Aditi's Album

A surprise party on New Year's eve

2011-01-01T02:47:00.000-08:00

I have been to plenty of parties - both young and old, but it was my first surprise party. The plan was made in a movie theatre where we met another group of friends. It was on new year's eve, so we were to have a double celebration. We had 3 days from planning to execution and it went like clockwork. The surprised birthday boy did not guess a thing which was a pure bonus. The party was at a neighbour's - conveniently for me and I only took the responsibility for the cooking and keeping the birthday boy occupied until the decorations got underway. and a phone call later we were off to their place and much fun was had. The kids were too excited and our attempts to put them to sleep simply did not work. Some lessons were learnt in the process with respect to kids' priorities. All in all a good start to the new year.

A Happy new year to you

2011-01-01T02:46:00.000-08:00

Wishing all of you a very happy and prosperous new year. And a great decade ahead.

Happy Deepavali

2010-11-07T09:41:00.001-08:00

This time Deepavali was special as I was on holiday and could enjoy the festival in its true spirit. It also coincided with bonfire night, so we witnessed some truly spectacular fireworks that night. We had prepared Aditi enough the previous days and told her of the special early morning oil head bath ritual, so she was actually looking forward to it. We had shopped for Diwali the previous weekend, but Aditi always wants to wear new clothes the following monday to school. But we managed to stretch that to friday and wanted to go to school to shoe off her new dress! Typical girl she is. Prashanth was doing nights, so Aditi & I decorated the pooja room and placed our new clothes and fruits. My plan was to make microwave badam halwa, which turned out to be really nice and thengoyal - which never came out of the presser. So a disaster was reverted by making the same mix into thathais and seedais instead of the planned thengoyal. MIL says that the mix must have been too tight and hence never came out of the presser. Next time I'll probably try much in advance and have plan B & C in place rather than decide something at 11PM all alone. The next morning we were ready and waiting for daddy, called family and friends and generally had fun. Dropped Aditi at arnd 11 AM and picked some fireworks on the way back. Aditi was super excited, and finished her tea in less than 10 minutes. Fireworks and much squeaking in delite followed, and then we went over to a stadium where a huge display of fireworks was arranged. There were plenty of rides, which Aditi enjoyed, as she always does and returned home by 10PM. The next morning Aditi was up early to attend a dear friend's birthday party. A lovely long weekend indeed. So how was your Diwali weekend?

Post Golu 2010

2010-10-19T14:14:00.000-07:00

We had plenty of visitors this year at the Golu and we prepared snacks of different varieties everyday. We are probably the only household in Sheffield that hosts a Golu, so we've not visited Golu and collected Sundal as we do back home. I got a 6year old and an aunty to sing Carnatic songs. The young girl is learning music and was very shy, so her mom and I gave her company. She sang so sweetly that I was touched.

Aditi enjoyed wearing all her pattu pavadais and salwar suits and playing a happy host to the kids who came home. This year's Ayudha pooja had a new addition and we visited the local temple on vijayadasami day. As the Golu drew to a close, I was worried about dismantling and repacking the dolls. But Aditi actually helped me bubble wrap and cover them with newspaper and Prashanth helped us load it all up into the attic.

We got Aditi a little kitchen set and she seems attached to it so much. She can be found preparing soup and teas and coffees all the time in her kitchen. She also claims that hers is a 'lovely pink and purple' kitchen while mine is 'gray(silver) and black'!

Looking forward to Halloween and Diwali.

Golu in Sheffield - 2010

2010-10-11T12:10:00.000-07:00

Over the last 4 years, the only thing I have been regular at is updating with Golu pcitures.This year I had plenty of new toys thanks to my parents who filled their bags with golu bommias and arrived earlier this year. I think I was laid back this year, brought the toys down on thursday night and by friday morning 2 am the dolls were up. The most idfficult part was the steps, which would get done in less than 20 minutes back home, with all the steel steps and nuts and bolts, while my dolls rest on cardboard boxes and books and journals and what not. This year, Aditi is trying to mimic me as I recite aigiri nandhini. Leaving you with some pcitures from this years' Golu.

