My magical menagerie

The conversation that every parent dreads

2012-02-19T12:07:00.001+08:00

I was telling some zoned out bed time story to the kids about vampires and such which featured two best friends - poppy and james

"My best friend is Mikaela", says Anjali

"And My best friend is Gabriella", says Sophia

"My best boy friend is Kang Yi", says anjali

"Best boy friend?"

"And my best boy friend is no thing!", says Sophia

"when you gyow up, you will marry Mikaela?", asks Sophia

"No! You cant marry a girl."

"Will you marry your boy fyend?"

I thought it best to just keep quiet and let the conversation roll.

Causation, Correlations and the laws of independence

2012-02-17T21:34:00.001+08:00

Yesterday, it occurred to me that the kid who keeps asking us kaapi Kappi is probably a mite too chubby. Here is the conversation that followed

me: sophia, You are a tad fat. you keep asking us to carry carry
Sophia: I am not fat. mummy is fat
Me: Maybe, but I dont say carry carry. I still walk. But if you say carry carry, you will have a fat bum
Sophia: Mummy has a fat bottom, Anjali has a fat bottom, Daddy has a fat bottom. Mummy, you ave a fat bottom whether you say carry carry or not.

It worked

2012-02-15T10:57:00.001+08:00

The tutu was ready. Anjali helped me to cut up and thread the elastic.

"I dont want to go to ballet"

I tried a bunch of arguments, including taking away her marbles until she agreed to go to ballet.

"I will make a ladder until the ceiling to take the marbles", said Sophia, when she saw that the hiding place for the marbles was out of her reach.

And she began to drag chairs and put her toy cars on top of them and everything.

Then i pulled the last trick out of my sleeve.

"Dr Birute learnt Ballet you know"

That got her attention, and I took my advantage.

"I'll read you the section from the book"

And I took out reflections of Eden and read the paragraph out for her.

Again it is amazing what Hero worship will do to a child.

"I want to go to Orangutan Ballet" she said

"You can go to Anjali's ballet"

"No. I want to go to Oyangutan Ballet like Dr Birute"

"See.. Anjali has gone to this Ballet class and after one year she is going for the Royan Academy of dance exam, then she will go to another ballet class. If you go to Anjali's Ballet class, after one year, you can also take an exam, and we can tell your teacher to give you the exam for Orangutan Ballet."

"Ok". And she tried on the tutu and everything

Whew!

Hopefully, in a year she will grow out of this phase of hero worship

Tooth brushing

2012-02-14T11:46:00.004+08:00

Sophia has a dental appointment next Wednesday afternoon. She has a corner tooth where food gets stuck and refuses to come out on brushing, and every couple of days, husband I have to pin her down and tackle her with a tooth pick.

It was quite fun at first with us playing dentist and Anjali shining the torch in Sophia's mouth. And then the torch ran out of battery (possibly one of the kids were playing with it and left the light on) and so Sophia doesnt want to show her mouth without a torch.

But her attitude toward tooth brushing has improved (marginally). She still yells as if all the monsters in the world were behind her, and she still doesnt want to use tooth paste. Each time she needs to gargle, I lose a couple of hairs on my head, but she has learnt to sit still while yelling her throat hoarse.

Of course, i can tell her that if she doesnt brush her teeth, they will become like Swati aunty's and the image of Swati aunty's tooth in the plastic is still fresh in her mind.

A tough nut

2012-02-14T11:40:00.000+08:00

"Mummy, I dont want to go to Ballet", says Sophia.

"Why not?" I asked.

"I dont want to go to ballet because all the childyen are teasing me"

"Why for?"

"Because I have no ballet skirt"

"I will make you a beautiful ballet skirt"

"No. i dont want to go to ballet, but I want to go to my yeal school"

"I see. "

Half an hour later, husband and I are discussing the logistics of making a tutu.

"Mummy, I dont want to go to ballet"

"You always complain that Anjali goes for class and you dont go for any class. This is your class"

"No. Mummy please... i dont want to go for ballet, but I want to go for other class."

"You have to try it"

"No!"

Now trying reverse psychology

"OK Sophia. You dont have to go to ballet class and you dont have to go to piano. Mummy and daddy will work with Anjali on her ballet and piano and reading and we wont work with you for anything. Ok?"

Bottom lip comes out in a perfect sulk.

"Ok"

Shucks. IT backfired. Is there a Maisy goes for ballet book that i can borrow? Of courrse, I could tell her that Dr Birute Galdikas learnt ballet. That would work better than Maisy. And it is true

Fairy water and jogging

2012-02-09T10:41:00.002+08:00

8.30pm:

Sophia: Mummy, can I make fairy water?

Me: Yes, after Anjali plays her piano

Sophia: Please. i want to make fairy water.

Anjali settled in the piano with husband and I took a tub out for fairy water.

Sophia: I want to do fairy water in the hall

Me: No. Water play is in the bathroom only

Sophia: But the bathroom is so wet!

Me: thats kind of the point. I am going to hunt up stuff too put in fairy water and you tell me when you are ready.

Sophia (with an expression of self sacrifice): I am eady to make fairy water in the bathroom.

Anjali finished her piano and the girls played a while putting bottle caps and marker caps and beads in the water

8.45pm

Husband: I am going jogging

Anjali: Can I go with you?

Me: Your bedtime is in half an hour

Anjali: Please, can I go.

Husband: I will run very fast Anjali

Anjali: Its ok. I can take my kick scooter and go with you

Sophia: No!! Anjali, dont go jogging.

Me: Do you also want to go jogging

Sophia: Anjali, dont go jogging.

Me: Sophia, what do you want?

Sophia: Mummy sniff, mummy sniff, I want to go jogging but I want to finish the fairy water first.

Me: Ok, let Anjali and daddy go first and then when they come back they will take you again.

I was, of course secretly hoping that she would forget about this and then we could send her to bed. I should have known better after five years of parenting.

Anjali and husband left for jogging. Sophia and I played with the fairy water, made fairy dust, put fairy spells on each other, and then played dress up (with Sophia wearing my old shirt as a dress and a sash around it) and drank vanilla milk shake

9.15pm:

Anjali came back with husband. The girls began to play and at some point began to take out brooms from the closet to sweep the floor.

Me: Its bedtime.

Sophia: But I want to go jogging.

Me: There is no bicycle tomorrow. You have to wake up early.

Sophia: But you said that I could go jogging and you are not taking me. You said...

There was nothing for it.

Me: Can you take her for a quick round the playground?

Anjali: Wait, I will get my water bottle and come.

Sophia: You said you will take me jogging

Me: I never said that i will take you jogging. I have never jogged in my entire life.

Sophia has the sense to look rather mollified. But

Sophia: You said htat daddy will take me jogging,,,

Me: i know what I said, now change and go.

And they went

On the role of heroes in the bringing up of children

2012-02-07T15:36:00.002+08:00

Yesterday evening, Sophia opened the sensor box, took out the marbles and the pista shells and began her favorite game.

Sophia's favorite game is the orangutan pretending game. She gets two marbles as orangutans, puts them on a plate, a binch of pista shells as food and she is Dr Birute and goes on like this for a long time.

In our home, Dr Birute has become a sort of hero amongst the girls. To add to the richness of the hero worship, I am currently reading her Reflections of Eden, and names like Louis Leakey and Jane Goodall have now become part of our daily play.

More often than not, stories from reflections of eden take the place of our bedtime reading routine and reading the book also gave credibility to my stories. For one thing, when Sophia asks

"How do baby Orangutans go to sleep?"

I can give her the correct answer with a clear conscience.

I do owe Dr Birute a lot for one important lesson. That heros often have to undergo things they dont like to get the things they want. Last night, I told the girls about how she had to get Orangutan urine on her when she was tailing orangutans and how her bottom got burnt when she sat on a log.

The girls listened enthralled.

And it was a fundamentally wonderful wildcard to pull out when Sophia began her

"I dont want to go to school" routine.

"I dont like my school", she said. "It is very long and very boring"

"Do you think Dr Birute found it boring to be in the forsts waiting for days for the Orangutans to come?"

"Yes"

"Thats what makes her a hero."

"I am a heyo mummy?", she asked as husband belted her in the bicycle.

"Yes", I told her and off she went to school with a pouch full of her oen toys (the school toys are apparently too boring for her).

Thanks Dr Birute and hopefully we can com,e to the jungles in April.

Recycling spotlight: woven rag rug in the making

2012-02-07T15:21:00.001+08:00

This is my current on sometimes off sometimes project, a woven rag rug.

Pretty isnt it. If you look carefully, you can see three layers, with a fouth one in the making. Let me start off by telling something about it.

THe first layer is a set of miscellaneous clothes - mostly old children's clothes. Hence the bright and assorted colors. The second off white patch is an old bedsheet that belonged to thattha and patti which patti had dropped over for me to use. It was totally ragged for thattha to use although he had gotten several years worth out of it. The Third layer is a bunch of demins. I think it was five pairs of old jeans, torn at the crotch and had to go into the bin kind. We ripped up the legs. The current layer in progression is a baby bedsheet which we never used because it was made out of polyester.

My idea is to make it a really huge focal point for the licing room or the reading corner, and put lots of homemade cushions on it and a papaer mache table.

I had started work on the paper mache table last week. the idea was to make a sort of thick central base using ktichen rolls and mache over them so that they were bound together and strong and then put a layer of paper mached cardboard on top.

It was a good idea in principle. i had loosely bound the kitchen rolls togehther using duct tape and left them in the kitchen to paper mache at my next convenient time, but Sophia decided to use them as a footstool. So wehn i got back from work, what was left there was a huge mess of cardboard rolls. I popped them right back for further work another day

conversing with the rain

2012-02-06T11:36:00.001+08:00

I completely lost my hat yesterday afternoon. I am not even going to justify myself, but I bossed and intimidated the girls into doing a lot of work, including Anjali's reading and piano. Sometimes it drives me crazy that these kids have all these resources around them to encourage learning and creativity and play, and these things are virtually untouched unless husband or myself jump in to lead them. The sewing box is untouched. The lightbulb lab hardly gets used, and the children these days hardly draw on the floor. There is a box of sidewalk chalk left on the floor near a cupboard that they have free reign over and that is never used either. Painting activities donot last longer than five minutes.

The only thing that these girls take self initiative about is talking, jumping, gossiping, bullying husband etc. Puzzles get a fair bit of attention, but only when husband takes them out. Either there is some bad organization and an overwhelming number of toys that they have grown out of but are still within their vision. And then Anjali complains that when she is with patti' she has to do only tamil writing and no activities other than playing with toys, and when she is with me, she gets to do homework and activities. How many activities exactly can I do with the children over a period of two hours every evening?

I have read the articles that much of children's time must be devoted to free play but the organizer in my head screams when this free play time is devoted to talking, jumping and mummy carry. "If I had so much free time", I tell myself, "I would complete a hundred and fifty craft projects. I would spend less time hanging around and more time doing constructive stuff".

Not that the kids dont do creative stuff. Anjali and Sophia spent about an hour yesterday in the bathroom squashing soap and water and creating a slippery mess on the floor, and then they moved seamlessly to the toyroom where they were segued into some kind of pretend play or another, which involved taking all the seeds/ shells and marbles from the sensory box and cooking with them and making a zoo full of squirrels. Top points for imaginative play. What about constructive play?

Yes yes, i have read the articles on pretend play and free play and taking part in child directed play developes confident children... but is there a need for the child to move from one constructive activity to another? Constructive activity being defined as an activity that is constructive in my opinion and that visibly improves a skill in the child? And should the constructive activity also be child directed? Do children who perform this kind of free child directed "unconstructive play" get into a child play rut?

That is a tall order for children of three and five year old - identify what you are weak at and work on activities that improve this skill. Afterall, that is what parents are for, to identify that the child is weak at something and create opportunities for improvement.

