I wish

Over the years, I have learnt to come up with substitutes for the things that i wish for.

I have wished for a garden, with plenty of space, and we made a balcony garden and watched it flourish.

I have wished for throwing less and have learnt to recycle and be more creative in general

I have wished to be a kind of Martha Stewart and have learnt the joys of simple stuff like home made bread and self cooked lunch.

But one thing that i still wish for is a garden space. I envy those bloggers who share spaces with lots of grass and trees and brooks and water ways for children to explore. On my to do list is a play garden designed out of simple materials, possibly tires or old tubs, for the children to grow their own garden.

But in the meantime, there is this



We were at the Jacob Ballas children's garden yesterday and we found this nice tree with low branches. There are very few trees in Singapore with low branches, and this one was a real treat to Anjali



Can you see those legs dangling above husband's head? Thats Anjali.

Jacob Ballas children's garden is a delightful place, with little crannies for children to explore and large areas that attract kids. I do wish that we had the initiative to go there more often, or better, if the lawns and play areas downstairs could be landscaped into a garden like that. It wont take much, a community initiative is probably all that it would take to create a garden which would be a feast for the explorer.

the day may yet come.

updates on 30 days of hands on play

I usually dont blog on weekends, as it gives me the time to concentrate on the kids, and I have to hand it to the guys at imagination tree for keeping their challenge running regardless of weekends and public holidays

So I have been keeping an eye on my email every evening to see if the activity for the day is in, as it gives me a chance for a resolution at active uninterrupted almost child directed play.

So this is what we have been doing:

Islands for jumping.

ofcourse, Sophia wanted to put up her Simba Nala cave. She makes us put up the fort every couple of hours and makes us repair it when it falls down. So we had a bunch of rocks to lead to the Simba Nala cave which at some point turned out to be boats



And here are the islands on the corridor


And the fort in a brighter angle



For block play (though I dont have any photos), it was the building of a gate in front of our fort to protect Simba and Nala from invaders.

I told Sophia that lions donot have hands, and we should try to build with opur feet and teeth, and she goes

"Mummy! We are people lions!"

What are people lions? - I ask

"People lions are the lions that they make for the show!!", she exclaims, pointing out the obvious.

How come we missed that crucial step in evolutionary history?

We had playdough as well, two days in a row. I usually avoid crafts and art that have to do with using food, as sometimes we feel that it encourages waste. But playdough just happened to be fine as I had a kilo of white flour which I had left in the cupboard forgotten for a long while. I had taken it out for the purposes of playdough and found that it was starting to get insects.

Anjali and Sophia are very fond of insects and enjoyed digging them out of the flour first before I decided to add to my karma by dunking boiling water on the dough to make playdough.

It was good fun, I even joined in and baked some salt dough stars and spiders.

The girls enjoyed it so much that they made me do it again on Monday morning, this time with colored playdough. On Sunday night, we had done the playdough without colors, but with some playfoam and stuff to stick in it.

A photo didnt quite capture the dough play, so here is a video. The girls still watch a lot of princess movies, and they are on a lot about falling in love and getting married.

Happy birthday Tata Sile

Patti made the girls draw cards and posted them for Tata Sile and we found out because we were chatting over skype.

La Multi ani!!

snail in the flower pot

Yesterday morning, I found a tiny snail in the frangipani pot. I left it there and told Anjali about it. Accordingly, when we came back in the evening from patti's house, we took it out and let it crawl all over our hands. The surprising part was that this brave snail even craled on Sophia's hands, despite the fact that she kept moving them around.

We put the snail back in the frangipani pot, but I couldnt find it there this morning. Maybe it was hiding in the earth, or maybe it got eaten by some birds. But it is nice to see the garden life that we have in our little balcony.

Pride rock and our fort

Hands on as we grow has a build a fort challenge.

The girls were not very enthusiastic about the idea of building a fort, but since Pride rock was still going strong, and I was starting to have serious doubts about the sustaining capability of the pocketed spring mattress to the kind of torture that it was subjected to, I enticed the girls into building a cave for Simba and Nala to sleep in



It was fairly late in the evening ans some kind of simultaneous chat was happening over skype with bunica and Tata Sile and Sophia's drawings of pride rock and the elephant graveyard with all the hyenas are still on the floor.

The idea of a lion cave was pretty well received and although the fort was taken apart after the girls went to sleep, Sophia and I rebuilt it bigger and more roomy this morning after dropping Anjali at the school bus.

In the meantime, here are the renderings of pride rock and Anjali and I have been doing every evening.





I made the drawings (she asks me to do the same drawing every evening, this is the second night in a row) and Anjali did the coloring. I think her coloring skills are improving a lot. I dont get them to do much coloring at home because of all the debate over coloring not being open ended enough, but sometimes indulge them if they ask me to draw some specific image for them to color.

Talking about color, here are the puffy paint renditions that I had blogged about a couple of days ago

An effort to be more hands on: Update

In an effort to be more hands on, I flipped through a copy of playground games just before going downstairs with the children and actually organized a couple of games with them. We played jump in and jump out, and sliding upside down on the slide.

Its a little hard to pull off jumping when your pants are a couple of sizes loose, but thats another tale.

Swati has started a blog, aptly named Finding myself. Congratulations Swati and welcome to the club.

