What do you do when people comment on your kids

I know it is a problem that many mothers face, being told to do this or that with your kids. Its fine when the comments come from a family member, but for them to come from total strangers is a lot more than I can stomach.

Husband and I were returning with the kids from Sibu and as usual, they were playing on the bus. It was a routine play, not quiet, not overly tantrumy, just the usual singing, talking, sometimes whining, as kids are often apt to do when stuck in a small enclosure for a length of time.

In front of us were the only other people in the bus - it was a mini bus -an American man with his chinese girlfriend (I know their nationalities because I saw them filling up the passport at the ferry terminal). The man was 45 (again courtesy of my nosiness and the ferry terminal form)

So the man and his girlfriend spend several minutes of the journey making clear undertones and signs about how the children are disturbing them, and at one point, when Anjali got up to look in front, he blew his top

"Can you please ask them to behave?", he asks. "We have not had a single moment of peace in this bus!"

Now, I am not supporting my children. I know better than anything else that at times they can get quite rowdy, but this was not one of those occasions. Infact, both husband and I felt that they were generally well behaved. So naturally, I lost my temper

"Please get your own private transporation next time if it bothers you", I told him

"So we have to get a private transportation because your kids are not behaving"

"They are children. Play's what they do"

He rolls his eyes. "Children! Thats the next thing they always say"

"When you have your own, you'll know" I said

That shut him and his girlfriend up. I would have, out of sheer pettiness and spite loved to have the girls annoy him further, but they both fell asleep shortly afterwards.

But I have been very annoyed about the whole episode. And after all this time, i keep thinking about all the nasty things I could have said to him

Like

"If your mother has let you play when you were a kid, you wouldnt be such a narrow minded bloke" (I thought of other adjectives to narrow minded but dont want to put them in the blog)

or

"I am not stopping my children from playing just because a person like you, who obviously has no sense of civility, tells me to"

There. thats out. I feel better.

Heart chart

I saw a craft activity on crafty crow about a string of hearts. It seemed to be a good way to reinforce values. When the children do something good, give them a red heart

We changed it a bit, and made a chart, one for Anjali and one for Sophia, spanning two weeks. The idea was to give a red heart for each good deed/ control of temper/ cooperation/ giving in, and a blue heart for every naughty deed. We are careful not to misuse or overuse them. For instance, if the naugthtyness is part of exploration, we dont give a blue heart. But if the naughtyness causes purposeful hurt, or if it is repeated after several warnings, or if an unnecessary tantrum is thrown, then we award a blue heart.

The idea is to keep track every day of each kid's red and blue hearts and mark the numbers on the chart on the wall to keep track of how they are improving. And also for us. Sometimes, tantrums get overwhelming, and they seem to take over our lives. But keeping a chart makes us realize that the tantrums are only a small part of the day. YEsterday, Anjali had 3 red hearts and 2 blue hearts. Sophia had one red heart.

Ofcourse, I only measure the hearts in the time I am with the children and not the time when patti is when the children, so I guess the number of hearts will increase significantly during the weekends. 

As the children grow up

As the children grow up, their conversations become more and more mature, and sometimes, more and more outrageous.

I heard Anjali telling Sophia - they were pretending to be Glinda and Dorothy

"Dorothy, you must marry me"

"No!"

"I am pregnant you know! So you must marry me"

What on earth?

Sibu Island photos

For those whose silverlight behaves wierdly, they can just click here

Anjali in the flying fox

At Sibu island

I am sitting in the porch of a chalet. The chalet has two rooms- a bedroom and a living room, a small bathroom.

"Why our houshe having no kishen?", asked Sophia, on the first day that we landed here.

Apart from the fact that the houshe has no kishen, even Sophia is impressed by the place.

The kids are both sleeping. They were worn out because the whole three days has been one long picnic with mom and dad. A picnic made all the more better by the fact that mom and dad are not cooking/ looking at the computer/ there are no televisions/ and there is unlimited amount of sand and water.

Given that the children are sleeping, husband took the time off to chase after some shells that have long caught his eyes.

There is a small palm tree right in front of where I am sitting that is swarming with humming birds (does the word swarm apply to humming birds?)

Sometimes, a peacock, or two struts by where we are lounging. The girls got pretty excited the first time they saw the peacock and began to run after it. Fortunately the peacock was running in the direction that we wanted to go. Now they are used to the peacocks, and dont give them more than a passing glance

So far, I have seen three peacocks and one peahen at the same time. There may be more.

