Sunday at the playeum

We organized an IEP trip to the playeum. It was a great attempt by the southwest CDC to get children to explore. Here are some of the activities that the kids participated in

Exploring the water bowls at the start of the path

Making a headdress

Anjali's headdress (Sophia had a blast moviong the collage materials from one pot to another and pouring sequins all over the place - but refused to wear her headdress in the end)

Sophia and patti explore the percussion section, which was a lot of pots, pans and drums. Sophia enjoyed the drums. Even after we got home, she kept enthusiastically miming drumming. I guess I can set up something like this at home. For a while, i have been inspired to create a sound garden where the children could bang and toss to their heart's content. Now may be a good time to scourge out old pots, pans and cups.

This is one of many cardboard houses. Sophia promptly got in to play her favorite "house" game

Ramya plaing in the giant soft blocks

That sure looks bulky!!

Drawing on the hourses

More decorations

Bharat and Dheeraj exploring the percussions. The boys were happiest in the music making area, while the girls were more crafty. This was a general; observation, though it falls cleanly within sterotypes. Dheeraj wanted to do the clay, but unfortunately the clay session closed before he got there. This is another thing I could do at home - the kids made playdough clay and then painted it with glitter. Glitter is something that I use at home when i am in real desperate need for quiet, or when Anjali asks really many times. It gets everywhere and stays for days. However, the playeum people had mixed glitter with paint. Thats a nice idea to control its spread.

More house play

When the children needed a break from the craft, there was always the sand pit to explore

The boys, especially appreciated having the opportunity to play outdoors. jayanthy and some of the parents set up a frisbee game going which the boys keenly enjoyed.

One of the day's highlights - movement painting. Getting started

The children take up their positions

Ofcourse, Anjali began painting before the instructions were given

the job was to draw using wax or make lines using tape, then paint on them to see how the wax resisted the paint. According to Art experiences for toddlers and twos, many of the younger children wont be able to appreciate a crayon resist until they are nearly four. However, they had a good time painting.

How would it be if we did this as an activity - As a preparation, I could get large mahjong papers and make wax/ same color crayon drawings on them, a scenery, a cartoon character, or something. Then I could give gigantic amounts of paint to the children and ask them to paint the whole sheet and discover what is hiding under. I wondr if this could be an activity for the IEP camp. I have done some mini crayon resists of her favorite characters with Anjali and she generally likes to do them. The trick ofcourse will be to use some very thin colors. Tempera paint needs to be watered down or else the crayon wont be able to resist it sufficiently. This, I think was a mistake made by the playeum people, their tempera paint wasnt thin enough, and the kids had to wipe it a little.

Origami

After all the exploration, we came back again to work with the percussion instruments. The boys and Sophia joined in to have a great blast.

We rounded up the day's activities in a typical IEP fasion with circle time. The reflections were rather short, and the kids were busy eating, but we did feel that it was an afternoon well spent

A wierd conversation

Last night, Anjali and i were reading a book about Katy duck - soomething about a duck who loved to dance and who danced from morning to night and dreamed of dancing when she slept.

"What do you dream of, Anjali?" I asked

"I dream of soldiers", she said

This extraordinary pronouncement made me give pause.

"Soldiers?" I repeated

"Yes"

"What did the soldiers do?" I questioned

"They came all the way to our house."

"They came all the way to our house?"

"Yes. And they took us away."

"They took us away?"

"Yes. They took me away, and they took you away."

"Where did they take us to?"

"To their house"

"They took us to their house? What did they make us do there?"

"They made us to sleep"

"Thats ok. We can sleep in the soldier's house, and we can sleep at home, so its not so bad."

"No mummy, but the soldiers will flatten us up"

By this time, i was very disturbed. Where did Anjali get this vision from? Husband, who had been listening in said, "Its probably some story she heard, some of the religious tales with Krishna have soldiers in them"

"What were the soldiers wearing, Anjali", i asked.

