Interesting facts about the bump

While this may not seem such an interesting topic for the male species, being pregnant makes me explore the so-called 'typical womanish' topics. Bump being a prime example. How I love my bump!!! I so want to wear the appropriate fabric that'll help me invite glares and glances from every known and unknown. I am proud to say that I love to show it off. Now don't imagine me lifting my shirt up to do so; I remain well within my 'desi' boundaries. Its just as simple as I don't want to hide my roundy tummy behind long cotton kurtis or tops. In my last pregnancy, I made Jignesh take my pictures at every month which I nicely categorized in an online album to be shared with everyone. This year, I have to admit, I have been a bit slack. But I have been a slack with everything this time. Right from avoiding caffeine, to eating the right amount of fruits. I guess it happens as you get used to the whole 'pregnancy' process.

 

Anyways, I want to share some interesting facts that have been happening putting the 'bump' into limelight. After all the focus on the Hollywood moms parading their bumps under Oscar gowns, you can see a plethora of swollen bellies all over the Internet. Just type in 'bump' and you'll be amazed at the sheer number of links that'll come up. The trend has changed. Women have grown to love their full figure and want to immortalize it by splashing it all over the net. Infact, inorder to do the above, the women have gone to the heights of getting their bellies casted in plaster and using it as a neat nursery showpiece. Howz that for going overboard? The creative-crazy women get a chance to decorate their casts the way they want to. Embellish it with beads or paint your masterpieces on it. Oohhh!! I have to say this doesn't sound too alluring to me. Makes my face all twitchy when I try to imagine this.

 

Morocco has an interesting tradition to ward off the evil spirits. The women in their third trimester have to get their bellies hennaed with beautiful intricate designs. Just like how we have the mehendi tradition in weddings, though its just on hands and feet. I love mehendi and its designs and I don't think I would mind getting my belly green. It is supposed to calm and soothe and help in easy childbirth. Well, for me, that sounds just pretty to me.

 

The vocabulary has changed its words for the same too. In the good ole past, they said 'going the family way' to describe the pregnant women. Now its more on the terms of 'knocked up.' India has its share of words too. From 'uska pair bhari hai' (I fail to understand the connection between the tummy and the feet) to the crude slang word 'matka,' the westernized indians prefer to refer it as 'I am preggy' or just 'I am expecting' (What are you expecting? It could be anything right?).

 

Anyways, while the bumps are being photographed, molded, and painted on, I am glowing with it trying to ignore the tremendous strain it puts on my delicate spine making me dwindle-walk sometimes as I defy gravity. Though this calls for additional shopping and with it, a strain on hubby's pocket too, I love it and I know I will miss it once I get through the process as I lose the attention I get. Till then, do keep dropping in to see my latest pics.

Absent-minded me

We just watched U, Me Aur Hum. If you haven't watched it, here comes the main part of the plot. Alzheimer's disease. This is what Kajol starts to suffer from after a few years in marriage. She starts to forget her address, her husband's name, the fact that she is pregnant, etc. Though this memory loss is not permanent. It waxes and wanes. Sometimes she is in perfect harmony with her life, and at other times, she walks around like a zombie.

 

I have been forgetful right from the time i remember. I have never once returned home with an entire shopping list 'ticked.' There have been instances when I have gone in my car, and come back in a rickshaw. I have left my bag in stores or parks, and just a few days back, some very important documents in a copier at Fedex-Kinko's. I have to admit that I have been lucky so far to get it all back. Imagine!!! even after 15 days. Are my symptoms pointing toward any serious cognitive problems, or am I just too careless? They say, forgetfulness is mostly since you are preoccupied and heedless to the current circumstances. Yes, a lot of times, I do tend to be preoccupied, and I do tend to multi-task, but is my brain just dumb enough not to be able to differentiate between the 'important' and the 'trivial.' 

 

The most hilarious episode that has been stuck in my grey cells so far has been the fact when mom and dad went for a vacation to Goa like 20 years back taking my younger brother along, and leaving me behind with my grandparents and my bua. They told me they are taking my brother for a tonsillectomy and I believed them all this time. How silly and absurd this sounds to me now, a tonsillectomy in Goa, i can't stop laughing. It was just last year during a family conversation time, when I came to know that it was just a 'kid-lie' and I was just a plain fool to have believed it all these years.

 

Events I remember; names and dates, safe-keeping places, I don't.

 

I am not yet roaming around like a zombie, though that could be spotted sometimes now that I have my pregnancy hormones to blame. The only problem I face with this forgetfulness is the wrath of my dear husband whose 'dates-and-numbers-memory' happens to be a lot stronger than mine. I fail to explain to him how my memory kids around with me. I hope this doesn't escalate into any serious problems later in life that probably will prompt him to go watch U, Me Aur Hum again.  He has all my sympathies.