Happy Navrathri folks.

Golu starts today

2010-10-07T01:25:00.000-07:00

And I can hardly call myself ready. For a start, I have no handmade toys to decorate this time. this time last year, I was ready with the guest list, gift bags, sundal choices, and even what dolls would sit on which steps. I think I'll go with the flow this year. I'll keep you posted on how the Golu was set up and this time I have an eager pair of hands waiting to help me with the golu.

Life is a...

2010-10-07T01:23:00.000-07:00

drama. Enact it!

We had a routine that I looked forward to every night. After putting Aditi to sleep, I'd go downstairs and prepare half cups of Horlicks or Ovaltine. Depositing one of the cups with Prashanth who'd either be browsing the Net or watching TV, I'd climb upstairs to what we called tata-pati's bedroom. The night lamp would have already come on and my parents will be under the duvets, but waiting for their cup of hot drink. Handing a cup each to my parents I'd settle myself by the window at the feet of my parents and discuss random stuff for a while - well actually until we all finished our drink. Dad would be the most enthusiastic and talk about everything he saw on his daily walks and the subject would invariably be turned towards Aditi. It was a special time and my exclusive time meant for them. That 20 minutes or so would pass by quickly and mom in her half-asleep state would tell me to go and get some rest. And relcutantly we'd say good nights and I'll collect the cups and take them to be cleaned downstairs. It was a ritual I followed for the four weeks they stayed here.

On the night before they left, I climbed up the stairs with a heavy heart. I felt like the end of an era approaching(Actually the end of their 4 week stay). They spent a good amount of time playing and chatting with Aditi. She had lots of attention thrown her way and was extremely happy to be in their company.She enjoyed the evening walks with them to the sweet shop as she was sure her tata would buy her whatever she asked for. Even now, her tata tells me to buy her everything under the sun. Their earlier visit was one filled with duties to take care of me and baby Aditi. This time we all enjoyed. And we look forward to more such visits and pampering from the grandparents.

When someone comes knocking......

2010-08-13T23:00:00.000-07:00

If there's anything that can break the mundane life in most nuclear families today, that would be a visit from either set of parents. My in laws left last month and parents will be here in a week. And the fact that the No Objection certificate for my mom took for ever to arrive makes the trip even more worthwhile. I plan to hand over the kitchen completely to mom and enjoy mom's food for the next month or so. Aditi is super excited too. She's already discussing with her tata-pati what they should bring for her. And I think my excitement has rubbed off on her - if i tell her my amma-appa are coming, she points out that its her tata-pati who are coming and i should refer to them as her tata-pati and not my parents!

Its been a really long wait and we are totally glad to be able to meet each other. My parents have been listening to Adi chat and have been wanting to see her in person for the longest time. Hoping that they don't go overboard with all the things they are bringing for their daughter and grand daughter.

UK Citizenship

2010-08-10T11:00:00.001-07:00

Its no secret that one of the reasons to move out of one's own country is to get the coveted citizenship in the Western World- to be accepted as one among them and most importantly to get the 'red' passport. Well, six years, 2 months and 10 days after we entered this country, we now are official citizens of this country. Aditi did not have to wait that long, she had her permanent residency(equivalent to the US Green Card) by birth and citizenship was more or less given to her. There was hardly any fuss in the whole process, however I have learnt that the OCI process is a the complete opposite. Wish us luck with the OCI....

