Kids dragging us shopping

I wanted to go to popular on Friday evening to get paints and such supplies. Husband and the girls went along.

"First, lets go to Tom and Stefanie and then we can go to popular", said Anjali.

"Why do we need to go to Tom and Stefanie?" I asked

"There are beautiful dresses there", she replied.

So we went to Tom and Stefanie and looked at the beautiful dresses.

"Can we buy this? Can we buy that? Its so sprinkly! Its so sparkly!", both girls said, pulling clothes off the racks. Each dress was more outrageous than the previous one, and the clothes got less and less sensible.

"Remind me again why this is educational or enriching?", asked husband, while I parried the requests for clothes by saying that we would buy these clothes for their next birthdays.

It didnt stop there. After we finally got to popular and browsed for stationary (we finished at 9pm), paid and went out, Anjali says

"Mummy, please please can we go to Bata and look at the shoes?"

"Lets take the elevator". Husband said

"Well, she wants to look at shoes", I said. After all, it was 9pm, and most shops closed at nine.

It turned out that bata was not one of those shops which closed at nine.

Anjali was hankering after high heel shoes. Sophia wanted sparkly shoes. In my opinion, neither of them needed shoes, their old ones were perfectly fine. But try telling that to girls who are completely obsessed about fashion.

After they had tried about fifty different pairs like the high heeled princess shoes (Husband and I said no because they had no straps) and the high heeled princess shoes with straps (We said no because they had high heels and clicked and clacked when Anjali walked) and the sprinkly shoes for Sophia (which had no grip), a nice canvas one that husband picked out (and both girls didnt like because it was totally plain)

between the two of them, they made the sales assistant go to the back room about a hundred times, asking for different sizes while I plotted the best way to go out of the shop without buying anything.

"The shoes here are not suitable. Why dont we come back another day?"

Three sets of faces fell simultaneously, for different reasons. Anjali was the first one to put a brave face.

"Ok mummy. We will come back another day". I really admire that girl for her sense of stoicness

Husband, on the other hand, had had enough.

"I am not going through this again!", he exclaimed, as though he was seriously believing that it wont happen again. "Anjali, why dont you buy these shoes", he said, holding out a pair of seriously pretty shoes with colorful beads on the straps.

Anjali liked them (thankfully) and so did I.

"Sophia, why dont you buy these shoes?", he asked, holding a pink pair.

"No. They are not sparkly"

"They are. Look here"

"they are not sparkly over here", she indicated the tiniest corner of the strap.

We found a pair that were sparkly in the tiniest corner of the strap and paid for the shoes, while the sales assistant sighed with relief.

"can you buy me high heeled shoes when I am five years old mummy?" asked Anjali

"When you are eight", I said firmly

"Why?"

"Because I had my first high heeled shoes when I was eight". I didnt tell her what a disaster those shoes were and how it was my last high heeled shoe and how it put me off the idea of high heeled shoes for the next twenty years.

"When i am six?"

"Eight.", I repeated.
 

I give up!

After three days of highly interrupted sleep, I am almost ready to call it quits and to call it a failed experiment.

Not quite, I learnt that given the right kinds of incentives (like a double decker bed), Anjali will take up a challenge, even if it is something as challenging as sleeping by herself in Patti's room and succeed in the challenge.

But Sophia is too young to sleep by herself. She didnt want to give up on the double bed, and she didnt want to give up sleeping next to me, and so she compromised by making me sleep with her and Anjali in Patti's room bed.

Which is rather small and cramped for three people, especially if two of them are auditioning for world cup football.

So I used to let them sleep and then snuck back into the bedroom.

To top it up, Sophia, who inherited the talking in her sleep problem from me, has developed a certain interest in scary stories, like Heckedy Peg.

After reading the monster under the bed about a hundred times and playing monster with me and husband last night, getting chased all over the bedroom with a monster in pink sock claws, the kid's already over active imagination went into over drive.

She woke up at 3pm, in patti's room and started crying about monsters in the bed

To give us credit, Anjali and I did an imitation of monsters scraping the bed spread when we were lying down to sleep. So that probably added to the whole thing.

"i dont want monshters under my bed mama!!!"