And then I climbed up the slide after Sophia who was apparently exploring Pride Rock, and Banged by knee square on the playground steps. Ouch.

It took a while for the pain to subside and then it came back when I began to walk again.

Double ouch.

So I had to sit for a while with Sapna's patti while the girls and Sapna did whatever kids do in the playground. I am positive that it involved lions and hyenas and dramatizations, but I was in too much of a hazy pain to care.

It began to rain and we returned home. Then the girls wanted to continue their play. In the bedroom. They convinced husband make a big pride rock by inclining the king size mattress (evidently, the stack of pillows was not tall enough) and they scaled the pride rock wall and jumped down from it. Imaging two girls standing on top of a four foot contraption with a baby lion in their hands - thats baby kiara for you.

Today's hands on activity if building forts. Does uprooting the bed into a Pride rock structure count ?Because any other fort that we make is definitely going to fall short. More tomorrow. 


 

30 days of hands on play

There is a very nice reflection and play opportunity organized by Hands on as we grow, which I hope to follow over the next month, hopefully geared towards encouraging more hands on play with the children.

The idea of the first task was to reflect on how I could get more hands on with the kids to play.

I had to ask myself, how hands on am I with the children as they play?

Here are the positives.

1. I set up activities for them to explore. Almost everyday, we have an exploration activity, some complicated, involving lot of setup time, like the baking soda flour activity, some simple and easy, like what I did yesterday by giving the kids a bunch of ice cubes, and several containers/ sieves, cloths to play filtering and drink water from. The activity is usually artisitc/ scientific, often a mixture of both.

2. While they are doing these activities, I try to explain stuff to them - why does ice melt faster when you pound it with a garlic pounder? Why does the flour paint become spongy like cake when you microwave it?

That said, here are the negatives

1. After setting up an activity for them, and sometimes spending a few minutes on it with the kids, I often step back and let the children explore. Sometimes I ask myself if that is a good idea or is it better for me to be constantly there, actually taking part in the activity and exploration? For instance, during yesterday's ice exploration session, I was hanging around the kitchen, making sure that the pita bread for today's lunch were shaped, risen and in order. So, while I was keeping an eye on the activity, I wasnt actively taking part in it. So I ask myself, would the exploration have been more engaging if I had joined in more activelyt? If I had, for example, shown the kids how to do extended play, like ice cube painting?

2. I have, as I am too often aware, limited time with the kids in the evening. Between 3 to 3.5 hours between the time I get home and the time the kids go to bed. Added to this is the lethargy and tiredness that i bring back from work which simply, at times, makes me want to curl up and go to sleep. There are also the structured activities to follow up on: For Anjali, she has to do reading, piano, and shloka practice before bed. While these activities, put together, dont take much time, I estimate a total of half an hour of work, getting her to sit at these (while its getting easier), is sometimes a challenge. For me, it is especially hard to do it if the kids are in the middle of some elaborate pretend play, like yesterday when they were doing a very elaborate Simba Nala dramatization on top of pride rock. I feel guilty about breaking the pretend play, and I feel guilty about not breaking the pretend play, for perhaps, when the pretend play finishes, the girls may be too tired/ cranky/ hungry to do the structured activities. Is there a way to improve this situation?

Hands on as we grow asks us to jot down the kids' interests, so possibly we can align playtime to these interests, so here goes

Anjali's interests
Very diverse, Jack of all trades sort. Starting to show a improving interest in reading. Dancing, pretend play, anything physical - climbing, jumping etc

Sophia's interests
Pretend play. Dancing, music, especially if it comes back to the pretend play. Talking. A lot.

How creativity encourages conversation and strange behaviors

I remember reading a piece somewhere about a famous scientist who dreamed about the solution to a problem, which was later to win him the nobel prize. However, by the time he woke up and got to the lab, he had forgotten the solution.

The next time he had a dream, he was better prepared, he pulled on his pants and headed to the lab straight away.

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

The girls are making love potions in the kitchen.

"I want blue!", says Anjali

"Girls dont like blue Anjali", Says Sophia.

"I like blue", says Anjali

"My patti says that girls dont like blue"

"Some girls like blue, blue is very beautiful", says Anjali

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

I found this fabulous article on mommy labs where a very creative lady named Rashmee shares cool activities. I had marked the article on microwave puffy paint to try out with the girls

The best art is open ended and the girls set to work on their drawing blocks. While their first paper was mostly exploration, by the time their second and third sheets rolled around, the girls had come up with truly exceptional creations, which I microwaved before taping to the wall.

=========================
Sophia woke up in the morning at 5.45, shortly after I had gotten up. I went to the bedroom, but she ignored me and walked straight to the computer table

Sophia pulled two sheets of paper from the computer table and walks to the lightbulb lab, from where she gets a fat black marker pen. At some point she realizes that she has two sheets of paper in her hand, so she goes back to the computer table to return one sheet.

Then she clambers up on patti's black chair and tries to open the marker. it wont budge. After a few tries, I offer to open it for her. She begins to draw.
===========================


"I will tell patti that girls like blue", says Sophia

"You shouldnt believe everything everybody tells you, Sophia", I told her. "Sometimes Anjali tells to a lot of things which are not really true, because she is just needling you."

