booklists

We got a list of book from the library: most of them were recommended from daddyread.com. I have reviewed those that we have read so far

Motherbridge of Love Anonymous:

Very touching poem, beautiful illustrations. It brings teears to the eyes. but I am not sure Anjali quite understands the principle of adopting, so its a little advanced. The illustraations are great though

Sweet Dreams, Maisy Cousins, Lucy

We havent read this one specifically, but Going with all the other Maisy books we have read, it should be great

Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes Fox, Mem

Excellent.

I Know a Rhino Fugo, Charles

Didnt get this, butt we got "Swim Wombat, swim". Incidentally, the wombat looks a lot like the Kangaroo in Sam Mcbratney's books. i wonder if its the same illustrator

First the Egg Seeger, Laura

Excellent book. Great introduction to change, lifecycles, stories pictures, and its not an encyclopedia

Lemons are Not Red Seeger, Laura

Another nice one, simpler than the first one, but great all the same

When Mama Comes Home Tonight Spinelli, Eileen

Classic

Carry Me Wells, Rosemary

Classic also, not very humorous, but sweet

the shadow

I think Sophia was rather suspicious of Ramesh when he came over yesterday evening to help us decide on the aircon. 

Ramesh went from room to room, taking measurements, and Sophia, holding on to my hands went all around behind him. He was measuring the bedroom, and she walked there, stopping two feet away, looking curiously and suspiciously at what he was doing.

he sat at the table to make some calculations, and there she was, again going close, but not too close.

She will be a great Sherlock

atleast we got the water bottle back

Patti and Sophia went for a walk to the other playground after dropping Anjali at school (today is her last day). They found the water bottle and the packet of baby wipes just where we had left them, on the chair near the playground.

Incidentally, Anjali likes the diabetis jam that husband bought. i made some sandwiches for her close of school party, and there was nothing else in the house other than the diabetis jam. Apparently, the kids finished over half of the sandwiches I had packed, and when they got back home, Anjali finished the rest (about five sandwiches)

I was supposed to make cake, but husband wanted omelette and the last two eggs in the house had to be devoted to that endeavour.

Another water bottle missing

here's how it happened.

Yesterday Anjali wanted to go to the playground. She didnt want to go to any playground, she wanted to go to the far away playground with swinging bars. Despite the fact that all her friends were in the downstairs playground. Despite the fact that pooja and a couple of others had a pretty pink pram and a doll.

She wanted to be carried to the playground. Husband was carrying Sophia and Anjali wanted me to carry her all the way to the other playground, a good ten minute walk away. That was the beginning of the crying.

Caie me to the playground. honestly, if she is so tired that she wants to be carried to the playground, why not stay at home?

I carried her part of the way, and then got her to hop. Guess she was a bit tired, but I guess so was I.

We reached the playground, and the whole time at the playground was a muddle of activity and crying, quite exasperating that finally, around 9.30, I lost patience, picked the girl on one side, the shoes on the the other side and walked home.

I left the water bottle behind

We should have gone earlier to the playground.

then she wanted to be carried home, and I didnt want to. I dropped her show on the floor and made her go back and pick it, put it on and walk with me.

She whined most of the way back.

When we got home, she didnt like the bean soup that patti had let for her dinner, and wanted noodles and wanted to play with Oobleck. So I set her and Sophia up with some Oobleck (I checked, corn flour is an important content of formula milk powder and therefore baby safe), while making noodles.

Hardly five minutes had passed when Anjali began another crying episode. She wanted the bathtub (I was hesitant as there was no space in the bathroom for a bathtub, what with the oobleck tray, Sophia, Anjali, and two bhuckets already squeezed into the shower space). The two buckets were for oobleck water and clean water respectively

Finally managed to get the bathtub in, and another crying episode came forth, she wanted warm water in the tub. Sophia wanted a tub as well.

Out came the oobleck tray, and the buckets. In went the other bathtub, Warm water to rinse much of the cornflour off Sophia's arms and legs and mouth.

The noodles were ready

"Anjali, do you want to eat noodles?"

"I am still taking a bath"

Losing patience

"Anjali, either you eat the noodles now, or the kitchen is closed. You are going straight to bed"

That noved her from the tub.

