Life Experiences

Burns in babies

2011-07-26T18:39:00.000+05:30

It has been such a long time that my blog remained inactive, owing to being busy with my son!! :) Now that he is 1.5 years, things have picked up pace as he is running all over the place!!! :) Time just flies.....:)

Recently, he burnt his finger when his curiosity took over him and he touched a bowl of hot water. Curiosity because I had asked him not to touch and exchanged our little "danger" sign. Yet the accident happened.

Immediately I remembered my mom's advice of handling burns and within 30 minutes, he forgot he had burnt his finger and it did not even leave any mark.

It is my prayer that your baby is protected and has no such incidents. But, God forbid, if it happens then the following may prove helpful:

a) Immediately, allow the burnt area under plain running water for a minute or so. Avoid ice water as it may cause blisters.
b) Pat it dry and rub the area with cut potato.
c) If no potato, apply honey on the affected area.
d) After a while, apply calendula cream. Within minutes, it will alleviate the pain.
e) If calendula cream not available or not sure of the efficacy of it, then simply apply boroplus or borolene or apply some more honey.
f) Once the child is soothed a little, give him or her some warm milk with turmeric powder mixed in it. This really helps a lot to alleviate the pain.

These were a few things in my knowledge, of course, there would be many more. Readers please share some more home-remedies for the benefit of all.

With best wishes to the parents and prayer of safety for the babies, I sign off!

World Environment Day - How Ironical!

2011-06-08T00:12:00.000+05:30

Lion grabbing a coke bottle at Hyderabad Zoo

Is it not an irony that a lion grabbed a coke-filled bottle in the Nehru Zoological Park at Hyderabad just a day before the World Environment Day?

This weekend our family planned a visit to the Nehru Zoological Park or the Hyderabad zoo on Saturday, 4^th of June 2011. It was sort of an educational tour for our 16-month old son too. He was all excited seeing the animals and birds we have shown him in his board books and DVDs. Besides recognizing the animals and the birds, we also taught him not to throw plastic wrappers of the chips.

Around 4 p.m., we went to the area of lions and found lot of shouts and cries of excitement. After reaching there we found that someone had thrown the “coke-filled plastic bottle” in the water to get the attention of the lions. Well, the audience did succeed in getting their part of the fun but no one ever thought of the hazards of the action.

The zoo authorities have been making all attempts to keep the animals safe. At numerous places, it is written that feeding the animals is prohibited and to throw waste in the dustbins. It is also mentioned in bold letters that plastic is hazardous to animals for it can cause choking in them. Along with the authorities, it becomes our responsibility as well to keep the animals safe which provide us the entertainment we seek during holidays.

After coming home I was admiring my photographic skills in capturing some rare poses of wild animals in the zoo but this photo reminded me of the reason why I clicked it. It is to bring to public attention that not everything is fun and that we must be cautious of our actions.

The incident caused much pain and anxiety to us and we appeal to the future visitors to be more cautious of their actions in the zoo. Teach our children to take care of the animals like our own. On World Environment Day, let us take a pledge to conserve the animals and the zoo ecology to ensure that the respective animal enclosures remain filled with healthy and happy animals.

Commencement of solids at 6.5 months

2010-10-20T08:51:00.000+05:30

Hi, I am back with some experiences to share, regarding feeding solids to our son. There were initial hiccups, then rejects, insecurities, throw-ups and many more emotions to be handled, when we started giving solids to our son.

We were, again, poured in with innumerable advice as to when to start solids. Despite lot of pressure from relatives and friends to start early, we started solids for our son not before he was 6.5 months. Sometimes, they are no longer advice but more of repeated instructions in every conversation, like the FOR LOOP with infinite bounds!

Anyway, coming to the main topic, we observed a few signs before we decided on solids.

Signs

he started attacking the food in our plates, which was not seen until he completed 6 months.
he made chewing motion. Initially we thought he has put some object in his mouth, but on inspection found that his mouth was empty. Thus, a sign that he was ready for solids.
frequency of desire for breastfeeding increased, guess he was feeling more hungry.
he was able to sit upright with back support without losing balance for more than 1 minute. We were not exactly waiting but he somehow was sitting at the same time he was doing the above mentioned things too. Guess, am unsure whether this is a sure sign.
he started using his thumb and index finger to pick up things. This started much at the same time that he started sitting. Again not sure if this is to be taken as sure sign.

Few pointers:

After reading about the nutritional requirements of infants when starting solids, following were our conclusions:

Iron intake needs to be taken care of as iron supplies start depleting in an infant who is exclusively breastfed for 6 months.
Iron absorption increases when iron-rich food is supplemented with vit-C rich food items.
Common sources of constipation: (based on our observation of our son)

rice
banana
excessive milk products
apples
potatoes

Consumption of fluids needs to be monitored to avoid constipation.
Space every new food introduction by 3-4 days to observe reactions.
Always try the food before giving it to the baby.
Choose the right time to feed. If the baby is cranky or sleepy or busy playing, then s/he will rarely eat in such moods.
Lastly, be confident and experiment with various foods without fear of reactions. If at all there are reactions, then stop the allergen food item.

First foods (6.5 to 7.2 months)

Fluids

We started with fruit juices and purees like:

squeeze the juice out of grated apple. Dilute the juice in the ratio of 1:8.
sweetened mosambi (sweet-lime) juice. Dilute the juice in the ratio of 1:10.
diluted tomato puree with little salt and ghee.

The first week we fed him once a day. Generally fruit juice or puree. As he got used to this, we started with semi-solid food.

Semi-solid

Semi-solid food comprised of:

mashed boiled apple and raisin. (Raisin for iron)
mashed banana. We observed that the next day he had loose motions the next day, 3-4 times, so we discontinued banana.
mashed boiled carrot.
mashed boiled red pumpkin.
cerelac Stage 1

First two weeks, I used to milk breastmilk(BM) to the mashed fruits or veggies and feed. Later on, once he got used to them, stopped the BM addition. After one month, he stopped cerelac completely. He just did not relish the taste! which means urgent modification in his foods.

Transition to complex foods

By the time our son completed 7 months, he was eating mashed fruits and veggies. So, then we started rice.

Rice khichri

Boil rice with one vegetable.
Grind it in a mixer to make it pasty like cerelac. This for easy swallowing considering that he did not have any teeth.
After two days, I started adding ghee and little salt. He did not show any reactions to any of the above mixture.

We started dals for him when he was 7.1 month. He readily accepted moong (split green gram) and masoor dal (split red lentils). His body got all rashes when he consumed tur/arhar dal (split red gram).

Presently, he is having moong dal and masoor dal.

Khichri with dals

Add little ghee in the pressure cooker.
Saute little freshly ground jeera powder
Add rice and dal (either moong or masoor)
Add 3 times the water and little salt.
Make the khichri as soft as possible for easy swallowing and digestion.

Khichri with vegetables and dal

Add little ghee in the pressure cooker.
Saute little freshly ground jeera powder
Add chopped vegetables (e.g. potato, tomato, carrot, sweet potato)
Add rice and dal (either moong or masoor)
Add 3 times the water and little salt.
Make the khichri as soft as possible for easy swallowing and digestion.

Ghee adds a very good flavor to the khichri and our son loves khichri with ghee. I guess, putting them on bland food is little tortuous. Guess, upgradation from bland to salty to spicy food should be maintained but to feed them bland food for months together and then complain that they do not eat well, is a little unfair!! Our son hates anything that is bland, he prefers a little tangy flavor.

By the time he completed 7.5 months, he was eating three times a day. Its the same time he started teething. Now, we feed him more lumpy food and use the grinder sparingly. Also, we do not boil the fruits anymore.

We generally keep the following sequence while preparing his daily menu.

Morning (anytime between 9-11 am)

Any one or two of the items below:

1. Fruit punch -

1/2 apple
1/2 pear
1 small sapota
2 soaked raisins
1 soaked almond
little sweet-lime juice

Grind them all (or some) together to a fine paste.
2. Mashed fruits
3. Idly with curd

Noon (12:30 pm)

Vegetable soup or home-made chichen soup.

Afternoon (anytime between 2 - 4 pm)
Any one or two of the items below:

Khichri
boiled veggies with little ghee
boiled rice with veggies or purees
oats with veggies

And curd or curd with little rice. Curd is his favorite and it has helped him in regulating the texture of his stools.

Evening (5:30 pm - 7 pm)

fruit punch
raagi boiled in jaggery water with little cardamom powder added for flavor. He loves this preparation.

Night (8:30 pm - 9:30 pm)

Generally, the same as lunch. Once in a while, menu may vary from lunch.

Feeding issues

After choosing the right time and menu, next problem to be tackled is the various tantrums-drama of the baby. Also, besides the tantrums, we also learnt the various signs of his being full.
Initially, they take everything served as they are always exploring new things. But after a spoon or two starts the woes!

Food not liked
In case he did not like the food, he would either purse his lips or move his face away or lately started spitting.
Generally, at such times, we stop for sometime and try distracting him and then feed him. He eats most times.

Separation anxiety
As his tummy was getting full with solids and need for breastfeeding reduced, he started getting cranky during meal times. His breastfeeding frequency increased. As soon as he would see the spoon, he just turned his face away and start crying and try put his arms around my neck. That was the reason why we started with solids once a day, and then gradually increased the solid feeds to help him adjust to the solids.

Anyway, whenever he would start crying, I used to take him in my arms and comfort him and then play some of his favorite music and then he used to take the solids. Distraction works pretty well. Also, I tried feeding him with my finger instead of the spoon. That worked too.

This behaviour lasted for some 20 odd days. Gradually, as his solid feeds increased he got adjusted. And now he readily opens his mouth whenever he sees the spoon.

Family eating together
Around the time he completed 8 months, he started getting more involved in his games that he did not like spending time on eating.

Earlier we would feed him first and then have our meals at a later time, but now we make it sure to eat alongwith him. This worked really well as he copies our actions of eating and moreover he knows all are here at the table so no one is free to play!! :) Whatever be the reason it surely works. In a way, this has disciplined us also!!

Copying actions
During those testing times when he would just not open his mouth to anything, then we tried another technique.

I would feed or pretend to feed my husband and then looking him eat, our son would copy him too. So every 3-4 spoons, we would repeat the action. It worked wonders!! :) To inspire him, my husband would exclaim as to how yummy the food is and that he is enjoying. Its fun watching our son eating without any fuss with eyes fixated on his dear daddy!

Alternating foods
Now in his 9th month, he is having two courses per meal. In case he does not like one item, we would generally alternate the sequence. 2 spoons of the item that he liked, then wait and then followed by 2-3 spoons of the less liked item.

If he is not taking both items, then he is either full or not in a mood or wants something else to eat. So got to try the other methods mentioned above.

These were few of our experiences, and lessons learnt. Surely, there will be many more such stories or helpful tips. It will be great if readers shared the same for the benefit of all.

A kid of our own literally fires our creative engines to their maximum! My God! have to devise ways to just get them through a meal with minimum fuss!!

All the best!

Six-month old falls from bed

2010-09-08T19:33:00.001+05:30

The most horrendous moment for any parent is to hear that "THUD" sound when his or her baby falls from the bed or couch or some high furniture. Worst even to see the poor infant wailing on the floor, I mean it takes a while to get out of the shock.

Our son fell from the bed in his 6th month. Our bed is 1.5 feet from the ground. One day, in his 3rd week, he fell from the bed while attempting to hold something that caught his attention. I was in the other room and suddenly I heard "THUD!!" and my heart sank. I ran and took him in my arms. He was wailing and seeing him I wanted to cry myself. But composed myself, immediately rushed to the washbasin and dabbed some cool water on his head which soothed him a little. He cried for almost 2 minutes, the longest 2 minutes of my life! Anyway, I performed the following checks:

Eyes - They were white. When kept his favorite objects(which generally we tell him not to touch) like phone, he was following them. Later on I read on the net that if the eyes get pink or red, immediately rush to the doc.
Ears - I played his favorite music, title song of "F.R.I.E.N.D.S." and he quietened for sometime and smiled as he does always. Then did all the noisy actions that he generally does and found that he was following the sounds. It is said that if the baby behaves the same way as earlier, no need to worry.
Nose - checked if any bleeding there. Thankfully, no bleeding.
Mouth - checked his gums, tongue, everything normal.
Arms - checked if they were normal, as in no disfiguring.
Legs - rotated his toes and feet, normal.
Actions - I left him on the floor and he crawled to his toys as he always does. So his legs and hands were normal. He was standing the same way, using my body as support, as he always does.
Feeding - He took his feed normally.
Bumps - He had no bumps that day, but at night I observed a small pinkish bump which went by the end of next day. On touching the bump he did not cry which means it was not paining him.
It took him 30 minutes to finally normalise and play as always. I guess it took me 2 days to come out of the shock. Worst is that being the mother I could not cry as he should feel comforted and secure with me rather than cry more, seeing me cry. I was unable to enter the room till my husband came home as I always visualised him flat on the floor. It was a nightmare!

Remedial measures

a) His play area is set on the floor with the mattresses spread out. He loves being there whole day. And now that he crawls swiftly and is able to stand, guess, its a life saver. Besides I have lesser tension even if I have to leave him for sometime.

b) If we have to spend more than 2-3 mins elsewhere in the house, he is in his walker. He loves the independence of movement in the walker!

c) We keep him on the bed only under strict supervision.

Moral of the story

Babies are free thinkers and believe me, they can land in problems in less than a fraction of a second! So, never assume things about a baby. And whatever s/he may be doing today, they may be adding something to those actions in a day or two. Thus, always be 10 steps ahead of your child so that you are well-equipped mentally and physically to keep him or her safe! :)

Common cold to 6-month old

2010-08-31T00:41:00.000+05:30

I am posting this for the benefit of all the parents who go through this experience the first time.

Our son fell ill with common cold just after a week he completed 6 months. It was due to weather change.

Symptoms and his general behavior:

running nose
cough, made a sound like something is stuck in his throat. Guess its the phlegm which he either used to vomit or pass it in stools.
was active and playing normally.
no fever
At night, his nose got blocked due to which he found it difficult to breathe.

Treatment

First we took him to our nearby paediatrician, he prescribed some syrup for cough and nose and nebuliser sessions twice a day for three days. For 10 years, I have been a chronic asthma patient and was on inhalers and nebulisers. Therefore, I was totally against it for a small child who is still in his developmental stages. But considering that it will take a few hours before we could talk to our family homoeo doc and get the medicine we put our son through the ordeal of the nebuliser. And what a way he cried those 10 minutes, my God!!! After that, we never took him back for another session.

Later that evening our homoeo doc prescribed us BC-6, 2 globules with breastmilk three times a day. By the third dose, we could see marked improvement. Beside the medicine, we were giving him home-made chicken soup and tulsi ka kadha or basil-leaves decoction. He enjoyed drinking both and it gave him relief too.

At nights, we used to elevate his head a little so that he can breathe seamlessly till the nose blockage got alright. Also, we put nasoclear drops in his nose at night before sleeping for further relief.

Since it was monsoon, there was large variation in temperatures. At times, it will be humid and lead to perspiration and other days it will be very cold. So, we took constant care that he was properly clothed. Always watched out for sweating as sweating can aggravate the problem. So, I used to put a thin cotton undershirt and then hosiery full hands tee shirt and thick pyjamas. If there was sweating I would take off the top layer shirt, powder him a little and put on a fresh one.

Thankfully, we do not have an air-conditioner. Closed rooms are catalysts for common cold, thus, we kept the room well-ventilated.

CAVEAT - Whoever is taking care of the baby, will invariably catch the cold. If the baby is on breastfeeding, then mother can take care by putting on a scarf on her face while feeding. But, still probability is high that mother will get it. Thus, better if father remains a little away from the baby so that in case mother is unwell, atleast father is healthy enough to take care of both the baby and the mother! We did not anticipate it and both of us caught cold and realised our folly.

Medicines, soups, aerated rooms, proper clothing, are all the physical aspects of nursing. The most important thing that the baby seeks during this time is lot of cuddling and hugging to provide that warmth and security.

