Maternal sons & Paternal daughters

I have decided that my only chance at having any shot of support in this house is if I give birth to a son. Lately my daughter and her father have been ganging up on me. My daughter’s constant “my daddy”s are testing my patience. They are always cuddling up on their side of the bed. Any disciplining that I attempt ends up with her complaining to her father about mommy.

So, what is the deal with fathers and daughters and mothers and sons. I have heard that it is considered to be lucky for daughters to take after their dads. That was some consolation, when the minute I saw my daughter I knew she had taken after the other side of the family. Movies boast of sons who go revenge crazy when something happens to their moms. And there are the doting dads who will do anything to stop their daughter from marrying the impoverished hero.

In our family, I pity my father-in-law for getting through 30 something years of being supportless. Clearly both his sons are Amma’s boys and I joke that he is the only one who would support me and I am the only one to support him. On my side, I often joke about how my mom and brother melt for each other, when in fact it is probably just the same between my father and I, less exhibitionist than them because of our relatively stoic natures.

While mothers and fathers are always special in their own right, I have always observed special affections and resemblences or similarities between mothers and their sons and fathers and their daughters. I am no expert at genetics (or even biology), but may be in our genes we are hardwired to be that way. I’ve tried hard to think of why that must be so, and I cannot think of any remotely reasonable explanation for this, except that it is probably almost always true.

Ok, it’s time now for me to go break that partnership across the room at least temporarily, as I let her doze off on my lap for a change.

Happy Valentine’s Day

I don’t recollect when I first observed Valentine’s day. Perhaps a few went by when I was in college, wondering if perhaps some miracle might drop an archies card my way signed by ‘???’ or ‘you know who’ or ‘your special someone’. Of course none of that ever happened.  My last year in college, the 28 girls in my class decided to turn some attention on ourselves by all wearing identical pink sarees. The only effect was that we got a second look wherever we went that day.

Then I was engaged to my husband and married to him before a valentine’s day came along. On our first valentine’s day, I took the trouble to buy the typical archies card, stayed up until 12 that night and presented it to him as a surprise. He retorted – ” I don’t believe in this valentine’s day and all…. anyway thank you”. Of course, he saved himself that day by quickly following with ‘For me everyday is valentine’s day’, but all my aspirations for valentines day for the rest of my life, ended right then.

However, there are those couples who still do special things on special occassions. Suprise each other on Valentine’s day. Some help the economy by going out and paying exorbitant prices for a box of chocolates or a stuffed monkey holding a big red heart. We on the other hand, do our valentines day shopping on Feb 15, help the stores by buying the chocolates on clearance and enjoying them for a few weeks after. We also buy the monkey, cut loose the heart from the monkey’s hands, and get it to hang from the ceiling fan in my daughter’s jungle themed room.

I suppose many years later, when I am deaf and hopefully my husband is fussing over me like a dog after a bone, we will finally decide to use a valentine’s card with good reason.

My wife is a B***h!

All husbands, good or bad have their moments of thinking “Gosh! This woman is just too much!”. Most times, its because Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus. I decided to make a ‘pattiyal’ or ‘list’ of things most men do not like about their wives.

1. Incessant shopping: Husbands fret when their wives drag them to Kohls or JCPenney to buy clothes. They fume even further when their wives cannot make up their minds on whether the white sweater is better or the cream one is. Their blood boils when having decided between white or cream, their wives proceed to find matching jewellery, shoes or handbags.
2. Domestication: Many husbands wish they could enjoy their weekend lazing on the couch, browsing the internet, reading moonavdhu manusha ezhuthara blogs, watching movies on HBO maathi Starz maathi Cinemax. Naturally it is extremely frustrating when the wife expects him to help with laundry, dispose the trash, occassionally cook or do the weekly grocery shopping – things which can very well be done by the wife who afterall has no interest in doing any of things in line 1 to start with.
3. Perfectionism/Spic and Spannism:  Husbands who have perfectionist wives are rarely close to perfection, as is usually the case in well-matched couples. Husbands scowl when asked to put their shoes in order when they get back from work, grumble under their breath when asked to take their clothes off the floor and put it into the laundry basket, make a silent protest when they are ordered not to spill the deepavali bakshanam on the carpet and valiantly disobey when they are asked to put down the toiled seat. (pss.. I even know one husband who is not allowed to use the toilet downstairs as that is reserved exclusively for guests and should be kept spic and span at all times).
4. Nagging: Husbands do not like to be told more than once what they need to do or should have done. It is of course totally irrelevant that they do not usually do what they are told the first time, or that they can never think of doing stuff unless they are told to. I have yet to master the art of conveying a to-do list to my husband without being called a nag. 
5. Crying: The most powerful tool available to the wife – Crying, is the husband’s worst enemy. As much as he gets amazed by the copious amounts of salt water that his wife’s eyes can produce within a few minutes for reasons well beyond his limits of comprehension, it also drives him crazy that something as trivial as that can force him to relinquish his position in any argument and go scurrying for kleenex.

Of course, as much as one may have all of the above complaints or more, a husband can most certainly not get away with calling his wife a ‘b***h’. However, there is one man who proudly can claim that at the top of his voice. He is this guy.

This list is sure to grow. Husbands, feel free to rant, but beware there will soon be a post that supports my kind!