HikeCream

2010-08-05T08:19:00.000-07:00

Our social club in the company that I work for, organizes trips around Sheffield and the Peak District regularly. I have never been to any of these, but a few weeks back, an email drew my attention. It was lunch in a pub, followed by walking along the lake and ended at a very popular ice-cream farm.So my typical mommy instinct read it as walk in a lake along the farms - where we could see plenty of farm animals. I almost completely missed the hike part and the fact that my level of fitness isn't really suitable for hiking. On the map, it lasted 40 minutes and I thought I could carry Aditi on my back as she would not be able to walk the entire distance. And Prashanth dropped us at 1:30, the group had just finished lunch and were getting ready for the hike. I got Aditi new walking shoes and they were really useful. We walked along the lake for 5 minutes, and while the directions to the ice-cream farm pointed left, we took a right and climbed 2 hilly mountains waded through fields and foresty regions with tall trees and over grown shrubs. By then I was holding the group up, as I was carrying Aditi on my back and trying to climb hilly fields with a backpack filled with water/juice bottles. And tired is a very small term to describe how I felt. At some point half way thru the hiking, we lost our way and spent a while map-reading and picking the shortest way to get to the farm. By then the juice and water that Aditi had consumed turned into calls of nature and she wanted to wee. I requested her to use the foresty shrubs, but the girl refused. She wanted to go home and use the toilet! We then approached some byroads and a narrow walking path, where after repeated requests, she obliged. I had to hold her up and teach her how to wee on the roadside! We walked for a total of 2 hours and 20 minutes and finally reached our destination. Everyone was exhausted especially the last 30 minutes and we all ordered a double scoop of icecream. Aditi noticed a bouncy castle nearby and spent an hour or so, jumping up and down. To her credit, she walked the last 30 minutes all by herself as there was not an ounce of energy left in me to carry her. Prashanth picked us up from the farm, and I went home and slept until the next morning. My legs were as hard as rock and all I did was rest that evening. I was unprepared for the hike to say the least, but it opened my eyes to the very poor level of fitness in me! Time to get fit....

Then and Now

2010-08-04T08:17:00.000-07:00

Then:
When Aditi was about to be 2 years old, my neighbour had a baby and when we went to visit them, I picked up the baby. Aditi screamed so loudly that I had to return it in less than 10 seconds.

Now:
Almost a year and ahalf later, we visited a 9 month old baby and took plenty of snaps with me carrying the baby or the baby on my lap, Aditi comes home, looks at those pics repeatedly and demands why she wasn't sitting on my knee! Atleast thats better than screaming in front of the hosts.....

Feminine Me?

2010-07-07T01:47:00.000-07:00

Almost everyone in the blogosphere has done it and I thought it'd be a good way to start my July posts rolling. One common link that I noticed in many blogs is managing finance - be it banks, investments, shares or day-to-day running of the house. And to be honest, I was actually surprised to note so many women manage money. I've seen my mom do it and I do it because I'm interested in it, I like to be in charge. Here goes my list:
- Am not fond of nail varnish. I don't apply it on my fingers or toes. I dont have any either.
- Like DIY and have helped put together many items in the house including our bed frame. We've assembled and disassembled Aditi's cot about a dozen times so far, sometimes I have done it all alone with a toddler by my side.
- Have gone to many strange and new places all alone in a new country. Sometimes with the kiddo too. And never was scared to ask help if I lost my way. Have done in countries where I do not know the local language.
- Admire beauty - look at what clothes other girls wear, their shoes, bags, scarf etc. Sort of the sight adikara types.
- Not a fan of cleaning/washing. I'd love it if the man helped, but have given up on even asking for help.
- Fix bulbs, change fuses, clean the car reguarly, fix the printer, in general I dont wait for him to help me out. Actually I think it's always been the other way around.
- Don't like pointed heels, can't balance myself on them either. Not too fond of fancy clothing too.
- Am the one doing a Master's degree after marriage and child, juggling home, work, family and studies all together.
- Manage the money and keep track of incoming and outgoing funds. The man is content earning it. He thinks its my responsibility to manage it.
- Love all kinds of sports - cricket, tennis, football, Formula 1 and follow them all.