This was our experience and how we managed it. There are many other ways and will be glad if readers share their experiences too! :)

Developmental stages - 0 to 7 months

2010-08-27T19:18:00.001+05:30

Congratulations to you if you have your new-born infant in your arms and best wishes to those who are expecting in a few months.

Allow me to share some of our experiences.
Having delivered the baby, when we saw our child the first time, we had many concerns about his forehead(which was not visible at all), eyes which were partially closed, shape of the head and many similar ones. But then our parents and the doctor assured that there is no need to worry as you will observe lot of changes in the coming months and surely we did. And as time passed, we were surprised ourselves how our son has been evolving mentally and physically. Now he is 6 months old and thus, thought of sharing these developments in this post.

0 Month

Physical development

Shape of the head:

Our son's head gradually started changing its shape from egg-like to more circular. My mom-in-law had gifted us a pillow with a depression in the middle for the head. This probably helped in changing the shape.

Some traditional ideas:

a) Fill a cloth with Rai or mustard seeds and stitch it in the shape of a pillow. This helps in shaping the head. We did not try it as mustard is very heaty and were unsure of its effects.

b) Wound little firmly, a soft cotton cloth around the head in circular shape. Tried this for a while, but our son seemed irritated by it so did not try after a week.

Exposure to light:

Initial 2 weeks, he was aversed to bright light like the light of a tube so we generally used 0-bulb in his room and used dark curtains in his room to reduce the intensity of sun-light. Gradually, my mom used to take him into the balcony in early morning to help get adjusted to brighter light. It helped him.

Sneezing:

He would always sneeze whenever under direct fan or breeze from the window. The first 2 months he used to sneeze pretty frequently. But Our worries were kept at bay by the doctor who said that sneezing is normal in infants as their nostrils are getting stimulated by air and any small particle can cause irritation and lead to sneezing. So not to worry, unless of course, if it is coupled with cough and running nose.

Swaddling:

All infants like to be swaddled tightly in soft blankets as that is how they are used to inside the mother's womb. We used to swaddle him pretty nicely but our son always wanted his hands out to spread near his head and sleep, guess most infants do that too.

Sleep patterns

All he used to do was sleep. Guess, if I remember, he used to sleep some 16-18 hours a day. Get up only when passed urine or stools or hungry. Get cleaned up, take feed and sleep again. Luckily, he followed a pattern pretty soon and used to sleep through the night and get up for feeds every 3-4 hours. That way, we got good sleep.

On days when there was a change in temperature, our son, like all infants, found it difficult getting adjusted to the weather change. Those were some miserable nights. All we used to do was take him in our arms, rock him, swaddle him and take him for outdoor walks, at times for car rides and finally he would go to sleep. Car rides had become a regular feature! :)

We have heard that the first one year or till the infant goes through all the seasons once, it is a hard time for the parents or more for the baby who has to learn to adjust to these changing seasons and increase their body immunity to various illnesses.

Checking his sight and hearing

Well, all these vitals are already tested in the hospital right after birth, yet for our own satisfaction, every once in a while, we would check whether he can hear or see properly. We would clap our hands really hard or make loud sounds from mobile, or speakers etc and observe him move his head in the direction of the sound.

We used to take red handkerchief or some big colored object and keep it in front of his eyes. He would fixate his sight on the object. Gradually move the object from one side to another and observe his reactions. Initial weeks he hardly moved his head sideways, but by third week he started following the objects movements gradually.

Cord stub

Somewhere around the 3rd week, his umbilical cord stub fell off. We did not eve know when it happened. Initially, it looks macaroni like while as days pass it turns to brown as it dries and falls off on its own. We would dry that area well after his bath and sprinkle little powder which we used to clean it again in the evening so that no infection occurs. That area needed to be dry always.
We were briefed about the cord blood banking, but we decided not to go for it as we were not sure about its preservation techniques. So we are just relying on God that our son is protected! :)

Bathing

We started his bathing sessions after 11-12 days as by that time he will get little acclimatised to the environment. Till then we used to give him oil massage and sponge bath so that he does not much exposed to the outside air.

Before bathing, we would give him oil massage followed by warm water bath. He used to love it. Somehow he loved water from day one. Good for us.

Since parents and grandparents are too possessive about their child/grandchild and consider their baby to be the cutest, so they indulge in practises like applying kajal as an evil-eye warder. Thus, we also used to put a small tikka or a dot on his forehead. Then my husband and myself read about the harmful effects about lead, which is a major ingredient in kajal. So we decided to gradually get out of the practice.

Guess, after a month or so, we stopped putting that kajal anywhere on our son's body and believe me, he is fine. To my mind, these evil-eye warders just give mental piece that now no one will can harm the child. Elders in our house explain that the reason we put this is because when someone sees the baby, they will first see the black dot and then gradually focus on the baby, so negative energies are warded off. Kind of distraction technique! Well, it is funny though how can anyone harm someone just by seeing. No offence to those who are staunch believers of this but my belief is that good people will never wish ill for someone and bad people are anyway bad so they have no powers to harm us. Guess, world is divided into two sections good and bad people so there we are, totally safe. So, we do not need these distractors.

I will admit though that the fact that we used to put that kajal explains my fears as a mother. But as days passed and I regained my strength and started my meditation. I got control over my possessiveness and get over my fears and that is when decided not to put kajal again on our son. So, you see, although I have preached a lot against this practice, yet I followed as I fell prey to my inner fears for whatever little time it was.

Anyway, soon he turned one-month old.

One-month old

By the time he had completed his first month, he had started giving us small smiles. He found the ceiling fan the most attractive object and used to keep his sight glued to it for most time of the day. Well, obviously, when he cannot sit and turn all he can do is watch the ceiling!! :)

His forehead was getting visible and head was getting its circular or to say, normal shape. It was no longer the egg shape.

He had become more magnanimous in giving us smiles when we would make funny sounds! :) Real fun when you see your baby smile at you.

He was sleeping less during the day. Night time sleep was still the same.

The 6-week check-up approached and the doctor checked his breathing, stomach, head circumference and shape, ears, nose, etc and gave a well-baby chit. Then we were briefed about the vaccinations, mandatory as well as the optional ones. The DPT, H1B, IPV were given the same day after the consultation. The optional ones were the Rota virus and pneumococcal vaccine. Rota virus for stomach infection while pneumococcal was for pneumonia which had like 90% chances of immunising the body. Anyway, we decided not to go for the optional ones. Later during my delhi visit, went to see our family homoeo doctor for my piles treatment. He advised us strongly to allow the body immunity to develop naturally and not to over-vaccinate the child. They may have side-effects. So we are strictly sticking to the mandatory ones.

And the scene of vaccination is horrible. The babies literally cry their hearts, lungs and everything out at the time of injection! It is really painful to see them in that pain. But they calm down as quickly as they had started crying. I guess the vaccines induce sleep, as our son slept for like 3-4 hours uninterrupted and took feed and went back to sleep again.

By the time, he was completing 2nd month, he had started turning to his left side. That was his first movement of the body, besides of course, cycling of legs and hand movements. He was still not aware of the presence of his hands and feet thus, would move in random directions.

Now, he had started taking out some sounds like ooohs and aahs! My dad would keep him on the dining table in the morning and play with him while he is making all these sounds. It was fun.

When we used to keep on his stomach for a little while he would attempt to lift his head. By the time he was completing two months, he was able to lift his head 45 degrees.

His neck was still very delicate so we used to lift him by giving support to his head and and back. It was scary at times, his head would jerk back if the hand is removed even for a while.

Two months old

Wow! already two months over. Believe me, at times, I used to feel when will he start walking and my mom would just pat me and say do not worry that time will come and then you would wonder why has he started walking so soon!!! :D

His arm and leg movements were still very random. It seems babies get familiar with their arms and legs somewhere mid-2nd or 3rd month onwards.

If we would keep our finger between his palm and fingers, he used to hold it with a tight grip. Guess, that also he was not aware. It was more an instinctive action to close the fist as soon as something is in the palm.

I had observed one very interesting action of his. He used to keep both his arms on his left side as if holding on to something and pull both arms to his body. I feel probably he was still in state of inertia, guess, inside the womb he would be pulling the umbilical cord towards his body in the same fashion. This action was observed till he completed 3 months. Most times, his arms were closer to his body.

Still his major attraction was the fan. Although, we had hung some jingles from the bed so he could see them while lying down. Initially we did not see him following the circular movement but then after a day or two, we observed him following the objects in circular motion. It was fun watching him giggle at the music.

He used to take out girgling sounds and at times, wait for us to repeat his sounds. He would giggle when we would take out funny sounds, specifically whistling. We observed that he used to focus at our lips while we were conversing as if he will speak right after we will stop. Guess, that is how they learn language skills.

He used to drool a lot. We thought that he is teething, got never any tooth in his 2nd month. Anyway, we do not know the exact reason but we took extra care while wiping as every few seconds we were wiping his chin and lips. Hard or repeated wiping may cause rashes at times. Thankfully he never developed any.

He had started recognising me as the milk-provider and the arms to fall asleep if being cranky. When cranky he would not get quietened by anyone except the mother, i.e. me. Although it feels great to be so important in someone's life yet scary at the same time.

First air travel

He experienced his first flight travel when he was 2 months 5 days old. My husband and myself read all that we could about baby air travel dos and donts, made a mental note of what all to carry and what to do during the travel. We had packed based on the stuff that we would require in the cabin and rest stuffed in the check-in luggage. I had kept the feeding pillow(looks like a doughnut), nursing cloak, change of clothes for the baby, diapers, wipes, covers to keep dirty diapers, changing plastic blanket, talcum, napkins, in the diaper bag.

We chose kingfisher first because of its excellent service for mothers with infants. I was travelling with my mom-in-law. We inquired for on-board facility of any stroller but were informed that in domestic travel no such facility is available. We had our own stroller which came handy in the airport. Before boarding the flight, the crew gave us a card with our seat number and details written and kept the stroller with them. The air-hostess briefed us about precautions during take-off and landing. I purposefully chose the aisle seat for more space. During the flight I realised, window seat would have been better.
Reason: While the air-hostess serves the food and beverages, she is moving with a trolley which at times hits our hands and elbows. At that time, I was careful that it should not hit my son. Window seat is safer that way and offers more privacy too while feeding, although, I used the nursing cloak which was a great saver.
I had plugged his ears with little cotton.

At take-off time, I fed him and he slept off while feeding and got up only after landing at delhi. The feeding pillow was awesome help as he rested well on it like a bed and I did not have to literally carry him in my arms the whole time so I got some rest.

As soon as the plane landed he got up and started crying. Guess, the body was in state of inertia, for him still moving! He just did not like it. Anyway, I tried feeding him, he did not take the feed as he just wanted to get out of the seat. Well, thanks to his wailing we got easy pathway to the door! :)

But over all, the trip was great with no hiccups. The kingfisher folks were helpful throughout till we sat in our car. So that was our son's first air travel!

Even before we knew, he completed three months.

Three months old

His forehead was getting more prominent.
Head getting its shape
He could lift his head and shoulders for a short while when he is lying on his stomach.
He was able to keep his head straight for some 30 and odd seconds when held him vertically.
He had started laughing loudly and shouting at the pitch of his voice. He kept experimenting with his pitch by shouting whenever he could and got better and better in the volume.
We found that if he would quieten immediately when taken to the bathroom. He loved it for that was the place to play with water.
He could bring his hands up together, but still seemed that he was not aware that they are part of his body. Occassional random movements were still there.
He would lift his legs and cycle in the air. At times, he would stretch his legs and straight and arms above his head and take out grunting noises. We thought he is pooing but it was just grunting!
He was able to lie on his side for some 10 or odd seconds and then again come on his back.
Whenever sleepy or tired, he would rub his eyes and nose.
He used to keep all his fingers inside his mouth. As he was completing his 4th month, he learnt to keep his thumb in his mouth.
He would occassionally show signs of recognition to me and the family members.
If he is not hungry and slept well, then he would just love being with other people. He seemed to be social with everyone. He was pretty magnanimous in giving broad smiles and laughs to our friends who would visit our house to see him. It was their treat! :)
He developed a different style of crying by the time he was completing his 4th month. The voice changed a little.
He would still pee like 10-15 times a day and poo like 2 times a day. Many-a-times, he skipped his stools for 3-4 days. I read that it is normal for breastfed babies to skip stools for days. So I was relaxed.
Although, advised by elders to start giving him water, yet we decided to wait till he is 6 months. Breastfed infants do not need water until they are dehydrated due to diarrhoea or they are introduced to solids. Excess water at times may cause more harm than benefit the infant. It interferes with the absorption of nutrients. Therefore, always check with your doc and observe your baby's signals.
His next vaccination was done during this month. Again a horrendous experience seeing him cry so much. But again, he calmed down instantly.
He was able to stand for sometime if you held him on your laps. His legs were able to bear his weight. But after a while he would bend his knees and lose balance.

Use of diapers
We used to put him on cotton nappies most of the time. Diapers generally at night so that he can sleep peacefully. Since knew his pattern so used to change his diapers at night every 2-3 hours.

Also, when we used to go out, we put on his diapers. That way, we minimised his diaper-rash occurrences. Infact, it never happened.

On 28th may, he completed four months and the same day we were returning to hyd. This time it was my husband, myself and our son, again by KFF. At take-off I fed him and expected him to sleep like last time. But this time he was active and did not sleep the whole travel time. We had a poo session and then diaper changing session in the small restroom of the plane. Anyway, this time the travel had more activities than the last time. In two months, things change so much!! :)

Four months old

He was able to keep his head straight for longer time. He could neatly fit in our baby sling without any problem to his back or neck.
He was able to stand on his legs when we held him.
He rolled over on 4th of june at night while playing in playgym. It was a fun experience. The initial rolling was with lot of effort and he could roll only on one side. He would roll and we would bring him back to back. This will go on for some 4-5 times and then the next time he rolls he would start crying. By the time he was completing 5 months, he would roll in our arms or in air while we are putting him on the bed or floor.
Rolling was a new-found skill. When a baby learns a new skill, he or she keeps practising the skills learnt every time, even while they are asleep. Our son would involuntarily roll over while in his sleep and then wake up crying as he was not able to come back to the original position! We had sleepless nights thanks to his rolling! :)
By the time he was completing 5 months, he was able to roll over seamlessly.
He had started girgling loudly and laugh aloud.
He loved being in the company of others. He used to play with them and shout and laugh and girgle and gain the attention of others in a group.
Flipping of fingers was another fun game he loved watching during this time.
He was able to sit if we kept him upright and cushioned his sides. He had actually started loving this posture rather than lying all the time! :)
During his evening walks, he loved observing the trees, the kids playing and at times doze off in the sling.
Till his 3rd month, he was gaining weight 1.2 kg per month. But the gain dipped to only 250 gms during the fourth month. But later in the fifth month, he gained 500 gms. It seems baby weight gain decreases after 3rd month and stabilises at 400-500 gms per month.

And he completed five months.

Five months old

He was able to rollback by now. So, it was fun, he would rollover from back to tummy and then tummy to back. Thus, he was more peaceful at night and we started getting good night sleep.
He started exploring our faces with his hands.
He tried lifting his body on his fours but immediately fell on his tummy. By the end of five months, he was able to balance himself for some 30 seconds before falling on his tummy.
He learnt to crawl backwards. If there is a target in his front, poor guy, would crawl backwards! :)
He would pick up anything and put it in his mouth.
He learnt that if items are thrown on the floor they make sound. So, instead of putting his toys in his mouth, he started throwing them on the floor and watch them make sound. He would swim on his tummy in excitement! Do not ask how much bashing my mobile had to bear!
We used to occassionally give him little water to drink. But he would play with the bottle more than drink anything. Anyway, we were not worried of less intake of water presently as he was breastfed.
He would raise his both hands in air to indicate that he wants to be lifted in our arms. He would tightly wrap our neck with his arms.
He would occassionally clap his hands in the air.
He had started recognising faces of our neighbors who visit us regularly. Also, our cook aunty and the lady for domestic help. As soon as he would see them, he will start clapping his hands and laugh aloud.
He started attacking our plates while we used to have our food.
He started responding to his name. We used to constantly call his name and look at him. During the day, I used to play games like call his name repeatedly and whenever he would look at me I used to clap my hands and say "Very good!" He kind of liked my excited reaction so he used to look away from me and when I repeated his name several times, once he would turn and again I would shower him with hugs and kisses. A week long exercise of this name calling, helped him learn the keyword, i.e. his name. So, now if we are talking to someone else and his name comes up, he would look at us! :)
By the time he was completing six months, he started making chewing motion. Initially we thought he had something in his mouth, but when examined his mouth was empty. Guess, these were signals that he was getting ready for solids.