So I tried taking her back to our bedroom, but she would have none of it. She cried and ran on tiptoes all the way back to patti's room. So I had to cuddle up horizontally again on the bed that only reached my knees, trying to make the kid get back to sleep.

So I made a decision. This morning, when Anjali woke up, I asked her

"Would you like the double decker bed in the bedroom instead of patti's room??"

She paused for a while before answering

"Why mummy?"

"there are a couple of reasons". I said. "the first is that Sophia is too small to sleep by herself and yesterday, she couldnt sleep properly because she dreamt of monsters under the bed"

"But we only scratched on top of the bedspread. Not under the bedspread", reasoned Anjali. "And its only for play mother!"

"I know this", i said. "But Sophia is too small to differentiate between what is real and what is pretend"

"What is the other reason?"

"Do you really want to sleep by yourself in patti's room, or are you doing it because you want the double decker bed?"

"Because I want the double decker bed"

"Then why dont we put it in our bedroom?"

"Can we put it on top of daddy's cupboard?"

Obviously she has noticed the issue of space

"Nope, but we can take out the small bed and put the double decker there instead". I said. "When we come back from Romania, we will go to IKEA again and get the bed. Ok?"

"Ok!!"

"And when you get bigger and Sophia gets as big as you, and if you want to move the double decker bed to patti's room, we can do that"

We spoke to husband about the conclusion and it seems to be settled, except for one thing.

The double decker bed will block the window.

Well. I guess we will work something out.

Princess with Rapunzel hair

The hair in front



And the hair came off

Harvesting beansprouts: Organic, healthy, educational, buggy and satisfying

Anjali was more interested that there were so many bugs in the earth and she kept taking them in her hands

Swans

The swan actually came and ate the bread off Anjali's hands



She was pretty excited about it

Mountain goats

Dryads

Sophia's quiet time

Sophia was quiet for five minutes and what do I find?

The story of Sophia's hand

Vishnu came to spend a couple of days, since the kids are having holidays. Sometime in the evening he called and said

"Sophia is saying that her left hand is hurting"

Upon enquiry, I understood that probably Vishnu had carried her in an awkward position. When i went home, the kid was sitting in patti's lap, holding her left hand absolutely rigid and crying each time anyone tried to lift it.

"Maybe you should take her to the doctor", said patti

I looked at husband

"She is being a drama queen", he said.

So Vishnu wanted pepsi and i wanted to get cornstarch and baking soda for the water color experiment. So we all went to the downstairs shop, with Sophia still refusing to lift her left hand. She held a grissini in her right hand and was munching it.

We went in the lift. "I want to press the button"

And she gave me the grissini to hold and used her right hand to press the lift button.

I ate up the grissini.

She finished pressing the button and turned around, whereupon I realized that she had given me the grissini to hold and not to eat. i tried to swallow it as fast as possible.

Sophia looked at my right hand. No grissini

She looked at my left hand. No grissini.

She began to cry.

Luckilly the lift reached the first floor and I managed to distract her.

Then we went to the shop. I picked up the baking soda and handed it to Sophia. She took it in her right hand.

Then I picked up the corn flour and handed it to her.

"I cannot hold it", she said.

"Keep it in your other hand", i said

"I cannot. It is huyting"

So she gave me the baking soda and held the corn flour with her right hand.

Anjali convinced husband to buy her a pack of m&ms.

So we converged in the playground - Anjali, sophia and Kiran, to eat the m&m.

"Sophia, show me your hand", says Anjali

Sophia sticks out her right hand. Anjali drops an m&m in it.

"Sophia, show Anjali your other hand for another m&m", I said.

"I cannot!" she said. "its huyting!"

So i took her on my lap

"Right. Lets pretend you are a four month old baby. Four month old babies always reach out for things with their hands" I grabbed the plastic thing from the m&m and started waving it in front of her. She reached for it fine

With both hands.

Then we took some sticks and played numbers and houses and Sophia used both hands to put Kusha and Lava and Rama and Sita in her stick house.

And Kiran did some fancy arithmetic with the sticks.

And then Sophia carried all the sticks - there were atleast fifteen of them and some were pretty thick, with her left hand and marched to the lift lobby.

