December 2022 marked 10 years of knowing my husband. This is the month when our parents decided to get us married. We both agreed without even knowing how each other looked. This is the month when we talked for the first time ever and our initial communications were emails for several days. Ah, reminiscing those days and looking at our relationship now.

My relationship with my husband has redefined a lot of things for me, especially what love is. What I thought love was has completely changed now for better. I have started looking at our life with a lot more clarity and maturity

Reflecting over our 10 years of relationship, I wanted to write some small things or not-so-small things that makes me love him more every nano second.

• Makes sure I sleep peacefully – This is such a relief. Not only does he let me sleep but he also makes sure the kids don’t disturb me. He only wakes me up when it is really time for me to start the day. And on weekends that is never. He doesn’t wake me up just because he is awake.
• Doing his part – As he wakes up early, he prepares whatever he could for the day. Be it soaking dal or rice for the day, boiling vegetables, filling water bottles, putting the dishes in,… This makes it a lot easy for me to cook. Others would say he is helping me, he would say I am doing my part and you are doing yours. Same for kid’s duty too. No “this is women’s job, this is men’s job”. This is our house and we are working for our family.
• No pressure of giving gifts just for the sake of giving gifts. No birthday or anniversary surprises. But he does surprise me from time to time. A recent one is when he accidentally took my phone to his office. He changed the back cover and the screen protector. When he brought it back it looked like a new phone 😲
• Respects my me time – Recently I went on a trip with my colleagues. He took care of the kids. Other than to make sure I am safe he didn’t call me at all. This is not only for the trip, this is for any time I had to be left alone. Be it an office meeting or when I want to watch a movie by myself. We make sure when the other person wants some time they truly get their time.
• Supports my choices – As with any couple we have a lot of differences in opinions. We fight, we argue, we listen and most of the time he will agree to my decision😉 I used to ask him, “What if I had made a mistake, would you blame me?”. He answered, “We took this decision together, we are in this together”. Not once he has blamed me for my decisions. He trusts and supports me. This gives me the confidence to be myself. I know whatever happens he is on my side.
• Sees me for who I really am – Being a short-tempered person, I get easily angry. And then feel guilty for hurting him or the other person. There are instances where even I can’t forgive myself and I have felt how I can ever live after such an incident. I hated myself. But then he always says, “You are a good person. You only have to learn to manage your anger better. Don’t let this one thing define you”. If not for him I couldn’t have gotten past that. With him, I become better every day!
• An Authentic Human – The way he behaves is not specific to me. He treats everyone equally. He puts himself in others’ shoes. He complains less, and never blames others. Gossips are very rare. Apologies truthfully. Emotionally mature. Punctual and honest. He is my philosopher who doesn’t preach but inspires with his action.

I am completely myself when I am with him. I know he won’t judge me. I don’t need to do anything to impress him or make him love me. I am just myself and that is enough. And he is just himself and that is enough. It is because of him I love myself more.

Not all days are rosy and not that we are happy all the time. There isn’t a day where we haven’t vexed each other (Bridgerton effect 😅). Also there isn’t a day where we haven’t got lost in each other’s eyes. Not a day goes by without a fight. Also we can’t stay mad at each other for a long time. He knows how to annoy me and I know what triggers him. And that is our perfectly crazy relationship.

Blessed to have him as my everything. To 10 years and forever!

I have been buying children’s books for over 4 years now. When the pandemic started I realized that my older one (3.5 years) has outgrown most of them. As I started to invest in new picture books for her, I also came across some vibrant and interactive books for my toddler. When I rotated their books this weekend I noticed the different kinds of books we have. Here they are. This covers the books for the age group of 0 to 2 years.

Touch and feel books

Usborne’s “That’s not my..” series have a wide range of touch and feel books. And the very first book we bought for our daughter was “That’s not my Princess”. Babies will be curious to explore different textures in the book.

