Meanwhile…

So travelling is not a strategy well designed to further toilet training even for twins. Or so I would have thought. Apparently, the twins aren’t too concerned. Only a week ago, I was losing hair and appetite in equal proportions, mopping up behind them. They were still refusing to squat, and were wetting themselves and the bathroom floor in a quite disgusting fashion. It was - hard though it is to believe - only last Wednesday or so, that I decided to go out and buy them a toilet seat, since they showed no interest in the potty and no ability to bend at the knees. I was sure that Mrini would not relish the idea of being perched way up there with her feet dangling off the ground, but again - she surprised me. In a couple of days, they had completely taken to the toilet seat, and were demanding to be placed on it even when there was no pressing need. Plus, they impressed me by even waiting for each other to finish and be taken down before getting on it and letting go. I can’t say there weren’t any accidents, but I’d have to say they were few, and the overall mess was waaaaaaaay less.

Then we went to Delhi and subjected the twins to completely screwed up routines, new places, new faces, new clothes, new food, and rather terrible climate. But - we took the toilet seat along (!!! - ewwwww - what has life come to???), and somehow that must have been quite comforting to them, because they decided that it was their favourite place and spent a lot of time on it.

So, now I can say that they are largely home-toilet-trained. This still doesn’t extend to outings, not even to modest outings to malls or the park… but at home, they are relatively safe, clean and dry. Hallelujah!

To Hell With Common Sense

Amit must be a world champion at emotional blackmail. Against my better judgement, he persuaded me on Thursday afternoon to accompany him to Delhi on Thursday night (well, technically Friday early morning) and then on to Leh the following day. With the twins, of course. Insane? Absolutely. That’s why I had resolutely stuck to my guns and refused to consider carting the kids off to an altitude of almost 11000 feet, where acclimatisation takes 48 hours, there’s no natural greenery so oxygen is in short supply, flights out are always sold out and descent by road takes two days and involves crossing altitudes upto 17000 feet.

So I had unilaterally decided that taking two under-twos to Leh was a bad idea and nothing Amit said could convince me otherwise… Until Thursday, when he gave me several of those looks and piled on the pleading and persuasion and I suddenly agreed.

There followed an evening of frenetic activity as we made additional flight and hotel bookings, and packed 50 kg (!) of clothing and camera stuff into 4 rugged backpacks. It was almost 12.30 before we were done, and with the new airport being so far away, we planned to leave at 3.00 for a flight at 5.30, so of course we didn’t get any sleep. What’s worse, when we carted the kids to the taxi at 3.00 a.m., they woke up and didn’t sleep again until after lunch!

The fun really started the next morning (if you can consider the dead of night to be morning) when we again awoke at 2.30 to catch our flight to Leh. It was pouring cats and dogs as we loaded everything and everybody into a rattletrap Ambassador taxi and set off for the airport. I sat with the kids while Amit and his dad handled the check-in. Then, from 4 a.m straight through till 10.30, we made the airport lounge our home as we waited for the flight to take off. It was clear from about 7, or for the hopelessly optimistic about 8, that our flight would be cancelled because no flights can land or take-off at Leh late morning onwards. But, we had to wait for the airline to take the final decision to cancel the flight and they decided to keep us waiting a few extra hours.

Meanwhile, the kids kept us on our toes. The ran from end to end of the huge lounge, watched the aeroplanes through locked doors and grimy windows, flirted with other passengers, ate cake and sandwich for breakfast, submitted to having their diapers changed in the ladies’ bathroom, sprawled on the dusty floor and made swimming actions with their arms and legs, held hands and played Ringa-ringa Roses, and generally enjoyed themselves thoroughly and provided free entertainment to all.

It was 11.30 before we got home and by then Tara was fast asleep and the rest of us were inclined to follow suit in short order. It was a really tiring and hardly a very successful start to a grand holiday. But you can never keep an avid traveller family down for long.

