rocking her in my lap and going through the entire class rolecall and speculating who's asleep and whose mothers are asleep. And learning swimming.
So the negotiations started last week - this is the conversation
NC (While holding milk bottle in hand at 10pm): Amelia how old are you now?
AC: three years old mama
NC: So what are you supposed to do?
AC: stop drinking from dudu bottle, only in glass! sleep by myself! start swimming!!
NC: So can i give this milk in the glass
(all the while resigned to the fact that i am so not winning this round when the threat of no dudu bottle cannot be made, since said dud bottle is already in hand and very visible to the 3yr old)
AC: but i think i'm not 3 yet mama, i am only 2 and a half. i will become three
NC: so which birthday did we celebrate 2 days ago?
AC (after a brief thought): but mama, there were only two cakes!!!
There - she wins. Now i know why i never got good prices. i suck at negotiations!

orange orange everywhere

Amelia learnt all her colours very young - and has decided her favourite colour is orange. And she tells us all about it a gazillion times a day. I am shown orange water-tanker, sena flags, traffic signals and orange traces in just about every CMYK image there is. And havinga bit of Adu in her, she is now a song-writer and composer. Amelia has madeup a song, inspired by the shiv sena new found zeal to recapture the heart of the marathi manoos by stringing bloody orange flags across the trees in yari road. it goes like this:
Orange orange everywhere,
here and there here and there
The sky is blue everywhere
I see orange here and there
Sometimes there is yellow here and there
but orange orange everywhere!!!

birthday prep

You know the problem with having a super-well adjusted social butterfly toddler - other toddler birthday parties! And the concept that if its a party there must be cake. So was trying to drag amelia away from this drop-dead boring (and by that i mean trying to surf on my bb and not getting reception since party was in basement) family get-together at 10pm, waaay past her bedtime and she says Mama, there is cake. we have to wait! for CAKE! PINK CAKE!! dude, this child is like hypnotised by the cake much as one would imagine being in kaa's coils.

But that's not the tough part. It's when we are headed home after gorging on pink cake - when we talk about when Amelia will be 3 and there will be a big birthday party and we do the guestlist - which varies based on who shared their toys in the playground and the cake, based on the latest cartoons. So far we've debated merits of pretty princess cake versus mickey-mouse cake, and have settled on humpty-dumpty cake. So far!!! two more months to go. I've also been instructed that there must not be magic show, since my PETA child doesnt like the mistreatment of white mice and doves (father's genes - except for you know when he has to eat mutton. Then its ok to kill the animals to serve the higher purpose of his stomach)
And no puppet show because it distracts from the cake cutting - dancing and games is allowed provided the song list is desi girl, sexy bitch and singh is king. The twisted concepts this kid is growing up with.

Home delivery

Isnt Bombay just great!! I mean I moan and bitch about the ditches and the little bits of what used to be roads all over the city, but especially in Versova. But clever clever vendors have figured that out already by the sight of my lips sying f***er bmc. So Mohamed need not go to the mountain - the mountains they be coming to me!!!

This morning Knock Knock - who's there. Hair. Hair Who? I yem here for your haircut madam. I mean isnt that just plain super - lazy me, who ignores all the dire warnings of the stylists who say, please come in for a cut every six weeks with big ruppee signs where their pupils should be, has managed to get hold of a cool hairstylist who will come over!!

So, today he came and I didnt have the spritzer and he didnt have a spritzer, so he gave me a spiel about my hair having soft lovely texture and not needing a spritzer. I was a bit sceptical, having never had a spritz free haircut before. But off he went, snip snip snip, and mini snips while Amelia in background is screaming mama, no haircut. And There, before you could say bomble+bumble, I had swishy shoulder length hair. Having lost quite a bit of weight, hehehehe, but not to feel too pleased, because at the rate I am compensating my body for its 6weeks of starvation, it will probably all come back soon, but not just yet, I am quite willing to show off my shoulders and neck and loving this clean, hippie hair look. I'm already having visions of playing with the tec ball amd creating textured spiky hair one day and a smooth sophisticated blow out, for cocktails.

But since cocktails and edgy looks dont play a prominent role in my watch baber the elephant every evening life, i'm thinking wash and wear will be most frequented look.

But I love it for now, and I love the home delivery service especially. How cupcakes!! my next mountain.

transistions

I am not sure if everybody feels like their whole life is a life lived in transitions - I have this fantasy of when I grow up, this is the house I will have - but I cant because I have the cats I didnt plan and the child i wanted but imagined would be more disciplined. So, the house in tonal white, with splashes of colour? More like Dark wood that is sooo over, for me atleast but I have to live with, since it disguises the damages of the cats and the baby tornado.

But I'm getting used to it - and having friends in the building, other mothers I bond with over thela chinese and budweisers, while the gazillion toys amelia got as birthday loot keep her and playmates occupied.

And now the husband wants to move to south Bombay - I dont know who thinks this will solve all our problems. So, we've been going apartment viewing and while I have seen one abslutoly gorgeous one, you know where I start planning where my fantasy eames lounger will go and my dining table with the ghost dining chairs. And though I know that will never happen, I trudge behind the husband asking pretend well-thought out realty questions, hating the thought of having to start all over again. And getting angst from the father as well on the thought of his precious grand-daughter moving far far away from him.

working again

So my story is now when everybody asks so, are you working - erm no!!

It's not that its reall hard to work around a two year old's schedule, it's like I've slowed down. I cant remeber what age I am anymore - like the sales rep at TRue Fitness the hot yoga fellow smirked at when I got all flustered over this question.

And I crave a bit of a snooze on my stylish but not super comfortable sofa every afternoon at 3pm. I wait for 7pm, so i can meet up with the other superbored mommies in my building (again God's way of getting back at me for laughing at other mommies who did this when I thought I was so cool in my golds gym in the evenings before a drink at purple haze days).

And I am in a hate/ need relationship with my baby nanny of all people - never been driven to tears by somebody else's whims and moods before - aaaaaaaaaargh!!
So all these things need to be sorted out before I can even think about employment.

Can not allow myself to become those scary mothers who live through their children and get very annoyed when the bacchas stymie their ambitions.