What are these opportunities? What to do when the child ignores them or doesnot take sufficient advantage of them (Note: my currently hot headed definition of sufficient advantage is when the time spent at the activity is sufficiently greater than the effort that it took for me to set up the play)

The authors of the playful parenting book that I am currently off and on reading are probably going to go all grim and unfriendly when they read this post, but what the hell, its my blog, and writing helps me to toss arouond thoughts and ideas that are too complicated and muddle my head when I keep them in.

I know and understand that play and playing with children really helps them to become confident. Look at Vaishna, for instance. I remember her spending hours and days at a time, closetted in a room, even when she was about 8 or nine years old. A room with a black board, armed with a stick and a bunch of toys. She would go on for hours pretending to be a teacher. And look at her now, with a CA under her arm and a march into her career.

YEs, play is important, but where should the parent draw the line between studies and play? Which comes first? Something Swati said yesterday at the IEP facilitators' meeting comes to mind. What are the tangible benefits of IEP activities? They dont help children improve in Math/ Science/ English. But then we can ask ourself - what is the advantage of having children who are good at Math, Science, English as opposed to having confident children. The director at my institute is known to tell us not to put too much importance into the fact that someone has a PhD. Gates had no PhD, nor did steve jobs. The highest IQs he said, are the school dropouts and the delinquents. They are too bored of school and dont think that what school gives them is of much use and they take their brians elsewhere. Then there is us.

And it all brings us back to the role of parents. I was about to say facilitators... but the role of parents.

I dont want to go to school

2012-02-06T11:14:00.001+08:00

Sophia: I dont want to go to school mummy

Me: Why not?

Sophia: Because... (you could almost see her gears whirring )... because... mummy... going to school is like locking myself up in a room full of monsters.

I had to try very hard to keep a straight face about that one. it was, I think pretty serious.

She did get on to the bicycle and was pretty mollified by the new cycle cushion, but I understand from husband that she gave a good bit of trouble getting into the assembly area and clawed him a lot.

It might all boil down to the fact that she didnt quite have enough sleep last night, since having absolutely refused to sleep in the afternoon, she came up with absolutely ridiculous excuses to sleeping in the night, like

1. I am not sleepy
2. I dont know how to close my eyes
3. I cannot sleep on the bed, I need a lap to sleep on. I need mummys lap or patti's lap to sleep on
4. Baby orangutans never sleep on the bed
5. i need mummy milk shake now! I need Vanilla milk shake
6. I am very bored.

Recycling spotlight: Lightbulb lab

2012-02-01T10:35:00.002+08:00

The old lightbulb lab that we had made for getting too ratty, and ti was time for a new one. It took a good bit of work to make it, but here it is. I am very proud of the construction, since it is both sturdy and capable of holding much more things than the old lab.

Made entirely with cardboard, styrofoam vegetable trays and plastic salad boxes, paper mached over with lots of layers of newspaper and junk mail.

Recycling spotlight: Slotted disks

2012-02-01T10:34:00.003+08:00

There was a hure connecting disc playground features in this collossal. I was pretty inspired by that and while Anjali was doing her homework on Friday, I began this project. It could have been very simple if I had left it to just cutting the milk carton to make the discs, but since I had a lot of old clothes that could be cut up, it ended up being more complicated.

It took a bit of tweaking, since the slits needed to be a little thick. The recommended thickness, I think is approximately the width of the cardboard, but here is Sophia having a good time with the construction.

Anjali's argument

2012-01-30T12:28:00.000+08:00

I was mumbling some bedtime story to the children

"And then...", said Anjali.

"Enough Anjali", I said. "I am tired, the story is long and tomorrow is a school day"

"Mummy", she says, "Finish the story. You are always telling me that I should finish my work and you are not finishing the story"

You ought to be careful what to tell the children. I have always been telling Anjali that she doesnt sit at an activity. Scratch that, she doesnt sit at many activities. On Saturday, she spent about an hour doing a paint by number kit that husband had gotten for her. She has been known to spend half an hour or longer at hama activities and she spent almost an entire plane trip working on a scratch pad with rainbows on it. On Friday we sat together to work on homework and we were at it for abot 45 minutes.

I guess it is somewhat my expectations, that I expect the children to sit at fine motor activities, but Anjali sort of stope doing fine things when the novelty wears out. For instance, the hamabead work stopped after the first couple of cars and any beads that were subsequently done were not completed, but poured out half way. The same gotes for the sewing/ embroidery and knitting projects. I guess it is rather early for her, I didnt start doing embroiodery and stuff till seven or eight, and there is not much interesting about running stitch. Its only fun when you do chain stitches and the like.

I guess that the thing to do will be to offer the activities again and again.

Sophia has made good improvement in her letter identification. I have been using the sandpaper montessori letters that I made for Anjali and never used with her and she is getting good at sounds. I guess it is important to let the cchildren do things at their own time

Gymnastics, wounds, and white witches

2012-01-30T12:19:00.001+08:00

Anjali fell off from the swing at home. It was her own fault. She was standing on the swing despite repeated warnings and fell off. She got a rather nasty bruise on her right hand. Husband tried putting a bandaid on it, but that didnt quite work, since Anjali only likes to raid husband's band aid box when the bruises are imagined.

We are seriously thinkng of giving her an outlet for the physical activities. I tried to hunt down TaeKwan do and gymnastics. However, the only gymnastic classes that we could find were at the turf city club. TaeKwan Do, which was offered at the SCS clashes prime time with patti's Shloka class - not that these kids sit in Shloka. They play and sometimes run off to other rooms in the house. But then, better to avoid timing clashes.

There are Aikido classes in the community club on Friday evenings and it is these lessons that husband and I are considering. We have been quite happy with her community club lessons, and Anjali is apparently making progress in her ballet. The catch: Aikido lessons are for children six years and up and Anjali is not yet six. However, her wrestling skills are very impressive and she can resort to using all her limbs to pin you down in a fight - trust me, I know.

Maybe what these kids need is a serious body using fight. I mean, how much can you play princess? I think princess playing is totally boring, atleast it is until you pop a couple of dragons into the picture.

Sophia has a new ambition. When she grows up, she wants to be a white witch, so that when she walks, roses will bloom at her feet and butterflies will flit around her and rabbits will jump up to her and eat carrots from her hands.

This is because husband and I have been reasing Eva Ibbotson's Which Witch and we were discussing the book. Ofcourse, the girls wanted the story and Sophia wants to be a white witch.

She has, atleast temporarily, stopped wanting to be a baby orangutan.

Gren living: continued

2012-01-30T12:06:00.002+08:00

Since the people from Colex didnt turn up as promised on Friday, there was a bit of a bummer about what we were going to do with all the stuff to recycle. The recycling bins that were supposed to be there under our block were also not there, and the ones at patti's house, I think seldom get emptied. Atlease, each time we go there, they are full and they have lots of plastic bags around them.

I was half thinking of calling Colex again, but last Wednesday, I finally found a recyling bin, about five minute walk from acasa. The issue was thhat there was a need to sort the recyclables, which I began to do with the kids and finished after the girls went to school.

There, my first attempt at recycling waste. I know there is no need to make a big deal out of it - people recycle all the time, but it is a first timer for me. And now, we have three bins, (husband is very amused by it), two small ones for paper and plastic and a bigger one for cans. We dont use many cans, but I gathered that milk cartons are counted as cans.

Now the question to ask is whether it is possible to be truly zero waste. We have begun to store vegetable peels in the fridge for a week and then blend them together. Every Sunday, the plants get a vegetable peel treat. With the recycle routine in place, the only things that we will probably throw are the toxic stuff and the cooked food waste.

Fairy shoes and Princess clothes

2012-01-27T16:39:00.000+08:00

Anjali didnt wear her sandals to Yogyakarta. The reason was that they were horribly ratty and the plastic on top was peeling off to reveal some very shabby looking interior.

No matter what Anjali's faults are, she is a very fair kid, and understands that she got into this situation because she went for the fanciest not very sturdy shoes in the sop. So left wwith no proper shoes, she, very uncomplainedly, wore her (plain) school shoes to Yogya and didnt even complain much the day she had to wear them without socks.

As a result, and as a result of reading the creative family, I promised her that when we returned to Singapore, she could have two pairs of shoes, one sturdy pair for wearing outdoors and one very silly highheeled sparkly lousy for the feet pair to wear at home only when she wanted to play princess.

She tried to make true the bargain on Tuesday, which was the day after we had returned. But it was a real no go, since the shops were closed for Chinese new year.

So yesterday, after ballet, we went to the shops, just Anjali and me, to choose shoes.

Now see how fortune favors Anjali Curic. She found her sparkly shoes fast enough - high heeled with beads in the heels (dont even ask)

But no matter how hard I tried to look for study, durable sandals, they were all either too small or too big for her.

So we were heft to choose another princess sandal, which was durable, but was white and girlish and had Cinderella on the Velcro.

And so quite naturally Sophia threw a tantrum when we reached patti's house and she discovered that she didnt have Cinderella on her velcro. Her Cinderella on the velcro shoes were rather battered and one shoe was missing a ribbon and while she still wore them, we preferred to have her wear another pair of more presentable, but distinctly unprincessy shoes

No amount of pointing out teddy bears in her existing shoes would console her and I left patti's house just when thattha was starting to grumble that I should have bought Sophia too a pair of shoes (Sophia has some three pairs of shoes at home, excluding those that Anjali has grown out of)

And then when we got home, Anjali paraded around with the high heeled shoes that made clanking clopping sounds on the floor when she walked and gave me no end of worry that the people from downstairs will shout as they often do when we drop marbles on the floor.

And Sophia saw them

And while Anjali was nice about it and let Sophia parade a bit with her shoes, Sophia still wants her own princess shows and wouldnt wear her old shoes which have Cinderella on the velcro (to be fair, the ribbon is missing from one shoe although it is perfectly servicable)

"Why didnt you come with me to Bata?" I asked

I conveniently forgot to mention to Sophia that she stayed in patti's house basically because I didnt want to buy three more shoes for her to top off the shoes that she already has. I am running out of room in the house.

"Because I was tired", she says.

"Well, next time we go, remind me to get you a pair of shoes. ok?" I tell her

I am hoping that she wont hold me to it. But I will have to give the shoe shop entrance a wide berth for a few weeks.

Anjali asked me if she coould wear the lousy for the legs shoes in bed while I read her bedtime story.

I agreed, as the shoes were new and made her to promise not to wear them outside the house and even in the house, only for princess play.

She was hugging them when she slept and I took them off her hands and put them at the foot of them bed.

I tripped over them a couple of times in the morning, but the kid wore them first thing in the morning.

She has been having this high heeled shoe fantasy for about an year, so I guess it is time we indulged it. After all, i remember my own high heeled shoe fantasy and begging my parents for them.

I was, I think, around nine at that time and definitely not six

But then again, in those days, shoe shops usually stocked Hawaii Sandals and not shoes with princesses painted on them

How exactly does Cinderella feel about having kids stamp on her face all the time?

Jogja moments

2012-01-25T12:21:00.003+08:00

Here are some selected photos from our trip to Yogyakarta. We had a great time, and the kids learnt and experienced a lot. A slight negative, Sophia fell sick in the trip and had to stay back from school. Here are some of the highlights

The animals in the Yogya bird market: Attention, if you are an animal lover of any kind, donot visit this place

The Ramayana ballet at Purawisata

The mighty temple of Borobudur and the elephant ride

The statues of Mendut

Village tour by horsecart

Prabmanan

The colorful lake at Dieng Plateau

Horse riding to the bubbling voilcano at Dieng

Chilling out in the hotel

The amazing Moutn Merapi

Recycling

2012-01-17T13:56:00.001+08:00

The girls helped me yesterday to paint a large cardboard box, which was constructed using two milk cartons joined together. It is officially the new recycle bin. I spoke with Colex and apaprently they do recycling collection every other Friday from our doorstep. Trying out this Friday for the first time.

