26 Apr 2007
Check out the link from Parenting magazine.
When I was sitting in the doctor’s office waiting for the pediatrician, I picked up PARENTING magazine, partly because the title caught my attention and partly because I had to divert myself from typical Seinfeld-ian thoughts like, “Oh, what does that child have? Is it okay to let my kids touch this book? May be we must move to the other chair”. I gave it a quick browse and rated myself on their scale of 1-9, before our name was called. I liked it. By the way I am big sucker for these kinds of things. Hubby is pretty happy that motherhood has diverted me from taking and forcing him to take the Cosmo kind of quizzes! “Are you leading a happy life” quiz always ends up creating havoc in our household 🙂
Sense of humor – To name a few scenarios, Scenario I: At eleven in the night baby gets from sleep, throws up and cries her heart out. I ask hubby to clean up. He is willing but asks a stupid question, “Clean up what?” Scenario II: Toddler is being very clingy on the day when I have my plate too full. So I say, go play ABC games and come to me when you are done from A to Z. Toddler hits A, then Z and says, “Amma Iam done.” It is sense of humor that keeps me sane!
Creativity – I am pretty creative. For the sake of modesty, I leave it at that!
Type B personality – Serious problem here. I am a typical type A. I always have a schedule at hand and pain the rest of the family. Rest of the family is made up of typical ‘don’t-care-about-your-schedules’ personalities.
Stamina – Boy, oh boy. I have plenty of that! Some times my body runs for days together on 4 hrs/day sleep schedules. I am used to carrying a diaper bag on one shoulder, my infant on the sling and my toddler, who has declared, “Amma carry baby, amma carry me”. I am petite, I am 5 feet tall and weigh less than a hundred pounds. How I do it sometimes even amazes even me.
Immodesty – I choose to let my looks go partly because of the lack of time and partly beacuse I am lazy. I am always envious of the ‘not a hair out of the place moms’.
Tool skills – I officially am the tool woman in the house. Every single furniture in the house is assembled by me, me, me. I get inspiration from Pottery Barn catalogues and used to wander in the aisles of Home Depot trying to put together something by myself. Yep, ‘used to’, past tense. My Saturday morning trips to Home Depot ended for couple of reasons – lack of time after the second baby arrived, irritated employees at Home Depot. I ended up irritating one of the employees that he once told me, “Well mam, if something like that is readily available in Pottery Barn, have considered purchasing it from Pottery Barn itself?”
Ability to relax – I can relax…at times…when every other work is done…after I have made my list of to-dos for the next few days…
Love of song – I do this all the time. My toddler loves it. My versions of “Brown bear Brown bear what do you see?”, “Are you sleeping” are super hits at home. There is absolutely no tune or rhyme or rhythm, but they smile such a blissful smile when I sing(if one call it so)!!
ESP – Every mom has this. I call this the invisible umbilical cord. No doctor can cut this off! I diagnose an ear infection or a chicken pox even before the doctor does. I never let any one talk me out of my instincts. We were recently in India, hubby and self put the kids in bed, made sure that they were fast asleep and went for late night movie(Paruthiveeran, tamil movie). Something kept gnawing at me all through the movie. We get home and the kids were up and crying! They had woken up a few minutes after we left and were screaming.
Looks like I have a 7/9, not bad at all!
(I need constant validation for what I do. So please do leave comments! 🙂 )
2 Responses for "How to be a great mom? – The 9 surprising traits you need for your baby."
Hello, came here via Tharini’s post and am glad I did. This post cracked me up and I couldn’t surf away without leaving a note. Many a day, my “Could you take care of the mess, please?” is answered by a “What mess?” by my husband! And, “not a hair out of place mommies”? well, really?! i always imagine Julia Robers or Gwennie Paltrow that way and then realize it’s probably too much of a hassle to be stunning all the time – so i just aim for “well put together” look 🙂 Anyway, just wanted to leave a note for you… I was wondering about introducing God to Ana too, but, it is tough when both parents are not agreed on it…
Hello Sheela:
Welcome to my blog. Men are definitely from Mars. Regarding introducing God, yep it can get difficult if your better half does not agree.
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