Sophia got handed to husband (atleast she was fed, and I think they had some fun eating mangoes. Sophia was smelling of mango juice when she came to bed, though, I believe, husband washed her up)

Anjali ate her noodles at top speed and read "Room on a broom" (Highly recommended)

We finished room on the broom, ushered the kids into the bedroom and turned off the light.

That trigered another crying apisode, but hsuband and I were both firm on it, so it stopped relatively fast (I notice that thhe crying spsodes are stronger if husband and I tend to disagree on the way to deal with it, like when I soften my stance about turning off the light. Does she think that if she cries a bit louder, I will soften my stance further? It is a strong possibility)

On the plus side, Sophia slept at 10.30. Anjali stayed up in the dark, asked husband for water to drink a couple of times, chatted about some funny stuff and then drifted off.

Just one of those days

Einstein never used flash cards

Husband and I have been reading the book. Its quite nice, with a lot of activities backed up by solid research.

Husband tried done of the counting activities (can your child understand that counting stays the same regardless of the order?)

There were four cats on a page

"Count the cats"

Anjali counted them

"Can you start here and count them?"

"I already counted them."

I did the communication exercise with Sophia yesterday (It resulted in one of the porcelain cups getting chipped and some porcelain specks on the floor, making husband very annoyed). But Sophia communicated alright. I guess I got more of a kick out of it than her.  I am consciously doing signing with her now. I didnt give it much of a thought until now.

Yesterday we wrote down Anjali's first narrative. it was about a mummy and a baby owl and a rabbbit, that involved a doctor. They didnt live happily ever after, but I think we will follow up on it soon.

A combination of stories

We have been reading The Lion, the witch and the wardrobe, the Maisy stuff and Room on a broom, by Julia Donaldson.

Is it any wonder that Anjali goes around bouncing on a big blue ball (gift from Jaishree aunty, Pranav's stuff), holding a stick and saying "Hocus Pocus", i am going to turn you into a crocodile with my wand. I am a witch

A real cool book

Been reading einstein never used flash cards. This is one book that really puts all the literature research in one place.

For the record the library doesnt keep it under the family section, its under general reading.

Why though??

Addition and complex math

"Mummy, sit in this chair", says Anjali.

I sit, with Sophia in my lap.

"Daddy should sit here. Patti  should sit there and thattha should sit here" (pointing to respective chairs)

"Where will Sophia sit?"

"Here, on my lap"

"Why she should sit on your lap?"

"because there is no more chair... I will take one chair for Sophia to sit" (and she brought one over)

The interesting thing is that we were in the library. there were no patti and thattha, daddy was in some other part of the library looking for books.

All we had was a table with some chairs around it

5 of them. 

a weird conversation

Anjali, what did you do in school today?

"i did a rehersal"

A rehersal? For what?

"All my friends died"

Now, that was a very morbid thought.

Why did your friends die?

"Their souls went away and went to look for other people's bodies"

I swear, this conversation really happened. Husband was witness to it (he was trying hard to keep from laughing)

Ok. And then what happened?

"They all got buried"

Where?

"under some sand"

There is some back story and contextual grounding, but it will take too long to explain.

Boxes explored

 All the books say that boxes are one of the best sources of creative play. In our homw, it is interesting to see how the boxes appeal to the different cognitive levels of the kids.

Yesterday, Anjali, monkey that she is, climbed on the dining table, leaned across the space between the dining table and the buddha table, and called to patti

Yenakku paint venum

Patti, who was in the kitchen trying to get her long deserved dinner break, didnt understand

"Yenna venum?"

"kiaft cupbboard la paint eyuku. yenaku paint venum"

I had made up a new batch of milk powder paints the day before (for the pat a cake book) and took them out of the fridge. Milk powder paints have an excellent texture and are much better than flour paints. Flour paints are more suited for finger painting. Milk powder paints can go very nicely on paper.

"Anjali, you want to paint in paper, or in a box?"

She chose the box, and we put her in the middle of a box, and the paints in a chair next to the box with a couple of brushes.

The curious cat of the house, who was, at that time, busy doing some thing important (read pushing the fan around and investigating what would happen if one lifts the circular base of the fan and bangs it up and down), dropped her current task when she saw the colors (perhaps it was simply due to the fact that her akka was doing something)

The tray of paints was promptly moved inside the box where the cat obviously couldnt reach.

