Our life, a Jigsaw

Windy City Circus blows into Chicago Feb. 17 - 26

2012-01-30T15:24:00.000-06:00

Did you know the City of Chicago celebrates its 175th birthday this year? Windy City Circus is proud to announce its new partnership with the City of Chicago to celebrate the same. This will include a special salute during every performance of the circus throughout its 10 day run.

Windy City Circus, an all-new locally produced professional circus featuring jaw-dropping circus acts and hilarious characters from around the world, will make its debut inside Navy Pier’s Festival Hall, 600 E. Grand Avenue, Feb. 17-26, 2012. This exciting “circus with a purpose” will have a strong hometown feel, featuring cameo appearances by an assortment of famous and infamous Chicago area historic figures. 80% of net ticket sale proceeds will go to benefit the Ronald McDonald House Charities® of Chicagoland & Northwest Indiana and the Special Olympics Chicago and co-sponsor Special Children’s Charities.

David Maas is the Big Top producer and founder of Windy City Circus, and also will serve as master of ceremonies. A renowned magician and the star of many American and international circuses, Maas is best known as the co-star of the “World Renowned David & Dania Quick Change,” in which he and Moscow Circus veteran Dania Kaseeva Maas perform an astonishing series of split-second costume changes, an act that has been featured on such programs as “America’s Got Talent” and “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” and also has wowed stage and arena audiences world-wide.

At Navy Pier, a colorful circus scene will be designed inside Festival Hall, and Windy City Circus audiences will sit within 50 feet of the performance ring. In addition to David and Dania’s “Quick Change,” Windy City Circus will feature an internationally acclaimed roster of circus stars, including aerial and trapeze artists, clowns, jugglers and animal acts.

Ticket Information and Performance Schedule

Individual tickets range from $17.50-$45 for weekday performances and $20.50-$60 for weekend performances. Four-ticket family packages are available for prices starting at $63. Special group rates are available for school and charitable organizations.

Performances will run Feb. 17 – 26, with performances every day. Performances are:

Tuesday – Friday at 10:30 a.m. and 7:30 p.m.

Saturdays at 11 a.m., 3 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.

Sundays at 11 a.m., 2 p.m. and 5 p.m.

There will also be performances on Monday, Feb. 20 at 11 a.m., 2 p.m. and 5 p.m.

Individual tickets are available online at windycitycircus.org or by calling 312-803-0096. Groups of 10 or more can purchase discounted tickets by calling Grouptix at 773-327-3778 or visiting Grouptix.net.

Sonic Sensations and more at the Kohl Children's Museum

2012-01-25T00:04:00.000-06:00

Chilly days, at times rainy too, one has to be a constant lookout for places to visit, especially to keep the high energy rolling balls, read the kids, entertained and to keep them for asking for TV or such every waking hour. Needless to say a Children's Museum is always a hit. That's where we headed the past Sunday. Niño had his reservations, as he usually does, when in his mind he already has a favorite, which in this case happened to be the Chicago Children's Museum at Navy Pier. And he insisted on visiting that very favorite. Anyways after much cajoling and the fact that he still has a few years to go before he can sit on the driver's seat and actually steer the car to where he wants to go (Thank God for that!), we headed for the KCM.

Among the several fantastic activities and exhibits that had the kids have an absolutely great time, what I liked personally about the museum was the optimum use of space. I have mentioned this before that as a parent of two young children, my mind is at much peace if I know that I won't have a big area to search in crowded places, in case one of my children is not in immediate sight. The good thing is that its all at one level and even though at first sight, it doesn't look very big but it offers lots to explore from pretty young children to older ones. Also the staff was ample and pretty vigilant which meant the getting back things in their proper place in exhibits like the Grocery Store and the Food Joint was prompt and also they kept an eye on children who seemed to be away from their adult guardians and were prompt to re-unite them. Another great thing was the well planned seats for adults close to almost every activity. So as the kids spent their time in exploring the properties of magnets or being a vet to some animal friends or filling the shopping carts to their heart's content, the parents always had a place to sit and relax in sight.

Apart from their permanent exhibits, the museum also has an ongoing temporary exhibit by the name of Sonic Sensations which helps children learn through play about the human ear and listening. The exhibit which started on Jan 17th runs through May 10, 2012. Chica especially loved playing for a long time on the Invisible Orchestra where she moved her hands and feet on a motion sensing carpet and a tune played on the monitor in front. The kids also loved to play the guessing game to identify low pitches from high as they hit colored bells mounted on a rotating turntable. Several other interesting activities like hiding a cat/cricket in one of the many closets and then listening to the sound to find out which one it is in or Creating your own Soundtrack as a scene plays out in front of you - a farm setting or a train passing by keeps the children entertained as older kids learn about the anatomy of the human ear and how we actually hear. Well worth a visit.

I leave you with some of our most interesting pictures.

Weighing their worth in milk jugs

The Balancing act

One of the biggest hits - making patterns with their body parts

on a giant pegboard and watching them from the other side

Low pitch or high?

The crazy family photo op

With a tune on her fingers!

Some recent favorite books

2012-01-19T22:47:00.000-06:00

It has been a while since I reviewed some books that the kids have enjoyed a lot. It so happened that recently Chica and I spotted Trashy Town which used to be Niño's favorite book for a very long time. I had reviewed it and had been pleasantly surprised when the authors of the book had e-mailed me saying that they were happy to hear their book was enjoyed so much. I thought I'll just pen down for memory's sake and of course as a reference to those who happen to stumble upon the list.

A truly beautiful book to warm your heart, bring a smile to your lips and teach some very relevant values to young children. The main premise of this book is that everyone carries an invisible bucket which fills when someone is nice or kind of them and when they are really happy and empties when someone is rude or disrespectful. And your own bucket fills or empties depending on whether you fill or empty someone else's bucket. It has been asked to read aloud many many times in our home and has also been referred to by Chica when she is trying to figure out what is making her person sad. It sensitizes the children amazingly to others feelings and encourages them to be fill more and more buckets! A must must must read!!

Oh my! Hats off to the author Herve Tullet! How can someone be so original and creative! You have to open this one to believe the magic it can create in a two dimensional book format. Press the yellow dot on the cover and open the next page to see what you did! You will see your kids' eyes open up wide and their smile widen in surprise and disbelief as they turn the pages in this one!

A slight digression - Notice the number of exclamation marks I used in the above paragraph, consider each a sign of excellence and go get the book !!! :)

We love silly books because the kids, especially Niño, like to laugh out loud; crack silly jokes of their own by the dozen; love it when they see someone acting cheeky and this very recent gem of a find does all that and more. The cover itself speaks a lot and invites you to first open this one book even it is lying among many others. Chester, the cat who's the main character of the book, strikes off the author Melanie Watt's name and puts down his own with his signature red marker which he uses throughout the book to hijack the story totally! A very grumpy (for some reason) Niño at the beginning of the book was soon holding his tummy and rolling with laughter a few pages into it!

For me personally, a book is truly excellent, if a reluctant fiction reader like Niño picks it up himself without prompt, looks at the pictures very very carefully, reads it and keeps laughing! This is one of those rare books.

We have also immensely enjoyed the Scaredy Squirrel series by the same author.

Sonic Sensations at Kohl Children's Museum

2012-01-08T23:57:00.000-06:00

Kohl Children’s Museum of Greater Chicago is proud to present Sonic Sensation, an exhibit designed by the Sciencenter in Sonic Sensation will teach adults and children about the anatomy and physics of how we hear, find out about decibels, amplitude, frequency, pitch, sound waves and what you can do to protect your hearing. Sonic Sensation creates an environment for kids with eleven interactive stations surrounding them with new ways to learn about sounds.

The 1,200 square foot exhibition includes activities such as:

• Seeing Sound: Visitors adjust frequency and amplitude knobs connected to big speakers at each end of a clear tube and watch the contents of the tube “dance” in all kinds of interesting patterns.

• Invisible Orchestra: Visitors can wave in the air and dance on a carpet to play notes, while a camera mounted overhead shows them on a monitor. Moving hands and feet into the motion-sensing zones on the monitor plays different sounds.

• Critters in a Cupboard: Hide a cat or a cricket in a kitchen cupboard and ask a friend to find it by listening.

• Hearing Test: Listen to different pitches and test your hearing. Visitors can record their results on a chart.

• Measuring Sounds: Explore playing different notes to discover each sounds’ frequency.

• How Do We Hear? See all the parts inside the human ear with this large-scale model. Launch a billiard ball to show how sound hitting the eardrum sends signals to the brain.

• Ear This! Stand behind the panel and put your best face forward and try on a different pair of ears. This is a great family photo opportunity.

• Match the Sound: Shake a variety of containers, listen to their sounds and then predict what is inside.

• Create a Soundtrack: Add sounds as a movie plays. Choose from a train whistle, ducks quacking and cows mooing.

• High Pitch, Low Pitch: Hit the colored bells mounted on a rotating turntable and sort them into high and low pitches.

• Hearing Safety: See examples of different kinds of hearing protection and learn what can happen if you don’t protect your hearing.

About Kohl Children’s Museum

* In recognition for its outstanding exhibits and impact on Chicagoland families, Kohl Children’s Museum was recently named one of the country’s Ten Best Children’s Museums by Parents Magazine.

* The Museum was ranked sixth out of more than 300 children’s museums nationwide and was the only Chicago area museum recognized.

* Offering 17 interactive, hands-on exhibits for children ages birth to 8, the Museum’s mission is to encourage young children to become effective learners through self-directed complex play.

Christmas 2011

2011-12-21T00:11:00.000-06:00

Its the most wonderful time of the year! :) Indeed! Whats to not like - the spirit, the cheer, the music, the festivities, the dazzling lights, the carols playing on the radio all day long, the kids recognizing them from having sung them at school even if there parents just sung 'Jingle Bells' as kids themselves! Once again I am indeed thankful to the Lord for having given us an opportunity of experiencing a country and its culture firsthand.

So we thought of making cards for the kids' friends and teachers thanking them for touching our lives in the way they do. I browsed some absolutely wonderful blogs for some ideas and was amazed at how creative people are. Each idea was so wondrous and resulted in such beautiful products. It was so easy to get inspired and motivated. Unfortunately I do not exactly remember the blogs from which I got the idea for our Christmas cards (it was a mish mash of a couple of ideas) but I am putting up a link to another awesome blog which, in turn has links to many more interesting and awesome crafts, bloggers have done for Christmas.

We started out with using the clean side of used paper to make kids' handprints in red and green. We used Acrylic paints.

Followed it by letting them dry for a bit and then brushing a layer of glossy Mod Podge - my super favorite recent discovery and while it was still sticky, we sprinkled a generous dash of red, green and silver glitter.

I don't have pictures for the remaining steps because we were knee deep in all the work but basically, I cut a triangle the size of the Christmas tree we wanted to place on our card and then cut it into strips careful to place them in order. The kids then glued the strips to the pre-prepared card cutouts (from white poster board) after they had drawn and colored the trunk with a brown crayon. I think a trunk made out of brown construction paper might have looked better but we didn't have any at hand. Nevertheless the end result was stunning. We also used cut strips to make borders and small cut squares to make gifts under the trees. I have to say that the cards look even better than they do in pictures because here the glossy finish isn't showing too well.

Also finally we collected our ceramic ornaments from the workshop we had enjoyed immensely at the Lillstreet Art Center. (Winter classes at Lillstreet Art Center begin January 9 and registration is open with a full schedule of classes available oniline at lillstreet.com. They offer classes in a wide range of mediums from metalsmithing to ceramics, photography to painting. Be sure to check them out.) And that proved to be the final straw for getting our very own Christmas tree :) Its a little silver one and only endorses the ornaments we are proud to have made ourselves even though they are far from perfect. I might just indulge in topping it with the very beautiful Christmas Tree Star I have my heart on but am not sure if I'll be able to find the time for it with a whole lot of play dates and busy social lives my kids feel they have a right to!

Ring in 2012 with Blue Man Group

2011-12-20T22:53:00.001-06:00

Blue Man Group, the critically hailed theatrical phenomenon on stage at Chicago’s Briar Street Theatre (3133 N. Halsted Street), is wishing Chicago a Happy 2012 with three performances on New Year’s Eve. The day of performances kicks off with a matinee show at 4 p.m. for families to celebrate the holiday together and ends with the 7 and 10 p.m. performances featuring a complimentary champagne and sparkling cider toast and party favors. The final performance of 2011 will feature Blue Man Group counting down to the New Year and playing a special rendition of “Auld Lang Syne” on their custom made instruments including the Tubulum.

Blue Man Group’s production provides its audience with a unique and thrilling multi-sensory experience that blends innovative theatrical spectacle and dynamic original music with hilarious comedy, art, technology and science to create a performance experience unlike any other.

In the show, the Blue Men encounter a variety of environments to discover, engage with and explore of-the-moment situations with cutting-edge technology. Many of the signature scenes that have made Blue Man Group one of today’s best-loved theatrical productions have been in the show since its opening, though new material has been integrated. Newer passages include Blue Men interacting with “GiPads;” a funny and perceptive look at contemporary communication vehicles; and a pulsating new finale featuring an original Blue Man Group music score.

With rave reviews and accolades, from the Chicago press and media, under its belt, Blue Man Group’s appeal is multi-generational, with several projects specifically designed for young people, including “Making Waves,” a popular touring exhibit for children, and the recently launched national “Invent an Instrument” competition.

So if you are looking to welcome 2012 with a BANG, say goodbye to 2011 with one of Chicago's most celebrated entertainment shows, the Blue Man Group.

BLUE MAN GROUP TICKET INFORMATION

Tickets prices for the 4, 7, and 10 p.m. shows on New Year’s Eve are $55 - $75. Tickets may be purchased at the Briar Street Theatre by calling the box office at (773) 348-4000; by calling Ticketmaster at (800) 982-2787; at all Ticketmaster ticket centers or via the Internet at www.ticketmaster.com/bluemanchicago. For more information, visit www.blueman.com/chicago.

"The Nutcracker"

2011-12-12T23:34:00.001-06:00

We enjoyed a very beautiful performance of The Nutcracker at the Elgin Community College (ECC) Arts Center this past Saturday.

The holiday classic was divided into two acts, the first where the celebrations are on at the Stahlbaum's on Christmas eve as adults and children dance to merry tunes, run around and wait eagerly for the Stahlbaum kids' Godfather and the talented toymaker Drosselmeyer. Among other things what striked us was the simple yet elegant setting of a 19th century household on the eve of the grand holiday. The set seemed to come alive with the vibrant Christmas tree in the background as also the people in lovely costumes who surrounded it. The children were immensely talented, as one being a mom of two young kids is bound to notice :) They acted so well, danced in perfect rhythm and co-ordination and seemed to be enjoying themselves so much. It all looked like one big happy family. The expressions were so real and natural, I almost felt like a part of the party myself.

I and my 4 year old daughter waited for the second act with a lot of anticipation to look at all the different dances we had only read about in the kids' books and looked at pictures. What we didn't know was that the act is going to be all dance without a single word being spoken. If you are familiar with the story, in the second act, in honor of the young heroine Clara who has saved the Nutcracker from the Mouse King and helped him turn back into a prince, a celebration of sweets from around the world is produced: chocolate from Spain, coffee from Arabia, and tea from China all dance for their amusement; candy canes from Russia perform a Trepak; Danish marzipan shepherdesses perform on their flutes; Mother Ginger has her children emerge from under her enormous skirt to dance; a string of beautiful flowers perform a waltz. To conclude the night, the Sugar Plum Fairy and her Cavalier perform a Pas de Deux. Each one of the dances was more fascinating than the other. Even my 6 year old son who is not easy to impress sat mesmerized. My daughter can't wait to learn ballet herself. It was the first time we saw ballet live on stage and to say that we were in awe is an understatement.

The ECC Arts Center had secured the services of the ECC Culinary Arts and Hospitality program to prepare a delightful selection of gourmet treats for a pre-show Clara's Christmas Tea Party in the Spartan Terrace dining room, just down the hall from the theater. Fare included delicious hot chocolate and festive pomegranate cranberry "mimosas;" a mouth watering selection of tea sandwiches including peanut butter and jelly, turkey and cranberry, smoked salmon and chive cream, roast beef and horseradish cream and sundried tomato, fresh mozzarella and basil pesto; plus assorted scones and Christmas cookies.

The ECC Arts Center has a diverse line up of events, both touring artists as well as their own college/in-residence ensembles. You can check out the interesting 2011-12 season here.

The Holiday Lights Tour Experience

2011-12-07T15:27:00.001-06:00

So we took the Holiday Lights Tour past Saturday. Needless to say the city looked magnificent in all those dazzling lights, smelt exquisite in those smells of cinnamon and coffee wafting through the air and just felt so 'tugging on your heart strings' kind of magical with the festivities and the cheer and the happiness on people's faces, the Christmas carols playing in the background as the trolley meandered its way through busy with the holiday crowd streets. We were treated to the festive lights and enchanting sights of wintertime in Chicago, including the twinkling lights of the Magnificent Mile, the posh Gold Coast Neighborhood, Macy's Holiday Windows, Daley Plaza's 40-foot tree, the John Hancock Plaza tree, Navy Pier's Winter Wonderfest, Buckingham Fountain and the Christkindlmarket.

The lightly narrated tour which was supposed to be 2 hours long ran for an extra half an hour owing to rush traffic and also earned us a parking ticket as a result :( Apart from that there was nothing to not like about it. With stops at two brilliantly illuminated holiday attractions, we had time to hop off at both the Zoo Lights at Lincoln Park Zoo and the Christkindlmarket, a traditional German American Holiday Market with distinctive crafts, artistic glass ornaments, delicious sweets, holiday food and drinks. Both the stops were so much fun by themselves that we are planning to return to just those to spend more time at each of those.

The tour is great for especially families with young kids or older people who get to see much of the city without having to walk in the cold. Both our kids had an awesome time riding the trolley as well as at both the stops. Just a word of caution to park for close to 3 hours. We parked at Pearson St 2 blocks from Michigan Ave where the parking was available for a maximum of 2 hours and we thought we would make it in an additional 5 minutes or so but we returned a half hour late and had a ticket by then.

The "Holiday Lights Tour" runs on Fridays and Saturdays, Nov. 25 - Dec. 23, 2011, with four departure times at 5:30 p.m., 6 p.m., 6:30 p.m. and 7 p.m. The tour departs from Chicago Water Works Pumping Station located at Michigan Avenue and Pearson Streets across from Water Tower Place. Tours hold 32 passengers each and tickets must be purchased in advance online at www.chicagotrolley.com.

The Magical Shrek the Musical

2011-11-28T22:49:00.001-06:00

So we watched the much awaited and a packed show of Shrek the Musical at Rosemont Theater. If I was to describe it in one single phrase, it would be magical. I watched a musical of this magnitude after a really long time I thought to myself during the show. But it was indeed fascinating. Be it the hotheadedness yet the basic goodness of the heavily costumed and made up ogre Shrek or the great comedic skills and the charm of Princess Fiona, the goofy and extremely lovable Donkey or the selfish yet delightfully shortened Lord Farquaad, it was an engaging and very well crafted show. The beautiful sets just merged into each other very naturally and effortlessly like the pages of a fairy tale book. With just a drop of a curtain, the lovely woods magically transformed into the menacing castle of Lord Farquaad to next change into the dragon guarded tower where in lay Princess Fiona. The music was upbeat with the best songs for me being the ones with the feisty Princess Feona. She was nothing short of a riot as she danced and sang and joked with amazing facial expressions in 'Morning Person' and the sequence where she engaged in a competition of burps and farts with Shrek in 'I got you beat!' Another high point of the show was the incredible dragon that was a combination of a really big puppet manually operated by 8 people in a horse style!

It played for only one weekend, the one following Thanksgiving here in Rosemont, IL. However, check out this link to see if its coming close to you and do grab the chance to watch it if it is.

For all the technical details on the star cast and the very impressive and accolades winning creative team, read on!

SHREK THE MUSICAL tells the story of a swamp-dwelling ogre who goes on a life-changing adventure to reclaim the deed to his land. Joined by a wise-cracking donkey, this unlikely hero fights a fearsome dragon, rescues a feisty princess and learns that real friendship and true love aren't only found in fairy tales.

The role of everyone's favorite swamp-dwelling ogre, Shrek will be played by Lukas Poost. Liz Shivener will play the feisty Princess Fiona. Andr‚ Jordan is Shrek's lovably annoying best friend Donkey and Merritt David Janes plays the vertically challenged villain Lord Farquaad.

Rounding out the cast of misfit fairy tale characters, the peoples of Duloc and Far, Far Away are: Willie Dee, Annie Fitch, Susan Leilani Gearou, Kelly Teal Goyette, Alexa Kerner, Rachel Khutorsky, Schuyler Midgett, Lyonel Reneau, Adam Steiner, Erin Sullivan, Chase Todd, Sarah Tranchina, Nadia Vynnytsky, Ryan Everett Wood, Chris Woods, Luke Yellin, Ian Frazier, Mara Gabrielle, Ryan Rubek and Laura Smith.

SHREK THE MUSICAL features a book and lyrics by Pulitzer Prize(r) winner David Lindsay-Abaire (Rabbit Hole, Good People), music by Olivier Award-winner Jeanine Tesori (Thoroughly Modern Millie, Caroline, or Change). SHREK THE MUSICAL is directed by Stephen Sposito who recently served as Associated Director of the current Broadway revival How To Succeed In Business starring Daniel Radcliff. Sets and costumes are based on the Tony Award(r) winner designs by Tim Hatley (Private Lives, Spamalot) and Chris Bailey will recreate the original choreography by Josh Prince (The Bridge Project, The Jerry Springer Opera).

SHREK THE MUSICAL was initiated when Sam Mendes, a big fan of the first Shrek film, suggested the idea of creating a musical to DreamWorks Animation's Jeffrey Katzenberg around the time the second film was in production. The musical is produced by NETworks Presentations, LLC.

NETworks Presentations, LLC (Producer) was founded in 1995 by Kenneth Gentry, Seth Wenig and Scott Jackson. NETworks has produced and managed over 80 national and international touring productions. Previous productions: Little Women starring Maureen McGovern; Cinderella starring Eartha Kitt and Deborah Gibson; Fosse starring Ben Vereen and Ruthie Henshall; The Light in the Piazza; My Fair Lady co-produced with Cameron Mackintosh; Rodgers and Hammerstein's Oklahoma!; Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake; Annie; Hairspray; The Wizard of Oz, Handel's Messiah Rocks, Spring Awakening, A Chorus Line and many others. Joining returning productions of Disney's Beauty and the Beast; Young Frankenstein; Rodgers and Hammerstein's South Pacific, based on Lincoln Center Theater Production; Blue Man Group National Tour and The New 25th Anniversary Tour of Les Mis‚rables this season are Shrek The Musical, Disney and Cameron Mackintosh's Mary Poppins and Lincoln Center Theater production of War Horse touring the U.S.

