On grammar

Some common statements from Anjali

"Mummy wake up".

And when i finally get up

"Mummy, you have getten up?"

Why do children say getten??
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"Mummy, I have done this aldeady..."

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Sophia was splashing on a puddle. There was a stick, which was all bent and twisted in the puddle. Sophia stopped. looked at me, pointed amd jumped away as fast as she could

"paampu"

It did look like a snake, all curled up. I picked it up and showed it to her.

She carried it gingerly to husband and Anjali

"Anniya, paampu. Aada paampu"

The "snake" broke.

"paamu pichutta"

Learning about Percy

Anjali was playing last night. As I keep having to contend with I dont want to go to school business in the morning, especially Monday morning, I told her

"Anjali, tomorrow is Monday. There is school"

Anjali didnt answer for a bit. Then about five minutes later, she looked up from her play.

"Mummy, tomorrow is monday?"

"Yes"

"Percy will come tomorrow?"

"Msia Msia" piped up Sophia.

The girls are nicely getting prepped up for Percy's arrival. I have told them that percyy is a penguin who travels around the world and writes stories about his travels for everyone to read. And if Anjali throws a tantrum/ doesnt brush her teeth/ doesnt eat eggs for breakfast etc etc, Percy will put it in his book. The same goes for good stuff. Sometimes it works sometimes it doesnt, but it generally adds spice to life. So its something to look forward to. 

We are also tracking percy's progress around the world in our own way. I toned down some of the stuff in percy's website to make a book about his travels. I also tried to use GIMP to cartoonize the pictures, but as you can see, they are not too cartoonized.

I am not sure if I will make more books, the girls have a general idea of who percy is, but I'll probably make something about teh South Africa adventure - the bit with the lion under the wooden boards is way too cute
 
Percy goes to London

Percy goes to Holzgerlingen

 

Thattha saw the Percy post on Friday and wanted to know all about it. "Who is Percy?" he enquired.

Anjali piped up

"Percy is a penguin. We will sleep togethher in patti's yoom!!"

Patti, who disapproves of the number of stuffed toys we have in the house immediately put on her sternest face of disapproval

"Did you tell her you are going to buy her a penguin?"

Ofcourse, they have to still wait for the whole story. Husband knows about percy and approves of the idea, though he thinks that the books I made are way too cheesy. He reckons that i should keep the original text, but its too long for the kids.

Living on love and aiir and milo

It began last Wednesday. patti called me at work saying that Sophia didnt eat any food. I wasnt worried. But on Thursday and Friday, the phenomenon continued. Sophia refused to touch her food - cereal, oats, rice, idlis - things that she usually ate with relishh. The situation was so bad that aven husband got worried. Only one thing she was fine with, and that was milo. She drank about five helpings of milo.

I took her to the doctor on Friday evening. Maybe she has a bad throat and cant swallow (she has been having a mild cough). The doctor took a look and said that Sophia is suffering from acute muleheadedness. Husband agreed.

The trend of muleheadedness continued over the weekend, and by all of patti's reports, even mondya morning. Sophia eats only if the food is put in front of her on the plate. Not when it is fed to her mouth. This poses a problem for most purees and cereals.

here's what Sophia ate yesterdya, as an example

9am: Milkshake with oats and apple
11.30am: 5 pieces of pasta and 3 pieces of chick peas
1pm: Milo
2.30pm: More milo
3pm: Husband brought out some of my pumpkin pudding, and she ate it
4pm: I cut up some apples and grapes and put them in a plate on the floor. She walked around, munching some, spitting some. She must have eaten some 5cm squared of apples and sucked the juice out of three or four grapes
6.30pm: Took a peanut butter sandwich to the nature park for a walk. Girl ate 3 bites of the bread and made teh rest into playdough
7.30pm: It was dinner time. I put half a chappati, some beans and yogurt aval on her plate. She took one bite opf chappati, one bean, one spoon of yogurt aval in her mouth and tossed the rest around.
8pm: husband peeled an orange. She sucked the juice out of a whole orange and spat out all the fibre.
9.15pm: Another mug of milo

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She is getting fairly picky about the food, and also that she must eat by herself. I am exploring several options. Hope I dont have to resort to fortified milk.

Sophia's story telling abilities

Husband says that Sophia knows every miniscule detail about Dora.

All we need to do, is to stay in front of her and turn the pages. here's Sophia's version of Dora's backpack. I will put up a video of her story telling one of these days.

page 1:

"Doia, boosh!"

page 2:

"Map"

page 3:
"gumpy toll" (grumpy troll)
"Shisos" (What do you need to cut a net?)

page 4:
"ain. ummella" (There is a cloud that rains. You guess the rest. )

Page 5:
Boosh, Shand (boots stuck in Sand)

Page 6:
Doia Pull (Dora must pull a rope)

Page 7:
"Shopper!!" (Swiper)

"Shhopper No!!!!" (Swiper no swiping)

Page 8:
"Doia ro boat" (Dora is in a boat)

Page 9
"Ope door" (Open the library door)

Page 10

"Octopush, boof" (Boof being her all time favorite word)

The world according to Anjali

At home at 3pm, when I just want to close my eyes and the girls to close their eyes for an afternoon nap.

Anjali rips scotch tape from a cardboard box we had been using for a slide down. She sits on top of the box and throws a dog across the room. She then brings the scotch tape close to her mouth

"Parents and Children, Please get the dog, especially Sophia, If Sophia doesnt want to get it, especially mummy. Thank you and welcome"

Sophia picks up the dog. Anjali throws the dog again across the room

"Parents and children, Who wants to pick up the dog raise your hand"

Sophia raises both hands, picks dog and gives it to Anjali. Anjali throws it across the room.

I was not quite able to contain my curosity

"Who are you Anjali?"

"I am the train aunty in the zoo"
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"I want a magic snake all around me when i go on my bicycle - around my legs and whole body. And then the snake will turn into a stick"

(This, when she fell off the bike a couple of times yesterday)

I think the snake turning to a stick comes from the Moses story.. Believe they watched a cartoon or something in school. Should check with the teacher

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At Ananya's house

"Anjali, shall we take Deepika to our house with us?"