Of course, less easy to habituate to are the deer. About 20 of them live on the island, And they all flock out at around 5pm to be fed. They eat right off the girls' hand, and they like being touched when they eat off your hand. I have made about 20 photos with the girls and the deer in various clothes and angles.

And when you get past the peacocks and the deer, there is the beach itself. Beach 1 and beach 2 are sort of the same distance from our chalet. Beach 1 is littered with seashells. It is by far the girls' favorite beach. Husband and I found seashells on the beach. Such sea shells that I have seldom seen outside a shop. Clam shells thrice as big as my palm. The one husband has ran off to get is about five times as big as my palm. Conches just as big, and there are ever so many of them. Of course, we dived and took as many as we think we can carry. Husband has gotten this huge conch which he claims is going to replace all the rubbish that he puts on top of his computer table. I think it will make a very unique flower vase. The first evening that we were here, we collected ever so many seashells and put them all in a big plastic bag.

The next morning, we sorted them out in the porch according to size and color to decide which ones to take with us home and which ones to leave behind.

"Take them all", I said to him. I had never seen shells this unique and perfect elsewhere, even in Tioman, where I had collected a whole bagful of corals and had to bleach them in boiling water several times to get rid of the fishy smell that they gave off.

Maybe we could take some of the more uniform shells and use them to make a photo frame. Anjali and Sophia against the backdrop of the ocean, in a photo mounted on a seashell frame. Mmmm... its a nice idea.

In the dining hall, they have little bowls with seashells in them for decoration. Its a cool idea, but I am thinking woven baskets. Palm baskets will be the best, but newspaper weaving wont be amiss either

Yesterday morning, we went hiking in the jungle. The guide took us to the top of a little hill which overlooked beach 3 and a viewpoint. Then we walked down to beach 4, which required us to come down some rather steep slopes and climb them using ropes.

One thing that I found interesting was how Anjali often asks us to carry her in the road but never when we are climbing the rocks or the forests – something that even thattha noticed in Yercaud. Nevertheless, anjali's climbing skills were a bit rusty – if I am not wrong, her last rock climbing was in Taman Negara and that was nearly eight months ago. I dont know how much of Taman Negara Anjali actually remembers, but she was very surprised with her forest and root climbing agility.

"Anjali, you have been climbing rocks every since you were as small as Sophia", we told her.

"Huh?" she asked. Quite surprised.

Sibu island resort seems to be one of those places where the children can roam around as and how they like. There are no cars – the whole island is so small. The guide said 65 acres, with most of it left as jungle and hill and probably a third of it developed into the resort.

Husband is back, not with one, but five huge seashells. I wonder how we are going to get them out of the border.

Anjali tried the flying fox. I will be putting a video of that in the archives. She was quite brave about the whole thing, and w encouraged her very much. Sophia stood at the base of the flying fox contraption and threw a good little tantrum when she discovered that no one was serious about making her go on it. We couldnt. The thing was three storeys high and I am sure they didnt have a harness small enough for her

This morning we tried a bit of snorkelling. It was more of an experiment, but didnt turn out as well as we had hoped. The children were too young, the waves too violent, and the water not clear enough for a good visibility – at least not near the shore. I guess snorkelling is an experiment that we will leave for a couple of years down the road.

The island of snorkelling though was beautiful. I do have some pictures.

Anjali's sum up: Anjali, mummy, Sophia and daddy went to the rainbow trail. When we went to the rainbow trail, we saw a beach. We built some sandcastles, holes, and filled them up with water.

I miss the deer and the swimming pool with the blue slide and the peacocks and the flying fox.

The funniest part was having Anjali explain to thattha in Tamil about her experiences in Sibu while we were showing him the photos and videos on the computer. It went something like

nama botala ponom, boat turn over pannithu, nama waterla fell panninom, yenna appo shark varum.

"What is this", asks patti, in Tamil, pointing to a photo of a peacock

"idhu mayil", says Anjali

"No. Peacock!" says Sophia

"Mayil in tamil", says Anjali

"No peacock!", insists the contrary one very stubbornly

And so the printer got down

12noon

Patti calls. Virtually panicky.

"Sophia and Anjali were playing oven with the printer. And then I went in and Sophia pushed the printer off the table."

In the background, Sophia is crying, very loudly. I suppose that she didnt expect the printer to make that big a bang when it fell.