Toilet-Training the Twins: Two Steps Forward…

Wow. Things are certainly hotting up around here with the girls going all out to out-do each other and win the toilet-training contest. Their every success is rewarded with a few sips of Tropicana Premium unsweetened orange juice, which they love (good business for Tropicana, bet they never thought of this sales opportunity). It must be served to them at the dining table… in a glass glass, if you please. And they would rather not share the glass on the occasions when they both earn their rewards at the same time.

The good news is that Mrini has clearly realized that the bathroom is where you go to pee, and that peeing in the bathroom leads to an orange juice reward. What she still doesn’t get is the squatting bit, or the concept of the potty. So, every time she wants orange juice (which is many times), I get to do a lot of cleaning up. But. It’s progress - just yesterday, she was happy to mess anywhere in the house, now she actually says “potty” and makes a beeline for the bathroom!

Tara is equally keen on the orange juice reward, but, unlike Mrini, she can’t always produce on demand, so she’s had fewer successes. She’s very keen to learn, though - which is a good thing. It seems to be easier to train a child who wants to learn even if she doesn’t yet have the ability, than to work with one that has the ability but doesn’t yet want to use it.

Still, successes in the shower stall notwithstanding, two girls running around bare-bottomed is pretty much a full time occupation for me. There’s not a single task I can complete undisturbed during this time - at all times I have to be ready to drop whatever I’m doing - and I do mean WHATEVER - and rush one of the girls (or, worse, both) to the bathroom. The disruption to life as I knew it is immense - something I’m still trying to cope with. I suppose it’s a good deal of exercise, running around and mopping up behind them, not to mention doing quite a bit to dampen my appetite - it should be helping in Mission Weight Control. All the same, around early evening, when I’ve had enough for the day, I take the easy way out and put the diapers back on. There’s only so much I can do, after all, without completely losing my sanity. And tomorrow, as they say, is another day.

Toilet-Training The Twins: Trying, Trying

As far as toilet training the twins is concerned, I still don’t know whether I’m coming or going. Pondicherry was a welcome break for all of us, but now that we’re back home, we’re back to the pee and poo mess too, I’m afraid. I’m trying very hard to be patient and gentle and not put any pressure on them, just like all the books and websites say, but I have to admit that at times it’s pretty much impossible. It’s a little easier now that the depression has passed and I’m back to a (somewhat delicate) stable state; it’s also easier with only one of them - currently Mrini - going diaperless at a time; but it’s still difficult not to lose it and force the girl to sit on the pot when you can clearly see that she’s desperate to go but she’s just running around in circles like a chicken with it’s head cut off (or so they say - I’ve never personally never seen one). Mrini seems to have completely taken against the pot and will not sit on it at any cost. Her current favourite place to let loose is the shower stall, which is ok with me, being generally easy to clean, or the bathmat, which is less nice. Apart from those, she’s not picky about anywhere in the rest of the house, though she has so far spared her high chair and our bed (but not her own).

Tara, as long as she was diaperless before the Pondy trip, seemed to have less bladder-control and therefore provided more mess for me to clean up. Right now, she seems really eager to use the pot, so I probably should provide her the opportunity by leaving her bare-bottomed for a few days, while I allow Mrini the luxury of diapers again. But then again, Mrini seems to be developing a level of confidence with the shower stall, so maybe I should just persist with her.

Or maybe I should bare both bottoms? Horrors…

Adoption Update: Order Passed!

It’s official: We are now the legal guardians of the twins. Woohoo?

Well, don’t bring out the champagne bottles just yet - we’re not even half done.

See, if we were not Hindus (we’re not, really, but by dint of birth and for the sake of convenience(huh?) we’ll let that pass for now), once we were awarded guardianship of the twins, we’d be done. Almost done - apart from processing the paperwork required for getting their birth certificates.

But, since we’re Hindus, and specifically because we’ve adopted from Pondicherry (generally inadvisable, if you ask me), we now have to go through the legal process applicable to Hindus to complete the adoption.

Plus, we have to get the birth certificates.

Only, we can start the two processes in parallel.

Once we get a copy of the Judge’s order.

Which will take only a month.

Only?

Why?

Don’t ask me! I’d like to know why myself.