I do love jewellery though, my own special taste, simple yet charming and have trained the husband on what to choose for me too:)

The Weekend

2010-06-09T08:36:00.000-07:00

Prashanth's cousin and his family visited us over the weekend. Their little girl was about 5 months younger to Aditi and they both had so much fun together. It was the first time Aditi had someone her age stay with us overnight, so she was hugely thrilled. Her friends usually come over play for a few hours or stay from morning till evening, but never has anyone stayed and slept with us. Saturday was bright and sunny, so they spent playing in the garden and eating on the slide. Prashanth was working nights, so I was in charge of showing them around. We went for a trip on the Wheel of Sheffield, returned home to have lunch and had a long nap. Aditi enjoyed the big wheel and had fun taking pictures from the top of the city. The only thing different in this wheel was photos were taken before we got on the wheel and then printed before we could complete the trip on the wheel. And as with any touristy place, we paid through our nose to get the photo pack which had a few postcards, fridge magnet, bottle opener and some matt-finish photos of us just outside the big wheel.
In the evening, Prashanth left for work, so I was the only driver. In-laws stayed at home while I drove Aditi, P's cousin & his family over to the park. Like typical girls, they giggeled and broke into peals of laughter for nothing. After an energetic 2 hours at the park and drenching themselves with the water works there, we dragged the girls home. They were pretty exhausted, asked for dinner and went straight to bed. The next morning, the first thing Aditi asked when she woke up was - "Where's Pavi?" I confirmed that Pavi was asleep and would wake up shortly. It was pouring outside that day, so we decided to stay at home. After breakfast and lunch, we headed out to Jungle Mania - an indoor soft play area for kids. The girls enjoyed themselves in the ball pit, climbing up and down the slide and jumping on the bouncy castle. After a lovely hour, we headed home and dropped the visitors at the train station. I wasn't planning to go, but just at the last minute we all decided to see them off at the rail station. The girls had so much fun together that Pavi cried loudly when she was carried into the train. Her parents pacified her by saying that we were coming on a different train.
We missed Peppa Pig's stage party in Sheffield, but I think we'll catch it at Wakefield later this month.

Honda and all that jazz

2010-06-07T05:59:00.000-07:00

I have been driving this car for about 5 months now. And it took over 2 months for us to zero in on this one. It was a chance conversation on an otherwise normal evening, that led to the decision to own a second car. We began the very long search for that perfect car in early December last year. We decided on an automatic as it was going to be used only for city commuting and we had never owned one before - we had learnt from others how easy it was to drive and found it perfect for Sheffield's numerous hills and valleys. AutoTrader.com was the favorite website of the month and we religiously scanned the website for suitable cars in our area. We shortlisted a few and Prashanth visited the garages, but was not impressed by the ones he saw. We saw various cars ranging from Suzuki Alto to Mitsubishi Colt to Fiat Punto to even the Merc A series. Given our history of car purchases, we thought we'd be done in a few days. But how wrong we were! Our first car was bought after a single trip to a single dealer, our second one was bought after 2 trips, but this one was so different from our earlier experiences. We made a trip to Leeds, but were not happy with the test drives. We made 3 trips to Wakefield and almost finalized a Suzuki Liana, but found it was a Category D - had been involved in an accident. Various cars that we shortlisted were gone even before we could get to the garage. After about a month of not finding that perfect car, I drew up a list of cars that I thought would work for me. Toyota Yaris was my all time favorite, followed by VW Polo and Ford Focus. The jazz was added after checking out the car in London. The only problem with the jazz was the price. It was the most expensive of all as it had the 'Honda' tagged to it. The budget had more than doubled during this time and we were still on the hunt. Sometime in the last week of January, I noticed an ad for the Jazz at a garage near my house. We went to check it out the following saturday and bought it almost instantly. No second thoughts, just a nod from both of us and we signed on the dotted line. We secured it for £300 less than the advertised price and were happy with the bargain. The car was picked up in two days and is now almost always used for city driving. Prashanth loves this one for the auto gear and I like it for its made my life a whole lot convenient. Incidentally I haven't got on a bus in months and it feels wierd to not use public transport!

