Mamma AND Papa

"Kitta loves Mamma AND Papa" is her latest and most endearing sentence these days. It started when Papa (my hubby) had to go out of town for a couple of days last week. He left for Pune on Wednesday and got back on Friday night. Little N was ok while he was gone coz I had explained to her that he is gone on an aeroplane to Poona. She asked for him atleast once a day but when I asked her where he is, she promptly replied "Papa gone to office and aeroplane to Poona". All was well until he finally returned on Friday night. She was just about to fall asleep after cuddling with mommy for hours and listening to a bunch of stories. But as soon as she saw Papa at the door, she was so thrilled! She had fun for the next hour playing on the bed with mommy and daddy. And amidst all that fun, we heard her say for the first time "Kitta loves Mamma and Papa"!!! (She calls herself Kitta). And then she said..."I will do ta-ta (means sleep) on the bed and look at Mamma and Papa".

What a delight to these ears. I mean these are emotions straight from her heart...no one has taught her how to say this...isn't it amazing that she has finally reached the age where she can connect words to actually articulate what she is truly feeling!? Hearing such words from my child really reinforces something that I already believe in - that a child does need both the parents. One can never replace the other. Its not that she was unhappy with me for these 2 days but the joy in her voice and on her face when she found both of us together was just amazing.

Darling Kitta, Mamma and Papa also love you! Lots and lots and looooots...

Of school admissions and such

Wow what a morning we had - me and my child - I tell ya! Totally filmy. Started with me learning last night that one of the popular schools in our area (NPS) is giving out admission forms for Montessori and LKG starting today. And as you've read in my previous post how I've learnt that you really have to know where you want to send your child even before h/she turns 2 so that you can start the entire process in time. Gosh - little did I know what's in store for me this morning.

So first of all, some background on my rationale here. I was always of the opinion that I am not too crazy about these bigger schools yet coz my daughter is really too little right now. And even in June of next year she'll only just be 2 yrs 9 months. So still a little early for me to start worrying about her admission to LKG. The only reason I would even think of applying to big schools like NPS would be coz they have a Montessori stream of education where they take kids who turn 3 in June (give or take a few months). This way the kid gets a Montessori education and automatically goes to the 1st grade from there. So not only does the kid get the full benefit of the Montessori system for 3 years but the double benefit is that the parents do not have to worry about admissions to a bigger school again after their Montessori education is up. That was going to be the only reason that would make me even turn my head towards big schools like NPS. But again, in my mind, the school had to be very close to where we live and it had to have a warm and fuzzy feel for my kid. So when I came across the NPS HSR website last night and saw they were giving out forms starting today, I called one of my other friends who is also in the same boat as me. We both decided to drop our little ones to their playschool the next morning and then co-ordinate collecting forms from the 2 schools - NPS HSR and NPS Koramangala. Sounds simple so far right? Little did I know how huge a deal it would be for everyone that there would be a queue for miles and miles for such things. I had decided that I'll not get worked up like other parents, and coolly walk into one school and stand in line. If I get the form till 11:30 great, if not, I will leave the line, pick up N from school at 12:15, come home and try the next day. That was my plan since the start.