The need to take off

2012-01-17T13:54:00.001+08:00

Not counting the weekend at Bintan, we have not taken a real holiday since returning from Romania. And it has been even longer since we took a proper holiday which was not prepackaged or organized by others. I think the last one was Bali or perhaps the Bangkok trip, which was, of course the most adventurous. The Bali trip, while we had a say to the places we wanted to visit, still was not as much DIY as we would have wished. The Bangkok trip was over 5 years ago. Maybe the triip to Auckland would count in some senses... Anyway, a few proper DIY trips are in order

I have been poring over lonely planet guidebooks and the internet and trying to find hotels, sights, sounds and trying to get an over all sense of Yogyakarta. Am really looking forward to the trip. It will be different, since we have the kids... but we have been talking to them a fair bit.

Sophia is dissappointed that we are not going to see the orangutans. Dr Birute is still the unsung hero of her dreams. And her favorite game is still to ask me to be Dr Biyute and herself to be the baby Oyangutan. And her favorite wuestion is "When we go to see the Oyangutans, how many years I will be?"

But the volcanoes of Yogyakarta and the temples of Borobudur are bound to mesmerize and fascinate. The guidebook has been loaded into the kindle and I guess everything is in order. I have spoken to the girls about the bird market and Sophia wants to buy chickens (we are putting it on hold, but not the visit)

This is probably the first temple/ culture oriented holiday that the kids are taking, if we donot count the transylvanian trip that we did in Romania when Anjali was a year old. Husband is into nature, and we have tended to go for forest/ beach trips, landing ijn one place and exploring there for a few days has been the general norm of things.

There is going to be a significant amount of nature in this trip too - we are planning to cover Dieng and Merapi, so it should be an all rounded one.

Its very easy to be out argued by your five year old

2012-01-16T12:28:00.000+08:00

I was bouncing off husband the idea of going to Mustafa to see the money changer to change money for the trip to Yogyakarta.

Husbnad was not very keen on losing an hour on the detour to Mustafa, but Anjali overheard us.

"I want to go to Mustafa"

And then, much later

"I havent gone to Mustafa in so long. The last time I went to Mustafa was the time I got my thomas shoes, and now Sophia is wearing them. "

That kind of logic is quite hard to beat

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

She also makes an excellent food critic

"Mom", she says "you know the french fries that youo made for Sophia's birthday party?.. I think you should roast them some more. They tasted like potatoes and not like french fries"

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

And a great architect

"Mom. Ramya, Sophia and I will live in the pool. You just have to change our water everyday like daddy changes the guinea pigs cage"

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

To Ramya

"You know, my mummy can make french fries and cake. My daddy has just run down to buy ketchup, but my daddy can make ketchup"

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

To Ananya
"My daddy is a superhero you know, you want to see him making a fountain?"

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

I was grumbling on Saturday morning about the amount of effort that you need to put in organizing a birthday party. Making goody bags, and getting the games and stuff together.

And on Sunday morning, I was putting together the sandwiches when Sophia walks into the kitchen

"Mummy, you know I have two birthdays. "

"One is when I have the dyagon cake and one is when I have the gyuffalo cake"

And when the three year old remembers the dragon cake put together for her an year ago, I think it sort of makes the whole thing pretty worthwhile.

the resident animal lover's tips for taking care of guinea pigs

2012-01-16T11:52:00.001+08:00

We are moonlighting ans doiong shows for National Geographic on animal loving. This is the next one, after william and Sara. Those paying attention may listen to someone going "daddy I am a baby oyangutan"

He has terrible tusks and terrible claws

2012-01-16T11:49:00.001+08:00

The cake itself didnt quite satisfy husband's high standards of a light and fluffy cake. I should work on my sponge skills.

But the gruffalo is awesome and the girls had a great time decorating it with m&ms

In the woods goes the hunter

2012-01-13T10:22:00.001+08:00

We have been doing a lot of interesting and fun projects yesterday evening and this morning. the girls have been asking me for a long time to make diaper snow and I thought that this would be the best time to do it, since in a few days we wont have diapers in our house any more.

Sophia enjoyed the craft and I packed up the snow into the freezer for them to try again. This morning it was all hard and it may be interesting to take it out again in the evening and see how the girls like cold snow.

This morning, husband took the girls to school on the bike, giving me a blissful half an hour more with them. We decorated the fairy wings from the princess movie, for those who didnt realize, the wings were made of a plastic hanger with old stockings wrapped around them. And the girls decorated them with stickers.

But the highlight of the whole thing was that Anjali began to finger knit, and she likes it. Well, actually it is finger crocheting, since all we are doing was to make chains, but I think it is an activity that she can sit at for a bit, if I sit with her. Thanks to Soule Mama's creative family book.

And then I taught her the song for it -

In the woods goes the hunter
Round the tree goes the dog
Out pops the rabbit and
Off they run!!

Anjali refused to let me cut off her string and said that she wants to con tinue it, so I held it with an icecream stick. Sophia also wanted to knit, and I gave her a ball of yarn. As was characteristic of her, she refused to let me teach her anything and just kept wrapping the yarn around the stick. Then I gave her a cardboard weaving board and she played with it a bit.

Maybe we will try felting this evening.

Is it possible to have a green family life in Singapore

2012-01-12T12:44:00.001+08:00

At home, I am fighting a constant battle against the dustbin. It gets full immediagtely after it has been emptied and in no time.

I am also fighting a constant battle against clutter. Somehow we end up with stuff in every cranny of the house. Ofcouorse, much of it has to do with the fact that I hate throwing. Notice that this contradicts with the previous comment on full dustbins, but life seems to be full of contradictions and what is one more.

So this year, I am taking a more proactive role towards organization and clutter and green living.

Project 1 - sort out all the old clothes cluttering my cupboard and the kids' cupboard. I dont touch husband's cupboard because he has an undue attachment to all his shirts, even those he never wears.

Done.

Project 2: Sort out clothes to be recycled and to be given away

Done

Project 3: Make a rag rug

Working. I have so far incorporated into the rag rug a whole bunch of kids' clothes, a very ratty bedsheet that patti wanted to thrwo away and a number of jeans. photos will be up soon

Project 4. Reclaim the light bulb lab

Status: Working, I decided, inspired from the ultimate paper mache website to make a paper mache light bulb lab. It needs a lot of paper mache. Its still under progress, but the progress is good.

Project 5. Sort out the toys: Before I do this, I need to sign up to sg freecycle or something to give away the used toys.

Project 6. Set up a recycling bin at home to reduce the rubbish that goes to the landfill. Apparently there are recycling stations in the next block. I need to visit them with the children to toss the recyclable trash.

Project 7: Already in place, collect vegetable peels weekly for composting. We have done this for the last three weeks and the plants are very gratefull. We collect vegetable and fruit peels and then puree them every Sunday. Then we use the mulch for the plants at their roots.

Some recycling took place when we converted the fountain into a water wall, much to the delight of Sophia. We turned out the light since Bunica called all worried about electric currents in water.

Here is what the Oasis, as I like to call it looks like now. See the pink thing on top, its a small container with holes in it that make sure that the water from the pump flows down properly and not in a single gush. Husband recycled it from one of those long bubble blowers.

Rehearsal and shows

2012-01-12T10:33:00.000+08:00

The girls put up a dramw yesterday, with princess and fairies. We do stuff like this quite often at home, but this time we made it into a movie with scripts rehearsal and stage. Ofcourse, the fairy/ narrator is a bit jumpy

The butterfly that came out of the cocoon

2012-01-12T10:29:00.001+08:00

William and Sara

2012-01-12T10:10:00.001+08:00

A little note to add. I realized that William and Sara from my post on Interview with William and Sara were the two white mice from the Witches. I asked Anjali if she had made the connected when she came up with the names, but she says that she said them because they sounded nice. Interesting example of unconscious priming

Wormy

2012-01-11T11:08:00.001+08:00

"I took my dyagon in my bag to school and showed it to evybody and they all said nice and he was flying around and ...."

Sophia has a new dragon for a pet. She keeps him in her pocket, sometimes he rides on her shoulders or head. He is sometimes pink, sometimes green, but sometimes he is red, especially when he is angry.

His name is wormy

He goes everywhere with her. Sometimes he wanders by himself but when she calls him, he always returns.

"All the princesses are the first to go to the bathroom", I announced

Sophia ran into the bathroom. Anjali, who was still stretching said "I am the princess"

"You are", I said, hastening to avoid difficulties and squabbling. "Sophia is the dragon princess"

"I am not a dyagon pincess!", siad Sophia, sitting cross legged in front of the bathroon and coming close to tears

"But you are!", i said. "You are the keeper of the dragons, like Dr Birute is the keeper of the Orangutans. And you take your dragon with you whereever you go"

"And there are dragons like Zog and the other dragon in the princess book who make excellent friends and the princess and dragon become friends"

I was kind of blathering as I took Sophia from the toilet and put her on the sink for the hated routine of the day.

"Then what will happen?" I asked, running out of ideas and breath

"And then they will get mayyied"

"A princess cant marry a dragon", I said

"I will marry a dragon!", Sophia announced

"You will? Then what kind of babies you will have? Half dragon, half princess? "

"Yes"

"Which part will be the dragon and which will be the princess?"

"hmmm... i will have one dyagon baby and one pincess baby"

"Ok. Now lets brush your teeth"

"No!!", she turns away

"Come on, dragons only like to marry princesses with sparkling teeth you know"

She smiles and takes the toothbrush, brushing a couple of times.

"Mummy", she says, handing me the toothbrush. "You are the queen and I am the pincess"

"You want me to brush your teeth?", i ask, hardly daring to believe my luck

"Yes", she says.

I brushed her teeth.

"Now I can marry a dyagon!", she says triumphantly

Well. Whatever works.

2012-01-10T15:42:00.001+08:00

For the past month, husband has been working off and on on thisIts a fountain/ waterfall. It is a rather rustic design, and makes excellent exploration, notice the floating wood and hama bead fishes that the girls popped in the minute the setting was installed. There is only one problem, it has a 5 cm splash zone. The solution, put a long vase in front of it with lots of plants. I am sure that as time goes by, we will have a lot of updates on this indoor fountain and water garden.

An interview with William and Sara

2012-01-10T11:53:00.001+08:00

WE had been to the Omni theatre on New year's eve, and had watched Born to be Wild. It was a very inspiring omni movie of two women who worked hard to rescue baby elephants and orangutans, raisee them and return them to the wild. One of the woment is Dr Birute Gildakis who works with the Orangutans in Borneo. Her adventure haas so captures the children's imaginations.

Not a day goes by when they dont do something orangutan related. One evening, Sophia asked me to show her some orangutan pictures and then she gave this long speech

"Daddy! We will go in the Klotok and see the oyangutants and it will be so fun. We can sleep in the Klotoks and Anjali... do you want to sleep upstairs or downstairs in the klotok? ... Daddy... Anjali and you will sleep upstairs and mummy and I will sleep downstairs in the Klotok and we will see the oyangutans in Camp Leakey. That is where the oyangutans sleep when their mummys are died" **

** Copied to the best of my abilities. i tried to make her do it again for a video but it didnt work.

I got a travel book about Borneo and read up on how to go to Camp Leaky. I must admit that the idea has me hooked as well.

And here is a video of a favorite game that the girls like to play. In this William is a Keeper who takes care of Sara, the Orangutan. Something happened to the camera on the first bit of the video where William introduces himself and Sara.

The first ritual of the morning and I hate it

2012-01-10T11:36:00.000+08:00

Two days ago, when I brushed Sophia's teeth (after a quarter of an hour of wheedling and needling), I noticed something brown stuck in her molars. Ofcourse, I tried to make her open her mouth properly, but she went something like

"Are you the dentist?"

"Yes"

"Then I wont open my mouth"

Honestly!!

Husband managed to take care of it and the brown stuff by sticking a toothpick in her molar and pulling out something rather yucky and which would put you right off your food. We showed it to Sophia and you would think that it would change her mind about the toothbrushing business

Wrong!

"Some on Sophia", I say at 7 in the morning. "Time to brush your teeth and get ready for school"

"I am steching!", she says

"Fine, are you stretching your mouth?"

"No. I am steching my hands and legs"

"Right. Can you stretch your mouth?"

