Winter Program at Home

Those who have tried to create winter program at home, please raise your hands.  The one thing that I have always found missing in our country is the comfort of a working parents. I know becoming parent is an individual choice and we could have easily chosen not to have kids but population and future employee is also a concern for a country as a whole. People these days have one or two kids and I see that as a grave danger to our future job market. Of course I am no analyst to be saying this.

But coming back to my original thoughts on working couple and their difficult times in managing kids, I think something should be done about it. I mean, what good is the child care if it chooses to close at 1 in the afternoon and completely shut down during the winter? It is not like all parents are teacher to avail three months vacation in winter. And there are some people who are unfortunate (or should I say paying our bad karmic fate) not to have our parents babysitting our children.

So, in my desperate attempt to entertain or to keep Jamba away from electronics, I have resorted to paper crafts, reading books, painting, writing and listening to music. Jamba is only 4 and so she cannot read or write on her own and hence my 100% involvement is required at all times.

I will share some of the outcomes of my winter program and believe me if some of these pictures become popular, I am going to run a winter program, right at my home, annually. Joke aside; seriously someone should already start thinking about it.

Forgive me about my crappy photography skills but here it goes nonetheless:

This is our sheep. Jamba painted its leg and head and I did the eyes. It is super easy and added bonus, Jamba loved it.  

This pig will make your tummy turn, just by laughing. Its mouth came out like that because we tried to mix red and white to make it pink and for some reason, it didn’t turn out pink. The important thing is it does look a bit similar to pig.

  The next project is quite interesting because every month we dispose off about 30 numbers of toilet paper roll and what a waste it is to throw which will neither rot nor stink. So, come meet the minions of our family. The petty thing about this minion is that it does not budge. 

Well, I will stop here before you get too excited. In my next blog, I will share some of the beautiful writings that Jamba learnt over the holidays. 

P.S.: You all are free to use my ideas. No copyright whatsoever.

Swimming at Namgay Heritage

My best friend and I took our girls for a swimming today. With a debate of benefit of affordability and size of pool, we decided to hit Namgay Heritage. The girls were thrilled but too overwhelmed nonetheless. With our constant encouragement, they started kicking their legs in water and floating like star fish. My little Jamba suddenly decided to leave the pool and decided to sit on the chair left at the corner probably to sit. Bit scared, I called her to be careful. Just then a lanky man with darker complexion rushed in and started to shout at Jamba. Jamba looked scared and I was too taken back because I wasn’t sure why he was shouting. I quickly understood the typical Bhutanese way of scolding a kid when they don’t listen to their elders. I was like “if you scare my child like that, she will never visit swimming pools, let alone swim”. Obviously, the man was embarrassed and he should be. He explained to me that he didn’t want Jamba to drift off and jump in the deep pool. I literally snarled at him saying that it is not that way he should talk to a 3 year old.  I had to explain to my daughter that he was being silly by shouting at her.

Well, I thought Namgay Heritage was a popular place but the way a person worked there had little professionalism. I don’t mean to be judgmental with other better employees but I was thoroughly disappointed today. However, coming this from Bhutanese attitude, I am not very surprised. Education has done little for few lots. Let’s see what other service provider has in store for us next time. It will definitely be worthwhile to see the difference, for the price we pay to swim for an hour at best.

Growing Up...

“Happy Mummy’s Day, Mom”, my little girl held out a cute doddle of supposedly me on the bright orange paper. I was so overwhelmed and so thankful that I have such beautiful people who inspire me to be a better person every day. If not for anyone, I will strive to be better mommy, and better person, for that matter, for my little girl, who has taught me so much more than I did to her. Through her, I grew up too, my thoughts widened and my perspective increased. In the process of teaching her what is right and what is not, and by answering to her innocent questions, I molded myself into someone better than I used to be. And when I see my girl growing up little by little and by the way she takes in world, I think I am doing better job as a mother, though I doubt myself  lot sometimes. We (my dear husband and I) have never resorted to spanking her as a solution for something she does wrong. In fact, we appreciated her for speaking out the truth, even when she thought what she did, was something scary. This way, it has helped me with my patience and temper, it helped me understand more that not all people have similar thoughts and that every person has different feelings of what is right and wrong.

We tell her that it is alright to say sorry even when you are not at wrong and if that makes someone feel better. By doing so, it helped me forgive more people who have had hurt me or my parents or my siblings. It has made me feel so much better by freeing my heart from remorse feelings. Everyone have their reasons for having done whatever they did. I hope that they made right decisions at that moment.

When I told my little girl that we should appreciate what ever little we have, I have thought of all the people who have lesser than us and learned the happiness in giving and sharing. I am not saying that I am a perfect mother; I do have days when I feel I am not doing it well. I do cry, at night when my little girl is asleep near me and think about times I have made her cross and cry, unintentionally, and I do need constant encouragement from my dear husband that I am doing it quite well. I complain about myself to my dear husband “I am the worst mother”. However, I have come to realize that when it comes to loving your child, no matter how much you love them and care them, you still feel it is not enough and that it is quite normal to feel distress at yourself when you make them feel upset.

I smile as I conclude my musing and think about this little cute incidence with my girl:

It was a quiet evening and I was giving bath to my girl. She complained that her friend pushed and she bruised her elbow and that it was hurting when I poured water on it. I was like “how did it happen and did you inform your teacher that your friend pushed you”? She meekly answered “no Mom, I didn’t inform my teacher because she would scold my friend. And He didn’t push me on purpose, it was an accident”. I could not be prouder as my eyes welled up.  