"I'll ask husband to fix it when he gets home". I say


1205

I call back to make sure that there is no glass on the floor.

1210.

Patti calls back. No glass on the floor. A piece of plastic had broken off the printer.

845pm
We return from Valli aunty's house, Sophia, who refused to sleep in the afternoon, crashes in the car on the way and I put her in the bed with her party clothes still on (it was a cold night). Husband changes her diaper. Anjali refuses to change from her pattu pavadai. "Why Sophia can sleep with her beautiful dress and I have to change?" And I let her be. Afterall, it was a cold night.

"Sophia pushed the printer off the table", I tell husband. "Can you check if it is working?"

Husband tries to close his mouth, but is quite unsuccessful. He plugs in the printer and turns it on.

It makes a sound like a very big bulldozer rumbling.

He turns it off and rather like a mechanic looking into the hood of a car lifts the printer top and peeks in, sticks his hand in, and brings it out.

There is a small plastic fish (I honestly dont know where it belongs) in his hand.

"Who put this in the printer?" he asks.

"Sophia", responds Anjali promptly

We believe her.

Finally, the printer got fixed we printed out a photo - which I promised Anjali to turn into a puzzle.

Enjoying

There was a fight in the library. Anjali and Sophia were both fighting over the same book, not quite sure what that was about, because they both wanted me to read it to them. I didnt interfere but let them fight it out. one thing led to another and Sophia tumbled and fell.

Later, we were leaving the library and Anjali ran up the stairs. I was helping Sophia up and husband was carrying the heavy box of books and by the time we both reached the landing, Anjali was no where to be seen. We searched around for about five minutes when she came running, from outside the library. We were both worried and I gave her a talking to that left her a bit in tears.

However, as we were going home, husband said

"We need to decide a punishment for you both, since you were fighting and also because Anjali ran out"

"I agree", I said. "What can we do?"

"Anjali and Sophia will sleep tonight by themselves"

"I want mummy!" said Anjali immediately

"I think daddy is right Anjali", I said. "You need a new discipline method, since you dont do time outs properly."

"I will go to time out", she said. And then on the taxi "Mummy, if I go to time out when we go home, then can I sleep with you?"

I just hugged her and kept quiet.

When we reached home, she immediately started jumping on the bed.

"I thought you were going to be disciplined", I reminded her.

She quietly stepped out of the bed and went to patti's room. I went to the bathroom. A millisecond later, there was a knock.

"Mummy, can you turn on the lights at the time out place?"

I came out of the bathroom and turned on the lights in patti's room.

Then I went out, leaving the door open. Anjali was sitting on the bed with a toy dog in her arm. Sophia waddled in, carrying a book on her head.

"Anchalli, want to ead this toie Anjali?"

"No Sophia, I am in time out. "

"want to ead this toie in time out Anjali?"

"No Sophia. Mummy, Sophia is disturbing me in my time out!"

"Ignore her and pretend that she is not there", I suggested from the kitchen

A couple of minutes later I walked by patti's room. Anjali was still sitting with her puppy on the bad and Sophia was sitting behind her with the book.

"Mummy, I like very much to sit in time out with my puppy. I am happy doing that"

Now, I am very sure that that is not quite the point of time out!

Photos from Sophia's birthday party

Here are some of Shree Valli's photos, since our camera ran out of battery. The pizza making and husband's dragon cake are quite well covered

Greek Gods

As I am reading the Percy Jackson books, I decided to introduce the kids to the world of Greek Gods. I recommend the Percy Jackson books for kids and people who liked Harry Potter. its not as good as Harry, but way better than Artemis Fowl, and definitely worth reading.

The kids were in bed and I was telling them about the titans and the gods. I happened to mention apollo in the Achilles story, the god of the sun.

"Apollo the swallow", says the two year old, who gets very mystified by same name characters in different stories.

"Yes. Apollo the swallow is named after the God Apollo", i said, continuing the story

"Apollo is not a God, Apollo is a swallow!", interrupts the two year old, quite vehemently.

"Mummy, why did Achilles die?", asks Anjali, who is very interested. "Story! Story!"

"Because...", I began, "he burned the temple of Apollo and the god got angry..."

"Apollo is a SWALLOW! NOT A GOD", says Sophia, raising her voice

"Sophia, people often name others after gods. You are also named after a greek Goddess. Sophia is the Greek Goddess of wisdom"

"Me?" asks Anjali

"Anjali is the Sanskrit goddess of offering", I invent hastily. "And Sophia is the goddess of wisdom"

"I am not a god", Sophia says, turning her nose up.