She walked around the perimeter of the box making frantic attempts to get inside. ofcourse, we couldnt let her, as that would cause a bit of a mess, so what did we do?

Clue: Husband had brought back five boxes from his office moving. We still haev three of them untouched.

So as Anjali painted one box in a multitude of rainbow colors, all the while chatting to thattha Sophia played peekaboo with husband and me, while sitting inside the other box.

incidentally a playeum session at woodlands library had several boxes decorated, stacked and made into castles and tunnels. Pity we missed that event. Hope to hit the one in Jacob Balls garden though

meanwhile

Meanwhile, Anjali had a mild fever yesterday and hasnt gone to school for two days. Yesterday i think they drove patti quite crazy

Sophia has a new hobbby, unscrewing bottle and milk caps. Thats nice - her fine motor skills are kicking in

Consumerism

Two weeks ago, we got back from the library with 34 books. It was a fabulous time that evening, reading several of the borrowed books, having sophia on my lap and sleeping.

Finally, we put Sophia on the bed and Anjali and I went to the living room.

"I like to ead books"

"I know. I made some books for you this morning"

"You can make a book?"

"Yes"

"How to make a book??"

So I showed her how we could cut pages write and draw on them, bind them together and make books.

So these days one thing that i have been doing is to make activity books. So far have completed a Noah's ark and a pat a cake activity book. Anjali seems to have fun doing the activities in the books. Am working on a Maisy book next - inspired by Maisy big/ Maisy small. The challenge with making a Maisy book, ofcourse, is the illustrations.

Up next is a pull out book. I am still playing around with the theme - cartoon characters or family members, or animals. I might do family members. it will be fun to do it with photos. 

report on salt dough

We tried the microwave salt dough decorations. They came out quite fine. Anjali had a good time kneading and cutting (we used some of her shape sorters to make shapes of stars, pentagons and the like). Then she used an icecream stick to poke holes in the shapes to make beads.

We microwaved them, for about 4 minutes, 1 minute at a time. It turned out very nice. I asked Anjali to paint the beads this morning. When i left for work, she had black paint on her palms and was painting the kitchen cupboard.

Will encourage her to thread them this evening. We need a tapestery needle though

Events coming up

The thing at the Jacob balles garden is the Playeum
http://playeum.wordpress.com/

We missed the first three episodes but will probably make the one at Jacob Ballas gardens

events coming up

Next weekend is the asian children's festival at the library. And the IEP walk on Sunday evening

The following weekend, there is something at the Jacob Ballas gardens.

The botanical party is on the 5th December and husband's marathon run on 6th

Pretty full weekends coming up. There is also an ugly duckling show, which husband is interested in taking the kids to

A Cute picture

Anjali and Ramya at the tv recording.

Anjali sang Nila Nila, Anile Anile, Sanjadamma, Chinna Chinna Motor and Shri Chakra raja

The tv guys said that they may not be able to telecast Chri Chakra raja because it is religious. They got her to sing a couple of other songs (twinkle twinkle, itsy bitsy spider and kai veesamma)

The cameraman's verdict (she doesnt need a mike)

no idea what these people were doing

When we returned from the swimmy show, I had a splitting headache. No idea why exactly this happened. So I curled up and let husband handle the kids.

They seem to have had a good time - the kids- husband was hungry and stressed, and when I woke up, took two helpings of yogurt aval and slept at 8pm (I should do this more often so that he sleeps early), woke up sometime at night to put a diaper on Sophia (after 11pm), had an intention to put a diaper on Anjali, but fell asleep before he could formulate the intention properly. He put a diaper on Anjali at 4pm, apparently.

The kids drank yogurt, ate noodles, made a mess on the floor, played with some random toys and stuff etc. here are some videos that husband took.

singing for the tv

Here's my shoot of the pre tv preparation. Anjali will come on tv anytime between 6 and 6.30pm on Thursday in the Chellame show.

Sophia at play

Messy fun on sunfay morning

Milk powder finger painting. We got Sophia's toes as well on the wall

Daddy's shaving foam

where are these people

First person to guess gets a prize

These are all the photos I managed to get before they told me off

36 week foetus
Anjali at one of the more traditional skeletons

foetuses at differnet stages. They had them from 4 weeks old

daddy and two daughters.