Anjali: Ok

Ananya: No.

J aunty: Lets do a  baby swap. Anjali can take Deepika, and Ananya can take Sophia.

Ananya: No.

Anjali thinks it over: Mummy, we'll take two babies to our house. 

percy

Anjali: Percy will sleep in patti's room

Me: Why dont you cuddle up with Percy and sleep with him on your bed?

Anjali. Yes. I will cuddle with Percy and we will both sleep in Patti's room and say "Goodnight!"

So the girls are waiting with bated breath for Percy to arrive. Anjali is going to bring him to school.

Sophia, who was drinking booa booa lifted her head and said

"Percy, Maisia!!" (Malaysia)

So we'll have to work that out too

a fiery temper

Sophia threw a tantrum for half an hour yesterday. What was the problem?

I was making "Super wonderful playdough" with the girls. We had everything ready - flour, vinegar, food coloring, salt.

Imp wanted to take it outside (We have been doing messy activities at the lift lobby lately)

I put my foot down, for two reasons

1. Playdough doesnt qualify as messy enough to be taken outside
2. The girls were not wearing enough clothes to qualify for a messy jaunty in the lift lobby.

Sophia refused to touch the playdough for half an hour, screamed renewally whenever I touched it, and after she got over her tantrum, played with it and with Anjali for almost an hour before bed time.

Until she got over her tantrum, it was

"amma taie, outside" and when I said "no"

"waaaahhh"

Husband says that we are thinking of Sophia as a baby and therefore dont put our foot down often enough. And we need to face the fact that she is growing fast.

Photos from our messy play session

All the paint got on the floor. Husband says that this messy paint (milk paint recipe)is excellent for balance, as the kids really have to keep conscuous so as not to slip on the mess and fall.

We made is more explorative and got together nearly all the other paint around the house. there was some squeezy paint that i had made several months ago and stuffed into some of the sample soap containers

Amma Taie!!


Amma enough taie


There is much more to see without amma taie


I was showing Anjali how we squeeze stuff out of the tube

Anjali is pretending to be a fish in paint. In the background - the wooden puzzle house that Anjali painted with pooja last week. And my little garden that i take so much pride about.

Sophia's temper

We find it very amusing when Sophia loses her temper, or is muleheaded. But it is only going to be a matter of time when we need to take action. Already, we are finding two different kinds of crying - tantrum crying, and real crying.

Yesterday, after playground, the girls were having dinner. Atleast, Sophia was having dinner, and Anjali was having a snack. There was bread and she wanted jam with it. We were out of jam, so husband gave her bread with honey. Sophia, who was eating idlis with cauliflower soup, pounced on the honey bottle (thankfully it was closed). she then pounced on a spoon

"poon that, poon that"

The spoon in question was quite dirty with cauliflower soup and no way was i going to stick it into my honey pot. I got up to clear up and told Sophia(anticipating a tantrum) that i would give her another spoon.

I was in the kitchen for quite a while - getting water, putting away the dishes, cutting bread pudding for husband etc. Sophia toddled in.

"What do you want" (I had quite forgotten the honey)

"poon"

I gave her a teaspoon

"that" (I then realized that she wanted the honey)

"I'll give you something else to pour"

So i gave her some water in a bown and a tray. Sophia poured out the water on the tray and began to cry.

"Amma taie!!! Amma Taie!!" (Sophia cant articulate the ka sound, she says ta "taie, tata, tadle")

So I carried her and she pointed to everything on the kitchen counter in turn, without finding the honey (the honey was in the cupboard)

Now I wonder what Sophia would think of molasses to play with. Should i give her some to make a mess out of? i have some old molasses which i got as a gift and hardly use. i cant give it away as it is already open, but maybe the girls can have some fun out of it. 

mommy reflections

How do I make my preschooler like to go to school?

Every morning the argument happens. Anjali opens her eyes and says "Mummy, i dont want to go to school!"

I have tried everything. We'll light candles, feed the pigeons, give kisses in the pocket, paint when we get home. All the things have lost their novelty.

This morning, after Anjali didnt want to go to school for the fifth time, i sat down, looked her straight in the eye and asked

"Why dont you want to go to school?"

"because i want to stay with Sophia"

"Well, you can stay with Sophia after you get back from school"

"No, i want to stay with Sophia when you go to office"

"You can stay with Sophia from the time you get back all the while I go to the office"

She didnt say anything. I knew her brain was working hard around this to find a loophole. I didnt let her.

"lets go and light the red candle that you bought from IKEA"

We lit the red candle, said our prayers and ate noodles ("I dont want to eat noodles! I want mamaliga")

ARGHHHHH

Then, while I ran back and forth getting everything ready,

"Mummy I Dont want to go to school"

Now, what should I do?

The imp wants to paint in the playground after i return from the office. The choice was "Do you want to go to the playground, or do you want to paint, or both"

Her response was "i want to paint in the playground"

Atleast painting is one job that I can migrate to the playground - unlike newspaper mud and cornflour gloop.

mud play and playground tales

I set up three activities for the girls last evening, and we did two of them thoroughly. The first activity was a simple routine one, a trip to the playground. We were there for an hour, which was very nice for the girls as many of their friends were already there. Anjali adn Sophia had a blast, playing with Sharon, oliver, pooja, Ram and the rest. I didnt have enough eyes. Anjali wanted to copy Ram's monkey businesses and it is very difficult for me to watch her as she climbs outside the play railings. Iit is hard for me to kepe my eyes on both children when Anjali does that and Sophia is inside the playground. Sophia is usually careful when in the playground, But I worry about her going down the steps. She can do it if she is conscious, but with the amusement of ten other children, all noisy monkeys, is rather distracting for a small kid.

At 8.30, Sophia began to get tired. She had only had half her dinner, and the girls were extremely sweaty and dirty. So I promised Anjali that once she went home and took a bath, she could have another activity. She could even invite her friends to join the mess making. however, the next day being a school day, her friends couldnt join in the mess time.