Adi speak

2010-06-02T02:47:00.000-07:00

On our way back from Wales, my phone gave up its life. I have had it for over 4 years - a flip hpone from LG, which has been my good companion for a very long time. And I would have continued to live with it, until the husband got me a HTC. Back to the phone story, we had just left the cottage and I was texting a thank you message to the owner. A sudden brake, a crack on the phone and seconds later I realized the phone was broken. I still managed to use the phone successfully until we got home and my little girl tried to fix it. After about 5 minutes of fiddling with the phone, she declared -"Appa, I cant believe that Mummy broke the phone..." And before we could realize what she said, she came back with "I dont know HOW Mummy managed to break this phone...", stressing just right on where it mattered.
Aditi has been speaking full sentences for a while now, but never did we expect her to give us such blows - one after the other. She's been chatting a lot to almost everybody, but is most comfortable with people her own age. Yesterday she enjoyed with one of Prashant's friend's daughter, who had come a very long way, just to meet her. They played in the garden, on the slide, football, tennis and finally settled for painting. The girls were so absorbed in their activities that they did not want to part company. They've promised to meet each other soon.
One of Prashanth's cousin and his family are visting us this weekend and Aditi is looking forward to playing with her little cousin.

Convocation, grandparents visit etc...

2010-05-09T09:57:00.000-07:00

The grandparents are here. They arrived over a week ago to attend Prashanth's convocation and will be here for the next 2 months. The convocation was a grand event and we made a short day trip to London. Aditi enjoyed the trip as usual and had good fun. While the grandparents and ad were off to attend the ceremony, Aditi and I went over to Kensington gardens and played in the park, fed the birds and saw the Kensington Palace from outside. To be honest, it was not inviting at all, with too much rubble all around, otherwise I would have paid the exhorbitant entry fees and gone in. We went back to the town hall where the function was taking place, and joined dad for tea. We took lots of pictures as it was the first convocation I attended and Aditi's first too.

Aditi is warming up to her grandparents. She was shy initially, but has been extremely friendly with her thatha. She's a bit J of her pati, especially because Pati showers too much attention on her dad, but I'm sure she'll be fine in a bit. She does not run to me all the time, but is happy to be chatting and playing with her grandparents and dad and loves to show them around. She's doing a lot more pooja and pretends to imitate her Pati all the time. I wish she learns more slokas as the only one she knows is Mooshika Vahana. She's talking a lot more and clearly and g'parents can now understand her - almost. The peppa pig addiction had decreased a bit, but is showing no signs of going away.

The nursery is teaching them culture and identity and she's absorbing bits and pieces of it and relaying them back to me at home. Her friends circle has grown by leaps and bounds. She's been out playing in the sun and enjoying the summer. We are expected to have a very good summer this year. Lets hope that the prediction comes true.

Latest addiction

2010-04-19T13:10:00.000-07:00

Aditi's latest addiction is Peppa Pig.or people who dont know Peepa, she's a loveable little piggy and her everyday incidents are aired as 5 minute episodes on Channel5. My job every morning is to record them and play them for her when she's having breakfast. She's so attached to it that anything Peppa on the shelves of stores should be bought. And shops add to my trauma as they place character toys and accessories at eye level of the child and it leads to long arguments in the shop. She whines, grumbles and begs me with such pleading eyes that its so difficult to say 'No'. I admit I have given in sometimes and bought a few items Peppa, but largely managed to stay away. We also bought a few DVDs that keep her occupied when I'm away on weekends. I understand that the Peppa phase will go away on its own to be replaced by some other character, but its so terrible sometimes that I no longer fell comfortable to take her shopping to any supermarkets. Or I try to stay away from those shelves.
On another note, I have a new car all to myself and an automatic one too. For a second car, we decided to go for an automatic and its been a good decision. One of the main reasons to buy a car was to minimize the travel effort and make our journeys comfortable and it serves that purpose to a T.There is only one disadvantage from my view point - its not as economical as the manual one, but its perfect for me as we only do city trips on this one. Its a smaller car than the BMW, but boasts of a much larger boot space. Overall a great buy which has prompted others in our friends circle to consider buying a second car.

Back to blogging

2010-04-16T12:50:00.000-07:00

I have had a big break, and am back after a very long time. Most of it I'll blame on new responsibilities and the additional work involved. But I'm enjoying being busy and loving this phase of Aditi where she makes proper adult like conversations. And her actions are only too good to be described. She's in this phase where she's addicted to everything Peppa Pig, so shopping with her over the last few months have been very difficult. Any tips from experienced parents are most welcome. How do you say no to a child without worrying about her repeated requests?