"No." I agree. "You are not a god. You are just names after a god"

"I AM NOT A GOD!", she presses.

"Sophia!", says husband "You are not a god, you are a monkey"

"No. I am not a god or a monkey. I am a dyagon. foo foo foo!"

Ice play

Yesterday evening, I dumped a few huge blocks of ice in the bathtub. I had used several containers to freeze coloring paste and ice -- so we had cups and tumblers of red, blue and yellow ice. They had a great half an hour pushing, prodding, and breaking the ice. Then they began to cook.

I could have taken pictures, but i was having too much fun watching them.

 

Patti's stuff

We were at patti's house on Sunday and about to return to home. Sophia comes along, bringing a cd with her.

"Mummy. take thish cd to acasa?"

"What is this cd?"

"thish one Ganesha cd over here. take this to acasa okay?"

"Excuse me!" said patti, quite outraged. "I am having knee pain and I am asking you if i can bring bunica's old slippers here and you are not letting me. And each time you come here you swipe something from this house. What exactly are you thinking?"

Patti was quite right. Her Ganesha collection, which she used to be rather proud of, is quite empty. Each Ganesha has mysteriously disappeared and reappeared at Acasa. Once Sophia realized that she doesnt have any more Ganeshas to swipe, she started taking other stuff - like plastic combs, and books and cds.

"you take bunica's shoe okay!" says Sophia. "I having one Doya shoe and you having one bunica shoe. okay?"

Indeed, the last time they had gone to the market, patti had gotten Sophia a Dora shoe, a slip sandal with straps on the back, one that Anjali noticed the minute she got back from school ands tarted crying about. patti had been looking all around, but they simply dont have the same kind of sandals in Anjali's size.

Anjali never took my handbag

Sophia has learnt to unzip bags, and she is getting rather obsessed with them. Yesterday, she took Anjali's piano bag, unzipped it, put it on patti's chair, sat on top of the chair and peed.

Luckily the bag was waterproof and none of the books were damaged.

Sophia got called naughty.

"I'm a good girl!!", she kept insisting, to anyone who was not busy cleaning up with rags and baking soda to actually listen.

Five minutes later, I saw that my isecure device was on the floor. She had unzipped my bag, taken it out, and my wallet and happily going through its contents.

I took away my handbag (I am a good girl!!) and hid it. now I must remember to keep it out of her reach.

===============
My plans for a miniature Oz are going extremely slowly. We have made a castle for Glinda, a tower for Elphaba and some kind of house for Dorothy. But we still need to make heads for Dorothy, Glinda, and the wicked witch, and ruby red shoes.

Axel Scheffler and paper work

"How was your day Anjali", I asked

"bul bul", she said

"Ok, If you tell me about your day, i will tell you about mine"

"No mummy,  If you tell me about your day, i will tell you about mine"

"Ok. I did some paper work in the office and wrote some articles"

"I also did some paper work in my school. I did some tracing."

"What did you trace?"

"I traced some lines so that i can write better"

===================
I have been researching on Axel Scheffler and got a book called "Mother goose nursery rhymes" illustrated by him.

I took it to Anjali for bedtime reading yesterday.

"Mummy, is this Charlie Cook's favorite book?", she asked immediately.

"Nope, but it is illustrated by the same person"

========================

"... And so mother goose called this baby Lucy and the third baby was called Small"

"Edmund?" asks Sophia

"Nope. no Edmund in this story"

"Mummy, why this duck called Lucy?" she persists

"Because Lucy is a nice name"

"Why this mummy duck calling baby duck Lucy?"

"Goodness!", I say "Maybe the mummy duck read Narnia and thought that Lucy was a nice name and decided to call her baby Lucy. Does that make sense?"

"Yes", said Anjali satisfied, wanting to hear the rest of the story. But Sophia was not so easily satisfied.

"Why this mummy duck calling Lucy no Edmund?"

The Wizard of Oz

A good story is one that stirs up the imagination. And Oz is one of those stories. I took some time off to reread the Wizard of Oz yesterday. And there are an attrocious number of characters in the books that donot appear in the movie - like the China people.

