15 Marbles

Hi everyone,

How are you holding up? How are you adjusting to the ‘New Normal’ ? It’s strange, isn’t it? Who would’ve thought 3- 4 months back that things would get so out of hand ? I keep asking myself the same thing again and again.

Our little household is doing ok – actually we are doing pretty alright – we have a home to stay safe in. SP & I are working from home & the girls have been homeschooling after the Easter break. Their school holidays were brought forward by a week and we had made the decision to keep them home since the week before. So, we have been at home for the last 8 weeks, going out only for solitary walks or essential shopping every two weeks , sometime every 3 or 4 weeks.

Mr Mowgli is loving the extra attention and long walks. Although I have to say, that when we first started staying home, he seemed a little confused.. like he didn’t know what was going on. First few days he was happy, then he started acting nervous, whether he was picking up on our anxiety or reacting to the changed conditions, I’ll never know. Although when we went to the vets for his yearly checkup & shots, the vet told us that a lot of dogs were feeling anxious at the moment.

He has calmed down now & looks forward to his walks. He knows that we finish work around 4:30-5:00 and he starts pacing around us, as if reminding us that it’s time for a walk.

I asked Ms An what her most favourite part of the isolation was and she said spending more time with Mowgli- they are literally inseparable. Her least favourite part of isolation is being separated from her class and teacher and understandably so. MsA’s coping mechanism is watching Harry Potter movies over and over again, night after night over the holidays and now that school’s on , over the weekends. That and FaceTime with her friends . I swear, it’s almost like we have another teen living in our house. Sometimes I join in their conversations 😀 other times they roll their eyes at me . Whatever work, yeah?

SP copes by playing his games on the iPad and talking to friends and me ? I cook – cooking is my stress buster or and have Zoom calls with my friends every now and again. All we have to do is get through each day, One day at a time and before we know it, this will be over.. maybe we will go back to what it was, may be this new normal will be the normal. Who knows? We just have to wait and watch.

More later,

❤️ Trish

999 pieces 😀 I completed this 1000 piece puzzle but managed to lose one piece 😥 but that’s ok.

I think this puzzle is much like our lives right now.. we have everything, yet something is missing.

We are safe in our homes, with our little families, but miss our extended families. I love staying home but miss the rush of going out; I miss people – my friends, coworkers, other familiar faces.

I also miss emotionally blackmailing my dad to come visit me because it’s been so long since his last visit – I don’t know when he will be able to visit next 🙁 Yes, this is a sooky post & I am going to share it – because – it’s ok to not be ok.

I miss the conversations – you know the ones you have with the barista while you wait for your coffee or the checkout staff while you pay for your groceries, the quick chat with a friend in aisle 6 of the supermarket or dropping in at a friend’s after a crappy day and asking that she make chai .. that’s what I miss..

This week has been a hard one – both with work and homeschooling. I have to say that the kids’ school is fantastic and have made the whole remote learning so much easier for us,but still as a parent, you can’t not feel the pressure.

I feel like I am currently trying to balance three jobs – my own full-time job-currently working from home, homeschooling MsAn ( keeping up with her timetable, coaxing her give things a go, coming up with fun things to keep her engaged) & housekeeping . When I was working out of home & came home after a 10 hour day , the things on my agenda were after school activities, dinner, homework, quick tidy up & bed. Oh! And I used to cook only once each day, at night – enough food for dinner & leftovers for lunch.

Now with work from home, we are eating all three meals at home – cooking three times , even if it’s 2 minute noodles or fried eggs for some meals. The house and the laundry keeps staring at me, as if accusing me of not doing enough.

This constant pressure, this mental load was starting to bog me down. It felt like I had an elastic band around my head that was getting tighter and tighter. So, I decided to give myself a break today. My company has recently started the concept of well-being leave ( 3 days in a year for your wellbeing) . Today I used one of my well-being days. I slept in, woke the kids up for their classes, still had to remind MsAn about her classes, but if she didn’t want to do anything, I asked her to give it a go once & left it at that.