And he completed six months. We had celebrated his half birthday. We took a video where he is attacking his cake, although did not give him anything to eat. Considering it is too sweet for an infant who has not started any solids. We thought he can wait for sometime.

Six months old

His face changed a lot since his birth.
He learnt to crawl forward and by mid-six month, he learnt to crawl on his fours and creep as well.
He was attempting to stand on his legs using the furniture or our bodies as support. By the end of six months, he was able to stand but would fall after 10 sec or so. Guess, his legs still need to gain more strength.
He would try to jump over us or any other barrier in his way. It was scary if he was on the bed.
Our bed is 1.5 feet from the ground. One day, in his 3rd week, he fell from the bed while attempting to hold something that caught his attention. I was in the other room and suddenly I heard "THUD!!" and my heart sank. I ran and took him in my arms. He was wailing so badly, I wanted to cry myself. But composed myself, immediately rushed to the washbasin and dabbed some cool water on his head which soothed him a little. He cried for almost 2 minutes, the longest 2 minutes of my life! Anyway, I performed the following checks:

Eyes - They were white. When kept his favorite objects(which generally we tell him not to touch) like phone, he was following them. Later on I read on the net that if the eyes get pink or red, immediately rush to the doc.
Ears - I played his favorite music, title song of "F.R.I.E.N.D.S." and he quietened for sometime and smiled as he does always. Then did all the noisy actions that he generally does and found that he was following the sounds. It is said that if the baby behaves the same way as earlier, no need to worry.
Nose - checked if any bleeding there. Thankfully, no bleeding.
Mouth - checked his gums, tongue, everything normal.
Arms - checked if they were normal, as in no disfiguring.
Legs - rotated his toes and feet, normal.
Actions - I left him on the floor and he crawled to his toys as he always does. So his legs and hands were normal. He was standing the same way, using my body as support, as he always does.
Feeding - He took his feed normally.
Bumps - He had no bumps that day, but at night I observed a small pinkish bump which went by the end of next day. On touching the bump he did not cry which means it was not paining him.
It took him 30 minutes to finally normalise and play as always. I guess it took me 2 days to come out of the shock. Worst is that being the mother I could not cry as he should feel comforted and secure with me rather than cry more seeing me cry. I was unable to enter the room till my husband came home as I always visualised him flat on the floor. It was a nightmare.
From now on, we keep on the bed only if we are with him otherwise, he spends the whole time on the floor in the computer room or in the walker or in our arms.

He runs the risk of falling even while trying to stand using support of furniture, thus, we are always vigilant. We do not stand behind him but are in hands reach. In case, he is about to fall, we can help him out. We do not want him to develop the fear of standing, if he observes that we are always protecting him. It is like babies will learn if left free but under silent supervision.
We started his solids. He has tried idly, mashed/boiled fruits and veggies, cooked raagi with little ghee and salt, softened dal with ghee and salt, dal+rice khichdi, tomato puree, home made chicken soup(which he relished a lot). He developed loose motions the day after eating banana, so we have discontinued it for sometime. Probably we will start after a week or two. At tea time, he will eat whatever cookies we are eating.
He babbles words like ma ma or da da. More when he is crying. While crying he will take out all kinds of sounds, guess, desparation to tell something brings out the speech from their mouths! :)
Earlier he used to be very patient while changing his clothes or diapers, but in the 4th week, he had become very impatient. As soon his clothes are touched, he would rollover and push our hands away, but not allow us to change. It is not like that he is sleepy or feeling cold or anything, just does not want to be tied down in one position! It is a war-like situation after bath when he is to be worn clothes! And as soon as he has worn his clothes, he will behave as if nothing happened, all smiling and playing again!! Gosh!!
During this month, he started showing signs that he understands our instructions. e.g. if we tell him not to touch a book, he will touch it once and see us again if we still persist not touching then he would move away from it. He also acknowledges our applauds when he does something good, like crawled and held some toy, or stood on his legs successfully or followed our instructions.
I have observed him look at me while he will go near the edge of the bed for he knows he will get a NO from me, and then he will look one more time and then crawl back!! It is so much fun seeing him respond that way. So now he understands many words.
At times, he gets scolds too and then he would try pacifying us giving his sweet toothless grin. I have to really try hard not to smile back or else he will not take the instruction seriously. I have to face away and smile!
We were surprised when one day he started caressing our cheeks and smile. He did that for a long time at night. Now he repeats it quite often. He was expressing his affection, I guess. It made us feel so good.
He has started rubbing his ears recently and gets a little cranky. Checked for ear infection, nothing was there. Guess, teething has started. It seems during teething their cheek and ear nerves feel itching. So now we understand the origin of the term "teething problems" better.

In a day's time he will complete 7 months. I will post the remaining developments after a lapse of two or three months. But having written all these developments, my life just got rewound to the time when he was born and then played till date! :)

Wish you all a happy parenting time! Enjoy the moments! :)

Postpartum issues

2010-08-04T13:38:00.001+05:30

Hi
This is in continuation of the child-birth series that I started in july. After my delivery, I understood that I have entered another process. Infact, the transition started as soon as the baby is delivered. It took me 2 weeks to get emotionally attached to my son. I mean it was not like as soon as I saw my baby my heart was flooded with bonding emotions for him. All those F.R.I.E.N.D.S. fans, it was not at all like Rachel crying seeing her daughter!! My complete focus was in understanding each and every task that needs to be done, starting from feeding to cleaning poops to bathing to.......awww.......the list is just endless.

Now when I reflect in the past 6 months, I realise there were so many phases and aspects to be taken care of postpartum. I am discussing my experiences taking each aspect at a time.

Mother's Health

The moment I stood up and started walking, which was 2 hours after my delivery, I felt as if all my abdominal organs are hanging loose and my tummy is falling down and down! It was an awful feeling. Not to mention the excessive bleeding which was causing more discomfort. Anyway, a good 6-hour night sleep helped me come back to this world and realise that I am a mother now.

Since there was so much of blood loss, the body loses lot of its heat. Thus, my mom used to feed me with heaty food items. Considering that it was winter months and was pretty cold here, I had to wear a sweater and scarf too, lest I would get common cold. And if I am down with cold, it will very easily be passed on to the baby while feeding. Hence, I had to be very careful not to catch cold. I guess, in that sense, the Indian concept of confinement to new mothers seems logical. Of course, we tend to go overboard at times while being cautious.

We had hired a lady who used to give hot-oil massages to my son and me and then give us hot water bath. For my son, we used olive oil and for me, some Ayurvedic oil which helped relieve me from the aches in various body parts, like back, arms, shoulders. Since we are not used to carrying the baby all the time, it affects our shoulders and arms too. I had developed a muscular catch which lasted for first 15 days.

At that time, you are so drained out (thanks to sleepless nights, feeding) that it really feels great some one giving you a massage and a bath. The lady would then tie two soft-cotton sarees around my waist pretty tightly with a warning that I must not remove it during the day!! Well, one can also purchase waist-bands from the chemist. Well, I must say, the tying did help in pushing the tummy back. I am not sure about those who have c-section as there are stitches on the abdomen, in any case, the doctor will advise you.

I used to do abdominal exercises that helped in toning the abdominal muscles. It surely helped although, I never liked doing them at that time as all I wanted to do was sleep, which was like a distant dream. I developed dark circles under my eyes!! Anyway, at that time you cannot be much bothered about your looks, first you want to be physically fit.

Diet

My regular diet used to comprise of lots of green-leafy vegetables, bottle-gourd, ridge-gourd, bitter-gourd, salads, mostly rice, pulses(generally moong or masoor, arhar and chana used to cause acidity). I used to drink lots of water(warm water), juices, and coconut water.

In order to have quick healing of my wounds, I used to take little sonth powder(just a pinch) with ghee and rice. At night, used to take garlic roasted in ghee with rice or roti. Garlic adds a little smell to the breast-milk and also helps improve milk production. For Omega-3 fatty acids, I used to eat flak seeds since I am a eggetarian. Fish eaters have a benefit there.

There are some foods that are helpful in production of milk. Of course, the best method is nursing. The more the baby takes the feed, better will be the production (demand increases, supply increases!).
Anyway, these I had read at many sites and our lactation nurse also told, besides the ones that mom used at her time.
Jeera water, saunf water, sesame seeds(prepare til powder and can sprinkle on your curries), garlic cloves, coccinea(kundru), telaga pindi (Telaga pindi is the remains of sesame after removing the oil), sago.

http://www.ammas.com/topics/Recipes/a131383.html

For strength, mom had prepared dry-fruits mixture with ghee, jaggery, wheat-flour. It really used to act as energy-punch at that time. I could feel the difference while I used to eat it. Do not worry about calories at this time as mothers need more calories for recovery and for nursing the baby. With regular breast-feeding coupled with exercises, your weight will reduce.

I never used to like drinking milk so mom used to prepare sago-sevia-kheer and at night of course, had to have one cup of milk. It surely gave me some energy.

Nursing

This is the most important part besides taking care of your own health. I mean mother's health and baby's nourishment goes simultaneously.

There are so many things to be taken care of while feeding the baby. Latching, the first and the most important aspect of healthy feeding. If the baby is properly latched on to the breast then the milk flow is proper, baby can suck easily, less occurrence of sore-nipples, and improves milk production.

I know a few of my friends, who said that their baby had problem latching on although milk was there in the breasts. So, they had to express the milk and feed them in bottles. One of them said that after a month with constant trying her baby finally learnt the trick and she could feed him normally from the breast. Thus, if there are problems latching the first few times, do not get upset and keep trying, taking the necessary steps to keep the baby satisfied.

Our paediatrician had advised that at times the milk flow is less, at that time, we must allow the baby to keep sucking. This action, kind of signals the mother's body that there is demand for more milk and consequently improve milk supply. From my personal experience I am telling it works wonderfully. Initial 2 weeks, the supply was less compared to the frequency of my son's feed but later on it improved.

I could not help but admire the engineering marvel that is our body. Once a nursing schedule is formed, you will not believe, that later on the milk will ooze out of the nipples at that exact time whether you are feeding or not. Well, obviously if you are not feeding then it wets your clothes. It was so exact, I just was in awe. It holds true still, now that 6 months have passed.

For those who have issues with milk-production must not get depressed firstly. It will improve as weeks pass-by. Just be positive and follow the instructions of your doctor.

I know many mothers in our neighborhood who had less milk and had to feed their babies formula-milk and I see that the children are pretty healthy. Thus, formula milk is not all that bad, just that breast-milk has its own benefits thats all. The most important being that it is unadulterated and has no hassle of sterilising feed bottles and other associated tasks.

Oh yes, in case of sore nipples, try rubbing little of your own milk on them, it will heal. I tried it and heals pretty quickly.

Emotional sinewave

One goes through so many changes all at a time that the mother experiences a lot affecting her psychologically.

Firstly, the body is not fit hence, the weakness causes a lot of depression. Depression is more because that with the nursing, which cannot be compromised, drains you out besides the existing weakness on account of delivery. Depression manifests in many ways and, sorry husbands, but you are the victims of these mood swings!! Believe me, she will be hating her being a woman as she has to bear so much while you men are free and no worries!! But fairly speaking, I sympathise with the husbands too. It is as much a change for him as for you, dear mommy! Try having heart-to-heart talks and both of you will feel much better and closer.

Due to feeding and the recovery process that generally lasts for 4-6 weeks, there is no urge of having sex and this distances the husband and wife. This causes many silent wars between couples, unknowingly! Best is talk it out and have more of cuddling and hugging sesisons!!

Secondly, the baby cries more frequently as s/he is getting adjusted to the new environment, which is nothing like the womb of a mother! :) At times, its not just crying, they literally bowl their lungs out which makes many mothers anxious and the doubt creeps in "Am I going to be a good mother?" Well, do not worry you will be. As days pass by, you will be more alert and observant of the reactions of your baby to different stimuli and identify the irritants pretty soon!! But till the mother does not gain that confidence, her psychological health takes a beating.

Thirdly, none of the earlier clothes fit you well. Gosh!! That is the worst that affects any female. It cannot be categorised under vanity, its just the feel-good factor. We are not aspiring for 0-size figures here. Well, those who are ambitious, just keep some hold on your targets of reducing weights and waistlines, priority is the health of your baby and you.

Anyway, husbands be more liberal in complimenting your wives, and please let them be genuine rather than sound artificial, that hurts more u know!

Last but not the least, once the mother and baby are settled with the latching and feeding then comes the next phase of weaning, which is equally difficult. Its not all with the adjustments in the first few months. Once the baby starts solids, his or her demands for the mother's milk keeps reducing and many mothers go through emotional stress due to this weaning too. But, I guess this process has a subtle import to all we parents, specifically mothers. Children will gain independence level by level and thus, their dependence on us keeps reducing. We need to take it positively as the child grows. It is for the betterment of both the child and the parents.

Well, these were few of my experiences, many personal and few shared by friends. Surely, there will be many more, and will be happy if readers contribute their experiences for the benefit of all.

Dear mommies, stay happy and healthy, rest will follow!! :)

Pregnancy and associated problems

2010-07-24T11:27:00.000+05:30

Pregnancy brings in a mix of happiness and its set of problems too. Of course, with a little bit of precautions many problems can be averted. Based on our experience, the following post lists a few of the problems that needs to be taken care of well within time. Precaution is better than cure!! :)

Gestational Diabetes

I did not encounter this word until I was warned about it by my gynaec, all thanks to my sudden 4-kg weight gain from my 5th to 6th month!! A steady gain of 2 kgs per month is considered healthy gain during pregnancy. Since I had regained my appetite as I entered my 4th month and the 5th I was hogging at food. The food included pizza with extra cheese, puris, McD burgers, McD fries(ummm....yummy they are the best!), pastries, ice-creams, and all the fatty and fried food that you can think of!!! How can I be spared then??

In my next visit, our doc saw the readings and immediately have my diet changed. The hospital dietician obviously, excluded all of the above from the list of healthy food items!!!

According to our scan, the baby had a little bigger head than normal and thus she was worried that we will have a big baby which may cause problems during delivery. And generally big babies are attributed to many factors, one of which is GD. But, she also said that since both my husband and myself are tall, that is a bigger factor of the baby being a little big. Still, why to take chances and asked me to be more careful about GD, specifically, since my dad is a diabetic too.

Coming to GD, it has some serious effects to the baby.

Now our dietician explained as to why the moms-to-be are prone to diabetes. Generally, the insulin produced in our body regulates the sugar level in the blood stream. During pregnancy, due to our high food take (thanks to hunger pangs), more insulin is produced by the pancreas which will keep the sugar level again regulated. As pregnancy progresses, the usual 4-hour digestion period extends by 4-5 hours which leads to more sugar level in the blood leading to GD.
This unmetabolised sugar gets passed on to the baby hence the baby gets high sugar in his diet inside the womb. The increase in sugar level makes the baby's pancreas produce more insulin to metabolise the sugar.

Few of the effects on the baby are
a) large body-size leading to difficult delivery
b) low sugar level as body is still producing high insulin although the food supply is cut off once delivered.
c) high risk for jaundice

There is nothing to worry even if someone is diagnosed for GD, all one needs is management by way of healthy diet and exercises then.

One can refer to the following sites for more information.
http://www.babycenter.com/0_gestational-diabetes_2058.bc
http://familydoctor.org/online/famdocen/home/women/pregnancy/complications/075.html

Hemorrhoids or Piles

This is something that I suffered from over a month after my delivery. I tell you one is better off without them and wish I had been more careful in the first weeks after my delivery.