"Does patti go to school?" asked Anjali to Sophia

"No!" said Sophia

"Does patti go to office?", asked Anjali

"No", said Sophia.

"Then patti does not know anything", she concluded triumphantly

Whoa! hold on! where did that come from??

I washed my dough filled hands and sat down to explain that people dont need to go to office or school to know things and people who know things choose not to go to office or school so that they can take better care of their babies. I hope I got the point across.

=========================
Sophia's drawings, though mostly abstract, could be interpreted, by a very imaginative soul to represent various things- a red and yellow cow head, a flying super dog, a fat snowman with a huge mustache...

Not to be outdone, the girls sat near the wall for a whole quarter of an hour to describe their art - Anjali came up with seahorses, playgrounds, red clouds, blue clouds, yellow rain and crocodiles in blue water.
 =================================

I leave Sophia to her drawing and return to the kitchen to work.

A couple of minutes later, I hear the trip trapping of feet and Sophia has closed her marker and returned it to the lightbulb lab. She stumbles right back onto bed and is asleep within seconds.

I looked at the doodle, it sort of looked like a bird.

Who knows' maybe she will win some kind of nobel prize in art.

The lion king musical

The girls were both dressed in yellow for the lion king musical. As we had reminded them to wear long pants since the theatre might be cold, they wore pants and the only yellow t-shirt they had - a run for kids t-shirt that they had gotten at the POSB run a month or so ago.

Following Swati's advice, we took seats close to the aisle, and Anjali was given a booster seat to see better. When i booked the tickets, a number of seats next to us was empty, and given that I had booked the tickets less than a week in advance, I was holding out hope that there would be spare seats next to us to plonk Sophia when the show began. No luck, as the whole hall was filled up as the show began.

The rhinos and the birds came straight up near us and there was a point when Simba was running away when he ran straight past us. The kids were extremely excited by the program and really loved it. Anjali stayed in her seat for the whole period without commenting and when Mufasa died, she held tight to my arms and sniffled quite a lot

Although she declared categorically later that she didnt cry at all.

Sophia fidgetted a bit during the show, but was, as usual, very vocal during the taxi ride. Anjali had nearly fallen asleep in husband's arms.

"Mummy, I like the show mummy, but I liked the book moye"

The book is question was a very unartistic narration of a bunch of disney animal stories which husband and I mostly bought for the illustrations, but which the kids read from time to time

"Sophia, normally, the book is better than the show, but this is an exception", said husband, and I asked her "Why do you like the book more?"

"Because.... because... the book has more content mummy!"

She probably has no clue what content means. likely she heard me saying it in reference to some other movie.

"It has more content.", i repeated

"Yes"she affirmed. "The book also has yaw lions"

Husband and I werent really sure what she meant. "raw lions?"

"What is a raw lion?" we asked

"The book has no people lions", she said.

"Mummy, there are no people lions in the world!!"

This astounding declaration has been a talking point in our home for the whole weekend, people lions and raw stuff.

I was telling the girls about how their beaded princess dresses were underused and starting to get small, and how I had two baby princess dresses (no idea who gave princess dresses for six month old kids), which were hardly used and which I dont want to throw away because they are so pretty.

"I should take out all the beads and use them for some other craft project", I said

"Then I will wear the yaw dress", says Sophia.

Silence

"What is a raw dress?", I asked her

"A yaw dress is a dyess without spinkly sparkly"

Right

"Whats a raw lion?"

"A yaw lion is not a people lion"

yeah, we got that.

"What is a raw building?"

"A yaw building has no windows!"

"A raw tree?"

"A yaw tree has no leaves!"

"A raw swimming pool?"

"A yaw swimming pool has no water"

Well, she has her logic straight, though the terminology may be wierd

love potion

The girls are making a love potion, with cornflour gloop, paint and play foam. that makes yucky brown and pink potions.

If you dont want to marry someone and the person wants to marry you, then you must drink this potion.

Thats Anjali's logic.

Do you want to marry someone? Asks Sophia.

No, I am already married, I say

You can marry someone else, she says

I'ts illegal. they'll put me in jail. I reply. I cant marry two people at the same time

Its ok, says the ever logical Anjali. you can marry some one now and marry someone else later

 

Ink on my hands and feet and kids who dont sleep

My my. That title has a rather catchy rhythm to it. I should make it the title of my upcoming children's book for sleep deprived flu ridden mothers whose content is as follows:

Sophia loves to push people around.

She loves more than anything to push her mom around.

One day, when her mom was sick with the flu and unable to protest because of a lack of voice, Sophia took blue and green markers and drew on her mother's hands and legs.

The one on the right hand was a set of spots

The one on the left hand was a group of mermaids having a swimming competition.

The one on the right hand was also a 2 having a yunning yace. The yunning yace had no paytneys and so it was a single race

(Whatever that means)

The markers didnt go away when mom took a shower in the morning.

So Mom went to office with green and blue markers on her hand. Luckly her colleagues were too polite to comment, though she did observe some strange stares.

Sophia loves to push her mom around in the night or early in the morning.

One night, she refused to sleep till midnight and tried very hard to keep mom up too.

"Mummy!", she asked. "Why you are sleeping and daddy is not sleeping"

Why doesnt she go to the living room and bug the daddy watching tv?

Another morning, she woke up at 5am and decided that it was too much of a bother to go back to sleep.

