Wordathon

Me: Why do you ask so many questions Pranati? My head is paining kanna.
Pranati: ((No response)), As usual continues her very important task of asking questions.

After a few days...
Me: What did you do in school ma today?
Pranati: Amma, my head is paining amma.
Me: Why ra?
Pranati: You are asking me a lot of questions amma.
Me: ?????? Thinking: (Theva theva, enakku theva :-))

Morals of the story: Be careful what you tell kids, And, Life is a circle :-)


This was also today's FB status of mine :-)

Happy Women's Day

This was my today's status in Facebook....March 8, 2013 -- International Women's Day !!!

Yes, we are absolutely proud to be  mothers, wives, daughters, sisters and daughter-in-laws.
We are glad that we have the womb of life.
We are pleased with the multifaceted personalities that sometimes we portray to the world.
We are thankful that we are special and many of nature's faces are considered to be feminine.
We are happy with the god-given gift of multitasking.

But, besides these, we are also fearful of the dangers surrounding women in today's world in which a few see women as mere objects of desire and impose Wild and atrocious violence towards them.

Women's Day is comprised not only of draping sarees, celebrating in White-And-Purple-And-Green colours and considering it a special day dedicated to women. The true spirit of Women's Day evolves only when "those few" consider women as another human being more than anything else, and stop their monsterous activities.

Nevertheless, women are special, and I am proud to be a woman :-)

Wishing all the women a very happy Women's Day !!!

And congratulating the men who have a woman in their life, because they have a woman in their life :-)

My teeny-tiny wishlist

My wishlist is as long as a giraffe. But, I have tried to reduce it to a baby giraffe's size, listing out only those wishes which hit my head hard, as I soon as started typing this post on Notepad. (Words related to Giraffe above -- Influence of my kid on me, as I deal with a lot of animal stories and characters during the day with my kid :-) )

-- I wish that people stop being judgemental. Yes, I have been judgemental about others many times. But, when I am at the receiving end, I feel the true effect.  On the same lines, I also wish that I accept people as they are and others accept me as I am, with no "Terms and conditions" attached.

-- I wish that I have all the patience in the world. Guess for what? Not for solving world issues. Not for doing major heart and brain surgeries. But, to handle my three-and-a-half-year old daughter. To answer her questions. To convince her to do the right thing. To make her understand that its not my wish to scold her, and I scold and advise her only for her sake. To listen and handle her tantrums. 
On a separate note, I am glad that this wish is being granted to me on a daily installment basis. Yes, I am learning to be more patient day-by-day, only because I have converted myself from Mrs.R**** to Mom.R**** :-)

-- I wish that I have the tolerance level to: Tolerate pain - both physical and mental. Tolerate life's tests on you. Tolerate stupid behaviour of some people. Tolerate accusations against you. Last but not the least, to tolerate Namma Bengaluru's traffic jams :-)

Here is the banner of Preeti Shenoy's latest book...

Navratri Golu 2012

Here comes Navratri 2012 at our home, though at a delay of three days. It was supposed to start on Oct 16th. But, at our home, as my people were out of station, we declared holiday for Durga Devi (The first three days are dedicated to Goddess Durga) and Lakshmi Devi and Saraswathi Matha came here yesterday night.

So, with myself and my daughter dear in tow, I started with the task of assembling the Golu steps and placing the Golu "Bommai-s". I had outsourced the task of assembling the iron steps to the electrician of our apartment. He promptly came at 6 PM yesterday night and started assembling the steps with a disclaimer that “Madam, I am an L-board at this. So, please help me and bear with my mistakes”. And there we were, putting our minds into action and somehow completely assembled the steps (Though with a couple of rectifiable mistakes that we committed).

And all this while, my daughter dear was very co-operative and did not pose any threat to us J by doing stunts with the steps. She was watching cartoon, helping us also (by tightening the nuts and bolts, though her level of strength did not co-operate for that).

So, after an effort of 2 hours, we finished the assembly. And then started the laborious task of taking out the doll cartons from the loft, opening them, open the wrapped dolls (there are around 100 dolls) and assemble them in a particular order on the steps.