Age Recommendation: 6+ months

Brightly coloured board books

Books with bright and vibrant images easily attract babies. For newborns, you can get cloth books or “First baby days” also have quite a collection with visually stimulating images for 0-3 months. For one-year-olds, any good board book with images in a solid background will encourage them to point and ask for what it is.

Sound books

There are a variety of sound books available in a lot of different genres. Babies love to press and play sounds. They are quite expensive. Invest in a couple of good ones. You won’t regret it.

Palm-size books

These are pocket friendly and also easy to pick and flip for babies. Most of the first word books are of this size.

Bath books

We didn’t use these much. But you can grab these for the bath or pool time.

Book with a puppet

I don’t have one to add an image. But search for them, they look really cute and babies would love them.

Lift-the-flap books

Hands down, these are the best. From babies to toddlers to preschool kids everyone loves these interactive books. If you have a one-year-old, close your eyes and buy Rod Campbell books. We have these and even my older one loves to read it over and over again. And “Where is my belly button” is also our favourite.

There are also books with multiple flaps on a single page. You can find a lot of these books also in the preloved market.

Fold-out books

These books are not like traditionally bound books. They are thick sheets folded. This gives the child a sense of unwrapping and finding a surprise. “Boo” by Tara Books is a great fold-out book. My toddler loves this. Only con is the child will find it difficult to fold it back.

We also have a Space fold-out book. But I would recommend this only if you are confident that your child won’t tear it. It is so beautiful to watch it getting destroyed 🙈

Different shapes/cut-out books

For some reason my younger one loves this star-shaped book. OM publishers have a wide range of cutout board books from God to dinosaurs. You can find them on Amazon. As they are quite sturdy these can be introduced even to 3+months babies.

Pop-up books

Pop-up books take the story and visuals to the next level. There are a lot of these books available in the market. Again you can introduce these once your child stops tearing the books, or else the chances are they are going to pull out the pop-up :p

I got these pop-up books from Firstcry when my older one was 3 years. We both love the washing machine book.

Magnet books

These are something we bought for our older one. But even my toddler enjoys sticking and taking it out. But be very cautious as they tend to keep it in their mouth. Better to introduce once they stop putting things in their mouth.

3D Books

I would like to call these as 3D as I don’t know what else to call them 😛 These books are fun to touch, shake and read.

Other books we love are Dr.Seuss’s flip-the-flap books. The rhyming words are funny, entertaining and also easy to remember.

And that’s that. The intention of this post is to give an overall idea of different types of books. These are some of the books we love and there are a lot of other wonderful books like “The Hungry Caterpillar”, Usborne “Peep Inside” books…

At the end of the day, all that matters is the time we spend with our children and also introduce them to this amazing world of books.

If you are here, thanks for reading. Let me know if this was helpful and would love to know the books you enjoyed with your child.

The man I married to the father of our children, I have seen him giving nothing but everything to whatever role he plays. On this Father’s day, I want to pen down his certain special fatherly moments through the eyes of his wife.

That moment when he officially became a father!

The moment when the doctor took the baby out of me, my husband fainted. I’m not exaggerating, he felt dizzy and was about to slip down when all the nurses who were surrounding me ran to help him 😛 . They made him sit and offered the juice they had brought for me 🙄 . And there I was lying on the labour bed, with the doctor taking the placenta out, confused whether to look at the baby girl getting bathed or to laugh at my fainting husband getting pampered by the nurses with all “Awww…” sounds or to shout in pain when the doctor started stitching episiotomy tear. 🤷‍♀️

It came as no surprise as I know already that he is one of those people who can’t even look at the other person getting an injection. And I didn’t pressure him to be there during my labour or did I?🤔 I am telling you, it just happened. But I’m sure without him my labour would have not only been stressful but also so scary. He took more than half of the pain and pressure just being there with me holding my hand. Maybe the only reason why I was ready to do that all over again!🙃

A father, A real man!

I thought only a woman can feel like all the children as her own and take care of them. I have never thought a man would feel that way.