The only problem was that everyone else was sleeping.

There was only one thing to do. Who is the best person to whip and threaten to wake up?

Not Anjali, though that would be most fun. Anjali would just kick Sophia and refuse to get pushes around.

Not daddy, who would simply refuse to wake up and hide under the blankets.

Who is left?

Mummy of course. And how to wake up mummy?

"Mummy! I am not sleepy"

"Stay awake then"

"Get up mummy!"

"When the alarm rings, I will get up"

"Mummy, I want milo"

Mummy knows that the milo request will not stop until the milo is given so the mummy drags herself out of bed and makes the milo in the kitchen. The clock on the microwave says 5.15. Great half an hour till the alarm rings.

Mummy puts away the milo tumbler and curls back into bed.

"Mummy is it wake up time?"

"Its wake up time when the alarm rings"

Mummy swears that it cant be more than five minutes

"Mummy, is it wake up time?"

After about twenty repetitions of this, the alarm rings and mummy, after doing some very approximate mental calculations decides that it wont take more than half an hour to make the rice and curry for lunch, and therefore sets the alarm to snooze, curling back under the covers.

"Mummy, get up mummy!"

"hmmm"

"get up mummy, I heard something ying mummy!"

Mummy finally got up and dragged herself to the bathroom. Sophia toddled along

"I need some light mummy. Can I on the bedyoom light?"

"No"

"I need something to see with"

Mummy turns on the kitchen light and props Sophia on the counter.

Sophia closes her eyes. "Mummy, there's light in my eyes mummy!"

A wonderful Diwali, despite the flu that went around

Most of Tuesday was spent in clearing and cleaning. Anjali earned herself a ice cream treat coupon for good behavior. The girls helped me take apart the fairy garden that was starting to look like a swamp and cleaned all the seashells with soap and water. We did reading and were just going outside to put a kolam when the first sparklers whistled.

I heard them, faint, and decided not to comment. Anjali heard them, despite the racket in the house and wanted to go downstairs to play. We drew kolams in front of the apartment and went downstairs with a packet of sparklers. There were a few other children who had brought their first sparklers for playing.

We wound up the play fairly early as I was encouraging the kids to be up early. Anjali got up at 5.30. The surprising bit was that so did Sophia, despite not sleeping till close to midnight and not letting me sleep till close to midnight by asking me wierd questions like

"Why you are sleeping and daddy is not sleeping mummy? Why mummy? tell tell tell"

We were downstairs before dawn to light sparklers - very reminiscent of India. Totally unremiscent of India though was that we were the only ones in the quiet playground. I thought it was really beautiful, just us, the quiet and the sparklers. Dawn was just breaking when we came back up for breakfast before going to the temple. That too was done early and  before most of the crowds.

We went to patti's house for breakfast/ lunch well, pretty much to spend the day. And Vishnu and Dheeraj had both come for lunch.

After lunch Anjali wanted to redeem her icecream coupon bust Sophia wanted to stay and play with Dheeraj. I told Anjali later that it was my favorite part of the day, sitting outside udders - where the icecream is actually good, as opposed to frolick where they sell something totally weird. Anjali wanted strawberry icecream, but later chose vanilla with honeycomb, since the udders strawberry icecream was sour - more points to the shop. I got coffee and we sat there, two girls people watching.

The next part of the day was getting Sophia to sleep -something that the whole house tried and miserably failed in. Anjali napped and Sophia sat/ talked / jumped to a point where even Dheeraj (who has an advanced diploma in monkey business) appealed to us to take her away so that he could nap. The girl, on the other hand, bounced, fell, jumped and when asked said

"I had a good nap mummy!"

"Which part of you had a good nap?', I asked

"My whole body", she replied

"Did you mouth nap?", I asked her, as her mouth had shown no signs of napping.

She had dinner in patti's house and crashed on her way home.

After putting Sophia in bed, and husband watching over her, Anjali (who didnt trust us much and who was waiting in the lift lobby without taking off her shoes) and I took most of the sparklers downstairs where about 50 kids were popping crackers, lighting sparklers and making a general bit of mayhem.

We stayed till around 9.30 before returning home and in the dim light before bedtime, Anjali wrote out her sounds of her own accord. And then we went to bed

And I got hit by a throat ache and running nose so bad that I couldnt believe that it existed.  Probably caught the flu from the sleepless kid.

Books, readings, tantrums and the like

Anjali read her first book yesterday.

"But I dont know all the letters", she said, when I told her that she would be reading her first book during reading.

"You dont need to know all the letters. There is a magic by which we can still read books without knowing all the sounds", I said.

She was quite skeptical. "Arent we going to do any more sounds?", she asked

 "We are, but we are also going to use the sounds we have already learnt"

So when we began and reviewed sounds, she says

"But you said we were going to read a book??"

Yes. we will. I told her. And then we continued doing sounds, pronunciation, words, and finally her first sentence.

"S...e...e ... see"

"mmm ...eee me"

"e t.... eat"

she said. "see m...e me eat", she said

"Now read it faster", I prompted

"See me eat"

I flipped the page to show her the picture

"See me eat!". She exclaimed. "Sophia!! See... i can read see me eat!"

But Sophia was busy drawing lollipops and didnt pay attention.

