The QUIET..

Its past 12 in the night, and this is my time.. This is my favorite time in my whole day.. There is complete 'quiet'.. I can almost hear myself think.. This is awesome!!! My mom, tells.me, "you need to sleep early, when the kids sleep, you need to sleep", etc. Etc. Etc. I like to ask her shouldn't I be entitled for some quiet time to myself?? During the whole day, its one child after another needing me for something or other.. My life revolves around my babies, and I love that.. Don't get me wrong, but sometimes I need some "me time" to be the best mum I can be to my little ones.. I like to take that special time, from my sleep time.. I like being up, watching over my sleeping kids, listening to my sweetheart 'snore' (giggle) and feel the calm peaceful atmosphere.. They are beautiful.. They are resting and it is "QUIET"..

I never realized how much I missed the quiet, until I became a mom.. Being a stay at home parent seemed the right decision for me when I became a mom for the very first time at the age of 26.. I couldn't bear to leave my little girl, in the care of an outsider.. So I stayed home, took care of her and along came my elder son and then another son.. My youngest needs my attention a lot right now as he is still a little baby of seven months, but so does my 22 month old.. In the rush hour type way my entire day spins, I find myself needing a little rest for my soul rather than my body.. I have foregone a lot of the little comforts which I appreciated since I was a teen, like for an example, I love to drink my tea, warm and taking my time to enjoy each sip while I look out on the mountains from my childhood home, or in the company of my grand mother who would regale to me; accounts of her interesting yesteryear.. Or it would be in complete quiet with my faithful German Shepherd lying by my feet (unfortunately, my doggie Tarzan isn't here anymore.. But all the same, I remember fondly all the time we shared together).. I am a steadfast reader, and I love to read, recently all the time I have to read is the little books I read my kids.. Love it, but I miss my books (specially with a cookie in hand or a hot cocoa ;-) )

I know that I'm not alone in my thinking.. A lot of stay at home parents feel this way and they feel guilty for wanting an hour or two for themselves.. To be honest, I don't feel guilty for wanting to hold onto my identity.. I love being a mom, but I am an individual, with thoughts, emotions, needs and wants.. Just being a 'mother' can't stamp that out entirely.. My mother was a working mum and my siblings and I, needed to understand that.. I remember feeling let down, because she left me.. But being a mother myself now, I realize she became the 'best' mother she could be, by holding onto her career, than were she to leave it to take care of us.. She needed her career.. It didn't mean, she loved us any less, but it was her identity and parting with it was not an option.. I find my mother critical about my need to have an hour or two for myself, but I realize this is because, her 'me time' was all the time she spent away from home and from the time she came home, to us, the kids was all she attended to.. She doesn't understand and sometimes being a parent means not being able to see things in the same angle of a child.. I just want to say, if you are a stay at home parent and have a full brood on your hands and feel the need to have a few minutes to yourself now and then, don't feel guilty or feel you are being unfair to your children or a bad parent; you are a person.. You were someone who had a set of habits, likes, dislikes, and behaviors before being a parent.. And yes, we need to be the best parent we can to our children but that starts with a parent who is 'happy' themselves.. Kids are not chores.. Its a life long responsibility.. The tomorrow you dream about, that vacation you are going to have.. That long trip you will take, well, who knows?? Might work out, might not.. But today, the present, that's what matters.. So if you want some time to enjoy a cuppa tea, or breathe free for a few minutes, don't think twice and don't have bad feelings about it either.. The good Lord knows, we need a few minutes now and then.. I've spent mine writing, hoping someone in need would read it..

Humor makes life easy..

I have a fantastic ability to laugh it off.. I find it makes my life less complicated.. I feel that many things people do or say, is not to provoke but rather because they do not think enough before opening their mouths.. I have never been what regular folks would call 'thin'.. I was a chubby kid with a good appetite.. Because of the afore mentioned appetite; I became quite obese during my late teens and then (through a lot or motivation from my aunt) made life style changes, exercised every day and lost a staggering amount of weight and became shapely.. Around the same time, I met my sweetheart and la di da di da, love story of a life time, marriage and then pregnancy.. Well I'm afraid the pregnancy was not kind to me at all and I gained a huge amount of weight during those months.. I never managed to get the weight off, and now after my third baby, I am pretty overweight..

So... Anyone reading this and overweight into the bargain would know, the world is never fair nor kind to us.. With all the 'fat' movies (yes, I'm referring to 'Big Momma's House' and 'Norbit' and the 'Nutty professor' and I'm sure there are plenty more) and jokes, we have too many people having a laugh at our expense, it does get on ones nerve.. I've learned to laugh it off.. Recently I met an uncle of my husband who commented on my weight gain pretty badly and asked me 'why I don't take some medicine'?? I smiled quite sweetly and asked him to let me know what and where such a miraculous remedy can be bought.. He pretended not to hear.. I was expecting my second child when my husbands grand mother passed away and while I was attending the wake, one of his aunts approached me and asked me why I don't strive to lose weight.. I said 'Hello, pregnant lady here'; and I dearly wished to say, 'and for your information, in this part of the game, the goal is to put on, not lose weight', although I kept it to myself ;-) It was around my fifth month and she was quite taken back.. Nevertheless she had the impertinence to tell my mother in law while I was in the vicinity,
"both my nieces are overweight and they are married for so many years and haven't yet conceived"
To be honest, I felt like boxing her ears, but in my defense, I was highly hormonal at that point.. But I managed to find it extremely funny later on when I retold the entire episode to my husband.. Especially while remembering how flabbergasted her face looked as she digested my news.. LOL..