So the China people features in my bedtime story for the girls last night, and me, in my high sleep was muttering about them. When is topped, husband tried to take over

Sophia: Want Chinese stoie

Husband tried to say something

Sophia: No. Mummy tell me Chinese story

Me: Once upon a time there was a china man

Sophia: no want Doyothy chinese story

Since Sophia let go of the bua, she had been fussing to go to sleep, not because she is hungry, but because she wants a glass of milk. Though she drinks milo and has cereal before bed, she still wants a glass of milk close to 11pm.

So, after hearing wired sleep contorted versions of Dorothy's adventures with the China men, she drank her glass of milk and went to sleep. the last thing I heard before I drifted away was

"Pat a cake, pat a cake, baker's an"

The monster ate my baby

Those who looked carefully at our monster would have noticed that he shared certain characteristics with our blue baby. Naturally Sophia noticed it too. We were coming back from the library and she saw the monster on the shoe rack

Sophia: "Wheresh my blue baby?"

Me: "Its probably in patti's room"

Sophia: "Why my blue baby is here?"

Me: Thats not your blue baby. The monster has the same color hair as your blue baby.

Sophia: No. Want my blue baby...

I thought that so much crying was unwarranted, until i realized something

Me: Sophia, do you think that the monster ate your blue baby?

Sophia: Yesh

Me: No. The blue baby is in patti's room, Take off your shoes and we will go there

Sophia. No.. Want my blue baby...

Anjali: Close your eyes everyone, I will show you a surprise

We all closed our eyes, Sophia inclusive

Anjali ran into the bedroom and appeared a few seconds later with the blue baby.

All was fine once more and the sun shone again

I should have expected that correlations with the blue baby would arise, but I have so much left over blue yarn. I am also making Dorothy with the blue yarn. Lets see.

 

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

Whats happening over here

I spy concentrated girls


Lots of colors


And a junk monster

Inspired from a book that Ramya gave us during our book exchange party. where some kids make a monster out of junk. We are next going to try to make Glinda's castle

Something amazing happened on Pongal

Birthday babies

Cake Baking 101

Measure, Mix and knead


Break the eggs


Stack 'em up


Cut off the crumbs, get the kids to eat them and go on a sugar high


Small cakes like these are helpful in making eggs and if they look too wierd to be eggs, cut them out to make faces, tails etc


The shape of the dragon (tortoise). Gives you a deep insight into the process of evolution.


ITs all in the looks


Shaping the nose!


And the scales


And the eyes. See how soulful the stegosauras looks?


Until he begins to breathe fire


And the you realize that he is not a herbivore


And anyhow, Stegausars dont have wings

Give any remaining sugarpaste to the kids if you want them running amok till midnight

Ofcourse I would like to annoy husband, who spent about half a day baking, mixing and decorating and just document here the thing that inspired his creation

Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior - WSJ.com

Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior - WSJ.com

This is a nice article. I know it all boils down to different parenting styles, and I know that i resented it very much when my parents told me off when I got bad grades and yes, we had all the screaming and stuff at home, and I told myself that I wont do that with the kids...

My take on it, however, is that it might have worked for last generation but wont for this generation, after all the children have other friends who are having fun

At night

Sophia: Want to sleep with Anjali
Anjali: nah
Sophia climbs over me and tries to get to Anjali
Anjali: Mummy, Sophia is not letting me sleep
Me: Sophia, sleep on the other side of mummy
Sophia: want to sleep Anchali thoppai
Me: No, you sleep on mummy's thoppai and hold Anjali's hand
Sophia: No want to sleep mummy thoppai. Want to sleep Anchalli 's thoppai
Me: Sophia, you sleep on mummy's thoppai and daddy will tell you a story.
Sophia sleeps on my thoppai
Anjali: Story! Story!Story!Story!Story!Story!Story!
Sophia: Anjali! hold my hand Anjali. Hold my hand!
Anjali: Story!Story!Story!Story!Story!Story!

Two years with Sophia

The first thing that stood out about Sophia when she was born was her smile. As she grew older, she did little things, worming her way into our hearts.

Like peeing on her sister, sleeping synchronously, looking soulfully etc.

While her smile was always there, she was also full of attitude, which was obvious even when she was a month old.

Around this time, we started taking Anjali to gymboree, adn Sophia was right there, cuddling, uncomplaining through the long bus and taxi rides, and enjoying herself . When she got still older, she began to see mummy dance and play with Anjali

When I returned to work, we set new routines, got used to each other and grew up. She cooperated in mummy's crazy schemes

She began to creep and crawl at five months and by July, we decided that she was not a baby anymore, but a toddler

She began to talk before she could walk, saying things like bear and door. And then she began to walk and always the smile would crop up

And now she is two years old. She talks two to a dozen, makes complicated games involving Krishna and Dorothy and can hold her own in any conversation. She has stopped breastfeeding (finally) and wants to sleep with her sister.