"Tell Daddy", I said

"Daddy!! See me eat"

Daddy was more obiliging than Sophia and came along to read "See me eat!"

A very significant milestone

Sophia at play on the nature table

One of Sophia's favorite spots is the nature play place. Its the shoe rack, which used to have shoes on it. A few months ago, I cleaned it up stuffed the shoes inside where they belonged and put nature/ made stuff on the table. So it is very colorful and inviting to the two year old, who gravitates often to it to arrange shells and talk to herself. I filmed her at it on Saturday evening.

See if you can spot the red Jedi.

The nature table is mostly filled with seashells that we have collected over various beach trips, a potted plant, another seashell filled with moss and a new money plant - I tried to grow succulents on it but it didnt work out too well.

Yesterday Anjali and Sophia were having a fight. I believe Sophia was calling Anjali names

"Mummy. Please put Sophia in time out, she is calling me names"

"Sophia, if you are calling Anjali names, you need to find a place to sit in time out".

"Mummy, please put Sophia in the dirtiest corner of the room for her time out"

Sophia waled to the seashell and grabbed some moss off it.

"Here Anjali, some dirtiest corner. You can sit here. "

Anjali's school concert

This is the Spanish dance that they performed in school.



This is the performance that Anjali put up later in patti's house, And this is the performance that Sophia also did for thattha. It was part of the school concert but I couldnt get it on video as there were so many children on stage for the singing. So we made her do it again in patti's house.

Anjali's reading

The reading routine has sort of grown up on Anjali and she is making good progress. Yesterday, we started on words with four letters. Before we start, she remembers the lesson number, and says "Mummy, yesterday we did number eleven, so today we must do twelve"

She is also starting to get more aware of letter sounds and putting things together. So far the book and time time invested seems to be fine

In the meantime, Ms Lai comments that Anjali's not ereading has improved, thanks to husband, who has grilled Anjali nicely over the last week. I caught Anjali sitting on the rocking chair and saying to Sophia, "See Sophia, what is this note? This is a semi breve. Can you say Semi breve? This is a d etc"

She still has a confusion between b and d. We did the "d" sound yesterday in reading and before starting, she was very apprehensive. "Mummy, I think I cannot do d." I insisted that she try and reminded her that her first "a" and "s" were mirror image writing. When she began, she wrote b instead of d, but s we practices through the reading session, she figured out the d. Now I am waiting to introduce the b, though it wont be for a while yet 

Conversations with Sophia

More snippets from the budding caption of the debating club

The girls are playing Fiding secret messages on the floor. Atleas Anjali is finding secret messages.Sophia is rubbing

candles on the paper, pouring dirty water over her paper. and generally making a nice mess.

At somepoint, she takes away Anjali's water container (which was a milk carton cut up). There is some kind of scuffle and

husband steps in

Husband: "Sophia, give some water to Anjali"

Sophia: Theresh watey in the kishen

Anjali: I want the box

Sophia: Theresh box in the kishen.

I brought another cut up carton for Anjali, only this was a juice carton with lemons on it. The green eyed monster reared

up and followe dme to the kitchen

Sophia: I want a box.

Me: You have two

Sophia: I want that one. I want like Andhaali.

Me: You have like Anjali.

Sophia: I want the geen one!!

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

At IMM, owing to patti's hankering, i ended up in a clothes shop to buy a pair of pants. Couldnt find anything suitable and

so decided to try another shop

Me: Come on Sophia.

Sophia is staring thoughtfully and fingering an adult T Shirt
Me: Sophia, come on

Sophia: Mummy mummy...

Me: Yes

Sophia: All my clothes are old mummy.

Me: Really?

sophia: Yes. they are vei old.

Me: Ok...

Sophia: So you must buy me this dyess.

Me: Its a big people dress Sophia

Sophia: Ish ok mummy. I am big.

Conversations on the drawing table

Anjali is drawing on a piece of paper. We have decided to call our art wall The Art of Museums. I wrote that out and Anjali was decorating it with her and Sophia's names.

Sophia: You byoke the paper Anjali

Anjali: No. I didnt . You are talkin, so I broke the paper.

Sophia: Mummy, Anjali broke the paper

Anjali: I didnt. I wont break the paper if you dont talk.

Sophia: I have a mouth so must talk.

Sophia: In your school i didnt talk because... because you are doing everything. But here I have a mouth and I must talk.

Arguments and Spontaneous art

"Mummy", said Sophia. "Andhali is saying that it is hei penshils!!"

"Anjali, please concentrate on your work", I said. "And if you telkl me like this and like that I cant understand because I cant see what you are drawing. "

"Ok. You draw one horizontal line and one vertical line", she said. "Its my pencil Sophia. I got it in school"

"No Andhali. Its mine!", retorted Sophia. "They gave it to me when we did the yadha madhava yadha shyama that time"

"are there angry birds on your pencil?", I asked

"yes", said Sophia. "there is a yed Angy biyd and a yellow angy biyd"

"Ok Anjali", I said. "then its the one tat Suganti aunty gave after the Raha Madhava Radha Shyama"

"Its still mine", said Anjali, not giving up. "They gave me one also"

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

After Anjali left for school I sharpened Sophia's two angry bird pencils. We put the scraps in a mushroom container.