But reality had something else in store for me. Here's what transpired this morning. After an early start in the morning and several co-ordinating phone calls later I learn that my friend's dad has already gone to NPS HSR to collect forms for her daughter T. So reshuffling of plans hapenned amidst all the craziness of getting the little ones ready for school. I finally got out of the house, dropped N to school at 9:45am and co-ordinated with this other friend A who offered to give me a ride to the school. Reached NPS HSR at 10 and almost fell off my feet on seeing how long the queue was!!! I was almost ready to turn around and leave coz there was no way I would get even near the school gate till 11:30. And they were only giving out forms from 9-11am according to their website. Yet I tentatively dragged my feet towards the end of the spiral never ending queue and asked the lady at the tail end of the queue if this was the line for admission forms. As she turns her head towards me we both exclaim! She turns out to be my classmate from school (we'll call her S) whom I haven't met since I left school 15 years ago! Now isn't that really just like out of the movies! I said to her if this was one of my ex-boyfriends I would be meeting like this, it would be really really filmi! :-D Oh well...so we start excitedly catching up on every little detail...which hugely helped the 2 hours go by much sooner than it seemed. All the while we just couldn't get over the way met. Turns out she does not live too far from our place and has bought a new place even closer to ours now. I again digress. Back to the 'eventful morning details'. So I have most of my neighbors/friends calling me to give me real-time updates from the queue at the other school (NPS Koramangala) and such almost every 15 minutes. When the clock struck 11:30, we were in a panic mode coz we weren't too far away from the office in the queue but weren't so close that we can get the form and leave in the next 5 minutes to pick up our kids. We kept staring at the clock and at the queue. Finally both S and I made a call and asked our friends to pick up our kids from playschool. Now I've never done this before and I could not stop imagining N's little face wrinkled up in tears on not seeing mommy after school. I have seen it happen to other kids when their mommies were running late and felt terrible for that one minute of panic and sorrow the little ones find themselves in. But this call had to be made coz just the next 5-10 minutes of patience would get us those much coveted forms or else we'd have to repeat this all over again the next day for the same school and the day after for the other branch (NPS Koramangala). My friends convinced me saying she will be not be in strangers' hands...atleast she is with friends whom she knows pretty well. So she will get over it pretty quickly and will be fine if they put on Dora and prop her in front of the TV. And I would be with her in a matter of minutes anyways. S even said that there is always a first time like this...they'll have to learn to survive such things or else we'll never be able to go back to work! I kind of agreed with this thinking but obviously us moms are always full of guilt. So it killed me to stand there...but I did. I finally grabbed the form at 12:15, rushed out with S and reached home by 12:30. Went to my neighbor's to pick up N and found her in the lap of neighbor's kiddo's grandmom propped in front of Dora playing on TV but crying away saying "Let's go home!" It melted my heart and somehow convinced me that this little baby of mine is definitely not ready to go to a huge school like NPS yet. I will be sending her to one of the warm and fuzzy Montessoris nearby until she is a year or two older. Gosh! The only saving grace out of all this was that this nice friend/neighbor was able to somehow manage getting an extra form for me from NPS Koramangala as she was standing in that line this morning...thus saving me from doing this all over again tomorrow. Huge thanks G. And A and S and all of my other girlfriends who came up and offered me some much needed support without me even having to ask for it today. Such times really make me wonder - what would a girl do without such wonderful girlfriends!

Anyway, after N saw me she couldn't stop telling me to take her home. So I hugged her tight and brought her home. We cuddled on our couch and surprisingly she started telling me between her sobs how she saw Dora and Tiko and Isa and Swiper the Fox at T's house! Gosh and I thought all she did was cry out there :-) Then she asked to see Dora on her 'own' TV which I promptly obeyed. There we sat hugging each other tightly for a while and watching Dora thanking God for simple pleasures. I tried getting up to get some water for the child but she pulled me back saying "No...don't go". I was holding back tears on seeing how shaken up she was. After 5-10 minutes of cuddling, she had a bottle of milk and like a peaceful baby fell asleep cozily in my arms. I love you my little child and I am soooo not ready for you to get lost in a huge school yet.

The irony of this while episode is that I was the mom who used to crib in the US saying how everyone rushes to send their kids to school at such a young age in India...and that I'll never fall prey to that madness. And here I was this morning doing the exact same thing! Yes...I can always justify it was solely for the Montessori and what not...but part of me still knows that in the end it is a big school and she will not get the one on one attention she might get in a small or mid-size preschool. But knowing me, I am positive I will still end up filling the form and dropping it off anyway. If she does end up getting accepted, that will be another debate with self...and I don't want to even think about it right now. Will cross that bridge when I come to it. But tell me folks...isn't this falling prey to the exact system I did not want to get into in the first place? What would you have done? Would you have stuck to a mid-size Montessori and gone through this entire madness for getting admissions in the 1st grade? Or would you tackle it all right now and not have to worry about their admission process again in 2-3 years? I personally was always inclined towards not having children go through unnecessary stress so early in their lives. But still can't fail to wonder how I had almost started falling prey to this madness myself! Views? Opinions?