She is even starting to agree that she is big.

Happy birthday Sophia

Playdate at Kiran's

Venue: Kiran's house, playdate
Day: 1 day before Sophia turned 2.
Action: Anjali and Kiran had finished playing on a tricycle and Sophia on a toy car, Shreyas is trying to climb the tricycle.

Mommy: Shreyas is small.. Sophia... Sophia.
Sophia is busy and doesnt turn
Mommy: Oi Sophia.
Sophia (still absorbed in what she is doing): listening!
Mommy (who didnt quite get the impact of what she said): Sophia.. Sophia
Sophia (louder and still not looking up): Listening!!!!
Mommy: Shreyas is small you know.
Sophia: yesh!
Mommy: You are big
Sophia: yesh! I am big
Kiran comes running over: I am mall!! I am mall!!
Mommy: You are not small, you are big!
Kiran: I am mall!!

Then all the kids pretended to be owls, turned off the lights and slept on the couch.

Mommy: its almost 9. lets go home
Sophia: five minate okay?
Anjali: ten minutes!!
Mommy: Ok ten minutes
Ten minutes later I got up. "I am going. you girls want to come?"
Anjali: nope!
Sophia: Nope. want to sheep Kiyan oushe!
Mommy: Ok. Jyothi call me if you need me, i am going home

Both girls came running. We should do these playdates more regularly

Appreciate what you have by imagining what would have happened without it

Here is a nice article from today's Scientific American. I think it might be a nice thing to do with kids, We usually shush them up when they say things like, "When i die, you must take me to the hospital", But i think letting them play it out may be a good thing, perhaps to an extent, as we also have our own comfort zone.

kids learning

Sophia is on the swing

"Sophia, who is this?" patti asks

"yamesh mama", says Sophia

Patti nods with satisfaction.

I am, however not convinced.

"Sophia, how do you call him?"

"Yamesh!!" she says, with a cheeky grin

Moral of the story: You never know what goes on in the kids head, and to really know, you have to ask the right question. Piaget knew this, and thats why he did such groundbreaking research on infant learning.

Sophia's birthday

I think it can be safely said that Sophia's birthday party was a success. The kids had a grand time baking pizza, Husband led them on a few rounds of charades, and from no child particiapting we went very fast to all the children wanting to go multiple times. After the party, Anjali carried on the game to become a game of taboo. We turned off the lights and gave clues to be the object.

Anjali: What I am? what I am?

Me/ Husband: Give us a clue

Anjali: I am red and I am round.

Husband: You are a red ball

Anjali: I am good for your health

Husband: You are an apple or a tomato.

Anjali: Yes! I am a tomato.

She got pretty good at it.

===================
The kids liked to make pizza, and I must say that the pizzas they made were much better than any pizza that I would ever make. Simply because the pizzas were drenched in cheese - seriously, there was more cheese in one of their mini pizzas than there would be in one of the pizzas that i make for six people.

Parents got into the fun, helping to mix, spread and layout the pizza on baking trays. And while the pizzas were baking, the children led a game of musical statues
=======================

We cut Sophia's birthday cake, and husband's five hours of making the dragon got gobbled up. The cake was delicious, and the dragon (it wasnt a fairy godmother afterall), though it looked significantly different from the dragon int the book - I should be putting up the photos soon, was clearly recognizable as a dragon, though Vishnu kept saying that it was a playdoh turtle. 

After cake, there was dinner, and after dinner, the children got together again to play. It was more free play, they were sufficiently warmed up to play by themselves, and there was no need for us to organize something for them.

All the kids got a book for a present, and I think that was a wise step, without having the house filled with presents and goody bags
===========

My girls were tired after the party too, I had tried, in the afternoon, to get them to nap, but it didnt work out. They did spend half an hour on the bed, however and it helped. Sophia, who spent the last half an hour of the party dancing with her godmother and with Anjali's godmother spent the rest of the time reading and opening some of her presents.

I fixed some sandwichhes and cutlets for the children, and then they went to bed while playing taboo.