"I can play with this mummy!", she exclaimed, fingering the scraps with delight

"Yes, you can", I said. "And whats more, you can glue them on to paper and make a collage"

"I want to do that", she said

So we got some construction paper and glue and Sophia meticulously glued all the pencil scraps onto the construction paper

"Done!", she announced triumphantly

"Good", I said. "Now let it dry"

"No mummy. Want to hand on wally"

"Let it dry first", I said

"Ok. I will dry it on the table. We always dry our woyk there."

"You do that. First nlets write your name on your work", I said, grabbing a pencil and writing "Sophia" on it. "What do you want to call your work?", I asked

"I want to call it... I want to call it... What I should call it mummy?"

"What were you thinking of when you did the collage?"

"I was thinking it is beautiful like this!", she said

"Then lets call it Beautiful like this!" - New art addition to the masterpiece gallery

Attending the lion king

I finally caved in, after repeated pressure from Swati, and some others, and bought tickets for the lion King Musical. We are going on next Friday night. Its one of the last shows in Singapore.

It had better be worth it, as the cost is super exhorbitant.

Then again, the kids love the lion King

Have we done it today, schedule chart

I got the feeling that with all the things that Anjali has to learn, in terms of formal instruction, she was getting rather overwhelmed. She kept saying things off the bat like

"I have this concert, and then piano concert and then Gita Jayanti concert and so many things!"

 

Added to it all was the fact that she had to keep up with her work - the reading and Math and logic activities. I was beginning to feel a little overwhelmed myself, and felt that some organization was needed.

I seriously considered doing workboxes, something that people have been raving about on the internet, but knew that it would take me a lot of discipline to get it up and running.

So this is what I came up with:

 Download: Schedule Chart

The idea is simple, I printed two copies, one for Anjali and one for Sophia, slipped them in clear pockets and taped them to the wall. The idea is that everyday they would put a dot against that activity that they have completed. Uncompleted activities would get priority for the next day. The goal is not to finish all the activities each day, but to make sure that there was a balance in the things we did.

It seemed to work well yesterday. I reached home at seven and husband brought the girls back from ballet at 8pm. I showed the girls the chart and how it worked. Anjali cottoned on immediately, and went to practice three pieces on the piano before putting a dot against music. Then Sophia sat at the piano and played "Beauty and the beast"

I asked the girls what they wanted to do for craft - bread baking, painting or collage. Anjali chose breadbaking. I already had dough in the bread machine, and while it was rising, we went through the reading lesson of the day and the Math Kumon book. While Anjali was doing the Kumon, Sophia did some of her own puzzles - sock matching on one of the puzzle books that we had gotten at popular last week.

We put a check against the reading and the math

The bread pinged and the girls helped me to oil the bread pan, spread flour on the board, put the dough on the board. Anjali helped me to cut the dough into 8 pieces and Sophia and Anjali both helped to roll and shape the buns. Then we brushed the buns with milk and set them to rise. i set the timer on the oven

Check Art and craft

"Anjali built a beautiful tower of blocks said husband. Does it count as art and craft or as engineering?"

"Science, I guess" I said, putting a check there as well.

We had done shlokas in the morning and so there was another check, and ballet counted as physical activity.

Puzzles remained unchecked. The girls even had time to play properly with the guinea pigs and Anjali helped me to cut the carrots, bell peppers and cucumbers into (totally unnecessary, but so so enjoyable neat circles and slices) for the guinea pigs. She then helped husband line the guinea pig cage with newspaper and crawled around in it saying "Give me vegetables!"

This morning, when she woke up, she looked at the chart and said "Mummy, yesterday we didnt do puzzles"

So we got out the puzzle book and worked on it while she had her breakfast. one check for Tuesday.

How we went for yoga but ended up tramping instead

The yoga playgroup was supposed to have a session yesterday at Fort Canning Park. Myself, who was incharge of venues, got it wrong. The email had said Stamford Green.

Its funny how cognitive dissonance works, because I read the venue as Fort Canning Green, which is the only green I knew of, where we went a couple of years ago for Ballet under the stars.

I didnt really want to roust myself out of bed early in the morning, especially since we had been out to the Thai Ramayana (as Sophia called it) at the Esplanade yesterday. I told the girls in the Thai Ramayana, Rama does not kill Ravana, but Ravana asks for forgiveness. I guess this is probably wrong, as it was told to me by one of the guides in the Bangkok Palace. But Sophia likes this pacifist version of Ramayana and everytime I tell her the story (The Indian version), she asks me to tell her again the thai version (from the beginning and not just with the change in the ending. )

Husband, who is keen on the yoga, rousted us all out, pretty bossily and we were in the taxi on our way. We landed at Fort Canning Green, where there was no yoga group, just a lone man singing at the top of his voice at an echo tunnel, a group of taichi performers and some adults doing serious meditation.

While husband used his marathon skills to run around the park in five minutes, the girls and I walked around the battle box while Anjali asked me questions like why people die in wars (we had also been to the cenotaph the day before on our way back from the esplanade)

Husband couldnt find the yoga group. It was a nice day, so we decided to walk in the park instead, exclaiming at the outdoor statues (which in retrospect were probably not made of paper mache), looking at ant trails and termite trails (and getting bitten by ants and mosquitoes in the process), picking fern leaves and some frangipani flowers for putting on a collage (Sophia piled them all on top of an art block the minute she got home and the girls spent a happy hour making a zoo with their blocks and feeding fern leaves to the animals. I have encouraged them to make a proper collage with glue. We may get to it this evening), sliding down the grassy slope (atleast the yoga mat was useful), sliding down stair railings (what a pity that stair railings these days are so safe and children cannot slide down them) and dipping our feet in a fountain.