How can I forget this precious moment! A few days after our daughter was born, he started his office. The first day after his office, he came back bewildered. Slightly shivering, he told me that the way he looks at other women has changed. When he looks at a woman now he feels sorry for all that struggles she has to go through in her life. He said he saw our daughter in all of them. I was just dumbfounded.

A soft heart person he already was, having a daughter has made him even more gentle and kind.

Second time over!

This time he was beside me as if he has already got a PhD in baby delivery, giving me instructions to push properly and not to do the same mistakes I did the first time 😅. He was confident, brave and all ready to take care of me and the new baby alone in the hospital. Yes, as my parents had to take care of my daughter (who was so sick on the day of my second delivery). Though I had my grandmother by my side, it was my husband who had to do the night duties. I still remember that delivery night when he and I laying on the hospital cot, watched our baby sleeping so peacefully and talked and talked till the dawn.

Parenthood

In our household, there hasn’t been any difference in our duties. Though I exclusively fed the baby till 6 months, it was mostly him who fed them after that. He was actually proud when the kids ate with him without crying much 😳. Except breastfeeding, there isn’t anything that he hasn’t done. From changing and washing cloth diapers to catching and cleaning the baby puke to singing lullabies and making the baby sleep to what not. All this by someone who used to sleep sharp at 9 PM and can’t stand the smell of puke. One thing that surprises/shocks me every time is he does so much more and yet feels bad for me that I had to sacrifice a lot for the children.

Kids Care

When I joined back work, he made sure to ease a lot of burden off me. He dropped and picked up our daughter from the daycare. He had to carry her on his arms for about 4 km every day. He sacrificed a lot of his ‘me’ time just so that I can go to work without worrying about the kids. Each and everything he does is full of so much love and care. I’m grateful for each and every day spent with him.

As a person, I am always amazed at how kind he is towards everyone, even towards a small insect and how he treats everyone equally. He always puts himself in other’s shoes and understands their situation. He stays calm even when someone tests his patience. He never bluntly blames or complains about anything or anyone.

Guna, I am learning everyday from you and I wish someday I will be at least half kind and understanding as you are. How blessed our children are to grow up with you as their Appa. Happy Appa’s day, Guna! You are our sunshine! 😇

I wish and pray that everyone has a man like you as a part of their life!

Being a mother… ha.. a lot of things change when you become one, isn’t it?! You are listening to “Shape of you” and when you hear “Come on be my baby… Come on”, all you could imagine is you calling out to your baby (a real baby) to stop him from licking the floor!

I woke up today with all my social media feeds filled with my friends wishing their mothers “Happy Mother’s day, ma..” Awww.. so sweet. Yeah, even I wish my daughter and son could post a wish for me in their social media or whatever. But here I am typing this as my daughter is pulling my hair and my son poking my nose and wondering if my nose pin would ever come out. Hey, I am not complaining, I am just thinking(crying) out loud!

This lockdown has really made us appreciate our mothers, hasn’t it? We are starting to understand/decode their parenting. Now I totally get it why I had to spend my summer holidays at my Granny’s. Here we are in the 1.5 months of lockdown and already half crazy. How do you think our parents could have managed us alone for 2 months of our summer holidays every year, over and over! Ahh… I feel tired even to type it and it is scary to just imagine too.. Ma and Pa, Thanks in advance for taking care of my children (or spoiling them with chocolates and TV) during their school holidays!

OMG! Don’t even get me started on how much grandparents are pampering (read as spoiling) their grandkids (also called as our children). And the modern-day grandparents are equipped with smartphones and smart TVs to take it to the next level. I totally miss the weekends where my father tortured me and my brother to spell difficult words (dictation) and conducted math competitions between us. Please please torture my kids too know. Growing up, TV at our house was just a show piece. I don’t remember having a cable connection at all. And yet here is my girl watching “Rowdy baby” on my father’s phone as my mother is feeling proud of the way my daughter is playing with the mobile! Please someone find the parents who raised me!