The girls came back home and helped me to harvest the beansprouts from the frying pan.

Then Sophia used both her hands to put tissue paper all over Anjali's head ("I am wiping Anjali's hayr. Its wet!")

Then the girls dressed in princess clothes, put on my fake long hair and played about an hour pretending to be princesses before going to sleep.

P.S. I notice that Anjali plays piano with a lot more enthusiasm if she wears a princess dress and has princess hair. hmmm. 

Anajli's resolution

It can only be called a milestone

or it can be called extreme stubbornness or will power or whatever it may be

Husband and I took the girls to Ikea. The idea was to buy a new bookcase. i was getting a bit tired of putting all our books in copy paper boxes. husband had gotten tired of the idea ages ago and was basically humoring my recycling and DIY efforts. So we finally made it to ikea and got a Billy bookcase.

The reading corner looks really nice now. All it needs is a couple of overstuffed chairs and we are great. Now - thats something to look into.

A side anecdote was Anjali's resolution. The girls explored ikea and landed, quite predictably at the kids room. I think it is more Dheeraj's fault than anything, but Anjali has been hankering after a double decker bed. So after the girls spent about an hour playing and climbing on the double decker beds in ikea, they naturally wanted one to take home.

Now, I told Anjali that she could have one (We found the most delightful double decker bed with a tent on top), if she could sleep by herself. So she has been sleeping in patti's room the last couple of nights.

Sophia, on the other hand, still wants me to sleep with her. On the first night, she made a big show of getting three stuffed toys to take to her bed, and then lost heart half way, rushed to the kitchen and made a grab for my hand.

"Mummy, you come with me!!", she said.

So, I slept with the girls in patti's room the first night, but there is simply not enough room on that bed for one adult and two kids, so in the middle of the night, when Sophia began to kick, husband picked her up and brought her back to our bedroom.

In the morning, Anjali woke up and asked

"Why didnt you leave Sophia in patti's room and slip away?"

I made up some story about her coming to the bedroom at night, because she cried

On Sunday, Anjali was overheard telling Sophia

"Today, you must sleep in patti's room with me ok?"

"No. want mummy!"

"If you sleep with mummy, we will not get a double decker bed"

"No. want double decker bed!"

We will see how this pans out

Around our home

Its time for another (pictureless) roundup of stuff that has been happening

1. The girls and I sowed green lentils in soil on an old frying pan. the idea is for it to sprout so that we could make sproud pasta/ salad or some such thing.
2. Inspired by the crafty crow's book and a craft series, we tried pounding flowers to paint on our paper. Sophia was the one who pounded the flowers. We made a cool racket that the downstairs people came to complain, after which we put a book under the pounder to make it softer. Anjali spent the time putting the flowers on her hair and behind her ears and checking herself in the mirror. After we finished the painting, Sophia asked me to hang her painting on the wall. We'll put up a photo sometime. We should try this in Romania when we are there, I can see a lot of scope for bunica's flowers
3. We made pumpkin pudding
4. We got married. i was the groom and Anjali and Sophia, both with the princess dresses were my two brides and usband was the priest. I said "With my hand, I will lift thy sorrow". And Anjali said "With my leg I will stamp on the floor" and Sophia said "With my hands I will clap". Then I said "Your cup will never be empty for I will be your milk" and Anjali said "My cupboard will never be empty" and husband said "because you will ask your husband will buy you lots of clothes" and Anjali said "yes"
5. We were supposed to make a everblooming tree, but the branch I had picked out for it and left in the garden had mysteriously disappeared.

Confessions of an obsessed mother

Sometimes this blog, like so many other blogs in the internet, is like a brag book. Come everyone, look and see what cool things we do with our kids. Come and marvel at how smart my kids are and how quickly they grow. At other times, it is a reference, a way for me to review how much I have changed as a person since becoming a mother, how much the children are growing everyday. A way to review the little things in life that come and go and we never pay attention to when they went until we look back at them and realize that they have gone. Another use for a blog is personal reflection. A way to write down my mistakes, which as a mother I make all too often.

Today I am going to write about such a mistake.