Some lines are very thin. Bodyworlds is one of them. Before we went for the exhibition, some people were saying that it may not be suitable for the kids, they may get scared. but mine werent, most possibly they were not aware of what it was.

Controversial yes, but only if you think of it in terms of the gross. But it was beautiful. What is inside us, the blood vessels, muscles, skeleton - they are beautiful. They make us what we are. That is illustrated by the very artistically presented dancing plastinates (which, unfortunately, I couldnt photograph)

We were at bodyworld exhibition on Friday evening. It was really an eye opening bit of art.

the path of time

Last night we were reading a book, Anjali and I. There was, as always, some animal, which ultimately went to sleep (you know that you are reading a toddler book when the animal goes to sleep in the end, which I guess is an illustration of the fantasy world of books)

"The mouse is sleeping on a kutty bed. i want to sleep on a kutty bed"

"Why dont you sleep on the big bed with mummy and daddy"

"No. i dont want to sleep on the big bed with mummy and daddy. I want my own kutty bed". Looks again at the book. "I want my own wooden kutty bed".

2 states

if Chetan Bhagat can write his story, then perhaps I should too.. then again...

The in out stage

 

Sophia is in the in out stage. Give her a toy, she'll tire of it very fast. But put the toy inside something else, she'll play with it for a very long time.

This has therefore become one of our favorite toys

I guess she is learning that objects can be combined together to make more interesting objects. In the bath, she pulls out all of Anjali's art and tries to stick them back again on the walls (after eating them ofcourse). no idea if the creative art paint is safe for chewing. Anyone knows??

wall murals

Anjali was doing this while we were on the webcam with bunica and tata sile. Its beautiful, but I do hope it washes off, then we can use the wall for further painting

OObleck moments

This is how we work with Oobleck. We did it for IEP and Anjali had fun, so decided to make some at home. Considering what was involved, it was not really that messy. Ofcourse, we set up in the bathroom, and that made it easy to clean up.



For people who want to try this at home, this is what we did. We poured cornflour on a tray. First Anjali explored the flour while Sophia had dinner. Then she poured water into the flour. I told her not to put too much water and she had an excellent time exploring.

Sophia took some time to warm up to the oobleck. She was firstly fascinated with the bucket of water and the red mug, and she spent a good bit of time pouring white oobleck water over herself and over me while Anjali explored oobleck and buried her hands and mine.

She wanted to stand (she can do about a minute of standing at a time), and play, but once I put her on the floor and the tray of oobleck in fgront of her, she wanted to explore as much as Anjali.

I think they kept busy for close to 45 minutes. We got back from the playground at 8.20 and started this activity almost immediately. It was around 9.15 when we Sophia finished her bath and a little later when Anjali finished hers, so they must have taken around 45 minutes.

The highlight was when Anjali painted Sophia with the cornflour.

When we finished, we heated up the cornflous water solution to make finger paint. Its white finger paint and currently in the fridge, we'll add food coloring to it and work this evening. That has to go out of the bathroom, and will probably be a bigger mess, I am targetting working in the kitchen, it'll be easier to wash

Sophia standing

It is confirmed. Sophia can stand.

But only if she is unaware that she is standing. And she has an excellent sense of balance. When she wants to sit and she has nothing to hold on to, she lowers herself to the ground so nicely. I will try to put photos up soon.

Hvae gotten a big bag of cornflour for the kids to play with this evening. I think will guide them to making oobleck. Anjali liked playing with Oobleck at IEP the other day, and I suspect that Sophia will have a ball playing with the cornflour, both wet and dry

Should keep a eye to ensure that she doesnt eat too much, but guess husband and I can handle it

school food

Anjali has not been eaating her snack box for the past few days. on Friday, i packed cutlets, she said that she dropped them on the floor.

On monday I tried bunica's cauliflower cutlet recipe. Husband loved the result, but Anjali didnt like it, and (according to her) dropped it on the desk

Yesterday, patti packed half a raisin bun and that too was returned.

Last night, i had a chat with her and she said that she wanted gnocchi ("You make gnocchi for me, it will be just like mamaliga"). So I asked her if I could make mamaliga for her and she said yes.