By the time the girls finished their bath and dinner, it was nine. So we began the mud play. It was not real mud, but clean mud, inspired from Filth wizardry. We took a lot of old papers - newspapers ad a couple of magazines and soaked it in water and flour. There was a beautiful goo that came out of it. My initial idea was to use it to make clay - to let the pulp soak and I could drain it the next day to become clay. However, the children were having an enromous amount of fun with just the goo. (I love to play with newspaper mud, Says Anjali). A lot of the mud got on the floor. would still have recycled it, but Spohia peed in the middle of the whole thing.

It was close to 9.45. Husband was going wild with amusement, and I wanted to clear up. The pee seemed a good excuse. However, Anjali declared "I'll play on the other side!". By the time the girls finished their play, it was ten. They still didnt want to finish, But I put my foot down, wth the promise of doing it again in a few weeks. The lift lobby was a very gloppy swimming pool with lots of water and paper pulp all around it. At some point, I made balls out of the thnig to show sophia, who looked at it and said "potato!", sending husband bursting with laughter again. At another point, Anjali and i decided to lob each other with the stuff, pretending that they were snowballs. Iit was good fun, and by the time we finished, the girls, and I, had to go into the bath again. And even when Anjali finished her bath, she had paper pulp behind her ears.

A bit of messy play, i think, takes out pent up energy and helps the children behave. Bedtime was very quiet. While I went to get Milo, each girl took a book, sat naked on the bed, and read stories to each other (in their own language). I would have taken photos and videos, but the camera had no charge. What fun!!

Sophia needs 50 books a day

I guess reading is a very nice thing, and a preference for books is something to be thankful for. I know that i should be grateful when I hear

"Mummy! Can you read me this book!!!!!" across the house to the other side.

I am. Especialy that stories and books take priority over other visual things in the house, such as tv. Here are some book moments that make me laugh (much later than when they are happening)

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Sophia woke up this morning, two minutes before I was due to leave for work. She goes to the bookshelf (without brushing her teeth, without having breakfast)

"Boof!!!"

Anjali picks another book. Its stuck between two heavier volumes.

"Mummy, Read me this book"

"I'll read for two minutes flat, and then i have to go to work,"

"Why mummy?" This from Anjali

"Because I have work at the office"

"Boof. This. Boof! toie" This from Sophia.
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Sophia gets very excited when she sees elephants in her book.

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With their penchant for stories and everything, yesterday I cut up a cereal box and converted it into a puppet theatre. I made the girls sit on a chair while I sat at the dining table. You wont believe it - Sophia sat in the gray chair for half an hour watching the various puppets in action. She was so excited to see Dora popping up from under the stage and telling her stories.

Dora told the girls a couple of songs, and then the gruffalo story. The gruffalo story was fairly long, but when it finished, Sophia was ready with her encore

"Dora! Dora!!"

So Dora had to come up on stage and dance for the girls again. 

A sense of fashion

When Anjali is ready to go out, she wants to take her bicycle. And now, the trend has been to take her bicycle, put on socks (my socks) and to wear lipstick.

This was to the birdpark on Sunday.

Junk kits

The whole world is a garbage pit. Grab some junk and make a kit. So that is what i did. I grabbed some junk and made a kit. Two actually. Since Swati may murder me if I showed up at her doorstep to see the baby carrying a toy for Ananya. (She keeps complaining that her house is a toysrus. A sentiment that i completely agree with)

So here is what is in each kit

1. A set of homemade jigsaw puzzles, using some discarded cardboard topped with drawings
2. A threading kit (with a mushroom container)
3. A set of home made flash cards
4. Some finger/ stick puppets for enaction
5. Stickers

I mean to continue adding to the kits until Saturday evening.

Happy new baby

Welcome to the world Deepika Kiran

Congratulations to the big sister

The power of politeness

Often, there is a fight for the lap. Yesterday, Sophia was sitting in my lap when Anjali wanted in. She tried to push Sophia away, but anticipating the situation, I told her

"Anjali, can you try to be Polite?"

We are reading Dora's book of manners and there are a lot of important words there.

Anjali is stone silent

"Anjali, try to say please"

Anjali:"Please"

Sophia does not budge

Me: "Anjali, try saying the full sentence"

Anjali: "Sophia, can you please let me sit in mummy's lap?"

And miracles of miracles, Sophia gets up and trudges away to sit on the bed with husband.

Sophia might simply have gotten bored of my lap, or gone to sit with her more preferred daddy - but I like to believe that she did it because Anjali asked her politely and because she understood the term please (having used it so many times herself).

Anjali ofcourse was very surprised and elated by the power of please and when she crawled into my lap, she was happier than she wouldd have been if she had done it by pushing Sophia away.

Lets hope that it was an important lesson learnt.

birdhouses, messy play, gloop etc

The evening fell together so smoothly that i should be surprised. When i got home, the girls immediately began to fight. We were reading a book - we read so many books these days that the stories of one over the other jumble up in my head. i think it was Dora. Sophia wanted to read a page with snakes, and Anjali wanted to move on with the story. So both began to cry over dinner.

After smoothing the situation, husband came home and Sophia spent a happy quarter of an hour messing with his dinner (her favorite activity is to fiddle around husband's dinner). on some well organized days I would give her a small plate with some food, but yesterday was not a well organized day.

Husband has this nice theory that what the girls really want is individual time. For the past several weeks, since Sophia was growing up and can be, in many cases, matched with Anjali in different activities, such as reading, craft and even jumping and running, husband and I grouped them together in activities. This was good, but was a case of too much of a good thing. the girls competed constantly for attention, in their own ways - Sophia threw tantrums when she had to share her stuff with Anjali. It was very puzzling.  So now we are trying to give husband's theory a try, and it seems to be working well.

