Waistline woes

As I was standing at the bus stop the other day, I realised that my right hand was resting on something very comfortably - my noticeably protruding paunch ! I kind of laughed to myself but realised the seriousness of the situation. Working out has always been a task that required great motivation (as most of you may agree with yourselves) for me. There was a time in my bachelor days when I used to be a regular at the local gym. Then, I setup my own gym at home and started working out on my weight-bench. I used to feel good about myself then but those were some golden years !

Over the last few years, I have found every possible excuse in the book to dodge the gym even though my waistline was begging me to go. I cannot figure out the change in mentality but I attribute it to the change in place. The golden years used to be in Atlanta. Now that I am in Pittsburgh, I find it hard to go to the gym in the cold during winters. If it is summer, I do not want to waste the nice warm weather by sweating it out on a treadmill ! So, my waistline was suffering silently until a few weeks ago.

A new gym opened up within the apartments where we live. The management wanted to charge $50 for a year. My wife, just recovering from delivering a baby, wants to get back in shape as well. So, we went in for the membership. That was motivation enough for me to get back in shape. So, over the last one week, I tried going in almost every day though I missed the last two days.

But, ironically, I have been eating so many candies and sweets after I started going to the gym, I do not see how this is going to help me. Just two nights back, I could not resist myself from eating a bowl of Caramel ice cream with fresh cherries, topped with honey and chocolate syrup. Tonight, I am planning to try the same with an extra addition to it - Rasgollas. It is an Indian delicacy soaked in sugar syrup. "Mmmmmmm" goes my mouth and "Groaaannn !" goes my waistline again. Hey, I do work out, right ? ;-)

My First Father's Day !

As much as I try to avoid falling into the huge trap set by Hallmark et al for celebrating 400 different things over the 365 days we have in a year, I end up being part of one or the other somehow. And to add to my list is my first Father's day yesterday. With the arrival of my son seven weeks ago into our lives, my wife couldn't help it but celebrate the occasion in my honor. I am no Ebenezer Scrooge when it comes to buying or accepting gifts but as I said, I hate to fall into the Hallmark trap of increasing the country's economics and my credit card limits just because we have to celebrate my sister-in-law's day or my step-cousin's day. My wife, as understanding as ever, got me a sweet little gift of a photo frame with a super-cute photo of my little boy smiling in it. The frame also says "Daddy Rocks!". Coincidentally, I had to do a lot of "rocking" to put him to sleep yesterday. :-) Now, the frame sits proudly on daddy's work desk.

My in-laws have been staying with us (that's a separate blog by itself !) for the last few months helping my wife with the delivery and post-partum. So, my wife and I wished her father for "Father's day" and gifted him with a perfume set. He was completely nonchalant about the whole thing. This was much better than the bewildered look that my parents gave me when I tried to wish them for "Mother's day" or "Father's day" some years ago. In India, such hallmark occasions were rarely celebrated in the past but are catching up real fast and now, my mom called up and wished me for "Father's day" yesterday !!!

The last few days have been very exciting to me since my son has started to recognize me and smile at me every time I talk to him. He has also started to play actively in his "activity gym". There is a monkey, a cat and a parrot that hang from a bar and they move up and down to some tunes every time he hits or kicks them. Somehow, he just seems to like (or hate) the monkey and so, he keeps slapping it consistently. He glances at the cat at times but completely ignores the parrot. Also, I think he may be left-handed (too early to judge, I know) because he seems to use his left-hand more effectively than his right-hand. Surprisingly, nobody in either of our families is left-handed.

Playing around

Spending time with my newborn son is my favorite pastime these days. Everyday, I seem to see something new in him. In the last few days, he has started to keenly observe our faces and move his lips as though to say something. He is also able to move his head and watch us when we walk past him. My wife and I thought the time might be just right to buy some toys to stimulate his visual and aural senses. So, yesterday, we took our little boy to ToysRus for the first time. Of course, he didn't seem to be too excited about it and he was asleep the whole time. But, I am always excited about toy shops. I am excited about massive train sets, radio controlled cars and complex Lego blocks. I am always tempted to buy some of the more innovative ones even though it may not be appropriate for my age ! My childhood was always filled with plenty of board games and books. My home was the favorite haunt for most of my friends during summer vacations. We spent hours playing such games. On the contrary, I also missed out on playing in the mud and experiencing the great outdoors.

As I grew up, computer games seemed to thrill me a lot. A couple of the very first games that excited me were Pacman and Digger. To me, playing them on the 640K 8086 machine with a green monitor seemed to be the best thing that had happened in the technology world at that time. Later on, I took a strong liking for 3D games. Wolf3D was the first 3D game I played and I loved it. Down the years, as my career grew, I hardly played any games. I am still turned on by the various XBoxes and Playstations of today but have never played even a single game on one of those consoles (What a shocker !). Last week, when a couple of my colleagues invited me for a game of Quake3 on the network, I thought that I will get back into the groove again. But surprisingly, 15 minutes of playing that game gave me motion sickness !!! When I went home, I was still feeling very sick. I lied down for a while and then felt better afterwards. It is a shame but a sure indicator that I am turning the corner (yup, the big 30) this month. I know that I will not be playing any more of those games but I would surely like to see the interest grow in my son.

Coming back to what we bought at the store yesterday, amongst the rattles, colored links and activity gym, there was one interesting item. This was called "Flutterbye Dreams Lullabye Birdies Soother". It is a crib toy in which a few birds on a tree move around in an animatronics-like fashion. It also has bird sounds and some soothing music to it. You may ask, "Ok, whats the big deal ?". Well, it has a small projection light at the top and so, when you switch to that mode, it projects a film of very colorful pictures (of birds and nature) on the ceiling. To many of you, this may not be anything exciting. I was just awestruck at the beauty of the bright colors in the dark. More than my son, I was completely enthralled by this toy. Of course, later on during the night, he seemed very engrossed in it too. He kept staring at the toy, kept kicking his legs all the time and mumbled some mumbo-jumbo all the time. I am glad that he likes what daddy likes ! :-)