I am starting Anjali with some reading using the progressive phonics program. In my opinion, she is four and it is time she started making some formal progress on reading. Ofcourse this is my opinion, and there are others who read this blog who have different and equally valid opinions. She is pretty good at it for a beginner reader, but here is where I made my mistake. We were doing a book called bob and dod. We were at it for five minutes when I noticed that she wasnt giving her attention to the reading. She was twisting the bedsheet, eating her sleeves and not looking at the paper. This made me irked.

When the book required her to make a choice of three words - bob, dog and dod, I would have thought that it would be very easy for her to read the ten or so pages. The story itself was not half bad after all. Therefore I lost my temper when she dallied, turned off the lights and caused Anjali to burst out crying.

It was not until much later, after Anjali had quietened down and gone to sleep that I realized that I had made two mistakes that I had told myself that I wouldnt.

The first one was that I had pushed her. I had wanted to make significant progress. The last book had been about dod and dog, and this book was incremental. I didnt realize that The incremental step was, in itself a difficult one. Anjali simply had difficulty distinguishing between d and b.

Moral 1. Take things slowly. I have made amendments (I hope) and am sticking to reinforcing one concept before building on it. She still cant distinguish between d and  b, but she now knows that there is a distinction.

The next thing that I did, which I do regret was the scolding. It was brief, but I believe it stung. I think there are different kinds of scoldings. One kind is when the child deserves it, and the other is when the child doesnt. I do understand that children need to be disciplined to make them sit and to be attentive, but are we breaking their own playful spirit by doing so?

And then there is my own experience from my teenage years when i remember asking my parents - I do so many good things, so why do you scold me for the small bad things that I do?

Anjali had been a very good child all evening. She had been to the playground, she had played piano very well and showed that she was making good progress, helped me to make pumpkin pudding after which she and Sophia had washed the dishes in the sink.

And I scolded her just because she couldnt differentiate between a b and a d and because she couldnt put a bunch of sounds together to make a word.

Overarching all this reflection is that I could be making the kind of relationship that I had with my parents, part of which which consisted of me wanting to perform for fear of upsetting them, and them stressing to the highest extend of their capabilities to give me the resources for academic excellence.

Where does all this fit into the enigma of parenting? 

Photos from Sisters' Island

Photos from Sisters Island, including several cute ones of Sophia are on the Sri Aurobindo society blog

Thanks for Venkat uncle for them

 

Progressive phonics

I found a website yesterday called progressive phonics.
http://www.progressivephonics.com/

There are a bunch of books there for phonics - onscreen and printable reading. We did the dog and dod thing yesterday. Anjali was rather tired without an afternoon nap, but she did quite well. This morning, she asked for more. I think I will give another book a try

 

What to do with the worms

Anjali thought it would be a good idea to take the millipedes and make them crawl all over her.

"I alsho want!" said Sophia, who tends to copy everything Anjali does. "I want to take a baby woym on my finger!"

 And so it happened that all the children in sisters island were carrying worms on their fingers. They drew pictures of themselves carrying worms on their fingers. Shree Valli found a hermit crab, husband found a bigger one and we were surrounded by wildlife.

Some people said they saw two snakes

Well, when it was time to leave Anjali said

"Mummy, can I take the worm home?"

Since the time at the bird park, when she took the beetle larvae home, she has been after us to get her more worms. We did try the fish shop, but they refused to sell us a small number of worms for pets saying that once the worms get on the furniture, thats that.

"No Anjali", I said. "You cant take the worm home"

"Why not? I want to take it home"

I made up some story about the worm having family and wanting to go to office and if we took it home how could it get to office?

"But mummy...", she said, in that voice of hers which she uses when she is stating the obvious, but mummy is too stupid to pick it up, "The worm needs a holiday!"

Mayur Felix Wartmann: How children sometimes make us laugh with their unfaltering logic and ability to make associations

I was showing husband the photos of Mangala's new baby on facebook. "Mayur Felix Wartmann", I said to husband, clicking the forward buttons.

"Can I see mummy?", asked Anjali, who was doing some coloring on the floor with Sophia.

"Ok", I said. She came over and peered at the screen.

"Wow! Why the baby is so new born?"

"Because he is only four days old"

"Why his eyes are closed when he is taking a bath?"

