When work becomes the "other" woman...

A grueling week at work, not a new thing for this household by any stretch. The adults are both trying to sync every minor detail on their respective calendars which border on the ridiculous.

Who is going to "wipee" kid #2 tomorrow morning? you? okay then, put it on your calendar. Make a commitment and stick to it.. etc. etc.. You know what we mean..

Then Friday afternoon comes and dad is getting nauseous. Four hours of sleep on Thursday night may have had something to do with it, but sleep deprivation doesn't send one to the restroom repeatedly. That must have been the work of picking up germs from doorknobs.

Here is a tip for workaholic husbands who try to do their best at sharing the workload at home in a family where both adults work and take their work a little too seriously.

Never fall sick on Friday afternoon! Never ever!

The perception at home will start monologues from wife and kids like "you gave all your blood sweat and tears to her and you come home and want to lie down on a Friday evening? How dare you? Go ask her to take care of your sick little behind!"

After some time you scratch and wonder who else you are sleeping with and figure out they are talking about your workplace in (fem.)!

Fortunately in this case by Saturday morning after a heavy dose of sleep the body felt as normal as possible and then the wife shows "symptoms".

Note to wives of workaholic husbands who fall sick on Friday evenings?

Lock the dumb dude in the bedroom or garage and make sure the rest of you stay clear of him. If you fall sick, then he just won't be able to handle it. Just thinking about it will make him sick again. Management studies have repeatedly shown that managing 60+ adults at work is easier than managing two children under the age of 9!

Now that the weekend has come and gone without anything out of the ordinary for cold winter weeks in the last few years, we go into yet another week of busy work, sparse blogging, fights that fizzle out even before they start because of other distractions, etc. etc.!

On the bright side we had a great potluck dinner this weekend with a bunch of friends we meet rarely and checked out an iMac at the local Apple store. The videos and photos from a 21 MP camera are not handled by a Lenovo T60 with hardly any memory left. If there are any recommendations for a computer that can be bought on the cheap to handle large image and video files, please do leave it in the comment box.

Having been confined indoors the last few days, have been trying to take videos of the fish in the aquarium with the 50mm f2.5 macro lens mounted on the 5DMK2. You feel like Jack Costeau when you zoom into the aquarium like that and bring out the fins of those little things and project it on a 52 inch monitor! Will try to post a video of the "fishies" shot with real shallow focus range.

One good thing about being a nerd is that you can find ways to amuse yourself within the house. One bad thing is that this kind of amusement will always get you yelled at for being selfish. Your best bet is to make this type of thing an activity to do with the kids.

So starting this week, daddy Narayanan will teach Jr. and the little one a mandatory class on Photography. They are not thrilled with the idea, but hey, who is the boss here?

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A spot

It was just around bedtime. The kids had do brush their teeth. Just at the same time I was washing my face when Jr. says

"daddy can you wash your face again?"

Me : Okay. Why?

Jr.: From here I can see the top of your head in the mirror when you bend towards the wash basin and the light shines on your head.

Me : okay. so what?

Jr.: I can see a bald spot on your head. there is "NO" hair there.

Me : Thank you for your observation. Soon the spot will grow and only a small spot of hair will be left.

Jr.: I will still love you daddy if you are bald!

Me :

:)

:)

:)

Mom has trained her well!

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All in a day..

Conversation 1 with Little one just before bedtime

Me : please eat fast and eat more! Only then you will grow big.

LO : I want to be a "mouse kutty"! (and makes a small rat face by pouting her lips. She wants to be a baby mouse)

Me : No. be serious. you have to eat fast. tomorrow morning I want you to eat fast so that we will be on time for school.

LO : Daddy, you know something.. I am not eating because if I don't eat, then I won't become bigger.. if I don't become bigger, then I don't have to get married and go away. I want to stay with you always!

Me : !!!!!!! thinking "We have a big big problem". You can stay with me forever.. even if you get bigger and get married. You can bring your husband and make him also live with us. no problem. just start eating okay?

Conversation 2 with MIL:

MIL : What are you taking a photo of now?

Me : a peppercorn!

MIL : I cannot even see it without my glasses from here...

