What was *in* those bottles?

Some of you may be wondering how my new set up with groceries and babysitting is working.

Groceries:  Awesome.  Awesome, awesome, awesome.  This morning I called down, and forty-five minutes later the groceries were delivered to my door.  I'm paying the coolie personally, and a little more than is normal, so the whole employment bit feels good too.

The only thing:  today I asked for two bhaingan (eggplant), and they heard two kilos. Eggplant is not particularly heavy, so now I have a fridge FULL of eggplant.  I batter fried slices of two of them tonight, and said to my sister... two down, only thirty-two to go.  I exaggerate.   But Kid A couldn't get enough of the batter-fried bhaingan, so that's a silver lining.  You gotta love a kid who loves eggplant.  (I was not one of them.)

(Of course, as I said to my husband on that fateful day nine years ago when we ate the cockroach in Bangkok, anything tastes good when it's fried with garlic and salt.)

Babysitting:  Sometimes I want to pull my hair out.  My writing times tend to be full of so many interruptions that I am tempted to crawl under my bed and never come out at all.  There are water problems, a puppy runs into the house, Solo wakes up. Somebody needs me at the door and it turns out to be some weird masseuse guy with dirty bottles of oil.  "Why did you interrupt me for that?" I ask Ankit. "He said you called him here," he replied.  Which is a strange business strategy for a masseuse: the outright lie.  Like I'd say, "Oh?  I called you here?  I guess I just forgot!  Okay!  Massage away with your dusty oils and strange tools!"

But there is something about employing someone so that I can write.  I've turned into a machine.  I WILL GET MY 1000 WORDS OUT TODAY OR DIE TRYING.  No matter how many interruptions, I've been managing.  It's been good.

Tonight was another story, though.  I asked Ankit to come over at 8:00 so that I could go out with my sister for a little while. He came, and sat patiently while I tried for what seemed like forever to put Solo to bed.  This is how the evening went.

8:30- Finally Solo gets off to sleep. My back is breaking.  (Have I mentioned that this is a very heavy child?)

8:34- I am trying to play a dvd on my computer for Ankit.  I have the wrong hard drive.  Arggh.

8:36- YaYa is "itchy."  She heard a bug.  Something was on her forehead and that makes her want to cry and cry and cry, because something was on her forehead.  She's scared of her bed now.  She can't sleep.

8:46- I'm lying in bed beside YaYa, stroking her face.  She's still crying, clutching me every few minutes, saying, "I'm sooorrrry," and "I can't sleep."  Finally I ask her if she wants to sleep in my bed.  I move her and it's like magic; all her itches go away, and sleep comes quickly.

8:56- Success with the dvd for Ankit!

9:00- Finally out the door with Becca, I heave a huge frustrated sigh and refrain from throwing rocks.  Where should we go?  I'm so tired, Solo is teething and I haven't been getting much sleep.  It seems too hard to walk down the mountain, so we decide to walk over to the closer village.  Maybe we can have a lassi or something.

9:20- "Becca," I say, "this restaurant seems depressing to me."  We hand the menus back and decide to walk back over to the restaurant near our house.  It's familiar.

9:35- When we get back to the restaurant, I have to go to the bathroom.  When I get out I see Tripta (the restaurant is on her rooftop) and she laughs at me because my hair is up in a wrap.  She thinks it looks silly.

9:40- The phone rings.  I can hear Solo crying.  "I'll be right there," I say.

*

Well, we had a nice hike through the moonlight.  So, that's how that's going.  But I'm sure it's the same for any parents of young children anywhere.  It's funny, isn't it?  I feel as though I can stretch so far, with my kids, but when they are up past their bedtimes, I'm like, wait, what?  I was with you all day!  I fed you and watered you and we read together and played!  Now that part's done!  What's going ON?

Stttreeeeetttch.  I will one day be the most flexible person ever to roam this earth.  Metaphorically speaking. (Rubs aching back)  Maybe I should get that masseuse back here.