"No."

"I'll teach you. Say Aaaaaa"

"Aaaaa"

"EEEEE"

"EEEEE"

We go on like this for about a minute and then I say, "right, now lets put the brush in your mouth."

"No! I am still steching"

"Sophia, your bus will bee here in twenty minutes. Why dont you come back from school and stech?"

I dress Anjali and send her to the living room. Husband conveniently chooses this time to take a shower.

"Fine", I say "I am about done with making you brush your teeth. I am going to count to five and then either you brush your teeth on the bed or I will brush your teeth in the bathroom"

"One... Two..."

"I want to bush my teeth by miself!!!!"

"Ok" I put the toothbrush next to her. "three... four..."

She makes no move towards the brush

"five"

I grab hold of her, pin her down and she yells as if someone is trying to strangle her. And I run the brush threw her teeth. Sometimes she bites the toothbrush for all its worth in her anger.

When Anjali went through a similar (but shorter) phase a couple of years ago, I used to use my fingers to scrub her teeth (its a lot easier to manipulate fingers than to manipulate the toothbrush when you are force brushing). But with Sophia I have a stronger love for my finger and more respect for her teeth. Both Anjali and I have had very bad experiences of bite marks in some very sensitive areas in our body

"The most difficult part of the day is done!", I announce to husband while rinsing the toothbrush, who finds it a good time to get our of the shower.

*DISCLAIMER* I must state at this juncture that husband usually has more success than I do in brushing Sophia's teeth. So on the days when he is actually not in the shower during the toothbrushing episode, he tends to spend a lot of time with her and somehow convinces her to actually brush her own teeth. Ofcourse, husband is rather more lenient on the quality of brushing than I am, and he counts it positive if the brush touches the tooth.

Happy advance birthday to Ananya

2012-01-09T14:15:00.000+08:00

Swati wanted to make Ananya a video, but it didnt work out, anyway, here is the segment that the girls made. recorded during a taxi ride

A simple day out

2012-01-09T13:02:00.000+08:00

What made for a simple and happy day out?

When we went out yesterday, we gave the girls choices. Sure, they were tired, sometimes grouchy, but they had choices, and that made all the difference. Here are some snapshots.

Sophia having a long awaited real ride in the car. I think the girls understand our less is more approach to toys. And I think that they dont really need too many as they often bore of toys and games which are store bought. On the other hand, I fill the house with rocks, stones, seashells, seeds, beads etc and since I also spend a significant portion of my times at home getting my hands dirty in terms of using recycled stuff, Anjali, atleast has more or less stopped asking us for toys.

But sometimes they are very impressed with something and you can see the longing in their eyes, and we let them have it. In this case it was a ride on this musical car.

A couple of weeks ago it was a car ride at Vivo city

"What was the best part of your day? " I asked Anjali when we were getting back. "Was it going to Art friend, the elephant parade or the Jacob Ballas garden?"

She thought a moment.

"It was holding Sophia's hand"

The elephant parade was good artistic fun. I learnt a lot and got motivated to do the paper mache sculpture of the elephant that I saw at ultimate paper mache and paint it like one of these. What a hige, emssy and fun project that would be?

They had miniature hand painted elephants on sale all they way from 5 cm elephants to ones under a meter long, and the 5cm elephants were about $50 and the 75cm one was selling at close to $4000. BHut they are beautiful. I am getting more and more tempted to sculpt that elephant.

Of course, no trip to Jacob Ballad is complete without the time at the water playground.

But for Anjali, tree climbing took the cake. We are rather dissappointed that there are no climbable trees in downstairs our block. There was a single tree that Anjali and Sophia could climb if husband gave them a boost, but it was not as vast as the trees in this garden. Should I write to Nparks?

Tree climbing is such a wholesome and imaginative activity that I am surprised that of the many trees that grow around our block, none of them have low, reachable branches. I suppose that it is so for safety, but is not a playground structure just as dangerous without supervision?

Pasta mania for dinner kind of capped it all up. It was a rather impromptu decision, and a well enjoyed one

We thought that the long and eventful day would make the girls sleep as soon as we returned, but no, they had to play princes and dragons with daddy.

Here is the prince fighting with the dragon (note the filthwizardry inspired newspaper sword)

And the princess egging him on. We threw costumes in for good measure

Watching Sophia play

2012-01-06T11:43:00.000+08:00

We were at the center for New year's meditation. Last year, when the girls had been in for New year meditation, they were loud and fussy and husband had to take them out so that I could sit for a bit. This year, we tried to better the situation

I had taken for Anjali some workbooks for her to do while we sat, and Sophia had taken the pink worm. The pink worm is a cute, though not very robust toy that we saw in a mall demo and which I bought in a very uncharacteristic and christmassy mood. Anjali spent a couple of days with it and then dropped it. Sophia took it up after.

I gave her some crayons to work with, which Sophia did for a bit. Then she decided that a better thing to do was to play with her worm, which she did, using the worm the crayon box. It was nice to observe the worm is crawling through the box games that were contrived quite independently.

Questions

2012-01-06T10:54:00.001+08:00

Sophia: When Dinosaurs were living, we were not living. Why?
Anjali: Mummy, can you tell me how adults make babies?

It is a little hard to juggle questions about the truths of life when they come in diverse forms simultaneously and when you are waiting in the busstop for the school bus

I have a one question at a time and a take turns policy and when I had answered Sophia's question she immediately had another one

Sophia: How did Dinosaurs die?
Anjali: They died because a volcano erupted and a tsunami came
Sophia: How does a volcano form?

I interrupted to answer Anjali's question and thank the heavens that the bus came before we could get into the details.

And simultaneously answered Sophia's question about volcanoes coming because of the fire under the earth.

I am sure there are more questions waiting for me.

We are halfway through Roald Dahl's witches and I am on the lookout for more chapter books, preferably those that I have read and enjoyed. Anjali found it very interesting that I have read witches atleast five times, and Harry Potter atleast ten times. After we had turned out the light, she said

"mummy, can you tell me the rest of the witches story from your head?"

"I cant do it as well as the book does", I told her. "Why not? You said you read the book five times?"

Its hard to think of witty responses at ten thirty on a weeknight.

I went to the school this morning to pay Anjali's school fees. The bus had dropped them before I reached, but I couldnt find Anjali on the K1 line. But then a voice called me

"Mummy! We are over here!"

And there the four of them were, Anjali, Sophia, Mikaela and her sister

"We are in N1", said Anjali and Mikaela elaborated "We are sitting here till the school starts, then we will go to our class"

Thanks to Meenakshi for giving a very well appreciated present

2012-01-05T12:16:00.002+08:00

Making icecream

2012-01-05T12:15:00.000+08:00

We made icecream the traditional way - with a tupperware filled with milk, sugar and vanilla inside a big tin filled with ice and salt. We began by sitting in the lift lobby and rolling it around, but got a bit tired of it and it also got rather cold on the surface of the tin. It got even cooler when ice crystals started forming on the top surface of the tin.

Then we took the whole thing downstairs and rolled it down the slide a couple of times. I think that the whole contraption required more ice though, for after ten minutes, almost all the ice had melted and we were left with very think milk shake. The girls drank it all up, so no loss. Guess we will make it again sometime with more ice

Astute observations

2012-01-05T12:12:00.002+08:00

Sophia makes some very astute observations.

Sophia: Why are you coming in the school bus mom?
Me: Because today is Anjali's first day to school and I want to know her teachehr
Sophia: But Anjali knows her teacher mom!
Me: Yes, but I want to meet her teacher
Sophia: Other children's parents are not coming in the bus mom!

Sophia is the first one to notice if I give her more attention than other parents give their kids. Anjali notices and welcomes the attention, but Sophia doesnt. Like the time in the Gita Jayanti when Swati and I went on stage for the finali, and the girl threw a tantrum asking me to go away right on stage. I dont know how many of you caught it on the video.

School day

2012-01-05T10:35:00.000+08:00

Getting two girls up for school takes more than twice as much grit in some senses than getting one girl up for school. I gave myself fifteen minutes more, starting the morning routine at 6.45am, and taking a super short shower. But we still missed the bus on Tuesday morning and had to call the driver to take us to school.

Its even worse when breakfast preferences change in the last minute to something that requires mummy to cook - the preference this morning changed from noodles in the WC bowl to grilled cheese toast with mummy bread, which only I can make. (Dont get me started on Anjali and mummy bread, that will take all day)

And so when Anjali and Sophia went back to lie on bed this morning and didnt get up to brush her teeth and the clock showed 7.05, I lost my head a little and gave the kids one of my ultimatums

"Who ever is not up by the count of five will go to school just like this, without any uniform"

Sophia got up immediately, and Anjali dfidnt. I finished counting to five and the kid began to cry.

And then she went to the living room, and cooperated with everything, brushing her teeth, allowing me to brush her hair, and put on her uniform. And while I was busy with Sophia she says

"You are a witch"

"Right", I said. Then I softened a little "I am not really a witch", I said. "I am just extremely strict sometimes"

Some grilled cheese toast and half a Knuffle bunny story later, Anjali was feeling quite happy with the world and marched on to the busstop.

"So I am a witch?", I asked her

"Do you have claws?" she asked, looking. "Can you make a bubble with your saliva? I want to see if it is blue?"

I obiliged.

"It is white, so you are not a witch", she concluded

We are reading Roald Dahl's Witches. Sophia is extremely into the story, especially in the parts where the witches want to flush the children down the loos.

And both of them can identify witches very well and have taken the very serious resolution of not wanting to take sweets from strangers - even the Santy Claus in the mall makes no exceptions.

Now thats a very good thing, but where is trust in the picture? And Ekataa?

A highlight during the holidays

2012-01-03T15:59:00.000+08:00

Shortly after Christmas, I took the girls to two rural areas. We may think that there are no rural areas in Singapore, but there are, and they are rural areas that are different from Kranji, which has been somewhat touristified. The first place we went to was the Animal resort in seletar. The zoo it is not, but a run down little farmhouse with ducks, crowned cranes guinea pigs, and horses. The animals were not quite as free range as I had hoped, the guineas, for instance, were in cages, but the girls had a good time looking around.

The ducks: you can feed them, and the family animal lover was very excited to see them. They eat right off your hands

The crown cranes and the geese

The rabbits and guinea pigs

The girls were a little disappointed that the rabbits and guineas were caged and they couldnt touch them except through the bars. Perhaps an open air hutch for rabbits like they have in Langkawi zoo would be really nice. Then the children coould climb in with the animals.

One minute we were in the middle of HDB blocks and the next we were in roads that were narrow and without pavements. So when it rained, we had a good time with the streams and puddles.

We then went to Khatib to Oh farms. We had some difficulty finding the farm, and after getting caught in the rain twice and taking shelter under some blocks and going the wrong way twice, wee managed to find the narrow leading to nowhere road which had no pavement that led to a number of farms. There, we found the Oh hydroponic farm and butterfly garden, which was rather a feast to our eyes. We also bought six caterpillars home, 4 for us and two for Ramya. We thought it would be an interesting Science project to watch them turn into butterflies. Three of the caterpillars died in a couple of days, but two days after we had bought them, the fourth caterpillar, which was hanging started wiggling like mad and became a coccoon. If you have never seen a caterpillar turn into a cocoon before, I strongly recommend it, its one of the most fascinating pieces of metamorphosis around.

We are hoping that Mr butterfly will not come out when the kids are in school, and are expecting him out earliest on Friday

A playtime craft

2012-01-03T15:29:00.001+08:00

Sophia wanted a princess castle for Christmas.

Introducing the princesses

Rapunzel on her tower

See her long hair

Ariel

Snowwhite, Jasmine and Beauty

Cinderella and the obligatory witch

Sophia wanted a witch when we made Rapunzel

All the dolls were made from wooden pegs, with yarn hair and the clothes from fabric scraps torn from the children's old clothes. Rapunzel is the fanciest, since I tore up some tulle from an old dress. Cincerlla could definitely be spruced up, but it will do for the moment. The castle was made from an old milk carton with kitchen roll towers.