"They were only wearing their jetti"

"Were they carrying something?"

"Yes, they were carrying swords"

One of the reasons why I am a bit more upset / distressed than I would be is because I have been reading a book by Eric Kandel, who describes in his book a little bit about the holocaust in Austria and how it shaped his life. So the expressions they came to our house, took us away and made us sleep have some horrific meanings for me. Ofcourse, though I have discussed the book with husband, we have never mentioned any of these stuff in front of the children. Infact, we never specifically discussed the holocaust as a topic other than mentioning in passing that there was the holocaust and it shaped Kandel's life.

Anjali had been reading quite ardently krishnaleela, and I know there is mention of soldiers in that book, but not like the kind she said and anyway, I am positive that none of us told her a story like this one before.

So i ventured to ask her

"Who told you all this Anjali?"

And she replied. "No one. I learnt it all by myself"

What do i make of this?

Anjali had a rather disturbed night's sleep - owing to a tiring day. But this morning, when she woke up, I asked her

"Did you have a dream?"

"Yes"

"What did you dream of?" I asked with some trepadition

"I dreamt of flowers"

"What color were the flowers?"

"They were pink flowers" 

An evening at home

It is very rare that we actually spend evenings at home. We usually go on rambles or to the library or at the very least to the playground. It so happened however, that a combination of factors made us go off the outdoor play last evening.

Firstly, patti had already taken the girls for a half hour of play in the playground.  Sophia seemed to be having a very mild diarhoea. And thirdly, there was an outbreak of HFMD in the area around our house, with Shreyas getting infected. I was a little protective of the kids and plunked them straight into the bath after play.

Alnjali had been asking for a bus trip and I thought a nice thing to do would be to take a bus trip to no where (Bus number 173 has a very interesting route amoung the suburban areas in Bukit batok with very nice countryy houses and meadows). however, after their bath, the girls were playing in the bedroom. They played slide down and rubber house and jumping and all sorts of stuff and When I asked Anjali whether she wanted to go in the bus, she said "After I play in the bedrom let's go on the bus". Ofcourse, playing in the bedroom took up a lot of time, and I dont think she was very enthusiastic about a trip to nowhere (i want to go somewhere mummy!!)

The highlight of my evening though were the two baking projects that we did. Husband had gotten a packkets of sunflower seeds and I had found a fabulous yeast bread recipe with sunflower seeds. However, as the girls were busy playing, I didnt want to be interrupted during my kneading process and decided to keep the bread for the next morning.  This plan changed.

While the children were playing in the bedroom, I went to the kitchen. There I found a box of strawberries which were a little too sour. I also found three apples and decided to make an apple crumble. I had no sooner put the apples tto cook on the stove when Sophia toddled in. She raised her arms

"Amma taie!"

And seeing me put a little of this and a pinch of that in a bowl, she immediately said

"Shapia!"

So Sophia helped me to make that cobbler. She poured out flour, measured baking powder, and poured out oil (husband would be glad to know that half the oil went on the kitchen table and so the cobbler is relatively oil free). When it was time to put the strawberries in the baking tray, she refused and wanted to put them direcly in the batter.

The cobbler went into the oven and Sophia had the pot to lick of the remains. After she did that, and later she mistaked the pot for a pot of paint and tried to put her foot in and then put little batter coovered footprints all over the kitchen, Anjali walked in. She had been playing trains with husband in the living room.

"mummy, what Sophia is eating?"

"She's eating the batter from the cobbler"

Anjali looked at Sophia, whose face was full of batter. She looked at the oven, whose light was on. Her face fell.

"Mummy, why didnt I make this?"