Post-delivery, when I used to walk I felt that all the organs inside are moving loosely. It was really difficult with all those loose organs, and weak body. And the frequency of feeding the baby besides all the nappy-changes, just took a toll on my body. Over and above, the hemorrhoids. They just pulled me down as was unable to sit and feed my baby after passing stools as I had to lie down for sometime before the veins move back into position.

So what are hemorrhoids?
Hemorrhoids involve the blood vessels that line the anus. Pressure on the walls of the rectum weakens the muscles that support the hemorrhoidal vessels.

During pregnancy, pressure increases on the blood vessels in the anus for obvious reasons. As soon as the baby is delivered, the veins are still in inertia and takes a while to get back to normalcy. That is the reason that pelvic floor exercises done pre and post delivery help in toning the anular muscles and aiding veins to be back to normal.

It is said that piles happen due to eating foods that produce more heat. Well, the reason one advises to eat bland, non-spicy and non-oily food supplemented with lots of fluids, when diagnosed with piles, is that the stools are loose and do not burn the already affected area. This gives the body recover quickly.

My homoeopathy doctor advised me to apply one ointment besides the food restrictions. It proved beneficial to me. Those suffering from the piles can try it. Its called Aesculus gel, one can get it from any homoeo store. Besides this gel, he gave me internal medicines which of course, he knows. The third thing that one needs to do apart from the medicines and the gel application is Sitz bath.

Sitz Bath
Take a shallow vessel or tub and sprinkle some potassium permanganate granules in the vessel. Pour warm water in it and move it a little for the grains to dissolve.
Sit in this mix after passing stools. KMnO4 acts as a disinfectant and help in the recovery process.

These were two problems faced by me and thought of sharing them with you all. It will be great if readers can share similar stories and add to the list for the benefit of the expectant mothers.

Wishing you a happy and smooth delivery and quick post-delivery recovery! :)

Checklist for hospital-bag when having a baby

2010-07-19T08:11:00.001+05:30

Now, about the checklist that we formulated that we may need when we get admitted at the hospital for delivery. It took us lot of search and thought-process and finally we came up with our custom-made list some 3 months before the due date.

Initially the list got all mixed up, so we categorized for ease and it ensures that we do not miss any thing.

Hospital-related

a) Case file, which includes all the reports of various tests, ultrasounds etc.
b) Registration papers, in case the hospital gives in advance. Fernandez Hospital(FH) said that its given the same day.
c) Cash - smaller denomination to be used in canteen.
d) Credit/Debit card
e) Health insurance card, if there is cashless facility.
FH does not have cashless facility, but they provide itemised bill at the time of discharge or after a day or two of discharge that is sufficient for reimbursement.
f) Camera, batteries, battery-charger
g) Additional bag

Mother-to-be

a) Loose comfortable attire while in labor.
b) Slippers
c) Toiletteries - tooth-brush, paste, soap, face-wash, towels, etc
d) Cosmetics - we do not need make-up kit here! Just that stuff that will make you feel more refreshed after the delivery.
e) Four or five sets of underclothing, including nursing bra, nursing pads.
f) Feeding gown - required post delivery while at the hospital. Preferably, dark shades as the first few days, generally heavy bleeding is experienced. For those choosing Fernandez Hospital, there are very good baby stores just opposite and adjacent to the hospital where you get these gowns besides plethora of other stuff at fantastic prices.
g) Sanitary pads - These can be purchased from the pharmacy though, but if you have some preference always better to carry those.
h) Reading material
i) Music resources - e.g. CDs or players(ipod, walkman, etc)
j) One or two comfortable outfits to be worn at the time of discharge while coming home.

For the baby

a) Diapers - Purchase size "S" of any brand, the pack of 5 or 10. We found Huggies Dry Comfort pretty good.
b) Clothes for the baby - weather dependent. But considering that the babies are all so buzzed out in the first month getting adjusted to the new environment, a little warm clothes will not harm him or her. They are most vulnerable to infections during this time.
c) Cap that can cover the baby's ears and head well.
d) Mittens
(Since our son was born in January in hyderabad, when it is pretty cool so we had warm wears for the baby. Babies cry if they feel cold and generally are tolerant to little extra warmth.)
e) Keep 4-5 sets of clothing, depending upon the stay in the hospital.
f) Receiving blankets
g) Car seat or carry-cot style
h) Soothing music, preferably instrumentals, for drive back home.

For the father-to-be

a) Change of clothes - Three to four sets
b) Reading material
c) Toiletteries
d) Slippers

This was our list. The list helps you exploring various things which you may never think of, if you are going to be the first-time parents. Remember pack your bags atleast 2 months in advance. You can keep adding to the items as and when something comes to your mind. But the essentials must always be packed so that you are ready to be admitted anytime after the completion of 34 weeks.

Wishing all first-time parents-to-be a happy parenthood! :)

Some tips for natural delivery

2010-07-13T12:51:00.009+05:30

Having heard so many stories of recovery problems and other side effects of a caesarian, that when I conceived, I had started collecting all the information that would help me to a natural delivery.

Although, it is a known fact, that whatever we do, nick of the moment things may take a different turn and alter what you had planned. Well, in my case, things worked out well and I could avoid a caesarian. Also, a lot depends on the doctor as to how s/he is handling the case.

In earlier days, women were so active and used to do most of the household chores, that they never required these special exercises as they were doing as part of the chores! But with today's sedentary lifestyles, we need to make extra effort to do these exercises if we aspire for a natural delivery.

Following are few things that I used to do to tone my body for a natural delivery and for a healthy post-delivery recovery:

a) Pelvic Exercises

I used to do pelvic floor exercises very regularly. Few sites that helped me besides the birth classes that I joined in my hospital are listed below.
Pelvic floor exercises will prove beneficial pre and post delivery.

Pre-delivery - it will tone and strengthen the muscles giving flexibility required for natural birth.

Post-delivery - it helps in regulating the blood flow to the muscles helping in the healing process of the area between the anus and the vagina. It also helps in avoiding urine stress incontinence, i.e. urine leakage when you sneeze or cough. This happens as the hormones during pregnancy stretch these muscles and lead to such leakages.

If not done, then it may lead to haemorrhoids at times. I was pretty regular with my exercises post-delivery for the first 2 weeks and later on, just could not continue due to the stress taking a toll on me. I suffered later (nearly after a month)with external piles for 1 month. I took homoeopathy treatment for the piles and have recovered. Well, the point is to avoid them, be regular with the pelvic floor exercises, no matter how tired you are during the day.

http://www.babyworld.co.uk/information/pregnancy/health/exercise/pelvic_floor.asp
http://www.ehow.com/way_5175662_pelvic-floor-exercises-during-pregnancy.html
http://www.babycentre.co.uk/pregnancy/fitness/pelvicfloor/

Yoga

Praanayam helped me in regulating my breathing patterns, helps you during contractions.

Besides the breathing exercises, do stretching exercises of your arms and and legs. Also, back exercises to cope with the stress on the back.

Walking

This formed the most important and regular exercise during my pregnancy. I would go for atleast 30 minutes walk daily, twice a day. Generally evening and at night. I was too lazy for morning walks.

It helped me in many ways:
a) perfect exercise for hips and thigh muscles.
b) kept me fit mentally
c) gravity helps in baby moving down.
d) best time for my husband and myself to have heart-to-heart talks, as he used to be busy during the day.

Post-delivery - I am still going for walks as it is a form of outing for my son and excellent form of exercise for me to keep a check on my weight gain.

Acupressure

My mom is an ardent believer of acupressure thus, she had already got all information about it when she came to hyderabad to stay with us. She showed my husband too and they both used to take turns to stimulate those points for natural induction of labor. I do not know whether they can assist in natural delivery. Even in the hospital while I would get tired of walking and take rest, she would either take a comb, or a pen with a broad edge or use her thumb and press the pressure points.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnEcLSHTI0s
http://www.buzzle.com/articles/pressure-points-to-induce-labor.html

In fact, after delivery, she used to softly activate pressure points of my son in order to induce sleep when he is cranky. It used to work many times!! :)

Positive Inputs

This is the most important thing. Remember, mind is the strongest tool in our body and that the body reacts based on signals sent by the mind. Therefore, give yourself positive inputs that your body is healthy enough to go through the delivery naturally. The effect is so powerful, yet intangible that one does not really perceive it to appreciate it much.

Just sit calmly in a silent place in your house or a park, in general a peaceful location. Close your eyes and tell yourself that you have the power to do it. You do not have to focus on any idol of God or in between the eyebrows and all, just sit with your eyes closed. If nothing else your nerves will calm down and that itself is good enough. You do not have to time it as well. Sit or lie down for as long as you can and then gradually open your eyes.

Infact, if you can go one step further, then visualise yourself successfully delivering a healthy baby normally, on a regular basis and that itself will act as a positive input.

Well, it can be done in many ways, choose what suits you the best.

These are few things that I used to do religiously and proved to be beneficial, thus, thought of sharing with you all.

All the best to all those expecting and wish you a happy motherhood!! :)

Childbirth - Our Experience - Delivery

2010-07-12T18:41:00.009+05:30

......Contd from previous post

So after our check up on 23rd Jan, we were hopeful that something will happen on 24th, my husband's birthday. It would have been great both father and son sharing the same date, guess baby had other plans!! :)

26th Jan:
We went to the hospital. In the scan the abdominal fluid level dropped to 7. Generally if it is more than 8, then one can wait. Since it had dropped and I had no pains yet, Dr. Tara explained us that the labor will be induced artificially. She explained the whole process. There are 8 doses with a gap of 4 hours between each dose. Dose means insertion of a small tablet through the vagina. Within these 32 hours, if I go in labor then there will be another wait of 6-8 hours for the dilation of the cervix to 10 cms. So, we got admitted in the afternoon at 1:30 PM and informed my parents.

After 1 hour of having lunch, the doctor said the first dose will be given. Each dose will precede with a scan of 20 minutes, called as NST.
This generally graphs the contractions and the baby heart rate(BHR). Generally, the contractions and BHR are directly proportional. With contractions if BHR dips then things are a little worrisome.

3 p.m. - first dose inserted and we waited nothing happened. My parents packed their stuff and came to the hospital.

7 p.m. - NST done

7:30 p.m.- 2nd dose

...........This continued the whole night of 26th. At night, Dr. Tara came and met us before leaving and reassured us that everything is going fine. Also, said that we will wait till 28th night and conduct C-Sec if no labor sets in. It was such a relief just hear her voice that I was calmed and waited. My mom's elder sister stays just 15 minutes away from FH, so my parents spent the night at her place. Anyway.....

27th Jan - Morning the doctor gave us some good news that I have dilated 2 cms!! Some progress. ....Same procedure continued....nothing happened.

28th Jan 3:00 AM - I had severe shivering and fever and then the labor pain started. And this time pretty regular. Every 5 minutes, I got one. Immediately the duty doctor came and examined the NST graph. My contractions and BHR were inversely proportional. Immediately Dr. Tara was informed and she asked the examination to continue. Wooo...phh! Exactly after 36 hours the pains started!! One dose was skipped when 2 cm dilation was observed as they wanted natural dilation to happen. So kind of 4 hours gap there. Guess our baby was too lazy to do anything on his own!!

Finally, graph showed direct relation.

8 A.M. - I was shifted to labor room and Dr. Tara conducted an internal examination and found that there was no fluid. So guess, the fluid got emptied somewhere after 3 AM and I did not know. She asked me to freshen up, and be on liquid diet thereafter.

9 A.M.- Finally, I was in the labor room, all set. NST was still going on. An epidural was given and around 12 PM syntocin was injected through IV. Epidural was really helpful for most part of the labor. Every 1.5 hours epidural dose was injected.

8 PM - DR. Tara gave us the news that it is 10 cm dilated. By then, pain had increased in intensity and I do not know whether the epidural was discontinued thereafter. But I would say, the sensation of pain worked well for me as it gave me an idea as to how much I must push. With epidural the sensation of pain is not there, and makes you dependent on the nurses and the doctors who guide you when to push. Boss! the pain was definitely that I have never experienced in my life, and will not lie that it was terrible. But, as Mary told us during the birth classes, pain is just to guide us out of the delivery better. She also encouraged us for natural delivery saying that we are not the only ones going through this, many have done in the past and they are all doing normal now!! So we must fight our fears.

If it is of any help, remember to put pressure the way you would pass stools when having constipation. Initial few pushes I was putting more pressure on the abdomen which was not helping me except tiring me. Do not worry, the pains will actually make you feel like passing stools, just follow those signals and use your might to pass them, and lo! your baby will be out!!! :)

Anyway, I cannot thank Shourya and my mom enough. Both provided constant support. My mom gave me the instructions that I understood the best and pushed that way. In between Shourya would hydrate me by helping me drink water. Finally, after a while, everyone could see the head but it did not come out. The doc said that it is not rotating and suddenly found the heart rate dip. Immediately, she asked the OT be prepared and within minutes, I was wheeled over to the OT. During the journey to the OT, I was still pushing as advised.

Shourya and my parents were apprised of the situation by the doc that probably a C-Sec may be done. Once everything was set, they would ask Shourya to come inside. After a lot of shouting and pushing from my side, the docs guiding me through out, with the help of forceps our son, Rudransh, was delivered at 9:26 PM. The doc announced loudly "its a baby boy, its a baby boy" and rushed out of the room. Did not know why? Later Shourya told me the reason.

By the way, wonder how I know the exact time, is it? Well right in front of me on the wall was a digital clock that showed time to milliseconds!!! :D

As soon as the baby was out, I felt as if I was floating in air! Well it was not yet over as I had to push further to get the placenta out. Since there was tearing, a few stitches were put and after a while I was wheeled out to the post-op room. Dr. Tara kept caressing my arms and my forehead explaining me that they are putting the stitches. It was really comforting having her on my side. Since 8 AM in the morning that day till our baby was delivered she was there with us.

Dr. Tara came and showed me the baby after a while. I remembered him all funny looking and nothing like what he looks now though! :)

Scene outside the OT:
Shourya was waiting with the camera and mom had gone to get dad from the room. At around 9:30 PM, the nurse went out and informed Shourya that it is a baby boy. He could not believe it for a second as he was still under the impression that he would be called inside for a c-section!! hee!hee!

Anyway, hugs exchanged between my parents and Shourya and then I was wheeled out to meet them.

In the post-op room, I was to be kept for 1 hour observation. I was getting fidgety as I wanted to hold my baby desperately. Finally, after 1 hour, I was wheeled to our room where I found the crib is empty.

Shourya and my parents told that during delivery Rudransh swallowed some of his stools just before coming out. Thus, he was immediately rushed to the paediatrician waiting who did whatever was necessary and then later on showed the baby to them. After showing them the baby, he was taken to the nursery for observation. Some fluids were intravenously given to him. And only parents could go and see him in the nursery. So Shourya had made two rounds already and found him doing well.

Since it was already 2 AM and while I was walking I felt everything pretty loose inside me, decided to go to the nursery in the morning. I felt as if all the organs are strewn across in the empty space created by the exit of the baby!! Since I was on liquid diet the whole day, half-n-hour after the delivery, I passed loose stools 3-4 times. I was feeling so hungry. Had some juice and slept off. Shourya checked on Rudransh once again and then slept.

Next morning after breakfast, Shourya and myself, went and saw our son. It was an awesome feeling, cannot even describe it in words. He was not that puny as I was expecting but still he was all soft. I was so scared to even touch him in the beginning. Immediately the nurse put him for his first feeding session with me. Thankfully, he had no problem latching, about which I read a lot that first-time it mostly never happens successfully and all. But luckily nothing of that sort happened.

After the feed, he slept off and then the nurse again put him in the incubator or whatever it is called in the nursery. The paediatrician told us that his breathing is absolutely fine now and all vitals doing good. After an hour he would be shifted to the room.

As soon as he was shifted to the room, we were all excited. My maasi had also come. My mom gave a demo as to how to hold him properly so that his head does not hang out. It was amusing holding him and feeding him.

During the day, lactation expert came and gave a 30-minute lecture on latching, feeding, position to hold the baby, lactation-facilitating diet etc. It seems sesame seeds increase milk-production. Luckily, since it was winter, sesame seeds did not do much harm. Otherwise, they are pretty heat-producing.