The kid speaketh

2011-11-28T15:07:00.001-06:00

I was going through some of the posts I had written much earlier about the interesting, often funny things the kids came up with - phrases, conversations. I had loads of them, especially of Niño. And realized its been a while I did that here. Mostly its because of fb. I usually put a status update of the hilarious things they say and am done, its easy to have a conversation with friends who have had similar experiences with their kids and share a laugh. Its fun and convenient. However its difficult to go through them all at one place which is why I also decided to put them here for laughs for myself later when I need them :)

So Niño had his KG show today and I threatened him to let me set his hair sideways instead of the usual silly way where he likes to have them falling on his forehead and I try to convince him further by getting Chica on my side and ask her "Bhaiya looks nice with his hair on the side, no?" and she goes "Bhaiya looks nice ALWAYS!"
These two are soon going to gang up on me and throw me out of the house, I tell you!!

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We took the kids to a Japanese festival outside a Japanese Supermarket this Saturday. Out of all the things, guess what Niño found to write about in his journal ...

I went to the Japanese market. I saw a toilet seat there. There were buttons for washing the front and back of the bottom and a button for drying it too.

He also wanted to write 'It was really cool' but ran out of space.

Ever since he has been asking us to either get one for him or take him to Japan for a vacation.

For those interested to take a look at the toilet seat reigning supreme in his heart and mind these days, follow the link

http://manolohome.com/2008/11/25/the-super-toilet/

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So these are the kids' current radical thoughts on marriage:

Chica: Mamma, can I marry bhaiya (Niño) when I grow up? I love him so much. That ways I'll be able to stay with him forever.

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Niño: Mom, I want to marry N!
Me: The two of you are enough for me! I can't have another child in the house!
Niño: Lets marry Chica off and she can go stay with her husband and then I can marry N and bring her to stay here.

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So the kids were duly told the story of Ravan taking away Sita and the battle that followed and Niño's reaction is "So Sri Lanka 'bothered' India once upon a time?" Now does anybody else see a politician in the making ?!

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So the little miss garrulous asks me the meaning of 'might' and 'how about' with examples. And then proceeds to give some of her own.
"Mom, I might love you next week!" I make a sad face to give her a chance to rectify things to which she adds, "How about next year?"

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And finally for those of you who understand Hindi, my daily dose of laughs from Niño's वाक्य बनाओ

बारिश - बारिश पढ़ रही है.

पैसे - पैसे जमा मत करवाओ. iPad लेने के लिए अपने पास रखो.

The Lillstreet Art Center Clay Workshop

2011-11-22T22:11:00.001-06:00

A couple of weeks back I had written about the workshop on making ceramic ornaments to decorate our tree or give as stocking stuffers, we were to attend at the Lillstreet Art Center. We went for the same this past Sunday and it was such a hit with kids and extremely relaxing and fun for me and my husband as well. I'll first walk you through some pictures and then tell you a little more about the place.

First we pounded the clay and threw it and pounded and threw to make a slab big and thin.

Then we used several cookie cutters to cut out interesting shapes - stars, leaves, snowmen, hearts, gingerbread man. The kids found it hard to stop at a three dozen cut outs at this step.

Then we painted the ornaments we had cut out, made some textures with pointed sticks or blocks and made a hole on top to string through later.

These are now ready to be bisque fired and the Lillstreet people will call us back to pick them up when they are ready.

It was a great experience and two hours passed by so fast. Chica, my 4 year old wanted to stay there longer and keep doing more. Fortunately, I was able to whisk her out of the room to show her the other interesting things happening in other parts of the art center. This was the first one we went to - it looked, smelled and felt very different from any other place we have been to. There were so many pots, paints, sculptures, bowls, plates and the likes lying around on many many shelves. All the people there, mostly artists working on different things seemed very relaxed and very friendly stopping by in the room that we were working in, when they came there to pick something they needed, and encouraging the children at the great job they were doing. And all the children in the workshop - 2 of mine and 2 more worked so neatly and with such rapt attention, it was lovely to watch them. The kids on their way out watched in such fascination a lady working on a potter's wheel. My son remarked, "Oh! So that's how a pot gets made!" I love remarks like these when kids realize something they had used regularly but never lent a thought to, now know where it comes from :)

I had linked to the various workshops that the Lillstreet people offer for kids as well as adults. Some of them are scheduled on Saturdays and are just $10 a person. The center is well worth a visit for an experience which is not easily available at home.

The Holiday Lights Tour!

2011-11-19T00:08:00.001-06:00

I have said this before many times and I say it yet again that I have been loving Chicago city for a a variety of experiences it has to offer. Who wouldn't love to have something different to do and enjoy the new experiences every few days. So the next experience I am really looking forward to is the Holiday Lights Tour! I love this time of the year in the US when the festivities begin, the streets and stores are all lit up, beautiful and brilliant, people look cheerful enjoying the festivities, walking the streets with shopping bags in hands and am truly excited to watch all this on a special Holiday Lights Tour!

Chicago's version of a caroling sleigh ride will whisk passengers amongst the festive lights and enchanting sights of wintertime in Chicago, including the twinkling lights of the Magnificent Mile, State Street & Macy's Holiday Windows, Daley Plaza's 40-foot tree, the John Hancock Plaza tree, Navy Pier's Winter Wonderfest, Buckingham Fountain, Christkindlmarket and more. Tickets must be purchased in advance and are only available online at www.chicagotrolley.com. Tickets have been on sale since Nov. 1.

The "Holiday Lights Tour" is a lightly narrated 2-hour tour showcasing the best of Chicago's holiday lights and sights, with stops at two brilliantly illuminated holiday attractions. Passengers will have time to hop off at both the Zoo Lights at Lincoln Park Zoo and the Christkindlmarket, a traditional German American Holiday Market with distinctive crafts, artistic glass ornaments, delicious sweets, holiday food and drinks, along the way. All ages can enjoy this warm, cozy experience, see the highlights of Chicago's holiday cheer and might even be inspired to carol with new friends.

The "Holiday Lights Tour" runs on Fridays and Saturdays, Nov. 25 - Dec. 23, 2011, with four departure times at 5:30 p.m., 6 p.m., 6:30 p.m. and 7 p.m. The tour departs from Chicago Water Works Pumping Station located at Michigan Avenue and Pearson Streets across from Water Tower Place. Tours hold 32 passengers each and tickets must be purchased in advance online at www.chicagotrolley.com.

Tickets are $26 for adults and $19 for children (3-11). All ticket holders also receive a coupon featuring free hot chocolate and a York peppermint brownie wedge from The Hershey Store.

Of the things with an 'i'

2011-11-17T14:54:00.001-06:00

Its been a struggle raising this 6 year old boy I have for a son. So this time its the fascination with all things 'i', yup the iPhone, iMac, iPod and the iPad. He has been requesting us, begging, pleading, arguing and trying every possible trick in the book to let him have one if not all of those. The more I resist, the more he insists. Their school has iMac's in the Media Center which they go to almost every week, occasionally they get iPads to play some Math games on which is how they rule over his heart and mind on a regular basis.

A couple of weekends back, he asked me what he could do to collect $100 to be able to buy an iPhone at Target, which he had scanned the Sunday paper for fliers to every store to see the cheapest rate for an iPhone. It was my mistake, I realized later, to even let him have the hope that it was even theoretically possible. He earns stickers and ultimately quarters for every desirable behavior and he uses the money he collects to buy little toys he likes. Somehow he concentrated on just the 'reading books' in his rewards chart and we calculated that he needed to read ten thousand books to be able to collect the money. And he believed that he could do it in one day. And boy he read and read and read. He read for close to 3 hours which is a long long time for him and when he saw it getting dark outside, he just panicked and started howling and crying, begging us to let him have it on completing 100 books. Anyways it took a long time and a lot of effort to pacify him.

However some things he said while asking for the phone were eye openers for me. He said that he wanted his things so that he could control when he wanted to use them. He said that often when he wants to call his friend/s home and I call their moms to ask them if they can and then they don't come for some time and then Niño asks me to call them again and I tell him that its rude to call them again and again. If he has his own phone, he would be able to call his friends at his will. He kept on insisting that he would not play games on his gadgets for long at all because he knows they are not good but he likes to see directions to places or the weather and we don't allow him always to do that. Which is when I realized that he felt so strongly about something which I had painted in my eyes as almost black and was thus not allowing him to use it even though he wanted to use it in a good way. Well he asked for A's Samsung Galaxy phone sometimes (once in 2-3 days) and we let him have it for about 5 minutes - he and Chica usually played silly games like the Talking Tom or watched one Tom and Jerry video on youtube. And then when he gave it back to him and suddenly remembered that he had forgotten to check the weather, I was not allowing him to have it back. Which I realized was backfiring now. One incident I mentioned and another one last weekend - we were out with an old friend of A's at a restaurant having lunch and he started urging A to have his phone. Kids are smart and they realize when they can put us in a spot by what kind of behavior making it hard for us to say no. He played for a bit and gave it back and then started asking again because he had forgotten something. It got difficult in that situation to ignore or reason with a whiny 6 year old. He was not completely to blame because the restaurant didn't have any crayons or activity booklets for kids which otherwise both my kids get interested and busy in and there were no other kids to play around it but even then it was a lesson on what to talk to him about when we are going to be in similar situations. And an even bigger lesson to cut him some slack. To remember that each child is different and whether I like it or not, mine is fascinated just with things I wish he wasn't fascinated with and I can't just go on with my everyday life assuming there's no problem to be addressed.

So now A downloaded apps on his phone for Niño on world geography (which he is very interested in) and he himself straightaway goes to that app almost everytime he asks for the phone. I made a journal on the computer for him to work on, write or draw or color in paintbrush about the experiments or projects we do and he feels happy to be working on that medium which is very powerful for him. Often times he goes to the Apple website to admire the several beautiful products and keeps asking us as to when he can have them. I am still not sure what to answer. A has told him that we'll buy a Mac book when he turns 12 and is doing well at school. Till then, we introduce him to interesting features of our good old Dell laptop and he is convinced for now that that too is capable of doing quite a bit :) We entered in a 'Going Green' contest in our local library and he is absolutely sure we will win the prize which is an iPad. Phone, we have told him we'll have a chat about it when he turns 15. Edited to add after noon's comment: These are basically just numbers to distract him. As A says, it can never be a number game with kids. There will come a point where we'll no longer be able to postpone it. And the reason I postpone right now is because one I think what will this 6 year child have to look forward to if he gets his own computer at 6 and two because kids fiddling around with whatever gadgets they have and not even bothering as to what's going around them freaks me out completely. But then I think, may be if he has one, he won't be so obsessed and would talk about things other than those. I don't know, its a tough call, as parenting mostly is!

Fun Programs at the Lillstreet Art Center

2011-11-06T22:44:00.000-06:00

My kids developed a huge interest in art and most of all in making things in their summer vacations. We worked on quite a few projects together and made crafts from countries around the world as we studied their cultures and festivals. We consider ourselves lucky to be experiencing the culture of a country first hand staying here in the US. As the biggest festival of all Christmas draws near, I learnt of a very interesting workshop at Lillstreet Art Center (through Carol Fox Associates who have been very kind to give me a heads up on a wide variety of extremely interesting events in Chicagoland) on making beautiful ceramic ornaments to decorate your tree or give as special stocking stuffers. I registered our family for the same and we are looking forward to making ornaments ourselves. This workshop is to take place on Nov 20th. I also browsed Lillstreet's website further and learnt of more great classes for kids as well as adults. I particularly liked the Side-by-Side Family Drop-In classes every Saturday which is priced at just $10 a person and are geared towards kids as young as 2 years with an adult. I think its a great way to spend a Saturday all while having so much fun :) Do check out more that they offer here.

Diwali for moi

2011-11-02T15:30:00.000-05:00

I started the bottle fireworks activity and the puffy art one about a week before Diwali so that we could show it to their visiting friends during the week and make cards etc out of the puffy art. The same night, after the kids went to bed, I received a phone call from my dad telling me one of my chachas (his younger brother) had suddenly passed away. It was dreadful to say the least. A person whom you have grown up around and live with in the same house (we stayed in the same house on separate floors), too many memories become a part of you. How he used to come every Tuesday from the mandir to give us boondi prasad, how he many a times just stopped by on his way upstairs to just chat, off late how he brought my kids new coins of different denominations to just keep with them, all flashed before my eyes. I spoke to my chachi and my cousins and of course broke down as they spoke. I spoke to my bua and my dad again in the next few days and broke down again. You feel so far in situations like these and the heart feels heavier on sensing the immediate kin's sorrow.

However, the Diwali excitement had already taken over the kids. We have many Indian families in the apartment complex that we stay in and the kids had already started planning about bursting fire crackers, an upcoming Diwali get together and the like. I almost was sure of not sharing the news with Niño and Chica, partly because Niño is a pretty sensitive child. Death bothers him a lot. He would have remembered my chacha as M's nana (M is my cousin's son) whom he was very pally with when I visited my parents place and then he would have worried himself silly. Had we been in Delhi, it would have been different. They would have known but there would have been a lot more people to take their mind off the troubling news. For almost a week in the past summer holidays, I don't know how Niño had had this fear of my going away when he gets older and he used to cry at nights. Now the question was what to do about Diwali. I didn't feel the fervor I did till a day back to celebrate but at the same time I couldn't abandon it either. That would mean many many questions especially from the elder one as also displeasure on there not being a good enough reason. So I continued with the preparing the cards and the sweets and the savories to be exchanged with friends. In the mornings when kids were away, I spent some silent moments, spoke with my dad about not feeling very good but still doing all that. He was anyways cool about it. I come from a practical family where loss is mourned, no doubt, but we are encouraged to get back in our regular schedules and try to get over it so as not to disturb the usual routine of things. It helped to hear that from him. However not everyone shares the thought. And so in order to be not judged, I didn't share the news with any of my friends here. I had my reasons for doing what I was!

For SHREK lovers ...

2011-11-01T00:13:00.000-05:00

ROSEMONT IS GETTING A MAKE-OGRE

SHREK THE MUSICAL

TO PLAY ONE WEEKEND ONLY THIS THANKSGIVING,

NOV. 25 - 27 AT THE ROSEMONT THEATRE

DreamWorks Theatricals and NETworks Presentations, LLC. are pleased to announce that SHREK THE MUSICAL with book and lyrics by David Lindsay-Abaire and music by Jeanine Tesori, will play the Rosemont Theatre, 5400 N River Road, for one weekend only, Nov. 25 - 27, 2011. Tickets are available at www.rosemonttheatre.com or all Ticketmaster outlets.

SHREK THE MUSICAL features a book and lyrics by Pulitzer Prize(r) winner David Lindsay-Abaire (Rabbit Hole, Good People), music by Olivier Award-winner Jeanine Tesori (Thoroughly Modern Millie, Caroline, or Change). SHREK THE MUSICAL is directed by Stephen Sposito who recently served as Associated Director of the current Broadway revival How To Succeed In Business starring Daniel Radcliff. Sets and costumes are based on the Tony Award(r) winner designs by Tim Hatley (Private Lives, Spamalot) and Chris Bailey will recreate the original choreography by Josh Prince (The Bridge Project, The Jerry Springer Opera).

SHREK THE MUSICAL will play the Rosemont Theatre, 5400 N. River Road for one weekend only, Nov. 25 - 27, 2011. Tickets, which range in price from $22.50 - $87.50, are now on sale.

Performances are Friday, Nov. 25 at 2 and 7:30 p.m.; Saturday, Nov. 26 at 10 a.m., 3 p.m. and 8 p.m. and Sunday, Nov. 27 at 1 p.m. Tickets can be purchased online at www.rosemonttheatre.com or by calling Ticketmaster at 800-745-3000. Tickets are also available for purchase at the Rosemont Theatre box office and at all Ticketmaster outlets. Groups of 10 or more, call GroupTix at 877-447-7849.

Diwali for the kids this year

2011-10-26T15:20:00.000-05:00

After 2 years of Diwali at home close to family, this year we are away from des again. Like everyone else in the same situation, the festivities with the family are missed acutely during this time of the year. Extra efforts have to be made to make a festival meaningful and fun especially for the kids which otherwise happens naturally back home. Anyways we began last week with some fireworks in a bottle and the puffy microwave art. I discovered a Beautiful blog a couple of weeks back and I told Rashmie, the owner of the blog that it had to be divine intervention that I discovered her blog full of amazing activities for the kids when I was just thinking about what to do with the kids this Diwali. Both the activities that we did were such a big hit with the kids and their friends too. She has given the full details in her posts that I have linked up to. But in short, for the fireworks in a bottle, we filled the 500 ml bottles with 1/3rd water and topped it up with cooking oil filled upto about an inch short of the rim. Added different colors (food coloring) to each bottle. Watching the color pass through the oil without coloring the oil and then settling on the oil water border for a few seconds before splashing down to the water and coloring it was mesmerizing enough. But of course there was more. Alka Seltzer tablets were then added to each bottle (3/4 tablet was optimal) and then began the fireworks. The colored CO2 bubbles fizzed up and the oil layer above served as the display window for the fantastic works! The expression on the kids faces has been priceless. And the four bottles sit on our kitchen table and Alka Seltzer tablets are dropped each time one of the kids' friends drops by much to everyone's delight and amusement.

The puffy microwave art - we mixed all purpose flour, baking powder and water to make a pancake like batter, added different food colors again, filled the batter in ziploc bags and made them like henna cones. And took out loads of one side empty sheets to decorate. It was not very easy for the kids to create designs from the cones because its kind of tricky but that didn't deter them one bit from doodling on and on and on. Niño (which is what the elder child will be called from now on :) couldn't stop making 'jalebis' and Chica (the younger one :) could manage lines and some flowers and smileys with help. After 4 small cut outs (from an A4 sheet) were ready, we tossed them inside the microwave for about 40 seconds and Viola! the results were awesome - puffed up art which smelled like pancakes, was so very colorful and very interesting to touch too. Awesome for all the senses. The best ones were mounted on card paper to give to the kids' friends for Diwali and the rest made up a very colorful quilt to adorn our main door. Not perfect at all but hey we are a household of real kids ;)

Last night we lit some sparklers and some small pop pops to the kids' delight and they just can't wait for more today with their friends. Just hope that the rain doesn't play a spoilt sport.

As for me, well I am going to write a separate post for that. In short have been mighty busy last week cooking sweets and savories (which to my total utter delight are being tried and enjoyed by the kids), and trying out a couple of crafts to make little decorations. So tomorrow is designated no work day :)

If You Give a Cat a Cupcake

2011-10-10T15:28:00.000-05:00

This weekend we headed to watch Emerald City Theater's production 'If You Give a Cat a Cupcake'. Based on the book by Laura Numeroff; adapted and directed by Ernie Nolan; the play runs at Apollo Theater, 2540 N. Lincoln through Jan 7, 2012.

I had checked out the book from the library a few weeks back. We had already read 'If You Give a Mouse a Cookie' by the same author and enjoyed it thoroughly. After having read the book, the kids were mighty excited to follow the cat on his adventures. They had some experience with theater before when we had watched 'Dot and Ziggy' the past summer but the experience of seeing a book they have read in action was a first. And even though V doesn't show much enthusiasm if we propose a place which doesn't involve rides or things beginning with the letter 'i' (read iPads, iPods, iMacs and the likes), I could tell that he was looking forward to it.

The first sight of the set on the stage itself was very lively and colorful and multi functional as we later realized to transform it into various locations in the play. The play was about a girl who returns unexpectedly from a play date only to find her dad alone at home, knee deep in work, who asks her to play by herself for a while and promises her to join her soon. Wondering what to do with her time, she comes face to face with her pet cat who is suddenly able to talk, sing, dance and above all ask for favors like a cupcake and sprinkles to go with it. What follows is high energy drama, one funny situation after another and adventures of the Girl (Leah Raidt) and the Cat (Joe Goldammer) around the city. Along the way, they meet the the third and the last actor of the play Kyle Rehder who plays various characters like the dad, the funky Sensei, dog Rufus and others extremely effectively with fun costumes and impressive accents.

Fast paced, high energy and utter fun, it amused the children and their parents alike. We absolutely L-O-V-E-D the excitement the enthusiastic Cat brought into the play. He kept the kids intrigued as he reached from one end of the hall to the other in a matter of seconds. The girl repeated the words from the book, ad verbatim but from memory, as the story unfolded. The friendship between the girl and her cat, even though, slightly forced to begin with when the girl insists that the cat is her pet and not her friend builds gradually and teaches key life lessons of asking your friends' opinions, respect, being thankful and sorry as needed. The audience was involved rather amusingly to carry forward the show. Puppetry, sounds and lighting is effectively used all in all to result in an utterly delightful play. In the end, all the kids were asked to join the cast on stage for a macarena style dance while singing the key words from the play/book. Outside the main hall, the cast gathered for pictures and autographs. Both my kids, being on the shy side with new people and especially with costumes, didn't make much of the opportunity at all but many others did.

I would recommend the play highly if you want to introduce your 3+ aged children to theater or if you have been on a look out for a good play to take your kids to. It does remarkably well to enthrall and delight.

Edited to add: This play is coming to Cutting Hall Performing Arts Center at Palatine, IL on Monday, Jan 16th at 10:30 am (school's off that day). Tickets are only $6 and its a great way to introduce your 3+ aged kids to theater.

Of Ruskin Bond and Mother Nature

2011-09-16T17:20:00.001-05:00

I treated myself to a great morning walk today, yeah a SAHM with 2 kids, a morning walk is indeed a treat! Anyway V started with school 3 weeks back and J started with hers today. So after dropping J and before getting back to the relative comfort of home, well more precisely to the grind of tidying it up as a house lays in mornings after two young kids and an older one have just bathed themselves, had breakfasts as remains of toasts and peels of fruits lie in plates and outside, some clothes have been opened, deemed inappropriate for the day as have some socks and lie around; I decided to first put on my sneakers and enjoy the outdoors. To put it in a few words, everything about the outdoors was splendid and I had a lovely time. About 40 minutes later, as I sat down with my cup of milk and breakfast, this is what I posted as my fb status.

"Kids off to school, the slight nip in the air, the blissful fresh air on my face with a light drizzle to boot, the hues of fall on the trees, "taazaa gire patte ki tarah sabz lawn par lete huey, saat rang hain bahaaron ke ek adaa mein lapete huey" playing on the iPod, picking up a much treasured acorn for Vansh and an orangish red leaf for Jiya for appreciating later - mornings got back to being WONDROUS again :) :)"

Some kind friends commented that I paint a beautiful picture. Which is when I was reminded of one of my favorite writers Ruskin Bond. I have loved and relished his stories for the vivid imagery he employs. His narrative is so simple yet so powerful as to transport the reader to where he is. As a child, I often used to mentally learn the paragraphs from his stories that I found brilliant and tried to reproduce them when we got essays to write in exams. Unfortunately I have not read him in a long time now (though I requested The Ruskin Bond's children's Omnibus from the library just today) and so the stories are blurry but one that I distinctly remembered and was lucky to find online was The Cherry Tree. One of my most favorite paragraphs, like I said because of its powerful imagery has been

"Rakesh went into the garden and lay down on the grass beneath the tree. He gazed up through the leaves at the great blue sky; and turning on his side, he could see the mountain striding away into the clouds. He was still lying beneath the tree when the evening shadows crept across the garden. Grandfather came back and sat down beside Rakesh, and they waited in silence until it was dark."