Yesterday, while Sophia was playing with husband's food, i sat with Anjali in her lego city. Anjali was making a lego car and I built a city with a carpark that she had to navigate into. I think she learnt some stuff. She definitely learnt that if she banged her car down on my city, the city would break!

husband and Sophia took rather a long time with the food, and I realized that it was because Sophia was in the bath, washing up all the residual food on her. They stayed in the bath for about half an hour. In the meantime, we had finished the lego games, and as I had been meaning to do a birdhouse project for a while now, took a wooden house (an old one that we had picked from downstairs about an year ago, washed and kept) and tied it to the garden, in the hope of putting food and stuff for birds.

I was just finishing when husband came out with Sophia, asking for paints (the imp had been pointing to the craft cupboard and saying "pait!"). i encouraged her to have dinner first before painting, but that resulted in a tantrum. So I gave her the paints (which, incidentally were screwed on so tight that husband had to open them). So Sophia had dinner and the girls painted - which led to them having another bath.

Anjali then wanted to play gloop in the playground (I had told her that we would play gloop). I didnt want to play gloop in the playground, because gloop was messy and we had to bring copious buckets of water to the playground to wash the gloop. The other problem was that there was no water source in the playground, so the water had to be carried from home. Therefore we went to the playground, bought cornflour. Anjali tried to convince me to open the gloop in the playground so that her friends could play. But since pooja wanted to play and came upstairs, it was fine.

The three girls (my own two imps and pooja) started to work on the gloop. Sophia put way too much water in it, so it was more water in the tray than cornflour. As Anjali said it was not sticky, I pointed out that there was plenty of sticky stuff on the floor anyway. This led Anjali to pour all the gloop on the floor. it is slippery, so she went around sliding, and messing up her clothes, singing "Sing Sing Sing, okelo froggy" (A tribute to the mambo song that she learnt at the Jap garden concert)

We had some colors, and then there was so much water and gloop on the floor that Pooja suggested that we must paint. So we brought out the paints and a big bucket of water, and a handful of paintbrushes (we were in the lift lobby). The girls painted randomly. They had the whole floor to themselves. Pooja's eyes fell upon the birdhouse and she began to paint it. Anjali joined. (The birdhouse is now very colorful). Sophia amused herself by putting water everywhere, including on herself. This was not very clean, as the bucket of water was already mixed with paint and was quite black.

By the time Pooja's mother came for her, it was past ten and the girls still hadnt stopped their play. I sent Pooja back with promises of doing something else next week. My imps came home, husband helped me to pour two more buckets of water over all the mess in the lift lobby and pushed the cornflour and paint to the drain. They had a bit of a wash (Anjali thinks that husband's shaving brush is fantastic for scrubbing paint off her body) 

I rinsed off Sophia. We read a book and went to bed

the budding triathlite and naturalist

Anjali cycled all the way from acasa to patti's house swimming pool, a good three kilometers. patti says that she wants to cycle because she sees me and husband go to work in the bicycle. nice to know that we are motivating our kids by example.

Anjali is a motivated cyclist. There were parts in the road which were uphill, and parts with slopes. But she took them on very cheerfully.

"Mummy!!" she exclaimed "My bicycle is just like your bicycle!!"

 So we reached the swimming pool around 7.45, and swam till about 8.40. There were plenty of insects that had fallen into the water, and our budding conservationist picked them up gently and let them in the back. I tried doing the same, but found the worms too icky. Didnt let Anjali see me getting icky though - she was busy exploring by herself and saving as many "baby insects" as she called them

We got back home and blew bubbles before bedtime

Anjali wanted to cycle back home too. Husband was against the idea - he had come to the swimming pool directly from office and was pretty tired

"I will cycle fast. As fast as a bus"

She does cycle as fast as a bus. it took us 30 minutes to get from home to the swimming pool. if we had taken a bus, it would have taken as long - 5 min walking to the busstop, 5 mins waiting for the bus, 10 min bus ride, 10 mins walking from the bus to the pool.

Husband wanted to take a taxi though. Sophia too was hungry and a little cranky.

"You and Sophia take a taxi and me and mummy will come in the cycle"

It was a no go and in the end Anjali agreed to take a taxi provided that she could cycle to the taxi and then from the taxi stop to home.

At the playground

As a kind of post earth day event, we decided to decorate our newspaper hut with leaves to make a sort of teepee for Anjali. I heard from patti that Anjali had her afternoon nap in her newspaper hut and we decided to embellish it with dried leaves. So I took an old box outside and asked the girls to dump dried leaves into them. Anjali dropped a couple of leaves and went off to play. Sophia took up the challenge with gusto, dragging the box behind her, stopping to scoop up leaves and dump them in the box. She also picked up many really small leaves and dropped them in the box.

After a bit, we went to play in the sand. There is a little corner near the exercise playground where the sand is pretty clean and the girls like to play there. Yesterday, it had rained and the sand was nice and smooth for writing. Anjali often writes in the sand, and Sophia also has begun to grab a stick to make markings on the sand.

(on a side note on cognition, how does a baby know that a stick given to her near a sand pit is for drawing while a stick in any other situation is not?)

And guess what Sophia drew?

A lot of markings in the sand which she proudly displayed as

"Anai! see!!"

Jessica and Vineesia were in the playground and Anjali got into a spot of fight with Vineesia. There were two swings, but Anjali wanted the one that Vineesia was playing. there was some snatching and crying all around and Vineesia gave up the swing. Anjali swung for a bit, crying and came in for water, whereupon we discussed swiping and whether Anjali would like it if people said "No swiping!" to her.

We decorated the teepee after getting home. I'll put up a photo of the decorated teepee soon.

anai book

Girls come back from the playground at 8.45. They go to have a bath. Then they come out and ask for cereal. I mix the cereal and sit the girls in the living room with their books.

Sophia had two books read to her. Then she finishes eating and Anjali wants the book on Eyptian myths. i start with the story of how Ra created the world.

Sophia sits for two minutes. The story is boring, there is only one picture and too many words in each page. She looks around adn her eyes fall on another book - one with an elephant on it.


(points) "boof boof!!"

