Anjali's conversation with Swati

"Sophia is toilet trained" I tell Swati at IEP class.

"I know, i read your blog"

Anjali chips in

"She goes to the edge of the bed, stands and makes oosha"

Swati turns to her

"And you?"

"I go in the toilet"

"Do you have a ring in the toilet or do you go in the potty?"

"I stand up"

I wonder what Anjali's future husband will think when he sees this stuff

Why Sophia makes us laugh

Sophia would be playing on the bed very nicely. She would suddenly stop, drop everything she is doing and make a beeline to the edge of the bed. We would try to help her down. She would stand at the edge, holding the edge of the bed and do some very important business.

Yesterday night, we had turned off the lights and Sophia did this routine. Husband was watching as she climbed back up.

"Nothing", he said. "False alarm"

Anjali wanted moo moo milk vanilla. We got the vanilla from the kitchen and came back to the bedroom

"I want to turn on the lights"

"Ok, you can turn on the lights while you eat vanilla, and then after that you should turn it off. deal?"

"Ok"

So I turned on the lights and sat at the edge of the bed.

I stepped on something. Something wet and slippery on the rubber mat.

It wasn't a false alarm after all.

Kid really knows what she is doing

Re: Anjali's opinion on Colin Blakemore and Barbara Poggio

I wouldn't push this button at this age. She is exploring, she is processing, let her do it her way. There is something within a child that makes them move away from what is ugly, not beautiful (that must be a little of the psychic that must be awake in them). So she is repulsed by what Dr Blackmore does, (and perhaps the way you put it, may not have been something nice for a child's ears - sewing up cat's eye!!). At the adult level, we moralise and put down a decree, He is ok, he is doing that for children...but can you also see the selfishness inherent in that. Will you be able to put this bfore Anjali too (and expect her to rationalise?) There is a notion that the human child is one up against these other creatures of the world, and there we sow the seed for differences and future destruction of the earth. Why not plant compassion in the hearts of every child. If you ask me, this topic need not have been brought up with the child....perhaps K could have started discussing with Anjali about something beautiful that happened to her that day?

Expose children to beautiful stories. And when she is older enough, then we can bring in stories that would require rationalising. Not that a child cannot rationalise, but the child's world is a far more simple and harmonious world then ours and why bring in conflicts from this end to that? Are we engineering the child?

K, I am taking up this line of argument, as this is how I feel, no matter what you say about exposing them to the real world. These opportunities come on their own without we pulling them in. When these things hit them, they come up to you and it is enough of you are prepared for them and have the time for them at that moment. Really, ask yourself what made you speak about Dr Blackmore to the child? Did you want her to engage in an intellectual discourse with you? Did you want to interest or impress the child? Or to bring about opportunities to talk about what is right and wrong, at that hour? Or ot could have been a genuine instinct to catch up with the child for the day, since you were away most part of the day and she too wanted your company. But think, what made you raise this issue? was it in your mind so much?

Once you find answers to the beginning, and the whys and wherefore's of it, the middles and the ends would fall into place.


Lots of Love

Jayanthy

Anjali's opinion on Colin Blakemore and Barbara Poggio

Yesterday I had the opportunity of having dinner with Colin Blakemore, Tomaso Poggio and his wife Barbara. Blakemore, of course, is famous for his cat sewing experiment for research into eye defects.

I got back home at around 10.45 and the kids were still up waiting for me (Patti decided to stay the night so that daddy will not go crazy). Sophia went to sleep by eleven plus. But Anjali wanted to talk. So we talked about Colin Blakemore over bread, butter, water and continued the conversation in bed. Here's the conversation in a nutshell.

Me: I met Colin Blakemore today. he was doing experiments with kittens for shildren who cannot see

Her: What is that?

Me: Some children cannot see. Do you think it is a nice thing or not?

Her: It is very sad

Me: Yes, it is, if children cannot see, they will not be able to see where the tumbler is , or whether mummy's finger is crawing toward them to catch their nose

Anjali dodges

Me: So Colin Blakemore closed the kitten's eyes and used the kitten's behaviors to make good medicine for the children who cannot see. But because of this, the kittens cannot see.

Anjali processes this

Her: The uncle is bad?

Me: Well, it depends, you cant say if something is bad or not.

her: Why?

Me: Well, do you think turning off the lights is good?