Also came rushing to the mind were memories when the environment around has been splendid, mother nature has been at its best, lovely, untouched, gorgeous, gratifying and I thought of penning down for posterity some of those memories. I am such a huge fan of such outings, just give me nice music to listen to and comfortable shoes to walk in and I would be happy for as long as I can be there.

- We went to Manali in the North Indian state of Himachal Pradesh - utterly beautiful. Among other things, one of the most enjoyable memories has been buying 'chosa' mangoes, which are famous for being eaten just as they are, without peeling or cutting, amazingly aromatic and having a fiberless sweet flesh. We were three families and we bought a whole 4 dozens or so, let them be in the plastic bags, held the bags in the rushing river as we sat on the rocks that lined the river and soaked in the blissful sunshine. After about 15 minutes, the mangoes were refreshingly cool and we sat and devoured one mango after another, squeezing the juice and pulp, licking it off our fingers and in short tasting a slice of heaven.

- On a trail in Kasauli in recent times, Ruskin Bond's own city, my entire family on the in-laws side and both the kids too. The sight was perfect - tall teeming trees, sunshine finding its way through the many trees to fall on us; the fresh smell of the ground and the leaves; the only sounds when we all became quiet to listen to them were of the trees swaying in the breeze fascinating the children with the constant 'swish-swoosh', the birds chirping cheerfully and the rumbling of the river somewhere down below. An absolute treat for each and every sense.

- The sweetest and a major chunk of the memories I have are from the summer holidays. My mom was a teacher herself and so this was the time both of looked forward to spend together with little activities planned for the whole day. In spite of being vacation time, our days started early at 5:30'ish as we got ready to go to 'Sanjay Park/Lake Park' in Laxmi Bai Nagar, a 40-45 minute walk from our government quarter in Lodi Colony. The path to the park was a treat in itself, wide roads, a cool breeze, chirping birds, the first rays of the sun just beginning to shine their way to illuminate the top of trees and make the dew on the grass glisten. The park was always a delight, lush grass on both sides of 2 ponds, a big one for the ducks and a small one for the fish, on either ends of the park with a stream of water running along the entire length of the park joining both of them. The major attraction of coming to this park, while passing another beautiful one on the way closer to home was taking small pebbled sized flour balls to feed the fish. For the same reason, many cousins liked to spend part of their vacations with us. There was another steps like structure made in the park, an amphitheater kind of setting, where the steps were all covered with the green grass and the area just next to it was a slope again covered with the same rich carpet of grass. How much we loved to just lie down and roll our bodies on the cool grass, letting out peels of laughter and giggles, taking pleasure in an absolutely simple, yet pleasurable activity. The other end of the park which had the big pond and the ducks was then visited and we again delighted in chasing the ducks.

- A gigantic splash of color comes gushing to mind when I think of Duluth, Lutsen and beyond along the North Shore of Minnesota. A gondola ride between a pair of mountains where the flaming red maples, the sunny glow of golden poplar and birch leaves glittered against the blue sky, underlined by the deep maroon of the low-growing moose maples. Probably one of the most breathtaking sights I have ever seen, it felt as if the Master had picked up a giant brush himself and painted the mountains in those brilliant, fiery, dazzling colors. An equally wondrous sight was that of orange and red maples against the brown ground. I think the image of a year and a half old Vansh walking on that vibrantly hued ground and marveling all the same will remain etched in my memory forever.

You know you are raising a geography geek when ...

2011-08-25T11:54:00.005-05:00

- Flags of countries suddenly appear on your house walls as do maps to a beach you visited last weekend.

- He/she takes bites of chapatis in a way to make shapes of Mexico and South America out of it.

- Whose eyes become like big round saucers when you tell him that he has been to Kasauli, the mountains where are the part of the Himalayan Range and he screams, "You mean I have been to the GREAT HIMALAYAS!"

- Holds the following conversation with an 11 year old Korean boy from his Tae Kwon Do class when he meets him at the park :

V - Are you from South Korea?

A - Yes

V- Its that country behind the Great Himalayas, on the east of China, right?

A - I think so!

V - You know I have been to the Great Himalayas! Had I climbed to the top, I would have been able to see South Korea! Yeah right, Dude!!

V- They use a lot of robots in South Korea to do the housework, right?

A- They do?

- Passes remarks like - Its cool, cloudy and wet today. Feels like Germany.

- When asked his age, responds with zecks, seis, chhe and rarely ever six.

- Greets grandparents on Skype with Guten Morgan, ¿Cómo estás?, Adaab and the likes.

- When told that he can play on the computer for a few minutes, quickly opens up tabs to check the weather on the Moon and Sun (btw there are cities by both the names in the US :) ; opens up a world clock to see which is the place ahead of all in time; and the China Airlines page to see how much money he needs to collect for a ticket to China.

- And is confused what to buy from his first salary, the love of his life - an iPad or a ticket to China !

Cirque Shanghai Extreme

2011-08-19T16:47:00.004-05:00

We try to take the kids to a lot of different places for the variety of experiences they offer. And Chicago has not ceased to amaze till now. We have been to a new place/show without repeating any, almost every weekend of the past 5 months we have been here and the list of to visit places continues to grow. We are happily continuing to explore.

The past weekend we went for the Cirque Shanghai Extreme show at Navy Pier. It was a fun show with several acts by acrobat performers who displayed their craft of tumbling, juggling, balancing and more. Full of music and dance, their was a warm appeal to the show as well because after every act the performers bowed with very warm and genial smiles, almost asking you to applaud wholeheartedly for their anyways great acts :) The acrobatic gravity defying acts always amaze me at the capacity and the flexibility of the human body and at the wonders it is capable of performing.

Jiya enjoyed the music and kept dancing on her seat while watching as Vansh watched awe struck. Given their age, they most of all enjoyed the acts which had a degree of cuteness to them. There was an act in which 10-12 men juggled their hats in several ways and did some silly things too which evoked laughter. They even called 3 gentlemen to the stage and taught them the juggling act which obviously they failed at mostly creating a rather funny scene, all in good humor though.

In another act, 3 girls danced in and out of hollow tubes treating us to rather terrific and unbelievable moves. Jiya like that the best.

I leave you with some pictures to enjoy. If you are in Chicago, I think its a great show to enjoy. It runs through Labor Day so there still are a couple of more weekends to go watch the Extreme.

The contrast in play times

2011-07-29T10:21:00.004-05:00

Almost all of Vansh's dozen friends from the complex were there in the park and with a bunch of 5 year old to 8 year old boys together, one can imagine what the sights and sounds must be. Among their other adventures, they started going up and down the slide one after the other, sandwiching each other in the process, landing on each others' arms and legs and bursting out laughing all the while. And among them was a tiny, petite looking child whose body and frame, if you ignored was being just as rowdy and boisterous as them. The child's laughter was not as loud but just as gay and mischievous as the other boys. My heart first prevailed over my mind to watch the child for just a little while longer for she was having such a whale of a time. I let a few minutes pass to watch the liveliness and the vibrancy before pulling a guffawing, crackling Jiya out of the whole matrix of arms and legs and hands and feet that the boys had created. And for the rest of our time there, she kept running back to the group, sitting on her knees on the swing or swinging with her tummy on them and I couldn't help but smile, even though a part of me worried.

And just about half an hour later, one of her friends who joined her in the park and they played very quietly with the little rocks there building small mounds, also joined her at home and they started playing kitchen and carrying a baby in the stroller and similar things and Vansh joined them just as effortlessly as Jiya had joined his friends some time back.

I love the different opportunities these two get at play because of having a sibling of the opposite sex. :)

Guilty?

2011-07-22T16:50:00.003-05:00

Noon passed on this tag to me about mommy guilts and it was interesting to read her and Ro's and Art's confessions and feel like 'Oh, moms I admire and am so fond of do it too! I am not so bad after all;) " Here are the rules :-

Write about 2 instances where you have put yourself before your child/ children... been a wee bit selfish.
How did you feel? Did you feel a pang of guilt or were you comfortable?
Tag 2 more moms

And after reading the above posts, I am not feeling so guilty after all. Anyways out of me and my husband, I am the thick skinned one.

- I think bedtime routine features in every mom's list. When I am putting my children to bed and looking forward to my 30-40 minutes of 'me' time (read internet time on most days) to catch up with friends et al, I sometimes read the books they bring hurriedly. Then they have themselves made up this routine where they want me to just rub their backs from inside their shirts till a count of 20 and for the last few days, they then ask me to just press their legs for a bit because they are so tired from playing and then V will want to give me a hug and then J and then V will want to end the hugging session with one last hug to him and then J would want the last one and basically they just try to elongate the whole routine which leads me to snap at them at times. V also asks me what I'll do once I finish cleaning the kitchen which I usually do only after they sleep especially in summers and I partly lie to him saying that I have some 'work' on the computer or I have to iron clothes (I don't tell him that I'll watch a movie alongside) because otherwise he'll want me to sleep with him. Whether I feel guilty - well I wish I had a clone who could give them the warmth and fuzzy feeling of sleeping with a parent every time they wished for it but don't think I am depriving them of something because I am doing a lot with them during daytime.

- One thing I do feel guilty about is when I stay up till too late watching a movie or spending time on the internet and then I wake up a little later than I intend to and then have to rush them through their waking up (they do take forever but I guess most kids do) or their breakfast and generally increasing everybody's stress levels, I feel like this could have been avoided! Anyways I am getting better with it and I know that once it becomes an everyday thing that both of them have to leave for their schools early, I would have to discipline myself and sleep early because I can go with less sleep for 3-4 weeks max and then it starts getting difficult.

I always love when Dipali writes about her mommyhood experiences because she's been through it all. So I tag her and also Cee Kay because I can't think of any guilts she may have, she's a saint mom in my eyes :)

Santa's Village AZOOsment park

2011-07-13T19:00:00.000-05:00

A few weeks back, we spent a very interesting and a very exhausting day at Santa's Village which has re-opened after 3-4 years in East Dundee, IL.

The kids had so much fun at the rides. The park was open till 7 pm. We reached there a little before 2 pm and for 5 whole hours, the kids were on the move with the exception of about 15 minutes for a snack break, during which a Magic Show started and they ran off to watch that. The best part was that it was pretty compact, which in my eyes as a mom of 2 young kids is really good because it lessens my worry of losing them from my sight. Plus we went there with 2 more families, a majority of which were wearing bright orange :) and so even if we did get a child out of sight, I would have to move a few steps on any side, spot a bright orange, move my eyes a little more and spot my child. They were moving around with their chosen best friend of the day too which helped as well :) Till the clock struck 7, each one of the 5 children were running around to get one last chance on their favorite ride(s) and the staff was sweet enough to operate it with even one child sitting. And the rides were the old kinds which get me sentimental about the diwali melas which used to be awaited with much anticipation while I was growing up, the ones with really bright orange and blue and such colors, the ones which make the creaking sound as they go round.

Apart from the rides, there were animals, even though very few but then they were the closest we have gotten to them in a long time. I think for the kids, it was a first to be among the animals and pet them as they moved about in the mud. There were sheep and their lambs moving around freely and seemed to be so happy amongst the kids being petted and fed. There were llamas, which the kids have found a new fascination with after a couple of episodes of Dora and Diego. And there was a pony ride which was a huge hit too and the kids returned to it several times. The only thing being we have started noticing more and more that when animals are tied or made to do something or even put inside those barriers at zoos, they seem so sad. Even though they are being fed and being taken good care of and kids get to see them, but they seem so totally out of their element. The ponies' faces seemed to be drooping which made me sad but the kids did have fun going on them. As opposed to them, the sheep who were moving about freely seemed to be so much happier and enjoying the kids who moved around them.

Do you see all the orange? Thats all our group :)

After a little hesitation, the kids got comfortable with petting the animals.

Vansh posed like the llama while being clicked with him.

Jiya turned Four ...

2011-07-12T23:05:00.008-05:00

.... laughing and hopping and running and jumping at Navy Pier, in the best of her spirits, way too happy in her very fancy dress which many of the passers by stopped to admire and even comment to us and to her much to her delight, making her declare, as a result that this is all she is ever going to wear wherever she goes. She remains to be very interested in dresses and bangles and hair accessories and all things beautiful which include flowers and clouds in different patterns and bright sunny skies and sand castles and sea shells. She exclaims in sheer glee when she sees a bed of flowers that she has never seen something so beautiful before, revels in the warmth of a pleasant sunny day, enjoys the breeze on her face and through her hair when on a boat in the middle of a lake, and sways in perfect rhythm to a good piece of music, language no bar.

At times, I marvel at how easy going she is at this age. Provided she is well fed (which is extremely tough to do, but I'll save that for another post considering this is her birthday post) and well rested, nothing seems to bother her. When alone at home, she is happy playing with anything at all. She can spend hours with paints or crayons or even a simple pen and a piece of paper. She then moves on to looking at books and smiling as she remembers the story we read earlier. Then she takes out games on phonics or sight words or sentences and happily play with those calling me to just tell me gaily of her achievement at having figured out a new word or formed a funny sentence and won't get upset even if at times I don't respond. And all the while she'll just keep humming either a rhyme from school or a tune from a song or just making up her own songs - the other day I heard her humming - I think so, I don't think so :)

While playing with Vansh, she knows that she is the younger one and can get away with a lot of things that he can't or that he'll be told to be more mature if they start fighting and exploits to her advantage many a times. She screams when she wants to get him into trouble making him shout in frustration that he will do the same to get her into trouble. But then basks in the affection he pours on her when she is sulking or pretending to sulk after I get angry with her. Sometimes she quickly takes a thing he really likes and then makes him say please to her a dozen times in a dozen different tones before handing it to him. At other times, she is the best playmate one can ask for. She laughs when Vansh does something to irritate her, telling him how he can say such silly things. Or just starts acting like him and makes him laugh out loud if he gets upset about something.

The thing that will always stand out in my memory about her on this birthday is how many times and how truly and deeply she thanked God for making her day so beautiful. We had friends visiting us from MN over the long weekend when she turned 4 and she enjoyed a lot in their company and got out of her shyness and spoke with them quite a bit much to our delight. She thanked God for their company. She again thanked him for having such a fun day at Navy Pier. "He even organised fireworks for me cos its my birthday" is what she had to say for the scheduled fireworks at night "and they are so beautiful! I have not seen anything so beautiful before! Thank you Sai Baba so much!" May Sai Baba always bless u so so so much my little one :)

Tidbits from the very very fun last week

2011-07-08T15:34:00.006-05:00

Dear friend Noonoo always does her best to bring me out of my slumber :) I know I had said that I would try my best to write as often as possible. Last week and the weekend were pretty busy. We had friends visiting from Minnesota who stayed with us for Saturday and Sunday. These were friends we had made when we ourselves stayed in MN and had had several fun outings together. Their kids and ours had played together when they were babies and toddlers. So a lot of last week was spent in prepping up for their visit plus the Mon-Thur driver duties of lugging both my kids to their respective camps and classes. On top of it, jumping into the pool myself to try and help V get over his fears of leaving the wall of the pool and going in the middle to practise his front and back floats. I did that last Wednesday for an hour and a half inside the pool when I knew there's a load of laundry that needs to be done, some groceries that need to be brought, a house that needs to be cleaned before the long weekend and still I did it and then was so hopelessly, utterly, wholly tired that I just collapsed for 2 hours in the afternoon and my muscles still ached when I woke up. But yeah that was me feeling frustrated as a mom watching her son struggle in the swimming pool to overcome his fears. Anyways, we are taking baby steps and I'll update when there is something to update about :)

So the said friends arrived with 3 kids in tow and much fun was had. Jiya became best friends with Arunabh as Vansh and Shreshth couldn't get enough of each other in the two days that they were together and shed copious tears when it was time to say goodbye. Vansh is counting days to the next long weekend when we can visit him in MN. We went to Navy Pier which was crowded just like Delhi is always and I enjoyed it so much. I actually crave crowds, I have noticed and enjoy them. We took a boat tour of Lake Michigan and Vansh listened very carefully to the narration for words like 300 feet deep, storm, windy and hyperventilated. He is such a cutie pie who gets nervous about little things as his knowledge about tornadoes, floods and the likes increases :) Jiya's birthday was on the same day and she entered her 5th year running, hopping, jumping and dancing to the music which played at Navy Pier all in her very very dressy outfit and being in the best of her spirit. I think I should dedicate a separate post to the person that she is, so more there. We returned very late after watching the fireworks, some time wasted because of some wrong parking by a friend who cursed his GPS a million times and drove in complete terror when he lost sight of our car and the super heavy traffic but at the end of a very very fun day. The next day everybody went to Adler Planetarium except I and Jiya who decided to stay back so Jiya could rest some. She is still very tiny and little and doesn't have the stamina to do two consecutive hectic days. So I just took her to the library for some time and she wore her crown and bangles there because she had forgotten to wear them on her birthday. Vansh was extremely animated when he returned, pouring out all that he had done and learnt on his dream visit. After some great grilling on our new Cuisinart Griddler Grill Centro which we chose from a variety of items on Ashwini completing 5 years in his organisation and have never been more happy with our choice. Its great great great, really! And some animated gupshup with the friends retired for the night.

Monday morning they left and I waited anxiously for the evening to meet one of my favoritest bloggers and friend Cee Kay. It was my first ever blog pal meet in the US and I was really looking forward to it. And the meeting was delightful. Its wonderful how love and familiarity traverses distances and makes you feel so connected to a friend. Its like you have chosen a friend because your thoughts and views match and inspite of the distance you are able to maintain the friendship and the bond even though you may not be communicating often and then when you do meet, its like you are just catching up and not like you are starting anew. I really wish I can meet more and more friends I have made this way. Ninni, her 4 year old daughter was charming and delightful. Cee herself was even better than what I had imagined her to be. Poised, gentle and just so mature and balanced. When I told Ashwini that she stopped yelling at her kids a long time ago and I bookmark her blog posts on parenting for reference, he told me I should so try doing that myself and I swear I am making a conscious effort. So your visit was just as inspiring Cee as it was fun. We were so engrossed in conversation that we forgot to take any pictures at all, such a pity :(

Anyways so that was our fun packed week and the weekend. This week I have mostly been getting over the hang over, looking at pictures and videos and have resumed my driver duties. How have you been?

Of simple everyday dreams...

2011-06-24T14:51:00.003-05:00

Once upon a time there was a lady. She had 2 children aged 3 and 1. She was so tired from entertaining them, caring for them, taking them for their bathroom visits, making them wash their hands, giving them baths, dressing them up, cleaning up after them, feeding them their meals and the list went on and on and on. She felt she was so incompetent, the house was always a mess, she found it hard to find the time for cooking the meals. Even when she took them to the park, one of them cried either because of hunger, or tiredness or just because. They were so young and hungry and tired so often. And they had to be watched all the time lest they run into a swinging child or too close to a big slide. And the mom looked at other moms around the park sitting on benches and chatting or reading a book or enjoying a cup of coffee and dreamed that one day, she'll be them. When she'll still watch the children for sure, but not be as worried

about their safety. Where they'll play with each other like friends do, run and laugh and push each other on swings and sit on opposite sides of the see saw, where they'll make new park friends as they play along and run and laugh some more and she'll not have to be the one doing all that, not because she didn't want to but because her tired limbs and nerves deserved a little relaxing. And then she'll be able to justify to herself that having two children so close apart was indeed a good idea :) The dream has finally come true!

National Geographic Bee 2011

2011-06-23T14:21:00.006-05:00

We watched the National Geographic Bee last night. I had watched the teaser for it on Saturday by divine intervention and set a reminder on my phone to watch it. I say divine intervention because it really has to be that for me to watch a program. I watch like 10 minutes of TV in like a week or more and even if I make a mental note of something I want to watch, I forget. But this one I wanted to watch for two reasons, one that when I was growing up, I used to be a sucker for all those quiz shows hosted by Siddharth Basu . I think he must have been my first crush. And second because Vansh is so interested in maps and countries these days. I thought he would be pretty impressed. Also because he was highly impressed when the last season of KBC aired last year and used to carry out his own version with all family members and visitors, complete with the galat jawab and lock kiya jaye.

As expected it was a hit. All those 10-13 year olds were walking talking googles. Yeah I mean, how can any one know without googling, a 10 year old one on top of that, which is the city which is a state capital and is reached by going north east from the gulf of Peru or the city in which Hilary Clinton went for a meeting on discussing world peace. I and Ashwini watched in disbelief as the little kids gave one right answer after another, our jaw dropped all the time and Vansh who sat with an Atlas at the beginning of the program because he wanted to answer some of the questions never got to open it because it moved so fast.

So after the show, he wanted me to host a similar version with him and Jiya and so we came up with a few questions like

In which city is the Taj Mahal located? Agra

In which city is Bradenburg Gate? Berlin (since we recently read about that in our Around the World project)

In which country would you say ¿Cómo está? for How are you? Mexico or Spain

and he added some more to ask Jiya himself.

(Image courtesy: National Geographic)

Summer 2011 Writing Journal Jun 12th - Jun 19th

2011-06-20T23:13:00.011-05:00

Jun 12th - Shedd Aquarium

Jun 12th was a free Shedd Aquarium Day which is otherwise almost like $25 or so per person. After having grown up and stayed in Delhi, we obviously don't mind the crowds that brings. In fact there are times when I crave them. Honestly! So thats where we were on the day. A pretty good day. The high points were the simple fact that we went there with the kids' latest best friend Soham, just being with whom brings them utter delight.

Playing in the make believe submarine and peeking through periscopes and manning the numerous controls.

And pretending to be penguins after watching their first 4D show on Happy Feet. It was a gleeful experience for Jiya as expected with the snow and bubbles falling on her and thankfully not as scary as I had expected it to be for Vansh. We managed to catch the Dora and Diego 4D show as well and that was more lively for the kids and more visual and experiential too. The kids actually bent forwards to pick up the bananas and remotes floating around.

Jun 17th - Chicago Botanic Garden

I love Arboretums and Botanic Gardens for the stretch after stretch after stretch of greenery they offer. Its a feast to the senses in such beautiful ways. The high points of this trip were an event Model Railroad Garden which is on right now. One can walk through the outdoor exhibition and pass by familiar miniature American landmarks. All while mini trains criss cross across on tracks past the landmarks. There are mini waterfalls, bridges, old country homes, mini landscapes. We had not seen something like

this before so it was thrilling and beautiful. The kids absolutely loved the mini trains of so many varieties going over bridges, through tunnels, the faithful geyser at Yellow Stone, the volcano at Mt Helens.