"Sophia, I just read you two books. its Anjali's turn"

Sophia does not listen. She goes up to the table and picks up the book

"boof boof"

plops it down in front of me

"lapla"

sits on my lap and points to book

"boof boof. padi!"

Now my tactic when the girls want different books to read is this. I turn the pages of the book Sophia wants, and read the story from Anjali's book. Anjali knows this tactic and appreciates it. It worked fine as Sophia didnt know that I was not reading her book.

until yesterday.

I have discussed before Sophia's fascination to elephants. And she realized somehow that the word anai didnt appear in the story thuat i was telling. nor did the word elephant, nor anything related.

She picked up the book again.

"anai anai anai anai"

husband began to giggle rather uncontrollably.

Sophia lay down on my lap and opened the book

"anai anai"

She turned the page

"anai yump" (the anai was jumping on a trampoline)

turns the page

"anai bruuuu" (Anai was going in a bicycle)

turns the page

"anai thopaal" (Anai fell off the bicycle)

turns page

"Anai bush" (Anai fell into a bush)

turns page

"anai aater thopaal" (anai fell into the water with a big splash)

I am really glad that Sophia has learnt to read her own book and tell her own story.

The kind of thigs you do when you have kids: Elephant riding and giiraffe feeding

Elephant riding


Giraffe feeding

The girls enjoyed their trip to the zoo. both were very tired though. Sophia ofcourse, enjoyed the anais as she called them. She also had a great time at the water play, where an anai was dropping water on everybody every few minutes.

It was terribly hot, but the zoo was nice. A word of recommendation though, the rainforest fights back show is totally wierd. Its a very cheesy kind of pochohantas (which in itself is cheesy). So if you go, save your time and go early for the splash safari to get some good seats.

Earth day and our newspaper hut

We finally finished our newspaper hut. With lots of help from husband on the engineering aspect of the structure, especially in making it stand

Husband threw some of Sophia's nappies over the hut to make it like a tent

The girls got out some paint to paint over it. i gave them talcum powder paint. Anjali wanted orange, but I had very little yellow coloring, so it ended up more pink. The girls had fun though.

The Jurong GRC concert

Last weekend was full of activity. Jurong GRC had a community concert at the Japanese garden on Saturday. It seemed like a very enjoyable outdoor event, going from the poster that was pinned to our lift lobby. We got the tickets - very reasonable, at $2 per person. We were all set for what Anjali called "The japanese garden concert"

But it began to rain in the afternoon. We knew that the grass would be wet, but deciided to brave it nevertheless. So, armed with three changes of clothes, we went to the Japanese garden. It was a great decision, and well worth the trip.

Here are some pictures

Sophia found a slope and thought that it was a slide down

Anjali and husband climbed a tower

We spotted a broown squirrel

Sophia marches the path with a frangipani on either hand

Arm in arm (I am hugging Sophia's neck, says Anjali)

Hand painting in the games corner

Sophia had a oua on her lip and I have a oua on my chin

This was Anjali's proud claim after Sophia's great fall on Wednesday night (which, I am glad to report, is much better. There is no scar or bruise)

I seldom report Anjali's many bruises, or else there would be too many bruise related information on the blog. What was interesting though was what happened after the chin bruise.

Anjali went as usual to school, albeit a bit teary eyed.

Ten minutes after I had left home, and was on the bike, I got a call from Mrs Gan. Did I know Anjali had a cut on her chin? Yes. She is tearing up a bit. Can Mrs Gan but a band aid? Sure.

Well, When Anjali came back, she was full of woe. Now, Anjali doesnt like Band aids, and tried to tell Mrs Gan not to put one. But Mrs Gan didnt listen. And the first thing she made patti do when she got back was to take off the bandage

when the baby flew

If one of your regular readers is the president of the children's fan club, the last thing you want to blog about it how your fifteen month old ended up with her mouth full of blood at 10pm.

But, I resolved when i started this blog that it shall be a historical account of the life of the two imps, and when they become world famous some day, it will be an account that can be published. So the mouth full of blood episode, being part off history, has to be written down, for good or for bad, no matter which president of whose fan club reads it.

here's how it happened.

We got back home after going to the swimming pool and to patti's house, around 9.45. Anjali wanted to make a slide, so husband leaned the small mattress against the big one. The girls had a good fifteen minutes playing with the slide, when I was in the living room getting started on my newspaper hut.

Sophia finished playing and came to the ,living room to look for me.

"mummy, mummy", she kept going.

Suddenly, i heard a thump. i expected Sophia to get up, as she always does

Whenever Sophia falls, she sits up says "thobaal" and then stands up to continue her work.

But Sophia began to cry. When i went to her, she was on her belly. At first I thought tthat she had fallen hard and was simply tired and wated to be picked up. I picked her up.

It was then I saw the blood in the mouth. There was so much of it that i got scared - Two big drops splattered on the floor

"Mummy, Sophia is bleeding", Exclaimed Anjali, who was probably seeing so much blood for the first time in her life.

Sophia was crying very loudly and i tried to determine where the blood was coming from. had her teeth broken?

Blood in the mouth is a very scary thing in an infant. it gets mixed up with the other fluids in the mouth that it looks like a lot more than there actually is.

"can I see her?" asked husband

but Sophia was beyong showing anything to anyone.

Out came the two godiva chocolates that she had eaten an hour ago in thattha's house in the form of some very liquidish chocolate colored mush. (poor thattha)

Two kitchen towel blots later I discovered the source of blood - she had fallen and had bit her lip. Sophia's teeth, being not fully developed are sharper than the average teeth. The lip was bloodied and swollen, and the blood was thankfully starting to congeal.

Husband told me later what had possibly happened - She had tripped over a mat and flew face forward on the floor.

The mat in question has already been removed.

I took Sophia to bed after two minutes, with a tumbler of milk.

"Do you want to drink booa booa?"

"sniff. booa"

"You want to sleep?"

"sniff. booa. bet. sniff"

So i changed my clothes, which were full of godiva flavoured barf, gave her booa and milk and then she went to sleep

 

How she talks

I am so proud of Sophia's talking that i cant, but brag. She easily makes two or three word sentences and copies Anjali so much that it makes me laugh.