Then the head of the nursing deptt came and took a feedback. Dietician came and explained us what to eat and what to avoid. Very methodical. We had certain problem with the food and it was immediately rectified. She mentioned having read our comment the previous day. Then came from the administration side to take feedback of the overall experience in Fernandez.

It was definitely a lot of information in one day!! I was all lost and did not know how to prioritize things once I reach home.

That night, Rudransh was all cranky. I did not know why was he not able to sleep. He just kept crying. SHourya and myself took him out for a walk in the corridor and it helped a little. The nurses helped us out in feeding and swaddling him. He had his first stool-passing incident and we did not check that. The nurse checked his diaper and cleaned him and changed him into a new diaper.

Our first few lessons -

If he is crying, then check whether
a) he is hungry
b) diaper full
c) passed stools
d) feeling cold
e) and if just plain cranky, take him out for a walk. He needs a change!

Next day we were to take discharge. After feeding Rudransh, we took leave. Dr. Tara visited us and congratulated us with a warm hug.

While we were driving back home, Rudransh was sleeping most of the journey. But just before we were to reach home, he started crying, I must say wailing. Finally we stopped on kerb and fed him first.

Second lesson -
When he is hungry, feed him first and then do anything else.

Anyway in the course of 5.5 months now, learnt a lot and pass on our acquired wisdom to those who need it. :)

CAVEAT - All relatives including grandparents
As new parents, we both felt so possessive about our son, that we just could not handle many suggestions or advice given by even our mothers well. We wanted to raise our son our way and not their way and such other feelings.

Later on, we both talked it out and sorted our minds and changed our outlook in a more positive direction.

Probably, the people surrounding the new parents can empathise with them if they act funny or different!! :)

It is a beautiful feeling being a mother and I am enjoying every moment of it. I observe every movement Rudransh makes and it looks so cute. I mean e.g., we also sleep on our side but the first time when he slept on his side, I could not help but keep looking at him. There are many such actions. Thanks to digital camera, we can savor all these moments in the form of photos and videos.

By God's Grace and the assistance of my dear husband Shourya, my dear parents, Dr. Tara and the nurses and the hospital staff, I could deliver by natural method, recover quickly to enjoy each moment with our precious possession, i.e. our son Rudransh.

Childbirth - Our experience - Pregnancy

2010-07-06T10:33:00.019+05:30

In every couple's life, this is the most memorable and cherished time, that is, news of being parents and birth of their child. When we(my husband, Shourya and myself) got to know that we are going to be parents in 9 months' time, our excitement had no ends. It took us a while to sink in the happy news.

Since, we had been trying for sometime, so we had already subscribed to babycenter.in and were pretty familiar with the terms like trimester, morning/evening sickness, labor, contractions, etc etc.

I remember how much comforting it used to be to read narration of other couples. Thus, I thought of sharing our experience through this journey of pregnancy, and delivery with the readers. I hope it does comfort most readers rather than scare or cause anxiety.

CAVEAT TO ALL EXPECTANT PARENTS - Beat your fears
Get ready for advice from all nooks and corners and the whole time. At first, due to anxiety, you may like to hear them all and follow the advise blindly. As time passes, you will gain confidence and irritation may set in. Remember, activate your ear filters now so that useful information does not get rejected.

No offence to elders, but the advise they give is generally based on their experience when they were expecting some 25-30 years ago. Thus, always check the validity of the advise and the scientific basis of it. Research over the years have proved many of the beliefs as myths and many scientifically correct.

Any new advice given to us, we would first read about it on various websites, medical sites and then take an informed decision. My mom would add a line right after giving any suggestion, "Go and confirm with your faceless guide!!" Most of what she used to tell me was helpful, only that I wanted to understand why we are doing it, that is all. Thus, do not get scared of anything. If you understand the science behind baby-formation in the womb, then you can be more confident and take rational decisions.

Our Journey starts.......

Hospital search
Once our home pregnancy test was positive, our minds started racing as to which hospital and which doctor to consult. My husband had already done some spade work about the good hospitals, and doctors. So we had two options, Rainbow hospital(RH) in Banjara Hills and Fernandez hospital(FH) in Abids. We decided to visit both and then make a call to stick to one. Apollo never figured on our list of choices as we had bad experience there, so that was out.

RH has good team of doctors but we found that there was a parking problem and the tests there cost more than FH. Besides, billing counter had problems with the credit card reader many times. During the first blood test, the OPD nurse could not take out blood from either hand and after poking me so many times I put my foot down. Shourya went and fought with the receptionist then they arranged for the blood retrieval upstairs with some anesthetist. I mean, except for the interaction with the doctor in RH, rest all was fussy over there and did not really beckon us with warmth.

In FH, we did not have to worry about parking. One may find it trivial but on our second visit, we had to literally fight for parking and ultimately parked in some residential lane and wasted 20 mins there. During that time, I found that my BP went high and during pregnancy already one experiences heightened emotional swings! That was the last time we went there. Finally, we stuck to FH for which we will always be thankful to God for guiding us there.

Our consulting doctor was Dr. S. Tarakeswari. The first day we met her, it was such a warm meeting. She made us so comfortable and explained us everything that is going through my body, by way of diagrams. And patiently answered each of our queries. We had gone with a notepad, pen and list of queries. The first thing Shourya asked was about the window we will have from the time labor kicking in till delivery as our travel time to the hospital would vary between 45 mins to 1.5 hours. She told us that once the labor kicks in, you have some 5-8 hours for 3 cm dilation. So had lot of time. Only thing she said was that I will have to bear the pain for that long for which she offered solutions of using cushions and back support.

I guess we spent some 30 minutes inside and she never hastened at any stage just because there were many more patients waiting. We both instantly felt connected to her and decided to stick to FH and Dr. Tara.

The FH staff showed us the labor rooms, the UV glass case where the baby is kept in case of jaundice. We finally decided to go for 3rd Floor room and registered for it during our 3rd trimester, i.e. took a slip from them. The staff is so helpful and warm. They had shown us the rooms atleast 3-4 times on different visits with the same diligence. No sign of vexation. Really friendly staff. Another good reason to stick to FH.

First Trimester

The first ultrasound was done in the 7th week and advised to be careful till the completion of 12th week. Its the time when the baby's brain, heart, spinal cord is getting developed. It is not that as soon as the fertilization of the egg takes place, we come to know that we are pregnant. Generally 4 weeks past, the chemical marker hCG(human chorionic gonadotropin) is released which can be detected in the home pregnancy tests. This is because hCG is released only after implantation of the egg to the uterus.

But believe me, when the morning sickness takes over, you can hardly remember what is happening inside your uterus!! :) It was the month of may and I could hardly eat anything. My most favorite dish, "hyderabadi biryani and tandoori chicken", I hated the most!!! awww.....All my body could tolerate was milk+cornflakes and water-melon. Practically, till I entered the second trimester, I was on this diet. Obviously lost weight due to such a healthy diet!! ;) Shourya was really worried and thought that the baby will not be well-nourished, besides my weakness.

Then the doc told us that it is very normal to lose weight during the first trimester due to very high hormonal changes causing sickness. As for the baby's nourishment, it will not matter that much now.

We often wonder what a fantastic engineering marvel is our body with accurate timing cycles!! Of course the pre-requisite is that the body is healthy with no illnesses.

Morning/ evening sickness is not all, I had terrible mood swings and terrible hunger-pangs!! No I did not cry hysterically or something. But, would suddenly feel low, no spirits and go into silence and at other times, will be energetic that I would want to go for driving at middle of the night.

Here, I must mention the side of the husbands. It is pretty difficult for them to adjust as well, to these changes. I remember, in my hunger, I lashed out on Shourya once. He looked at me in disbelief and then after cooling me down, he sat with me and we discussed at length all the changes I was experiencing. He went to the extent of getting documentaries of NGC, "In the womb" and get acquainted with the whole process. Understood the science behind every small thing happening and realised that at this time I need more care, attention, patience!! :)
In return, he asked me to give him heads up of any new changes so that he is prepared for it. After that, we had a smooth sailing and worked in synchrony.

I realised that it is not that husbands do not care, but it is just that they do not understand what is going on and how do they help. Thus, they need to be apprised of the complete situation and explain their role clearly. Do not keep silent expectations!! :) If you want a hug, tell them directly. If you want an ice-cream, tell them directly. If you want to take time off from cooking, tell them directly. This way a lot of problems get solved amicably and both you and your husband can enjoy the period. :)

Second Trimester

Bodily changes
By the time I entered my 13th week, my any-time sickness started wearing off and was able to eat better food now. I am one of the lucky ones who experienced no puking sessions after the 13th week. It felt great. I regained my appetite for most food items and would literally shriek at seeing mangoes!! :D

Tummy started to show now little by little. By 5th month, tummy was pretty visible. A slight line started developing right at the center of the tummy which grew darker as the pregnancy progressed. Pressure on bladder increased so frequent trips to the restroom. By 6th month, the movements of the baby inside grew more strong. It was great and found that at most times my right side of the tummy was more bulging than the left side. Baby was most active at nights, guess that explains why he chose night time to come out in this world!! :)

Anyway, our 2nd ultrasound was scheduled in my 14th week. It was great to see the baby for the first time in its form, moving. Believe me, till then it never hit us that we are going to be parents for real!! Felt all mushy-mushy about it!! :)

Diet care

Generally, it is said that 2 kgs weight gain every month is a good sign. During the 2nd tri I had started hogging on food as my appetite and taste-buds helped me. Foods like pizza, McD burgers, finger-fries, biryani, pooris, sweets etc had become my favorite foods.

Effect was that I gained 4 kgs from 4th to 5th month and the doc immediately put a stop to everything. She did not even ask what was my diet, just listed all the above ones as the banned items and I was sent to a dietician in the hospital. Then onwards I was very careful about my diet as did not want GD(Gestational Diabetes) After that, weight gain was at its normal rate.

Hobbies to soothe

Whenever felt a little low, I would take the car and go for a drive with music on. It used to soothe me down. Since reading is my hobby, my online orders for books increased!! My dear hubby got me a walkman, which was the best companion during my walks and during labor. Watched lots of movies, all kinds.

Now, well-meaning elders and friends advised me to stick to only spiritual or religious stuff(books or movies), but I never read or watched any. I found them too boring and just could not relate to them. Already I was sleeping more than usual, these would act as catalysts to doze me off!! So kept away from them!

My favorite pics were Dark Knight, Avatar, 3-Idiots, Independence Day, KungFu Panda, IceAge (all parts), Apollo 13, and comedy series F.R.I.E.N.D.S., Dilbert and Everybody Loves Raymond.

But if we examine scientifically, the baby can hear only muffled sound. Basically, any soft sound is good for the baby. The only benefit I see in watching less violent movies is that the mind of the mother is relaxed which will help in healthy baby growth. Mother must always be in a happy mood as that will keep her vitals normal which means that the blood supply to the baby is normal. Guess, individual can make a choice of entertainment that will keep one calm and happy!! :) If reading or watching religious movies is what works for you, then go for it. But do not indulge in them expecting your child to born with a tilak like a swamiji!!

I used to sit for long hours of meditation that helped me a lot all through. It definitely improved my breathing and attuned my mind to bear the pain. Daily, I would give positive input to myself, that I will deliver a healthy baby by natural method. I wanted to avoid C-section as far as possible. Shourya was a great support and helped me to be open to everything or else nick of the moment things may not go that well. And my mom, who had been a constant support to me and gave me rational advise.

Anyway, second trimester went off without much trouble, infact, I enjoyed it all.

Third Trimester

Bodily changes
Due to heavy tummy, my feet used to ache a lot after my walks. My speed had reduced a lot and walk become a little clumsy. At nights, experienced leg cramps. That time, Shourya would massage my calf-muscles and that would ease off my pain. Used to drink lot of water and juices just to avoid cramps. It had helped too.

I did not have back-ache as such, but obviously could not sleep on my back. Well, nature has its own timing cycle and one must listen to the body signals. It is advised to sleep on the side during pregnancy, preferably left side as heart is on the left side thus baby has adequate blood supply.

My due date was 23rd Jan 2010, and I did not experience any kinds of contractions, as in the Braxton Hicks Contractions, till 2nd week of Jan. Those were also very mild ones and were like one or two every 4-5 days. I have heard many mothers experiencing as early as in the 6th month itself.

Breasts grew in size and became tender. So had to be careful of my choice of clothes.

Sweating increased during walks so used to carry water and take rest.

Exercises
In FH, birth classes are conducted. We joined the one-month long session. It was so useful. More than me, Shourya wanted to join them so as to be absolutely prepared during delivery. Ms. Mary-Signe Kelly took the classes and took us through each and every aspect with lot of patience and expertise. We were prescribed to breathing and pelvic exercises. Also, trained for breathing during contractions and delivery. Besides, given training for holding a baby, diaper changing, swaddling the baby, etc. It was so helpful.

With informative sessions, we made good friends with the other two couples whose due dates were also pretty close.

Note to all expectant mothers, do Kegel exercises, whether you do others or not.

My parents had come in december itself. And my mom is a known disciplinarian in our house!! Believe me, it helped me a lot. Whenever I would show lethargy for the exercises, she would make me do them of course, with a bribe of her tasty cup of coffee! She prepares wonderful coffee. She would accompany me for evening walks and night walks. Shourya got some breather!!

To remember
We had made a checklist of things that will be needed in case I am in labor. We had packed our bags 2 months in advance and used to keep it in our car whenever we used to go out. Those who need help with the checklist, will be happy to pass on ours.

Now, we entered January......the month of the baby!!

January

Nothing much happened in the first week. Second week, felt the first contraction in the middle of the night. Shourya sat with his watch just to time the next, and the next never came!!! My parents said no need to worry, lets go back to sleep.

2nd week passed. 3rd week same story. By the way, in Jan, the doctor visits were weekly.

Nothing happened. Finally its the due date, 23rd jan, the scan showed everything is normal and the head is fixed. So any time labor can kick in. Dr. Tara asked us to come again on 26th Jan and if things still remain the same, again on 29th Jan and still same story, then induction.

Delivery to be continued in the next post...........:)

Kalakand at Home!

2010-07-02T17:58:00.004+05:30

Hi to all!

It feels so nice to be back writing a post after a long time. Thus, thought of sharing a recipe of a sweet dish, one of my favorites, Kalakand. Now, why did I choose this sweet?

Well, it so happened that a few days ago, the milk went sour while I put it for boil. So immediately I removed it from the stove and added some lemon juice and allowed further coagulation. After a minute, I filtered the water out and mashed the solid filtrate, which is called as the home-made paneer (HMP). And then decided to prepare Kalakand with it. And that is how it all started.

Before writing this post, I thought of learning the origin of this delicious sweet-meat. It always feels good to know something more about the dish you are eating besides enjoying its taste!

Origin

Kalakand is originally from Braj in Uttar Pradesh. In Urdu, it is actually called Qalaqand. "Qand" in Arabic means Sweet. It is a very popular sweet in Northern and Eastern India.

Following is the method to prepare this very easy dish at home.

Ingredients

a) Home-made paneer, HMP (explained above) - prepared from 1 liter milk
b) saffron strands
c) Milk - 1/2 liter
d) Sugar
e) Ghee or home-made cream
f) Elaichi or Cardamom
g) Badam or Almonds (cut them into long thin pieces)
h) Pista or Pistachio (cut them into long thin pieces)

Method

a) Add saffron strands to the HMP and keep it separately.
b) In a thick-bottomed pan, add ghee or cream, milk. Add sugar in equal proportion to milk or according to your taste. Generally, kalakand need not be too sweet.
c) Allow the above to boil on low flame till the milk comes together.
d) Once, the milk volume reduces to half, add the saffronised HMP to it and allow it to boil further.
e) Once the mixture is thickened enough, add powdered elaichi to it.
f) Take a smaller circumference plate with high sides. Grease it a little and then pour the mixture in it.
(Small circumference ensures the kalakand to get its height as compared to larger plate that will spread the mixture more, hence, leading to thin pieces

g) After spreading the mixture, sprinkle the pieces of badam and pista over the mixture and allow it to cool down.
h) Once the mixture cools down, cut small cubical pieces and our sweet dish is ready.