And the ultimate icing on the cake was just when we were heading out, Vansh eyed the long tram which tours around the Botanic Garden with such longing that the elderly gentleman who was driving it back to the parking lot asked him to hop on for a ride. And then let him sit on his own driver's seat and pretend to drive it. He was d.e.l.i.g.h.t.e.d. and told the driver that he wanted to be him when he grows up :)

Jun 18th - Dot and Ziggy

Vansh and Jiya watched their first play ever at Victoria Biograph Theater in downtown Chicago. Titled Dot and Ziggy, it was about a ladybug and a skunk who are friends but naturally very different form each other. Initially they fight a lot with each other but eventually learn to share encouraged by a spider to do that every time they fight. Though intended for kids upto 4 years of age, even Vansh enjoyed it a lot. Both the characters were really sweet, sang and danced and ran around the room where the kids and parents were sitting on different colored carpets. In between, the kids were also asked to dance to some songs and interact. I don't have pictures from the show because photography was not allowed but there's a really cute video available online. And another good thing was that I won the tickets in a giveaway which were otherwise $18 each :)

Foster Ave Beach

After the play, we headed to a beach at Lake Michigan just a few miles away and were joined by friends. Needless to say, a lot of fun was had.

Jun 20th - Library

Our local library, by itself, is a wonderful place. I was a huge huge fan of the local library when we were in Minnesota. This one tops that too. Starting from 2 weeks back, there is a Summer Reading program on where the kids get a reading log when they register and as they read and move along, they keep getting little prizes for motivation. The kids after having reached the 16th book level got a toy each. Vansh picked up a small T-Rex and Jiya picked up a wrist band. There's also a new craft each week. Last week, it was a Father's day card they had to color and decorate. This week they made an ice-cream magnet. Also they have a new game of the week every week where the kids have to go around the library and look for clues and then put their entries in for a lucky draw. We have not been lucky so far :)

Vansh likes to play a map game on the computer where he clicks on countries he is familiar with and read about them.

Summer 2011 Writing Journal

2011-06-16T15:52:00.013-05:00

Vansh got a Summer 2011 Writing Journal at the end of his Kindergarten last week. He has to write a couple of sentences, the more often the better, and draw a picture for each entry. To make up for the utter negligence that I have rendered to my blog, I decided on the same strategy for myself. Summer is a great time for this part of the world. We have been going out on weekends and sunny week days. There have been so many fluctuations in the weather this season. Its close to 40 one day and 12 degrees the next...its bizarre! Thankfully the city is absolutely new to us and has so much to offer both in terms of indoor and outdoor fun.

May 22nd - Lincoln Park Zoo

It turned out to be a much hotter day than expected. It was hot even in the shade. So the highlights of the day were cooling off with almost baths at every water outlet along the way.

Cooling off with snow cones and showing off the rainbow colored tongues thereafter.

And an indoor air-conditioned tree house climbing for kids. We strategically asked Vansh to go first and Jiya after him so that she eggs him to go on further rather than Vansh telling her to not go any further and go back with him.

I deliberately have missed out on the animals in the zoo this time because the dainty Miss Jiya was overwhelmed with the heat and the fact that she had to walk through it. I had not carried her stroller from India thinking which soon to be 4 year old needs a stroller. Turns out that mine does. So had to buy another one after this rather hopeless trip in terms of us doing anything fruitful because she tires out so soon. Luckily we went with friends who went around the entire premises with their son and Vansh to see all the animals while we sat in a gift store with Jiya sleeping in my arms.

Jun 4 - Last Gymnastics Class

Jiya is really fond of music and sways to any music that plays quite rhythmically. When we reached here in March, preschools were not enrolling any new students because the session was anyways about to end in a few weeks. So I enrolled her in a couple of classes so that she can get out and meet some children her age, get used to the language and accent, et al. Dance was our first choice but we didn't have options for that again during that time. So we picked gymnastics and she loved it so much that she literally went through the entire class with a smile on her lips. The first session ended Jun 4th and she now says that she wants to continue with Gymnastics and not dance at the moment. Her very flexible body is a bonus.

Jun 12 - Last Soccer Game of the Spring Season

Vansh was quite keen on playing cricket right after we came here from India. The World Cup fever was on. India won it while we were here which added to the craze. I told him he could play baseball which is also a bat and ball game but realized he won't be able to continue once we move back to India. So suggested soccer (football elsewhere) to which he had had some exposure last year during the Football World Cup but didn't remember much. But he decided to try it out and after a slow luke warm start, took a liking to it and started getting the hang of it. And has even asked me to sign him up for the next season in fall. I think the fact that he got a popsicle and a really cool medal at the last game and that he looked all glam and jazz with that shiny oversized red jersey(white in some games) and the shin guards has something to do with it ;)

I think his expression in the picture is because he was trying to smile but fighting back tears too though he doesn't admit it. But yeah lately he has become way too sentimental. A phase? I don't know.

June onwards

We have undertaken a really cool project at home titled 'Around the World'. The idea came from the really cool Choxbox's really cool post on studying Mexico over here. Since Vansh has been extremely fascinated with different languages and cultures and countries, locating them on the map and the likes, I thought it would be a good time to pick it up. We started with making their own passports. We found some very neat resources online for profile pages, immigration stamps when you visit a country and the place profiles.

We started with Germany. He colored the country on Europe's map after looking it up in the Atlas. We looked about its climate and current temperatures on weather.com which anyways is bookmarked on our computer because he likes to go on it every hour, if not sooner, to check the weather conditions. Listened to the German counting song on youtube. Jiya did a craft where she colored and dressed up a German boy. And they both added details in their respective passports.

We have studied India after that but more on that later. As also our adventures from last week because duty calls now. So ciao and hope to keep up with this religiously :)

Which language do you speak?

2011-05-26T14:40:00.008-05:00

It so happened that when Vansh started going to school here, he came across a lot of different children from different cultural backgrounds and speaking many different languages. It was kind of funny, though natural for a 6 year old to ask among one of the first questions he asked his friends or in fact anybody he met, was whether they know Hindi. Hindi, being his preferred and most used language of communication, he felt comfortable if he could express himself naturally to just one friend when the rest of the time he had to talk in English, which he can speak in though not spontaneous. Now the answers of his friends started fascinating him. While someone replied that they knew just a few words of Hindi because they spoke in Telugu at home, another child said she knew Spanish, another one said Tamil and a little boy moved to our complex a few weeks back who speaks Marathi. He told his Telugu friend that he knows two words “Annam tintinawa!” and formed a bond. Similarly he told his Spanish friend “Hola!” and yet another bond was formed. Which is why childhood is considered to be so sweet and innocent. J The fascination kept growing. Since he also displays interests in names of countries, where they are located, which flights operate via them (*rolling eyes*) and so and so forth, I got him a Children’s Atlas from the library.

Now the Atlas is pretty cool for young kids in the sense that it has the very basic starting information which keeps kids occupied with the tidbits it provides and neat pull outs for every continent containing lots of information like the countries in that continent, animals found there, what’s manufactured, their flags and yes the languages spoken in the various countries. Oh my God! It was such a hit with him. Most of all for the languages he got to know people speak in different parts of the world. So many new names he didn’t know exist. His conversations were so animated. He looked like a model child, any mother’s heart would swell with pride at, when she saw her child chatting with his grandfather in India on Skype with an Atlas open in front of him and saying “Nana, do you know they speak French also in Canada, so your so and so friend must also be speaking French, ask her!” I had also told him that my mom and dad were born in Pakistan (pre-partition), so he asked them what language is spoken there and learnt a few phrases in Urdu.

During our conversations, looking at his interest I told him a few phrases of the different languages I knew, thanks to the song “Angrezi mein kehte hain ki I love you!” I told him I could say that in Bengali, Gujrati, Punjabi and boy was he impressed. (I didn’t tell him about the song though J) I threw in a few more phrases in German – Guten Morgen, Guten Naakht, and the counting eins, zwei, drei till zen. And he was thrilled asking me where I learnt all that from. I milked the opportunity like a true Desi mom and told him how I studied so much when I was a kid and learnt so many languages ;) So now when someone asks him how old he is he answers zecks and then proceeds to say that’s German for six. Showoff!! Ricky Martin came to help with his Un, dos, tres after which Maria has become his favorite song he keeps humming and claims of mastering Spanish.

I got him a book yesterday from the library which has 12 common phrases like Hello, What’s you name, Thank you, Good Bye etc in 12 different languages and he devoured it with much delight remembering his bua from Dubai, checking that Arabic is spokem there and saying next time he meets her, he’ll greet her with a Salam and the friend in class who speaks Spanish with a ¿Cómo Estás? and the Tamil friend with a Vanakkam.

At times, the scene is hilarious when four friends are playing in the park, two good at English, one at Hindi (Vansh) and the fourth one at Marathi. The two recently moved from India (the Hindi and Marathi speaking one), high on cricket take it upon themselves to teach the other two the game who have no clue how its played. So a lot of animated hand gestures, shouting out “no this, no this”, come “ikde”, “tu ye pakad” and everybody just trying to hurriedly tell everybody something in their language, we have a jolly good time, often times literally holding our tummies while laughing.

Edited to add: Thanks to his dada, who is an active member of the Sindhi Panchayat in our locality in Delhi, Vansh participated in a couple of Sindhi programs when we were there. In one of them, he learnt and recited a rhyme in Sindhi. At times, I and Ashwini speak to each other in Sindhi as a spontaneous gesture (and sometimes when we want to communicate something we don't want the kids to understand) and he picks up a few phrases. An oft repeated one is Khile thi (she is laughing) when he sees Jiya laughing and he asks me to then appreciate him for his Sindhi skills. When I tell him thats just one phrase, he recites the Sindhi rhyme that he had learnt :)

So friends, can you please leave us a phrase, any one you like in a language you know and you’ll make a boy who would be hugely interested very very happy J

Garfield Park Conservatory - a true gem!

2011-05-13T11:43:00.002-05:00

A couple of weeks back, when the weather was still not good enough to plan an outing outdoors, what with the spring being hugely late this time (or so I hear :), we went to the Garfield Park Conservatory. It was a wonderful place and we had a day well spent. Its such a huge conservatory with 8 indoor display gardens and 3 outdoor gardens. The indoor display gardens where such an amazing variety of flora thrives under huge glass vaulted ceiling makes you wonder what would it be like if they were out in the open. I was especially impressed by the Palm Room designed as an idealized tropical landscape, it's where graceful palms, interspersed with a variety of other tropicals, soar up to the ceiling as also the Fern Room where lush ferns, rocky outcroppings and an indoor lagoon evoke a swampy landscape, complete with the wet mud smell which I love.

The sights would have been enough to make the place worthwhile but the icing on the cake is there's so much to do as well, especially for the kids.

There are Scavenger Hunt sheets in the lobby itself where you enter on which there are about 10-12 different plants that you have to find throughout the Conservatory in different rooms. The kids loved it. Once they spotted some plant, they were so excited to take off the sticker from the back and stick it next to the picture of the plant on the sheet.

The Children's room is absolutely awesome. There's a big slide amidst all the plants and greenery.

When they climb up the stairs to get to the slide, there's a mezzanine where there's a sensitive plant which cringes when touched. My kids, esp the younger one adored it.

There's a book nook with books to be enjoyed in the great surroundings, a giant bee to be manoeuvred to pollinate a giant flower.

There's a discovery area where they have a sand box with toy bugs, tools to remove them, flowers, pots, and a lot more.

And plus they do a new hands on activity every Saturday and Sunday. The day we went, the kids planted their own pizza garden where they planted seeds of tomatoes, bell peppers, basil and oregano and are now proudly watching them grow at home everyday.

And the best part of all, ,its all free. Even the parking!! One of the greatest and most incredible places we have visited.

A few handy tips before you go -

- The only restrooms that are there are the ones located in the lobby as soon as you enter. Try to have the kids go their before you enter the Display Rooms rather than coming all the way back for them.

- We spent almost 3-4 hours over there because the kids were having so much fun. There's no place to order eatables inside. I had carried fruits and snacks in ziploc bags and they came in really handy.

Dear Kids

2011-05-03T14:40:00.002-05:00

A few days back I was going through my archives and came across this post and this. My God! Yes, those were tough times, really tough and I blogged about them to let it out of my system, to look for support from fellow bloggers and friends and it helped. Now, when the times are GOOD, in all fairness to both of you, I should and I am going to blog about it too :)

- Knock on wood! But the way both of you have been behaving is nothing short of awesome! Great job V and J. I mean I can actually take 45 minute long showers in contrast to the 1 minute loo break that I dreaded taking at times. You work silently on worksheets, talk to each other about the colors that will look good on whatever it is you are coloring, Vansh, you help Jiya with writing letters and when I come out from the shower, you are playing nicely and talking to each other even more nicely. And today you actually told me, "Mom, we are kind of fighting but just with words and not with our hands!" How cool is that! And then after a few more minutes, "Even the word fight is over!" *Phew* I wonder you are the same children from the posts above. Yes you have your moments of getting on each others' nerves and mine but then phrases like the ones I just mentioned so make up for it.

- The way you stand up for each other melts my heart so many times in a day. Like the other day, when I took off a 'quarter' sticker from Jiya's reward chart because she had hit you, Vansh you told me that its okay, I should give it back to her because she is little and doesn't understand the right thing at times but will not hit you again. I mean you guaranteed that for her on her behalf when you yourself were the victim just moments ago. I wish I had words to describe that feeling and more than that I wish I had a sibling who would do that for me. *Sigh*

- And Jiya, how is it that when I tell you to clean up, there is a possibility that it might fall on deaf ears (sometimes, I have to admit :) but when your hero, your older brother tells you that, I can be certain that the job will be done :) And yes, I am talking about cleaning up here, can you believe it!!

- And again, you gave me another of those I don't believe it! moments when the other day Vansh was singing his oft repeated "Bad girl Jiya" song which is more like to tease you when things don't go his way, for instance, when he is losing in a board game, I know not a very nice thing to say but then you don't seem to really mind it most of the times. But the other day, you actually laughed and told him "You are so funny! I didn't even do anything now!" , you know like its a ha-ha thing between you two and he did in the wrong context. I found it rather amazing for a 3 year old to react that way :)

So well, atta boy and atta girl! I am so loving this gig of being your mom at this phase - laughing, playing, clowning around! Amen to more such times!

Love you forever,

Mamma

Chalk and Cheese

2011-04-25T13:30:00.004-05:00

Scene 1

We are watching the movie Jumanji, all four of us. Its the scene where the young boy Peter rolls a 5 and Alan Parrish (Robin Williams) comes back from the jungles after 26 years and immediately starts calling out for his parents in his house, unaware that a lot has changed and that his parents no longer stay there. In less than a minute, Vansh asks in an extremely wavering voice which becomes quite loud when he is feeling the way he is right now, trying hard to hold back tears, "Where are his parents? When is he going to meet them? Why is he not being able to find them? Why are we watching this movie? I don't want to watch it! Lets switch it off!"

We switch it off. Before we can pacify Vansh, Jiya starts screaming "I want to watch it! I want to watch how he comes out of the game. I want to see elephants and monkeys and dinosaurs coming out of the game! Turn it on, turn it on!"

We somehow manage to settle for a break - changing into night suits, water, brush, the works! In the meantime we are able to convince Vansh that its just a movie - its fiction, it never happens for real. Alan will find his parents soon! (We hadn't watched the movie earlier but Hindi movies being our staple, we guessed he would.) We switch it on again - Vansh clings, Jiya gets closer and closer to the TV almost wanting to be a part of it. If she could, she would have just grabbed those dice and rolled them good.

Scene 2

We are at Chuck E Cheese and the Vansh is looking at some screen touch game and Jiya is going on those climbing tubes and slides. She tells me that she wants to go to the police car on the other end the way to which is a kind of a maze. I tell her she may and I'll guide her with my hand and eye movement because she can't hear me once inside the tubes. She moves on and after every meter or so there's circular peeks from where we can see each other. She keeps moving and at this point Ashwini calls out to Vansh to look at what Jiya is doing and if he would like to join her. I tell him not to do so because then Vansh wouldn't let her go either. Anyways, Vansh hadn't heard Ashwini (thankfully). So Jiya continues. She comes to a point where she has to change directions to get to the police car and I would not be visible to her for about 2 meters. I move my lips and my arms slowly to tell her to turn left and go in the green tube and then turn right. She starts but by this time Vansh comes and looks at her in the tubes and freaks out, waving to her to get back. A worried look flashes on her face. I repeat my previous arm and lip gestures. She goes on and in a few seconds reaches the police car and waves triumphantly, stays there for a few minutes and following my directions again comes back down a slide. Vansh, in the meantime has reached the end of the slide (from the floor side) and is calling out to her to come down soon.

Jiya wants to go again. Vansh tries to dissuade her. We try to encourage him to go with her. He says he'll just come down the slide (which is at the very beginning once you climb up) but is tempted to go further because there's a spaceship at one end and a police car at the other, both his favorites, asks in an uber innocent tone, "Jiya will take me there?" and somehow musters up the courage to go. Once they climb up, he is two minds whether to slide down or go ahead. Jiya is able to convince him to come behind her. The tube to the spaceship is straightforward. he quickly rushes there, stays there for like 4 seconds, follows my hand movement to the police car, stays there for another 5 (seconds) and rushes back and takes a different route. To be honest I had feared that. Its not rocket science but after all its a maze like 12 feet above the ground. Till the time I reach below him, he starts crying (we can't hear each other). I just calmly guide with my hands and lips as to which color tube to come through and he scrambles and finally back. Jiya wants to go yet again but all of us decide against it.

He is super cautious, she is brash. He is extremely sensitive, she is laid back.

And then there are other times when he'll just go and talk to people he has just met a couple of times in the apartment complex and be such an affable kid and she'll be this taking forever to warm up, unsociable child.

But what is constant is that if one is chalk, the other is cheese. We have read this pretty cute book on opposites about a brother and sister who like to do all things opposite - like drinking cold milk vs warm, playing outside vs inside, taking a light bag vs stuffing all soft toys. They seem to be playing those roles to the hilt.

Chicago - Part I

2011-03-30T22:35:00.007-05:00

As I loaded the dishwasher and went over the happenings of the day, I realized what an eventful one it had been. Not just the day, in fact this week had been pretty significant. The second car on Monday, Vansh's first day of school on Tuesday, the bed today, Jiya's Kids Club class, a preschool tour, a successful visit to the Social Security Office, and waiting for a few more big ones in the next few days. I also realized that I am never going to get time to get back to my blog, I'll have to make time in the midst of it all. So as I am waiting for the milk to cool for setting the curd, I switched on the computer and resisted the urge to go onto craigslist for finding an easel and a tent with a tunnel and after a quick look at my inbox, opened blogger. The kids are growing up way too fast with personalities emerging and changing with lightning speed and I wish at least to pen down the big points if not all.

The few friends who still follow my blog probably know already that 3 weeks back we moved to Chicago. Yeah destiny again showed its enormous presence and owing to Ashwini's job we moved yet again. What we had thought to be the final move a little over two years back turned out to be not so. Now the post can take several directions but what I had in mind foremost was to pen down how the kids are taking it, how they are conducting themselves while interacting with peers at school, at other classes, etc, how they are feeling and the likes.

I am rather pleased that they are not giving me a hard time as I had expected they would. From a joint family filled with much love and pampering and many sights and sounds all day long, someone to play with and talk to any time of the day you feel like, the charged atmosphere that results from just the fact that you are staying in a city like Delhi, to the stark contrast of the noiselessness of a quiet Chicago suburb, the weather still not conducive to pulling people out of their homes for walks and hence some socializing in a new place, I had expected them to be dull and bored the first few weeks. Luckily they were very excited about the new surroundings, literally soaking in the newness of every experience they got. From spotting the familiar goldfish (from 2 years back :)) on the Target aisles, the Cheetos that they always used to have with a Subway sandwich, the chalupa at Taco Bell, Vansh was rather happy to see he had familiarities to come back to here.

His interaction with people around has been splendid. Not withstanding that his spoken English needs much improvement, he doesn't hesitate all to say what comes to his mind when someone talks to him. He conducts himself very confidently. Two weeks back, I was at the park and in my conversation with a gentleman who was there with his son told him that we had moved from India a few days back. Vansh added to say that "we come by Lufthansa from India to Munich and Munich to Chicago". At the library, when a librarian asked him how he was he said "I work (am working) on the computer just like office!" Yesterday at his school, they took the children to the computer lab and had them do something (draw a flower, he says) on iMacs. He, needless to say, was elated and told me that today asked his teacher whether they would be going everyday to which she said no. I can bet had she said yes, his next question would have been would they be getting a laptop/iPad for home.

Jiya was confident too in her preschool program today. In a few minutes was ready to leave me and join the group for a bubble making activity. Right now she is enrolled for just once a week class and I told her that if she does well there, plays with other kids, talks to them and the teacher, I would enroll her in a dance/music class since she loves it. She is on the shy and reserved side though she is getting better. To which she said "I promise I will be good! Please enroll me now only."

In the mornings when they were home, the kids chatted with both set of grandparents and their chacha chachi, who are missing them enormously, almost everyday. Vansh told them about everything he had been doing, the new things he had been getting, showed it to them on the webcam and alongside got a chance to browse nokia and blackberry sites since he got the laptop not password protected during this time. He is way too crazy about phones and computers. He now troubleshoots online when something is not working at the grandparents' end much to their delight and admiration! At that time, the kids are almost like there again, sharing notes, making silly faces, laughing. Its really heartening that technology lets us do so much inspite of being far away.

The world of .com

2010-12-11T19:25:00.002-06:00

It so happened that one day my father in law's inbox was open on the desktop. He stepped away for a few minutes to attend to something else. It was during the time when IPL was going on this year. I think the Mumbai Indians team was flashing on the side of the inbox that caught Vansh's attention. He clicked on it and lo and behold. All the pictures that he could ever dream of, a very very catchy look with all the jazz, it was like a dream come true. He spent a lot of time on it looking at cricketers' profiles, snapshots of various matches, speeds of bowlers because speed fascinates him.

In more or less the same time frame, looking at his passionate interest in airplanes, airports, etc (he remembered the color of the two planes that we had taken one and a half years back from US to here, the time when the wheels folded when the planes took off, he remembered E8, the gate number from which we had boarded the plane and that was the first combination he made if you gave him magnetic letters and numbers), I searched for some take off videos and videos of inside the cockpit on youtube and showed it to him. His little yet fast paced mind put two and two together and gradually made him realize that there's an address bar where in you punch in a few letters followed by .com and what follows thereafter is nothing short of a magical journey. Ever since, there has been no looking back.

The things that he now does are rather amusing. One of his favorite thing to do remains looking at airplanes' videos on youtube. It helps that once you type in the first few letters of 'kingfisher', say 'kin...', several spellings come down below making his job super easy and rendering mom's help useless.