Sophia, ofcourse, believes it is from Santy.

Sophia's first day at school

2012-01-03T15:21:00.000+08:00

"This is the baby of mine", I sang, when Sophia asked me to carry her.

"Dont say she is not going to school!", said Sophia.

So the girl who has been pestering me about going to school since we registered her in April, and threw major tantrums is finally off to school. Anjali and I accompanied her this morning.

She has a new teacher, Ms Andrea, who is teaching for the first year. She was, apparently a student at Canossian convent herself. Talk about full circles.

Mikaela's sister and Gwen's brother were also joining N1, so I guess there is plenty of company

Sophia was sitting quietly until she got her hands on some blocks

Mostly about Anjali

2012-01-03T15:14:00.000+08:00

I have not actively updated this blog for close to a month. There are several reasons for this, including an overload at work just prior to a scheduled two weeks leave. And one of my resolutions for this year is to go home as early as possible and to spend as much quality time as possible with the girls.

There are many things to record here, and it was a shock to me to see how much the girls were growing. Over the past couple of weeks at home, i have come to learn much about Anjali, which showed her morphing from a baby to a child.

There comes a time in the life of a parent when she realizes that her baby is not a baby anymore. Over the past two weeks I have come to realize that with Anjali. Here are some of the events that triggered this.

1. Transition to chapter books: I have been trying, time and again, to introduce Anjali to chapter books and she has never shown much interest, although she liked to hear and watch harry potter. But Harry Potter is so commercialized and the movies are se dumb, that I didnt want to encourage her love for the movies, although I used to tell her snippets from the book as conversation fillers. Then I started to tell the girls about the faraway tree and Anjali was very interested. She even began to make up lands and wanted to know more and when I read to her the faraway tree, she got through the whole book in about five sittings and now she asks for chapter books every evening and mostly at every meal. Sophia tries her best to sit and listen, but she still wants pictures in her books and finds the lack thereof quite disconceting

2. A sort of quietness. Anjali has always been quieter than Sophia but lately I find her getting more quieter. I know that her introvertedness comes from husband, and I am not quite sure if introvertedness is cause for concern. She is sociable enough, but still likes to keep her thoughts to herself. This seems to be a phase of her life when her character has gotten more defined. A high preference for sports, a much lower preference for crafts (imagine my disappointment as I like crafts so much), a very large love for animals (should we get a dog), including orangutans.

3. A sense of modesty, arising from wanting a towel at the pool, wanting to close the bathroom door when there are friends around

4. A sense of privacy, with her closing the toyroom door when she wants to play by herself.

5. Improved observation and arguments. She tends to argue more about things, especially stuff that I mentioned to her and says things like a Promise is a Promise. When she doesnt like a game, she moves back to observe (this sometimes causes me concern), and when she likes a game, she takes the lead.

Neuroscience 101 and Princesses

2011-12-16T14:46:00.001+08:00

Me: Anjali, why did you hit patti when you were fighting with her?

Anjali: Mummy, My amygdala told my prefrontal cortex to hit patti

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

Two daya ago, I caught Sophia putting beads under the mattress. Apparently she was testing to see if she could sleep despite the beads and was wondering if she didnt, would a prince come to marry her?

Upon being told that she was too young to get married she now want to know if she could get married when she goes to school.

Anjali's letter to Santa

2011-12-14T09:51:00.001+08:00

Anjali wrote to Santa this morning

I had returned late from work yesterday and the girls had decorated half the Christmas tree and had left the upper half for when I got back. Anjali woke up, turned on the lights of the tree and seemed to realise that CHristmas was just around the corner.

Here is what she wrote. i got most of the spelling correct, I think

"From Anjali
Dear Santr
I want a paint chart
"

She put it in an envelope and we posted it

It has to be a magical paint chart. Will the crayola color with water ones be fine?

My first guest post

2011-12-10T00:23:00.000+08:00

I hav a guest post up at STYYC: So you think you are crafty - a blog I have been following for about a year since I discovered a tutorial there fore making felt and velcro weekly schedule charts and adapted them for the girls. I have posted a tutorial on making a scratch book for the kids. Sophia still plays with her's though it is all mostly scratched out. I am contemplating making a couple more for the busy bags

Here is the tutorial

New story

2011-12-09T14:10:00.000+08:00

"Mummy, we will thyow away our fake pyide yock", said Sophia, as we were riding on the bike

"You are done with the story? ", I asked, torn between relief, amusement and nostalgia

"Yes. I am dont with the stoie", she said gravely "We will do a new fake scene"

"What fake scene?", I asked

"We will doo a whole new world fake scene", she said. "That will be good. We will have a jasmine, and an aladdin and a Jafar"

"Right. Do you ant them to be on Pride Rock?"

"No. Pyide yock is for the lion king show. We must have a castle. Jasmine always lives in a castle"

"A castle"

"Yes. And we must have birds in the castle for Jasmine to set free, and some water for her to look into. What will we do for the water mummy?"

Now the gears in my head are turning

Toothbrushing battles

2011-12-06T17:40:00.001+08:00

Sophia starts school in January and there is one thing that I dread when it comes to sending her to school.

Can I send her to school without brushing her teeth?

I will promise on a lot of things that I will make sure that her teeth are brushed when she gets home.

I need to battle with Sophia for half an hour every morning to brush her teeth

A typical conversation goes like this

Me: Sophia, after you brush your teeth, you can feed the snails
Sophia makes a beeline to the snails and tags husband
Sophia: Daddy, I want to feed the snails
Me: Sophia, I said after you brush your teeth
Sophia: Daddy, can you open the door, I must get leaves from the gayden to feed the snails.

My choices are as follows: a. Stop the snail feeding and get her to brush her teeth or b. Let her brush her teeth after she feeds the snails.

Wimpy confront avoiding mother that i am, I choose the second option.

The snail feeding goes on for fifteen minutes.

Then the kid follows me to the bathroom

Sophia: Mummy, can I take a bath with you?
Me: You havent brushed your teeth yet
Sophia: Mummy, can you take off my dyess?
Me: Are you going to brush your teeth after taking a bath?
Sophia: Mummy, dont wash my hair okay? Wash onuly my body okay?

I have heard of selective attention, but I have never seen it manifest at this level

Another fifteen minutes

I lose patience.

Me: Sophia. Brush your teeth.
I settle on the bed and settle her with me
Sophia: I am climbing on you

Selective attention again

Me: Right, now about that teeth, if you dont brush, you cant have milo
Sophia: But I want milo now!
Me: Then brush your teeth now!
Sophia: But I am very very hungy!
Me: Well, if you had brushed your teeth five minutes ago, then you would have had Milo before you were vei vei hungy!

I get her brush. Sophia does a very elaborate circus of wanting to brush for herself and then getting toothpaste all over the mattress and my hair and everywhere else besides her teeth.

Then she grabs the toothbrush (sans toothpaste) and shoves it into her mouth for ten minutes.

"DONE!" she says

"Can I see your teeth?"

"AAAAAA"

"There is a brown spot over there!"

"WHERE!!"

"This corner"

She pushes her toothbrush into the corner and scrubs it a couple of times.

Gita Jayanti competition

2011-12-01T11:34:00.000+08:00

Sophia wants to go for the Gita Jayanti competition. Husband says that she can go if she says atleast three shlokas

"I will say in the competition", she says

"No, you must practice for the competition", i tell her. "Anjali practices everyday"

"Ok. I will pyactice" and she says three shlokas with some prompting.

But making Sophia learn is very different from making ANnjali learn. She is happy making her own songs and stories. She can, in principle, count to twenty, but doesnt want to.

When we make her count with her Dora books, she says

"I had enough of this counting! Tell me the story!"

"You are going to go to school and you need too learn to count"

"I will count when I am in school"

She had got all the attitude from the other side of the genes

We have guests! Updates on our snail farm

2011-12-01T10:38:00.001+08:00

Yesterday evening was the perfect time to get snails! It had finished raining and we found s number of small to medium snails in the grass.

This is what our new house looks like. Its a two litre juice bottle where I had cut up a hole. The girls helped me to fill it up with soil and I used a transparentcy with holes punched in for air circulation and taped it up. Its a bit cumbersome to open the tape each time we want to put leaves, but the girls sure dont mind!

Husband suggested that we leave the window open during the day, but he didnt realize that snails could move so fast. One tried to climb out in a matter of seconds

One learns a lot by keeping snail farms. Like how the underside of a snail looks

And that it is the snail's foot and not the snail's bottom

And that snails eat leaves very fast.

And that snails can crawl upside down

And in Sophia's case, how to count

"We have two animals now! We have guinea pigs and snails!"

And the concept of time

"We will keep them for three months!"

And the concept of home and family

"They will have babies and then we will keep the babies"

and the concept of sizes

"Kitty Cox! you are so big and the snail is so small!"

A rather overdue set of posts from the Make Believe exhibition

2011-11-30T11:15:00.000+08:00

Simple, but inviting, thats what we would use to describe the Make Believe exhibition at the Science center's omni theatre

Smiling

Planning

Roleplaying

Constructing

A head cold and a long day make for a grumpy mom

2011-11-30T11:11:00.000+08:00

I was an ultra grumpy mother yesterday and even the smallest things that the kids did seemed to get on my nerves. First they were painting and Anjali had left one of her fat markers on the floor where the tip had gotten wet. I gave her a talking to and "punished" her by telling her that I would throw her favorite toy into the dustbin.

She didnt improve my mood when she said

"Sophia is my favorite toy. Throw Sophia!"

After some deliberation, we put the candyland near the dustbin to throw and then i figure sout that the marker was not completely spoilt and it you scribbles with it long enough, the ink came back. To be fair, I told the girls to take back the candy land, but Sophia, who had already been to investigate, had strewn all the cards on the floor, near the dustbin I told the girls to clean

"She did it, so she must clean", said Anjali.

Ofcouorse, that didnt help matters as I retorted

"And whose fault was it that the candyland ended up near the dustbin in the first place?"

Silence. She pointed at herself.

"So clean!"

And the girls spent a quarter of an hour, perhaps more sitting near the dustbin and sorting the cards. At the end of the quarter of an hour, a lot of sorting and unsorting had been accomplished and not a single card was in the box. When i enquired., Anjali said

"Sophia is messing up everything I do"

And Sophia said

"Anjali is not letting me do anything!!"

I dont know what the back story was, but at somepoint, Anjali threw down all here cards and the box saying

"I am not doing it anymore, she is always messing everything!"

I let it pass because I thought some effort had been made.

Then there was the matter of the living room floor which looked like a black swimming pool. I handed the girls two nappy cloths

Word of advice: Two girls with nappy cloths and a small pailfull of water is not going to make for a clean floor

Soon there was more dirty water on the floor than we had begun with although Anjali kept saying that

"We can see the white floor!!"

The floor simultaneously became a skating and slipping ground and Anjali began to run on the wet floor and slide down on her knees very fast.

I didnt want to make an effort, and I tried to join in, but was way too tired to do more than get my clothes full of paint as we rolled around in the floor.

When we were nearly done, the floor was whiter, but it was not the nappy cloths that did the cleaning. As Sophia so eloquently put it

"We are cleaning with our dyesses!!"

And then Sophia threw a tanrtum because I took away her dirty cloth and dumped her in the bath.

I had planned to take the girls snail hunting. We have 365 games toddlers play and one of the activiti9ies that interested me was to keep a smal farm. The container and the cover is ready, we are just missing the snails.

But with all the circus over the candy land cards and the painty swimming pool, it was bedtime before we could say Jack Robinson.

By that time, I was absolutely spent.

A quick story, milo and bed.

"I am sorry I was so tired this evening", I said, once the lights were off.

"Do you want me to tell you a story?", asked Sophia

"Do you want me to tell you a story?", asked Anjali

They told me stories, both of which were worth recording, but neither of which i recall the word of. The last thing I remember before drifting off to sleep was Sophia sitting near me on the bed and cradling my head in her arms.