And then, based on that order, we have to get an adoption deed, which has to be registered. Somewhere. By someone. Yes, we have to be present for that, both of us.

And after that, we get have to get a bone-age X-ray done on the girls. And that has to be done in Pondicherry as well, and certified by the Chief Medical Officer.

Why? I don’t know - the adoption agency actually has the hospital records stating when and where and how they were born and what their birth weight was and that they were full term and all that, so I really don’t know why we need to subject them to an X-ray to tell us what we already know about how old they are.

And then we need to be interviewed by the DC - District Collector? Or Deputy Collector? Or District Magistrate? Somebody like that. And he wants to not only interview us, but meet the girls as well. In Pondicherry, of course, in Pondicherry.

Why? Well, why not? After all, the Judge hardly took any notice of us, so I suppose somebody should, just in case we are child traffickers or worse.

Oh, yes, the Judge. Well, Amit went and stood in the witness box and held his hand out and said “I swear to tell the truth,” and the Judge snickered. Yes, he really did, he snickered. Perhaps because Amit is so tall. Or maybe he caught sight of my haircut. Once he was done snickering, he spent a couple of minutes reading through the affidavit, while the court clerk shuffled through the accompanying documents. The lawyers were talking in whispers amongst themselves, like back benchers in college. The girls were wriggling, squirming, squealing, and flirting with the audience. I never heard it said, but apparently at the end of 90 seconds or so, he passed the order and went on to the next case. I didn’t hear or see any gavel being banged or anybody saying “Case dismissed,” - nothing like the movies at all. But anyway, Amit got to stand in the witness box, so I suppose that justifies the long, long drive to Pondicherry and back.

So we are now their official guardians, but only till the girls turn 18. Every year, we must send to the Family Court, reports of their health and wellbeing, along with school progress reports. Plus, we can’t leave the country with the girls; well, we can take short trips, provided we inform our lawyer and the adoption home first, but we can’t emigrate. And of course, the girls are still not our legal heirs, so if we had met with an accident and died on the way back from Pondicherry (or at any time now), they would  have been left penniless. This, of course, we have to remedy as soon as possible, because you never know, do you?

And meanwhile, the second part of the adoption case, under the Hindu Adoption and Maintenance Act, which will make them our legal heirs, could take a year or more in the Pondicherry Civil Court. So that champagne celebration had better wait a while yet, don’t you think.

Depression: Survival Strategies (That Don’t Work)

(Clearly, I’ve not yet made up my mind whether titles should be in sentence case or title case. Does it even matter?)

Yeah, I’m still depressed. It seems to be getting worse, if anything, but it’s not yet reached the point where I stop communicating all together, which must be a good thing.

The weird thing about depression at this stage, is that even while I’m behaving in a unpredictable, emotional, unreasonable, mean and bitchy manner, a small part of me stands back and watches and says, “why are you reacting like this?” - but despite that, I can’t stop or change the way I behave/react.

So anyway, on the weekend I decided I would have to put some of my depression survival strategies to work.

Food, always first on the list, was ruled out because of my diet. If I fail to lose weight, it’s only going to make me more depressed. So I couldn’t indulge in binge eating involving chocolates, ice creams, pizzas and other unhealthy stuff. We had three-and-a-half dinners out (or ordered in) in succession, but if you don’t let yourself go all out and eat like there’s no tomorrow, it doesn’t work.

Shopping - I’m not much of a shopaholic, but it does help sometimes. It’s been ruled out since the advent of the twins, just because getting out of the house is so difficult. And going shopping with two toddlers AND a husband in tow, each with their own idea of what constitutes a good shopping experience, is completely impossible.

Spending money - You don’t have to actually go shopping to spend money. There are certain kinds of shopping which hardly even qualify as shopping, while they quite easily can require satisfactorily large sums of money to be spent. Such as, for example, buying a new refrigerator. Ours is very old and extraordinarily small for a family of four. Unfortunately, Amit is not being adequately supportive of this strategy. Sigh. Husbands…

Getting a haircut - this always works. It is one of the wonderful things about having short hair, that you can always make it shorter. You can change the length, the style, the shape, whatever, and come away looking almost like a different person. (People with long hair never really do benefit from haircuts - they just cut off an inch or two, and with 39 or whatever inches from root to tip, an inch or two is neither here nor there, is it? They never get to enjoy that wonderful feeling of shaking your head and finding that nothing moves about on top of it.)