During the Commonwealth games here, he saw Ashwini look at the games' schedule and book tickets online and in short create magic again and so he added it to his mental list of favorites. He was often found browsing through the website clicking on various stadium names and trying to book tickets himself. Thank God he still doesn't know the concept of credit cards, for the concepts he does know, he puts them to excellent use. Like he once put in Ashwini's company name, say XYZ, in google. Unimpressed by the technical website which was the first result, he clicked on the second one which was a jobs website where you apply for jobs. He typed in his name at the correct place, our home phone number which he has recently memorized in the contact number space and XYZ where it said company's name and went on to announce smugly that he had applied for a job in papa's company.

He often visits spicejet.com or air-india.com to book tickets to Bangalore or Chennai which was where Ashwini recently travelled for some trainings. I mentioned his immense interest in KBC in my last post which is also a regular destination because he is very very keen to register me as a contestant.

And to get an opportunity to get his hands on the computer, he has become one smart negotiator knowing and implementing the tricks of persuasion, black mail, sweet talk to the hilt.

Updates

2010-11-11T00:14:00.003-06:00

Its been close to 8 long months since I posted last. Needless to say, so many things have happened. The kids have gone ahead and grown by leaps and bounds :) The prominent thought that clouds my mind these days is how much worse could be the teen years after all. I mean they assert themselves on what they want to wear when and where including at night, take off their jacket as soon as they get on the school bus because they anyway wore it only because I fought and insisted, on the way they want their hair to be styled, again style it the way they want as soon as they get on the school bus even if I somehow coax them into styling it the decent way. I mean is there going to be any more to it than this. God only knows how I am going to handle it!
Apart from the fights, there are good things happening too! For one, Vansh has learnt the significance of touching elders' feet. The idea has dawned on him gradually. 'You touch dadi's feet on Diwali, she gives you a 500 rupee note'. Let me try it with nana nani in the evening. Oh wow, they do the same. Thats easy!! Oh I can do that for Crax or Kurkure as well! Why didn't someone tell me that earlier! So its feet touching galore these days in these parts of the world :)
Jiya on the other hand has it even easier. Touch feet, but why? I can get the same results with a tantrum! Its an easy small one with grandma. Mom is a slightly tougher nut to crack, but crack she does, you know with a more long drawn one!
As for her shyness, things have started looking up just a teeny bit. She now greets her teachers she has been meeting for over 9 months now at her playschool with a smile. And my friends, some of whom she has been meeting for close to 2 years now at the park sometimes get a nod when they ask her a question.
Dressing up continues to be a hot favorite. She can practically wear a lehnga every single day with much joy with bangles and earrings to match. Throw in a neck piece and she'll be on top of the world unrelentingly posing for the camera.
Commonwealth games were a huge hit with Vansh and continue to be a hot favorite dominating his conversation with anybody along with Kaun Banega Crorepati. Combine both and you get a very interesting mix of questions that he throws at family members and visiting guests after inviting them to sit on the hot seat. But he's a patriot first, you know. So the answer to the question, 'Who won the most medals at Commonwealth Games 2010?' would be met with a 'Galat Jawab' if you answer Australia instead of India :)
So that was my latest update and my come back post. Lots more to say and intend to say I do much more regularly from now on since I am home again after a short stint at work.

Vansh turns 5 and another BIG news

2010-03-17T05:07:00.004-05:00

So finally the wait ended, the wait that lasted almost a year when he kept asking whose birthday is it next and had the order on his finger tips and kept repeating "Pehle nani ka b'day aayega, phir papa, phir Jiya, .... , phir chachi ka b'day, phir dadi ka aur phir VANSH KA!" In the last week before his b'day, he had already started saying "You know, next year I'll turn 6 years old!" oft leading to responses like "How about first turning 5 dude!"

But its so heart warming to see and feel the excitement, the glee in his voice and the wonder in his queries. "So will you buy me new clothes for 5 year old children then, new shoes too?", "So will I grow taller?", "When will I turn as old as papa?" and then the countdown every morning, "Is it today" followed by a whiny "Why not?" I wish for you to be always so enthusiastic about beginning a new year in your life, dear son as I wish for you the bestest of joys and the most wonderful cheer. I do expect a lot from you, you know that and we try hard together. We are successful in some things and have to try even harder in some more.

The other BIG news is that I get back to work next week. After 6 long years ..haaah. Even though its a 7 week contract to begin with, but for me, its still big. Its in the school that I worked in before getting married and moving to the US. I am thrilled to be getting back. You know out of the total of 5 meals that I have to feed my allergic-to-food and even more allergic-to-the feeding-mommy kids, 3 would be done by the daycare that we decide to put them in while I am away!!!! How cool is that?! Okay so thats not the only thrill factor ;) I had to go to meet the Principal and my HOD (Head of Department) today and Vansh was home with his grandmother. He was a bag full of questions when I returned ...

- So did you teach today? You were mam today? Don't make faces the way you do with me, okay, otherwise children will say our mam is so funny! Ohh, okay, thanks for the reality check!

- So who will drop me at my bus stop and who'll pick me up? Oh so if you go before me, I'll drop you at your bus stop, okay!

- Today he got quite worried about going to his Karate class, my mother in law told me. he even changed into his uniform and told her "Will you please take me since mamma has been away for so long?" when we have to go only inthe evening at 5:00 and I returned at like 12:00 :) But to be honest I felt good about the role that I play in his life and that he is realising it.

- Jiya chipped in with her queries - so will you go in Bhaiya's school bus? Why not?

I have a lot of apprehensions myself. To be working first time ever after having kids. I am so used to being there for them all the time as are they. What would it be like? I hope and I pray to the kind Lord to be especially generous with his blessings on us right now, to watch over us as we start yet another new chapter in our lives.

The Journey to the Achievement Week

2010-03-09T00:00:00.007-06:00

Vansh has in his school starting today what they call the achievement week, in which basically they would be tested and graded on whatever they have done throughout the year. As I and Ashwini cajoled him into learning at least 2 more rhymes out of the 20 odd rhymes, other than the ‘Aeroplane, aeroplane’ and ‘Lal peeli motor’ in a last ditch effort last evening, I realized that making him prepare for the said week has been a rather amusing experience.

- As you might have noticed, the rhymes that he did remember well are related to transport. No surprise that. Day before yesterday, I asked him to narrate the 'teddy bear, teddy bear turn around rhyme’ which he narrated as ‘teddy bear, teddy bear up in the sky; where are you going flying do high’. Basically he was just replacing the aeroplane word with the teddy bear in the ‘Aeroplane, aeroplane’ rhyme. On being asked what was he saying, he replied that the teddy bear is riding in the aeroplane. Hmmm, okay – what can one say to that except laughing at the logic!

In another instance last evening, Ashwini asked him to narrate a rhyme titled ‘2 little apples’. I’ll quote the conversation that took place :-

Vansh – 3 little monkeys jumping on the bed

Ashwini – I asked you to narrate 2 little apples

Vansh – No, 4 little monkeys …

Ashwini – 2 little apples

Vansh – No, 6 little monkeys …

Ashwini – 2 little …

Vansh – 10 little monkeys … (reminded me of the times when I tell him he’ll have to repeat a word he doesn’t remember 5 times, if he resists I go on increasing the number to 6,7,8 – its his turn now, hmm!)

Ashwini – Okay, lets just make it 2 little monkeys …

Vansh – 6 little monkeys jumping …

Chachi called the doctor …

Chacha called the doctor …

Dadi/Dada/ Papa/ Mamma called the doctor …

Us : Oh! So that was the logic behind the 6 jumping monkeys. Each one from the family ought to get a chance to call the doctor!

- I made him several worksheets for English, Hindi and Maths to practice matching the picture with the correct letter, circling the correct letter, counting and circling the correct number and the like. Many a times he liked to do his own thing with those.

This is what a typical worksheet on matching looked like. I couldn’t just give it to him and then proceed to check it some time later for that would be a maze exercise for me to see whether the picture is actually connected with the correct letter. I would have to actually look at him start from a particular picture, doodle endlessly and finally reach the corresponding letter. Normal is boring for this little fella!

He once didn’t want to work on any Maths worksheet because he was bored and said that he wanted to make one of his own. So he picked up a template and came up with this.

He made several English worksheets too at the back of the ones I gave to him to work on. I just have one picture though he made much better ones when the idea was novel to him and he drew meticulously.

The zig-zag matches with the Z, thats an umbrella matched with the U and a Race-car with the R. The big curve on the right is lots of smoke from the race car since it moves so fast.

He decided to spruce up a plain looking hurriedly made ‘What comes after’ worksheet by drawing an amusing looking Papa on it. And didn't deem the worksheet important enough to be completed, by the way.

- I am not sure if I have mentioned before that Vansh is extremely conscious of his public image, especially his image at school. I have a mighty hard time explaining that at home, he is the total opposite of the really the sweet docile boy that he pretends to be in front of friends. At PTM’s, when I and his class teacher (whom he is very very fond of and would do anything to be in her good books) exchange notes, I am like “Are you sure, you are talking about the same Vansh that I am talking about?” The difference shows in his work too. While his class work is immaculate and like his teacher claims among the first one to be finished, he likes to do his own thing taking his own time at home. On a regular basis, he does not write the counting in the correct order. He’ll first write say the 20’s line, then spend some time thinking where the 70 would come and then write the line backwards till 61 and so on. While practicing to draw a garden scene for his art test the next day, this is what he came up with at school and then at home. The school one is complete with a shining sun, trees and flowers and a bunny. He wanted to just make a big sun sitting in the garden and kept drawing rays of the sun.Then he wanted to draw a dog in its kennel which is what that square is.

Are they really 4 and 2?

2010-02-11T00:08:00.005-06:00

Experts from a couple of conversations last morning and evening respectively, with the supposedly 4 and 2 year old residents of the household

Vansh took a long time to get up and out of the bed last morning, more than 20 minutes and considering that morning is really the time when 'every minute counts' lest you miss the school bus, it was a lot. After about 10 minutes of trying several ways to make him get up, it came to a point where I told him, threatened him would be more like it that I would now stop telling him to get up. He can get up whenever he wants to and then I'll ready him and walk him to school even if that means he reaches an hour late. And if after getting up, his taking a bath clashes with anyone else's bath time in the house, he would have to wait even further. And I actually intended to follow through. The boy still slept for a further 10 minutes as I strolled around the house, pretending to be not losing it! I don't know what ultimately made him get out of bed but when he did, we just had enough time to rush to the bathroom, rush through the daily 'motions' (I think I experienced the smallest unit of time yesterday as the one between the time I made him sit on the pot and the time it took for the potty to come out!) and rush with the bath and the dressing up before rushing out the door for the bus. We were late by about 5 minutes but there were still about 3-4 minutes before his school bus came and guess what this guy has the cheek to tell me, as I acted all angry with him for doing what he just did ...

"See, even after getting up so late, I can get ready in time for the school bus!" !!!!!

Later in the evening, Jiya was busy with one of her favorite things - doodling on her palm and wrist with a red pen claiming to be applying 'mehndi'. Her grandmother asked her to give the pen to her as she wanted to work with it. And this is the conversation that followed:

Jiya: I won't give this to you. You take another one!
Grandma: I don't have another one. Please give me this one!
Jiya: Then you can buy another one from the market.
Grandma: How can I buy another one?
Jiya: Are you a boy or a girl?
Grandma: You tell me!
Jiya: Girl!
Grandma; Then?
Jiya: Boys have wallets and girls have purses! So you take money from a purse and buy a red pen from the market. I will not give you this one!

Huh! I am actually amazed at the way these two think!

Yay to a happy beginning at play school

2010-02-01T00:16:00.005-06:00

Aah ..so it took Jiya to start play school to shove me out of the self imposed hiatus. Undoubtedly a big milestone! We went through tough winters this year in ways more than one - illnesses took away major chunks of time and energy but anyways that's not what I sat down to write about.

Jiya finally started play school today after us contemplating the thought for almost 5 months now. I expected her to cry and give me a tough time for at least 2-3 weeks, if not more, considering that she is often found 'charging herself on her charging pad' which happens to be my shoulder, several times in a day, refusing to go to anyone else in the house no matter what the bait; she refuses to let go of my lap in a new situation or even in a very familiar situation like going to the park, when there are good number of people around, even if they are reasonably familiar to her. Her reactions about going to school had been varied. More often than not, when asked whether she would go to school, she would say only when she grows up and it kept going on like that. She seemed keen to go but nowhere in the near future. Basically I expected there to be water works and tantrums and the like. But she just went. A little resistance to leave my hand but her teacher just picked her in her lap and took her inside her classroom where the kids were singing the 'ABC' rhyme. I resisted the urge to peep inside because the longer I stayed, the greater the chance of her crying became. We decided to start her with an hour today and at the end of the hour, she was just as fine. Her teacher told me she colored and gelled well with the kids and asked me to bring her for 2 hours tomorrow. Phew!! Goes on to show how well we assume we know our kids and how they just wait for their turn to prove us wrong :)

I waited, just as eagerly for the conversation between the siblings once Vansh returned from his school. They are getting more and more meaningful, retaining the innocence and the charm at the same time. He had been very excited since Saturday about Jiya starting school from Monday. He asked her what she did to which she said "I colored". He asked "What else?" "Nothing else" came the reply :)

I stop here right now ..there's lots to write and share with you who read this and with myself when the kids are all grown and I get back to this blog to read about what my days once used to be like. I often think about those days to come and I smile. To be honest at this point of time I long for those days when there would be no more tantrums, no more screaming and yellings, no more getting every request of mine being met with resistance, no more physical tiredness from tending to two young children. However, I look at some friends who are there already and sense in them a longing to be back in my shoes :) The circle of life ..as elusive as ever.

Tidbits

2009-11-17T04:06:00.003-06:00

Some days I really wish I had more time on my hands to jot down the bitter sweet hapenings of these early years of the kids. It is so interesting to hear them talk so much and get to know what they think, how they make sense of the world around them. Anyways let me attempt to ruffle up a quick post about tiny tidbits with one eye on the clock above me which shows they'll be up from their afternoon nap any minute and the other eye on them, one on each level of the bunk bed, a rare and a precious sight.

- We took the kids to pick out their shoes last weekend to a neighborhood market shop. Vansh picked out the most gaudy looking shiny red and black pair. I tried to (not so) gently encourage him to pick more sober ones but Ashwini told me to let him has his way rather than fighting everyday over making him wear it. Wise man, considering that just the previous night, we had spent over 45 minutes doing just that - fighting over what he wanted to wear at the birthday party and what we thought he would look 'dressed for the occasion' in. Ashwini learnt his lesson in those 45 minutes, the silly me forgot even after such episodes every other day.

- While on shoes, all Jiya wants to wear are her golden sandals wherever she goes. Even to the toilet, yeah! and the park. She doesn't mind being the only one even after I point out to her that all kids she knows there are wearing shoes. I am waiting for the 'conformity' factor to kick in. Right now she also likes to flaunt her picked 'color of the day' chunni with whatever it is she is wearing - skirt, jeans, frock! Why wouldn't she - after all she does manage to catch everybody's attention and often adulation. Churis and bindis are a regular feature too and nailpolish she brings thrice a day to me. I swear I have no idea how she got into it so thick because I am nowhere close to what she is aiming to be!

- Sibling love shines through many a times during a day these days. They still fight like cats and dogs, often making me nervous to even take that bathroom break. Friends ask me why I take them out so much even to nonsensical places at times and I tell them that's because I find it impossible to control/keep them entertained at home! Like I said it becomes hard for me to go use the bathroom, even. Anyways back to sibling love. These two have wonderful conversations when Vansh returns from school. Jiya tells him the highlight of her day and Vansh shares his. Today from a collection of goody bags he had got as it was three of his classmates' birthday, he took out a packet of Cadbury Gems and told Jiya he had got it for her because she likes it so much :) And when Jiya shows him her mehndi she has doodled on her hands with a pen or any such small thing, he responds with an "Arre wah! yeh to bahut accha hai!" I wonder how he suddenly grows up so much around her.

..... might be continued ... :)

Dear Grandchildren

2009-10-13T05:09:00.003-05:00

I write this letter to you as a mother to your dad, who is now 4 and a half and would be 30 something when u read this, with the exact intention of letting you know all that he did to me. I already look up to you to avenge me - the drama, the tantrums, the ignoring, the whining! Your grandma writes to you to give you ideas to do all this and more as I watch from the corner finally smiling that triumphant smile and waving my fore finger and nodding my head to say "See, life does come full circle!"

- Starting morning, as I give him his bed milk (yeah that's a 4 year old's equivalent of bed tea), he wants to drink it propped against one particular pillow, with one and only one particular teddy bear in hand, all the curtains drawn and the door shut with me outside. As I rush back after 10 minutes as the time demands for him to be bathed immediately to be ready for school in time, I see the glass still half full and him sleeping peacefully and he asks for some more time to finish that half glass which ultimately he still doesn't!

- After being bathed, he takes delight in taking off that towel and running naked all around the house making sure no one misses that visual often in front of the window as well for the outside world to see, after being told a thousand times its not right.

- When I call him to wash his hands/brush his teeth/go use the bathroom, he comes up with a hundred and twenty seven things to do that he just remembered on his way to the wash basin and that need his immediate attention. Why don't I just let him be you ask, well one that too is met by him flinging himself around my legs and shouting why I treat him like this and two, well who do you think would have to deal with stomach flu's and rotten teeth ..ah the price one has to pay to be a parent!

- When I tell Jiya, your bua, that the chocolates in the fridge are finished and the market is closed to get any more, he tells me not to lie to her right there in front of her and argues endlessly when I try to explain!

- On being told that we are going somewhere on a particular day, he asks me a hundred and thirty six questions on a typical day till the time we actually go which range from which mode of transport would we be going by, why can't we use any other, why we are going, when would we come back, when does tomorrow come, when do day and night come, what is today and what is tomorrow, but why isn't today tomorrow - you get the drift, right?!

Its a struggle kids, it really is ...so go ahead now's your time and now's HIS turn! I am here to support you!

Conversations ...

2009-09-01T05:31:00.004-05:00

...between the siblings - sweet, innocent, delightful, fill up our household with much cheer these days. Its sheer joy listening to their understanding of the complexities of the world and how it functions. One such conversation went like this

Jiya (to Vansh) - dhishkaaon, dhishkaaon (some gun sounds)

Vansh: Jiya aise nahin karo, main aapko chowkidaar ke paas le jaaonga. (Jiya, don't do that or else I'll take you to the guard) and goes on to pick her up by putting his hands under her arms.

Jiya: Nahin, nahin, nahin, nahin. Sorry bhaiya! (No, no, no, no, sorry big brother)

Vansh: Theek hai, ab nahin le jaaoonga! Mamma, Jiya ne sorry bol diya. Ab use chowkidar ke paasle jaane ki zarrorat nahin hai! (Alright, I won't take you now. Mom, I don't need to take Jiya to the guard now!)

Jiya (with a naughty twinkle in her eye) : Dhishkaaon, dhishkaaon

... and runs away with Vansh running after her, the house reverberating with their squeals. :)

And these conversations are the rays of hope and of delight in the tough times we have been facing for the last close to 2 months. Jiya has been catching one infection after another. It started with an ear infection. The ENT specialist that we went to prescribed 7 medicines for her including antibiotics. I read about it extensively on the internet and gave her only 2 - the acitamenophen and the ear drops and it went away. Some masty 9-10 boils followed all over her body. After the 4th boil, when they refused to subside and continued to pop up, she was prescribed a week of antibiotics. A week or so later when I took her to her pediatrician for a fever, which thankfully turned out to be viral and went away in a couple of days, a more serious problem was diagnosed. Her lymph nodes in the neck area were swollen, most likely because of the bacterial skin infections earlier and another week of antibiotics followed accompanied by medicines for relieving the fever. More medicines had to be added to counter the side effects of the antibiotics because she had developed blisters deep inside her mouth. I hate giving 5 ml of so many medicines when all you needed in the US was 1.6 ml of Tylenol sparingly but then I don't have a choice. A possible reason for the swollen lymph node could be that her ear infection never healed properly which is why this happened - I can never know. She cries and cries. I have to literally force her little body under my legs as I lay her down, force open her mouth and hold it open with one hand and hold her nostrils shut with the other as I put the syringe/dropper filled with the medicine and empty it there so that she can't spit it out. 3-4 meds at one time takes close to an hour which means the poor child spends close to 3 hours crying resisting the awfulness which is still forced upon her.

And then suddenly she started getting up in the middle of the night and howling like crazy. She would slither away from our hands and just cry endlessly. After trying a lot of things and watching her diet very carefully, on the third such night we just took her to the Emergency. The doctor there prescribed gas and colic drops. We called her ped the next morning and he asked us to get a urine test and culture and a stool test. Instinctively I knew it was a Urinary Tract Infection and I was right. The ped told us that it had been detected early and it could have led to much worse symptoms. So she is on another week of unavoidable antibiotics. Always a petite baby, she now looks more lean than ever and as a result everyone notices and comments - advices on what to feed her and how, what and what not to do follow - well meaning but it gets a lot at times. Unfortunately its become a vicious cycle I think - infections, antibiotics, low body resistance, more infections - yikes!!

I just pray to God to break the cycle soon. Very very thanfully she's a chirpy child throughout the day. And I am getting better at shortening the medicine administering and hence the crying time.

Meal Times

2009-08-17T05:51:00.000-05:00

...just got a tad bit easier these days. I keep my fingers and toes tightly crossed as I type this. Handing Vansh a worksheet he picks himself to work on - ranging from coloring to pre-reading, pre-math, mazes, basic crosswords has him busy working on those as I put in one morsel after another in his mouth.

The plus - he stays put and works.

The thrill - he is READING and doing a good job at it.

The bonus - Jiya wants to do the same and stays put for her meal too.

Sometimes you seem to have hit the JACKPOT while parenting!!! Amen to more such times!

Watch the video to get jealous if you have kids who run away when you try to feed them and just for fun if you are in the other minority category.

And tell me what are your tricks?

Four years and counting

2009-08-10T04:44:00.006-05:00

These are some of Vansh's thoughts on 'growing big', something he is currently obsessed with and talks about a lot -

- Mamma, you know I am going to be 5 years soon (7 months is soon enough, no), then I'll be 6, then 7, then 8, then 9, then 10, then 11, then 40, then 80, then 90 to 100 to 40 to 69 to 500. For once I thank God he doesn't know his counting well enough to say all the numbers till 100 in the correct order.

- When I grow bigger than you, then I will scold you.

- When will I become bigger than you? Then will I be bigger than papa also? And goes on to ask the same question about all the other members of the family including Jiya. And I'll be bigger than Jiya also?When I ask him 'But aren't you already bigger than Jiya?' , he has that part amused and part embarassed expression on his face at having asked a silly question which he voices with an "Oh!" :)

- Mamma, jab aap aur bade ho jaaoge na, tab aap doctor banoge, pata hai! (Mamma, when you grow up even more, you'll become a doctor, you know!)

Ok?! But I was a teacher you know and that's what I'll be when I return to work.