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Husband and I got back home together on Monday evening. The girls were playing. Jinni akka is here for a week and they have been playing with her.

Sophia saw through me.

"ada!", she exclaimed, from her perch on patti's lap.

"ada!" she exclaimed again, shooting right past me to her ada.
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We were going to the playground yesterday. Anjali was cross because I had pressed 1 on the lift before her. I told her to press 4, so that we could go across by the carpark and see the rabbit on the next block. From that point on, till we actually reached the rabbit sophia kept going

"rabut, rabut rabut"

When we reached, she saw the hamsters and thought they were rabbits. To be sure, the rabbit was just lying there in the cage while the hamsters were busy working on the treadmill and eating food and kissing each other.

"They are hamsters Sophia"

"hamper!!"
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When we read a book, and were looking for something in the pages and if I asked her "where is Dora/ monkey/ elephant", her reply is

"over there!!" (not there, but over there - thats two words)
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incidentally when we read a dora book, she always goes

"shoper, shoper"

it took me a while to figure out that she was actually saying Swiper
===

What i would like to do with the kids as activities

I think i am really going to try out paper clay. God knows we have so many scraps of paper in the house. Will probably take it out to the lift lobby so that the stuff doesnt get every where. And ofcourse, we need to be careful that Sophia doesnt think that it is pudding.

She thought that the beach sand in Sentosa was, and put it in once. But the thing about Sophia is that she does put stuff in once and then after she decides that it is not for eating stops eating them. Two days ago she tried playdough.

Until that point of first tasting, we need to be careful.

Also I really really want to make that newspaper hut. I might set it up outside the house as a little camping ground, although husband thinks that it could go in the house as a little cave for the girls to go in. Maybe I'll make two, it certainly seems easy enough.

In the meantime, i have found these cool ideas for planters with old milk cartons, which I have about 50 at home (i stopped stocking them until i could find some use for the old ones). The intention is to start a slightly bigger garden, and give earth and seeds to the girls to work with. There is garden earth around all the trees in the estate. I might try to swipe some. i dont have to be too worried about insects, given that the garden has shifted outside. but that has to wait till husband has time to build us some new shelves for putting the plants - there is absolutely no space in the old ones.

One of the tings that amazes me, or rather, the thing that i feeel thankful for is expanding space. All the time I was a kid, we used to be pretty confined to our own house, with the exception of in Ooty, where the terrace was there for us to play and even put plants in. Here, we have a neighbor who has a fantastic balcony garden just below the house. His garden is full of flowers and he spends a good number of hours tending to it.

Till we went to India, I used to keep a little balcony garden in the house. but we didnt have a proper balcony. As a result, we had to close the windows during rain or if we went away for long periods. The plants, because we loved them, put up a good fight. But it was a hard one. When we left for India, we put the plants out and asked our neighbor to help water them. They seemed to have gotten a second lease of life. When we returned, they had bloomed so well that we were wondering if they were the same plants. We decided to leave them outside. There were several advantages. The place was brighter, i could water the plants with less worry about water spilling over (because of which reason I could ask Anjali and sometimes Sophia to water the plants)

Two weeks ago, something happened which made me very glad that i had decided to move the plants outside. A gloxinia plant, which we had purchased from hort park some two years ago before Sophia was born had withered and died in the balcony. Patti had taken the earth from that plant and put it in the money plant pot. Some seed must have remained though, and gotten a second lease of life, for oone day suddenly I saw two gloxinia blooms, bright blue.

"How did the seed know that it has a second span of life here?", asked husband in amazement

And so it happened that I am expanding the garden again - not by much - just little planters here and there with seeds. We have a pot of tulasi seeds which I am watering diligently in the hope that they will sprout (this happened three weeks ago and I dont know how long tulasi seeds take to sprout). We got some basil and some flower seeds which have already started to sprout. I have big plans for expansion, but lets see what the plants and nature have to tell me. In the meantime, though, I am in desperate need of shelf space. I suppose i could get some planters filled with soil, put holes in the pots and hang them from the beams, bet lets see.

Meanwhile the girls are due for the wimming session this evening

filth wizardry

I just found a fascinating blog called filth wizardry with tons of very nice and exciting crafts. I have bookmarked a couple which I am sure that the kids would love. This morning, I wanted to make a newspaper hut, but Sophia woke up very early (which kind of kid wakes up at 6.15 in the morning, 30 seconds after I put the tofu on the stove?) and refesed to go back to sleep.

she wanted to cuddle and went "mummy caie" (curtesy of language taught by sister) and then went after ada with "boof" and got him to read Hop on pop to her and began to cry when he told her that he had to take a shower.

Sophia knows when to flash her smile and when to use her words to great effect.

So the plans for making the newspaper hut got shelfed for the moment. I, however, found time to make the really cool sword that the kids are playing with. it took all of three minutes to make and both husband and Anjali were very amused by it.

Husband wanted me to make a second one, Sophia wanted one, and it would be so much fun to act out all those mahabahratha and Gatothkacha stories if there were two swords. So we made a second one and here is what the girls did.

Anjali's opinion of her first field trip

I called Anjali last afternoon after she had got back from school.

"i didnt do any water play. Because my teacher said ""No water play!!"". The water play area was closed."

"Did you go on the tree house?"

"Yes, I slide down the tree house like an elephant"

At home we got the flyer on jacob ballas garden and pored over the pictures. Anjali identified going on the rocking bridge ("The bridge rocks and rocks. I was a little scared. i didnt hold anybody's hand. i just hold the bridge at the bottom, like this" (mimics crawling)). She also identified the photosynthesis exhibit

"i saw this. It is a water sprayer"

"Is this the water play area?"

"no. it is not the water play area. The water play area is closed. This is a sprayer. if you turn it will spray"

I feigned ignorance

"So, you must press a button for it to spray?"

