The Lunchbox Woes

For all moms with school-going kids, packing the school lunch box is a daily task. When Sunshine started school, I was quite excited because I was dying to pack different kinds of food in her school lunch box.

After all, I know how to bake cakes and cup-cakes. To add to my repertoire I have breads, buns, footlongs, mini-pizzas...you name it...I can make it!

For some time, her school lunches kept me happily busy. It was fun planning what she would take for the whole week. As time went by, I found that she wanted me to help her get ready instead of be busy in the kitchen. So, I used to instruct our part-time cook to make her school lunch. When the cook would play truant, Daddy darling would step in to make the school lunch.

After a few months of this set-up, Sunshine started throwing a tantrum that she wants Maggi or Yipee noodles for her lunch everyday. No amount of cajoling or explaining did the trick. On the days we tried parantha/roti, sandwiches, pancakes, besan cheela...she would get the uneaten lunch back home.

It was Maggi or nothing!

Thankfully, soon enough her school sent a notice that instant noodles (Maggi), chips, and chocolates should not be sent as tiffin. We heaved a sigh of relief! Now that her class teacher had explained how these kinds of food items are unhealthy, she was easily convinced. After all, Ma'am is always right! The silly parents don't know anything.

So for the next phase, we were good. All the types of food that we sent was eaten without any fuss. The only no-no was not to send cut fruits in her lunch because the fruits got wilted by the time she ate them. Since, Sunshine is a fruit-lover so it didn't bother us much.

Last week, we found that she was eating only half her lunch. When I asked her why, she simply burst into tears. Her best friend in class R (who is not a Bengali) gets rotis and different sabzis everyday. "So why are you crying", I asked.

"Because, you don't know how to make normal food. You can bake cakes and breads. Her mom can make rotis and paranthas with soooooo many sabzis. You don't know anything!!" she wailed.

What!!!!!!!

My jaw was ready to hit the floor. My daughter is crying for "normal food" whereas I have been researching on lunchbox recipes!

Makes me wonder how my own blessed mom used to pack so many different things in my lunch. Thanks to my orthodox family, she was not allowed to give anything non-veg or rice based in my tiffin. Yet everyday she has packed a different lunch. Bread pulao, poha, utthapam, pancakes, stuffed parathas would appear in my lunch box like magic. And to think that our kitchen was on the ground floor whereas we used to live on the first-floor. So she used to pack my lunch, come upstairs and silently put it in my bag. Then take me to the bus stop and put me on the bus.

Everyday. For several years. With a smile!

Maa tujhe salaam.

What's in a Dad?

Mommyhood is an undeniable truth. Once, you are in it...you are in it for life. Right from conception, a mom can bond with her child.

Fatherhood, on the other hand is an acquired quality. Most fathers I have spoken to have said that they were quite confused about their role in their baby's life. What are they supposed to do with the teeny-tiny squiggly thing that a newborn infant is?

Moreover, according to the ancient custom in our country, the mommy-to-be used to be packed off to her parent's place mid-way through her pregnancy and she would get back only after the child has been born and is nearly a year old. So what does the poor father get? A toddler who hardly knows him!!! 

When I was expecting Little S (a.k.a Sunshine), I was quite sure that I wanted the Hubby by my side at all times. So, he was there with me when I had gone to my first ultrasound and we had seen the tiny heart beating on the screen together. That was one unforgettable memory.

After Sunshine's birth, I stayed for one month at my mom's place. The next month I was back at my own home with my one-month old in tow. My in-laws had come down to stay with us, so I just took care of the baby whereas my mom-in-law held fort in the kitchen with her maid-of-all-work.

Right from Day 1, Hubby has taken care of our precious little one, as much as I have. I still have this precious memory from when Sunshine was two-month's old. As of all babies of that age, she would sleep all day, just getting up to feed and pee. On weekends, Hubby used to play the songs of Kishore Kumar and rock her slowly in his arms while dancing softly in the room. "What are you doing?" I used to ask.

"She is dancing with me and enjoying the music", was the usual reply. What would a two-month-old know about Kishore Kumar? But that was the least of his concerns. He would keep rocking her softly and dancing to music, while she carried on sleeping.

As she grew up, Sunshine used to look forward to the time her Daddy would get home from the office. The moment he used to enter the room, her eyes used to light up. She would crane her neck towards him and smile at him. After freshening up, he would take her in his lap. He would lie down on the sofa with her on his tummy and she would gurgle and play with him for such time till she felt sleepy.

As Sunshine hit the terrible two's Hubby invented many new games for her. Most of these games were not toys of any kinds but simple things that we use in the house. Her favorite game was to sit with two to three bowls in front of her. Hubby would fill one bowl with beans (rajma) and another with chana (Bengal gram). Her favorite pastime was pouring the beans from bowl to another. She would play for hours pouring the contents of one bowl to another.

She loved feeling the different textures of beans and chana with her fingers. "But these are things to eat. She will waste them" I used to complain.

"Let her waste some." he would say.

I still remember one instance very vividly. One night Sunshine started crying very hard during her bedtime. I was nonplussed. She was generally a very happy baby who would go off to sleep right after a feed. But this time nothing would calm her. She was bawling her head off. Literally screaming. Both me and my mom-in-law were trying our level best to calm her but to no avail.

Hubby took her in his arms and started walking from one end of the room to the other. She carried on screaming. But he kept on walking without losing his cool. After a while, she gave a loud burp and peed all over his shirt. And immediately fell asleep.

He quietly handed over the sleeping child to me.

"Don't you feel yucky?" I asked.

"Why should I? Would you?" he asked.

I was speechless. This was Dad!

Why this blog?

Why blog about something as natural as mommyhood?

I have asked myself this question several times. 

Do I have an answer?  No, I dont.

Its just that I wanted to pen down my journey along the path of being a parent. I want to write a journal of all the experiences, the highs and lows, the things I have learned and un-learned. Mostly, I am writing this for my seven-year-old S. 

In the hope that she will read this blog some day......