As a stay-at-home mom, it is quite difficult to find time for a haircut, though, involving, as it does, a protracted stint away from home, preferrably during daytime hours. So when I found a small window of opportunity on Saturday evening, I grabbed it. I had only enough time to head for the nearest local beauty parlour, which I had never ventured into before, far less trusted my hair to. But I figured it wasn’t too much of a risk - how bad can a haircut be, after all?

On entering the beauty parlour, I found four women, sitting around and gossiping, one painting another’s nails. Apparently, none of them was a customer. This was not confidence-inspiring - do all local beauty parlours employ “beauticians” (note the double quotes around that word) to sit around and beautify each other?

Anyway, I took a chair, and had a sheet flung around me and fastened at the neck. They put what must have been the most inept of the four on to me. My hair was distinctly oily, but the hair dresser didn’t offer (far less insist on) a shampoo; in fact, she didn’t even comb it, just pinned it up and started cutting. I could tell by the way she handled the comb and scissors, that she was no expert, and the results soon showed just how inexpert she was.

In short, she butchered my hair. I came out of there looking like a serial axe-murderer. True, I had asked for a ‘boy cut’, but I hadn’t counted on getting a ‘mad-boy cut’ - that is, a haircut that looked like it had been executed by a mad boy. What’s worse, it was too short for any more experienced hairdresser to be able to rectify it.

Amit was most kind about it. He said it made me look younger. Then he drew some similarities between me and survivors of the Union Carbide gas tragedy, and followed that up with comments about how people look when recovering from protracted bouts of severe illnesses. In both cases, he concluded that they generally did not look as bad as I did. He was clearly reluctant to be seen in public with me, for which I could hardly blame him - I’m not sure I wanted to be seen in public with me, looking the way I did.

After I had showered and gotten about a million bits of hair off my neck and shoulders (the wrapping having been at least as ineffective as the haircut itself), Amit relented and took us all out to dinner. We chose a quiet restaurant where I attracted only half-a-dozen funny looks, and came home by 9 p.m., just as the Saturday evening crowds were beginning to build up.

Now, I’m only worried about the upcoming adoption hearing. What if the judge takes one look at me and decides that I must be an escaped convict who is not to be trusted with the health and welfare of two small kids? Maybe, if I wear my most terrible scowl, he will get really scared and decide not to get on my wrong side, and pass the order in double quick time.

The only consolation is that it’s hair - it will grow back eventually and then I can get it fixed. Meanwhile, I only have to stay indoors for the next three months or so. That should be easy enough - misery hates company anyway.

Up to my elbows in pee and poo

No wonder people warned me about managing twins. I have to admit - toilet training TWO? NOT easy.

I’ve only been at it for three-and-a-half days. They say it takes weeks? I’m not sure I’m going to live that long, the way it looks currently.

Since the twins have been in diapers since day 0, I don’t have much idea about how often they pee. So, to start with, I realized I would have to take the diapers off, just so I knew when they were doing it. At first, I kept Tara’s diaper on, and only rendered Mrini diaperless, because I had a hunch that she was the less frequent pee-er, but today I thought, “In for a penny, in for a pound,” and removed both diapers soon after breakfast.

And from then on, it’s been a steady stream of pee, smothered in dettol-water, swabbed with a disgusting rag, while one of the two girls is wailing to see her waste products landing on the floor and going waste, while the other is trying her level best to get in there and play with them. Toilet? No thank you - rhey’re having nothing to do with the two red and pink pottys that are waiting for them.

If it goes on like this, I’m going to lose my appetite and my marbles pretty comprehensively.

Adoption Update: “No objection, Milord” (or words to that effect)

I think the toughest part of the hearing on Friday, was leaving home on Thursday afternoon.