Alternatively use condensed milk

Above in the method section, points (b and c) is actually the preparation of condensed milk. If you have a can of condensed milk already, you can directly add the HMP and the condensed milk according to the sweetness you want and then add powdered elaichi.

Condensed milk reduces your preparation time. Anyway, since I did not have condensed milk, I prepared it first.

Either way, the end product is really delicious!

Those readers who tried it at home, please share your experience!! :)

Have a sweet weekend!! :)

Aesop's Fables

2009-11-18T20:07:00.003+05:30

I recently happened to get hands on Aesop's fables. It was fun to read them, then I saw the commonness in all of the stories which had mostly animals of all kinds as characters to impart moral education.

Intrigued, I searched the meaning of a FABLE and found it was pretty close to the above mentioned observation. I found the following meaning of Fable:

A fable is a succinct story, in prose or verse, that features animals, plants, inanimate objects, or forces of nature which are anthropomorphized (given human qualities), and that illustrates a moral lesson (a "moral"), which may at the end be expressed explicitly in a pithy maxim.

Characteristics of a fable
* Its purpose is to impart a lesson or value, or to give sage advice.

* It also provide opportunities to laugh at human folly, when they supply
examples of behaviors to be avoided rather than emulated.

* It frequently have as their central characters animals that are given
anthropomorphic characteristics such as the ability to reason and speak.

Who is Aesop?

Coming to Aesop's Fables, we must answer the question, who is/was Aesop?
Aesop was a slave and a story-teller in ancient Greece during 5th century BC.
So these fables were told by Aesop and known as the Aesop's Fables.

Although, there is a lot of doubt about his existence, yet many of the stories do throw you into a pensive mood. Guess, after reading the stories I felt the emphasis must be laid upon the morals that can be derived from these stories.

I wonder why we always relate moral stories only children. I think even adults need these stories to assist in self-introspection! After all, its the adults who have to derive these morals from the stories and explain to the children!

Albeit, all stories are worth reading and contemplating upon, yet I chose a few of them to post here. Its not that there are no such stories elsewhere, but these being full of fancy animals and all, may appeal better to the children.

STORY - 1

The man and the lion

A man and a lion traveled together through the forest. They soon began to boast of their respective superiority to each other in strength and prowess. As they were disputing, they passed a statue carved in stone, which represented "A lion strangled by a man." The traveler pointed to it and said: "See there! How strong we are, and how we prevail over even the king of beasts." The Lion replied: "This statue was made by one of you men. If we lions knew how to erect statues, you would see the Man placed under the paw of the Lion."

Moral
One story is good, till another is told.

STORY - 2

The dog in the manger

A dog lay in a manger, and by his growling and snapping prevented the oxen from eating the hay which had been placed for them. "What a selfish Dog!" said one of them to his companions; "he cannot eat the hay himself, and yet refuses to allow those who can eat."

Moral
In the last statement itself!

STORY - 3

The Miser

A MISER sold all that he had and bought a lump of gold, which he buried in a hole in the ground by the side of an old wall and went to look at daily. One of his workmen observed his frequent visits to the spot and decided to watch his movements. He soon discovered the secret of the hidden treasure, and digging down, came to the lump of gold, and stole it. The Miser, on his next visit, found the hole empty and began to tear his hair and to make loud lamentations. A neighbor, seeing him overcome with grief and learning the cause, said, "Pray do not grieve so; but go and take a stone, and place it in the hole, and fancy that the gold is still lying there. It will do you quite the same service; for when the gold was there, you had it not, as you did not make the slightest use of it."

Moral
In the last statement itself!!

Do you still think that these stories should be restricted only to children as we find the adults indulging in such behavior. Learning process is never bound by age and life is a continual learning process.

Guess, will post few more stories in the next post after a fortnight giving time to readers to contemplate and even better, contribute too!! :)

Egg Nargisi Kofta (For Eggetarians!)

2009-10-08T08:31:00.010+05:30

Guess, most of us must have heard of Nargisi Kofta, surely the non-vegetarians. In its original form, kofta is made from meat/chicken and eggs. Being an eggetarian, this was not a dish for me.

Enters ma (my mom-in-law) who modified it so that I also join the family to relish the dish. By the way, we both address each other without the in-law part, so will be addressing her as ma. She is a fantastic cook and has exquisite culinary skills!!

As ma was meticulously preparing the dish, I noted down the recipe and took photos of the intermediary steps, which are shown below along with the recipe. The way the koftas came out just intrigued me to read more about the origin of the dish.

ORIGIN
Nargisi means Narcissus-like eyes(Nargisi Aankein). It is a dish from Awadhi cuisine(from the city of Lucknow). The cuisine consists of both vegetarian and non-vegetarian dishes. Awadh has been greatly influenced by Mughal cooking techniques, and the cuisine of Lucknow bears similarities to those of Kashmir, Punjab and Hyderabad; and the city is famous for its Nawabi foods. If you see the koftas below, guess the name justifies itself!

This also lead me to read about Narcissus, Greek hero who was known for his unmatched beauty. Those interested in reading about how the name of the flower Narcissus came into existence, may visit this link and read the short story at http://www.echo.me.uk/legend.htm. There are many versions though, this being one.

Having understood its origin, let us go to the recipe. It tastes best when served with matar pulav, or jeera rice, or phulkas/tandoori rotis.

RECIPE

INGREDIENTS

a) Boiled Eggs
b) Boiled potatoes (probably one can try with other boiled vegetables too)
c) Onions - (i) finely chopped (ii) in paste form
d) Finely chopped coriandar and mint leaves
e) Corn flour
f) Red chilli powder
g) Ginger-garlic paste
h) Green chillies
i) Tomatoes in paste form
j) Ground masala - elaichi + jaiphal + dalchini

METHOD

Covering for the eggs:

a) Mash the boiled potatoes.
b) Add finely chopped coriander, mint leaves and onions.
c) Add red chilli powder, ground masala(see j above), corn flour, ginger-garlic paste and salt.
d) Mix all the ingredients well into a dough.

We had utilised the red chilli flakes from the previous night's order of pizza!!:D It did give a good look to the koftas, which you can see in the photo below!

Kofta:

a) Peel the boiled eggs and with a knife make slits on the eggs.
b) Make small cups out of the dough prepared above and place the an egg in the cup and cover it completely with the dough.
Remember: Covering on the egg must be thick to avoid breakages while frying.

c) Then roll the kofta ball in corn flour.

d) Deep fry the balls, preferably one or two at a time depending upon the size of the frying pan you use.

e) After frying the koftas, cut them into half. Be careful while making the cut to avoid breakage of the covering. Best way is to use a sharp knife and make a cut in a single stroke rather than starting from one end reaching to the other.

Gravy Preparation

a) Heat oil in a pan and add the ground powder(from j) and green chillies
b) After 30 seconds, add onion paste
c) Once the onion starts leaving water, add ginger-garlic paste and tomato paste or tomato puree.
d) Then add turmeric powder, garam masala, mint and coriander leaves, water, and if any of the potato dough (prepared above) is left.
e) Cook it on slow fire till the gravy is well prepared.

f) Now place the koftas in a wide-mouthed container and pour the gravy on the koftas from the top.

g) Serve hot with rice or roti.

After all the efforts, the taste was awesome! A little cumbersome preparation, but the end results are excellent.

All those kids/husbands who want to savor this dish, may prefer giving a helping hand to their mothers/wives in the kitchen for even her to relish the dish after a long ordeal in the kitchen! :) She deserves it! (Its not a feministic remark, just encouraging load-sharing!)

To shine silverware at home

2009-09-30T16:19:00.013+05:30

Happy Dussera to all! Last week must have set in the festive mood! Now we all await Diwali, the festival of lights! Of course, its a festival of sound too, thanks to all the firecrackers!!

Preparing for Diwali, took out silver diya and found that it was all oxidised and got tarnished. First thought that came to mind was search for a jeweller who would polish the diya and make it shine again. Finally searched a few and found that they do not polish and that they only sell silverware.

My work was still not done. Casually, I called my friend to ask for some nearby jeweller who would do the job and then she told me some home remedy. Since she was unsure, she called her mother and then confirmed the remedy. Guess what? I tried them at home and it worked wonders!!

BEFORE

AFTER

Method 1: With baking soda

Materials required:

a) Aluminium foil
b) Boiling water
c) Baking soda

Steps:

a) Take a wide-mouthed and a deep container so that the tarnished silver item can be immersed completely.
b) Cover the the container with aluminium foil.
c) Based on the size of the silver item, pour baking soda inside the container.
d) Pour the boiled water in the container. Be careful while pouring as you will observe fizz due to soda and hot water mixing.
e) Then immerse the silver item inside this water mixture and leave it for 3-5 minutes.

f) After 5 minutes, remove the item and wipe with a clean cotton cloth or tissue paper.
g) Depending upon the amount of tarnish, you may have to repeat the wash 3-4 times and the silver item will be free from tarnish and shine as before.

Method 2: With toothpaste

Materials required:

a) Toothpaste
b) Cotton

Steps:

a) Squeeze out some toothpaste on to the cotton swab.
b) Rub the silver item with the paste on the swab.
c) As the rubbing progresses, you will find the tarnished portion getting back to its shiny silvery surface.
d) Once done, rinse in warm water and wipe the silver item with clean cotton cloth or tissue paper.
e) Be careful while rubbing. If you observe scratching, immediately stop and rinse off the paste. Its best to use a plain white toothpaste rather than the gel or the ones with all those new salt flakes etc.

I had done a mix of both the methods. First 3-4 minutes immersed the silverware in the water-baking soda mix. If any more tarnish was remaining, I used the toothpaste to remove it from the grooves.

CAVEAT --> Baking soda or paste is said to be a little abrasive on silver. Thus, be careful of any scratches. Handle the items gently and remember it is not a steel utensil that you are washing but delicate silverware!

For those who understand simple chemistry, the methods use the principle of electrochemistry, the REDOX(reduction-oxidation) reaction. Silver tarnish means that the silver atom is oxidised to silver ion. The baking soda mixture provides the lost electrons so that silver ion gets converted back or reduced to silver atom.

It also seems like a good home teaching tool for kids to show the application of the principle they learnt at school! :)

Anyway, wishing you all a Happy Shiny Silvery Deepavali! :)

Experience with Philips!!

2009-09-12T01:59:00.002+05:30

Just yesterday, we got our new Philips water purifier model WP3890 installed at our place. Now you must be wondering what's so new about that? Water purifiers are kind-of part of every domestic household. Well, you are right! But what I wanted to share was our experience with the company.

Research

Since it was our first purchase of purifier, we decided to do some research about the technology. We went through plethora of websites understanding the meaning of each term, so gloriously used by the manufacturers. They all sound so out-of-space terms, that prospective customer may think, wow! this purifier must be doing some additional purification!! Gosh!

Anyway, thanks to the time spent, we finally chose Philips over Eureka, owing to all the bad reviews about the latter's service.

In fact, we even went to the extent of verifying the gold seal certification by WQA also. I know, some may find this wierd and waste of time, but then we are too cautious! No offence but marketing community has got very little reliability factor left in our minds to just go by their tall claims of being the best and blindly choose a product.

Just to make our research complete, we stumbled upon the Dos and Donts page of Philips. Few of them were so obvious ones that we both broke into peals of laughter. Not at the list, but the fact that there are people who might actually do them, if not instructed otherwise!! Its like telling customers who purchased hot coffee that "it is hot!!" You know what I mean, right! I am pasting the few of the funny ones below, the remaining are the regular ones.

Do's and Don'ts
To help you use the Intelligent Water Purifier safely, here are some useful tips. Kindly go through these tips thoroughly to avoid any kind of hazardous situations.
Comments in the brackets are my exclamations, I could not resist it!!

The Do's

--> Install the Intelligent Water Purifier at a safe location so that it does not come in the way of your normal routine.
......

--> When in use, place a container below the Intelligent Water Purifier to avoid spillage.(Wonder who would leave the tap running with no container below!!)

The Don'ts

--> Don’t spill water on to the Intelligent Water Purifier.
--> Don’t install the Intelligent Water Purifier close to a gas stove or over the cooking range.
......
--> Don’t store the water in open containers.(Defeats the purpose of the purifier, right!!)

--> Do not connect the Intelligent Water Purifier to a drain outlet.(This one is my personal favorite, 'coz its unthinkable!!)

--> Do not store anything on the Intelligent Water Purifier.

--> Do not use the piping or wires for hanging anything. (Like a towel hanger!! Gosh!!)

--> Do not clean any plastic parts in a dishwasher or boil them.(Awesome!!)

Final Selection

So, we chose the UV technology purifier and chose Philips WP 3890. UV technology is better suited for municipal water or so to say soft water, while RO(Reverse Osmosis) is best suited for hard water.

Eureka was on our list too but there is lot of dependency on its service center even after installation, hence decided to go for a product that gives us independence from human interaction as far as possible. This product has a candle that can be replaced by us. All we have to do is just go and purchase the candle from the service center every 3000 liters. Even regular cleaning done with a button. So lot of ease for us.

Installation

Now this is the main part of our ordeal which forced me to write this post.

We purchased the product on a sunday. Since, the customer care centers are closed that day, we had to wait till monday to book for installation. We booked on Monday and were given an appointment on Wednesday evening and the same was confirmed via an SMS. The company claims to install the product within 48 hours of your booking.

Wednesday comes and no call from any technician to confirm the appointment or take directions to our house, which is generally the case. So, we call the customer care again and they confirm that a person will come as already confirmed. And as soon as we kept down the phone, we receive an SMS that our appointment is pushed to next Wednesday, that is a week later. Imagine our shock and dismay!!

So, we call the customer care again and this time a new guy attends the call and says that our system confirms appointment of next wednesday as there are no available slots before that. We asked him how were we given an appointment earlier. And he answers blah! blah! blah to add to our consternation. Well, there is no point talking logic to customer care people as they are trained to answer only one thing for all questions, "We apologise for the inconvenience but there are no available slots!!" At that time, we realised we will not get any meaningful response from them.

Then, we visited the Philips website and sent an email stating our complaint to them with very little hope of any action being taken.

To our surprise, the next day the grievance cell person calls up and explains the situation to us that there was a total goof up at the request handling and that we will see that the process is expedited.

Anyway, the call itself cooled us down that at least there is someone reading our complaints and taking them seriously. Well, that was not all. In an hour, we receive a call from a technician that he will be visiting our place for installation the same day.

He came 2 hours earlier than the appointment time and did a fine job at installation.

We just could not believe it. Thus, Philips did keep up its promise. As a good customer, we sent them a "Thank You" mail too. I guess, it deserved a compliment for the prompt service.

To be very honest, we had lost all hope and thought we might have to finally hire a local plumber or wage a war as we might receive another SMS next time. But, they just surprised us so much that although, its been just a day old, yet we have full confidence on the product too.

The best part in this whole thing was that though, it is a big company, it values its customers dearly and not forget them, leave them in a lurch once they have sold their product, which is the case most of the time. In fact, all the time!! I kept scratching my head to think of any past experience which had been as pleasant as this one, but in vain. This is our first experience with a product company which has lived up to our expectations!! :) Guess, Airtel was the other company with whom we have had a trouble-free experience till date.

People have such harrowing experiences with poor, inefficient and indifferent After-Sales dept of the product companies, generally, that one loses trust and confidence.

Just pray that we keep getting pure water and there are readers who have similar positive incidents to report. Wish that atleast there is one report to instill in us the hope that all is not that bad out there!! :)

No Board Exams in Tenth!!

2009-09-08T07:37:00.010+05:30

Yesterday, with the govt. announcing the Board Exams being optional, has sent many into perplexity while the students must be rejoicing!

First of all, let us broadly see the decisions that were announced. The pros and cons will be so many that the debates will be endless anyway. We will come to that later on.

a) No board exams in tenth standard for students studying in CBSE schools.

Students will be graded continuously through out the year under the system grandly named as Continuous and Comprehensive Education(CCE) starting this October

b) Nine-point Grading system introduced.