"Because you were busy playing trains and I didnt want to disturb you"

Her lips began to tremble. "No. I want to make a cobbler"

I had a brain wave. "Do you want to make another one?"

she brightened up. "Ok"

So we got out the baking stuff again. Husband took over Sophia, and read her books (while she  eyed the pot owlishly, as we had settled Anjali on the kitchen table out of reach of Sophia)

I left the pot in front of Anjali and went to get flour. When i returned, Anjali put her feet in the pot and was dragging it around.

"Anjali, you dont put your feet on your cooking pot, its not hygenic"

Very cheerfully, "Ok!"

I opened the fridge to get out the yeast and measure the water. When I came back, she was not using the pot as a stake, she had it on her head as a hat.

"Anjali!", I exclaimed, in frustration.

"You need to wash the pot again", husband advised sagely.

The pot was washed and in went the flour, milk and salt. The yeast frothed beautifully in honey water and we had a blast kneading. We left it to rise and Anjali liked the remaining dough.

The bread rose beautifully and when baked it looked like real bread, like husband said. It also cut like real bread, into slices (none of my other breads had ever done that), and I just ate a slice and it tastes like real bread - with the tang of whole grain and the sunflower and sesame seeds that we had mixed into it.

Welcome to Sophia's house (with translations in sandard English)

Guest: knock knock

Sophia: thume (come)

Guest: This is your house?

Sophia: hmm (very enthusiastically)

Guest: What's your name?

Sophia: Shapia

Guest: I am very thirsty

Sophia (holding out her hand): hmm

Guest: What is this?

Sophia: aater (water)

guest (mimes drinking): very nice. thank you

Sophia smiles graciously

Guest: I am very hungry. can you give me something to eat?

Sophia (holds out her hand): hmm

Guest: whhat is this?

Sophia: Chaputi

Guest: Thank you. Do you have any curries to go with it?

Sophia: hmm turi

Guest: What curry is this?

Sophia: Dhosha!

Guest: Thank you. Can you give me something to drink?

Sophia: dus! (juice)

Guest: What juice is this?

Sophia: apple!

Sophia reading

Sophia loves to read. Here is her reading of the Dora book. If you listen carefully you can hear her commentaries on what she sees. However, she got distracted by the camera, especially that dora is on the camera screen and on the book.

More mud

Once in a while i give the girls something really messy. In a book I read several months ago - art activities for toddlers and twos the authors described a recipe for white mud, using soap flakes, toilet paper and water. The first time I did it, I used too much soap, and Anjali got a mild rash. The second time we did it at IEP class. I was wiser this time, we used baby soap and the children had a good time. But some parents commented that it was a big waste of tissue paper which can be used for a perfectly good utilization. We tried is a couple more times - once in Romania- but the effect was never so great -primarily because of the guilt involved in wasting perfectly good tissue paper.

Recently, I found another good source of mush stuff - recycled junk mail and newspapers. The mud is, of course, not so white. But there are two things that make it desirable - 1. The mud, when thickened with a bit of flour, can be dried out to make clay and moulded into shapes (we have never gotten to this stage in our home because Sophia inevitably pees on the mud at some point and we have to throw the whole lot away). 2. it acheived the sensory experience of mud without the bother of dirt, or the bother of soap (we use flour instead which is safe on the skin) and the guilt of using something that can otherwise be more constructively used.

Here are some pictures of the kids in mud in front of our house. The tray of blue paint was there incase the girls wanted colorful mud - and they did.




And a short video. I think the girls are having fun. They work very quietly when exploring mud (note the part when the girls use the gate grills as a basketball hoop)

puppetry

For the opast couple of weeks, the girls have been exploring puppetry. It started a long time ago, almost a year ago, when I made puppets for a handful of stories and rhymes. However, i didnt have a proper archiving system for the puppets, and they were only accessible to me. Then, when i made the kit for Ananya, i realized that we had puppets for nearly ten stories and didnt use them effectively. So I took down the envelopes and put them altogether in a shoe box.

Then we had a cereal box puppet theatre, which proved a real hit, and the girls, even Sophia, would sit for close to half an hour and listen to the various puppet tales.