The electrician left and my daughter was super-excited at the word of “dolls”. I had to really negotiate with her to convince her that we will keep the dolls after both of our dinners are over. So, she was patient enough and I was glad enough.

So, the assembling of the dolls and the cleanup took another 1.5 hours. It was 10.30 PM when we hit the bed. My daughter was super-tired and was starting to get cranky due to all the doll excitement. She told the steps with the dolls on them were looking niceJ.. The fruit after the effort….

And today morning, my people came back from their travel to Chennai. There were some new dolls bought (Chennai is famous for all this)…A cow with all gods/goddesses embellishment, the “crow-drinking-from-pot” doll, two small decorative elephants and a cutie little Krishna…All were cute and some good additions to the doll-o-collection we have…

Here are some snaps from this year’s Golu…

The Second PTM - End of Term 1

And I am in a state of awe that one term is over for my daughter at school. From June 11, 2012 - Oct 12, 2012, and Dusshera vacation is starting from Oct 12. So, there was a end-of-term PTM on Oct 12. It was in the morning in the slot 9.10-9.20 AM. So, I left her behind at home and I went alone to the PTM. Following are the comments from her teacher. And, even this time, I am happy about the comments. Praying God that this should continue...

• She is more intelligent than children of her age. And very sharp. And very quick to grasp things. (Little bit similar to the earlier PTM's comments).
• She does not stick to one group of friends. She mingles and plays with everybody though two of her friends, she likes a lot (N****** and Tha****).
• She is good at expressing how she feels. If somebody beats her, she clearly tells her Mam, "He is beating me".
• She is very fond of her teacher and frequently comes to her.
• She has her way. Like, for instance, if somebody takes HER toy, she makes sure that she gets it back from him/her. I asked her if she beats or pulls it from the other child. The teacher said she does not use any violence either. Somehow cleverly she takes it back. And she is particular to take back only HER toy and not the other child's. I was happy at this, that she does not beat or something to get her things back.
• She enjoys doing the craft activities.
• The only problem that the teacher said that she is facing with my kid is that, she does not sit in one place. Only for a few minutes she sits and then starts moving. And seeing this, the other kids also start moving and that is when the teacher finds it a bit difficult to manage multiple moving kids :-). So, the teacher, before starting any activity, specifically tells my kid that she is supposed to sit in one place when she (teacher) is doing/teaching something.
• Even during playtime in the playground, she gets so much excited that she starts running the moment she is out. And she starts running in the opposite direction and some other kids also follow my kid :-) And the teacher has a tough time at that point.
• There was a Sports Day at her school a few weeks back. (See my earlier post). I asked the teacher what actually happened that day. She said there was a HulaHoop race. The kids were supposed to put a ring on their body, run some distance, remove that ring, put another ring and run, and so on. (I think there were 3 rings like that). My kid did the first ring properly. But, while putting on the other ring, she started to sight-see what the other kids were doing. And hence got behind in the race. If she had not stopped like this, she would have come in the 2nd or 3rd place in the race. The final result: She came second-last :-)))) (On a different note, it was my kid's statement on the day of the race that she came the first in
• the race:-)) )
• I was telling her teacher that we might change countries during her next academic year but nothing is decided as of now. I got happy when the teacher said, "I do not like her go. She is a good student". Very happy that my kid has been able to get such a name from her teacher within 4 months of schooling.

Overall, I was happy with the PTM. Got some books from the book sale which is conducted in the school during PTMs. And as usual, my daughter and books have a great bond. Seeing the books, she felt very happy :-)

Sports Day

Today was my kid's first ever Sports Day of her life, in school. She went all decked up in sports wear - white full sleeved shirt, blue track pant and white canvas shoes (all bought for this specific purpose, and of course, for future use also).