The last thing I remember feeling was gratitude, which, all said was a nice way to end the day.

Ofcourse, I was woken up in an hour as Sophia had had an accident on the bed and had to be cleaned, but thats another story.

Our Julia Donaldson farm was one of the casualties in the paint play. Its cardboard was soggy and had to be sacrificed, but I had gotten this from work and it made for great play

Potter mania

2011-11-28T15:19:00.000+08:00

"How do people become wizards mom?", asked Anjali, as we were waiting for a taxi to take us to the library.

"Well", i said. "You got to go to a magic school and then study there for seven years. Then you can become a wizard"

"What do you study in magic school? Where is the magic school?"

"Well, when you get to magic school, they sort you into houses"

"What houses?"

"Giffindor, hufflepuff, Ravenclaw and Slytherin"

"Is there something wrong with Slytherin?", she asked

Husband, it transpires, has been showing the girls the harry potter movies in the afternoons sometimes. This is combined with that I got the philosopher's stone on the kindle and sometimes read the story to the girls.

"IN wizard school", I said, "the students dont learn reading and Math and stuff"

"No mummy. They learn about herbs and plants", piped in Sophia.

I hadnt known about the movies then, so I said

"Yes, she is right. They learn herbology..."

"And when the pull the plants up the plant ciyes!"

I stared quite blankly. Its been a while since I watched the second movie (though I have read the books about a hundred times each) I think that the movies exaggerate where they shouldnt and cut where they shouldnt. I never quite forgave them for cutting out nearly headless nick's deathday party, but for making all that hullabaloo with the train coming behind the car.

Maybe Sophia will stop the Simba Nala business and start the Harry Potter instead. I might nudge her a bit and make some wizard crafts

hmmm...

When we find water,

2011-11-28T10:31:00.000+08:00

We naturally take the opportunity to get our feet wet

We follow it, even though it is not in our official road

We find hidden treasures and ruined boats

We investigate the moss on the rocks, feel the softness of it

We ignore the dry path that runs alongside and across, preferring the sensations of wetness over dryness against our feet

We explore the rocks, climbing over, finding our exactly how to put our feet and maintain oour balance so as not to slip.

The children often converge on water play options when outdoors. On Saturday, when we were at the playeum and it began to rain, they had these huge canvas sheets on the floors where water was collecting. It wade a wonderful opportunity for splashing in "cleaner" rain water puddles. I wish we had had a bit more time and we would have gotten some brushes for some paint with water time. Unfortunately, we were due to leave for Anjali's piano class.

Fancy Nancy: The show must go on

2011-11-28T10:23:00.000+08:00

We got a new Fancy Nancy book out from the library. IN that book, Nancy makes a new friend and learns how to balance spoons on her nose. It was, ofcourse, a great opportunity to learn spoon balancing

We have no clue how she did it. Neither does she, it seems, as, when we aksed her to do it again for the photo, this is what we got

The game morphed later to fifteen minutes of spoon involved stuff - balancing balls on spoons, walking from room to room with a spoon in the mouth - you get the idea

updates on small worlds

2011-11-24T13:16:00.001+08:00

"These small worlds are really great!", said husband yesterday evening, as the girls were working on and adding to their What the ladybird heard farm. "They require so many skills and hone them"

We have been taking a fairly open approach with our small worlds. Patti mentioned yesterday that Sophia was at Pride Rock for half an hour yesterday afternoon, putting up a show, with Anjali and Patti as the audience. Given that Sophia's shows goes something like this, half an hour is not a lot of time.

Sophia: Simba and Nala, you must climb on pyide yock! All the animals must stay here! Meerkat must stay here! Warthog must stay here also. You know something happened when Simba and Nala was small?

Audience: What happened?

Sophia: What happened? We will discuss. Something happened when Simba and Nala were small. What happened?

Audience: What happened?

We go with this conversation in circles for half an hour without anyone really knowing what happened. I guess this kid should go into international negotiations. She'll drive everyone crazy into giving up.

The girls were working on the farm yesterday. Anjali is improving her scissors skills and works hard in cutting up characters along the lines. You should see her cutting of lanky len.

Again, it is interesting to see how the girls have different interests, and small world creation and play allows them capitalize on their interests. Anjali is interested in single processes - cutting, single media painting etc. She simply doesnt like to glue stuff, though she is good at it, but the process doesnt interest her. Sophia loves glueing. I guess there is something very satisfying about squeezing the whole pot of glue out onto the paper for sticking a small piece of flower on top.

For the farm world, Anjali cut out the shapes while Sophia works on farm decoration. Yesterday she glued pieces of yellow tissue all over the farm as a backdrop and the gluing was done extremely uniformly. No idea what they represent though. And she made this mixed media art where she took a few pieces of every single collage material that i had and glued it very deliberately on her art paper.

We are planning next to make a fairy land, including a teeth inspired castle for the tooth fairy. If anyone has any inspirations on how to get this done/ how mot to go overboard with it, please let me know.

Learning with Anjali

2011-11-24T12:14:00.000+08:00

there are three formal learning activities that I inisit that Anjali do everyday, reading, piano and Shloka. Added together these three activities take anywhere between half an hour to one hour. Sometimes, various challenges make the activities take longer than I would expect them to take.

During lesson time, Sophia's presence proves to be a distraction. To help with this, and to ensure that both kids have a fair time, and because he thinks thatb I criticize too much, husband takes the piano lessons while I take the reading and Shloka. Yesterday was Sophia's first time doing tot school with me when Anjali was having piano and I discovered the challenges that one would have to face while doing schoolwork with Sophia.

"Who likes ponds?"

"tortoiose!"

"Can you color the tortoise yellow?"

"No. Wwant to coloy pink!"

I let her.

When it was Anjali's time to read, we shut ourselves up in patti's room and husband worked with Sophia. They both came looking for us after about a quarter of an hour , with husband saying

"I have a moral duty to inform her future husband (god bless him) that she never listens"

Anjali makes good progress with her reading. She reads her passages and sounds very well, but has trouble with words. But that could simply be because words are a little boring to read on themselves. She is more interested in words that have more context with her surroundings, and each time she reads a word, she tries to put a sentence to it. The problem comes when she makes errors like sayingg

"Lets fill up the bottles" when the word she is reading is "feel"

But I guess thats part of the learning phase

During Shloka time, the girls both took a book from the altar bookshelf (neither book was about the Bagavad Gita) and began to follow the shlokas with their fingers. So I have promised to give them both a book with Gita verses printted nicely for them to read. BEgan work on it this morning, but need to find illustrations

Pretend play with small worlds: What the ladybird heard

2011-11-22T12:33:00.000+08:00

Once upon a farm lived a fat red hen
A duck in a pond and a goose in a pen

So begins one of our favorite stories by Julia Donaldson - "What the ladybird heard"

Julia Donaldson's best known book is the gruffalo, a story which we have read many times until the kids are totally bored of it (and I could recite it in my sleep)

But I prefer her works with Lydia Monks much more. We have borrowed What the ladybird heard multiple times from the library and this time, I went over with the girls on the farm map the actual plan and how the animals tricked the thieves. This is the first time that the girls really appreciated the cunningness and the humor of the story. So after the success of Pride rock, we decided to build a farm model heavily inspired (read plagiarized) from the book.

First I drew out (read copied) all the animal pictures from the book. Then Anjali helped me to color them. She colored the cow green. Then we recycled an old shoe box into a farmhouse which the girls helped me to paint. That. incidentally, was the painting activity from the 30 days thingy.

Anjali helped me to cut out some animals and I cut the rest out yesterday morning when the girls were sleeping. I filed the whole thing away for the day and the girls apparently thought that i had thrown the animals away and gave husband a very hard time about it when I was at work.

This morning, we set up our first prototype. We will be continuing work on this over the next few days, but this is what happened.

"Anjali forgot to color the sheep", said Sophia, who had woken up early. So we put cotton on it and made the wooly sheep

This is the duck pond, which Sophia colored green

A pretty little farmhouse with the animals in the background and Noah from the Fisher Price Ark acting out the role of the farmer

I went to take a shower and Sophia realized something, so she came after me.

"Mummy, there are two thieves in the story", she said.

By that time, Anjali had woken up and husband and Anjali worked together on hefty Hugh and Lanky Len

Anjali's scissor skills have improved tremendously and I admit that husband's drawing skills are better than mine

"We need a panda car!" exclaims my three year old. I got an old milk carton which she helped me paint black. It is currently drying. I promised to help her fit wheels and make it into a panda car to throe the thieves in

Playing with the girls and how hands on play has changed my views of how to play with the children

2011-11-21T12:55:00.001+08:00

I had being going on a bit of a play rut. The children were somehow growing to a stage where development happened so imperceptibly and yet so overwhelmingly that it was difficult to get it on paper. This was illustrated by the reduction in prolificity of my writing. Things were also happening at work which suggested change and increased responsibilities, responsibilities involving two feet long to do lists and responsibilities that I am still coming into terms with.

One of the hands on challenges, last Friday's I think, was cooking with your kids. The girls and I often putter around the kitchen together, making cakes, cookies (like the batch of heart shaped ginger cookies that we made for Anjali's school farewell). I didnt want to make another sweet thing, I have been having a bit of battle with my weight and have taken a soft decision to lay off juices and desserts. So the best thing to do was to make pizza.

Anjali had had a coupon to redeem from the girls' good deeds coupon box. They get about one coupon a day, on the average, which they could redeem anytime, . Anjali wanted to redeem her walk with nature coupon for a trip to the nature park. So, Friday evening, we cycled over to the park and played in the sand pit. And instead of taking the usual hands off, give instruction approach that i usually took, I decided to get in the pit and put my fingers in the sand, digging trenches for Anjali to pour water into and making little castles with Sophia to house her fairies. There is a little brook just across the sand pit, which makes a good source of water, to wash legs and sandy hands and also as water source to add spice and channels to sand play.

We biked past the market to get cheese for pizza.

On Saturday morning, Anjali woke up early and helped to do the following for the pizza. Saturday is one of those days where we have a deficit of vegetables and I tend to fish out stuff from the bottom of the fridge for lunch. The only thing that was left and was pizza friendly was the pack of cherry tomatoes. Anjali, who likes to cut vegetables, doens like to cut tomatoes in general and cherry tomatoes in specific, because cherry tomatoes are "rond, small and roll away". To top it off, they squirt juice on her as she cuts them.

It was a great opportunity to sit with her and work out the nuances of cutting the tomatoes. I showed her a couple and then let her to work while I let the sauce bubble and put the dough in the bread maker. Soon, we had, not only cut cherry tomatoes, but also a load of tomato seeds which Anjali cheerfully declared that she would plant.

It is important, I think, so facilitate creative ideas as thye crop up. So we cut up an old juice bottle and took it to the garden, filled it with earth and compost. Then the girls dug holes and spooned seeds inside them to cover up. We have had some luck with tomato plants so far, even though none have fruited, so I am somewhat optimistic about the plants that Anjali has come up with.

By that time Sophia was up and she also helped with the planting, and then we washed up and had breakfast. The dough was ready when the breakfast was done, and the girls helped me to spread the dough in the baking pan. Anjali used her hands to spread the tomato sauce on the dough and bboth girls helped in the spreadin of the cherry tomato and cheese topping. The pizza was ready for the oven and we went to the Make believe exhibition at the Science center.

Its amazing to see how many parents are taking up the initiative for developing exploration centered activities and exhibitions for kids. I have written extensively about the playeum and how much the children and I enjoy working with them. The girls had a nice time at the make believe exhibition where the order of the day was exploration. I believe that Anjali enjoyed most the construction station where the children had giant foam blocks for building. The thing was the these blocks were resistant enough for the children to climb on their constructions. Anjali's creation morphed from what was originally a tower of rectangles to some fairly complicated structure as she figured out that she needed to add supporting structures to her tower. I wish I had a camera, but I had left the phone at home.

We had pizza for lunch, the same one that we made at home, at a grassy spot in the Science center gardens.