We got home at around 11am for a nice lunch of mamaliga and bean sauce. I am trying recipes since we are hosting the walk in November and making sure that husband proofs them and I proof them. As a result, we will be having a repeat of dishes selcted for the brunch and potential dishes on the waiting list over the next two weeks. Hence mamaliga and bean sauce.

A nice morning thanks to the yoga playgroup that didnt happen

Tantrums and conversations

I guess it was because Sophia didnt sleep in the afternoon. Husband wanted to go to buy smoked salmon and ofcourse the girls too wanted to go along, not for the salmon, but for the Tom n Stefanie. We have been having Tom n Stefanie issues with the kids ever since they moved the Thomas trains to the ground level, which, I guess was precisely their point.

As the queue at Shop n save was really long, husband suggested that I bring the girls to Tom n Stefanie which he queued for the cashier.

I brought the girls up

"Ok girls, when daddy comes up, you have to finish your play and go home. Do we have a deal?"

"Deal." Said Anjalil

"Deal" Said Sophia.

Husband came in around ten minutes.

"Let's go", I said.

"No...", began Anjali.

"You made a deal", I reminded her

"Oh, yes, I made a deal", and she cheerfully skipped away from the shop.

Sophia on the other hand, sat in front of a magnetic board "I want to do this...." she bagan

"Daddy is here, lets go", I said

And there began the hugest tantrum of Sophia's career.

She began too cry, and struggles when husband picked her, and struggled when I picked her, and knocked a bunch of toys off the shelfs (luckily they were made of cardboard). I stopped, waved off the attendant and made her pick them up (more tantrums)

"You are going to go into timeout when we get home", i said

More tantrum

We tried to catch a cab home but were overwhelmed by the number of taxis at the stand. So we caught a bus home instead.  She cried in the bus because she wanted a different seat. And she cried downstairs because the buburusa wouldnt move fast enough.

She cried in the lift because Anjali pressed the lift button (this she cries for regardless of the current tantrum state)

Then we opened the door and she rubbed her face with all the tears and snot on the back of my dress (yuck!) and said, quite steadily

"Mummy, I stopped cying. I dont want to go into time out"

Give me some credit, i didnt laugh.

I took her to the bedroom, gave her a glass of water and asked her to calm herself down before coming to the living room.

"Mummy, Is Sophia in time out?" Asked Anjali

"I am not in Time Out!", began Sophia, lips trembling and tears forming, but I managed to take Anjali out before making any judgements.

We were working on reading. I found a book a few days ago called how to teach your child to read in 100 easy lessons and I am trying it out on Anjali. So far, we are covering ground that she knows in terms of letter pronunciation, but new ground in terms of sounds. So we are making it a point to spend a few miniutes a day on the  book.

SOphia marched in, eyes dry, face solemn, to sit on my lap. She joined in some of the sounds activities. It was in my interest to take her to bed soon, so thats what I did, right after reading.

After the girls were in the bedroom and I was washing up, I caught snatches of conversations.

Sophia: "Kishna is small"

Anjali: No. Krishna is tall.

Sophia: No Andhali, Kishna is not tall, Ksihna is a baby, so he is small

Anjali: Sophia, is Vishnu tall?

Sophia: Yes

Anjali: Is Rama tall?

Sophia: Yes

Anjali: If Vishnu is tall and Rama is tall, then Krishna must be tall. because Krishna is an avatar of Vishnu and Rama is alsos an avatar of Vishnu.

I came out of the bathroom

Me: Do we girls know the story of how Vishnu found that he was actually small? I can tell it to you.

I was taking the opportunity to turn out the lights.

Sophia: Mummy, Kishna is an avathayam of Vishnu you know. Yaama is also an avathayam of Vishnu.

I told them the story of Shiva and the column of fire.

Me: And Shiva was angry with Brahma because Brahma lied

Anjali: Gods should not lie right?

Me: Right

Sophia: But people can lie right?

Anjali: No. People should not lie also

Sophia: No Andhali. People can lie.

Anjali: No Sophia, people cannot lie, because people are god.

Sophia: I am not god!

Anjali: Yes, you are god. You are god, I am god, everyone is god!

Sophia: I am not god. Mummy, I am not god!

Anjali: God is inside you so you are god and so you cannot lie

Sophia: I am not god!

Anjali: Mummy, tell Sophia that she is god!

Me (trying hard to be diplomatic and not laugh): Sophia is not god but she can be god because god is inside her. But first she must stop throwing the mother of all tantrums

Silence

Sophia: Mummy Mummy... I thyew a tantyum because...

Me: because...