Summer has started early in this part of the world and the longer days and sunshine means we go out often and Aditi is back cycling inside our estate. She's got older girls as friends and absolutely adores their company. She can talk to them unlike last year where it was mostly through me. She's also being a perfect older sister to other little children from our estate. Incidentally there are four other kids who go to the same nursery as her and she loves to visit them in the baby room from time-to-time.

I'll hope to be more regular in my posting. More news including my new car in the next post.

And here's a picture of Aditi' with her ears pierced - a few weeks before her third birthday.

Unwell

2009-11-23T23:09:00.000-08:00

I am at home today when I should have had another day at work busy designing and developing a new application in a newer technology. I had taken off yesterday and was just happy to be home with my little girl. The winter bug has affected her and she's taken ill. After an enjoyable weekend with my cousin and family who had dropped in from London, Aditi fell sick. And then came the fever. More doses of medicine followed. She was getting better yesterday or so I thought, but the fever returned again and again. And I decided to take today off. We did all we would have done over the weekend- reading books, singing rhymes, playing and trying to be as cheerful as possible. But when the little body curls up on my lap when that fever strikes, I feel sad for her, but grateful that I am with her and can indulge her. I cooked whatever she liked - her favourite dishes - but if only she manages to keep any of them in her troublesome tummy - that would be nice. No milk for a couple of days. And she's happy to have fresh fruit juice. Wishing she gets better today. And can go back to school tomorrow and play with her friends. She does miss them and we try to do whatever she would have done in school.

Sending prayers for her better health.

History repeats itself

2009-11-17T15:13:00.000-08:00

Many many years ago, when the luxury of maids were not available in every home, a little girl about two years old was playing with the waters in the bathroom where her mom was trying to wash the day's clothes. Those were the days when the electric heater was still considered a luxury in a little Karnataka town. They lived in a little township, where houses were few and the afternoons were quiet. People would be sleeping in their homes away from the scorching summer sun. Frustrated at being disturbed by her daughter, and the limited supply of water soon running out, the mom lifted her daughter and placed her outside the bathroom. She then quickly shut the door and locked herself inside. The daughter was upset, cried a little, threw a tantrum outside and then realized her mom would not be able to see her. She started fiddling with the latch outside the room. The mom finished with her washing, was about to carry the bucket load of clothes to dry them out in the terrace. Little did the mom know that she'll be stuck inside for over 2 hours. Her daughter had managed to lock her from outside!!!
The mom tried to explain to the little girl to unlock the door. The girl by then had started crying loudly. It was impossible to pacify her and the mom cries out aloud to through the window. In the local language, she calls out for help. But there is no one around. The roads are deserted and empty. Not a soul in sight. It would be about five-six hours before her husband would arrive home. Thirty long minutes later, the mother is desperate to stop the child crying. And she decides to cut open the door in the bathroom. Now that's not a job for a labourer or a carpenter, not for a lady in her early twenties alone at home.
When electric heaters were not available, hot water would be produced by burning logs of wood in a huge anda (pot). The knife used to cut logs became the mom's tool. She used all her strength and managed to cut to remove a square panel from the bathroom door just below the latch. She then put her hands through the hole in the door, unlatched it and hugged the crying daughter. All of this cutting took about two hours and all this while the girl had been crying. That led to her falling ill the next day. And I have to appreciate the mother for being so brave, thinking and acting quickly, saving herself and her daughter that day.
When Aditi was about 5 months old, my in-laws came to live here for a few months. And my MIL has narrated this story more than once, how her daughter was troubling her, how she locked her out, and how she ended up being locked and finally cutting through the door with a rusted log- cutter knife. I would be in awe, never in my mind did it cross at that time that I would be stuck in a similar situation. Never ever...
We now live a very comfortable life and thankfully have child locks and emergency dial numbers! This happened about seven months ago, Aditi was just over two, and she knew that we locked ourselves inside the bathroom. It was a Saturday morning and Prashanth was away at work doing a long day. I got ready to give Aditi a bath. She wanted to use the toilet, so I put her on her seat and left her on the toilet to go and select her clothes. Within a few seconds I hear the girl banging the door shut. I turn around and run towards the bathroom, but she's already locked herself inside. And is happily saying 'Don't come inside'. And unfortunately I had shut the bathroom windows as it would be too cold otherwise.My heart skips a beat or a few may be. I was not sure what to do. thankfully the girl still thinks its her game and continues to laugh happily. I have never operated the child locks before, so I had no idea what to do. I panicked. I rushed to my neighbour, whose was locked. I came back and tried calling Prashanth, although I knew that there would be no signal inside the theatres. I left him a voicemail and went back upstairs to the bathroom. By this time, Aditi was considerably scared and started crying. Finally an idea struck - call 999 - the emergency helpline and I was put through to the fire service. I explained as patiently as I could and they tried to calm me and asked me to calm the child. I told them that they could break any door/window in my house - just get the child out. As I stood trying to explain the situation to Aditi and asking her to open the door, an idea struck me. No, I was not aware of child locks being fitted to all doors here. I was glad that the tool box was not in the attic. It was easily reachable and I reached for the flat headed screw driver. I managed to unlock the door by turning the child lock around and hugged the child. Oh what a relief! I quickly also called the fire service and told them that I had unlocked the door. A few minutes later after both of us were done with our hugging, I left a happy voicemail for Prashanth. And it reminded me of the time when my MIL was stuck in a similar situation. Thankfully I was outside and could call for help. That was definitely a much better state than being stuck inside - without access to a phone/help.