Nahin jab aap aur bade ho jaoge, tab bol raha hoon! (No when you grow up even more, then you will be a doctor).

As for hiw own career plans, they oscillate between a Metro Train Construction Engineer to a doctor depending on where he went that particular day.

Heard yesterday ...

2009-07-15T00:03:00.003-05:00

... as I entered the room after brushing my teeth and changing into my night dress, both the siblings lying down on the same pillow face to face with a smile and deep in conversation

Vansh - Jiya kaunsi kahaani sunaoon? (Jiya which story should I tell you?)

Jiya - aaannnn ..Giaff wali (aannn ..the Giaff one)

Vansh - Giraffe waali nahin aati (I don't know the Giraffe one)

Jiya - aaaannnn ...Monkey waali (annn ..the monkey one)

Vansh - monkey waali bhi nahin aati (I don't know that either)

Jiya - phir kaunsi aati hai (which one do you know then?) (this is where my jaw started to drop, she actually has the logic and the righht words to express that??!! when? where? how?)

Vansh - accha main monkey or metro train waali sunata hoon (Ok I'll tell you the monkey and metro train one) (oh yeah, you just have to meet Vansh for 5 minutes to realize thathe's obsessed with metro trains.)

And he then goes on to narrate a 2 line story where the monkey first boards the train to Ambience mall and then after having fun there boards it again to City Square mall. And is met with generous doses of boisterous emphatic laughter from the captive audience who can never awe her brother enough.

The winds of change ...

2009-07-14T00:32:00.004-05:00

... have been blowing through the Sukhwani household for some time now. And bringing about changes in ways more than one. Changing a largely self centred toddler/pre-schooler into a child who thinks about others, feels for them and at times even puts himself in their shoes and empathises. Changing a shy child who shut himself off just watching from a distance as relatives and friends tried to talk to him, grew violent if someone pushed too hard, into a child who's learnt pleasant talk and a pretty cute one at that :), someone who doesn't hesitate to wave hello to a boy accross the road whom he has been seeing board his school bus at the same time as himself in the morning or to an elderly gentleman whom he sees in the park in the evening and who is becoming increasingly competent at striking a conversation himself.

It makes me wonder as to how these amazing changes take place. There must be a variety of reasons I can attribute these changes to. I remember noticing some of them and date them to as much as 9-10 months back. I remember talking to Ashwini about it when on a pretty crowded Dandiya night, he had asked me to accompany him to watch some of the older kids play. He had joined in, albeit for a few minutes, after a long time of watching and it was a big leap for him to take because not very long back he had preferred sitting in the car alone in the parking lot in front of the small lawn in which we practised for the same dandiya night because the crowd intimidated him. Even after coming back to India, he had been shy at most occasions and preferred to stay by the people he was close to. At the park in the evening, he called out to me or Jiya to play with him when other children played among themselves. He reasoned to me and to himself in the process that shouting, being somewhat rough with each other, negotiating their turns for batting/bowling/swinging all of which is a part and parcel of playing among a coterie of friends, made them bad children and so he didn't want to play with them. Now I see him as a part of the same coterie, still not as steady, not as sure of the small to-be-made decisions he is faced with everyday. I see it on his face when someone asks him for a ride on his bicycle and he contemplates because this one is a good friend but yesterday he has had an unpleasant experience with another child who refused to return it to him even after a good amount of time, the uncertainty in his voice when he too wants to bat and makes an attempt to fight for what he wants to do. I see him slowly getting there as he tries to make sense of the dynamics driving various relationships. He makes quite a few assumptions like he'll be called a silly boy just because he is new wanting to join an already formed group of friends or he'll be left out and not played with because he decides to not share his cycle. His actions thus look like the wobbly first steps of a baby as he walks the fine line between being accepted and being rejected. I see the effects of peer acceptance and peer influence shaping his personality.

As a parent, it makes me sit up and take note. I myself wonder about what my reaction should be, what should I tell him to do and how, which battles should I let him brave himself and which are the ones I should get into myself. I walk the fine line with him where I want my child to be accepted and liked by his peers and at the same time not be walked over. To be honest, I wonder when other mothers remark that he is very sweet to be so forthcoming about sharing his things whether he is being a tad too sweet. For though I wouldn't dwell upon it too much here but I do see the society including the children becoming a bit too intolerant and self centered at least to my comfort. So even though morals and ethics ask me to tell him to be loving and sharing, practicality asks me to also make him skilled to fight his battles when the need be. And so at times, I do tell him in a humored way, making it sound funny, to threaten the child who teases him and doesn't stop even after Vansh asking him to do so, that he's going to complain to his mom. At this point it has been working. I do walk up to the boy who rides his bicycle as if its his own totally ignoring the fact that its actually another child's who's been sweet enough to share it with him and ask him in sweet but firm tone to let him have it back. Children today have become mighty good with their arguments, I must say and so I don't expect them to always listen to a 4 year old and so I intervene.

Peer influence also means that we have to deal with rough behavior, unpleasant sounding words and tones which he clearly picks up from children at school/summer camp. While his teachers are all praises about him being a good and polite child at school, at home he does try out whatever he observes/hears other kids do. We are still at a very very primitive stage in dealing with this behavior because its just now that we have realised the reason behind it. Earlier we addressed the behavior as his own but now we realise the focus would have to shift a bit to make him understand and realise where its coming from and its effects. I would so appreciate help from readers/parents who have experienced this on ways to deal with it.

I see that this post has already become a long one. And so I'll sign off here - the thinking about others and feeling for them part I'll leave for part 2 of the same post :)

Happy jai jai jai jai :)

2009-07-02T00:11:00.000-05:00

Dear Jiya

As I sit down to write your second birthday letter, the first thought as always is two years? Already? And the mind races back to the day and time it happened. At Michaels' right across our apartment building on July 1, 7:00 in the evening a sales associate asked me " When are you due?" and I told here " I am in labor right now!" and it was funny to see her reaction :)The ride to the hospital, who all I spotted on the way, the contractions, the joy on being told I was already 5 cms dilated all come back as clearly as they happened that day.

So to relive the joy of the day and the life ever since, let me pen dpwn the lovely and the not so lovely things you are upto these days :)

You talk in paragraphs now. "Jiya bhookha nahin laga, pyasi laga hai. Chana nahin do, pani de do." (Jiya is not hungry, she is thirsty. Don't give me chana, give me water) You like to assume the role of the entire family's caretaker when you ask whether everyone's taken a bath ,combed their hair and whether everybody's water been taken when we go out.

You sing turning even the simplest of sentences into loud laugh inducing pieces. So hard as we try to pretend to be fast asleep so that you also decide to do the same, a little voice falls in our ears singing" Elephant pillow pe soyega Jiyaaaaa", "Jiya ne dudhu pi liyaaaaa" and we burst out laughing joined in by delighted squeals from you as well. Even the classic 2 year old "nahin's" to every question we ask come as songs :)

Its amazing to see the various shades of your personality, sharing delightedly one moment, willing to give away everything you have and fighting fiercely the next for that one single block even if you have the whole box. The tantrums are fierce, lying down on the floor and screaming ones and nothing seems to work when they happen.

You refuse to walk more than five steps when we step out and ask to be picked up in mamma's godi. Except if we are in a quiet, cool, sparsely populated with people and densely populated with flora and fauna place like Kasauli and closer to home India Gate where you walk with a charming jig and humming a tune often. You also like to be held very close when we go to the park and I a stop to talk to friends even if there are other children you see on a daily basis playing around. But I am sure you'll realize soon that most of the fun happens away from mom rather than in her lap.

You used the end of your washcloth as a pacifier when you slept or in general when you felt the need to pacify yourself. thsi ahppened for the longest time, so much so, that its even recorded in your chacha's wedding video and pictures. I finally gathered the courage last week to do what it takes to take take away an addiction. Expectedly you have been dispalying withdrawal symptoms. So if I don't, for some reason, take you inside for sleeping while you are still in a good mood (which is when the above mentioned songs flow out), I have had it. Last afternoon, I spent over an hour and a half pacing the floor with you because you wanted to sleep in my lap being carried and the moment Ilaid you down seeing that you were fast asleep, you bawled and woke up. This happened thrice. And at times like these, its impossible to calm you down. Last week the game on my phone worked. Yesterday it didn't. Fianlly it was 'lakki lakki' (lakdi ki kathi) and 'bum bum bum' (bum bum bole) with earplugs in your ears that did the trick. I wonder who was more exhausted at the end of it when both of us slept like logs for two hours.

You are such an entertainer. The songs, the dances - whether its imitating steps while watching the latest Bollywood chart toppers on TV or singing "Saas gali dewe, te samjha samjha dewe" or singing "jai jai sai, jai jai sai" yourself and clapping and dancing to the the same, no one can help but smile at this charming little two year old, that's you. You make Vansh too laugh out so loud when you we ask you "papa kahaan gaye" and you reply "dance karne" or when I ask you "Jiya ko itna badmaash kisne banaya" and you say "Chacha ne" or when you sing "Happy jai jai jai jai" instead of "Happy Birthday to you." And all of this you do with much elaan as if you know so well that all that you are doing is being appreciated by the captivated audience.

You follow your big brother like an idol. So wanting water, not wanting water, wanting to eat chau (rice), not wanting to eat chau, wanting to drink froma sipper/cup/bottle, wanting to go potty, wanting the same red block - all happen in pairs. The result is hilarious at times and hair pullingly frustrating at others. But I have to tell you something. While I would like to be absolutely fair to both you and Vansh, many a times in order to maintain oeace when VAnsh is in a good mood, I do tell him to let you have your way. Most of the times he is pretty good about it. At others he does so grudgingly shotuing "Jiya gandi ladki hai." but he loves you to bits. Yesterday in part frustartion and part inquisitiveness as to how he would react, I offered to him to take you back and leave you in the hospital. In his way with clenched teeth and a voice which came out with a lot of force, which in my style would translate to an extremely teary eyed response, he said "Jiya acchhi lagti hai. USe mat chhod ke aao" (I like Jiya a lot, don't leave her in the hospital).

Whatever catches your fancy, you decide to do it innumerable times in day. So a while back it was playing with the magnetic letters which you demanded to be taken out the first thing in the morning and the last thing at night., then it was Vansh's transport puzzle and now the latest obsession is Leap Frogs' Letter Factory and Word Factory DVD's. You watch them at least 3 times in a day if not more.

And now the most special to me - I love the way you love me. I love the way you get me whatever it is that you are eating when I am in the kitchen and insist that I eat it from your hand, the way you ask for me first thing in the morning when yiu wake uo and walk out the door, the way you keep showering me with sloppy kisses and hugs and singing "I like mamma" as you do that, the way you look at me when I am feeling low as if you understand everything and then come close to me and cuddle and put your little face in the hollow of my neck. I love you sweetheart for all that and more. And I wish for you the very best always. I look forward to mothering you for yet another fun filled and eventful year for I know that it sure is going to be a big one. I wish for it to be filled with wonderful moments, loads and loads of love and happiness and joys.

Much love today and always
Mamma.

Forgiveness ...

2009-06-17T05:27:00.003-05:00

.. is what I ask of you dear daughter for the last proper update I did for you was at 14 months and now you stand just 2 weeks short of your 2nd birthday!! *gulp* Before you shout "Sacrilege", let me just tell you that I have been making notes of the giant leaps which have been the last 10 months for you and I'll publish them here, just like that, in bits and pieces for your birthday :) I know you'll forgive me because finally there's one person for whom I know I am the world and that's you :) As for now, life's really cool for you.
You drink juice straight from the box and get away with it with just an impish smile and your signature coy expression of putting your hands on top of your face and giggling. You get to play the patient to a doting doctor you have for a brother.

And you get to watch your favorite videos with breakfast served right there.

Must feel like heaven, eh?!

And forgiveness is what I ask of you dear readers and friends for still not posting the promised Kasauli pics. Let's just assume that I have been keeping quite busy and I'll post them soon. So "Friends, I have been keeping quite busy and I'll post them soon! Till next time Chao!"

A weekend getaway to Kasauli

2009-05-12T04:57:00.003-05:00

Am yet to upload pictures of the tranquil serene destination that we went to on a 3 day trip. We stayed at Gharkal from where Kasauli is another 3 kms. We also drove to Chail, another beautiful city in the same state that's Himachal Pradesh. There was nothing much to do and so all we did was relax, took walks in the small markets with the old city charm and the lovely trails which offered bountiful treats to the senses.

The view from the hotel room was very very soothing - vast expanses of mountains with trees all over, old rustic houses with their residents tending to their everyday chores beginning early morning. I set the alarm for 6' o clock in the morning because I absolutely love the early morning sights and sounds at such places but woke up even before the alarm rang. I went to the terrace first alone and then with Vansh who also woke up soon after and marveled at the scenery as he followed the rumbling buses going up and down the hilly roads and declared that we too ask his school bus to pick him up from this hotel where he was loving it (yeah thats his words not mine) and also told me not to worry as he would be late coming back from school because "Hotel door hai na!" (the hotel is far, no!)

I loved being able to wake up the next morning and read a book in bed, not having to worry about breakfast and packing lunches and sending Vansh off to school and then the kids snuggling close to me and laughing out loud on being tickled and poked and then waking up Ashwini by doing the same. The happy family picture portrayed in advertisement jingles was now my own and I thanked God through and through for that.

Vansh learnt the difference between the yellow number plate of a taxi and the white one of a private vehicle and spent the next two days pointing out one from the other.

He acted like such a darling big brother asking Jiya to take a nap as there was still some time to go before we reached, holding her hand to ensure her safety if the path became steep. In another instance, he called our room phone from his grandparents' room (it was a superhit pastime activity for him - calling up across rooms on the hotel intercom), realised that Jiya was asleep on the bed in our room and immediately cut the phone so as not to disturb her and came back to tell me the same.

The kids loved taking walks on the trails. While Jiya refuses to get down from my lap even if there are very few people around anyplace we go but she literally walked with a jig on the quiet and beautiful trails, the kids threw stones in the deep valleys beneath, picked up sticks and just beat around with them as I took pleasure in watching one of the sights I enjoy the most - kids revelling in the most simple pleasures Mother nature endows on us. They themselves quitened down to listen when the breeze blew causing the leaves to rustle, asking what it was or when they heard a koel cooing its sweet 'coo' and then imitated the same sound themselves.

I wanted to pen down these heart warming memories I returned with even though the pictures are missing. I'll most likely update the post with the pictures in a day or two.

Updates and the motherhood tag

2009-05-03T05:21:00.003-05:00

God really is omnipresent. All you have to do is call him in your life and ask and he is there giving you hints, showing you signs in things you see, you read, people you meet and there joining the pieces together, you see they fit giving you your answers. And so as I struggled with the 'phase', I prayed to Him to show me the correct path, to give me more patience and strength and he started showing me the signs, one after the other in the form of friends writing to me - once again thanks so much Kodi's mom for the detailed mail with the empathy and the tips and then the wonderfully thought out post. You have sorted out your feelings and thoughts and in the process mine so coherently. The biggest lesson learnt is and I quote "Who cares a rat ass about what some random stranger thinks about my child?" Bang on right, you go girl! What comes to mind is the famous shloka from the Bhagwad Gita

Karmanyeva dhikaaraste ma faleshu kadachan

I pray to God to help me do the correct thing and I leave the rest to him.

Thank you Subha for this post of yours on letting some things be, taking joy in others and just learning along the way as you enjoy.

Thank you Tharini for always inspiring with your posts. Just this passage from one of your posts made me see things from a child's perspective and made me re-think my disciplining strategies.

"....Its not easy being them either. Its not easy being a child, who has no authority. Its not easy being told what to do all day long. Instruction after instruction belted out, in very impatient tones, hardly aware of the effect of such a thing. Words spoken in haste, actions stemming from harshness, a cold withering look, impatience to listen, overruling in a second.....how easily and how much all this becomes a habit."

Thank you each one of you who took the time out to empathise and comment and tell me that this too shall pass. Just knowing that other moms you appreciate and exchange notes with have been there at some point of time gives you a degree of comfort that its not something that I am doing thats making all this happen.

And thank you dearest mom for being my pillar of strength. You, who is a stickler for perfection and good behavior, told me that its okay. Its a phase that I have to display utter patience in, shower my love on him, win his trust and confidence so much that he actually looks forward to being good for me. The more I think about what you said, the more the statement unfolds itself for me making sense all along.

So we are getting there slowly and steadily. I am looking for more and more ways to say yes, trying to listen myself and teach him to listen when we speak, helping him cool down when he begins to lose it, tell myself that at least 1 in 10 times he'll remember what I told him and that'll be a start and cherish the moments when he tells Jiya "You are small Jiya but I am the elder one and so you can have a turn first, I'll wait for mine" or "Mamma I am going to look at the trees and the birds outside because I need to cool down." and I smile and tell myself that this indeed is a start. I know I am working hard as a parent and I have faith in God to not let that go waste.

And now the tag. Gauri and Sole tagged me to pen down five things that I like about motherhood.

- I love knowing a person so well - understanding how they are feeling just by catching those vibes; what they want even before they say it (its not tough at all you know, milk at 7:30, 4 and 9; toffees whenver they see the door to the shelf opening; my phone whenver they see it in my hand). Jokes apart, the pride in understanding what it is they are saying, even if something trivial - the baby words or our own words we invent for certain things and then explaining them to others as they wonder - oh did she again call that monkey a compey? Oh the wet tables that he claims makes him strong are actually the vegetables :). And the bigger feelings - knowing exactly what'll make them giggle, squeal with delight, frown with dismay and shout with anger.

- I love that feeling of being indispensable at least for now. I don't want it to stay that way but am enjoying it while it lasts.

- I love the amount and kind of self introspection one has to constantly do, the looking within to find the answers, analysing our own behavior, the constant evolving as a parent.

- Needless to say the hugs, the kisses, the cuddles, the sight of neatly combed wet hair, droplets of water on those tiny little legs, the variety of expressions on my son's face as he gets off from his school bus each day followed by the story explaining them, the pride on their face as they beam "dekho dekho" after a job well done even if my daughter chants the same phrase after successfully pooping in her potty. Taking joy in absolutely ridiculous yet adorably cute phrases that kids come up with - "Mom, I finished all the candies in the box - I am going to be so strong now!" or "I'll brush my teeth so the ants can't come inside my mouth and bite them." - you have to be a mom to cherish and then actually blog about them.

- The feeling that God has actually chosen me as an instrument to actually shape the lives of these two human lives who are my children, that I am so hugely responsible for catering to their needs, for giving them the right kind of values. If a feeling can be both proud and humbling at the same time, its this one.

Here are the rules

Just write a post of your own (5 things that you love about being a mom/dad) and find someone to link to and tag - someone from your own country, if you like, but definitely someone from another country (Google is a good resource if you don't know any; google any country name and 'mom/dad' in their blog search function) (be sure to let them know that you've tagged them!) - and link back here and HBM and leave a comment.

Now this post has been lying in my drafts for a while, so I am publishing it here without tagging anyone else. I'll do the tagging bit in a while.

My child would never do that ...

2009-04-21T04:38:00.003-05:00

Ten years back as I sat on my bed, among a pile of books and notes, concentrating hard for my exam the next day, a loud scream disturbed my chain of thoughts and literally gave me a jolt. I wondered what it was when another one followed and then the next till the ear deafening shouts became constant accompanied by loud guffaws. That was the child of my next door neighbor standing in the balcony, screaming on top of his voice for no apparent reason other than the supposed pleasure listening to his own loud voice and looking at others' extreme reactions brought him. I shut the door of my room, cursing under my breath and said to myself "My child will never do that."

NOW HE DOES. As I visited my parents this Saturday, Vansh did exactly that. He stood in the balcony and shouted at the top of his lungs without any reason whatsoever.

Flashback, once again. I and my parents were visiting some distant relatives after a long time. As is customary, they set some plates with biscuits, chips, savories, etc on the table for us to have. The 4 something year old boy entered the scene. My mom tried to strike a conversation by saying "Hello, what's your name?" only to be given a royal ignore. He proceeded to the plates on the table and started devouring the chips with his not so clean fingers and the natural lack of finger dexterity spilling as much as he was eating. His mom tried in vain to take him away by offering the same chips in a separate bowl. He insisted that he wanted to eat from that very plate at that very spot. As the mother raised her voice, the child declared loudly, "You are bad. I'll hit you!" Once again I found saying to myself, "Oh my gosh! My child would never do that."

Today I am the harried mom and that child is my own son.

I find myself worrying sick these days as to how to handle the misbehavior, the back talk, the constant pushing of buttons. Its as if I have to be with him every single waking minute to keep him occupied, which is a major task in itself, to keep him from indulging in behavior he knows he isn't supposed to be doing. Loud no's, whines, screams, I'll hit you seem to be the order of the day.

Everything is an issue these days from getting up in the morning, drinking his milk, taking a bath, you name it and we are struggling with it. And here I am not talking of some days when he is more tired than usual because of a hectic or sleep deprived weekend. Lets just decide not to talk about them at all for now. Till some time back, counting till 10 worked very well for us. So it was his choice whether he wanted to come to brush his teeth himself till I counted till 10 or else I would carry him. I was fine both ways as long as the teeth got brushed. Now many a times, he doesn't budge till 10 and then I have to carry a 4 year old with an uptight body and flailing arms and legs who runs back to the position I picked him up from and insists on coming himself, all the while screaming "You are bad, I am going to hit you." The scene repeats on being asked to take a bath, to come to the table for his meals, to go the restroom before he sleeps and innumerable other times during the day.

Now I have always tried to feed both the kids at the same time so that I can be done with the feeding in one go. The entire family eating together just doesn't work out for us because the kids decide to act super animated. Even me eating with them hasn't been working out for the past few weeks because I have to work really hard acting out rhymes with exaggerated expressions or playing silly games to keep them from running away from the table, the basic minimum requirement to feed them. Letting them be if they don't want to eat doesn't work for me at all because I have come to the conclusion, after much experience, that I am just not wired to handle a hungry cranky kid. So I am prepared to work very hard to feed them at the right time rather than having hungry unmanageable kids at my hands. In spite of that, there are times, he just refuses to come to the table. May be he is not hungry, you say. That's ruled out because he has not had anything unusually filling today. I can read the signs that he is hungry. May be the food is not to his liking - well, he hasn't even looked at it. I try to entice him by singing his favorite rhymes with Jiya, reading his favorite books with her and telling him he can join in when he is ready to eat. He whines and cries because he wants to join in without having to eat the food accompanied by the chanting of his favorite words "You are bad, I am going to hit you."