Dress up at Miti's house and Treasure hunting

2011-11-17T13:58:00.000+08:00

When we went for playdate at Miti's housse, she had taken out a whole bunch of interesting looking fabrics and dresses for the girls to play with. While Anjali went for the classic look, Sophia went for the all out traditional look

WE had a bit of a ramp walk after Veer went to sleep. Sophia insisted on it.

On other activities, treasure hunt was the order of the day and once I got home, while patti was reading to the girls, I opened up their alphabet puzzle wooden board and hid the pieces in several different places around the house - The rubberband box, Anjali's sock box, my cupboard, under pride rock- you get the idea.

Then I gave them clues for finding the things

"Sophia, look near the place that shows the story of a show that you like to watch"

"I like to watch Mulan mummy!"

"What else do you like to watch?"

"I like to watch Simba Nala"

"Is there a place in our house that shows the story of Simba Nala?"

"Pyide Yock!!"

And she found the pieces

"Anjali. look in the place where mummy goes when mummy finishes her bath"

"The bedroom?"

"What does mummy need after finishing her bath?"

Expected answer: clothes

Anjali was a long time in getting back and I went to the bedroom to peek. She had opened husband's cupboard

"Anjali, Why would mummy go to daddy's cupboard after finishing her bath? My clothes are in the other cupboard"

"Clothes? I thought you meant towel"

I hadnt anticipated that, but the girls had fun searching for stuff

Pretend play with small worlds: Pride Rock

2011-11-15T13:28:00.003+08:00

The Lion king is still going on strong with Sophia. How a three year old child converts a story into something alive is a process involving much creativity and cognitive skills.

The 30 days of hands on play challenge yesterday was to act out a story. I saw that and smiled. We do it all the time, everyday and the story has been the same one for the past three weeks.

"You always want to play Simba Nala", i complained to Sophia.

"No mummy", said Anjali. "Sometimes, she plays Jasmine"

Pretend play, for my technically trained brain, seems too unstructured to be of real use. But I have read the literature and the opportunities it offers for the growth of structured left brain skills, so I try to facilitate it, although I should reckon that someone like Patti may be better than me at initializing it.

But Sophia's obsession with pride Rock has challenged me in a way in which I try to incorporate structure into her Simba Nala world. The Pride Rock small world set up resulted from this collaboration of the structured and the unstructured

Simba and Nala on Pride Rock, overlooking their animals of Pride lands

Anjali cut out the butterfly and I stuck them on a toothpick to give dimension and make it look as though they were flying

Soon we had an overload of butterflies and flowers and we made a butterfly tree

A close up of the pride rock, which is basically an arrangement of tissue paper rolls shaped with newspaper mache and painted brown by the girls, and the tree which we created during the 30 days of hands on play sticky art challenge

Words and Wonder

2011-11-14T16:08:00.000+08:00

Sophia on Saturday after dropping Anjali at piano

"Mummy, I want to go theye"

"Theye" was an exhibition of kindergarten work at the courtyard of the community center. It was colorful, neat and interesting looking

"We cant go now", husband said. "We have to go shopping"

"I'll take you when we come back to pick Anjali up", I added

"Mummy Mummy", she said, in that tone she takes sometimes when she wants something very badly "Mummy mummy..."

"Yes"

"I want to go theye now. Its fasinating"

It took me a while to digest the word

"Its what?"

"Its fascinating!!"

It was, though we didnt see it until after Anjali's piano

====================
We were on the way to school for Anjali's PTA and walking across the park. There were two large dogs on their morning walk.

"Patti says that I shouldnt touch the big dogs.", says Sophia

"Why?"

"Patti says I shouldnt touch them", she repeated.

"Why not?"

"Because they will bitey bitey my fashe and my hands and evywhere!"

"Not true", I said

"Patti says they will bitey bitey", she repeated

"They will only bite if you do something silly, like take away their food when they are eating", i said

"Patti says I shouldnt touch the big dogs. I can onuly touch the small dogs", She said

And as an afterthought

"I am only allowed to touch the small dogs"

===============
We were going for the Nirmanika show. We had, the day before gone for a War rememberence day based activity at the playeum and were fixing a jigsaw that they had given in a goody bag that illustrated peace. Here are snippets of dialogue that happened before and after

"One day we went to the Simba Nala show"... "When Simba and Nala weye born Something happened. What happened? Do you know?"

"What?"

"What happened? Andhali, do you know??".... "When Simba and Nala were small, somebody died. That is the onuly bad thing that happens in that show".... "In the Simba Nala show when someone dies, at the end of the show, they will come back to bow. That is the yule"

While fixing the puzzle on the fridge, I was talking with the girls about war and peace.

Sophia: This man is dead mummy!

Me: Yes.

Anjali: What is a war?

Me: A war is when people fight and many people die.

Anjali: Only the bad people die right?

Sophia: No Anjali. The good people also die. In the Simba Nala stoie some good people also died.

Me: Who died?

Sophia: Some good people died Mummy!!

Me: Ok

Sophia: Like Simba's daddy...

Interesting how much children get out of a show. We have made a lot of lion king themed stuff - besides the lion cave and the lion gate, we also have made a paper mache pride rock which sits on top of a grassland, and animals at the foot of pride rock with lions on it. Its the first of our small world models - photos to come. I printed out disney's Lion king puppets and Anjali colored and cut them out. We have them up for Sophia, who wants to play Simba Nala every night before bed.

A weekend with the girls

2011-11-14T12:48:00.001+08:00

Thankfully, many of the stuff that was on during the 30 days of hand on play challenge was stuff that we did any way

Concoctions: Finger paint. Veer came over for playdate on Friday and Sophia learnt about printing.

Outdoor play: We didnt officially do an outdoor play activity. We went to the playeum event on Saturday, and it was raining. So we stopped making poppies and got wet in the rain for a while, before changing the kids' clothes to return to the activities there. There was a wonderful moment when Anjali stood in the pouring rain with her arms wide open and her mouth wide open, trying to drink the rain water. Too bad I didnt have a camera.

After drying as best as we could and changing the girls out of their wet clothes, we sat down to the art and craft activities that were at the playeum. There is one nice advantage to going there, I dont have to scrimp on materials and I dont have to clean up. So the whole arrangement plays well with me.

When we do crafts at home, it is hard for me to set out a huge tray of materials. I know that they will not, all get used, and that I will have to clean and organize the stuff for using the next time. So i tent to be fairly economical on the stuff I put out - two sheets of tissue, just enough paint, one cup of corn flour - you get the idea. Here, there was paper and markers and glue galore (That reminds me to stock up on markers at home, the girls go through them like anything)

We didnt make the recommended Super hero capes, though it would have been a nice opportunity to tell the children about heroes. What we made instead were art aprons, highly inspired from Fancy Nancy. Sumitra mentioned a fancy Nancy birthday party, perhaps we should try it for Anjali's birthday.

Does the trip to the playeum count as a field trip?

I guess it does, but then that would be squeezing too many activites in the same place - the outdoor, the field trip and the sticky activity, so lets split them up. We went on another field trip!!

On Sunday we took the girls to a Bharatnatyam program on Nirmanika - Architecture and Bharatnatyam. Anjali was totally fascinated by the dancers and Sophia was too, despite the fact that we sneaked in on a show where Children under 6 were not allowed.

We told Sophia A priori not to talk whereupon she says

"I cant be quiet mummy, I need to talk!!"

Playing with children often takes a turn on its own

2011-11-11T14:48:00.001+08:00

I wanted to write about this yesterday, but didnt have the time. I had prepared a sensory tub for Anjali and Sophia - for Sophia mostly, as Anjali never had been one for sensory tubs. It was mostly an upcycling of one of our nature baskets. I added to the seashells and pinecones some paint box lids, a small box of pista shells, some beads, which were in a box together with the paintbox lids, some kitchen paper rolls and some toilet paper rolls.

Anjali was playing go with husband and Sophia got a headstart on the sensory basket. By the time Anjali joined us, we were pouring and funneling for all it was worth. When Anjali joined us, she did a bit of exploration, but as I had expected, was not very interested in exploring the tub. Instead, she dug out the beads and began to play with them

So I offered her some string to thread the beads together and she brought out all her beads that were in a bead box. The strange thing was that the bead box was within her reach for several months and she had never cared about it. It took a single misplaced bead to trigger the creativity.

So with a needle and thread, she strung together a bead necklace. Sophia, in the meantime, had finished with her sensory tub play and put together a bracelet with colorful shapes.

Anjali wore the bead necklace to school yesterday morning.

It was time to clean up and Sophia was helping me. Here is an interesting question - What happens if the child's idea of clean up doesnt correspond to yours? I had put the seashells and pinecones in the basket and a bunch of pista shells in another small basket. Sophia, in the act of cleaning up, dumped the pista shells into the big basket, mixing them all up. Obviously, she had thought that the pista shells were in the small basket because someone had poured them there - we had been transferring stuff between the baskets all evening.

I didnt have the heart to tell her that she was wrong, not when she was so proud of herself for finishing up the cleaning, so I just put the whole messed up basket on the stool to sort out the next morning

Water play with Anjali and Sophia

2011-11-09T12:24:00.001+08:00

Yesterday was water play day at the hands on challenge and boy, did we have fun!!

As it often turns out with children, the activity ended up being quite different (and far more constructive) than what I had planned. I had planned to take a tub of water and some plastic bags to the stairwell and throw water bombs around. The girls, on the other hand, evolved the time into something more beautiful.

There was a bit of community service thrown in too.

See the seriousness in their face as they scrubbed the stairwell, first using some old cloth and then the plastic bags (who ever know that plastic bags are so good for scouring!!) I joined in to clean the walls as well.. It was the perfect kind of messy play!

Husband popped in from time to time and said that it gave him a headache just looking at the amount of cleaning being done. But all the rest of the family had good fun.

And at the end of it all, we poured the rest of the water down the stairs and watched it pool at the bottom. Then we put our feet in the puddles and made footprints in the dry landings.

I wish

2011-11-08T12:34:00.000+08:00

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

2011-11-08T12:23:00.001+08:00

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

2011-11-04T15:10:00.001+08:00

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

2011-11-04T12:01:00.001+08:00

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

2011-11-04T11:27:00.000+08:00

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

2011-11-03T13:05:00.001+08:00

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

2011-11-02T10:56:00.001+08:00

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

2011-11-01T10:10:00.001+08:00

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

2011-10-31T12:27:00.001+08:00

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

2011-10-29T11:13:00.001+08:00

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

2011-10-28T15:21:00.001+08:00

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

2011-10-27T12:30:00.001+08:00

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

2011-10-25T10:02:00.001+08:00

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

2011-10-24T12:42:00.001+08:00

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

2011-10-24T12:37:00.000+08:00

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

2011-10-24T12:13:00.001+08:00

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

2011-10-24T11:26:00.001+08:00

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

2011-10-23T11:11:00.000+08:00

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

2011-10-21T17:11:00.001+08:00

"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

2011-10-20T15:11:00.001+08:00

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

2011-10-18T10:20:00.001+08:00

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

2011-10-17T12:11:00.000+08:00

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

2011-10-14T12:06:00.001+08:00

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

2011-10-12T17:13:00.001+08:00

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

2011-10-11T09:59:00.000+08:00

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

2011-10-10T10:12:00.002+08:00

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.

The search is on

2011-10-07T13:03:00.001+08:00

Yesterday, my biggest worry was what to cook for lunch the next day and the best things to play with the kids. Now a new decision is looming over us and we are finding it quite overwhelming.

I had never before appreciated fully the idea of primary school selection. We live next to Keming school and Keming it was going to be. Atleast, that is what we had expected and that is what we had told Anjali since she was like one year old. IT was nearly perfect an arrangement, take lift down, cross the road, enter school gate. Cant get easier than that.

And then we began to hear scary stories, parent volunteering, giving lunch coupons, neighbours losing ballot.