First, I spent the morning rushing around packing food, clothes, and getting the girls and self ready for the trip.  Amit coolly stuffed one change of clothes and a toothbrush into his laptop case and left for office, expecting to be picked up on the way out.

I usually don’t pack food for a trip - after all, eating out is half the fun of traveling, right? But then, last time we went to Pondicherry, the kids didn’t get their usual quota of fruit and veg and wound up severely constipated. Severe constipation in a child is, I have discovered, waaaaaaaay worse than diarrhoea. Although I would not have believed that anything could be worse than diarrhoea from the hapless mother’s perspective, it only took one brush with constipation to convince me otherwise. Ugggggggggh!

So anyway, there was packed lunch for me and Amit, packed sandwiches for our early evening nibbles, and packed milk and dinner for the kids, in addition to small quantities of apple, mango, and banana for snacking on. The car was invited for 1 p.m. (taxi, of course; I wasn’t going to let Amit drive the whole way while I struggled to manage the twins in the back seat) and  by the time I managed to make it out the front door with the kids awake and walking, and a huge bag of food and diapers hanging from my hand, and a heavy, lumpy backpack full of clothes and toys hanging on my shoulders, it was 1.30. Not bad.

We picked up Amit, made a detour towards an ATM machine, and were heading out of town by 2.30. After various checkposts, toll taxes, and other minor delays, we reached Pondicherry at 10 p.m. None of us had had any dinner. We had given the kids their afternoon milk around 5 p.m. and Tara had started vomiting at 6 and kept it up for a solid hour before (thankfully) falling asleep. Mrini, who was largely ignored in the tension of cleaning up after Tara, keeping an eye out for the next load of puke, and attempting not to get it on our clothes, shoes, or the food bag, fell asleep out of sheer boredom. Naturally, we were not at all enthusiastic at the prospect of waking up either girl for dinner, so once we had reached, and the girls had woken up in the excitement of alighting at the hotel, we ordered a late, late, late dinner from room service.

One rule that we try not to compromise on is to keep the girls awake and active for at least an hour after dinner, before putting them to bed. Consequently, it was close to midnight before any of us got to sleep.

Despite which, we were all bathed, breakfasted, and present at the courthouse a few minutes before 10 the next morning. The kids seemed none the worse for the long drive the day before and were full of mischief. The good news was that the court clerk told us ours would be the first case. The bad news was that there was no sign of our lawyer, even at 10.15 when the Judge was in court and some preliminary business was being completed. Amit had already called her and told her that we were there and that ours was the first case, but that did not seem to unduly perturb her. She finally came up the steps in a leisurely manner, caught sight of us anxiously scanning the steps, carefully avoided making eye contact or in any way acknowledging our presence, and went into the courtroom in a stony silence. About 5-10 minutes later, our case was called, and all four of us found our way to the front of the courtroom. A brief exchange took place between the lawyer and the Judge (in Tamil), and we were told to come for the next hearing two weeks later.

And that was that. Our 30 seconds in the spotlight were over before we had quite realized they had begun.

What was supposed to have happened was that the Department for Social Welfare was supposed to have said that they had no objection to us adopting the twins. What in fact happened is anyone’s guess. Amit says he signed something, but he has no clue what it was. The Judge hardly glanced at us or at our papers. Still, apparently something had happened, and we were to appear for a similar “something” two weeks later.

Oh well - at least it was quick and easy. Of course, there’s the minor matter of subjecting two adults and two toddlers to two car trips of seven hours’ duration each, all for the sake of that 30-second appearance… but if it all gets done and with the minimum number of hearings possible, I’m not complaining.

Ups and Downs

It’s specially when one of the girls takes off her pants, tears her diaper, and spreads the sodden silica gel all over our 1350 sq ft apartment, and that, after the cleaning girl has departed… It’s specially at those times when I’m spending a good part of the morning cursing under my breath and scrubbing the mosaic flooring where the diaper bits are virtually indistinguishable, that I wonder: What possessed me to leave a relaxed and lucrative job (career) to become a stay-at-home mom? Surely there has to be a less unpleasant and more positive-cash-flow way of parenting?