She had to do an exercise video & she refused to do it as it’s not fun for her. I didn’t push it, but she asked me if we could go for a walk instead. So, that’s what we did. We went for a long walk- exploring our neighbourhood, admiring flowers in the front yards, talking about life, skip counting and discovering that all the house numbers on one side of the street are odd numbers and on the other side are even numbers! She didn’t complain even once and before we knew it 40 minutes had passed.

The week has ended and hopefully the next week will be kinder to us .. but to everyone out there, hang in there.. this too shall pass.. I started writing this post feeling so sad and miserable, but I am feeling a little bit better after writing here. I hope reading this helps you feel a little better too, because, we are in this together!!

Thanks for reading !

❤️ Trish

I received this message today and it instantly raised my happiness quotient to 100% .

My Nanya, I have always said she has such a caring, giving soul – she really is . And I am not saying this just because I am her mum.

I remember when she was a toddler and we were invited to a SuperHero birthday party. All the kids were excited to see Captain America. Lil MsAn, found my friend’s brother-in-law, sitting alone in the second lounge room – checking something on his phone. She planted herself next to him, babbling away, until he finally joined the rest of the party.

At childcare, kinder, every time I ran into another parent, they’d tell me how loving she is. At school this year, I don’t have the luxury of leisurely drop offs & pickups, but when I do meet other parents, they always tell me how delightful she is.

This message came at the right time- a time when I was worried and thinking about the things that worry her.

What does an 8 year old worry about you ask ? Friends mostly. Friendship problems, she worries about fitting in – she is a person on her own but she also knows that she is different- different because she likes things that other girls don’t usually like.

She likes playing games that boys do, but boys don’t always want to play with girls. And she doesn’t want to always play with the boys.

There are some girls that she wants to play with but she doesn’t like the games they play. And then there are others that seek her out, but she is chasing other friends. Sometimes, she tells me, walking around by herself is more fun and it breaks my heart into a million pieces, just like that.

It’s complicated, you see.

That’s why messages like these make me happy. They give me hope.. that it will be ok. They make me feel happy because she made someone’s day better. And not to forget, all that good karma that she is cashing in.

Speaking of Cash – On Halloween, the last house that we knocked on, belonged to a set of new parents. Their little Bub is probably a couple of months old and Halloween was probably the last thing on their mind. Anyway, the guy quickly grabbed his wallet and pulled out 2 $20 notes and gave it to the kids .

There were 3 of them and he only had 2 notes. We said No, but he insisted and apologised that he only had two notes. The girls said thank you & moved on. But the little girl that didn’t get the money was sad. MsAn didn’t even hesitate for a second before offering her friend the money . It’s beyond me how someone so little can be so selfless.

We were eating lunch at the food court, the other day and SP had to make a phone call. While we were waiting, Ms An decided to teach me the lyrics of a song from this video game she plays. She was so patient too. When we I got tired of that, she put up an impromptu performance for me.

Just watching doing her own thing- singing and dancing – and I had this overwhelming wave of love hit me – I hope she continues singing, shining her way through whatever life throws her way, spreading joy and cheer as she goes.

She is a hugger, like her mumma. She goes about spreading joy, one hug at a time.

If MsA was my first true love, MsAn is my soulmate – she literally came into my life and took control – completely!

As some of my friends say, she has me wrapped around her little pinkie finger 🙂🙂

I leave you with a picture of my precious at her favourite spot .. making music

Being a mum is responding to a whiny, long drawn “Mummmm/ Mummmyyyy / Mummma” with a Yessss( and a mental eye roll) to turn around and realise that it’s not your child.

Being a mum, means you can still hear and recognise her child’s voice in the chorus or a cacophony of little voices and smile despite the noise.

Being a mum means your heart can swell with pride and break at the same time – Pride because your little munchkin recognises what is upsetting her & is ready to face it. Heartbreak- because your little love is being so brave and doing a great job of holding her tears.

Being a mum is a great balancing act – between being tough & loving , soft & stern, being fun & setting boundaries.

It’s a constant juggle between wanting to spend more time with them and wanting to send them to bed.

It’s a constant struggle between wanting to be at home with them and wanting to be at work, because I do love being at both places.

Motherhood – this overwhelming feeling that consumes you, takes over your mind, heart and soul but, I wouldn’t trade it for anything.