So here's the quick fix mamaliga recipe that I made for Anjali this morning

2 tablespoons of cornmeal to make mush
a bit of salt and water in the microwave for about 2 minutes. When it comes out, the mamaliga will be partially cooked and the water will have all gone. Put more water, stir vigorously and cook again for a couple of minutes.

After the forth minute, the mamaliga would have absorbed all the water again. Add about 75ml of milk and stir vigourously, before putting into the microwave again for a couple of minutes. Finally add a couple of teaspoons of cheese before returning to the microwave for a minute and a half.

If she is at home, I usually serve it up at this point, and put some olives, totatoes and grated carrot to make a face on top of the bowl (we call it a face pizza). But since it was for school, I put it in a tupperware to set in the fridge for about ten minutes and then grilled it to make it more handlable, its like cake and therefore she can eat with her hands without getting them messy. 

fertility of imagination

Anjali says that the sun will go to Romania at night and play with Roxy and that the stars will only come out at night.

What will the stars do during the day?

They will go home and eat noodles and play in the playground.

Where is the stars' playground?

I will show you..

Turns out that the stars' playgrouns is actually Anjali's playground. And at night it is the stars' playground (I choose to ignore the time warp here, as I was having too much fun asking questions). So the playground will go up to play with the stars.

Does the playground like playing with you or with the stars?

With me, of course

Half a meter and an attutude

 I just checked the blog. With Anjali, the first post on tantrums was on January 21stt 2008, which made her about 9.5 months old. Sophia is not far behind. For the past few weeks, her tantrums have been escalating.

Husband says thta she is into her terrible twos early.

Sophia is a baby of extremes. I guess she takes it after me. When she is happy, she would go all out to laugh and smile. But when she is having a temper, it is almost humorous to watch how the tantrum comes out. Here are some scenarios.

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Its evening, and I return from work. Sophia sees me and immediiately wants to jump in my arms. I give her a cursory peck, give her back to patti and go to wash up and change my clothes.

She makes the most indignated face, and from the time I give her to patti, to the time I come back, expresses annoyance in wordless sentences

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Anjali and Sophia are playing. Sometimes, the things Anjali plays with are not safe for Sophia (read: beans, marker caps, paints etc). I put a bunch of Sophia safe, still explorative toys for her to work with (read tin caps, little bowls of colored water etc). Sophis always wants to come to Anjali's toys.

And with all the books in the house, Sophia always wants to go to Anjali's books

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Sophia is able to stand up by herself. She is also walking fast, when holding on to hands. On Thursday, Anjali got really excited and wanted to hold Sophia's hands. But Sophia wanted to hold my hands and Shrugged off Anjali's hands. Anjali went off to play with Ramya and Sophia got carried, so that was that.

can I have one more two rubber bands??

A very rewarding this happens when we see children extending associations in practical applications. Anjali is not very good at doing abstract math (what is 1 + 2), but is good at imaginative math (if there are two birds and one flows away, how many are left??)

Now, its very interesting because yesterday, I was making gnocchi mixture at night, after Sophia had slept. It was around 10pm. Anjali was a bit not sleepy, she had been to the library, we did a round of reading.. and she wanted some bread and butter and cheese (I wanted a snack and she wanted a snack)

While the gnocchi was cooking, she opened the top drawer in the kitchen, where we keep some cutlery and rubberbands. She pulled one out.

Rubber bands are excellent for eye hand coordination. So I looked around for a place for Anjali to practice rubber band coordination, and my eyes fell on the drawer handle.

Anjali spent a good bit of time exploring hwo the rubber band goes on the drawer handle.

Then we tried the cabinet door, which was oriented perpendicular to the drawer handle.

After that, I pulled another rubber band from the drawer and gave it to her for the opposite door.

So she went around asking for rubber bands to hang from the doors, until only two pairs of doors were left.

"Mummy I want more rubber bands"

"How many rubber bands do you want"

"I want two" (banging each pair of doors in turn)

I gave her two rubber bands.

She put them on the first pair of doors.

"Mummy, can I have one more two rubberbands??"

32 books

We borrowed 32 books yesterday, including 4 maisy books, frederick (with 4 Leo lionni stories), a couple of books by Jane Yolen and a couple of I spy books.

I aced elementary math and I know that they dont add up to 32.

But we read six of them last night before cutting up the young parent magazine (that's why I like to go to fun with tots you get free young parents magazine each month, and its so nice and colorful for Anjali to cut and practice scissor skills.)