And yes, why am I typing this without picking up my son who is now pulling my daughter’s hair. Hmmm… yeah.. hey you, who is reading this. This mother’s day take a moment to wish yourself and pat on your back for all the unconditional love you show towards anyone and for all your random act of kindness. That is what being a mother is. You need not give birth to become a mother. You just have to care and love without any expectations, for that is what all this motherhood is about.

MOTHER – pure love!

Daughters and sons who mother their parents, brother and sisters who mother their sisters and brothers, grandmothers and grandfathers who mother their grandkids, husbands who mother their wives, wives who mother their husbands, friends who mother their friends, doctors who mother their patients, that random girl who mothers the street dogs and cats and of course to all mothers and fathers who fearlessly who go out to get groceries! Happy Mother’s day to all of you!

Only because of you all, in this infected planet, we are still uninfected in our hearts!

2019 for us started with a new addition to our family. With the second baby to look after and starting a career break for at least the next 8 months, I started the year with a lot of resolutions and promises. They are nowhere near to what I have accomplished but I did try to start a lot of new things this year. Here are the top 19 things I did new in 2019, grouping them under these four.

• Technology
• Parenting
• Environment
• Lifestyle

Technology

1. Started Technical Blogging: Blogging is something I wanted to do for a very long time but didn’t do. This year at least I started it. Gaining over 600 followers in a week and with 14K views, it really gave me confidence to write a lot. Consistently blogging is something I want to challenge myself with next year. BTW, This is where I blog! https://dev.to/bhuvanaguna

2. Teaching kids to code: I have been searching and reading a lot about how to introduce kids to code, but didn’t quite know where to start. When Dorai Thodla tweeted about conducting “Hour of Code” at Chennai schools, I jumped at the opportunity. Though I could make it to only one school, I learned a lot from the students. The way they solve a problem, their energy and enthusiasm in learning coding in a playful way are something that surprised me and motivated me. Looking forward to doing a lot more of this in the coming years.

3. Started attending meetups: I am not always very comfortable at going to a new place and meeting new people. But this year gave me a lot of confidence to meet and engage with new people. Mainly listen and absorb! Thanks, Aravindan for taking me to my first ever meetup.

4. Investing in Online Courses: I have never thought an online video course would be very effective. Also, I mostly preferred reading/following a blog instead of watching the same as a video. When I had to prepare for the interviews after almost 9 months career break, good for me I invested in a few good online courses. It has really increased the pace at which I learned. This made me buy a bunch more courses (around 10 😬) all of which are waiting for me to start 😐.

5. Open-source contribution: Even though I am in the technical field for 7 years now, I am more than guilty to accept that I haven’t really tried to contribute to opensource. All thanks to Hacktoberfest for demystifying the world of opensource and showing how anyone can contribute. It has changed the way I code too. I published my first npm package, created a bash shortcuts repository and also made contributions to some of the opensource repositories. BTW got my Hacktoberfest swag too 🥳.

6. Did an offline hackathon online: I was super excited about my first hackathon of 2019. But unfortunately, I wasn’t able to travel to Bangalore to attend it. I have this mindset that I have to be physically with the team to be the most productive. So I wanted to drop out. But on the day of the hackathon, I decided to do it offline. Coordinated with the team through hangout. I just couldn’t believe I did that. With two kids around all the time, all thanks to my husband who had a separate hackathon with the kids😜. BTW my team finished in the top 6 out of 200 teams all over India. So grateful that I had Janani as my teammate. She is a real star!

7. Participating in Coding wars: I am not so bold when it comes to competitions/ranking, that too one-on-one. I am so glad that I gave Coding wars on Hackerearth a try this year. It has really improved my algorithmic expertise and confidence. Even though I didn’t participate every week, I did whenever I could.

Parenting

8. Pumping: When I joined back office after my first kid I had to drastically cut down feeding her my milk. I always felt guilty for that even though she fed only for comfort. But for my second one, I didn’t want to stop. I was searching for a way to make sure he gets my milk even when I am away. I came to know about pumping through this wonderful Facebook group. Read through the experiences of mothers pumping at the office. When I joined back office, I got ready with all the essentials for pumping, cleaning, storing and carrying the milk safely home. Let me tell you, it is not that easy. But it really helped me as I was feeling less guilty and also my child was getting his nutrition and the whole transition was smooth.