"Because small babies sleep a lot Anjali. Sometimes they even sleep in the bath because the warm water makes them comfortable. You and Sophia also used to do this"

She considered. "His eyes are open now!", she said "Why his parents are calling him Warthog?"

She and Sophia have just watched the Lion King.

I didnt understand for a moment.

"Not Warthog, Wartmann"

"Why they are calling him Wartmann?"

"Because his daddy's name is Wartmann. Like your daddy's name is Curic. So you and Sophia are called Curic"

"What is his real name?"

"Mayur Felix"

"What does it mean?" She asked.

"I think Mayur means peacock and Felix means luck"

"Oh. Thats nice."

Welcome to the world Mayur Felix

Photos of things that have been happening

I took a look at my camera archive this morning and got a big shock. I have been taking photos, as has Anjali, but I have not put up or archived them in any way. I thought that today i would do this properly. Here goes. The photos in this archive goes back about two months.

Here are some photos of the girls in Deepika's party. As I said, it has been a long time since the last real photo update








Here is one of Sophia roaring after eating some chololate contraption that either husband or I cooked up



In my abscence in italy, husband had taken up bread baking, and some of his breads look quite professional



My breads on the otherhand, always look a bit depressed, though they taste fine. I guess husband uses more white flour than I have the heart to do

This is what my two girls did the day i got back (Patti doesnt let them draw on the floor)


Here are the girls helping me to cook (pasta, I think). Anjali loves cutting on the chopping board and I have a couple of blunt knives that i give her and a butter knife for Sophia. It is usually good enough for the things that i ask the girls to cut - like asparagus and mushrooms



This is one of those internet inspired crafts. We didnt get much use of it, not as much use as we got for the cardboard house. It could simply be because it was rather in the way of husband's workplace. But that is the only ceiling hook that we have. Ideas on hanging tents from the ceiling, if they exist, are very appreciated



Anjali was very quiet for fifteen minutes yesterday evening and when I went to look for her, this is what I found



She was playing fishing with husband's shaving brush

Another internet inspired project - improvised cd case maze. I just finished it this morning, but it still needs to be put to the test.

Baby tiger is lost again

Anjali hid Sophia's baby tiger a couple of days ago and she has forgotten where she hid it. That is a pity, the tiger was quite becoming Sophia's knuffle bunny.

In the meantime, Patti is complaining about Sophia's tantrum. She throws one about every ten minutes. I noticed that too. I assume that she is going through a phase, Anjali went through a similar phase when she was around 2.5 years old, which lasted about a couple of months.

Going to Sisters island

We are going on the IEP trip to sister's island this Sunday. I have been reading up and their intertidal reefwalk sounds like an interesting, not to be missed thing. I guess that the most important thing would be to get my camera and the girls' water colors ready.

At the playground: A play in 3 acts

Act 1:

Mummy: Lets go to the playground

Sophia: Mummy. Take off my kolushu

Anjali: Mummy, can you tie my hair?

Mummy ties Anjali's hair.

Anjali: Not like this. Can you tie my hair straight?

Mummy ties Anjali's hair again.

Anjali: No. Its not straight. (She bursts into tears)

Sophia: Mummy, can you take ogg my kolushu and put on me this dyess?

She hands the dress to mummy and runs away to the other corner of the bedroom.

Mummy: Sophia...

She runs to the opposite corner

Mummy : Sophia...

Sophia: You put on me this dyess ok?

Anjali is still throwing a tantrum

Sophia makes yet another lap of the bed room.

Mummy loses patience

Mummy: I am going to count to 10. if you are not dressed and ready, you are not going to the playground. One...

Sophia comes running.

Mummy: Two

Sophia puts on her dress

Mummy: Three, four

Sophia puts her pants

Mummy: Five. Sophia is done. Anjali, give me your rubber band

Anjali hands me her rubber band, which she has chewed until it is yucky and full of saliva

Mummy: Yuck. Go get another rubber band. Six.

Anjali: Dont count mummy

But she gets up and runs, bringing back her rubber band box out of which she unearths a green rubberband.

Mummy: Seven (wrapping one time around her hair) Eight (another wrap) Nine. There. you are done

Act 2.