"No. You must turn a wheel, and then it will spray and spray and spray"

She ate "crunchy tasty biscuit" at the garden but drank nothing. And when they got back to school, it seems that they had porridge for lunch.

"Werent you very hungry by the time you reached school?"

No satisfactory answer was given, so I suppose she is fine.

Astute questioning

Last night, there was a bit of rain, and I took the girls down to the playground for their usual mess and dirt time. When they came back, I plunked them in the bathroom. husband offered to watch over the girls during their bath.

"Ok girls, take your bath, and i'll go and change my clothes"

Anjali: mummy, you are going to change your clothes?

Me: Yes.

Anjali: Why you are only changing your clothes and we must take a bath?

I am proud to say that i didnt shirk or excuse myself around that question. As husband offered to watch the girls, I marched to the other bathroom and took a shower.

Wehn I came back, the girls were blowing bubbles

why Anjali does not like sunny days

Because Mrs Gan will give her barley to driink during snack time and Anjali doesnt like barley.

on cold days, it seems they get milo and yakult.

"Is the milo hot or cold?"

"its cold!!!" she exclaims. "You take the milo and put it in the fridge and it will get cold"

 

@
http://members.tripod.com/~kimira_1012/

The girls at the beach

This is, I think Sophia's second time in beach water. The first time was in Auroville. There, although she was interested, she didnt want to go in the water. the waves in Auroville, ofcourse, were fairly strong. besides, she was still mouthing sand and we didnt let her

The waves in Sentosa, however, were less severe than those in the wave pool in the csc pool. the sand, I think is imported from dubai, or something, and it was so smooth and so soft that at first, Sophia spent nnearly half an hour simply playing and scooping the sand. Then she went into the water

half an hour later i yanked a totally screaming and protesting girl out of the water, bundled her into a robe and dunked her into the shower. She didnt like any of these three, but kept pointing to the ocean and saying "mannu, mannu"

We did, however, see a school of small red fish, just like the swimmy fish that swam very close to the shore.

By the way, Sophia slept about ten minutes all afternoon yesterday. She fell asleep on the bus in husband's arms, but woke up soon after we reached home, ate cereal and demanded that i read baout 50 books to her before she went to sleep.

Eating watermelons at Sentosa

Sentosa is extremely different from what it used to be. True - the snake charmers are still there, they have made a nature trail around the whole island from part of the monorail, the beach is nice - but some of the kitsch there really gets in our way.

Imagine sitting in a pavilion surrounded by trees. Nice isnt it. Except that its an illusion. Through a stone and you'll hit another path. But you have to hand it for making the illusion so nice in imbiah lookout.


Sophia likes the water melon though. Except that she only wanted to munch on my half eaten watermelon and refused all the melon that the rest of us gave her, even though they were very fresh

three word sentences

At the playground, when Anjali and Sophia are playing jump and throw with the leaves and such, Sophia goes

"ne, too, tee, yump!!" (one, two three, jump)

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We were at sentosa, and finished with the beach. Sophia points and goes

"rubat rubat"

"There is no rabbit here"

still points and goes "rubut, rubut"

Husband realizes what she wants to say

"yes, thats a frog that goes ribbit ribbit" (we were passing the flying trapeze, which has a lot of frog pictures on it)
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We had taken the sand toys to the beach. Among the toys was a watering can, with a handle and a small cover at the spout. Anjali took the water can into the sea, and at some point, the handle and spout came off. She put them back on the sand and just took the water can to the sea.

About ten minutes later, Sophia, who was playing in the sand and the sea came to the sand toys. She picked the handle and spout, looked at them and says

"pashutta... anniya" (that means picchuuta)
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WE were back and were reading "I love you stinky face" by Lisa Mc Court. There is a bit there about "What if i was an alien, whould you still love me?" Sophia points to the alien and goes

"fish, fish"

"Thats not a fish, thats an alien"

"fish, fish"

"ok fine, it looks like a fish"

"aater!!!!"

"Well, yes, fish must be in water, but this is not. Thats cause its an alien :P"

under the influence of coffee

We took the girls to sentosa yesterday. They has a splash at the beach and at the underwater world - I'll put up some pictures later. On our way back, thattha suggested icecream at vivo city, and Anjali jumped on it. We found a coffee bean where they had no icecream, just frozen yogurt. So we got frozen yogurt for Anjali, which she ate half. Husband got an iced Mocha, and for some reacon, Anjali liked it. So she drank nearly half a cup of coffee, and got high on it. On the bus back, she was going on and on about how she liked sentosa

"I liked the under water world... because I put my leg in the shakr tub. And the shark ate my shoe"

Then how come she still had her shoe?

"I played a joke on the shark"

Anjali is very fond of making jokes on people. She would say something quite shocking and when i make an exclamation, she would laugh and go "I made a joke on you"

Then she made up a story

".. and then I took all the water out from the shark's tup and the shark turned into a lion and ate up mummy. And then I took my blue stick and hit the lion and you grew long hair until your bottom"

Why did I grow long hair? The answer took a bit of stretching

"because the lion cut your hair" (she knows that if you cut her hair it grows long)

Ah, right. Does the lion have scissors?

No. The lion has teeth (this in exasperation)

When she got back home, she got out her black notebook and wrote a letter to the shark

"Dear shark, you must turn into a lion and eat my mummy"

discipline issues

Yesterday, in the evening, Anjali wanted to play jumping

From the pavement to the road, while we had an interminably long wait for the taxi

I told her no.

She did not heed.

The I said

"Anjali, dont jump, if you do, you'll be hurt by a passing car and get a big ooa. Do you understand?"

No response.

"Anjali. When I ask you a question, you must answer me. Do you understand? yes or no?"

No response. Instead, she glares at me.

"When I go back home, i'll take my bicyle and yoll it over you"

huh? "Why?"

"Because you are always scolding me"

well...

taking things slow

"Motherhood is all about taking things slowly", i was telling a colleague yesterday. We are planning a trip to the zoo in a couple of weeks time. The girls are very excited. Husband and I have grown to expect that we would be spending a lot of time at children's world, a few rides on the merry go round and a couple of hours in the huge water playground. Between these, I doubt that there would be very many things that we would do -probably see the otters and penguins.