How much more desi and domesticated can I get

Let me say first of all that I don't intend to offend anyone who can relate to this post or dresses up like this...but I thought what hapenned the other day was pretty funny. And I just had to blog about it so that I can come back to this post and laugh when I needed a funny moment.

So there I was getting ready to run a long overdue errand (go to the passport office to renew my recently expired passport). And while I was finally out the door and walking towards my car, a funny thought crossed my mind. I thought "Look at me - all dressed in a jeans with a long desi kurti (the ones you can pair with a salwar), wearing an open toed V-shape slip-ons in my feet, carrying a purse with a long shoulder strap (the kinds whose looks I hate but only carry it now coz it is convenient with a toddler to carry most times along with) and finally - carrying all the necessary documents in a plastic carry bag (instead of a manila folder or my nice red shoulder-cum-laptop bag like I would have normally done just a year ago while in the US). I mean really how much more desi and domesticated could I get???!!!"

And then to top it all, when I went to school after that to pick up little N, one of the other moms there asked me why was I all dressed up today? Really I thought? I mean this was as dressed down as I could be...the most casual look that goes on around here in India. So are you trying to tell me that on other days I am dressed up worse than this? LOL :-)

Nyways, the whole point is that just a year ago, before I was a stay-at-home-mom living in India, I was a person who would never be caught on the streets dressed down in this manner. My definition of dressed down used to be a pair of track pants and an old t-shirt with sneakers or some other form of closed toe comfortable shoes. Thats probably coz my wardrobe consisted mainly of formal wear that I wore to work in the US (pants, tops, sweaters, etc.) or really old clothes I wore at home. None of the in-between ethnic kurtis and stuff. And I was one of those who, for some strange reason, used to frown upon people toting plastic bags to carry documents and such and wearing V-shaped flip-flops that make your feet all dirty in the dust and mud in the streets here. I guess now that you know this part of me, you've finally realized the humor in this story huh :-) Its funny how these stupid dressing notions were so deeply imbibed in my mind that this thought crossed my mind without me even realizing it. Now all that was remaining was a bindi on my appearance and I would fully qualify as one of the manibens from Gujarat ;-)

In all positiveness though, what I wore that day was quite comfortable in the weather conditions here. No wonder this 'look' is so popular amongst women in India. So moral of the story - sometimes you just gotta believe in jaisa des, waisa bhes and give it a try yourself huh.

Happy Second Birthday My Child

Dear Little N,

You turned 2 almost a month ago now and I've been meaning to write you this huge milestone letter since then but you have been so busy at keeping me busy that I hardly found time to pen down all the stuff you've been up to :-) But I guess that's how toddlerhood is supposed to be. And trust me I am loving every moment of seeing you grow up so big so soon! Its like all of a sudden you've found soooooo many words that you are able to join them all in various languages to express everything you want to say! I mean to me it sure sounds like you are suddenly talking like a grown up coz it took you longer than most kids to start talking in the first place given that you poor little baby were exposed to 4 different languages since you were born. So ofcourse you took your own time to process it all and then finally picked your preference which interestingly was niether your papa's or your mom's mothertongue - it was a third medium altogether - English. What were we thinking right ;) Its almost like you went to school and suddenly within 3 months picked up a whole new language along with all its grammar and everything. You amaze us when you construct complete sentences such as "Ant coming to take my chhota ball" or "Want to play ball" or "N... fell down from bed here" and millions of other such things. The cutest part is you don't yet use the words "here" or "there". So when you want to say these words in a sentence, you point to the place and make a sound aaaiiinn (can't quite figure out how to spell it but it sounds like hain).