What separation does to you?

2009-11-17T14:33:00.000-08:00

Exams were cleared many months ago. That was one of the reasons why the boss refused to accompany me during my India trip earlier this year. Now that they were out of the way, a trip to India was something that just had to be planned and executed. We went for a week each to Swiss and Italy in Summer/Autumn, and I had exhausted most of my holidays for this year. We decided that Prashanth would make the trip, and me and Aditi would stay put here. Except that I never ever dreamt this coming. All I had in my mind was that I should take care of the baby and myself and stay safe. I never thought about how much the child or I would miss him. It never ever occurred to me....
The original trip was to last 2 weeks, but slowly a stop over at Dubai was added and we finally ended up with 2 weeks and 5 days. I still had no worries, and was quite sure that I would be able to manage on my own. Thanks to my friendly neighbour, whom I had almost called for help in the previous post.
Aditi and I went to drop Prashanth at the train station and Aditi cheerily waved goodbye and kisses to her dad. My heart skipped a beat, as the train moved out slowly, the thought of not seeing him for the next 3 weeks - that was the first time it hit me that Aditi might miss her dad too. She had not the least idea that he would be away for 3 weeks. Trouble started the next morning, when dad was not around when she woke up. Prashanth was already st his sister's place in Dubai, so a quick call and a chat later, things were fine. That evening and then ext were sort of okay. I could tell her that Dad was at athai's place in Duabi and she was convinced. It was after Prashanth reached Bangalore, 4 days after he had left home that Aditi started crying. She wanted to be with her dad and she made it clear - Take me to Appa's house or Take me to Bangalore was the constant cry heard in my house.
We used to chat with dad on the webcam every evening and Aditi was happy to see him and hear his voice, but within minutes of closing the conversation, she would be back to crying. Meanwhile I was battling with my own loneliness - the evenings were long and boring, I had nothing much to do, the ironing was done, the house was cleaned, and honestly I did not do much cooking during the 3 week period. I think I was not interested. There was no one to relish my food, so I lose interest in cooking. I made real simple food for me and Aditi.
I never thought I would miss him so much. I never expected that I would blog about this, but better to get it out and be done with, rather than bottle up all my thoughts. All I needed was his presence and the laughter. The house felt empty when I walked in every evening. There was nothing to look forward to in my house.
Weekends were worse. The first weekend was Halloween and it was spent in dressing Aditi up on Friday at her nursery and on Saturday to go around the estate. Sunday seemed never-ending and I was waiting for the working week. The following week was slightly better. Prashanth was at Chennai, we spoke for a long time and most importantly were pretty excited about his return the following Thursday. Four days to go and the countdown began. But due to unforeseen circumstances, his trip had to be postponed by two days. So Saturday it was. I hate night-time driving, so we decided that Prashanth would take the train from the airport to Sheffield. He did not expect us to receive him at the airport. But since it was a Saturday and both of us were pretty excited about dad's return, we cleaned and scrubbed the house clean - ready to give dad a warm welcome. We hopped literally like two little girls from home singing rhymes and what not, and took the train to the airport. Aditi told everybody who cared to listen to her - 'My Appa is back'. Dad was as happy as we were to see him. Aditi refused to get down from his arms throughout the journey. And I was the happiest to have him back.
I should admit that it has been a very long time since I have stayed alone in this country without Prashanth and this time it made me realize how much we needed each other's company more as parents and it made me think about all the single parents out there - how do they ever manage all on their own.
On and now the wet towel on the bed no longer bothers me...