(And, by the way, if anyone knows an easy and effective way to get a million bits of pee-sodden silica gel off the floor, please let me know. I’ve tried dry mopping, wet mopping, sweeping, vacuuming, praying and cursing - none of these approaches really works.)

But then again…

Today when I picked up Tara from her high chair after lunch, when she was 90% asleep as usual, she put her head on my shoulder as she usually does, then she smiled, curled her left arm around my neck instead of sticking her thumb in her mouth as she usually does, and continued to sleep. Such a simple thing, yet all of a sudden, my heart skipped a beat. Usually she fusses a bit as I wash her face and hands, and continues to wail or whine till I put her down on her bed, but today she seemed actually happy to be held by me! And just like that, it suddenly seemed all worthwhile - even cleaning up bits of burst diaper didn’t seem so bad after all.

Cooking for Sixteen

It’s not something I do on a regular basis, cooking for 16. Not even when six of them are at or below 3 years of age. But we decided it was high time that we invited some of our friends for a homemade dinner, so that’s what I did this last weekend – cooked for us and four families, each of them with one child.

Normally, we should have had the dinner on Saturday, but I thought I’d need more time than that to get organised, so we had it on Sunday instead. It was just as well. Years ago, when we had a more debonair lifestyle, I could easily rustle up dinner for 16 (adults, mind you) in one day of frenetic activity. Now, I just can’t. Call it old age, or blame it on the kids, but I seem to have reduced the pace of my activities. Of course, I don’t personally think this is a bad thing – I used to live life way too fast in those days. Back then, I always wanted to squeeze in the maximum number of activities in the minimum possible time. Nowadays, I’ve begun to think that if a thing is worth doing, it’s worth doing slowly, to extract the maximum pleasure with the least possible effort.

So, I started cooking for Sunday’s dinner on Saturday afternoon. First on the agenda (as also on the menu) was Mayonnaise. Foodwise, there are few greater pleasures than homemade mayonnaise, the way my mother used to make it, back in the days when she used to make such things. Who would think that raw egg yolk (yuck!) and raw oil (ugh!) could combine to make such a divine sauce? And, as an aside, whatever happened to the good, old-fashioned, handheld eggbeater? I thoroughly disdain the use of an electric egg-beater and ever since our stick blender went defunct, I have nothing in my kitchen that electrically mixes, beats, thrashes, grinds or in any other way perturbs the raw ingredients that I wish to use in my cooking. So I was stuck with using a spring-type egg whisk, which is a lousy implement to use for something as effort-intensive as Mayonnaise. However, no effort is too great when you’re cooking to impress, so 45 minutes were spent wielding that whisk, at the end of which, voila! Mayonnaise!

I don’t make mayonnaise very often, and it’s quite a temperamental thing to make, so I’m never very confident whether it’s going to oblige or not. So once I had gotten Amit to taste it and declare that it met the mark, it was with a sigh of relief that I shoved the bowl into the fridge.

The next item to attack was the chocolate cake. This was not a problem – it is an item I have practised many, many times over the years. This time, I took a slight risk and let Amit mix it according to my instructions. Thankfully, it turned out fine despite this.

The greater risk with choco cake, even one mixed by Amit, is having it around for a clear 24 hours before the guests arrive. Naturally, there is the extreme temptation to take just a small piece out of it. Just to taste, you know. One little piece wouldn’t hurt.

However. We kept an eagle eye on each other and issued stern admonitions whenever temptation seemed about to get the better of us, and somehow the cake survived intact and un-depleted.

After the cake, I quickly chopped up some veg for a salad/raita. And finally, before going to bed, I managed not to forget to soak the channa.

On Sunday morning, I pressure cooked the channa at 8 a.m., then waited till all 4 of us had breakfasted before starting the real nitty-gritty of cooking. First I chopped a mountain of ginger, garlic, onion, and tomato. Then I assembled the masala for the channa, and the matar-paneer sequentially. Then I deep-fried the paneer and dunked it into the matar-masala.