Last Saturday, her teacher called me up and told me the following: "P******* gets very excited if she goes to the playground. She does not put in her hear the words told by us. We are giving the kids practice for sports day. So, please speak to her and tell her that she has to listen to her PT Sir when he is giving instructions/practice". I was telling this to everyone for the past 2 days, smiling of the fact what all complaints I have to get from her teacher :-)

So, for the next few days, we were keeping on telling her that she has to run only after "1,2 and 3" and should lister to her teacher and PT Sir. She nodded her head and told "ok, yes" for everything. Today was the D-Day and she went happily to school, as usual.

During the noon, she slept off even before I called. I got the information from my MIL that she herself told that she came first in the race at school. LOL. I am not sure whether she is telling things out of imagination or whether really that was the case. And, nothing was written in her diary also it seems. I need to go home in the evening from office and try to get some information from her. I called her school to talk to her teacher regarding this but could not get her as they had already left by 12.30 PM.

I have to wait till tomorrow to get the update from her teacher about my kid's life's first sports day event :-)

Lal Bagh Independence Day Flower Show

Lal Bagh in Bengaluru conducts some AMAZING, (read it as A-M-A-Z-I-N-G and B-E-A-U-T-I-F-U-L) flower shows for Republic Day and Independence Day. After gaining interest in photography, I made it a point to visit it to click some pictures of the flower beauties to my heart's content. And yes, it happened.

Me and my friend, loaded with my Nikon SLR, went to Lal Bagh for the Republic Day flower show, from office (on a weekday, yes, it added to the thrill to go from workplace:-), Sorry, my organization) just to click pictures. We were surprised to see a lot of crowd on a weekday and were asking each other whether so many people are jobless like us :-)

But, unfortunately, the pictures did not turn out very well when seen on a PC as I had set the SLR in some crappy mode and didn't check the setting before clicking the photographs. Thus went the Republic Day photography session, unfruitful.

Then came the Independence Day flower show. I was cautious this time to click some real good pictures. I double-checked my settings on my SLR and the lens with my husband also. Sure that everything was ok, I again ventured out for photography (again on a weekday, but sans my friend, as she was onsite for work). I clicked around 140 pictures and mostly they were on "Aperture" setting mode, using a zoom lens. I had kept researching on different modes in photography and want to try out the background blurring mainly by setting the Aperture. And voila !!! What a result it had...The pictures turned out very good and I was satisfied very much. And I should really mention that the flowers collection and the arrangement in the flower show was just awesome. They had sculptures like panda bear, ducks, tree house all made of flowers. Very good show and I caught hold of some very good shots !! I used those shots to upload into my photography project at http://365project.org/reks/365 which is one-photo-a-day site and got good comments from my fellow 365ers.

Here is a slideshow of some of the pics taken in the flower show.

Talkathon

• I told my kid, "Kanna, amma's back is paining ra suddenly". She didn't react much except, "painingaa". Then, after about 5 minutes, (When I myself forgot about that), she asked "Back paininga?"...I was so,so touched at her enquiry and it sure did a great thing to my mind/emotions than to my back:-)
• She was pestering me to come and play with her when I was busy in the kitchen doing the nightly cleanup chores. I told her, "Kanna. Give amma 5 minutes. I will wash this cooker and come". As soon as I finished this sentence, she asked me, "Ayipoyinda?" (Is it over?)...When will kids learn the concept of time? :-)
• I have the bad habit of biting nails (Yes, I know it is a bad habit, but still I do it). My madam (read-daughter) told me, "Don't bite nails. Dirty dirty". Atleast for her, I should stop this dirty habit and I have started it from this moment that I am writing this post :-)
• She has started questioning a lot, as is common in this age. She keeps asking, "What is this amma, What is that amma. Why amma?". As usual, during one of our conversations during bedtime, she pointed to pillow and asked, "What is this amma?".

Me: This is pillow.

She: What is pillow amma?

Me: Pillow is an object.

And the conversation led to me saying the following so that I can teach her the concept of objects.

Me: P******** is a girl. Ni****** is a boy. V**** is a girl. Pillow is an object. Fan is an object. Bed is an object.

She: What is tree amma?

This question led me into a thinking mode. What should I tell a tree is? It is not an object. It is not a boy/girl. I just told her something (Don't remember what) and she didn't probe further :-)

Kids do really make us think about things...