I have been trying very hard - reading books (Raising a spirited child) with just the right explanation for his behavior, finding ways to say yes minimising the no's myself, trying to make him feel in control of certain things, spending time with him on activities he likes which earlier worked like a charm. I scour the Internet for worksheets he loves doing - connecting dots, anything with cars, trucks, airplanes in it, matching objects. I sit down with him to make airports and parking lots out of Lego blocks. We paint using water colors together. We go the park every single day where he does physically tiring activities like cycling or running. I let him watch pictures and videos, which he so loves, almost everyday for half an hour. And yet the minute I have to attend to something else, he snatches something from Jiya to make her scream and cry; he fills water in whatever he can lay his hands on and spills it every damn where; he moves around furniture making that irritating squeaking sound. And boy at the risk of sounding mighty proud, I can say so myself the amount of patience I have been displaying is not funny. All in an attempt to tell him the right way of dealing with things when he is angry himself. The consequences at times don't bother him at all. For instance, he would be very happy to spill water and equally happy to then mop it up. If only he could do a good job of it. In the last two days, he has himself slipped once and Jiya twice in the mess that he has created. And this after I let them play in the bathroom for at least 15-20 minutes everyday.

Things become worse when we have guests in the house. He decides to scream, tells them random things (like the other day, on being asked what his name was, he actually said "Raghav?!" and that he studies in some school he doesn't actually study in), if at all he decides to talk to them. Eating from plates on the table, screaming, you name it, he does it. So one of us literally has to be with him inside doing something. Its as if we are constantly looking at ways to please him and I feel like such a helpless parent who is playing a losing battle and failing miserably at it.

After he has cooled down, I try to go through with him with what just happened. Many a times he opens up and tells me what caused the anger or why he behaved in a particular way. I tell him constantly that while its okay to be angry but its not okay to yell and shout at others or hurt others either physically or by saying hurtful things. What worries me further is that when I try to put him in the same position and ask him how would he feel if say his friend Ayush were to speak to him like that, he says "I will hit him so that he doesn't speak to me like that." I tell him stories about the two goats who fought on a narrow bridge and as a result, both of them fell in the water and drowned where as on the other hand the two goats who solved the problem peacefully. Somewhere I feel something registering till the next time he gets angry and says the same hurtful things making me wonder whether i just imagined that. I tell him how he has to be kind to make friends, I read him books about the same and then at times at the end of it, he just starts saying "I am a bad boy. Nobody likes me. I don't want any friends. I'll just play myself." It breaks my heart.

I find it so hard to enjoy the happy moments which follow. As he giggles and shows me something he has seen or made, I find it hard to play along and laugh with him when just moments ago he was a different person altogether. I never seem to be sure of the approach that I am taking - am I being too lenient for him to be behaving like this or too strict to make him think and say things he does. I wonder ... Go on, please please tell me I am not alone.

5 months after the move

2009-04-15T11:59:00.000-05:00

I like...
... Being just a few miles away from my parents place, being able to meet them more often and just a mental satisfaction that I'll be there to share their ups and downs, help and support them whenever the need be.

... Looking at the children being loved and cared for by grandparents and uncles and aunts and them basking in all the love and attention they get, watching the circle of love grow as I am able to watch from a distance

... being at a place where the temperatures allow us to go to a neighborhood park every single day uptil now unlike Minnesota where we were pndoors for a large part of the year.

... Fancying to eat any Indian delight - aloo chaat, golgappas, tikki, samosas, jalebi and not having to make it myself - ah HEAVEN!!

... The fact that a mop, a bucket of water and a bottle of phenyl is all it takes to take care of that upturned palatte of watercolors or worse still poop on the floor as opposed to fancy carpet cleaners and scrubbing and the innumerable carpet steam cleaning sessions we never seemed to have enough of because of the largely carpetted area we had in our apartment.

I miss ...

... Sorely the public library which was a 3 minute drive from our apartment, allowed us to check out a 100 books at a time out of which we had a changing supply of 50 at any given time and I could search and request books at the click of a button as soon as anything caught the kids fancy from cars and trucks and planes to squirrels and kangaroos to statue of liberty or niagara falls, firefighters to garbage truck drivers, volcanoes, doodlebops, caillou,woody, buzz lightyear, anything under the sun.This was apart from the regular visits where Vansh picked up books he liked there. The standards are so high that its impossible for anything to even come close. I am finding it hard to come to terms with reality. BOOHOO!!

... The independence of driving alone anywhere with the both the kids securely strapped in their car seats at the back. Right now the little one cannot be trusted to stay put even with the seat belt on as intermittently she just refuses to sit herself anywhere else other than my lap. I am taking baby steps of giving her books to read at the back, trying explaining to her, doling out her favorite rhymes one after the other and keeping fingers crossed for the strategies to work.

...The ease of riding a bus with both the kids which they absolutely lurved to do. For that matter the ease of going any damn where alone with both the kids, one in stroller and the other just holding it.

...The variety of activities we could indulge in when the weather was good - carrying cycles to a beautiful trail closeby or at a good distance and enjoying the beauty, spending almost every weekend at the beach which the kids loved, several of which were within a 5 mile radius, the garage sales, storytimes at the library, splash pads and the likes.

... The "me" time for a couple of hours after the kids went to bed by 9:30. Here they refuse to sleep until each and every light is turned off and each and every person is sound asleep or at least pretending to do so.

... Having Ashwini back home by 6:00 and then spending at least 3 hours as a family until the dreaded off shore calls began again. The working hours are just too long. BOOHOO yet again!!

The FIRST day of BIG School

2009-03-31T23:48:00.008-05:00

Even as several other posts lie unfinished in my drafts from Vansh's birthay celebrations (with pictures for those who are looking forward to those :) ), Jiya's 21st month update (which incidentally started as her 16th month update back in the US), this one certainly takes precedence over all the rest. For undoubtedly its a huge step. To come to think of it as one of the most important journeys a human being undertakes would be perfectly apt; the journey to knowledge, to empowerment, the journey to learn which plays a major role in shaping one's thoughts, the person one is.
I am glad Vansh was looking forward to it with much enthusiasm, one because he would have to get up at 7:00, exactly 10 minutes before dad leaves for office and would thus be able to bid him goodbye, somethig which he missed doing here but needed a school to go to to wake him up at that hour. And two because, smitten as he is by everyone scurrying about in the morning picking up their bags, lunch boxes, THEIR ID CARDS, he was way too excited to do that himself and to be taken to school in a yellow school bus. He had been talking about this day for a long time. And even though he shouted that he wanted to sleep some more when I first woke him up, it took him the shortest unit of time to get up and about as I reminded him that this was indeed the day. HE was quick with finishing his milk, getting ready for his bath, wearing his brand new school uniform (which he would have liked to be in a different color), followed by breakfast. I made 'bhori' for him today, one of his favorite breakfasts, which is basically a chapati crushed and mixed with some melted butter and sugar.

I, Jiya and papa (Vansh's dada) dropped him off in the car today and I would go to pick him up in the afternoon and then board the school bus to let the driver know where his bus stop would be. So another couple of days before his dream of going alone in a school bus comes true :) On our way, my mind raced to exactly 4 years back when Vansh turned 2 weeks on this day. What was I doing at that time - getting him ready for his two week check up or coochie cooing to him as he lay awake at night? Scenes from these past years flashed by - the gurgles, the first wobbly baby steps, the toothless smiles, the tears as we first separated during his summer camp, the giggles that followed after a few days. And now this little baby from not very long back was a bright young boy with a twinkle in his eyes whom I was going to drop to his very first day at school. Yet again, it really has been 4 years?!

He smiled on his way to the classroom obliging me with some good smiley shots. He looked just a tad bit apprehensive as we entered the classroom full of about 25 or so kids but nothing too bothersome.

After meeting his classteacher, I settled him down on a semi circular table with about 5-6 chairs. He was immediately called on to the adjoining chair by another little boy sitting there and in a matter of minutes, as I returned after keeping Vansh's books on the front table, I saw both of them tapping the table with their hands and giggling. I was glad we had had several opportunities which had taken care of the tears earlier.

As we watched for a few minutes from outside the window, we just stood there and took in the scene as it unfolded before us - some kids were crying, a little girl was just sitting with her head on the table, some parents were talking to the teachers present in the room, a teacher was blowing bubbles to distract some children, Vansh sat on his chair watching everyone too. I thanked God for blessing us with such small everyday joys, of being a party to such little yet momentous occasions, of watching the fortunate kids and their families who can afford a good education in their element.

Well I, the fond mother of my sonny little boy, do wish him a wonderful journey ahead. I wish he has many many moments from these early years which he cherishes forever and which help him form a positive outlook towards schooling and more importantly towards learning. I pray to God to take care of him, to bless him and be there for him at every step to guide him in the right direction. And I also request you, my dear readers and well wishers, to just say a little prayer for him as you wish him well :)

As the temperatures soar ...

2009-03-19T01:22:00.003-05:00

... the siblings have a ball splashing water at each other in the bathroom and getting drenched. Another favorite that follows is running around the house in towels as mom happily clicks away. Ah the simple pleasures of life!!

Edited to add: After 3 harsh winters in Minnesota, March doesn't quite seem like it :) No one's complaining!

4 year old, already ?!

2009-03-15T12:01:00.000-05:00

Dear Vansh

I know how cliched it sounds to say I can't believe you are 4 years old already. But hard as I try to think of something else to begin your 4 year old birthday letter with, I fail. Because it really is incredible to think that actually 4 years have passed since you set foot in this world taking your own sweet time even at that time (some things never change ??), especially for me at this stage when we have just returned to India and I am filled with nostalgia as I look at things and people and places which seem to be just the same as I left them making me feel as if it was just yesterday that we left to the US. But then I look at you and I know its been a while, quite a long while in fact. A while which turned the small little baby into this wanting to be 18 (thats the official driving age in case you are wondering why 18) but thankfully still 4 year old boy! Thank God for not granting every wish kids have!

Yeah driving, thats your passion already and what constitutes 70% if not more of your conversations. From the US car brands to now the Indian ones as well, to which of your friends has which car, to who drives at what speed complete with sound effects, you even say that you run at 100 ki speed when practising for sports day. You dream and talk about buying race cars, orange and purple cars for yourself and for everyone in the family. You even pretend that a simple cardboard box is a car with an imaginary steering wheel. The next thing that has caught your fancy is the metro train and you say that you'll do the construction for that when you grow up. This is till the rumbling roaring garbage truck passes by and catches your attention and you decide to be the garbage truck driver instead :) Our car then stops at the doctor's office where you very reluctantly let the doctor give you the shot that you need, crying all the while as I hold you and then decide to be a doctor and administer the first shot to me. In fact that's what you have asked for your 4th birthday - a doctor set, adding for my benefit "Phir main aapko shot lagaoonga!" I smile and wish your innocence lasts for as long as possible and the ability to dream lasts forever. Big or small, dreams are a major factor in driving us right?!

There has been a drastic change in you from the last time we visited India when you were 3. While you preferred staying by yourself or a couple of people whom you trusted and grew mighty upset when someone tried to come close to you, this time you have become pretty good at carrying out conversations with almost everyone. Physical closeness still annoys you but you do talk about your school and how you shave every morning before leaving for your office in Gurgaon in a cab and how you get things/toys for Jiya when you return making everyone you talk with smile at how you talk like in such a grown up fashion. Yeah you love acting like a grown up and being treated like one. So as you pick up the fruit basket and pretend that its your laptop bag and juggle some 3-4 books in one hand and a toy mobile in the other as you wave good bye, take care, have a nice day; after a few minutes you ask me to call you at office, address me by name and tell me about the lunch that you've had and the meetings that you are scheduled to have. And oh you don't forget to ask what I need you to pick up from Rainbow foods on your way back :) Save for your voice, I wouldn't know whether its you I am talking to or your dad. Its no wonder cos I know he's your hero. What a lovely age indeed.!. I honestly wouldn't tire of playing such games with you ever.

A bag of questions, a huge one at that, not surprisingly every comment or piece of information or an instruction to do something is met by the big question Why! Why do I need to wash my hands, brush my teeth, take a bath, drink milk, eat food again and again (your idea of Utopia is needing food once in like a month - yeah), go to school, get shots, the list is endless. Though now I have come up with an idea of bouncing off the same question which I have answered before umpteen times back at you and you do come up with the precise answer, I wonder why you ask the same questions often. At times you come up with silly answers to your own questions because well you just love being silly and then giggling away. Things that make you laugh the hardest include letting you put soap on my face when I am giving you your bath, messing up the words to make them rhyme for instance you love to say car, lar, zar rhyme, motor cycle, potor pykle, dotor dydle rhyme, making the most ridiculous facial expressions (you love doing the same for the camera), pretending to suddenly fall while walking or doing something and of course the slightest of tickle. Its hard to have you narrate anything for us because your need to act all loony is sure to surface up at such times.

Your strengths include your fabulous memory where you remember small little things we said or did from a very long time back, how you refer to them when something similar happens and you are reminded of those often leaving us open mouthed; your direction sense where in you can remember where all a particular way takes us, identify places that you have visited a couple of times from the road leading to them; and love looking at maps from time to time to see how you flew from the US to India, where in India are Bombay where you have been insisting us to take you to ever since one of your friends from school went there and Kerala where your newly wed chacha chachi went for their honeymoon and you are wanting to go to too for your own :), where is Australia where your favorite animals, the kangaroos are found hopping with their babies in their pouches. For the same reason one of your favorite pastimes is looking at old pictures which you can spend hours doing. In fact if I realize that at the end of 15 minutes there has still not been a sound from you I can actually bet that you are sitting with an old album. You then talk about the pictures, how we had gone where and eaten what and played with what and so on and so forth. The things that fascinate you like planes and airports and bus stations, we can't even imagine what all is being registered as you eye things with keen detail. A few days back you picked up the letter E and the number 8 from the magnetic letters Jiya was playing with, out them together to form E8 and said that you had seen that combination at the airport. It had me thinking for a moment before the realization that it was the boarding gates you were talking about dawned on me.

Persistent, head strong and slow to adapt, a deadly combination which causes us the most worries when it comes to discipline issues. I would have termed them your weaknesses had I not read and agreed that once out of this sometimes terrible and seemingly unending phase of terrible two's and three's and ..., it can actually be an advantage. Right now its wanting your milk at just the right temperature - a degree cooler sends it back to the microwave, a degree warm to the freezer, refusal to try anything new - foods, foot wear, pillow, soft toy (what a nightmare it is to look for your lost teddy which religiously follows Murphy's law of getting lost when you need it most), playing with the remotes and the microwave buttons and all fan and lights switches and cell phones again and again and again. Chowkidars and doctors and electricians have to be pretended to be called to get you off those. Your spirited reactions to things which are not to your liking alarm me. Off late I have been the targets of several versions of "I hate you"! Honestly I hadn't expected them to begin at all, definitely not so soon. I cried the first time until I thought about it and I realized that its me you call first to share anything new with - whether its a triumph at a well turned out coloring page, any small discovery you make, any small pretend play you do, an alphabet you were able to write right or a distress at the legos tumbling from the structure you were making or not getting a puzzle piece to fit. And even though I don't like it one bit and do try to talk you out of it and even though I don't think either of us realizes it because we have practically spent each and every waking moment with each other but we do share a very very deep bond and are very perceptive of each others emotions. No wonder you shout "Talk to me!! Nicely!" or "Don't be sad" at the slightest twitch of my mouth or tell me not to cry when all you hear is just the sniffing. I also love to be the one to realize immediately from the slightest whimper or at times even before that what it is you are asking for, to be party to our own share of tidbits we share about small everyday things where just a 'yeh' or a 'woh' (this or a that) suffices instead of taking the actual name.

Huh! Its amazing as I scroll back to see how much I have written and how much more I feel I still have to say. It can't be tough for a mother to talk about her son right! But I guess I'll stop here or may be just for posterity let me try to enlist a few of your favorite things as you turn 4 today.

Favorite foods - Butter chicken, fish, home made veggie pizza, pineapple, orange and off late Gulab Jamun

Favorite color - Orange hands down (has been for the longest time)

Favorite rhyme - Auto wallah aaya, jaldi jaldi aaya, horn bajaake aaya, pom pom pom :)

Favorite people - Nana, dada, chachi and Chinki mama.

Favorite activities - acting silly, puzzles, pretending to be a grown up, going out for day outings to parks, boating, zoo, etc.

So here's wishing you son with utmost love an absolutely wonderful year ahead filled with love filled moments for you to cherish always, much luck as you soon set foot into your new school and begin a new chapter in your life, happiness and joy to fill your days and good wishes for you today and always.

With all the love in my heart, Mom.

Everyday moments ...

2009-02-21T05:25:00.006-06:00

... from the kids' initial few days in India

- Vansh would come home from outside and take off his footwear at the doorstep. It took him a certain degree of getting used to keep his chappals on even when at home. We got to see some funny sights when after being told to have them on at all times, he would sit with them on the bed munching away on something or going through a book. After being told to take them off when he sits somewhere, he took them off even when he sat on the chair at the dining table to have his meals. I, once in a moment of impatience, chided him on again taking off his chappals when we had told him to have them on at all times to which he said out of part impatience and part tearfully "Phir woh chair ganda ho jayega". I couldn't help but smile at his innocent confusion.
- We once went for a daytime birthday party at Deer Park. We were an hour into the party when Vansh said he wanted to pee. Not wanting to search for the restroom which are usually hard to find at such places and more often than not unclean, I took him to the corner of the park we were in and asked him to pee there. He refused saying that it was dirty and he would wait until we reached home. Jiya, who now follows the elder sibling like her greatest hero, followed us there as well and started taking off her pants and repeatedly saying choo choo, choo choo (for susu) and demanded her diaper be taken off as well. She refused to be taken away and had to be distracted with great effort to leave the corner alone. Vansh actually waited for almost 2-3 hours more and went only after reaching home.
- Now, after almost a month of the previous incident, things have taken a 180 degrees turn. In the afternoon, while playing in the neighborhood park, his dadi took him to the corner when he wanted to pee which he agreed to after initial reluctance and then when I took him to the park in the evening, he wanted to go pee again. I told him to wait for about 15-20 minutes till we reached home but he insisted that he wanted to pee in the grass in the corner. There were two wires fencing off some area where I took him and he aimed at several positions - above the higher one, below the lower one and in between both as he peed giggling away :)
- While we were somewhat used to Vansh humming away some favorite nursery rhyme sometimes, I can't help smiling when I hear him humming "Oye oye lucky lucky" ..the power of desi FM :)
And now for a pictorial update of some funny and some warm moments I managed to capture on film

Jiya finds some new playthings
and learns some lessons from the Indian fashion industry
Snuggles up with dada to one of her favorite activities

as Vansh continues his efforts of being treated like like an adult by acting like one - here diligently reading the newspaper and concentrates with glasses et al to see who's trying to reach him.
Jiya concentartes hard on building a tower
Vansh beams proudly when after much effort, he succeeds in writing 6 correctly :) "Writre a C and make a circle at the end of it" is what worked for us.
Jiya feeds and is fed by dada.
Vansh dresses up for Republic Day celebrations in his preschool but is not very happy wearing this new attire.

Vansh snuggles up with chacha aka Vansh's bumpy bed.

The dining table continues to be Jiya's favorite spot and she insists on putting anything that can serve as a headband to be used as just that - here with the nylon covering that comes with some fruits.

Vansh snuggles up with dada at India Gate lawns

He gives us some rare moments of peace in the house when he sits down with his Legos and actually does a good job creating things with them - a ship here.

Jiya uses her new potty seat as a means of transporting every possible thing in the house from one spot to another and as a result creating a mad house in the morning with people getting ready for office scurrying around the house trying to find their comb and cream and the likes.

Wherever you go, whatever you do

2009-01-25T15:30:00.001-06:00

I'll be there behind you

You don't have to call, you don't have to say

Just think about me and I'll be on my way

The above holds just apt for the phase Jiya and Vansh are going through right now. Jiya follows her big brother around like a shadow and imitates each and every action he does or every word he says. So the 'no's' and the loud nahin's and the angry roars all come in twos now. As do the running around giggling away and talking on the phone with hmm, hmmm, accha accha for the real effect. Its tantrums multiplied by two as are the laughs and the cheer.

Playing hide and seek, but oops ...who hides?!
Sitting on the sofa sipping milk/water
The climbers Hello? Who's this?

Looking out ...
A rare moment of both the siblings sitting so close and not fighting

Another one ...

Our School Story by far

2009-01-14T05:36:00.002-06:00

The other day I was chatting online with a friend who is also going through the nursery admissions in Delhi for her son and is currently at her parents' place down south. Their family also moved back from the US at the same time as ours because of the same reason of having their son start his schooling here which is why we had some long conversations over the phone and shared notes and experiences and got close over a very short period of time without even having met each other. As we discussed about the schools and our interactions there and about our children, she said that her son would only do good in a school where there isn't too much pressure or more precisely too much strictness on doing things a certain way. I felt she was writing about my own son and more importantly realized that I hadn't paid attention to this aspect while applying in schools or while waiting for their results. I did enquire about almost every school from one of my Education professors, whom I hold in very high esteem and whose opinion I value and trust, and who goes to various schools taking students pursuing education as part of their teacher training programme and thus has a very good first hand experience of the way things function in a school. Having studied in Delhi myself, I myself too have a fair idea about various schools and also got in touch with several parents on a website dedicated solely to this purpose of fellow parents helping each other in whatever way they can to make the process as smooth as possible. I do wish and hope that Vansh gets through a good school where the teachers know how to strike a balance, know the difference between encouraging and pushing and most importantly of all are able to make him feel happy and secure about the whole school experience but at the same time, all the knowledge about the schools and about my own child didn't stop me for applying in schools that I actually wouldn't be very happy sending him to. Unfortunately like many other well educated, well settled and well balanced parents, I too don't have a choice. What if he doesn't make it in any of the schools of my choice. Waiting another year would make the problem worse because admissions become even more difficult as with every passing grade, the number of seats dwindle. This year itself we were rejected by four schools by far because Vansh would be 4 years 14 days old on the deadline of Mar 31, 2009 when actually a child should be 3+ on that date. I am in a way glad about the rejection because those schools don't value our decision about not having sent our 3 years 14 days old son last year as we felt he was just not ready for the indeed huge step in every child's life. But the state of affairs does sadden me not just for myself but for many other parents who wait anxiously for each date when a school is supposed to come out with their first or second or third list, who add their points and pray and wait with crossed fingers, who have worked very hard themselves in their
education as well as work career and even then are not guaranteed a good education for their child and even more for those who for some unavoidable circumstances were not able to do too well for themselves but dream and hope for making it happen for their child. And unfortunately I have no remedial measures to suggest for the way things are happening. Most schools are following a very fair point system where they allocate points to distance, siblings, alumni, parents education and profession and may be a couple more criteria varying from school to school. Something radical needs to be done. The public school system needs a complete facelift so that the common man doesn't feel the need to send his child to only private schools and shell out exorbitant amounts as one fee or the other in the process. With a request by private schools to the Delhi High Court impending approval, the annual fee in any decent private school would be close to a whopping one lakh rupees per annum (+/- 15%). Its a crazy amount and I would be very happy to put it away for my children's future if only I have a choice today of sending them to a government school and being sure about the way they will be educated. Unfortunately I can't even be sure of the kind of toilets they'll be using. Without going into statistics, from first hand experience of my own mother and mother in law being teachers in government schools, I can say that the student teacher ratio to begin with is dismal. The teachers are getting increasingly over worked and in general there is so much displeasure and unhappiness in the air.