The challenge began when Sophia started requesting puppet show when i was at work, adn Anjali began to take down the puppets and put shows on for Sophia. The ceral box theatre, which was so imaginative, required a certain dexterity in handling, which Anjali's fine motor skills were not able to cope with. Anso, her puppets faced inward than outwards, more because she couldnt see them properly.

So Husband cut out a puppet theatre from a milk carton. I put wrapping paper over it to make it more attractive. then Anjali put glitter on it


Of course, she also put glitter everywhere else in the house. I am still finding glitter in all her books and many a times Sophia's hand, full of glitter has gone to her mouth. i dont know how much glitter Sophia has swallowed



This is what we landed up with in terms of a puppet theatre.
Need less to say, it has been a huge hit. We hold puppet shows every evening (classic story book stories, modified stories etc), and Sophia often brings the theatre box and requests "puppet show!!" when she is bored of her current activity.

I understand from patti that in the afternoons, takes down the box of puppets and holds puppet shows for Sophia's entertainment.

she is fighting with me!!

on Saturday, husband took Anjali to the swimming pool and to a carnival at civil service club. The idea was that i could wake up  a little late and that Sophia will sleep in. that way I could get a bit of quiet time. I had been very tired as of late due to some long hours at work.

I got up soon after husband left with Anjali, though and was in the midst of a shower when Sophia woke up. Then she wanted me to stay with her and read her a thousand books. Now, Sophia has a very curious habit. She doesnt want her book to end. And she almost always knows (for the books she is familiar with, atleast) when the plot is going to finish. She has an uncanny ability to detect close to happily ever after, upon which she would cry and either turn the page back to somewhere in the middle of the book, or point somewhere at random and say "This... boof". Examples include when Maisy successfully pulls Eddie out of teh snow, When Dora finishes rescuing whoever she rescues, when Mr Rogers puts some of Amelia Bedelia's pie in Mrs Roger's mouth.

Well, I had lunch to cook and couldnt spend all my morning reading boofs to her, so I took her to the kitchen to play with the stuff in the cupboards. She started pulling all the plastic containers and yogurt pots out, upon which I gave her a potato and an onion to cook - which he happily did for about ten minutes (enough time for me to get the pasta sauce ingredients and set it to boil). Then she stood up.

"ater pour!"

So I took her to the bathroom.

"oushide"

Out went a bucket full of water, a small bucket and (Sophia took) an empty yakult container. For almost half an hour she watered the plant (She could reach the plants on the ledge so the procedure was this)

pick water from bucket using yakult container, ask mummy to carry, pour water in the plants.

As the container was small, she cound pour several containers of water on the plants, and I believe that the plants were happy. She definitely was. Happy and with shorts that were soaked through. Considering the weather and the fact that shhe would get wet, I wisely let her go shirt free.

Then she came back in for oats and wanted (surprise surpise) a boof. This time it was amelia bedelia.  There came a stage where Amelia bedelia drew the drapes. Now, to regress from the story a bit, Sophia likes to draw. She draw everywhere, pen on paper, felt pens on her body, stick on sand, imaginary art on the playground pillars, and she always draws "anai". She has a big penchant for elephants. Sophia really loves elephants. (she identifies all the Maisy characters by name, but for Eddie, who she simply calls anai)

Now, i was reading Amelia bedelia to her, and it went something like this.

Me: So Amelia bedelia drew thosse drapes

Sophia (pointing to drawing): anai

it took me a while to understand what she was saying

Me: No Sophia, thats not an anai. thats a curtain. Amelia is drawing curtains.

Sophia: Amelia anai.

Me (entering into the argument): curtain

Sophia: Anai. daw anai

Me: curtain curtain

Sophia. Anai Anai

Me: No curtain

Sophia (beginning to cry): Anai. puleese Anai

i relented: Ok. Amelia Bedelia took a paper and pencil and drew an anai

Then Sophia was happy and let me continue the story.

