Chez Moi

P lost another tooth this Friday, his second one. Apparently, it came off when he bit into his sandwich at lunchtime. I was surprised at its appearance because I wasn’t aware that this one was loose. The first one came out surrounded by some major drama - “oooh it is wobbling!” to “oh there is BLOOD!”. This one was rather anti-climatic, with just the appearance of it to show for it and not even a request about the Tooth Fairy. Wonder what came of his plans to make some serious dosh out of his teeth!

Anyways, P then carefully put it in his pocket and handed it to me on reaching home. I promptly moved it to the ‘My Baby’s First Tooth’ box, already housing the first one. That was when I wondered if I should bury the damn thing or just let it be. I had visions of it becoming full of my baby’s full supply of milk teeth. That will be taking things a mite too far, won’t it?

I also have his baby bag packed full of his baby clothes. Booties, mittens, body suits, itty bitty shorts, jeans, jackets - the whole lot. I simply cannot bear to throw any of his stuff away. I feel like a traitor, like I am chucking away part of his childhood.

Of course my husband thinks I am nuts. Why can’t you enjoy him now instead of trying to hold on to the past, he asks. True enough. But letting go is so difficult, isn’t it? If I can somehow hold on to his baby days, I can slow him down from growing up and away, can’t I?

Ah, motherhood. It ain’t easy. Good thing too.

Man! What a hunt and what a lovely surprise! What fun! And what an amazing bunch of people! I do not have words to say what your gesture has meant to me and am sure the other MTBs feel the same.

Tharini - what a lovely idea! Thank you for that and what followed!

And what a gang - Tharini, Gauri, Altoid, Sujatha, MM, Reshma, Anupama, UTBT, Suki, Daisy, Chronic Worrier, Dipali, Kiran, MayG, Rita, Parul, Ceekay, Mona, Ams, Asha, DDMom, Sue, Sunita, Orchid, Broom, Yaadayaada, Shobana, Nisha, Choxbox, Trishna, Y, Priya (BEV), 2A’s Mommy, SilentOne, Ro, Eve’s Lungs (Mallika), Compulsive Dreamer, DotMom, Upsi, Anitha, K3, Mnamma, Aargee, Nat, Itchy, Sahithi’s Mom, Dee, Mummyjaan, Noon, SS, Aditi’s Mom, Big Zed, Premalatha, Sadhana, Raising T, Usha, ~nm, IBH, JLT, Swati, Timepass, Kowsalya, Squiggles Mom, ArtNavy and Neera!

How in God’s name did you lot, scattered as you are all around the world, cook up this fantastic idea and execute it so flawlessly? Girls, your talents are wasted being just bloggers! You should be running countries!

The biggest thing I felt when I was preggie with P six years back was loneliness - new to this country, far away from everyone I knew and no one to talk to, it was one of the worst time of my life. But this time around, things cannot be different. And the biggest difference is you lot - and of course, my fellow MTBs. That 3.00 AM feed will feel less lonely now, cos somewhere in the world, I know you lot are there, either going through it yourselves or cheering us on. You could not have given me a better present. Honest!

I have never felt so happy about being pregnant than during this exercise! Boy is it worth it for this feeling of happiness, this camaraderie alone!

I know that the rest of the blogosphere has been scratching its head coming across some of the riddles in these blogs. For them, and for anyone else who wants to know what these amazing girls have done, well, they have just gone and thrown us MTBs (or Mother-to-bes) - Boo, Maggie, Poppins Mom, Kodi’s Mom, Lavs, Planethalder, Random Vignettes, Rohini (and Priya and STS!) and moi, - a fabulous baby shower - online, of course! And they did it with all the stealth and guile of top Mossad agents.

We were sent on a massive treasure hunt! Yes! Tharini’s rhyming e-mail started us off, then it was off to UTBT, and on and on. They left amusing little ditties on their blogs and by solving each, we had to bloghop to where the clue pointed to next, only to collect an alphabet for our troubles. And the devious lot threw a few red herrings our way too, in the form of ‘blanks, just to spice things up a bit. Boo, we did say and yayy said they, def! On and on it went, over gazillions of blogs and unscrambling the letters got us the username and password and from Broom’s blog, to a special blog set up by these fantastic peeps, our very own Doula Gang, for us. Chock full of gyaan for the mums to be, recipes and a whole lot of love! Who’d've thunk it?

It all started yesterday when Boo came across one of these rhymes. Imagine her puzzlement when she found the “Riddle-me-ree” message on a few more blogs. She wrote a plaintive message, asking people what gives. What we got in response were gleeful cackles, even as we blundered through! As the day went on, rhyming ditties were springing up hither and thither and before long, we knew there was some sort of Treasure hunt on. It took a while to twig on the order to go. But one thing the Doula Gang had miscalculated was the determination of Boo, Maggie, Poppins mom, Kodi’s mom and Lavs to crack this or die trying. They made excel sheets and sat all night and Boo cracked it around 2.00 am! The Doulas had thought we would spend the weekend puzzling over this but Boo and the girls had the last laugh alright!

So that is what the Riddle-me-rees are all about. One of the most fantastic ideas, hatched and brought to fruition by some of the most devious and superior minds in the world! And what presents we have got - a massive loot of goodies in the form of the gyaan, of course, a beautiful collection of rhymes, fab memories, big barrel full of laughs and bestest of all, the key to one of the greatest communities, spanning language, cultures, countries and heck, whole continents.

One of a kind, laydees, that’s what you are. One of a kind. I think I can speak for the rest of the MTBs here when I say, we are bowled over by this massive love. I feel so privileged, that you included me in this special act. Mere words are not enough to express my gratitude. Long may your tribe increase!