40 ROCK

I'm 40 today. 40 times around the sun, 14,600 days gone, 4 decades lived, half my life spent. So I asked myself what exactly is 40 supposed to feel like? I took a good hard look in the mirror and other than a handful of grey hairs, crows feet, sun spots and a couple of dozen extra pounds, it felt exactly like 39! Woah!

Flip as I may be from time to time, I know its going to be hard making the transition. No more checking the 30-something age bracket on forms and documents. No more following my dreams, experimenting and dabbling. No more 'finding myself"  The 40's are supposed to be living my best life. Its supposed to be being comfortable in  my own skin, being who I am un-apologetically and speaking my mind without fear. Or so all the magazines tell me.

For me, the 40's spell the beginning of letting go. Its the beginning of the biggest changes in my life since my teen years. My body has changed and not in a good way. I'm still growing everyday just more horizontally than ever before. Its that much harder to get my skin to look smooth, my hands to stop drying and to get my eyeliner on smoothly every morning. My idea of a relaxing evening comprises of wearing my rattiest of pajamas and watching back to back episodes of Mad Men. Spicy food has started giving me heartburn and I am terrified of slipping and falling in snowy weather. My temples have started to turn grey. Cellulite and gravity are wrecking havoc on whatever curves I have on me and when buying lingerie I gravitate towards the Shapewear section of the store. I roll my eyes when I see heavily tattooed folks out and about and pray with all my might that my daughter will not scar her perfect skin in any way or form. I cant stay up very late anymore and loud music and cigarette smoke gives me a mondo headache. I am slow at catching up to the latest gizmos and gadgets. I like to stay on the periphery and look in rather than jump headlong with gusto into the unknown. I try not to take things too seriously but worry incessantly that I am being too light sometimes. I worry about the weather, global warming, and even about the Bill 101 of Quebec.

I worry that my most productive years are over and its all going to go downhill from here. My body will change, ovaries will shrink up, eyes will give up on me and my memories will blur. My daughter will soon accuse me of "not understanding" her and my husband and I will reach a point where words will not be necessary for communication. Just rolling the eyes will do.
It may just be a number to some but its still looming large on me. There is so much I wanted to do before reaching this number. So many places I wanted to see, so much wiser (and thinner) and patient (and thinner) I wanted to be.

Maybe my best years are behind me, maybe I lived my life and did not take time out to appreciate it really, but I have been blessed in every way possible. Its only now that I realise what an amazing set of parents I have. Everything i wished for and wanted to do was made possible with the love and support of my parents.
Being a mom who is doing everything by herself now, I have a new found respect for what my parents have been doing for the last 40 years and making it look so effortless.
My husband has been my rock and my anchor. He rescued me from the storm, and is the wind beneath my wings. He loved me in spite of it all and gave me the greatest gift of my life, our daughter Tia.
I watch her sleep sometimes and wonder how I could have got this lucky. She struggles to get up at 6.30am each morning, cracking her sleep swollen eyes just so that she can walk to school with mama. She makes me delightful pony-unicorn-princess cards and labels them Maman. She draws me as a twiggy thin figure sporting short skirts and long lustrous hair, making me realise that children see from the inside. Sigh!now, if only the inside me could be equal to the outside me.....
The other days she asked me why I put on makeup, when I told her she replied "but mama, I love you just the way you are." Now, that's been the highlight of my years as mother so far. Give me sloppy kisses, chubby-armed hugs, sleepy cuddles, bath time tickles and playground squeals any day over all else and I will show you a happy 40 year old.
Never thought, in my wildest of dreams that I would be spending my 40th birthday in cold Quebec, talking halting French, so far away from my family and loved ones  in Montreal. I miss my mom and dad and my brother like crazy. Its been 11 years since my brother made me a funny card for my birthday and I miss it so much now thinking that those days will never be back again. Ever.
This will be the first time in 40 years that I will not be having payesh or sweet rice pudding made lovingly by mom and dad for my birthday. Every year, it has been the one thing that has been a constant. Even when my mom was travelling or away for work, my dad used to make me this rich thick creamy payesh standing in the kitchen till late at night. Being away from them, that's going to be the hardest.
There are these moments when  I start to feel sorry for myself and begin to tear up but then I log right on to my favourite shopping sites online and order a dress here and a top there and I feel much much better.

The focus is now going to be on the next 40 years. With my imperfect body, wrinkles, paranoia et all, I will move headlong. I will live and laugh with my daughter. I will learn to skate, maybe even ski, I'll paint my heart out and color my dreams psychedelically. I'll pick up when I fall, laugh and try again. I will embrace my curves and encase them in shapewear and tummy trimmimg jeans when needed.
My 40 rocks and here is raising a glass to it.

Six is the sweetest age

Six is the sweetest age. Not yet ready to leave the lap of childhood yet independent strong and vocal. Chasing butterflies one minute and looking longingly at high heels the next. Six is what my precious is today. She is saying goodbye to her toddler years, preparing to begin her education in earnest, starting to read, write and be enraptured by the joys of discovering things for the first time. Six seems like just yesterday. Six seems like the clock is racing. Six is one last morning cuddle before wake up time, six is choosing her own outfits no matter how mismatched they are. Six is pink, soft and fluffy. Six is ponies and Barbie. Six is having imaginary conversations with her dolls. Six is the immense pride in getting dictation words right. Six is friendship one minute, tears the next and six is one last swing or one more turn on the monkey bars. Six is peer pressure and wanting to wear what her friends are wearing to school. Six is a hasty wave before she rushes off to greet her friends each morning and complaining at 5.00pm that its too early to go back home from school. Six is resisting her bath each day, but once inside, refusing to come out. Six is questions and more questions about each and everything all around.

I hope the rainbows and ponies stay for as long as they want. I hope you never outgrow your princess pink phase. I wish for you to always see the world as you see it now, clean, pure, innocent and happy. I wish for you to laugh like you do now over the silliest things and take comfort in the fact that a hug from mommy will make the boo boo better.

I love to watch you sleep you know. I love to breathe in your scent. I sometimes hold your hand and just feel how soft you are. I pull up the covers for the hundredth time just for you to kick them off again and I never tire of picking up your tutus from the floor. I love Owly-Owl, Pinkie pony and Bambi too. The giant pink unicorn sheds its fur all over the bedroom floor and after you have gone to school I pick up the threads and smile thinking of how tightly you hugged it the night before.
Your choice of pink, pink and more pink for everything drives me crazy sometimes, yet isn't that what year 6 is all about? My heart swells with pride when you explain how the earth goes round the sun and I get teary eyed when you sing Jan Gana Mana in your baby sweet voice.

I realised how much you have grown today when you cried your heart out on getting a beautiful card from your grandparents in India. The depths of your feelings completely took me by surprise. You said you missed them and wanted them close so you could hug them and say thank you. That told me you were so much wiser than your six years. I have to let you go on your own paths soon. I need to let you find your way, overcome sorrows and heatbreak, triumph over disappointments and be tenacious enough to realise your dreams.  I am not ready yet to take that leap. Not ready to miss out on each and every moment of your life and certainly not ready to let go of your hand, but at 6 my love, you are readying to do just that. The meadows are still full of flowers and butterflies abound. Find your paths but still be the happy little girl you are now. Happy 6 years to you my precious, for six is still the sweetest age.

Extraordinary

I came in contact with someone really extraordinary recently. I didn't think they made people like her anymore. She's one of a kind, all smiles, heart and soul and exuding an energy I cannot describe. I had heard about her for a while. She was supposed to be a very dynamic, talented, and gifted teacher, but my experience with her was really so much more.
She walked into our class the very first morning with a little bit of intrepidation. We were anxious, nervous, eager and raw. She sensed that and put the sweetest salve on our rawness. She smiled, looked into our eyes and within minutes she had all our names memorized. With something just as simple as that, she put us ease and we began in earnest. I found myself challenged at first. Was I really cut out for it? My level of French didn't even come close to what some of the others had in my class. I found myself excited at the prospect of going to her class each day. Her manner was simple, clear, precise and well thought of. It was as if she knew my handicap, anticipated my questions and had simple practical solutions to offer. She transformed a language course into something visually understood. To remember some of the prepositions she told us to correlate it with @2%..à,de, pour, sans ... Elementary and effective. To remember participe passé, we used DrMrsVandertramp! I felt like a child in school again, but hey, then again, that's exactly what I was. To remember the verbes pronominal, we used Josephine and Napoleon as an example. I am sure these things will stay on with me forever.
She was very forthcoming with encouragement and praise. She chose to look at the positive side of things even when some situations bothered her. She welcomed the students with open arms and gave advise like an older sister. Instantly, she had my attention, my motivation and above all my respect. The French language is difficult for me. Being a high academic achiever all throughout, I wanted to be ahead academically, yet at the same time I did not want to let her down. The effort, the thought and the hard work she put in surely deserved more than a half hearted try. I pushed myself a bit more each day. I read the french newspaper, watched French tv and made more of an effort to face my handicapped oral French. She made me dig deep in appreciating the little and not so little things in life when I read "Le petit prince". Many a quote from the book caused tears to flow forth. She even shared her favorite books with me. It went beyond the ordinary and became just that much extra.
Days slipped by silently and weeks simply rolled. With laughter, reminiscence, anecdotes and advise, she transformed our class with unspoken dynamics. She was passionate, patient and most of all she put us at ease. I eased into accepting French and talking French naturally. She was never overly strict with rules, always there to help in a crisis, often overlooking tardiness and extremely generous with her marks. She shared her hot ginger tea with me when she saw my discomfort with a dry irritating cough and helped others in their life issues, career choices or simply by recommending a doctor to someone in need. She guided us in the exam, corrected us gently, encouraged us and made us love her subject as much as her in the process.
To me, her work seemed so much more than a profession. It was something she did with her heart. After I wrote the first essay in her class, she moved me to tears when she came up to me and told me that I write like a québécois. That was perhaps the only time I have ever felt validated by my teacher. Just those words gave me the added impetus to conquer my fears of a new language. The more I embrace it,  the more it loves me in return.