Other than talking up a storm, you also know your numbers (1 - 10), alphabet (A-Z) and your colors so well! I mean you are just 2 years old for godssake and just until a few days ago everytime you counted anything, you said "8,10". And now you rattle off "1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10"! Even with colors, I was shocked one day when you started opening your box of pencil colors and took out each one telling me what color it was. I mean until just the day before that, you kept just guessing the colors without really looking at the object or knowing which is which. And then suddenly it probably clicked in that cute little head of yours and you started telling me "this crayon is pink", "this is red", etc. Such thrills I tell ya! You love singing your ABCs in the nursery rhyme form and your numbers in the poem 1,2 buckle my shoe.

You have such a huge collection of songs you keep singing these days too. Some of your favorites are "lakdi ki kathi", "itsy bitsy spider", "who made the twinkling stars", "row row row your boat", "om shanti shanti (prayer at school)", "oh isn't it fun to walk in the sun", "teddy bear teddy bear", "johnny works with one hammer" and sooooo many more. Most of these you hear at school and some from our laptop at home (courtesy youtube.com). Best is these days when we play any nursery rhymes DVD, you look at the kids do dances and imitate the steps. Like the Boogie Woogie song, you look so cute dancing along with the babies on TV trying to put your left leg in and shaking it all around!

Oh and how can I forget - your favorite show on TV these days is DORA! Ofcourse it isn't telecasted here in India so we have ripped quite a few Dora DVDs from friends and that is ALL you want to see on TV these days. This craze started a few months ago and has only gotten more intense each passing day. Earlier you always had your breakfast cereal with Dora on TV but lately you want most of your meals propped in front of Dora. Earlier you just watched Dora without batting an eyelid. Nowadays, you actually get down of the sofa and start dancing at songs especially the "We did it" song! Its sooo cute to watch you so thrilled by a character like this that we even dedicated your second birthday party to your favorite character. Yes - I arranged a Dora themed party for your second birthday inspite of not finding a lot of Dora stuff in the markets here. Here's what we did for the Dora theme:

My friend B and I hand made the party invitation cards with all the scrapbooking material I had at home. We spent a lot of time and effort on the invitation cards and the envelopes. It turned out to be a pretty neat looking Dora themed pull out card with ribbons on the envelopes, eyelets for a pullout ribbon and all that jazz. We were so inspired by our own creations that we decided to launch a home based business making greeting cards exclusively! :-) Here's a pic to show you how they looked:

For decorations, I had a friend who bought me huge Dora and Boots rubber stickers which we put on the walls in the party hall. Other than that, we did crape ribbon and other decorations in the Dora color scheme of purple, pink and orange. Thankfully we had a lot of decoration stuff left over from her last bday party in the US. And they were all color co-ordinated too. So it was great to be able to reuse all of that. Another friend gave me a nice Dora and Boots Happy Bday banner and a Dora bedsheet that we used as her cake table-cloth. So it all came together pretty well inspite of me being new to Bangalore and not finding a lot of Dora stuff in the market.

Luckily, I found Dora eye-glasses for the kids to wear other than the party hats and the blowers ofcourse. I also found Dora forks and spoons just enough to serve with the cake. We catered food from Saraswati Sweets and the menu was dhokla, poori, aalu bhaji and jalebi. Other than that, we had lots of snacks like cookies, finger rings, muffins, etc. for everyone - kids and adults.

For games, our main attraction was an automatic bubble blower machine. We just kept it near the entrance and it blew bubbles that just thrilled the kids to no end. After a while though, the floor got so slippery that we had to shut it off. Other than that, I'd researched a lot for Dora themed games and had planned quite a few but time limitations allowed us to play only 2. So for the first one, I had printed out a lot of Dora activity and coloring pages from the Nick Jr. website. Gave all the kids 2-3 sheets each with tonnes of crayons I had bought to be used. They had fun getting creative and showing off their coloring skill. The next was a fishing game in which I filled a tub with water and used around 10 bath floating toys as the fish in the pond. The kids were then given strainers (chai chhannis) and asked to "fish" the toys out one by one. This one was a huge hit and none of the kids wanted to stop doing it at all!