In the swings

Sophia plays on the swings and Anjali clibs the lamp-post. She is really good, and can climb upto three or four meters high

Naveen comes over to play. Daddy comes jogging.

Sophia: I want to yun with you daddy

Anjali: I also want to run. Mummy, come.

Daddy: lets run around the playground.

Anjali runs and leaves us all in the dust, overtaking us by around 2 laps.

Daddy goes off to jog and Anjali, Navin and Sophia play in the playground.

Sophia and Navin have a fight

Sophia: I want to drive the cay

Navin: No I drive the car

Sophia begins to cry

Anjali monkeys over to Navin

Anjali: Can you let her drive? She is smaller than you.

Navin: Only boys can drive the car.

Anjali: No. Girls also can drive. You know, I saw some girls driving the taxis. And girls can also drive. Can you let her drive?

Navin lets Sophia to drive

Mummy: Anjali, can you watch over Sophia while I do some exercises?

Anjali: Ok.

I do a couple of sets of Surya Namaskar when the girls join me.

Mummy: Who wants to do Surya Namaskar with me? I can do ten times

Anjali: I can do twenty times

Sophia; I can do one time onuly

Navin: I can do fivety times

Mummy leads the children with the exercises. Sophia does three times, Navin does twice, Anjali goes on for five times

Anjali: mummy, can I go now and do my own monkey business?

Mummy: Ok.

The girls continue their monkey business, Navin goes home and mummy finishes exercising.

Act 3: Daddy comes back

Daddy comes back from jogging

Daddy: Give me the keys, I want to go home

Anjali: Daddy, can you do slide climbing?

The girls and daddy climb up the slide (which mummy finds out is the daily after school routine)

Sophia: Daddy, you are yucky smelly

Anjali: Daddy, you are a warthog

Daddy: i am a warthog

Mummy: When you were a young warthog!

Daddy: WHEN I WAS A YOUNG WART HOOOOOG!!!

Anjali: Mummy, One day I want to go to the warthogs and see how they stink.

Anjali showed daddy how she climbs the lamppost

Mummy: She can have a career as a coconut plucker.

Daddy goes home so that he can stop being a warthog.

Sophia and Anjali sit a while in the swings and then go home

Things Anjali says and does that make us laugh and makes us exasperated

"Daddy!" she said "Why you dont look like you anymore?"

Husband had just had a haircut

"Only Anjali noticed", said husband. The last time he had had a haircut, none of us noticed for about three days

==========

We were watching Maya Ravan on the computer. Ofcourse, I had missed the stage show.

"Did Rama kill Ravan in the show by cutting off his head one by one?" I asked.

"No mummy", said Anjali. "Rama just touched Ravana and Ravana fell down and then Ravana ran back on the stage and gave CDs to everyone"

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

I was talking to husband, and the girls were doing monkey business on the bed.

Anjali was trying to tell me something which I was half answering.

Suddenly

STAMP

She stamped on me.

I spanked her and walked out.

She pushed me to patti's room

"Mummy go to time out"

I stayed in the room for a few minutes with Sophia and then came out.

Anjali was curled up near the bookshelf, looking stony.

"You go to time out" (In a very high pitched voice). She tried to push me back into Patti's room

"Why did you step on me Anjali? It hurts"

" Because I wanted to talk to you!" (High voice)

"Then why didnt you just call me?"

"I called you. I called you TWENTY times!"

Husband took her in and had a rather long talk with her to calm her down, after which she apologized. 

========
Having a four year old brings a new set of challenges. Suddenly, it is not as simple as having a set of activities to keep the children busy and to keep them occupied. Suddenly it is about changing their mode of play to work mode in a sneaky fashion. Suddenly it is about making children emotionally stable, to be sure that they can distinguish between right and wrong, and all the shades of grey in between, to make sure that they have the courage to admit their mistakes to themselves and to say sorry, and also to not take their sorry lightly.

Sophia's Knuffle bunny

So husband had a 35 kg snake on his shoulders and in return for it got a white tiger plush toy. As he clibed up the steps back to our seat, both girls cried, rather simultaneously

"I want the baby tiger!"

"it does give you a measure of the scope of the thing, doesnt it?", asked husband.