Hopeful Mother

I have been going through the bumpy road since the day I flew to Melbourne from Bangkok. I was pretty geared up for this but somehow I really couldn’t make myself understand why I am doing such a terrible thing to my family and myself. I think sometimes we are really not ready to accept the things even when is obvious.

Being a mother to barely a two year old daughter, I always have and will hate the part of leaving her back home with her father while I come here to enjoy the freedom of so called pursing masters. But believe me, I am always guilty and the last thing that I want to hear is someone saying that I don’t care for my daughter. I know it is apparently true; otherwise I wouldn’t be leaving her at the first place. And knowing what I did for her, I am still not able to accept the fact that I might not have cared for her, because I always think about how things could have turned the right way. When I see a little girl talking to her mom in a public transport, I think about her. When I hear a baby’s cry, I think about her. When I see pictures of babies on “Am I Cute” page in Facebook, I think about her.  When I read the blog by Beth on http://putdowntheurinalcake.com, I think about her. Oh, how much I miss her and yet I cannot do anything. The least I can do is skype with her but she gets easily bored. Perhaps she doesn’t remember me at all now. And that is the punishment for me and I deserve it.  

But I am not a timid mother or woman, for that matter, to drown myself in sorrows and self-pity. I am an optimist and I always believed in silver lining in the dark clouds, the rescue by the charming prince, and in that sappy saying that the good thing about bad stuffs is that it comes to an end too.  I may have felt like punching myself for what I did, but I always end my day with a hope that  I can also be a better mother. I will just have to prove it to myself. 

Painful Days

Courtesy: Buddhism - Being Truly Human, FB

I was on my way back to my place from the University when I saw this picture and it instantly engulf me with tears. Only a mother could endure such pain to love and feed her child. And here I am on  the luxury of studying, leaving my only child behind with her father and make them endure the pain of separation. I could have chosen to stay with my family and somebody would have easily taken the responsibility of filling the gap by studying what I am studying now and contribute to nation. Everyone says, time heels everything but no, it is making it worst. As my child grows up, I am not there to let her hold my finger. When she speaks her first few words, I am not there to cry with joy with my husband. When she first started to pretend play, I am not there to be her playmate. I am missing out on so many precious moments that I will never encounter in my entire life. My girl will never be the same little girl again and I will never have the memories of her first steps towards growing up and I will never be able to forgive myself for doing that to my family.  

Something that I learnt about Baby

Most people scoff at me when I say you shouldn’t feed your baby with those and that type of food. Many Bhutanese don’t care about what their babies eat. Well, I can understand the mothers at village, they either have don’t have time to look for what is healthy for their baby or to cook it separately and most of them, they think it is ok to give whatever the adult eats.

Back in olden days, in Bhutan, baby is fed with butter on the day he/she is born, bathed three times a day and fed with whatever is edible. The motherless babies are fed with dairy product.

I don’t think it is necessary to be conventional in bringing up your own baby. Hence, taking advantage of my education and of being literate, I first do little research on what are the good things that are healthy and best for my baby. The first thing first, I bathed my baby only after a week from the day she is born and only once a day. I used to bathe her every two-three days and I would wait at least a week for her next bathe when she is sick or the worst, suffering from cold. That being said, I used to massage her everyday with Olive oil (with mustard oil while she has cold) and change her every day. The reason I use Olive oil is because it is thick and creamy, ideal to be used as massage oil. Of course it has its own benefits. That kept her clean and healthy.

While she is down with cold, I used to dip a clove of garlic in the mustard oil and massage her with it. Gently tapping, raindrop massage, on her cheeks which makes way for the mucus. I used to firmly massage her chest, feet and palm with warm mustard oil which super relaxes her. When I once suggested to this to my husband’s uncle (since he has baby little older than mine), he scolded me saying “Roktey ana ani nan bu aiee lay…” and sadly his son has watery eyes.

The second thing, which most Bhutanese dread, is the thought of using the disposable diapers. They think if they use it, it will bent the baby’s leg which I think is absolutely non-sense. I used it while she was five days young and she still has straight leg. (:D). But I have stopped using the disposable because it takes 500 years to decompose. It makes me feel very guilty when I use it sometimes.

I breastfed her exclusively for six months, which most working Bhutanese mothers doesn’t do. Thankfully, I have a boss who has a baby and she completely understands me.

The next big thing after six months is what to feed to the baby. The people in developed countries serve baby cereal. Poorly, we don’t get baby cereal in our country and most mothers land up serving their baby with “Yoechum”, the local rice which has more starch than the normal rice that are easily available in market. The local rice gives constipation to the adults, so think about baby’s condition. The common ingredients to the baby’s food are butter and salt (people say it to make it tastier).  Think about the size of the baby’s kidney. Think about all the process it has to undergo to remove the salt from their tiny body. My baby’s food contain only cereal, vegetable or fruits and still she eats deliciously because she don’t know the taste of salt and butter.

My baby has a sore throat and a rough cough these days. My colleagues suggest that I should feed her honey. Most Bhutanese don’t understand the potential fatal disease that can be caused due to honey. Botulism is rare but very life threatening illness.

Well, how we bring up our baby is our own style but I think it is necessary to know what we think healthy could prove to be danger to the baby.