Next I tackled the chicken, which I marinated in curd spiced with lots of dry masala, and cooked in the marinade without making the slightest additional effort. Surprisingly it turned out quite delicious.

Then I quickly boiled some boring bland dal for the kids.

Now all that was left was the fish, which I was planning to crumb fry, and it was still only lunch time. Since the fish was resting coolly in the fridge, I decided to leave it there and prepare it sometime around 6.30 in the evening, just prior to the frying.

I should have known better.

I had a quiet and relaxed afternoon – something that has never happened to me ever before on the day of a party. I should have known then, that things were bound to unravel later.

It was almost 5, when Amit and I got around to unwrapping the fancy crockery and cutlery. The crockery was fine, but the cutlery… Well, the cutlery was something special. It was gifted to us by my maternal grandmother and my youngest aunt on our wedding. My maternal grandfather had been in what later became the diplomatic services, and had been Ambassador to various countries. I don’t know whether that has anything to do with the cutlery, but it just gives you an idea of the kind of life they led back in those days. Now the cutlery set was sterling silver. It was a made-to-order set, and had the “family crest” (I feel so pretentious just using those words) engraved on every piece. It was a 12-place set, starting with soup spoons and going right through to the tiny coffee spoons. There were even four lovely serving spoons, butter knives, cake forks (I think?), and something that looked like a salad fork. All of these carefully wrapped up in separate pieces of faded green felt (or something) cloth, tied up with ribbons, with the name of the jeweller still legible on the wrapping.

I hardly ever use this cutlery set – our daily use cutlery stands in a cutlery stand close to the dining table. It’s a pretty set, but absolutely mass-manufactured and mundane in comparison to this silver work of art that I was unwrapping and taking out lovingly.

Naturally, despite the faded green felt (or whatever) wrapping, the silver had tarnished. Some pieces were worse than others. Obviously, I couldn’t let it go like that. So, I quickly tracked down the Silvo, found some relatively clean rags, and got to work polishing.

Polishing silver is yet another job that is best done in a slow and leisurely manner. It’s a labour of love and the joy of seeing the tarnish vanish and the silver come to life with a sparkle is more than enough reward for one’s efforts. So, though the fish was still waiting to be floured, egged, and crumbed, I promised myself an hour devoted to the silverware.

I hadn’t got even halfway through, when the phone rang. The first of our guests were calling to say that they were on their way and would be here in half an hour. Half an hour! I yelped as soon as I had put the phone down. The invitation was for 7.30 and now it was only 6. I abandoned the unpolished cutlery post haste and rushed off to get the girls decked up in their party clothes. Then I started on the fish. Getting 35 fish fingers crumbed and ready to fry is not a task that can be completed in 15 minutes even if you wanted to. It was impossible to have it done before the guests arrived, and sure enough, I was still at it when the bell rang.

Of course, these folks are very close friends, so it really didn’t matter that I was still in the kitchen with raw egg and fish on my hands… well, that is, it didn’t matter too much…

The rest of the day went by in a blur. People arrived, kids played, a drink was spilt (but the glass survived), somebody wanted food, somebody wanted ketchup, somebody wanted ghee, somebody wanted warm water with their whisky (Black Label! with warm water! it’s a crime, I’m sure, in some countries), somebody wanted a changing mat, somebody wanted a diaper disposal bag, somebody almost choked on a fish bone, somebody got high and went to sleep under the pretext of putting the baby to bed… it was chaos. Amid the chaos, 35 fish fingers, 24 tiny veg samosas, and lots of french fries were consumed, though admittedly the twins were to blame for a large part of it. Dinner was served at 10, by which time two families had packed up their kids and gone home, carrying doggie bags!

It was 2.30 a.m. before we had recovered from the mess and got the house straightened out. I’m not sure whether I’d rate the party an unqualified success, but it was one heck of an eye-opener. Partying with kids is a whole different ball game. Phew.

Now I just have to finish polishing the silver, then I can pack it all away for another couple of years or so.