I have been missing from my own happy and calm place- taking pictures and scribbling- for the past few weeks. I am more anxious and restless as a result and I don’t really like this ‘me’! Sometimes life gets crazy and replying to simple emails seems like a task and the two hour ‘me’ window that generally is allotted for rants and rambles gets filled with  Netflix, leading to more restlessness! We all have been/are part of such cycles that leave us in a flux at times, won’t you say? How do you deal with it?

I sometimes wish I could go out  to places a couple of times a week at least that would let me take photos to my heart’s content and teach me things. Instead, days get filled with the mundane and this fanciful notion takes a backseat. While my heart is thankful for all that I have and I feel blessed for my family, especially my little ones, at times a tiny something feels missing from this perfect setting. I wonder if this is the feeling of a stay at home mom and I also wonder if it’s okay to feel this way.  A part of me wants to work, wants to put my degrees to some use, wants to be able to give back to society, wants to be a role model for the tiny humans we are trying to raise. I know of parents who would give anything to be able to stay at home,watching their kids grow – roll on the floor with them, make sandwiches with funny faces for lunch and just be silly in the middle of the day! And I am grateful,every single day, to be able to do that. But at the same time, the urge to go to work does not seem to go away.  This sort of dichotomy between the ‘what- one- has’ and ‘what- one- wants’ is nothing new and never has an easy solution! Neither does mine. Sometimes we give in to situations and fail to navigate around. And sometimes we find a middle ground or choose a path and stick to that no matter what.

I have been perturbed for the past few days and I know I will be again in the future! But for now, I am choosing to not sink in the ‘have- nots’ but embrace the ‘haves’ and when the time is right, choose a path that will hopefully ease those pangs of uneasiness.

Have a good week and thanks for stopping by!

Ennui :

Feeling of weariness and dissatisfaction; boredom

   My four year old has been, of late,  using the sentence:’ I am bored!’ And I have been processing it, very carefully…trying out different things to lessen his ‘boredom’. He has also recently started getting more screen time than usual as I have been slacking, probably, in keeping him occupied. That has been followed by pangs of guilt and some serious ‘research’ into how to best stimulate the young mind, how to keep them occupied etc etc. All of this also has had less than desirable results at times, setting the whole cycle in motion again!

   Growing up, I was always told to keep myself occupied as much as possible as it was not a good thing to sit idle. Who can remember this from their childhood days- ‘An idle brain is the devil’s workshop!’ And so ingrained is that notion in my mind that I too have been doing the same with my son and in the process probably not letting him be a child. I wonder is too much structured time good for kids? I look around and parents and kids are running from one activity to the other and both often look exhausted and somewhat ‘doing things for the sake of doing them’. I have already had suggestions from ‘concerned’ minds that I should be enrolling my son, before it’s too late, in guitar lessons and soccer and some sort of piano or drum lessons too (my kid is just another kid who loves to kick the ball around and beat the drums and strum his ukulele). And the only thought that had crossed my mind was “too late for a four year old??”

   Recent research has shown that being bored once in a while is actually good for the child’s brain (https://newsroom.clevelandclinic.org/2018/03/08/unplug-your-kids-boredom-is-good-for-the-brain/- there are many more articles on this topic..just ask Google!) It gives them time to be creative and helps them think.  If a parent is filling in all the free time of the child, I wonder how will they learn to do it themselves? We cannot think for the kids nor should we and as I am learning slowly, it is not good for my kid to be told how to keep himself occupied at all times. I need to let him be a kid and help him visit the land of make believe.

   We did not have the electronic devices at our finger tips and we did figure out ways to keep ourselves from getting ‘bored’. And as far as I remember, it was fun to pretend play and talk to other kids, get into quarrels and figure out how to get along, scrape our knees playing on the streets and get our hands dirty in the mud! I wonder if we are failing to give our kids enough outdoor time or has societal norms put such limits? Such thoughts cross my mind and I am often perplexed by the complexity of the answers. Times are different and life has become much more demanding and trying to find a balance between the ideal and what’s possible can sometimes be an uphill task. But I am willing to let my four year old get a little bored and figure out things on his own, get down on my knees and get our hands dirty, if not in the mud then in the play dough and other gooey stuff!

(I had started writing this post about a month ago and had then just forgotten! My ‘bored’ four year old made me think about this today and I am thankful for that ‘boredom!)

Thanks for stopping by:)