==========

cake baking

Husband woke up at 6.15 to bake Sophia's cake, Anjali heard all the racket coming from the kitchen and woke up at 6.45 to help beat the batter. We stuck the cake in at 7am sharp into the oven and took it out in 20 minutes. It was soft, springy, and exactly as a cake should be.

Now for the icing.

Now the price of blueberries is going to go up

Blueberries were the only halfway decently priced berry that I could put in my pies, but now the price is going to go up.

Not to mention that thatta will make sure that the girls get stuffed with them
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=your-brain-on-blueberries

A conversation with Sophia

I was putting maruthani on my hands this morning after putting Anjali on the school bus

Sophia: Mummy what are you doingk?
Me: I am putting maruthani
Sophia: Why are you putting my maruthani?
Me: I am putting my maruthani
Sophia: Wheresh my maruthani?
Me: Its in your hand
Sophia: Mummy, dont put maruthani
Me: Why not?
Sophia: becaushe patti put maruthani
Me: I can put maruthani on myself. i am a big girl
Sophia: I am shmall
Me: No Sophia, you are big
Sophia: I am small
Me: Ok, you are small, but you have stopped drinking bua (yes. its official, three dry days)
Sophia: yesh
Me: Why did you stop drinking bua?
Sophia: Becaushe ther's chilli powder and.... and... mummy, whatsh the other one?
Me: Onion powder? Garlic powder...
Sophia: and garlic powder
Me: We cant drink onion powder and garlic powder from the bua
Sophia: No. Ish Spishy
Me: Can you eat chocolate from the bua?
Sophia: No. Ish very junky
Me: Can you eat pasta from the bua?
Sophia: I like pashta
Me: Ok, then you can eat it from the bua?
Sophia: No, from a plate

The thing about Sophia is that you can have very long, very serious conversations with her, and she answers you very seriously.

Sophia's birthday

While in the library the girls picked up a book called magical cakes, and have claimed birthday ownership to certain designs on the cakes. Sophia has asked us to bake her a cake with a fairy god mother for her birthday and husband (of all people) has risen to the occasion. So this morning, we pored over the recipe on the bus and husband is going for the supplies needed to bake a one kilo cake. The cake will be fine, i know, its a basic sponge cake and i can handle that one well enough, but the rest of the fairy god mother is anyone's guess. We'll have a grand time trying, and I am sure the girls will enjoy the modeling procedure.

IIf it turns out good, Anjali has already preordered the mer king cake for her birthday, whick is not until April

TV time and watching

A very good article on baby center on the effects of media on children.

One thing that struck me when reading this article was how kids view more violence during Saturday morning cartoon shows (26 acts of violence per hour) than during prime time shows

We had been letting the kids watch 101 Dalmatians - which husband and I felt was a very nice film for the kids - that is until Anjali started using words like "Shut up" and "idiot" and claimed that she learnt them from Cruella. So we have replaced 101 Dalmatians with other movies - say Shrek and Cinderella, where the language is less offensive.

It is amazing how TV makes an impression. I have already written about Sophia's obsession with the characters of Oz. She doesnt want her birthday banner to say Happy birthday Sophia - it has to be happy birthday Dorothy. And when the kids were painting, she made a brilliant painting with Glinda and Dorothy and the bad witch and the dog (a little purple blob) and the scarecrow, all going on the yellow brick road (which was painted orange) The kids had watched the wizard of Oz once. We did a lot of role playing around the movie, and I was reading Wicked (which i gave up after about half the book), but talked about it at home and it sort of made a very deep impression on her. Therefore, I wont blame all the Dorothy obsession on the movie. We have watched Wallace and Gromit many more times and they never take up the characters in that story.

Anjali made a painting of Glinda and gave her a long sparkly dress and long golden hair (Why exactly am I not surprised?). 

The girls made a resolution that they would only watch tv at noon. So far they have stuck to it, and so have we, in a way, refrained from turning the box on at mealtimes, but instead taking the meals to the floor and feeding the children while they play or read. In a way it means that there are no real family dinners, but family dinners in front of the tv dont really count.

Yesterday, while the kids were painting, husband, who had returned late from work, plopped his soup bowl on the floor to watch the girls. For a while, I was afraid that they would step on/ spill paint over this soup, but it somehow didnt happen

Free Curriculum and Field Trips Database - A to Z Home's Cool Homeschooling Curriculum

I think this could be an useful resource for the kids, instead of watching cruella Devil

Adventures in Motherhood: Cooking

I learnt several things after I became a mother. Gardening was one, toy making was another. But of the most interesting was my exploration as a family chef.