This is not the only time she argued with me over the weekend. Anjali had left a box of random toys on the bed and Sophia was rummaging it one morning. She found a fish. i happened upon her and the fish and made the fish swim on the bed.

Me: Sophia, see, the fish is swimming on the bed

Sophia: shish. ater

Me: The fish is swmming on the bed

Sophia. No. Shish shim ater

These two arguments have been repeated a countless times over the last weekend to my and eventually to Sophia's amusement. So much so that yesterday, in the taxi, i began

Me: Sophia. Amelia bedelia draws the curtain

Sophia: anai

Me: Curtain

Sophia: Anai. shish ater

Fast of her to make the association between the events from the charateristic pattern of the dialogue. Husband was very amused. i was simply amazed and proud, for a sixteen month old to make this sort of associations

Abot the drawing, husband says that he is fairly sure that if you take the drawing of the drapes and turn it or convert it into some abstract art, it could become an anai. Theoretically. 

 

ice pop magic

Some guava juice, a tumbler, a freezer, an icecream stick. Put them altogether for a fun wholesome (more wholesome than lolllipops anyway) after the heat in the playground snack.

I told husband we ought to try this in Romania where the juices are more natural, although there is nothing in principle wrong with peelfresh, escept that it comes out of a carton.

At the playground

It had rained in the morning and an especially muddy (semi dried) puddle offered its opportunities to Sophia as she explored the playground. Puddles offer several avenues for imagination. Children can be fish, a bicycle can be (as in Anjali's case) a submarine, as she and Jainee explored and exploited the puddle.

Sophia ofcourse wanted to take off her shoes and explore, but I insisted that she keep them on. She slipped, slopped, splished and sploshed until she was a sight to behold! - full of water and mud.

And then she fell. she picked herself up quickly enough, but kept touching her knee. I checked. There was a nasty scrape.

"Sophia - you have an oua"

"oua" - she said, morosely, pointing.

"Do you want me to kiss it?"

Very vehemently - (the same vehemence that shoots swiper from the page of the book) "NNNNNNNNNOOO" and then she ran.

The tale of bibble bubble

Once upon a time, there was a boy called bibble bubble. One morning her told his mummy
"Mummy, I DONT want to go to school"

"Ok", his mummy said.

At first bibble bubble was very happy to be at home. He played with his toys. But soon, he began to feel bored.

Mummy and daddy went to office.

Bibble bubble had no one to play with.

He missed all his friends.

When his mummy came home, he said "Mummy, I want to go to school. Can you take me to school now?"

But it was evening. The school was closed.

The next day was Saturday. School was still closed.

The following day was sunday. School was still closed.

Bibble bubble was very sad.

When Monday came, bibble bubble got up before his mummy.

"Mummy, let's go to school!", he exclaimed.

"Are you sure?" Mummy asked. "You can stay at home, you know"

"Yes. I am sure", said bibble bubble. "School's fun!"

And he dressed up

Put on his shoes and ran as fast as he could to catch the bus to school

============
This story worked today for Anjali's i dont want to go to school cries. 

Book sites

I get a lot of inspiration for books from websites.

http://library.booksite.com/5796/nl/?list=CNL9

We have also read many of the caldecott award books, although some off the caldecott books were way too advanced and abstract for us (Like David Wiesner's flotsam - I prefered the red book)

I found a website called daddyread (www.daddyread.com) which has plenty of booklists and a chockfull of advice

Though the girls mostly still pick Dora (i make sure I borrow a couple) or Maisy, I like knowing that I have other classics in the house and that characters like Wemberley and Olivia are still popular

Camping

Since Dora slept in a tree house with boots in a sleeping bag, the girls too wanted a sleeping bag. it was Anjali's idea, and husband brought out the sleeping bag we had at home. Sophia wanted them set out inside out (throwing a tantrum when husband told her that it was not correct) and Anjali wanted to camp in the living room (though I put my foot down a that for a weekday evening)