Another phase ends

We have decided to temporarily stop fun with tots. Perhaps we will begin again in January for Sophia (as they are for children between 1 and 3 years old)

We are feeling that Anjali (and Ramya) has stopped doing so much as listening to the program, as playing on the stage. She tells me all out that she likes better to play and jump on the stage. She has been on the program for almost 8 months. 

The program also is less exploratory, and more crowded, so that factors in as well.

Now, fun with tots has stopped for the Christmas season, and we are also taking a break. But not a break from book reading and library visits though. Thursday books are usually finished by Monday, and then we go on repeating the stories. So we are making a resolution to continue bringing the kids to the library every thursday.

Besides there is every chance that Sophia may walk in the library

box fun

Husband is shifting office, and he brought back some huge cardboard boxes. Both kids had loads of fun with the boxes pretending tunnel games. Sophia initially didnt want to go in the box, but I went on the other side and called her, and she immediately crawled through.

I should think of putting in some windows and such...

Videos coming up

days and nights

The funny thing about being a mother of two: I cant even imagine staying up past 11pm.
Even more funny thing: I can imagine waking up at half past five.

there were days during graduate study time when I would stay up will two or three am, reading novels. Then I would sleep for the sheer reason that my eyes wont stay open. I would sleep, and then get up again at 11am and continue my reading, not brushing my teeth, not getting up from bed, not, in a nutshell, doing anything responsible.

Heaven and forgotten bliss.

Lastnight, husband and I had been to the hospital to visit Rajah uncle, who was to go through an operation. We got back quite late, around nine. Thattha and patti were watching the girls and Anjali was having fun riding piggy back on thattha and selling potatoes.

When the oldies had gone home, we had our usual games and books. But by 10.30, I noticed that I was getting tired. Am I growing old, or is it simply the long day taking its toll?

Husband, before the girls were asleep, was already curled up under the blanket, oblivious to the noise and the I dont want to turn off the lights and the readings of Julia Donaldson (I love Julia Donaldson, we are reading what the ladybird heard, and it is fabulous).

Sophia wanted feeding. I wanted to curl up and cose my eyes.

"Adi", I called.

No response.

A little louder

Still nothing.

"Anjali, why your daddy is not answering me?"

Anjali goes around, peeks at husband and comes back

"Because my daddy is sleeping"

So I turned off the ligths and drifted off.

At some point during the night, Sophia woke me up for a feed, and as I curled my arm around her to cuddle, I became aware that something was amiss.

Her bottom was bare.

In a half drowsy state, I felt around her.

Not wet.

Good.

I poked husband. "Sophia does not have any diapers"

Husband got up and in some sort of autopilot put diapers on Sophia (She needs to be diapered while breast feeding because she will wake up otherwise)

He curled up and went back to sleep.

I must have slept too, because I remember oblivion (no, thats not an oxymoron), then my eyes shot open again. Something else was amiss.

My skirt was wet.

Huh??

I felt around the bed on the other side.

Wet

Anjali was curled up, asleep.

Diaperless.

Of all the days.

Anjali almost never wets her diaper at night, especially if we were careful to take her to the bathroom before bed (which she is quite cooperative about after we read the maisy book). i was careful to take her to the bathroom the night before.

I guess it was just one of those nights.

We shifted Sophia to the other bed (Praise be to the lord that she didnt wake up), took of Anjali's dress and husband removed ther sheets, before using baby wipes to desoak the mattress. A towel on the despaked mattress and we were good to go.

This morning, after Anjali woke up, I gave her a tumbler of soda and water to sprinkle on the bed. She had good fun.

But now we are out of soda.

Sophia, pretty pictures

What are they both doing??

I see, its banana time
Now its bath time

We like to walk
Straight to mummy

sloppy kisses

If you cant beat them...

Einstein swears that his genius is attributed to the fact that his mother didnt scold him over spilt milk but allowed him to explore.

Now, what kind of mindset do i take when my daughter thinks that it is a load of fun to do the above with yogurt??

This is what happened. Anjali finished her dinner and wanted some yogurt. We gave her some. Shhe was nicely drinking her yogurt when a curious cat (aka sophia) dipped both her hands in the cup of yogurt, lifted it (her hands) up and licked the yogurt of it.