9. Carrying the baby: I didn’t invest in a baby carrier for my first child. But for my second one, even before the baby was out I bought an ergonomic carrier. The best decision I should say. Carrying the second one made it easy to handle the first one, who was actually going through her terrible twos😥. Thank God, he liked being carried and slept in the carrier even when it was noisy.

10. Communicating in English with the kids: One day I randomly started talking in English with my first kid. It was not easy to just change the language that you were comfortable communicating in. But I wanted her to get exposed to different languages at a very early stage. So I didn’t stop even when everyone around told me that it will delay her speech. It was very difficult for both of us. But now looking back, I don’t regret a bit. She now talks and understands three languages. Consistently talking in English with her has actually improved my fluency and comfortableness with the language. This also improved my confidence which I could see clearly when I was attending interviews. Thanks to my daughter 🙏!

11. Worrying less – hugging more: 2019 has definitely improved my patience. With two kids, initially, I was worrying a lot. One side my first one was cranky most of the time and on the other side, there is this baby who feeds through the day. One thing that helped me a lot is hugging. I told my child that she has to hug me if she feels like crying. Not only it calmed her down (yes, they really can’t hug and cry at the same time,hmmm.. most of the time 😁) but it also calmed me down. It has really reduced the odds of losing my temper. Now my husband tells me that I am being so cool with the kids but not to him. May be from next year I should hug him a lot more 🤗!

Environment

12. Menstrual cups: I started using menstrual cups. Period.

13. Kitchen garden: We made a small kitchen garden from the vegetable seeds we have at home. We grow tomatoes, chilies, brinjal, omavalli, pirandai, greens,.. The food tasted extra delicious when cooked with homegrown veggies.

14. Composting: We started composting our organic waste in an old plastic bucket. This is one of the best things we did in 2019. It has drastically reduced our trash. We couldn’t do it after three months as we already had a lot of compost and also the rains started. But we are really looking forward to resuming the composting next year.

15. Plastic-free kitchen: This year I replaced all my plastic containers and food boxes with glass jars and steel boxes. I also started using earthen pots and containers. They really give a great taste to the food. Next year I am going to give iron cookwares a try.

Lifestyle

16. No new apparel: This year I took a resolution that I won’t buy any new clothes for myself. As I delivered a baby at the beginning of this year, I didn’t want to buy any new clothes as my body will be going through a lot of changes. Taking this as a resolution saved me from a lot of impulse buying. I reused my maternity clothes by adjusting them. Even though I miss shopping 🙁 I proud that I stuck on to something!

17. Sewing in the machine: This year I braved myself and bought an electronic sewing machine (also because it was an offer 🤪). I self-taught and made toys for kids, one of which is a racing play mat. I also used it to adjust my maternity clothes to fit. It is a great feeling to wear a dress that fits 🤓!

18. Buying from small vendors: As we had to take of the baby most of the time, we mostly avoided doing monthly grocery shopping and only bought whatever needed, whenever needed from the nearby small vendors. Even when we needed to buy a lot of things, we noted it down and bought from the wholesale vendor rather than hitting a supermarket. This has greatly cut down our monthly expenses and also reduced the impulse buying.

19. Performing a Slam Poetry: Wow! This is something I thought I couldn’t do. But did it this year. I performed slam poetry at the office. Guilty that it is not completely written by me, but happy that I tried!

If you really read through the full blog, thanks so much! 🙏 It means a lot.

2019 had a lot of new beginnings for me. All these would not have been possible without the help I got from my husband, kids, parents, in-laws, friends, virtual friends and facebook groups. One main thing 2019 taught me is

“When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.“

All thanks to all that universe that helped me and made it possible!

Looking back I realize what I lack – CONSISTENCY. 2020, My ultimate goal is whatever I do, I want to do it consistently.

Let me know about your 2019 in the comments.