A full sentence

I was humming yesterday while getting the girls ready for the playground

"Pasure pasure kshiiram dehi"

Sophia immediately said

"dase dase atha ehi tam!!"

well!!

irresponsible parenting

Sophia's hands are always perpetually dirty. She puts them everywhere. I *sometimes* bring a cloth out with me, but I simply cant keep up with her as she runs and puts her hand on every single surface, all the muck in the world, puddles of rainwater (should I bring them out this evening to play in the puddles? They had enormous fun on friday evening)

And then she puts her fingers in her mouth.

I seldom cut her nails and you can often see the layers of grime under the fingernails, as they accumulate

starting out with chapter books

We are beginning with chapter books. The children are sort of interested, but it is a big leap, having books with little or no pictures. Anjali has been wanting to read chapter books for a while now - glossy books with lots of words and few brightly colored pictures - Aesop fables, fairy tales, and when we start on these, Sophia comes in with her little dora books - Sophia is not very interested in keeping the same page unless it involves an elephant, preferably getting bitten in the bottom by a crocodile.

I borrowed "Two times the fun" by beverley cleary. I like it. and i think Anjali identifies with the characters, although she has too imagine them a lot. 

We should go to the science center again

We went to the science center on Sunday morning mainly for the pixar exhibition, which was way too advanced for the girls, and not much informative for husband and I. However, the science center is a veritable jungle of information and stimulation. I think we ought to bring the girls there again.

While we were peeking at the science center during the pixar show, There was an echo tunnel. Anjali shouted into it, delighting when her voice echoed back.

"Mummy, who's up there?" she asked

An obsession with nailpolish

on Thursday, I heard that Mikaela has nail polish. So Anjali wanted nail polish too. On friday, I took half day for Anjali's parent's day and was made to go to west mall to buy nail polish. Anjali chose some sort of pink. She has been painting everyone's nails since then (she wants to paint them herself). her own finger nails. Sophia's toe nails (i drew a line at Sophia's finger nails, although Sophia sticks her nails out and says "pulish"), thattha's toe nails, and my finger nails. Daddy refused to get his toenails painted, as he is embarrassed to have pink toe nails at the swimming pool.

Here are some moments:

Sophia showing off her painted toes
Anjali showing her self painted fingers

The budding manicurist

The girls at the science center

We took the girls to the pixar animation exhibition to the science center. I really dont think it was worth the money. The price was $24 per person, including a 3D rendering of Toy story. The 3D effects themselves were not very good. Anjali thought that the movie was very scary (She kept shouting "Buzz!! Buzz!!" when Buzz was escaping from some scrape or another). The girls were excited about the 3D glasses though, although husband and i thought that there was nothing much to be excited about them. Husband took off his glasses ten minutes into the movie.

The thing is that we have a DVD at home, and the effects were nearly the same.

The only nice thing about the exhibition, as far as i could see, was the stroboscope animation of toy story. But to pay $24 for seeing a stroboscope animation seemed a bit overmuch.

Overall, the exhibition may be good for older kids and perhaps for people interested in these sort of things. They had lots of sculptures of cartoon characters (But you see, I went a few years ago to see an exhibition at the national museum with ancient greek sculptures from the Louvre, and the tickets for that were much cheaper. Therein lies the sting)

 

A matter of expressing

Anjali took her bicycle to the playground yesterday. Anjali always takes her bicycle outside - to the playground, to patti's house, to the nature park, to the bird park...

So she was cycling around the place when another kid brought his bicycle. Anjali looked at it for a bit and then said

"Mummy, I want a bicycle like that"

"But your bicycle is just like that". i said, puzzled. It was just like that, small, with a basket in front.

"No. i want a bicycle like that with a stick... So that so that...." she thought hard to formulate the right words

"... so that you dont have to squeeze this" (indicating the brakes)

She was talking about the stand.