My first meals involved using copious amounts of spaghetti sauce from the jar to flavour all my dishes. Soon my kitchen cupboards were overflowing with empty Prego jars. patti used to, once in a while supply me with idli flour, which I alternately used to make idlis (seldom, because it required a lot of washing up) and dosas. I used to be able to make fairly decent vegetable chutneys though, and sandwiches

I remember alternating husband with mashed eggplants, zacusca, and salata boeuf for about a year when we were leaving Anjali at patti's house each morning, and buying copious amounts of bread.

Soon after Sophia was born, I borrowed a book from Jurong library - classic vegetarian recipes made easy. i remember husband's teasing when he spotted it among the piles of books to be borrowed. But the first recipes I made out of the book - mushroom soup and spinach cream pasta were excellent, and he never said anything much about my culinary skills after

For the past two years, one or another vegetarian cookbook has graced my kitchen. Recently, I have also taken to borrowing a desserts book and a bread making book. Without the cookbooks, i feel a bit at a loss when beginning to cook, though I can make a fair number of  decent recipes - a risotto or pilaf, pasta with multiple sauces, an all purpose casserole, mamaliga or gnocchi, potatoes, cutlets etc.

This morning, I put together a sublime combination of lentils, pumpkin and coconuts, cooked in Soya milk. Strange combination but totally delicious. It complimented some plain rice and yogurt, along with my favorite recipe from Esther Brody's book - self Saucing plum pudding.

Piano classes

So we have started piano classes, and I must admit - they do a decent job of it at Christofori. Anjali has two music friends - Beethoven Bear and Mozart mouse - talk about cliched and then she has to say things like

"My bear likes low sounds", while tapping the bear on the low end of the keyboard and

"My mouse like high sounds" while tapping the high end of the keyboard.

The playing that they did was to zoom across the keyboard with their racing car and beeping the car.

I was much older when I learnt keyboard - about 22. So i could file the information in declarative memory. i remember taking two months to go through the beginners piano book as opposed to meenakshi, who took about a year - she was about 8 or 9 years old at that time. Now I realize that I was encoding declarative memory, while what the kids do, atleast at Anjali's age, is to encode things at the procedural level, completely bypassing the declarative level - where piano playing is like riding the bicycle.

It will be interesting to see how this experiment plays out.

Giving up the bua

Sunday morning:

Me: Sophia, you are a big girl.

Sophia: I am not Sophia, i am Dorothy

Me: Dorothy, you are a big girl

Sophia: I am small!

Me: Dorothy is a big girl you know.

Sophia: Yes. Dorothy is a big girl

Me: You are a big girl?

Sophia: Yes

Me: Then you should not drink bua

Sophia: Okay!

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Sunday afternoon in the museum:

Sophia: I am sleepy. Want to dink bua!

Me: I thought you are a big girl. Big girls dont drink bua.

Sophia: I am small.

Me: Fine. Small girls dont drink bua either.

Anjali: Only born babies drink bua Sophia. Like Deepika. You know Deepika?

Husband, Anjali and I distract her with some museum stuff.

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Sunday night: I apply liberal amounts of garlic

Sophia: Want to dink bua

Me: You are a big girl

Sophia: I am small

me: You are a small girl, small girls dont drink bua

Sophia: I am a born baby

So she does as she always does, and tugs my nightie aside. One sip. She grimaces. Then she thinks that maybe she is wrong. Another sip, another grimace. The third trial, and she begins to cry

"I want water!!!"

We give her a drink. "Mummy, I want bua!!"

"What did you put on it?" husband asks

"garlic", I reply. At this point, it is very hard for me to stop laughing.

We turn out the lights

"I want bua!"

"Sophia, there is chilli powder and garlic powder on the bua", says Anjali, who associates garlic and chilli, "Do you want to drink chilli poder and garlic powder bua?"

"No!! Mummy want other bua"

"Do you want a glass of warm milk?", I asked

"Yes", very sorrowfully.

Husband gets her a tumbler of warm milk, which she drank. Then she cuddled up on my side and went to sleep, sniffling a couple of times, but other than that making not much noise.

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She woke up twice at night, once at midnight, asking for bua. I told her about the chilli and garlic and she asked for water instead. She drank up the water and went back to sleep.

She woke up again at 4am. She didnt even ask for bua, it was straight out asking for water.