And so it was that the baby lion came to our home. Sophia has taken a great attachment to it and for the past week has been carrying the baby lion whereever she goes. Anjali needles her by hiding the baby lion in the unlikeliest of places - behind the door, in the dressing table etc and in the cupboards.

making muffins

It was my idea to make banana muffins and use up the three overripe bananas in the fruit basket. It was Anjalis' idea to decorate them with smarties. Here is the division of labor on muffin making day

Me: take bananas
Anjali: Mas bananas, first with fork, then with hand
Me: measure out oil, yogurt, vanilla and sugar
Anjali: Pur out the stuff into the bananas and mix
Me: Measure out flour, baking soda and chocolate chips.
Anjali: Mix them all up
Me: Take and wash baking tray
Anjali: Put muffin cups on baking tray
Me: Pour batter into six cups
Anjali: Pour batter into remaining six cups
Anjali: Decorate muffins with smarties
Me: Pop everything into the oven
Anjali: Lick batter pot clean

Verdict: Husband had a muffin last night and I had one this afternoon. They have a very nice banana flavor. They are a little on the sweet side though, but o so soft

plaeum and world book fair

 We took the girls to the playeum yesterday at the national museum. It turns out that all the museums in Singapore have something or another going on this holidays. Which is a really nice thing - as the works cover a number of tradition, culture and arts.

Here is what the girls did at the playeum.

1. Storytelling. We thought that the girls werent listening to Kamini's folktale. But it turns out that Anjali atleast was listening hard. Later, she insisted on seeing the rock. She also remembered, as we were walking through the museum, that the hero of the story had used bamboo to build a fish trap.
2. Sensory studio. This was a nice space for the children to play with different kinds of fabrics. It reminded me a little of the tent that kojo designs made in one of the SYTTC rounds. Ofcourse, the girls converged into playing house, and I tried to plot to see how complicated it would be to make such a contraption for the kids to play at home.
3. Sun deck: We spent a nice time drawing. Anjali drew some boxes, and a flower. Sophia drew some random stuff until her pen poked a hole in the paper, whereupon she said "I am dyawing a hole for the ants to cyawl thyugh"
4. Playdome: Ofcourse, the girls spent the most time there. The giant kaleidoscope was interesting, but didnt offer much intereactivity, since it was mostly visual. The knotting station was a little too complicated for the girls. But they had a blast at the dress up and puppet theatre. Anjali dressed up as a chinese princess, Sophia as a prince with a hat and they slimbed the castle, selling blueberries.

Dont even ask!

They were torn between playing and eating (Sophia was getting hungry) and we were late for the book fair, so we left.

The book fair was a bit of a disappointment. Imagine going to a mall with lots of books, or going to borders. Now imagine it ten times as big. And several times disorganized. That is the book fair. Husband and I dont go to too many fairs and now I understand why. There were lots of books, lots of independent sellers, but no particular cohesive story among them. This was a little annoying, as it would have taken very little extra effort to have put together the areas by theme. Many of the books/ sellers/ programs were targetted at children (Why?? Dont adults read??) and they were all over the place.

I got cornered by one of those companies selling a program - not the Groliers one, but some other similar stuff. Then I asked her why I needed to buy her books to answer my kids' questions. Why couldnt I simply go on the internet and find the answer. "Its time consuming", she says. "And how much time do i need to find the correct answer in your book?" "We have a glossary".

Right!

That said, the girls had good fun. Swati and I were both volunteering and Ananya was there, so the girls had a nice tour of the whole place, did some craft work, and then Anjali and Ananya ganged up to make us get them all ice cream (Even Sophia, who has a flu up to the top of her head). "You have a running nose", I told her, to which she replied, "patti says take one lick and thyow in the dushbin" I assume patti said that with regards to lollipop and not icecream. In the end, she only ate the cone and  let husband eat the icecream

It was quite fun watching Anjali and Ananya marching together, holding hands, talking non stop about god only knows what.

And then they had the rare ride in the MRT, hokaido dome at bread talk and a trip in the bus, during which they did all the monkey stuff imaginable.

Yesterday was the fourth day that Sophia has been going without an afternoon nap. When we got home, they ate pooris and played Simba till ten.