A tangled web of science

Due to Sophia's barfing episode, we had camped last night in the living room with bedsheets. Anjali was very intrigued by this change of venue and didnt make a fuss about turning off the lights

Anjali: Mummy, we are camping.

Me: Yes.

Anjali: We will turn off the lights.

I brought a book.

Anjali: Mummy. I am very tired, lets turn off the light and camp.... (a minute) Ok, after we read this book, we'll turn off the light and camp

The lights got turned off.

Anjali: mummy, it is dark. The sun has gone to Romania?

Me: Yes. The sun is already in Romania and it will soon go to America.

Anjali: The sun will go to America and then to Romania?

Me: No. the sun will go to Romania first

Anjali: Mummy, I think you are saying the wrong thing. America is the first (Question: Is she saying this or did someone tell her?)

I know I said something about earth and newzealand being first, but cant quite remember.

Then after a while

Anjali: Mummy, when it is day, the stars will go to Romania?

Me: Yes. or rather, Romania will go to the stars. The earth goes round and round and Romania will face the stars.

Anjali digested this and then: Mummy. Our building is moving?

Me: What makes you think so?

Anjali: Our building is moving and I think it will fall down.

I was trying hard to keep a straight face and thanking the dark.

Anjali: If the building is tall until the sky, it will fall down when it moves.

Deja vu

I blogged over half an year ago about two bleary eyed jet lagged parents sitting next to a hospital bed while a extremely chirpy two and half year old toddler drank stone juice and rocked Eeyore on a hospital medicine tray .

I think Sophia is determined to do everything that Anjali ever did, or atleast to replicate all of Anjali's major adventures in addition to her own, much earlier than Anjali. Sudha aunty told me once that the girls will be very competitive. Sophia had her first major fall at 1year 3 months. Anjali had hers at 1 year six months. And now this.

Yesterdaty, at 7pm, when patti left, she reported that Sophia had eaten a square meal. After the hunger strike of last week, I was very glad. She had eaten gnocchi and had asked for cheese. I was halfway through dinner when Sophia barfed. All over my clothes.

I was not too concerned. She barfs once in a while, although not as much as this. I cleaned her up, and gave her water. I continued setting up the day's craft activity with the kids. Then Sophia barfed again on the floor. Husband had just gotten back. It must have been around 8pm.

At 8.45, the girls had finished their craft work, and went in the bath. Sophia, as usual drank plenty of bath water (it was a warm day). She wanted to get out much earlier than usual and the minute I took her out, she brought out all the water that she had drunk.

At this point, I was starting to really get concerned. Once upon a happier time, husband would have told me to wait and observe Sophia. But experiences of 3am jaunts to the hospital in taxi's with girls throwing up oon the backseat have made him a wiser man.

"If she throws up one more time we'll take her directly to the hospital"

And she did. At 9.30, I made Anjali Milo with milk and for Sophia Milo with Soya milk (I wanted to go easy on the milk because of the queasy stomach). The Soya milo went in fast, and came out equally fast.

patti and thattha had the kind of intuition that pattis and thatthas only have and were on their way to acasa evven before we had decided to go to the hospital. Anjali put up a small theatre about wanting to come to the doctor, but stayed with thattha in the end.

So, to the hospital we went, with Sophia drinking warm water. No sooner were we in the taxi when the warm water came out too.

At the hospital, i made the mistakke of telling the receptionist that the imp was having a slight cough. She was shifted to the quarantine area, which was a no husbands allowed zone.

A room was allotted and we were told to wait for the doctor.

"Opo door!" she commanded, after exploring the bed and buttons in the room.

in the corridor were several dispensors with sanitizing lotions. I resorted to several squirts to entertain the imp.

Husband came in for a short while to give us the books, baby wipes and stuff. once the two books came in, we retired to the room, where Sophia spent a long time reading.