Sophia: Because Andhali was playing with the yiting toy and i wanted to play, but daddy came

Anjali: i was not playing with that writing toy

Sophia: Yes you were. There was something yitten on it

Anjali: I didnt write anything on that toy, There was plastic on it

Sophia: Something was yitten on it

Anjali: Maybe the shop uncle or the shop aunty wrote something on it. I didnt write on it there was plastic.

playing with soap, fighitng, secrets

Yesterday evening, as an extended messy play, the girls and I worked with soap dough. The idea was simple, take soap, shred it up, add a bit of water, whisk it with an egg beater, play. The girls helped in the shredding of two small bard of hotel soap

The resultant concoction was a nice doughy soapy thing which we played with on the kitchen floor. After making some random shapes and squishing etc, and when it seemed that these kids were losing interest, i brought out some sand toys and asked them to mold the soap inside. This morning, ti had dried (almost) and we have two shaped soap, nicer than any hotel soap - the stegosauras is Sophia's and the sea shell is Anjali's.

The girls got dumped in the bath where they played. And then fought. Anjali wanted in on Sophia's tub and bullied Sophia out.

As I was telling Anjali about the negatives of bullying, and declaring that she would have to give up helping me to make cake because she bullied her sister, Sophia comes along and tugs my dress

"Mummy, I will tell u a secyet."

"What?"

"We will ask Anjali to help us make the cake, but we will not let her eat it ok?" (This said with the most impish face of a person coming to best conclusions)

Why are there cloths around the dining table

If you are wondering why there are cloths around the dining table, its because we visited the Jurong library on Sunday, where there was a Wayang stage. under the stage was a hidey hole and after I had chosen the books, I found husband and the girls there, in the hidey hole, reading. The playeum guys had put serial lights in the hidey hole so that there was enough reading lights.

So here is what the inside of our hidey hole looks like



Anjali stayed in this morning for cereal and story before going to school and she liked it.

There are a couple of engineering issues to be sorted out though.

1. The duppattas are cellotaped to the dining table, which is definitely a temporary solution and wont hold if Sophia yanks it twice. I have to look for a permanent one, probably involving sewing across with a strip of cloth.
2. Ventilation, though not as much of a problem as it would be if the cloth were thicker, is still an issue.
3. Lumination. We have our Christmas lights and we have asked husband to help us tape the lights under the table to complete the hidey hole.

I have always wanted to make card table houses, which are superbly imaginative, look beautiful on the outside, but very time consuming, but the one we have come up with, I think is not a bad idea at all.

The video of the Gita Jayanti progam

This is the video of the Gita Jayanti program that the children did on Saturday. Thanks to Lok uncle for the videography.

The kids did a grand job, I think. Simple and grand, given that they were mostly all under five years old, with the exception of Ayushi who is seven. Granted, there were a couple of goofups, especially at the end, with Sophia, who was not happy with the fact that i was on stage, and though all the children were told to sit in Vajrasan, other than those who practised diligently at home, the rest sat in their own sweet positions.

At the risk of sounding like the oscars, I have to thank a couple of people especially for this program. The first one being Uma aunty, who came down to help with the make up. Anjali's Krishna costume was put together so elegantly thank to her. Also my saree, which, without her timely help would have been a total mess.

And then the next thanks too all the moms who pulled things together, made sure there were spares of everything to go around, earrings, beads, hairpins, safety pins etc.

And finally to the children who were extremely enthusiastic about the event. The beauty of organizing a concert is this: that more than becoming a group of performers, they become a team of workers, working independently and together. They also become learners - their scope of learning extending to beyond what they are required to learn - Anjali and Sophia, for instance had memorized nearly the whole of the Purushasuktam verses and were singing it in the car with Ramya. They had learnt the verses just by listening to the music (I confess that i have not yet learnt them, just the line number and perhaps the starting lines).

It is also about forming friendships and playing during rehearsals. During the week, we would get together the children who lived in the Bukit Batok area and make them practice in the mid week. A beautiful friendship thus formed between Ramya, Anjali, Krisha and Sophia. They would rehearse for around teen minutes, play for ten minutes, rehearse for ten minutes and so on. While generally, I would say that playing wastes time which could be used during rehearsals, I have learnt that playing makes the children learn in a completely different sense. During the last rehearsal, just one day before the program, the four girls took all the temporary markers and made drawings all over my living room floor. IT was a superb masterpiece.

On one of the rehearsals in the center, Anjali, Ananya, Ramya and Sophia were having a discussion about having a sleepover. With a pang, I realized how fast these children were growing up. Anjali and Ananya, atleast a year ago, used to be so clingy to me and to Swati. And now they were having independent discussions about sleepovers!

And I also learnt about how to rehearse with really small children. In the middle of a rehearsal, Sophia would go "Mummy, I am thysty! Give me water!"

i would ignore her, and carry on with the rest of the children. Instead of taking the hint (after all, she is two years old!), she would say, a little louder, "I want water mummy!"

ofcourse, this would distract the other children and my cue would be

"Shhhh!!"

And Sophia would say

"I want water mummy, Why are you mot giving me water!"

So before the concert, I put a pair of diapers on her and give her a drink before sending here on stage. It was, after all, extremely hot in the GIIS dressing room and stage.

The concert also brought out the Radhas and Krishnas in the children. Children take pretend play so much to heart and for them pretending something is somewhat like living the character. I remembered that about Sophia when she was going through the Dorothy phase and wanted "Happy birthday Dorothy" on her birthday cake.

The program made Radhas out of my girls, even at home.