But we dont mind. Infact, if it takes three trips for the girls to see the zoo/ birdpark/ botanical garden, we dont quite mind. So what if they forget what they saw the first time by the time the third time rolls around - we just do it all over again.

But the thing is that we dont need a trip to the zoo for the girls to have fun. Early in the morning, there are several pigeons who sit on the building ledges. Wehnever we go to drop Anjali off at the school bus, I stick a few peices of read in my pocket for the pigeons. It is amazing to see them flock down. The first pigeon usually takes a while to come. But once the first pigeon comes down, they all soar down to the ground to eat the crumbs. Anjali and Sophia get totally excited to watch them. Kiran too is intrigued, and has started to tell his mother not to go to the busstop as they do everyday, but to wait for the "food to come"

One day i took oreos to give the pigeons. They came in Anjali's goodie bag, and are full of sugar and no nutrition. I try to toss them in the dustbin, but since we were feeding pigeons anyway, decided to give it a try

Not a single pigeon came down to eat the oreos.

I dont write on the blackboard

We are reading Kevin Henkes again - its a new book called lilly and the purple purse.

Lilly loves to go to school and loves her teacher. its perfect for those mornings when Anjali does not want to get up from bed to go to school

So the writing goes

Lolly loved school

She loved her desk

She loved the squeaky blackboard

"Mummy", asks my attentive kid, "Lilly is a teacher?"

"No. Lilly is a student, just like you"

A beat, a pause

"But I dont write on the board!!"

And then

Lilly loved the fish sticks and chhocolate milk for snacks

"Do you like all the things you get for snacks in school, Anjali?"

"I only like the good things.", pointing to the page "All these are good things? Or they are dunk?"

I am reading!!

Yesterday, when i returned from the office, Anjali and patti were in the middle of a full blown fight. Anjali was crying at the top of her voice and patti was alternating between explaining to her and trying to make her stop crying. The objective of the fight was a stick. It came from a white board - which was broken, and Anjali had taken apart the frame and used the sticks for various rather imaginative purposes, including hitting people.

Patti got annoyed when she hit her one too many times and threw away the stick, whereupon Anjali began to cry. she continued crying for 15 minutes, and after i came home, patti left to go to patti's house. On her way out, she took the stick from where it was outside the rubbish chute and flung it back inside the house. Anjali took the stick and continued crying. There were two reasons for this, i think.

One was that she was still feeling bad over the whole thing, and the other was that the stick was not quite right.

"it is teared!!", she explained to me tearfully.

I sized up the opportunity immediately, and encouraged her to throw away the "teared" stick. We were also supposed to make a new stick.

So, to sort of begin the activity, Anjali and I sat together and made a list. I wrote down all the activities and to make sure that Anjali can also understand them, drew cartoons next to them. For instance, Make a stick had a drawing of a stick next to it, and paint some chickens had a very crude cartoon of a chicken. included were wash our hands, and plant some seeds etc. So Anjali had to pick an activity after dinner from the list and we would do it.

Anjali, after dinner, picked the painting chicken activity. I took the paints from the craft cupboard, and her eyes fell upon the bubble kit that thattha had got her in yercaud. The solution was long over, so i filled up some soap and water and she began to blow. Sophia and I were watching when suddenly i had a great idea, inspired from one of the books in Aravind gupta's book gallery - making big bubbles. So I got out a slightly broader tray and put some soap and water in it. Following that, I got out a long roll - the kitchen paper roll was very sufficient. We used the kitchen paper roll as a big straw and used it to take and blow bubbles. It works marvellously. The bubbles that come out are big as balloons and if we blow slow, the bubbles dislodge and then fall on the floor. Anjali was interested in the big bubbles but stuck to her wand, while Sophia was completely blown over by the large bubbles, which she burst periodically.

At one point, the bathroom floor became too slippery for her, whereupon, we put a towel on the floor and continued the blowing process.

Husband got back from work around that time, and after a bit took Sophia out. Sophia keeps going "Ada Ada"  nonstop otherwise. Sophia saw the paintbox which I had left on the counter for the chicken painting. She kept pointing to it and saying "pit, pait", so we took the paints. Anjali, by this time, had finished playing with the bubbles and was ready for painting.

By the time they finished painting and washing up, it was around 9.30. I dug out the pumpking pudding in the fridge for husband (who is partial to my puddings). Unfortunately, Anjali and Sophia ate it all up. I need to make another pudding next

Husband, during that time was trying to book tickets for the gruffalo show. Unfortunately, the tickets were all sold out. That was a bummer, as we really wanted to go to the show. I am telling husband to book tickets for the doggy poo show, but husband is queasy.

Then we asked Anjali to pick an activity. She took the list down from the wall and indicated the stick on top.

"Mummy, lets do this"

"Ok", i said.

then she pointed at the words

"Make a stick".

"Thats right", i exclaimed

"I can read!!"

The stick consists of two kitchen paper rolls stuck inside each other for making a frame. I am covering the rolls with felt and sewing it up, after which the cardboard rolls will come out old cloth will go in as stuffing. It can double up as a wand if i put sequins and beads in it.

videos of our painting session last evening

Our attempt at crafts

We did some painting yesterday. The result was so nice that i simply had to put up a series of pictures.

The inspiration was from a blog where the craft was to get footprint of a baby and then add a beak and eyes to make yellow chickens. So we began to work.

Setting up

The girls paint their feet

Of course, Anjali decides to paint her hands
And we have a nice handprint colalge all over the floor

This is Sophia's painting. Bright, beautiful and sbstract
The "chickens". husband thought that they were seahorses
Anjali decided to paint daddy's face
A very concentrated painter

The girls at the triathlon

Climbing trees
Exploring sand castles

A dried leaf collage. Now thats an idea

Since husband was going to be doing some serious sport yesterday, whe whole family decided to go and support him. The girls had a blast playing in the sand