I took the girls to the school yesterday to speak to them about parent volunteering. Imagine my shock when all the volunteering places for the year 2014 were closed. I mean, the girl is not even in kindergarten and here I was thinking that I am early and dont need to really volunteer and what do I get? A bunch of fellows who had overtaken me in signing up for volunteering to put their kids in Keming.

Uma aunty said that when Navin and Priyanka were going in, about 6 years or so ago, there was not even any ballotting. Imagine that! Its a crazy world.

We do have a number of other decent schools in the area, but they are atleast a little farther than keming. The question is what to do next? Its like a whole underland of primary school language that has opened up now, that was not there before.

In other news, Anjali has been invited by her ballet teacher to take the Royal Academy of dance exam for primary ballet. the exam is in March, but she will be taking classes twice a week until that. Every Monday and Thursday.

I didnt explain to Anjali what and exam was. I just told her that it is like a mini concert after which she can go to Ballet level 2. She likes mini concerts, so I guess she'll do fine.

Confessions of a Patient Husband and Father

2011-10-07T10:33:00.001+08:00

Swati sent this over yesterday and I really had to post it as a dedication to the man who has to turn fans in the right direction, turn off the lights, make the alarm snooze and push beds around every evening.

Not to forget cleaning the guinea pig cage.

Confessions of a Patient Husband and Father

Posted on September 23, 2011 by conscienceparenting

I read a blog the other day that a woman had written complaining about her "idiot" husband. Now, while I do enjoy teasing my husband, I find that writing about his shortcomings would be a little predictable and would make me fit the stereotype of the nagging housewife a little too well. Instead, I asked him about the things he has had to put up with from both me and our children since becoming a father. Enjoy.

Since becoming a father, my rank in regards to needs has fallen to just above the dog. It's alright with me because I hear that children eventually move out, which means I should move back up- providing my children don't have any grandchildren.
Since becoming a husband, I have realized that if the temperature in the house is not quite right, it is my job to fix it. The phrases, "Is it hot?" or "Honey, aren't you cold?" make me cringe as they are code for, "Get up and make me happy."
Since becoming a father and husband, I have learned that just because you pay for cable television does not in any way mean you get to pick what is on the TV. I am personally hoping that the Bravo network goes bankrupt because if they develop one more franchise of those Housewives, I am going to freakin' lose it.
Remember in all those classic television shows where the wife stays home to clean and cook so that the husband returns home to find a martini and steak waiting for him? Lies, all lies.
I have learned that my wife always needs more sleep than me. It doesn't matter how little I have gotten or how much she has gotten, she wins by default
My wife says that my opinion matters. What she doesn't say is that it only matters if it agrees with hers.
Nine times out of ten, the question, "Tell me what you really think," is a trap.
Since becoming a husband, I find it amazing how I spent many years dressing myself as a single man only to get married and be told that I had no clue as to how to do it. This is another place where marriage is clearly not equal, because if I told my wife that she didn't know how to dress, I would be laughed out of the house.
Apparently, there is no statute of limitations for how long a woman can use the whole "I gave birth" thing to get whatever she wants. I think this is crap; however, I realize by saying this I open myself up to possibility of being stoned to death by women everywhere.
My wife and I share chores. I get the disgusting ones and she gets the ones she wants.

All of this being said, I want to make it clear that I love my marriage and despite it looking as though my wife wears the pants in our relationship, our marriage is truly equal, and she is definitely not telling me to say this as she threatens me by withholding intimacy.

Astuteness and how to deal with it

2011-10-05T11:15:00.000+08:00

This morning, I was working on the fire painting for Anjali's costume. I painted two A-4 sheets with fire. The idea was to do what Ami did for Mother's birthday last year and slip the fire over Anjali's Krishna dress.

Husband however felt that give the size of the auditorium and everything, this was not a very prudent approach and no one except the front row would be able to see the fire. So the updated idea is to paint the fire on a long white cloth and let Anjali wear it on her back like a backpack that hangs. This way, all the audience could see the fire when she turned.

When Anjali woke up, I had finished some of the painting, but had left the palette and brushes and water on the table. She immediately wanted to paint, but I made her pray first, lighting the lamp and incense and chanting a few shlokas before she painted and I fed her breakfast while she was painting.

"What is this supposed to be", I asked after the painting was done.

"Its supposed to be a painting", she replied

"Right. Is it supposed to be a painting of something, or it is abstract?"

"Its abstract"

"Ok. Does it symbolize something? Were you thinking about something while you were painting it?"

"I was thinking about the blue sky and green hills and the sun rising between them"

Ok.

I looked at the clock, close to 7.40am.

"Goodness, we are late, lets run around and put on your shoes"

"Mummy, you never rush when you are singing songs, but you always rush when you get me ready for school. why?"

That was a very astute question. And it picked on something I did wrong.

"You dont rush when you are praying to god", I mumbled, deflecting the question

"But why you can rush when you are getting me ready for school?"

"I shouldnt", I answered. "There are a couple of ways to get around this. Either we get up early, so that we have more time to dilly dally around the breakfast table, or we dilly dally a little less"

She considered.

"I think I would rather dilly dally a little less"

Nowadays, it is becoming more apparent to me that Anjali is growing up to be a person who has her own reasoining instincts and everything

Cornflous gloop and feelie goop

2011-10-04T15:31:00.000+08:00

Its been a while since we did household items exploring with the girls. Given the last post that i wrote about Sophia having to catch up with whatever activity Anjali was doing, we thought it was necessary to tailor some activities for her, especially.

Today, she woke up with Anjali and after Anjali went to school, I had a good half an hour to spend with her. So I took out cornflour and water

"Are we doing an expeyiment mummy?", she asked enthusiastically

And we ended up with this

"I have geen over here!", she said.

"Cool", I said "Why do you have green? I didnt put any green paint inside"

"Its magic geen!" she said, with the air of someone who has discovered just why the earth goes around

She poured out a couple of spoons of the stuff into some plastic bowls and before leaving for work, I cooked the rest of the cornstarch into a thick goop.

This is what she was doing when I left for work

stuffed sock toys: Make it with recycled stuff thingies

2011-10-03T12:34:00.000+08:00

Husband was saying that we used to have a lot more age appropriate activities for Anjali than we do for Sophia who just has to tag along the best she can to all the four year old activities. Here is an example of this. The huddle above represents two girls who are trying to make dolls, out of old socks. And here is what i mean by Sophia tagging along as best as she could. I picked a pair of torn socks for the dolls and Sophia picked up another sock. "Its too small mummy", she says, and argues and cries until i agree to her making dolls with both pairs. Here is what we used1. Two pairs of socks2. stuffing (old stained t-shirts, nappty clothes, torn pants etc)3. glue/ thread, string etc. Anjali tried her hand at sticthing one doll closed4. Buttons and embellishments. And this is what we got.While Anjali was sewing her doll closed (she still needs help with sewing, so i sat with her), Sophia, who is much better with glue than Anjali was at 2.5 years old, came up with this,. For Anjali, at 2.5 years, art was all about exploration. Even with all the gymboree classes, I was hardpressed to get an end product from her. And it was not until she was well past 3 years old that she came up with end products. But as I cut out two pink buttons from an old t-shirt that we were planning to rip for stuffing, Sophia picked up the buttons to use as eyes for her doll. She glues then and showed me. "Good", I said. "let me find you something for the nose"I was rummaging in the kitchen and she comes alongg with a pista shell. "This is the noses mummy!", she says. Here is Anjali's - stitched, tied and missing a mouth. Then they made another couple. So here's the family, complete with hair etcThey were going to bed (i.e. drying) so that Sophia would leave them alone. Anyway, it was time to go to bed.

I just had to make the book

2011-10-03T12:11:00.001+08:00

Mummy, I made up a song in my head. Can I sing it to you?

ok

"Balls are bouncing b B B

Balloons are bursting, bang bang bang

bubbles are bubbling b b b b b b b b b b

b is the sound of b"

I wrote it out as a book and asked Anjali to illustrate it. She sat next to me as I was writing, stroking Bingo's fur

"You must say author is Anjali Curic and illustrator is Anjali curic. And write cat in the hat. ok"

I hung the book from the wall where it joins other works of art on the museum.

Board games

2011-10-03T12:09:00.001+08:00

Husband's gotten a bunch of underground board games - board games that no normal person hears of, but are rather fun to play. And nearly every evening, before bed and before story time (notice how the schedule of activities keep shifting up, leaving us with very little room for creative stuff- though we do get time, more on this later) we end up sitting together, husband as the dealer and what Anjali calls the "decision maker" and the two girls as players. I join in sometimes, quite often if the game is to my liking and can be played in under fifteen minutes, which, in many of the games is hardly the case.

To a girl who grew up thinking that board games are things like scrabble, chess and monopoly, the new bunch of eight or so board games are rather like an alien world - a very computer game like scenario (and a quick search shows spinoffs in baord games rather like computer games), albeit a (much) more healthy one.

My favorite by far (simply because the rules are easy enough for Anjali and Sophia to follow) is kids of Carcassone. I have played it a couple of times, once with husband and thhe kids and the second time with Anjali alone while Sophia sat a couple of feet away, alternately peering over my shoulder and asking us to play Castle panic with her.

Sophia gets into the board games mood only if the games are rather bloody and involve all manner of evil goblins and trolls (hence the penchant for playing castle panic).Yesterday, the girls were so involved in playing it (after Carcassone) that they didnt even ask for tv as I sneaked food (pasta with spinach, tomato sauce and cheese) into their mouths while they were playing.

At any point that Sophia starts to lose interest and runs around, husband would say things like "Sophia... you are a troll... while you are waiting, all these people are going to pass under your bridge. Are you going to let them?" And Sophia would get all excited and go "bleh bleh bleh bleh" and say things like "you must kill them! You must eat them! You must put ayows on them"

I guess this is the point when i should start to get worried.

Well, she cant quite read yet, but she know very well which are the archers and swordsmen and knights in the Castle panic game. And she knows them by color and when to exchange them with Anjali.

We usually dont play the games to completion. For castle panic, it is usually until the time we notice the kids' attention running out. Thats about 15 monsters or so down the road, something like half an hour of concentrated activity

Anjali on the phone

2011-09-28T12:17:00.001+08:00

"Mummy, Ms Audrey didn't give me my notebook today"

"Why?"

"I dont know. Maybe it is a punishment."

"Why?"

"Because I was not paying attention in class and was talking"

"I see. Did she give the notebook to all the other children?"

"Yes"

"Only to you she didnt give?"

"No, to me and Mikaela and Tricia and Gwen"

"Right. So what can we do about that?"

"I'll give the phone to patti"

"Wait wait. i am not done with you yet"

"Yes"

"What shall we do about that?"

"Oh. I think if tomorrow I am good she will give the notebook back"

"She will?"

"I think so."

"You'll be good tomorrow?"

"Yes"

Fancy Nancy and the Shopping bags: A booky craft

2011-09-27T17:45:00.000+08:00

We were reading Fancy Nancy- Every day is Earth day. The girls are rather environmental aware, I should say, mostly because of my reusing milk cartons and giving them junk instead of shiny new toys to play with and recycling husband's old shirts into wearables. But Nancy's decorated Save the Earth tote bag took the prize.

Sophia stopped halfway through her dinner (where we were reading the book) and insisted that we get her a bag to decorate. Anjali finished her dinner before going for her own bag. First Anjali tried sewing. But using her blunt, child safe needle through the thick tote was not very confortable, so she stuck to Sophia's method of using glue.

I drew the hearts on green paper and she cut them out. Then i hunted various old collage materials (odd stickers, a scrap of shiny paper from an old party popper, and a long strip of blue checkered cloth from my old nightie that was in the sewing box)

Sophia made me cut squares (cut big squares) and used two tonnes of glue to decorate her bag.

It would have been more interesting and earth friendly to use junk mail to decorate the bag, but I guess its not bad at all for a first attempt. And infact, it was Anjali's first attempt at self motivated independent collages (Oftentimes, I would have to encourage her to glue and fill up the spaces, but this time she did the whole thing pretty much by herself, except for the fact that i drew the hearts)

Photos: Initial

Photos: Final products