The doctor came. i couldnt have ten seconds of conversation, being interrupted by "MeeSha" (cat), "giaffe" (zebra), "loll loll" (wolf), "apple", "ani anai", "whash ish?" (for an iguana that she didnt know the name of)

the doctor concluded that the best option was to go the hydrating solution way, since Sophia was active.

The hydrating solution stayed down smoothly enough, so we were sent home with more hydrating solution and lots of advice.

The whole of yesterday she was curled up. I felt really bad, more so when reading a Dora book failed to elict any response from her.

In the evening, she didnt want toast - she wanted cutlets. Husband and I gave her just a bit, praying hard. THankfully, it stayed down. When we returned from our playground jaunt, she wanted Milo. I refused but gave her Soy milk (with milo color). She tossed it and threw such a tantrum, that thattha, who had called to enquire, atarted to brainstorm what else I could give her instead of Milo.

Finally, she had a bit of rice congee with yogurt before going to bed.

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some signs that Sophia was getting better

I took the girls out for a walk in the evening. There is a corner near Anjali's old school with some toy cars and aeroplanes. Anjali sat driving an aeroplane and Sophia wanted to sit in a car.  I started to sing to Sophia to cheer her up (The girl had hardly smiled through the day and hadnt laughed even once)

"The wheels on the car goes round and round, round and round..."

Anjali piped up.

"The wings on the plane goes flutter flutter flutter, flutter flutter all the way to india"

"Very good, anjali", i said and then contunued my song

"Sophia in the car goes broom broom broom, all the way to"

Sophia piped up "Malaysia!!"

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Then in the playground I was nursing and singing

"The ants go marching one by one hurrah hurrah

The ants go marching two by two hurrah hurrah

The ants go marching three by three the little one stops to climb a tree

And they all go marching on"

Sophia dislodged herself, looked up and requested

"anai anai"

Ok fine

"The animals went in two by two hurrah hurrah

The animals went in two by two hurrah hurrah

the animals went in two by two, the elephant and the kangaroo

They all went into the ark for to get out of the rain!!"

Nice morning moments

At seven, I woke Anjali up by cuddling to her and singing St magladene of Canossa. She has  been singing the song at the top of her voice recently at every chance she gets.

She got up, miraculously without any fuss.

"What do you want for breakfast?"

Anjali's breakfast has been, for the past few days, a bit of a morning battle. There is a mild drop in her morning appetite, which has gone largely unnoticed and unmentioned in the light of Sophia's food strike. The girl who used to eat, without complain noodles and cheese, has shown a dislike for the favored dish. She now opts for more of our food - milk/ cereals/ toast.

So this morning, her option was to have mamaliga with cheese. So mamaliga with cheese it was. And while waiting for it to get ready i put Stephen Devassy's sacred chants. Sandhya has a knack for picking nice music and Sacred chants vol 5 has an absolutely beautiful rendering of madhuraashtakam. I played it and told Anjali about it

"Anjali, this is a Krishna song"

"Adharam Madhuram vadanam madhuram....."

I looked at the girl in front of me, sitting on her little plastic toy car, smiling with an innocent face at me.

"hridhayam Madhuram, gamanam madhuram"

I took her face in my hands

"Anjali, this song is about krishna and about you"

"Madhuraa dhipathe rakilam madhuram". i sang along.

Anjali's smile widened.

"Mummy. Krishna is in my heart"

And that, I believe, explained it all.

The rewards of being a mother

Anjali sings this yesterday night, I think she picked it from school

"Mummy Mummy I love you
Dont you see I love you so
I too see you love me so
So I sing to you"

I forgot completely about Sunday being Mother's day and picked up the phone in the evening to a couple of messages from friends. I mentioned off hand to husband that it was Mother's day. Anjali had been at the sand pit, playing and immediately came up behind me, saying, "Happy Mother's day mummy"

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)

=
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.