While we have been fortunate to get through a fairly decent school in our neighborhood and another couple of so-so ones, we wait with bated breath, literally, for our topmost choice ones. As
I write this, I realize what it must look like to the reader as if its a topmost university admissions and not just nursery admissions I talk about but thats the way it is. We shall remember this time in our lives for a long time to come.

From the other side

2008-12-19T06:47:00.002-06:00

First of all I have to thank you, my blogging friends for your good
wishes on our move back and I apologise for not being able to reply to
each one of you personally. But I do appreciate them all. Getting
settled, erring internet connections at times and big and little
things taking up my attention and energy is what preventd me from
doing so. I have been missing reading blogs and generally having some
time to myself for reading and writing but am giving us time to settle
down .

Its a strange kind of feeling as I visit my parents to stay with them
for few days before settling down into everyday life once Ashwini
reaches, starts office, Vansh starts school and we begin a new chapter
in life here. I see some small changes here and there, some parks
better kept, few new houses, few others with their look changed but
for the major part everything's still the same, the same cars parked
at the same spots around the park right in front, even the same
familiar number plates which one doesn't actually remember but
suddenly recognises with a flash the moment one spots them, the same
people walking with the same gaits I remember and associate them with.
Even at home I know exactly where anything is kept. I still grope in
the dark for the hair drier on the second last shelf in my mother's
cupboard and find it there, the same cups line the utensils rack in
the kitchen - it seems like I was here just a week back and nothing
has changed in the past week. Until I look at my children running
around the house, one after the other or down on all fours driving a
truck or a plane. And its then that I realise that what seems like
just a blink of an eye has actually been 5 long years. Life is indeed
strange when it strikes you like that.

children are having a ball. Its the best vacation time for them -
spending time with both set of grandparents, going out to parks,
watching TV, they are loving it all. For the first few days Vansh
remembered his teachers at preschool and our neighbors saying that Ms
Debra or Lopa aunty would be missing Vansh. Thereafter he does remeber
them off and on when he spots a phone a particular friend of ours had
or when he sees a cartoon character whose shirt his friend wore. Just
this past weekend he suddenly felt a strong urge to go back when he
chatted with his dad and saw him in our apartment there on the webcam.
He said he wanted to go there and play with papa and have chalupa at
Taco Bell. But when he realized that he would have to leave India and
go to US for that, he preferred waiting for his dad to come here.
Jiya is learning to say new words and imitate many new actions these
days. She goes "Thatam" for Khatam after she finishes something in her
mouth. When we ask her "Jiya ne kya khaya", she goes "Popcom" for
Popcorn. When we ask her "Nana kaise karte hain?", she lifts her index
finger, nods here head from side to side and says "No no no no no!" in
a sing song way. She is living up to her title of drama queen to the
tee. She cries loudly one minute and then if we say something to her
liking like mentioning going out for a walk, she immediately starts
laughing out loud.

Vansh is much better socially this time round than the last time we
visited 8 months back. At that time he refused to talk with anyone
else outside his circle of trust of 6-7 people and actually roared and
shouted if someone tried to come too close. Now he is socialy polite
with everyone and exchanges niceties when spoken to :) He still
prefers spending time with his entrusted circle consisting of our
immediate families and few cousins.

Both the kids absolutely love going to the park and the weather being
too good at this time of the year, late mornings to early evenings is
the best time to go. The past weekend we went to a birthday party at
Deer Park, a huge park in Hauz Khas where deer and peacocks roam
around in a pretty big enclosure. Both the kids were delighted to see
them and wanted to get as close as possible to them. Vansh even fed a
few whole peas to the deer and was in utter awe of the brown speckled
creatures and narrated the incident to everyone who cared to listen.
When with other children, he now leaves my side, unlike last time, and
runs and plays aroubd with them. However one hitting or bullying
incident among other kids is right now enough to woo him away and back
by my side for a long time. He then prefers and in fact takes delight
in chasing squirrels and pigeons and keeps asking me why he is not
able to touch them. Jiya follows him around as if he is her hero. Each
and every single action is viewed with awe and attempted to be
reproduced by her. I have close to 10 pictures where both of them are
doing the exact same thing and I'll post them pretty soon.
I am knee deep into Vansh's admission process into a proper school
this year and the situation is nightmarish to say the least. So its
getting forms, filling forms, making calls, following the school's
websites, preparing for interactions, communicating with other
aspiring parents hoping for a bright future for their little ones.
Wish us luck on this one.

So its me signing off now, not sure when I'll write again. But wishing
each one of you and your family a wonderful holiday season, a very
Merry Christmas and a joyous New Year 2009. Hope it brings much good
luck, great health and many many delightful moments for you to spend
and cherish.

Random notes ...

2008-11-26T16:55:00.003-06:00

...for my mind's too cluttered for anything coherent enough to merit a separate post by itself. For the last few days, I have been drafting several posts but that's where they remain - in the drafts - for the lack of time or concentration. This one too is from last Tuesday and today I thought let me post a last one before I finally move back to India and get back in the groove of writing again.

- So the date's finally final. Nov 29th it is when I and the kids head back to apna desh and yes I travel alone. Ashwini follows after 3 weeks. A couple of schools we have applied to have come out with schedules for parents' interaction in the first and second week of December, thus requiring me and the kids to fly ahead of his release date. Thankfully I got the preferred itinerary after several e-mails back and forth between Ashwini and the travel department of his company.

- Vansh is super excited about the move. Everytime he talks to his grandparents and this has been happening for the last month or so, he started out by saying "Main kal India aane wala hoon", the next time he spoke, he said "Main aaj shaam ko aa raha hoon", followed by "Main 5 minutes mein aa raha hoon" and now its finally down to "Main abhi aa raha hoon. Mummy chalo chalte hain."
When I went to his preschool last week on his last day there, his teachers joked that he has been telling them he is going to India ever since he went there in September. That's what he talks about when they take him to the loo. That's him - whosoever meets him for even a few minutes can by no way miss the things that he absolutely loves and hates during that particular time. So if you were to meet him today he would tell you, after of course telling you that he's going to India, that he likes to watch 'Alvin and the chipmunks', he likes to eat 'Orange chicken and fish', he does not like to eat dosa and that he is silly!! Yeah!

- So its taking stock, selling, packing, checking weight, opening, adjusting, throwing out and re-packing at our household these days. Looking at the ongoing selling spree, when we lay our hands on anything belonging to Vansh as small as the set of some redundant keys Vansh likes to play with, he says "Please meri keys mat becho!"

- Apart from the move,the kids are growing up way too fast. Its been a while since I did an update post for them and its been one new development after another. Jiya is the reigning drama queen who is already a 3 year old in the body of a 16 month old. Reverse psychology is what works with her and what I have been using to feed her her meals. I keep telling her "Jiya, mat kha, mat kha" to which she protests with a grunt, comes running to the dining table (yes, she doesn't sit there for more than 3-4 bites) and opens her mouth wide. Its working, so I let it be and am not too particular about making her sit on the table and then just whine or throw everything off and end up not eating.

- Her tantrums have gotten huge. She throws a fit whenever she doesn't get her way. She starts by pouting her lips followed by throwing whatever it is in her hand and then goes on to bawl at ear splitting decibel levels. Off late, I have been trying to make her pick up what she throws off in a fit. In the beginning that too was met by a tantrum but now she knows there is no way out. As is usually the case with second borns, we as parents are better prepared and don't lose temper too easily on these small things because we know the bigger ones are yet to come :)

- The dining table in the kitchen is her second home. She spends the better part of the day on it - takes her toys and plays with them over there, takes her books to look at, eats, colors or just looks around. I think she likes to come up to our level and enjoys the view of the world from there.

- She is a very very cuddly baby. Every few minutes, she would just come from whatever she is doing and hug us and kiss us and then go back again. She loves girls elder to her. Our next door neighbor and friend's daughter Antara and one of Vansh's preschool friend Shreya are her favorites and she showers them with generous doses of hugs and kisses.
- Vansh is getting more and more interesting by the day. His latest is pretending to be Ms Debra and Ms Jodi, his two preschool teachers. He acts very solemn and goes on to say "Two more minutes to playtime."; "Hold the rail friends!"; "Zack you are going to sit on, lets see, J today, Quinn is going to sit on mmm M" followed by some more incomprehensible English. Now that most of his toys are either packed or gone, he spends a lot of time playing pretend. He pretends that a blanket is a moving truck moving books or an empty toy box is a garbage truck carrying all the small remaining toys. This morning a maintenance guy was at our place for about 5 minutes to repair the dishwasher and Vansh pretended to be him for the next hour repeating the sentences he said and Vansh understood.

- Questions, questions, questions, truck loads of them. He now enjoys having all kinds of conversations and tries to understand more by asking more and more questions. At times, still the why's make no sense. At which point I just ignore it. I am right now finding it hard to remember snippets here. But it'll be a whole post soon.

Hah ...so that's that for today. I am a mixed bag of emotions right now. From being very very aversive to coming and staying in the US initially, away from family to finally being heavy hearted leaving it behind, its been a long journey spanning close to five years. Being married, motherhood two times round and being on our own in a country seven seas apart are reasons enough to make these five years truly memorable. Some great friendships, some great insights into the culture, getting to know the great parenting styles and oh the super cool public library system (yeah I am overly obsessed with it) will make me remember and cherish these years with much fondness.

So adieu friends! See you on/from the other side of the world!

I adore the stage ...

2008-11-07T14:56:00.001-06:00

... Vansh is at because

- Even though he wants to be Batman, he snuggles up close when I play a Batman video for him on the TV and after a while not being able to stand the fighting, switches it off declaring "Vansh ko accha lagta nahin hai!"

- When his 7 year old neighbor, friend and hero dons his cool jazzy Ben 10 watch the size of a tennis ball, Vansh comes home quickly and asks to wear his old and tattered faded green Shrek watch (which incidentally we found lying somewhere) and races back to show to his hero.

- Everytime he sees flowers, he remembers his Nani because she had brought flowers for him at the airport last time he went and then tells her to get 10 orange flowers for him this time.

- Once again, he called his hero to come to his house and look at the NEW little 20 inch TV that we got off Craigslist (after having sold off the one we had as we get ready for the move.)

- He kept loving and preferring the old 94 model Toyota Corolla to the newer Honda CRV because we bought the Corolla much later (just a few months back to serve us for the remaining 3-4 months as we needed 2 cars with the kids' increasing activities out of home) and hence actually it was the new car for him.

How I wish the utterly delightful innocence lasts forever!

And by the way a couple of days back, I had to make him stand straight for clicking a picture for attaching to his school registration form which my father in law is filling back in Delhi. I had to click 35 odd pictures to get a couple of decent results because Vansh decided to honor me by making one silly face after another. However at the end of it, I laughed as I went through all the pictures I had taken because they covered almost all the expressions and the accompanying face on his look he has these days - from grumpy to angry to giggly and mostly silly.

The Change!

2008-11-05T14:30:00.003-06:00

What a night and what a Sweep! At 10:01 pm CST, CNN projected Barack Obama as the 44th US President. That was just one minute past the voting in California and the other PST states would have ended. The difference in votes was huge and he was very close to the 270 electoral votes which he needed for a victory, which he did in the next 20 minutes or so. It was monumental, a moment when something as simple as the emotion of joy on the faces of the people speaks for itself as it did last night as hundred thousand people gathered in Grant Park, Chicago awaiting the arrival of the President elect.

I did follow the elections this time but not very closely. If I had to vote, I would have studied the candidates and their campaigns much more in-depth. However that didn't stop me from joining the Obama cult :) He is everything one needs to be to become a role model for millions - he is young, dynamic, an amazing learner, an excellent orator - I think I saw the eyes of almost everyone brimming over with joy as he delivered his victory speech last night with the motto "Yes we can!". He has raised the hopes of milllions of Americans in the power of democracy. He has made the African Americans and many other minorities believe that they too have the right to dream Big and know that its possible to realize that dream. I have no idea what change will happen from now on but for me, for now, Obama being elected president and such overwhelmingly is a huge Change.

I couldn't ever think that I would write a post on Obama's victory but I guess that's what he has done to each and everyone in this country, sit up and applaud the history that he's created! And I am glad that I am witness to it.

Magnificiently colorful indeed!

2008-10-21T22:26:00.001-05:00

September-October in Minnesota is incomplete without a post about the beautiful fall we have been fortunate to experience for 3 years here. The fiery reds, zesty oranges, the bright sunny yellows and golds are one of the most beautiful sights from the huge bounty that mother nature has to offer. And this year the colors are the best that we have seen in the last few years. Anywhere you go, you are literally swept off your feet by the colorful extravagance that surrounds you. I see more of yellows and gold which till last year, in my mind, tended to become a little monotonous than a variety of red and orange and even purple but this year even the yellows and the golds are so stunningly breathtaking and not the least bit humdrum.

Minnesota fall color reports finds a regular and esteemed place in the Bookmarks toolbar so that its just one click away and keeps telling us where to head to view the best fall colors. So a couple of weeks back we headed to Banning State Park which is a couple of hours drive from home and took off on Quarry Trail.

There weren't the best of colors there but just being in the midst of the towering trees with sunshine shining through on the carpet of red, yellow and brown leaves that adorned the ground was heavenly. We loved walking as did the kids. It was a treat watching them pick up branches, throw leaves on top of each other and on us and then giggle,

sit on fallen trees,

shout "I love you" in the silence and then hear it echo back.

In the end even the 2 mile long trail left us rejuvenated rather than tired. And thus came to an end a Saturday beautifully spent.

A new friend

2008-10-16T16:07:00.003-05:00

We have a new friend these days. We like to share our food with her, we love it when she looks inside, at times just waiting there in the patio for us to come out and look at her, takes her hand to her heart and puts it there in acknowledgment. We spend so much time staring at her for the longest time nibbling away at the food, at times on the floor, at others on the ledge and best of all perched up on our cycle outside. Presenting to you our dear little squirrel named Roo :)

Getting ready for the move and what's up ...

2008-10-15T14:09:00.005-05:00

A lot has been going on at our end. Its been stressful off late tracking the Delhi Nursery Admissions scene from here in the US. We had chosen this time - the beginning of Vansh's formal school to head back home and had been planning towards the same. Last year Delhi nursery admissions hit the headlines several times for the various new developments that took place, Delhi Government stepping in to stop the private schools from interviewing 3 something year old kids to judge them before granting or rejecting admission, Ganguly committee being formed and coming up with a point system based on several parameters like distance of home from school, alumni parents, siblings in the same school, etc to grant admission to kids, lowering the age a child gets into a school from 4+ to 3+ and so on and so forth. To cut a long story short, it has gotten very very tough to get your child in a school and I am not even saying a school of your choice. Everything seems so arbitrary, perfectly well settled and well qualified parents find their child not getting admission anywhere. As a result the tension and stress resulting is way too high. Anyways I have worried all I could and obviously with no results, so I am past that stage too. I have also come to terms with the fact that although we had planned to fly in end December-early January to be in time for the admission procedures which took place in January-February last academic year, this year they have already begun and we are just waiting for the first school that we want to apply to, to come out with the forms and then I and the kids will fly on a short notice of about a fortnight. Why wait till the end, you ask! Well Ashwini had planned everything at his workplace for January too and so he cannot fly before that and we don't want to be in a position where I reach there and he stays back here alone and the relevant forms don't come out for another month. Oh Darling yeh hai India! is what comes to mind at this time.

Anyways so right now we are busy winding up, selling stuff we accumulated over a period of 5 years here, taking stock of what we can lug back and what needs to be given away in the midst of the everyday activities of the kids. Vansh is loving his pre-school and asks to be taken there even on the four days that he is off. He is generally so cheery in his disposition when he returns and radiates joy all around. He also started swimming classes for a month, twice a week from last week and he started out by not entering the water at all for the first 2 classes. This Monday after a few encouraging pushes (physically handing him) into his instructor's hands and a few threats that I would leave if he doesn't go in (thank God for Hindi at these times ;)), he did just fine. Both his instructors did a wonderful job with him, being very gentle with him, telling him that they would never ever leave him and encouraging him to do certain things inside the water, I could see that he had formed a bond with both at the end of the 30 minute class and is looking forward to go today.

Jiya is doing great too. A few days back, she went through a super crabby, super clingy phase where she clung on to me all the time, didn't eat well at all and so remained cranky for the major part of the day. I think the teething pain was a bit too much for her at that time. She is back to being the tantrum throwing, foot stomping and laughing the next minute self. She actually just lies down on the floor, anywhere, even in the middle of the parking lot when met with even an iota of resistance from us with pouted lips for just one second and then a straight face and then decides what to do next depending on our next reaction. A scowl from us and she lets out a cry, a smile or a camera to capture that moment brings out laughs. Hah - the drama queen!

With each other, we go through phases of pleasant and nasty in our home. On nasty days, they get at each others' and our nerves. They want to play with the same things at the same time, refuse to share even the things which are in profusion like blocks or cars - each one wants each one of them. They want to sit on a particular chair at the same time. Jiya's even started getting physical now. She pulls Vansh's hair or bites him, thankfully always through this sweat shirt and so never really gets to the skin. Vansh on the other hand is of course smarter and knows that if he irritates Jiya long enough, she just throws off the toy in her hand out of anger and then its his to play with technically. Of course we don't let him get away with it when we are watching.

And pleasant times are a treat. They miraculously sit together on a tiny little ride on toy. Vansh always lets Jiya have her way or exchanges toys very sweetly - Jiya tu yeh le le, please! or chides her very gently when she gets into what he is doing - tu kya kar rahi hai lallu! They take turns putting coins in a tiny little hole of the piggy bank or putting beans in a small hole one by one. Both of them read separate books, play with different cars following each otjer in and out of rooms. Vansh helps me in feeding Jiya who miraculously opens her mouth when he feeds him the same bite that I tried feeding her few seconds back.

And I think about the times that lie ahead and shudder. When in a snap, they'll be all grown, spending more time out of the homes than in, opening and flapping their wings to fly away, when their squeals and their giggles or even their screams and their cries won't fill the home as they do now and that's when I just tickle them and roll them around to make them laugh some more and try to soak in everything - the sights, the sounds, the smells and that warm fuzzy feeling inside of looking at your children grow up and swell with pride at just that.

The life and times of a 3 year old ...

2008-10-06T14:19:00.001-05:00

Scene 1 - Vansh wakes up from his nap. Jiya's still asleep. I am cooking dinner in the kitchen. After the hug and the I want duddu (milk) and drinking the said duddu, Vansh shouts, nothing in particular, just an 'aaa' with a silly grin on his face. Jiya is still asleep in the room 1 meter away and so I react with a finger on my lip and a shhh. He repeats. I tell him firmly that he needs to quiten down because Jiya is still sleeping. He shouts again, not as loudly this time, but a shout nevertheless. I tell him that I can take him and leave him outside if he feels like using his outdoor voice and he can come back when he is done. He refuses and he laughs, the "Yay! I made her say that again" kind of laugh and stops shouting.

Scene 2 - Jiya is also up now and Vansh is playing with his toys trying to fit the whole 2 big boxful of toys in a 1 foot long garbage truck and shouting when they start spilling over. I go in to ask him whats the matter and explain some things to him and come back, which is followed by some more shouts soon after. I go in once again with an intention of spending some time playing with him sensing thats what he wants. Jiya follows me and Vansh starts pushing her and grabbing her arm when she tries to touch the spilling toys. I tell him not to do that and play with him for some time. When I return, the shouts start again. I decide to ignore this time. He comes closer and closer first to the door of the room, then out the door and in the kitchen, the decibels increasing. I start humming a song, followed by asking him something casually. He says in a sad tone "Mer ke toys gir gaye" (My toys fell). I tell him that its okay and he can try again, though he is trying to fit way too many toys in the small garbage truck.

Scene 3 - Jiya is playing with a frisbee and Vansh teases her by touching it. Jiya yanks it back and starts running. Vansh runs after her, slowly on purpose. Jiya enjoys at first and starts laughing loudly but starts getting irritated soon after and whines and cries. Vansh enjoys the whining as much as he enjoyed the laughing and continues running behind her and at times snatching the frisbee or whatever the toy is from her. I tell him for the thousandth time to let her be when she starts whining/crying. The scene repeats itself over and over and this one's hard to be ignored. The consequence varies from a gentle request to a scream "Vansh stop snatching the toy!" or "Leave her alone!" to a threat of leaving him outside for the maintenance uncle to take away. Silly grinning continues all this while.

Distracting him by asking him to work on his favorite Thomas Engine puzzle or coloring works at times but at others it doesn't because Jiya now gets into everything as she is able to climb on the dining table which used to be the safe haven for exclusively Vansh activities till some time back. This is even after I give Jiya her own puzzle/coloring to work on on a separate table.

Scene 4 - Light switches - On, off, on, off, on, off, .... Refrigerator door - open, bang shut, open, bang shut, open, shut ... Ignoring sometimes takes care of it except if its doors that he is banging. He gets one scream at times followed by a whack on the back of his head for the fear of one of the kids pinching their fingers. At other times, I pick up the phone and pretend to talk to Tom/Jeff/Eric maintenance uncle to tell them that they need to come in to fix the lights/refrigerator which is soon going to go bad owing to Vansh treating them the way he is. The silly grin written all over his face again, he stops. Was it really their fear that stopped him like it used to till some time back or was it the the 'mission accomplished' at having pushed mommy's buttons along with the light fixtures.
______________________________________________________________

I started writing this post last week and wrote it upto this point. As is evident from the post, we were having a tough week, the kind where I throw up my arms in despair when Ashwini comes home and then both of us keep exchanging glances as if to say "What's wrong with this little guy of ours?"

But then there are some good days or may be just little good gestures where we know that behind the mischievous three year old who pushes his parents' buttons and drives them up the wall, there is also a lovely little boy who loves his parents and sister as much as he teases them, who proclaims lovingly "Jiya tu hamari sweety hai" when she decides to hug him when he wakes up in the morning; who says with a twinkle in his eye "I am so ecited Mama" when she tells him for the thousandth time that we'll be going to India not this evening but after a few months; who squeals in delight and shouts "Its fun Mama" when she throws the beautifully colored fall leaves on top of him.

Yeah you are right, the last few days have been good :) And if I hadn't gotten this far in typing out the Scenes blog post, I probably would have deleted it. But I decided to publish it nevertheless so that I remember that waiting for us at the onset of every tough phase is an even more sweet and heartwarming one.

La la la la, la la

2008-09-30T14:42:00.004-05:00

Just for fun, some songs Vansh is found crooning these days :)

Nanha munha rahi hoon, desh ka nahayan hoon

Ganti ke bappa morya

Lakkad katthi kaathi, kaathi pe ghoda, dummmm barrraake dauda.