The nine-point scale will start from
--> A1 (91-100, exceptional)
--> A2 (81-90, excellent)
--> B1 (71-80, very good)
--> B2 (61-70, good)
--> C1 (51-60, fair)
--> C2 (41-50, average)
--> D (33-40, below average)
--> E1 (21-32, needs improvement)
--> E2 (00-20, unsatisfactory)

c) Students can opt to give board examination.

This applies generally to those students who wish to change their school when moving to Eleventh standard.

Also, students continuing the same school may opt for boards.

d) Minimum passing marks for acquiring a certificate is 33% marks.

So, what we understand from all of the above is that under CCE system, all the core areas of subjects being studied in the classes will be assessed on a continuous basis including co-curricular activities.

CCE system will have two components:
a) Formative Assessment - based on whole range of tests like interview, quiz, project work and practical assignments.

b) Summative Assessment - will be the aggregate of the yearly assessments of all areas.

These terms ring some bells. We used to study a lot about these in our B.Ed days. Our complete course was based on preparing teachers for such form of assessment besides the existing one.

Pros based on my teaching experience of Indian and US curricula:

a) The most important effect of this system will be the removal of fear of board exam from the minds of students as well as parents. This will aid in better learning environment for the child.

b) Emphasis will be laid on the various skills of students, besides the skills of mathematics, english, science etc.

c) Rote learning will diminish. Students will learn to analyse more rather than merely memorising facts. But the analytical development will be based on the type of quizzes and projects are given to the students.

d) Pressure on teachers will reduce a lot and also provide flexibility to them with respect to logical sequencing topics, type of tests based on the topic. Not all topics need a project and not all topics be assessed by quizzes.

e) Sports have such a demeaning position in our education system, blame it on the employment sector or whatever.
Sports act as a primary tool in building the character of an individual, besides its advantages in building a strong body during the formative stages of the child.

f) Various forms of art will gain impetus. In our days, I remember, how the drawing class was treated. It was like a free 40-minute break rather than actually learning something.

Cons:

a) First and foremost is the fear that the students will have no fear of exams on their head at the end of tenth standard. This may relax the students to a level where the school may just be a play school till XI when exams kick in.

b) Teachers may take time to come out of the inertia of the system that has been followed for like ages. Thus, adequate training of teachers is necessary.
Being a teacher, I have been to many of the training programs organised by the schools and found most of them so boring. Boring because they lacked purpose and was just one-way. Obviously the speaker kept speaking for hours together with no inputs from teachers at all, besides the many other drawbacks.

Such training never empathises with the practical problems faced by the teachers real time and keep giving ideal scenarios. The suggestions made at such programs have to be feasible and applicable to the real classrooms and not fancy dreams!!

Many interesting training programs go without use as the teachers lack motivation too. Its two-way process.

c) Setting uniform standards across boards.
Confusion may arise when a student wishes to switch over from CBSE to state board or ICSE, the state board must accept the percentiles provided by CBSE.

d) Preparation for XII standard boards should not start from X. The CCE must ascertain that the students do not find a disconnect between X and XI standard.

e) Grading system tends to get subjective.
Project work is all so subjective, how to qualify for grade A1 or A2 or any other grade. Thus, work of the students must be graded fairly. At all times, motivation level of the students need to be maintained at high levels.

The above mentioned are certain pros and cons that came to my mind and felt were important. There will surely be many more.

Apparently, one good thing of the whole process of formulating is that the system is not based on the whims and fancies of a minister who knows head nor tail of education. Its been done with proper consultation from eminent people from the field, like Prof. Yashpal. Anyway, I was his fan since the days of TURNING POINT on DD!!

Overall, the CCE system is heralding our education system into a new era. If implemented in its right form, it is really an innovative and vibrant approach to make studies less burdensome for kids and inculcate learning in the right perspective.

Readers are welcome to voice their opinion to initiate a healthy debate to analyse the system holistically.

What is in a name?

2009-05-13T12:15:00.004+05:30

Hi!

Ok, so I am officially Bhattacharya, i.e. my photo id has my husband's family name finally! It did not change much of my life, though! This whole process lead me to ponder about something.

What is such a fuss about this change of name? I mean no offence to anyone.

I have seen girls, or wives, making a ruckus out of this whole situation. Common comment: "I will lose my identity..." blah blah crap. How can one lose their identity with one small change in the name, I am yet to understand?

Well, boys, or husbands, are no less in adding to the clammer. Common comment: "Its our family name....." A male chauvinist statement: "After marriage, wife has to take husband's name!!" Any female would go berserk over such a statement and react: "What great things have you done that I should showcase your name for the rest of my life!!!"

This is an eternal debate. Oh sorry! not a debate, its an eternal fight! Debates have some conclusions, you know! Fights never have any solutions, they just act as fuel to another fight!!

In my childhood, I never understood what this identity is, but heard such talks and thought, "Oh so name is identity!" I defined identity as my name! Can you beat that?

I do not know, should I thank God or my parents' logical genes or my parents upbringing or all together, that as I grew up saw the life in a larger perspective and beyond name. Remember Matrix - "Look beyond the spoon!" and lo! the spoon bends. Thats exactly what happened with me. I changed my opinion about name when I started analysing as to why do we need a name.

So why do we need a name? Imagine there are three persons standing at a distance and you want to divert the attention of one of them towards you. Either you start jumping by waving your hands over your head and shout: "Hey you, hey you!" or use identifiers as "HEy you boy in black shirt!" You would have won everyone's attention, though that was not your aim. So, here name comes handy and saves you some embarassment if not all! Well, numbers would be too difficult to manage and then the problem of distinct number for each individual sorts, like our SSN or PAN number. Imagine the amount of secondary storage required to save all those numbers! As of now, world population is around 7 billion. hmmm.......Too cumbersome to manage and remember too! So, lets just stick to name for now.

And I would myself not like someone calling me as "Hey you girl!" Name is a better identifier.
Ok I grant little understanding to even the last name or surname for the sake of distinction. But after this, I suffer a mental block. Name after marriage, name before marriage! How does it matter what is the last name as long as the first name is same?

I mean imagine a person is called Jai XYZ and the last name changes to Jai ABC. You dont call someone as "Hey Jai XYZ are you fine?" And two days later, after marriage, "HEy Jai ABC are you fine today?"

I can understand the row over the change of first name considering that a person is used to a particular name since childhood. If that is changed involuntarily then there is a problem. Imagine a person being called Jai for 28 years and after marriage name changed to Veera! That is a little tough situation to handle. Family is calling "Veera(that is Jai earlier)! come here", and s/he is sitting and sweetly reading a novel! Obviously s/he not used to Veera!!! That must be some funny scene.

But, then our society has so many things that have been ingrained for centuries together, that these have become a second nature to us. Rules and laws of the land are formulated around these default things. These innate beliefs just drilled into our genes and passed on from generation to generation has just created more chaos than clarity of purpose of anything, in our case, the NAME.

Well, as for me, I am still Jaishrie. Last name needed as a proof in banks, travel tickets, etc that I am married to my husband!! Just so you know, I had to get my name changed due to an incident at an airport. Never mind that! Thank God, am clear in my head that my identity is what I do which gets attached to my name. And not the other way round!!! Anyone who begs to differ, would be glad to be enlightened!!

Kuru disease caused by Prions

2009-04-02T11:56:00.008+05:30

I am here with another post which may interest biology and medical students more. Again, the post is inspired by my dear dad. It is a pleasure talking to him!! He has discussed this topic at length in his book - Molecular Biology published in 2008.
Back to the topic, the interesting part for non-biology readers is that it reflects on a very peculiar kind of disease caused by no bacteria or virus but some other particle called Prion. Another interesting fact is how it infected many in a small island of New Guinea near Australia.

Prion

Prion is Proteinaceous infectious particle.

What is Kuru disease

Kuru disease is caused by prions (Proteinaceous infectious particle) discovered by Carleton Gajdusek in 1957 in New Guinea, an island near Australia. Kuru is a local tribal word which means "shaking or shivering". It was found that the victims were primarily women and children.

In the initial stages the victims exhibited involuntary tremors. This was followed through stages of increasing debilitation, dementia, and paralysis which ultimately claimed their lives.

The cause found

Upon hearing the symptoms of the disease, Gajdusek had concluded that the people of this region were probably suffering from an epidemic a viral encephalitis. Encephalitis means inflammation of the brain cells. The disease was probably being spread through the population by the ritual practice of eating parts of the bodies of relatives who had died. Since it were the women in the villages who prepared the bodies and were likely to engage in this form of cannibalism, they were found to be the ones who were at the greatest risk of infection, which got passed on to the children.

Over the ensuing months, Gajdusek helped with the care for the sick villagers in a makeshift hospital, performed autopsies on those who died, and prepared tissue and fluid samples that were sent to laboratories in Australia. In one of the many letters to the outside world, Gajdusek wrote

we had a kuru death and a complete autopsy. I did it at 2 AM during a howling storm in a native hut, by lantern light and I sectioned the brain without a brain knife. The sections revealed that victims of kuru were dying as the result of widespread degeneration of their brains.

The evidence began to mount that kuru is not a viral infection. Patients dying from kuru showed none of the symptoms that normally accompany central nervous system infections, such as, fevers, inflammation of the brain, and changes in the composition of cerebrospinal fluid. In addition, the best virology labs in Australia were unable to culture an infectious agent from the diseased tissue samples. Gajdusek began to consider alternate explanations for the cause of kuru. It was possible that the affected villagers were being exposed to some type of toxic substance in their diet. Blood analysis were performed in the hopes of finding elevated levels of trace metals or other common toxins, but no chemical abnormalities were found.

At one point, Gajdusek thought that kuru might be an inherited disease but he concluded from discussions with geneticisits that this was very unlikely. For example it would be practically impossible for an inherited disease:
a) to be of such high lethality and apparently of recent origin to attain such a high frequency in a population
b) to manifest itself in individuals of such diverse age-groups from young children through older adults.
c) to strike an equal number of young boys and girls but strike 13 times as many as adult women as men.
d) lastly to appear in a person in another area of the island who had moved into the affected population.

There seemed to be no reasonable explanation for the cause of kuru.

Connection between Scrapie and Kuru

Elsewhere, William Hadlow, an American veterinary pathologist, was working on a degenerative neurologic disease called Scrapie that was common in sheep and goats. In 1959, Hadlow visited an exhibition in London sponsored by a British pharmaceutical company where he saw a display of neuropathologic specimens prepared by Gajdusek. The specimens were from a person who had died of kuru. Hadlow was struck by the remarkable resemblance between abnormalities in the brains of kuru victims to those in the brains of sheep that had died from Scrapie.

Scrapie was known to be caused by an infectious agent. This had been demonstrated by transmitting the disease to healthy sheep by injecting them with extracts prepared from sick animals. Because the agent responsible for Scrapie was able to pass through filters that retarded the passage of bacteria, it was presumed to be a virus. Unlike other viral diseases, however, symptoms of Scrapie did not appear after an animal was infected with the pathogen and therefore, became known as "slow virus". Hadlow concluded that Kuru and scrapie were caused by the same type of infectious agent and published his speculation in a letter to the British Medical journal, Lancet. This acted as a catalyst and after several years of work, Gajdusek was finally able to demonstrate that Kuru can be transmitted from extracts of human tissue to laboratory primates. The incubation period between the inoculation of the animals and the appearance of symptoms of the disease was nearly two years. Kuru became the first human disease to be caused by a slow virus.

Final link - The CJD

Several years earlier, Igor Klatzo, a neuropathologist at the National Institute of Health (NIH), had told Gajdusek that a rare inherited condition called Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease (CJD) produced brain abnormalities that resembled those of Kuru. Gajdusek and his co-workers demonstrated using extracts prepared from the biopsy of the brain of a person dying from CJD, that CJD could be transmitted to animals.

Discovery of Prion

How can an inherited disease such as CJD be linked to the presence of an infectious agent?
The answer to this question was revealed in the next 15 years largely through the work of Stanley Prusiner and his colleagues at the University of California, San Fransisco. They came to the conclusion that the agent was very small, much smaller than any known virus. Second, the agent appeared to lack a nucleic acid component and to be composed exclusively of a protein.

The second conclusion was based on exhaustive treatment of infectious brain extracts with enzymes or other substances that would digest or destroy either proteins or nucleic acids. Protein destroying agents such as proteolytic enzymes like phenol, rendered extracts harmless whereas, nucleic acid destroying treatments, including various types of nucleases and UV radiations had no effect on infectivity. Prusiner named the agent responsible for Scrapie and presumably for Kuru and CJD as well, a prion which stood for a proteinaceous infectious particle.

In 1985, it was shown by Prusiner and his co-workers that the prion protein is encoded by a gene within the cells' own chromosomes. This gene is expressed within a normal brain tissue and encodes a protein of 254 amino acids designated PrPC (Prion protein cellular) whose function remains unknown.

Unanswered questions

The idea that an infectious disease can be caused by an agent consisting solely of a single protein remains controversial. Some biologists believed that the prion protein is associated with a small piece of nucleic acid that is yet to be discovered.

Another matter that remains unanswered is the mechanism by which the infectious agent is able to replicate within an infected individual. Replication is generally attributed only to nucleic acids. How is it possible for a protein to produce more of itself?

While prion diseases are very rare, other degenerative neural diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease are very common. It is hoped that the study of prion disease will prove useful in understanding the basis of the more familiar human conditions.

Any reader who can throw more light on this is more than welcome to solve this mystery of prion. I wish the mystery of this new organism does interest many! :)

Human Gene prospecting in Iceland

2009-03-27T14:52:00.007+05:30

This is an article inspired by a conversation between my father and me. My father, Dr.A.V.S.S.Sambamurty, is a retired Reader in Botany from Sri Venkateswara College, Delhi University. He had written many books on Genetics, his field of research in PhD.

He was explaining a unique phenomenon in Iceland regarding the population's gene structure. I got so interested, wondered at nature and wanted to share the same with all of you.

Caveat: It might get a little technical at certain places, but mostly my father tried keeping it comprehensible by non-botanists, like me. :) A few terms are defined for better understanding of the article in the beginning.

Genome
Genome is the complete gene sequence of any living organism. Human genome implies all the genes present on the 24 chromosomes, and their complete sequence upto the nucleotide level.

Nucleotide
Four nucleotides are C(cytosine), G(guanine), T(thyamine), A(adenine). These exist as complimentary pairs on the DNA strand. C-G forms one pair and A-T forms the other pair.

Human Genome Project
A little introduction into the human genome project will reflect the importance of the study conducted in Iceland.

The Human Genome project was launched in 1990. The goal of HGP is to map all the 70,000 to 100,000 human genes to construct a detailed physical map of the entire human genome and also to determine the nucleotide sequences of all 24 human chromosomes by the year 2005.

Geneticists all over the world came to form Human Genome Organisation (HUGO). James Watson with Francis Crick discovered double-helix structure of DNA in 1953. He was the first director of this ambitious project which was expected to take nearly two decades to complete and to cost around $3 bn. In 1993, Francis Collins who with Lap-Chee Tsui, led the research teams that identified the cystic fibrosis gene, replaced Watson as the director of HGP.

Benefits of Human Genome Project
The availability of detailed maps and nucleotide sequences of entire genomes of many species allows scientists to perform computer searches for sequences that encode enzymes with desired activities, to isolate these sequences, and to introduce them into the genomes of other species. Scientists have already engineered transgenic plants that are herbicide and insect resistant as well as plants that synthesize antibodies, drugs, enhanced level vitamins and even plastics.

GENE POOL IN ICELAND
An interesting component of the effort to identify human genes with important pharmacological values is taking place in a somewhat unexpected location, the remote island of Iceland, located in the North Atlantic between Greenland and Scandinavia. Because of their history and geographical isolation, the 270,000 people of Iceland provide a unique resource for genetic studies. They are genetically quite homogeneous, descendants of Vikings, who settled on this island more than 1100 years ago. This homogeneity has been enhanced by two genetic bottlenecks during which the population was sharply reduced. During the 15th century, population plummeted from around 70,000 to around 25,000 when bubonic plague ravished the island. During the 1700s, the population dropped below 50,000 because of famine, and disease caused in part by the eruption of the volcano Hekla. Thus, human gene pool of Iceland is much more homogeneous than the gene pools of most other human populations. Such a population is called Endemic Population. In addition, Iceland's national health service has kept superb family medical records since 1915.