Her (immediately and with a lot of enthusiasm): No. it is very bad. i dont want to turn off the light. i want to turn on the light

Me: What about daddy?

Her: Daddy want to turn off the light.

Me: Right. So somethings are good for some and not good for others. Colin Blakemore's experiment gave good medicine to many children, but it was sad for the cats.

We go to the bedroom.

Me: I also met Mrs Poggio. She works with children who are sick

Her: I am sick. Can I see Mrs Poggio?

Me: When you are sick, you drink medicine. Mrs Poggio plays with the children, but does not give them ooshi. She plays with the children, with toys and then plays with their parents and teachers also.

her: I want to see Mrs Poggio.

Me: Ok.

Her: I dont want to see the good uncle.

Me: Which good uncle?

Her: the good uncle close the kitten's eyes

Me: You doont want to see Colin Blakemore?

Her: Yes.

Me: Why?

her: He will give me bad medicine.

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What is the current status of Anjali's understanding of good and bad??

why I love gnocchi

Ever since I started to make lunch for husband to take to work, I have been on the lookout for easy to make delicious dishes that I can cook up in the mornings. Gnocchi is something that falls under this category and I love it because it is so versatile.

On monday I made it with potatoes and spinach, Today I made it with semolina and cheese. Last friday I made them with chickpeas with miscellaneous vegetable stuffing. Its healthy, easy to make, you can just leave it in the oven and not worry about it for half an hour, goes with pretty much all sorts of sauces (my favorite is tomato based veggie sauce) and the best part is that you can make a double batch and refrigerate one for packing with a different kind of sauce a couple of days down the road.

My favorite of course is the semolina and cheese gnocchi, but if I make the potato one, even Anjali likes it.

Easy gnocchi recipe

5 cups milk to 1.5 cups semolina

Heat milk, stir in semolina, and salt for about 5 minutes until it is all cooked. test: if the wooden spoon stands by itself in the semolina, it is ready. Stir in cheese, herbs, salt, let it cool a bit. If needed, at this point, add one beaten egg and stir.

pat into nice round shapes, put in a shallow tray in the oven, bake for 30 minutes.

Yum Yum

For a variation, we can add veggies into the semolina mix. Spinach, mushrooms onion etc.

If it is too much of a bother to make cutlets, then just spread the mixture on a tray, chill and cut into shapes to go into the oven.

(almost) toilet trained

Well, what would you call a girl who always crawls to the edge of the bed when she needs to pee?

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Last night was a typical chaotic one. We went to the playground.

Anjali wanted to go in the joola joola.

Sophia wanted to go in the slide down.

Husband and I split forces.

It was very necessary to keep an eye on Sophia all the time, because if you look the other way, you were bound to see a leaf in her mouth.

But she climbed the steps to the troll bridge.

Anjali was on the other side.

Sophia began to crawl rapidly towards the other side.

Anjali stepped in her path

"Sophia, you must ask a iddle. I am the troll"

Sophia tried to edge past Anjali to me.

husband asked the riddle

"Who crossed the shaky bridge in the movie?"

"Donkey and shrek"

Sophia got past.

The girls had a great time at the playground. Sophia generally tries to crawl. We let her a bit on the slide downs, but mostly she crawls and stands up holding on to stuff. She is now trying to let go of things with one hand to reach for something else and we reckon that she will be walking quite soon.

Then again, she is nearly eight months old, so it explains a lot.

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We got home, and the girls washed their hands and feet. Anjali then wanted to take a bath, so I dumped her in the shower while I went to get her supper ready.

Some one thought that all that water in the shower sounded interesting and no one was bringing her to join the fun so she decided to take matters into her own hands.

She crawled down from the bed, to the bathroom, climbed into the bathroom and made a beeline for the shower cubicle, went to the shower cubicle, pushed open the door and climbed in.

When I came back thirty seconds later, I found Anjali with the shower hose in her hands, and Sophia dripping wet.

Both girls were having a rolling time, and neither of them were in any real danger, to husband and i let them at it.
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At nine thirty, the bedtime dance began. Armed with three or four story books, a plate of noodles and a lot of prayers, we began the routine.

At ten, Sophia tried to crawl very quickly out of the bed. She didnt make it, and there was a puddle at the edge of the bed.

But then she got down, and played with a box. I wasnt paying too much attention until I noticed that she wasnt playing with the box anymore.

She was playing with very suspicious looking yellow stuff.

Yellow stuff was wiped away, girl rewashed.

"I want to see poo!!!" says Anjali

I show her the stuff I wiped off

"I want to see poo in the bottom!!!"

I pray that I hadnt washed the girl properly, fabricate pretend poo to satisfy Anjali and hustle the girls back to bed

Opposites

I had this conversation with Anjali yesterday.

Patti had gotten a story book on Devi's for her from India and one of the stories was about how Prahlad got tricked by Indra into giving his virtues and as a result all the good things left him - nobility, honesty etc and finally Lakshmi.

I explained the story to her and then exclaimed

Me: "I dont like this story. It is very sad"

Anjali: "I like this story"

Me: It is very sad

Anjali: Its very happy

Me: See, Prahlad is so upset

Anjali: Prahlad is very happy

Me: No Anjali, this story is not good. All the virtues have gone away

Anjali: No, this story is very good. All the virtues are over here.

At this point, patti and thattha broke out into applause and the conversation couldnt continue
 

Anjali

Yesterday, I was late getting home and patti had to leave early to get to the center.

Husband put on Shrek to entertain Anjali, while Sophia was playing on the floor behind the couch.

They got as far as when Donkey was ttrying to catch the rickety bridge. Anjali began snivelling and hiding behind husband.

When the dragon blew fire and the bridge broke down, so did she, and demanded that the movie be stopped.

Later, before bedtime, she was explaining the movie to me.

The princess was sleeping and the geen uncle wake the pincess up.
The donkey was too heavy for the bridge and the bridge broke
The dragon was a girl

(I liked the geen uncle bit the best)

Sophia's eating back to normal

I think it was the teeth. Husband fed her soup and milk and apple and no idea what else when I was late from work yesterday.

Now the little thing thinks that she can get away with stalking me all around the house. i go to the kitchen for all of thirty seconds to fix a drink and when i turn around, she is at the kitchen door.

I leave her on the bed to wash Anjali's hands and feet, and we suddenly hear pit pat and someone is standing on the bathroom step, trying had to put her hands into the pee/ water combination on the bathroom floor. She would succeed too, if Anjali didnt scream.

Sophia is underweight

We are quite at a loss as to how to make Sophia eat. She breastfeeds well, sometimes eats well the solids. But when she wants to play, even if it is mealtime, she is more interested in playing. I generally woont be too worried about this, except that she is a tad underweight.

We have tried a good bunch of food, she takes at them as nibbles them - but patti is suddenly facing trouble with bottled milk, with semolina and cheese, and even with baby vanilla.

Last night, I made up two batches of vanilla, one with cow's milk for Anjali and another with expressed milk for Sophia.

Anjali finished her vanilla, Sophia refused to touch hers. So Anjali ate that up as well. As she licked the last spoon clean, she says

"This is booba milk vanilla"

"What about the one you had?"

"Thats moo moo milk vanilla"

"Which do you like?"

"I like moo moo milk vanilla"

So we went to the kitchen and made more moo moo vanilla.

Sophia breastfed, played wildly with her sister for about twenty minutes, laughed at all the antics and went to sleep at 10pm

Post travel troubles

 I have been meaning to write about this adventure for a while, but due to its magnitude, felt it better to hold on till everything stabilized. So here's the story

Sophia had a cough before we went to Romania. We had the dose of Prospan, which we gave periodically to her. But as the air in the cabin was dry, the cough augmented. Gabi took a look at Sophia when we were in Buzau and declared that she didnt have anything major, so just continue the Prospan.

Two days later, she was coughing harder. At that point, Gabi prescribed antibiotics to be on the safe side. We ignored the antibiotics because they are seldom given for light cough.

Then we went to Pietra Neamt. Sophia's cough improved. Anjali, in the meantime, caught a cold. I assumed that Anjali got the cold from Sophia and since it was probably the same germs, Sophia already had antibodies against them. So I was not very careful to minimize contact.

In the middle of all of this, husband caught a stomach bug from some restaurant and annoyed bunica by declaring that he would turn vegetarian as his body was not used to all the meat floating around.

A few days after we returned to Buzau, Sophia got a temperature. We decided to begin the antibiotics. It was a cycle of 9pm, 3am, 9pm, 3am, when husband and I had to get up in the middle of the night with an alarm to give the antibiotics.

When the dose of antibiotics finished, it was time to leave.

The trip in the plane was good. both kids slept through the amsterdam to Singapore stretch, which meant that they woke up at 3pm (Singapore time). That spelt good in the short term (no trouble in the flight), but not good for the long term - they were both seriously jetlagged.

But when all was said and done, Saturday night was not so bad. We had planned the incubation period well. Anjali got whicked away by thattha and patti for an overnight. The plan was that she would stay the night, then attend a housewarming reception, and come to IEP class.

Both kids, hwoever, had a synchronized jetlag. Both slept at around 11pm, woke up at 2.30 and payed till 4am, before sleeping again till 11 or so in the morning.

We then went for IEP at 2pm.

Anjali first barfed at the end of IEP class. We thought it was a one of reaction to something she might have eaten on the plane or at the party.

She came back and asked for chocolate, which, against patti's better judgement, I gave her.

She threw it up in the taxi, whereupon I called home and asked Yema to make some clear soup.

Before we reached home, she threw up yet again.

At home, she drank a few spoons of soup. Ten minutes later, barf.

When this happened a couple more times, we decided to take her to the doctor. he gave a couple of medicines and warned that should it continue to the point that she cant keep in water, we should take her to the hospital.

We got home, patti stayed over while thattha went home.

Anjali slept too, but at 11.45, she woke up. The night barfs began then, and they were really scary. When they didnt stop by 2.30, husband and I packed Anjali up to emergency.

Thank god for grandparents and taxis.

The doctor at the emergency put her on medicine and hydrating fluid - "I dont want a Ooshi, I want to drink medicine with a spoon"

We then stayed about four hours in the hospital, with Anjali being thouroughly entertained. She found a Eeyore toy, who she adopted, changed its diapers and tried to rock it to sleep (while we were wishing that she would sleep). All the while, she was drinking "stone juice" - which we coined up after husband explained to her that there were minerals in the juice.  

We got home at 6am on Monday morning, Anjali having crashed in the taxi on the way back.

One week later and we were still having occassional barfs - reaction to accidental combinations of fruit and milk/ yogurt and milk. But she drank five tons of milo at IEP camp, and her system seems to have stabilized. Have been barf free for about four days.

Sophia got her second rotavirus dosage at the Pediatrician this morning. He winced visibly at the idea of antibiotics.

someone's got teeth

If two tiny specks of white (sharp mind) on the lower maxillar can be considered teeth. Very cute.

And very emotional.

making connections

Thumbdrive: Can I put it on my thumb and drive it?

Headset: Can i put it on my head?

Morning: The sky turned on the lights

she's stalking me

Sophia has taken to stalking me around the house. If I left the room that she is sitting on, she would play until she inadvertently hears my voice from somewhere else. Then, she would stop everything she does, begin to cry and crawl towards the voice.

Its quite disconcerting to turn around and suddenly see a kid making for you with a very high speed and dexterity - especially a kid, who hardly a month ago, stayed put in a single spot.

Vying for attention

 Anjali had finished her milo and was lying sleepily on the couch when I was getting ready for work. Patti was carrying Sophia.

"Anjali, I am leaving for the office now", I said, walking around collecting my belongings.

"Mummy, can you caie me?"

I finished walking around and then took Anjali in my arms, kissing her.

Sophia stayed watching very curiously.

I put Anjali back on the sofa.

"hmmmm..."

Ii turned to see Sophia holding her hands out for carrying and kissing treatment.

Anjali's obsession

Anjali has an obsession with stationary and mobile.

"Mummy, the plane is stationary"

I told thattha this yesterday.

thattha: Anjali, do you know what stationary means?

Anjali: when the plane is flying, it is mobile, when it is down, it is not mobile anymore.

Thattha took a good thirty seconds to close his mouth.

So now she wants to know if something is stationary or mobile: buildings, curtains, herself, joola joola, Sophia etc etc
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The chicken and the cat story

At the beginning, I have a lot of chickens (for Anjali anything more than two is lot of). The bad meow meow ate one chicken only. Then roxy chased the bad meow meow away and the bad meow meow is not eating two chickens any moie. So I have two chickens and the chickens are very happy and thats all.

The story of Anjali's addition
So how many chickens did you have in the beginning?

I have two chickens and one chicken

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Sophia is crying

Patti called that Sophia is crying and refusing to sleep. I am concerned.

 

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Sophia's baptism pictures

http://sophiacuricbaptism.shutterfly.com/ For the website with the pictures.