I laughed.

Mistake.

Anjali realized that it was a cute thing to do, and so she began toe at her yogurt with her hands. She begant o scoop up the yogurt by big palmfuls and started to eat it.

Of course, her dress got all yogurty in the process.

I compromised by giving a lecture about not doing it again (I dont think she took it very seriously) and then encouraging her to use up the yogurt properly by painting.

So she painted her skirt, and then we got some red construction paper and she painted that as well. We should do some handprint activities. Anjali seems interested. Atleast, she was interested in putting yogurt filled hands on the red construction paper and seeing if they printed.

We then washed up, and then I gave Anjali a small bucket and a wash cloth. The idea was to wipe the yogurt off the floor. She had a lot of fun doing that while Sophia was having dinner.

half way through her dinner, Sophia wanted to get down. She crawled to the little bucket and peeped in. I asked husband to grab the camera.

Too late, the bucket tipped and I had a baby covered in water. It was rather fun.

Does she talk?

We took the girls to Science center on Saturday to watch the bears movie.

Mummy, we are flying, says Anjali.

Sophia doesnt say anything (unless you count the babbles, which were steady and excited), but tries to grab the bears

"She cant catch the bear. it is on he tv"

It must have made an impression on her, because we took the girls to the swimming pool on Sunday evening, and on the way, there was a big brown furry dog getting a walk.

I tried to give a clue to Anjali

"I spy a big brown furry thing walking near a man with a blue shirt"

"Doggie", said Anjali, at the same time that Sophia (in husband's arms) said

"be"

"Sophia says its a bear", says husband

"Where's the bear, Sophia", we ask

Imp turns her head and looks at the big brown furry dog.
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Husband takes Sophia downstairs to buy something. he puts on her pants (girl screams blue murder) and then is absolutely happy to sit on her daddy's arms to go downstairs. On her way out, she says

"do!"

"Kithu, did you hear that? She says door!"

"Sophia, I am going to open the.."

"do!" (and she cackles very self appreciatively as she can see that she's got us all excited)
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She's mommy's girl

Alamu aunty commented yesterday

"Sophia is patti's girl from  Monday to Friday"

I guess that summarizes her. She has a homing instinct under which she would be playing nicely and if I were to leave the room, and move out of her reach, and talk to someone, no matter how softly, her homing instinct would activate. its very cute.

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When did the mummy girl thing begin? Before she was born, would be my guess. The first night at hospital, she kept crying. I was exhausted, the nurses offered to put her in the nursery and walk her a bit. The second night, she was still crying, I put her on bed next to me, fed her, and decided to keep her for a bit. She fell asleep nestled in the crook of my arm.

The nurses woke both of us up early in the mornign and chided me for putting her in the hospital bed. But both of us had already worked out the perfect arrangement.

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In Romania, there was a time when Sophia woke up (she was just beginning to crawl towards targets long distances). She saw me a few feet away from her on the bed. She crawled towards me, put her hed on my stomach and went back to sleep/
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When she had a chicken pox, we missed IEP (Anjali went with patti) I tried to make Sophia sleep. She stirred a lot, before finally crawling right on top of me and sleeping. I decided to give her half an hour before putting her on the bed, but drifted off.

She slept like that for close to two hours

"The two of you looked so cute together, sleepijng like that", said husband. I wanted to take a photo, but the camera was out of battery

Anjali may be on tv

Vasantham iss running a program called Chellame, and Anjali may be on it. Kala saw Anjali sing at my mom's kolu and recommended her. I asked her if she wanted to sing.

"Yes"

What song do you want to sing?

"I want to sing twinkle twinkle little star"

Anjali, its a tamil show, I think you may have to sing a tamil song

"I want to sing shee chakia iaja"

Ok

"When I am bigger I will dance"

Maybe I can teach her a dance routine to go with it?? Will I have time, the recording is on Saturday

later, we tell patti about the situation

-Can you teach her a song?

-Ok, let me see, maybe theeratha vilayatu pillai, it will be nice for an action routine. Or how about oodi vilayadu paapa?

-Oodi vilayadu papa may be nice, Anjali do you want to sing it?

Anjali is all naked and groggy from just having waken up, and drinking milo. She walks to patti, climbs up and says, "shee chakia iaja"

Fine then, so it is.