Me : that is the beauty of this lens. The peppercorn looks like a small pockmarked planet when I zoom into it with this lens.. totally amazing. this makes small things look big!

MIL : Do you have a lens that makes big things look small? if you do, use that and get me a new facebook profile photo!

Me : !!!!!! (hmmm.. maybe I can get another lens for this?!)

Conversation 3 with Jr. earlier this evening:

Me : so tell me what happened in school today?

Jr.: there was an election and we all got to vote on a ballot for student council leaders, sports secretary etc.

Me : this is your first time voting?

Jr.: yes. 3rd graders to 5th graders vote. But you have to be in 4th or 5th grade to stand in an election.

Me : so how did it go

Jr.: the people who were in the election had to put signs out everywhere in the school. then they held the signs and shouted "I am responsible. vote for me.." and stuff like that. it was very noisy.

Me : so do you want to stand in the election next year? You aren't exactly responsible but we have one year to get you there! why don't you be sports secretary?

Jr. : well, we have to put way too many posters everywhere

Me : I will help you with it.

Jr.: if you are sports secretary, you get to go clean all the tropies, pump up all the balls and do more work. If you are president you get to announce things in the speaker and ring the bell everyday.

Me : in other words you are saying "why work to get elected and do more work?"

Jr. : exactly. I don't see why they want to shout all day, get elected and do more work.

Me : hmmm.. right now I am not exactly sure if I should coach you on leadership skills or commend you for staying on the sidelines. we will talk about this once amma comes back home. By the way, who did you vote for.

Jr. : I heard them do all the shouting and we had to pick 4 choices out of 5 for all positions. So I picked all the girls.

Me : thinking "great, so the vote pretty much got divvied up along gender lines!"
don't you think it is unfair to just vote for them because they are girls?

Jr. : No! they are also saying they are responsible!

Me : !!!!!!!

So much for democracy. God bless America.

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Work

Work is defined as "Anything the wife does"

That is it! Period.

This simple rule, no.. "Axiom" and its corollaries can summarize :

a. life in our house

b. the 4th or 5th why in a "Why? Why? Why? Why? Why?" root cause analysis which has no fix for all fights in the house

c. life outside our house

There are many men who have not either grasped this concept. It has been staring many men in the face and they see it but do not want to accept it...

Nevertheless, here is your chance. Accept it and all will be well.

For my part, have started putting things in perspective.

Have also realized why I love this woman so much.. now that things are in perspective!

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A small but wonderful heart

Was putting Jr. and the little one to bed last night.

It was a long day for me and they both knew I was dead tired. Also mom and grandma were out watching a movie.

So Jr. decides to break out of our usual Ragam quiz routine and sings "Giridhara gopala" for me. My eyes almost closed and I dozed off and they nudged me back.

Me : someday when I am old and lying in a hospital bed, will you two sing giridhara gopala for me just like you did now?

LO : why are you going to go back to the hospital?

Me : No. I am not talking about now. this is a lot of years from now when I am older and you are also older and you probably have kids of your own. Then?

Jr.: what if we forget this song?

Me: we have your youtube video right? just bring it to my ears and play it for me if you forget the song

LO: We won't forget the song. maybe we can have our kids sing to you just like we sing to Grandma right now on videochat?

Me : (this girl correlates things just like I do.. this is truly amazing to see how she connects things).. Yes. you can do that.

Jr. : But what if we have boys instead of girls?

Me : You have a boy in your music class don't you? you can teach boys to sing. Daddy is a boy and he is teaching you, no?

Jr. : But what if they are not interested?

Me : you can get them interested. keep singing to them and encourage them. tell them they are doing good. really good.

LO : Daddy, I love you. I really don't want you to go to a hospital when you are older.

Me : okay, enough of this topic. just remember we talked about you singing for me okay. let's all go to bed and sleep for now.

The little one's face when she said it made me so guilty for even bringing this up. Sometimes we say things without thinking through the consequences, especially when we are tired.

With little kids, you are never sure how far they understand what concepts at what age.

For now, the conversation is forgotten or is being made light of and the girls are back to being their giggly selves.

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