Benefits passed on to Iceland
In 1997, Kari Stefansson, a Harvard geneticist, recognised the uniqueness of Iceland's human gene pool and family records. He returned to his homeland to launch a private company, deCODE Genetics, with the goal of identifying human genes that would lead to the development of new pharmaceutical drugs and diagnostic tests. The company's first success was the identification of familial essential tremor gene - , a gene associated with the shakiness in the elderly. In addition, deCODE scientists have made rapid progress in their studies of several other human disorders.
Based on these results deCODE Genetics negotiated a contract with the Swiss pharmaceutical giant, Hoffmann-LaRoche, which will give the Swiss firm exclusive rights to any drugs or diagnostic products resulting from the work of deCODE scientists. However, contract specifies that Hoffmann-LaRoche must provide free of charge all drugs, diagnostic test and other products resulting from this research to the people of Iceland. Therefore, at least in this one case, the people who are providing genetic data and the DNA samples for analysis will personally benefit from the results of research by a private company.

Is it not fascinating to know that a small part on our globe has such homogeneous population with unique genetic history? They have not blended by other genetic populations. Physically, one may not find any thing to observe, but the uniqueness lies at the microscopic level!!

Interesting facts of mathematicians!

2009-03-15T09:06:00.007+05:30

Following are some interesting events in the early lives of few of the most famous and genius mathematicians of the world. I am always in awe whenever I read about them and their lives. I do not want to devote the post to their biographies, rather a collection of the most interesting reads! I have randomly picked the great ones. Randomness is another fact of life that I keep pondering about and find it so difficult to accept its existence in life!

SRINIVASA RAMANUJAM
He had always intrigued me and thus, want to start with him. I am yet to lay my hands on the book The Man Who Knew Infinity: A Life of the Genius Ramanujan

Birth: Born on 22 December 1887 in Erode, Tamil Nadu, India, at the place of residence of his maternal grandparents. His father, K. Srinivasa Iyengar worked as a clerk in a sari shop and hailed from the district of Thanjavur.

One day at school, the teacher was explaining division and said that "if you divide any number by itself, you get 1.''

The teacher in a small high school in southern India turned round to see a tiny hand trying to reach the ceiling. Oh by the gods, him again! That Aiyangar boy with his horribly difficult and quite irrelevant questions. Like last week, when he wanted to know how long it would take for a steam train to reach Alpha Centauri. As if he would be able to afford the fare if he knew. Well, he couldn't let him exercise his hands too much.

``Yes Ramanujan?''

The small boy with shining eyes stood up. He spoke slowly, with the calm confidence of one who did not need to be told he was the best in the class.

``Is zero divided by zero also equal to one?''

Unfortunately for all those other teachers who've been asked this question at least twenty times in their lives, the response to the question is unknown. But the life of the boy, Srinivasa Ramanujan Aiyangar, certainly isn't.

By age 11, he had exhausted the mathematical knowledge of two college students, who were lodgers at his home. He was later lent a book on advanced trigonometry written by S.L. Loney. He completely mastered this book by the age of 13 and he discovered sophisticated theorems on his own. By 14 he was achieving merit certificates and academic awards.

Awesome, is it not?

PYTHAGORAS
I could not really get specific early life incidents but have added some noteworthy facts.

Birth: Born around 565 B.C. on the Greek island Samos off the Coast of Asia-Minor, his father Mnesarchos was a wealthy merchant and an engraver. His mother Pythais was a native of Samos.

Pherekydes, a philosopher and a fiction writer, was the teacher of Pythagoras. Pythagoras too was a mathematician as his mentor. He (Pherekydes), put forward the doctrine of transmigration of souls and cycle of birth liberation of human being from this life cycle which was proffessed by his student, Pythagoras. This theory is analogous to the doctrine of poorva janma (Past Life), punar janma (Re-birth) and moksha (Salvation), of the Hindu philosophy.

How the famous Pythagoras Theorem was propounded?
In the earlier days, Egypt was considered more advanced than Greece. The journey to Egypt was recognized as broadening the horizon of knowledge and wisdom. Ancient Egyptians knew the technique of preparing bricks and constructed buildings using them. From this, they acquired knowledge of shape, size and volume of solids. Thus, they developed some geometry for measurement and decimal number system for calculations. Pythagoras would have learnt all these theories during his travels to Egypt. The Egyptians knew that a triangle having sides of length three, four, and five units was a right-angled triangle. They also knew some elementary trigonometry. Pythagoras worked on right-angled triangles and propounded his theory; ‘The Pythagoras Theorem.’ The Pythagoras theorem states – The square of the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides of the right-angled triangle.

FIBONACCI

Born: Fibonacci, or more correctly Leonardo da Pisa or Leonardo Pisano, was born in Pisa in 1175 AD. He was the son of a Pisan merchant.

Leonardo Pisan was known as Fibonacci, which is short for filius Bonacci meaning "the son of Bonaccio". His father's name was Guglielmo Bonaccio. Fi'-Bonacci is like the English names of Robin-son and John-son.

Well, one may say, what is in a name? But, I was too amused to know how he got his name and thus, thought of sharing my amusement.

His famous contributions being the decimal number system and the famous being the Fibonacci series.

He learnt about the decimal system from Arabs who in turn had learnt from the Hindus. He introduced this number system into Europe - the positional system we use today - based on ten digits with its decimal point and a symbol for zero:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0

His wrote a book on how to do arithmetic in the decimal system, called Liber abbaci (meaning Book of the Abacus or Book of Calculating)

Fibonacci Series
In Fibonacci's Liber Abaci book, chapter 12, he introduces the following problem:

How Many Pairs of Rabbits Are Created by One Pair in One Year?

A certain man had one pair of rabbits together in a certain enclosed place, and one wishes to know how many are created from the pair in one year when it is the nature of them in a single month to bear another pair, and in the second month those born to bear also.

Then he showed the solution to the above stated problem from where the series got derived.

beginning 1 first 2 second 3 third 5 fourth 8 fifth 13 ..... end 377

Fibonacci says his book Liber Abaci (the first edition was dated 1202) that he had studied the "nine Indian figures" and their arithmetic as used in various countries around the Mediterranean and wrote about them to make their use more commonly understood in his native Italy. So he probably merely included the "rabbit problem" from one of his contacts and did not invent either the problem or the series of numbers which now bear his name.

D E Knuth adds the following in his monumental work The Art of Computer Programming: Volume 1: Fundamental Algorithms errata to second edition:

Before Fibonacci wrote his work, the sequence F(n) had already been discussed by Indian scholars, who had long been interested in rhythmic patterns that are formed from one-beat and two-beat notes. The number of such rhythms having n beats altogether is F(n+1); therefore both Gospala (before 1135) and Hemachandra (c. 1150) mentioned the numbers 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, ... explicitly.

Well, then why is it named after him? It was the French mathematician Edouard Lucas (1842-1891) who gave the name Fibonacci numbers to this series and found many other important applications.

APPLICATIONS

Every human has two hands, each one of these has five fingers, each finger has three parts which are separated by two knuckles. All of these numbers fit into the sequence.

These patterns within nature were discovered many centuries ago, and until this day, scientists are still studying the pattern of natures numbers. The planets also possess a pattern which relates to the orbital period, which is the time it takes to go once around the Sun to its distance from the Sun. There is much that has been scientifically proven regarding natures numbers and the planet, animal, and human world in which we live.

I wish that this will interest many readers to understand how passion for something leads to greatness. The key thing is the ardent passion with not much forethought given to the end result!

Their lives and lives of many more like them, have lot to teach us and keep us motivated to strive for excellence!

My Cake Collection

2009-03-11T09:20:00.005+05:30

Two - tier Chocolate cake

On my dear husband's birthday, I got inspiration to bake a two-tier chocolate cake. It was the first time I tried frosting!

RECIPE
Ingredients

Cake batter
Maida
Cocoa powder
Icing sugar
Eggs
Baking powder
Butter

Frosting
Icing sugar
Cream
Chocolate bars
Butter
Drinking chocolate

NOTE: I could not write the measures as I used all approximations and could not really put it in form of 1 tbsp, or an oz sorts language. I guess that is the difference between amateurs and pros.

Method

1. Beat eggs, butter and sugar till the mixture is foamy.
2. Mix maida, baking powder and cocoa powder till they become homogeneous.
3. Add the two mixtures in step 1 and 2 together till the batter reaches thick consistency. If it is too thick, add little warm water. Take care that the mixture does not become too liquid.
4. Grease the base and the sides of the baking pan and sprinkle flour.
5. Pre-heat the oven at 250 degrees for 10 minutes.
6. Bake the batter for 30 minutes at 180 degrees.
7. Check by inserting the back of a spoon or blunt knife. The cake is baked if there is no batter stuck to the surface of the spoon or knife.
8. Cool the cake and then over turn on a plate.

9. Melt the chocolate bars in microwave or keep the container over boiling water.
10. Take care no water vapors enter the melted chocolate.
11. Add cream, butter, little drinking chocolate powder to the melted chocolate. Your frosting mix is ready.
12. Use a flat spatula or frosting knife(with triangular surface) to spread the frosting evenly over the cake.
13. After covering the top and the sides, leave it for sometime to cool.

Marble Cake

On the occasion of Holi, I tried my hands at Marble cake. It has come out with pretty designs.

Ingredients
Maida
Vanilla essence
Icing sugar
Baking powder
Eggs
Butter

Cocoa powder and Coffee filtrate
or
Chocolate bars

Method
1. Beat eggs, sugar, butter together till foamy.
2. Mix maida, baking powder.
3. Make a batter with thick consistency by adding the two mixtures in step 1 and 2.
4. Divide the batter into two equal halves and separate them in two containers.
5. In one, add vanilla essence.
6. In the other, add cocoa powder and coffee or melted chocolate. Coffee gives a little bitter taste for those who want nullify the sweetness of the vanilla.
7. Now, grease the top and sides of the baking pan and sprinkle little flour.
8. Add the two batter mix forming alternate layers. Vanilla at the base gives a better taste.
9. Once batter added in layers. Use a skewer and insert it vertically and just run it in circular motion twice and get a marble design. Take care not to mix the layers completely lest it all becomes chocolate cake!
10. Pre-heat the oven at 250 degrees for 10 minutes.
11. Bake the batter for 30 minutes at 180 degrees.
12. Check by inserting the back of a spoon or blunt knife. The cake is baked if there is no batter stuck to the surface of the spoon or knife.
13. Cool the cake and delicious marble cake is ready.

Happy Holi to all of you!

Marriage or wedding!

2009-03-02T07:10:00.009+05:30

Marriage is something people always use interchangeably with wedding. Its so much different from wedding though! Wedding comprises of the stream of rituals for the boy and girl tie the knot. Guess, marriage is lot different from all those rituals, meaning of most of them are just not understood but we perform in a robotic manner.

Marriage, I feel, is blending of thoughts. Its the trust we instill in each other. The respect we earn during our journey together. The boundless love we share. Effective communication of thoughts. The power to understand each other's view point. The ability to listen to each other's silence, rather than always talking!

It is to be realized that any two individuals will always have difference of opinion on a particular issue. But the way the differences are handled and understood by each partner is what makes the whole difference.

Most couples, I observe, are trying to change each other to what fits into their definition of right behavior.

Scenario 1:
There will be a wife, who will have certain standards of neatness and keeping the house impeccably clean. Consider her husband who cares nothing about cleanliness and lo! the drama starts! Imagine how this situation is dealt in general households. There will be bickering from wife's side about the husband's callousness and husband's vexation on the wife's being a nag!!

The word 'nag' is so offensive to women, I tell you! Its a vicious circle, wife feels that if she keeps repeating herself there will be more impact and the husband has already developed a deaf ear to whatever wife says. Fallout is that many-a-times, important information gets missed out.

Scenario 2:
There cannot be a worser moment for a wife who is speaking to her husband while he is all glued to either T.V. or laptop or whatever. I empathise with the wife who wants to offload as soon something comes to her mind! But, now it does not end there. She will speak anyway knowing fully well that he is not listening and then complain that he was not listening! Why cannot she wait till he is done with whatever he is doing? Believe me, if you leave one alone, he will be free and more attentive. Think of a reverse scenario. The wife is catching up with her favorite TV serial or pre-occupied with office work, how much you would hate if you are interrupted, isn't it?

Scenario 3.
Women are very sensitive about their cooking. If she has prepared anything, no matter even if it is the 100th time, still she will wait for a feedback. Mind you, the feedback she is looking for is a compliment. Criticism will lead to "n" number of explanations as to what went wrong!!
It is to be understood that their expectation of feedback is merely symbolic. They are looking for recognition from her husband that she is good! The reinforcement is very important to most women!! Hmmm..... I think all women!

Men do not have such insecurities regarding cooking and food, but I guess, they would definitely like to be recognized as the bread-winner of the house. The fact that the whole house is dependent on him. I guess, most men look for such feedback.

There are infinite instances in our daily routine where there is a conflict in the manner a wife and husband work. A wife needs to understand that there are certain things that just do not come naturally to males and the same reciprocated by the husband towards his wife. Also, there is more than one way to solve or tackle a problem.

Now, daily we face with similar challenges. One way to settle the issue is to raise volume of your voices and try to dictate or instruct. The other way is discussing the issue at hand objectively and try arriving at an amicable solution.

There may be times when you are just not in a mood of such lengthy discussions and just want the things to be done, in that case the other party needs to be more observant and patient enough to ease off the environment.

Always avoid blame-game, name-calling, passing sarcastic remarks, bringing past inefficiencies in the present discussion/debate/fight. Try sorting out the issue at hand in a day or two of its occurrence to avoid pent up emotions. Think from other's point of view and see the difference!!

Each couple's story is unique and their distinctive ways of coping with each other's personality differences. Simple fact of life to remember is that each one is different and no one is perfect!

Well, I do not want my post to be the preachy one on marriage tips or dwell into Men are from Mars Women are from Venus stuff! I was just putting my random thoughts in the post and guess, I must stop now! Probably, its the effect of the occasion!

I am just thankful to God that I got married to my husband. Together the marital life is bliss! We still get compliments that we look like "just married" couple!! Well, in reality, today we have completed three years of marriage! Thanks God, from all my heart!

I take the opportunity to wish all the couples, would-be couples a successful, peaceful and contented life together!

Makara Sankranthi

2009-01-14T14:05:00.003+05:30

Today is Makara Sankranthi and it is a big festival in South India. We are surrounded by houses adorned by rangoli designs with colors and flowers.
While I was on my grocery errands in the morning, I saw the children of our society drawing big rangoli designs and decorating them with colorful stones. I was amazed at their enthusiasm and the team effort they had put in. Guess what? It acted as an inspiration for me as well. My mind started racing with thoughts of various kinds of designs, all geometrical shapes. I had just finished teaching Geometry to one my students so explains the designs in my thoughts.

I searched the internet for some easy designs, did not get many. So had to put my coordinate geometry knowledge to good use and apply grid systems to form symmetrical designs. To tell you the truth, while I was drawing the rangoli, I enjoyed it very much. I never realised it will be so much fun.

Thanks to the kids, I also happened to read about the significance of the occasion as well. I would share the same information maintaining brevity.

Sankranthi is celebrated mid-January.

Astrological significance
The word is derived from sat and kranti or sankramana, meaning "sacred movement." The festival takes place when the sun moves from Dakshanayanam to Uttaryanam. It is known as Makara Sankranthi due to the transition of the Sun from Sagittarius to Capricorn. This is significant considering the Winter Solstice marks the beginning of the gradual increase of the duration of the day.

Agricultural significance
This is a harvest festival. The crops sowed by the farmers are harvested now. Symbolically, the first harvest is offered to the Almighty and shared with the poor and the needy. Sweet delicacies are prepared on this auspicious day!

Kite-flying is the sport that marks the occasion. The sky is covered with colorful kites flown by children.

Happy Makara Sankranthi or Happy Pongal to all! May God bless the people of the world with peace and contentment!!

I would now like to share my Rangoli experiments: