I gave the bun his first really bubblicious bubble bath recently and the reaction was super gratifying. He didn’t really notice anything was too different until his duckie disappeared under the bubbles and he discovered that splashing the water made the bubbles go away and come back. He liked this game so much that poor duckie remained under the bubbles for quite a while – forgotten.
I was sitting here trying to think of all the major milestones that have happened in my life recently so that I could update my blog when it dawned on me that September has been a very big month for J and I
Here’s why-
Sep 2002 – J told me loved me and kablam we were in a relationship after nearly 2 years of just “being close friends”
Sep 2004- J and I broke up for a week after having lived together for 3 weeks. Yep it was that hard, but I’m glad we got back together again
Sep 2007- J and I got married for the first time (1 of 3) in the Durham Courthouse
And this year…
Sep 2010 – J got his PhD, something he has been working on for the last 5 years. Go J.
I guess mission Durham is complete.
We now have a whole crop of new challenges ahead of us though, mainly, what happens next. We both really really want to stay here and not move but with the economy being in recession, it might not be in our hands.
and remains confused by them. Enough said. FTR, these ones were J’s idea.
After a good 3 months it was a “normal” saturday in our part of the town. Although in Durham, its not really going to cool down until November, this saturday was still cool and overcast enough that I put the Bun in full pants and a long sleeved shirt.
Here’s my baby enjoying his 9th month!
Pay special attention to our unintentionally matching outfits. What can I say the boy just gets good taste from his mother 😉
A few Friday’s ago J, Bun and I headed out to one of our favorite summer activities in Durham. During the summer The American Tobacco Campus has live free music from 6-8. This lovely grassy area is surrounded by bars and restaurants and families bring picnics or get takeout from the nearby restaurants. Its also a great time to hang out at Tyler’s beer garden and sample delicious beers. Usually, this is a group outing for us, with friends or my parents but this friday, it was just the three of us drinking beer {formula for some.. ahem} and sampling the new flavors of loco pops when we just decided to take some pics. These are some of my favorite
I am now a stay at home mom! No job for me. I do need to find one soon, but I don’t know I might just stay home for a while :S
Ever since Avi was conceived we’ve had all sorts of nicknames for him and some of them are so cute and one day he will be too old for me or J to use and I’ll forget so here’s my list
Husib ( His very first name, when he was just a thought in J and my head)
He ( when he was born and I could only think of one person and pronouns worked perfectly)
Avinash
Avi
Baby Boy
Jiggly
Bunny butt
Bugaloo
Little man
Little dude
Monkey
Dadubhai
Gator Gator
Mousey
The ones that I use most are Avi, Baby boy, Monkey, Bunny Butt, Jiggly and of course a combination of them.
Like Jiggly + Bunny butt= Jiggly Butt or Bunny Jiggle or Gator + Monkey = GatorMon ( Sounds Jamaican, no?)
I’m lame. I know.
I still sometimes refer to him as husib when talking to J but usually “He” suffices just fine since 90% of our conversations now revolve around him. I wonder if husib will eventually fade out or J and I will use it even when Avi is all grown up.
************
Speaking of conversations between me and J. Here is a weird one
J: Are you going to be one of those women who is in a hurry to get grandchildren
N: What?
J: You know will you want Avi to have kids
N: I’m mostly working on getting through tonight, so I haven’t thought that much about it
J: Now that I’m asking you, what do you think?
N: I doubt it, I don’t want more kids, so why would I want grandkids?
J: I don’t know, I just thought we should talk about it.
Uhmmm….okay. I don’t understand boys. I’m just going to leave it at that. Sadly, later that night I thought all about what kind of an adult Avi would be and how his wedding would be , etc etc etc and then I changed his diaper and came right back to reality.
I’ve been so excited by the thought of having a baby these past few months that I haven’t given myself permission to think about the big cultural impacts of me having a child. Two things have lately worried me a lot, they were of course always there on the back burner but now they have moved from being abstract ideas to concrete dilemmas.
Yesterday at the doc’s office, J and I played a stupid game of flipping through the parenting magazine and counting the different ethnicities represented in the ads and what started out as a really silly game turned disturbing, when we found 5 ads in a magazine with nearly a 100 pages of advertisements that had non white babies or toddlers. Especially weird, given the cover story was “How to raise a color blind child.” It disturbs me on a lot of levels to think that my child will never see someone who looks remotely like him on mainstream media. I know things are changing but I didn’t realize how slow the change. Interestingly, internet magazines, blogs and alternative media outlets seem a lot more culturally and racially inclusive. So, yes, I could be that parent that avoids mainstream media and only exposes myself to niche outlets but it seems rather escapist to me. Also the lack of any mention of father or picture of fathers in these magazines. Why, dear god? We are in the 21st century? Most new fathers I know are quite involved in their children’s lives and actually have very strong preferences when it comes to consuming baby products, why wouldn’t these magazines reach out to them? Why is there still such a rejection of modern families, but an archaic, idealistic desire for traditional roles?
The second thing that has been scaring me is the new mommy wars which has expanded into a parent vs non parent battle. I have nothing against people who choose to be child free, hell I probably will start to envy them but I am a little worried about all this cultural hate towards mothers. I understand that babies crying or fussing might be annoying to others who don’t have them but am I really expected to give up all adult pleasures simply because I have an infant? Then won’t I get tagged with the classification that I have no other interests than children? How am I supposed to win.
I know I can’t really do anything about these things now, so maybe it is best I don’t dwell on them too much, but sometimes a girl just has to vent.
All done.
According to all the pregnancy books and websites, husib is very good at hearing things now and distinguishing between them. Unfortunately for him and J, husib’s mama has been into really angry girl songs lately. J is very worried that his son will only have heard girl centric music in utero. Well, I’d be happy to trade with J so that he can carry husib and J can expose him to whatever music he wants. Maybe, I’ll play some boy music soon for husib. Right. one of these days.
Orange You Grape 