Pari started her summer vacations around a week back. As expected, I am on my toes all day. My day dawns before sunrise even in the holidays because Pari has taken up on me in the habit of being an early riser. Basically, mischief kick starts at around 5 to 5:30 a.m. in our household.

With my cousin’s wedding in less than a month’s time, a lot of shopping is on the cards. Yes, I haven’t yet decided on what we (that’s Pari and yours truly) are going to wear as yet. On one hand, keeping Pari entertained all day is quite a task, on the other, adding the daily chores in the soaring temperatures with our domestic help on leave, is a perfect recipe for disaster.

My energy levels are forever on an all-time low because Pari being a fussy eater rarely eats properly making her go cranky often. Giving it a deeper thought, I sometimes feel that during school holidays I become more of a waiter in a restaurant. All day I can hear people (especially Pari) ordering me what to cook for her with an added instruction to make it quick. However, she is sometimes gracious enough to eat what is served to her, when she sees I am in no state to take any more orders.

A few days before the summer holidays began, my parents wanted me to enroll Pari for tuition during the holidays to let her be in touch with the studies during the holidays (she has got a lot of home-work from school too). While I fully agree with it being a good idea, somewhere deep in my heart, I wanted my child to enjoy the break, in a carefree way. Let me be very clear here, that though I love the idea of summer camps and hobby classes during summer vacations, I think at 3.5 years of age Pari can have the luxury of keeping studies to the minimum at least in the holidays.

We spend our day doing a lot coloring, playing with water colors, finger painting, origami, dancing, running around the house, fun in the kitchen arranging things, discussing recipes ( Pari loves learning names of everything in the kitchen, including names of spices) seen on TV when I try them, a little bit of home-work, watching cartoons, reading books and often dreaming together too. To be honest, our day flies in no time and only after Pari goes off to sleep in the evening do I get time to realize how tired I am and how many pending assignments I have got.

I don’t know why, but in the past few years I have slowly begun to live life more in the moment than forever planning for the future. Maybe, it is triggered by the failures of my past where I used to push all my desires to an unseen future working 24*7 like a maniac. In my current life, I rank peace of mind as a huge gain. I might not have enough money to lead a luxurious lifestyle, but still I am complacent that I am not letting the little joys of life slip past.

My work suffers, because I do not work at times when I don’t want Pari to have time to feel bored. I try my best to finish up all assignments when Pari is either asleep or busy doing something she loves. It can get pretty demanding and can take a toll on my sanity at times but still, it is something that makes me feel good inside.

In the many cooking adventures of the past week, one has been a shocking failure of a time-tested recipe, chocolate muffins. I have used the recipe over 25 times till date, but this time, the result was not only heart-breaking but so bad that I was forced to throw a batch of 24 muffins in the garbage bin with my own hands.

I will write about it at length in a separate post to avoid diluting the sweetness of this post with the not-so-happy tale of the muffins gone wrong. Besides, all the fun and play, a lot of tantrums paint the remaining hours of the day. This is one topic that deserves to be covered at length and I have been postponing posts on it from over a year (with a draft that has already been edited 18 times in existence too). Though I have the intention to publish those posts in near future.

A lot of action is in store in the coming days as the much-awaited wedding inches closer.

On a different note, my attempts at sticking to a low carbohydrate diet have helped me lose 2 kilograms till now. Nothing too exciting, but definitely a positive outcome to keep me going. I cannot deny the fact, that in the past week, my resolve of eating every two hours has gone for a toss but overall I have neither been craving nor binging, which makes me feel quite in control.

There is one more thing I wish to mention, that in the past week I have started taking lukewarm water with honey first thing in the morning after putting it off all my life. I have to credit it to green tea because after getting used to green tea, switching to honey in warm water has been a piece of cake.

The song on my mind: Yuhi kat jayega safar ~ Hum Hain Raahi pyar ke