Yesterday I went grocery shopping with my family in tow.. As hubby and I can only manage two at one given setting outside of home, my second was left in the care of his grand parents while we were out.. I was approached by quite an obese lady, who eyed me relentlessly while I carried my youngest who is quite a dapper chap of seven months and my daughter who was fussing with this and that.. She very politely asked if she could ask me a question.. I am friendly if nothing else, so said why not quite cheerily.. She wanted to ask me if I had seen a fertility specialist or been on fertility medication or such in order to conceive.. To be honest, I wasn't surprised.. I said thank the good Lord no.. It was all accidental, unplanned and sometimes I found out two months delayed.. She said her doctor had said she had too much fat deposited in her ovaries that was why she had not conceived.. Although my heart went out to her as well as her spouse, there wasn't anything helpful I could say, except maybe try to lose weight, but then it'll be a case of the 'pot calling the kettle black'.. I could understand how sheer desperation drove her to speak to a complete stranger about something so personal.. But all the same, as I relayed it all to my hubby, I felt thankful, that although I may have been unable to find the time to exercise with taking care of my kids fulltime or unable to stick to a really good diet with the demands on my time by my little rugrats.. I had them.. Three blessed souls I wouldn't exchange for silver nor gold.. So that's why I need 'humor'.. Because I like to invest all the passion and energy and living on my family and the things I love to do, than on meaningless frustrations over the things people may or may not say or do.. 'Life is for the living' so the saying goes, so I choose to "LIVE" and also 'let live'.. And with 'humor' on my side, its one battle that I won't be losing..

Scary is the way to go...

Ok.. So.. My mom figured it was just a "kid" thing and that sooner or later (stressing mostly on the sooner) that I would just grow out of my fascination for horror movies, books, you get my drift.. When she realized even as a teen I was still inclined to enjoy a good scary movie, I think she prayed for me :-) But that was a long time ago.. I'm not a teen anymore, I grew up, did the whole fairy tale 'meetcute', married the fella of my dreams, did the baby thing three times mind you; so I have three little rugrats driving me nuts, but I still love horror..

I am aware that there are all sorts of people living in this world.. I mean, most of the people who know me, are so surprised I fancy horror.. I'm a natural comic, facial expressions, the funny stories, I got them all.. So it begs the question, what is it, that comes to mind of a person who is interested in that genre of entertainment??? I pondered on this one day, (generally I'm a mom who gets very little 'me time' with three kids under the age of four, but on a weirdly quieter day, I reckoned this was how do you say it? Food for thought!!). When we friends get together and we talk movies, and I chip in with my latest movie talk, my friends look at me bewildered, and say 'really? You're still a horror junkie?'.. And they vividly say, 'oh, I could never watch movies like that, hearing it even makes my skin crawl'.. So, why does it entertain me so much???

BTW, I am sure horror fans would know what I am talking about here.. I do not, consider slasher films, or blood and gore films into the category I like to watch.. Hello.. I mean movies like 'Hostel', 'SAW', and 'I spit on your grave' etc. There is something about blood which really repels such movies for me.. Give me a supernatural unexplainable, ghostly, poltergeist or possession orientated movie and I would love that.. Add my little brother as my 'watch together' list and you've pretty much made my day.. In the good old days, which I fondly remember, I'd watch all the horror I could get my paws on with my younger brother.. He's just as interested, so smart that he'd probably guess the plot thirty minutes into the movie, he'd seldom be bothered by the story after watching it (like you know, afraid to sleep alone, afraid to sleep in the dark etc.). We lived in Kandy, which is a beautiful city in the central province of our Island Sri Lanka.. The place we lived was called Anniewatte, which is beautiful and residential, although our country is a tropical one, Kandy is located in the mountain region, where it is generally cooler and more likely to expect rain fall.. And on a specially rainy like day, around 4 p.m is ideal ambiance to get you in the mood to watch a haunted tale.. The sun is setting, and mist is streaming in and we would settle into comfy chairs before the tv.. It was fantastic.. My mom stopped bothering me 15 years ago.. LOL ..

I tried to think about how people are attracted to certain things, like some of us love to do needle work, or paint, or cook or read.. So like maybe there are characteristics of why we get attracted to certain things.. Like my husband loves comedy or action.. He absolutely abhors anything to do with horror.. I have read the unabridged versions of Dracula, Frankenstein, Dr. Jekyll Mr. Hyde, assortments of horror, including MR James, Edger Allen Poe, and many other assortments of ghost stories.. So why does it attract me so? I am a very dedicated Roman Catholic, I am a warm and loving person, I don't lurk about graveyards, nor am I a goth person, no offence to any person being such.. All of these are just common cliches, I am not an unkind person, nor a sadist.. I think I like to believe that outside of our comfort zone that there are unexplainable events, which some people have encountered.. That being said, I also love to know that regardless of the poltergeist who scares the shit out of you, or shakes you like a rag doll, it can be conquered with faith in God and prayers and the people who are out there who come and help families portrayed in these stories.. People who put their own lives at risk for those of complete strangers.. I guess, that's why I watch.. That although it is all messed up and looks beyond hope, that there is always hope as long as you hold onto it.. Believe me I hate the ones which end with the main protagonist dying, for example, off the top of my head, 'Drag me to hell' (come'on she put on such a fight, and yet bites the dust, no fair), 'The Grudge' (don't get it, don't expect to either), 'The last exorcism' (What a freakin' waste of time)..

So, yes, I love horror.. Not just books, movies, tv series (supernatural, ghost whisperer, American Horror Story etc), even the documentaries like Discovery channel's "a haunting' or SciFi's 'paranormal witness, paranormal zone'.. So I guess, the main reason being, I love the surge of adrenaline it produces.. I even watched such movies while I was heavily pregnant, well you know what they say about bad habits? Exactement, 'they die hard'... ;-)