The cake was the part I was most skeptical about but Sweet Chariot did a great job with their computer printed Dora cake. We loved the looks and the yummy taste (Butterscotch). And the most important part of the party - the return gifts. No kid can leave a party without their surprise filled goody bags. I used cute paper bags (again left over from N's first bday party) pink for the girls and green for the boys. Luckily I had found Dora stickers at Oddessey and used them to decorate each goody bag. For the gifts, I had found magic sketch books at the same store which I gift wrapped and threw in lots of stickers and tattoes of various kind and candies in each bag. Parents loved the idea of a magic sketch book coz it is absolutely something non messy and you can hand it to the kids and let them be busy at it for hours. Basically the pages in the book seem blank when you look at them until you rub a pencil on it. That's when the picture appears in the form of a sketch. Pretty neat huh :-)

Here are some pics so you can visualize all that I described:

Gosh - where did I start this long wound post and look where I ended up! Sorry dear N, I got carried away with all the joy of you turning two and mommy getting a chance to express her creative side somewhere! I can never thank you enough for giving us so much joy in life little N. I never really knew what I missed in life until I had you. God bless you and all the other kids in this world with all the joys, happiness and love they so deserve.

Side Note - me and my friend B have decided to commercialize this interest of ours and will be glad to be of service if you ever need an event organized in a particular theme. Just let us know when and where and we can take care of the rest. Now with all the research done and all the material bought, we are quite enjoying this and are getting better at it.

Wow what a month (and what an year)!

So many milestones and memories in this past month of August 2009. It sure has been one of the most hectic but one of the most memorable of all since we moved back to India a year ago. Let's see where do I start...

* My dear brother chose his life partner and got engaged to a lovely lady on Aug 22 2009. Him being the only sibling I have, ofcourse we were all excited to fly down and join him on this special occassion. But August was also the month full of swine flu scares and tragedies in this country. So plans kept forming and falling apart until the last minute. So the way it ended up, I flew to Pune alone leaving behing hubby dearest with little N for 2 nights. Enjoyed the engagement ceremony but missed them terribly.

* The day after I got back, my in-laws were slotted to fly down from Mumbai to join us for little N's second birthday. This was the first birthday celebration we would have for her in India so was kinda a big reason for a family reunion of sorts. So we celebrated her second bday on Aug 25 at her playschool and then had a party with friends and family on Aug 29.

* A day before N's party, we all (us and inlaws) decided to make a roadtrip to Mysore. Had a good time there, visited the famous Mysore palace, St. Phelomina's church, Chamundi hills, got back at night and prepared for the big event the following day.

* Had a birthday bash for little N at our apartment complex's clubhouse on Aug 29. Incidently, this day was also our 1 year anniversary of moving back to India from the US. One whole year - not even sure how it flew by. N is one year older and speaking volumes now, making new friends and showing us new things she picks up every day. And one whole year of us settling down in India after over a decade in the US. Making new friends, learning new lessons and rediscovering our past every single moment. Truely a year worth cherishing.

* But as they say, all good things come to an end. Our festivities came to a screeching halt when I came down with a bad case of food poisoning (I think my first time ever) on Sept. 1. Little N had a milder version too along with fever and hubby dearest wasn't spared either (thank god his was the mildest of us all). Nyways, had the worst week ever after a nice fun filled month.

All I can say is...thank god for good friends and family around. It feels wonderful to share with them, the good and the bad, the ups and the downs in this roller coaster of life. So much has passed...so much has changed and yet it hardly feels like we just uprooted our whole lives and moved to a new place altogether to start all over again. As they say, its not the place...its the people that make every place worthwhile.