It's funny sometimes how the universe conspires to help us when we are ready to learn. Nicole was just that. She came into my life when I was most challenged, lost and unsure. She helped me transform vulnerability into triumph and made me believe in the future. She treated us like people before students, respected our limitations yet pushed us ever so gently in the right direction without expecting anything in return. Like she said, we are really her children. I learnt more than the correct French from her, I learnt about the goodness of the heart. I hope to one day, carry forward what I learnt from her, I hope to aspire to be a better human being and I hope to try and find the Nicole in me to continue this circle called life.

School Lunch Dilemma

The hardest part of my day is meal planning. Not just the meals we eat ensemble as a family but planning healthy tasty school lunches for my primary schooler. It has many levels of stress for me, first it has to be healthy: given our propensity to gain weight, family history of diabetes and elevated blood pressure, not to mention the cheese-butter-meat-sugar society we live in, it is a monster task I have to struggle with. Both the husband and kid are not too fond of the upma-poha-chilla indian kind of power packed breakfasts and lunch and I juggle with bread, meat, rice, pasta, tortilla options endlessly.
Next comes the time factor, it has to be doable in a half hour or less...groan. It has to be easily transportable, easily eatable by a 5 year old with minimum fuss and spills and has to be big on taste too. If I ever had a choice between being slim for life and having magical superpowers in the kitchen, the superpower prowess option would win hands down..(sigh!)
I am a one pot kind of girl. I like to throw things together into one pot and not bother with too many options and choices. Give me my meat veggies and carbs together please and see me smile.
Of course I love the elaborate indian curries and dry sabji/torkaris, daals and meat, but only if someone else(read my mom) cooks it for me, slaving the day in the kitchen, but certainly not for me. I can happily survive on bread and butter and watch my waistline expand.
I am the lazy cook, so that doubles my lunch stress.
My daughters school does offer the option of a hot lunch and believe me it's infinitely appealing on many levels especially in-21 degrees cold Montreal winters, but she insists that she wants mommy to cook her lunch..(she is still 5 after all and mom is still wearing her halo) so I suck it up, put all my motherly love into the wok and get a reasonably decent lunch together at 5.45am in the morning. I take comfort in knowing exactly what goes into my daughters tummy and that she likes my cooking for now. In a few years the same stuff that she loves to eat now will be labelled Yucky and moms halo will be replaced by red gleaming horns so I hope to enjoy it while it lasts.
It's a huge struggle coming up with ideas 5 days of the week. I have apps like Foodily and Food on the Table and I can rattle off stuff for Epicurious with my eyes closed, but my struggles continue.
Just yesterday I got the idea to chronicle the school lunches I make, everyday for a month from my favorite blogger Bong moms cookbook. She posted her kids lunch menu and other fans and followers contributed their ideas and comments. How cool was that!
Maybe if I can record the kind of lunches I made and what went into it, I will know when and how to put it in rotation. In a few years too when I lock horns with my much older daughter, we can both look back to the days when the same school lunches were fun for her…
So here goes:

Jan 8, 2013…

Lunch: Tortilla wrap with chicken keema and peas
Sweet peppers
Snack: Dan Active drinking yogurt in banana strawberry flavor.

Verdict by the 5 year old: YUMMY...polished it off completely. A high point for mommy. She's shining her halo.

The keema and peas

Jan 8th 2013: Lunch: Tortilla wrap with spiced chicken keema and peas. Snack: DanActive drinking yogurt

Chicken keema:
400 gms minced chicken marinated with lots of crushed garlic( 5 big pods), a 1/2 inch grated ginger, 2 tbs onions minced, cumin powder, turmeric powder, red chili powder ( a pinch), coriander powder and garam masala, salt to taste
I let it all marinade overnight.
next morning i got it out of the frig along with 2/3 cup of frozen peas and one boiled potato
I heated 2 tsp oil in my non stick wok and added some more garam masala, 2 tbs more or minced onions and let it get  fragrant
Next I added the chicken with all the marinade and spices etc and let it cook well breaking up the pieces. When almost done, I added the chopped boiled potato, the thawed and microwaved peas,2 tsp of tomato sauce and cooked it till fragrant and done. Checked the salt and then added a handful of fresh green coriander leaves....Hmm heaven!
I put the mixture in the frig and used it inside one warmed whole wheat tortilla
I copped a few mini sweet peppers to accompany the wrap.