Six days in Italia

2009-10-22T13:25:00.000-07:00

The Swiss trip happened in August and I never got around to blog about it. So here is a brief account of our recent trip to the historical capital Rome and the water city of Venice. It was a six day trip planned well in advance unlike the Swiss trip which was literally a last minute booking. I was more organised this time and opted for a self catering accomodation and we survived on home-cooked food for 4 days. We also bought a child carrier for Aditi as I had quite a tough time carrying her around in Switzerland. The first 3 days were spent in Rome, the next 2 days in Venice and the last day in Pisa.
Day 1: Woke up at 2 am, drove to East Midlands airport to catch an early morning flight to Rome. The flight was uneventful and had no trouble from Aditi while securing the seat belt. Took the coach from Rome airport to the city and walked to the apartment. And heres where the fun begins. The apartment was really well done. It had been recently refurbished and we were probably one of the its first tenants. It was exactly as it had been described and with tram and bus lines running right outside on the street, the position could not have been better.A supermarket closeby and buses straight to the colosseum. We had a lunch of idli/chutney, had a nice hot shower and left to explore Rome. Our first halt was the colosseum.We spent quite a bit of time exploring the inside of the colosseum and taking lots of pictures. On our way back, we spotted a park and Aditi was delighted. That was her part of the holiday. We usually hit a park or beach in the evenings so Aditi can have some fun. She played for a while on the slide, watched the dogs and enjoyed herself. We visited the supermarket later and had chappattis and subzis for dinner.
Day 2:
Had a good night's rest, followed by home made breakfast and we left early that day. We were to take the open top double decker bus from the main station. There are about half a dozen companies that run this service and we chose one with a 3 day ticket that also allowed us to use the public transport in Rome. We visited the Pantheon, a few Squares and then hit the Vatican just after lunch. It was breathtaking. Right in the middle of a modern city, you see this huge monumnet - brilliant architecture that was created almost 1400 years ago.It took us around 2 hours to complete the tour - and Aditi slept the whole time in her child carrier. Both of us were eager to try an authentic italian pizza and the first one we had near the Vatican was a disappointment.It was nowhere as good as the Pizza Hut or Dominos one. My MIL wanted us to light a candle and here we found electronic candles in every church. You drop a coin in the box and a tiny LED light comes on. Really nice. We then left for the Trevi fountain. This place was terribly crowded, but we found a quiet corner. We took turns to drop a coin into the wishing fountain, and then threw another one each over our left shoulder. We drank water straight from the tap - thats considered a visitor attraction here. Aditi enjoyed it all, drinking water from the lion's mouth, wetting her clothes and being very happy licking her cone ice cream. She loved exploring it all with us, happily posed for pictures and enjoyed the food we gave her.
Day 3:
More sight seeing happened today.We booked our tickets to Venice, enjoyed a cup of hot chocolate. It really is melted chocolate, unlike the hot chocolate we get in Britain. Enjoyed a vege panini. It was heavenly and we were very hungry and exhausted too. Realised that we are vege people. That cheese and bread is not for us. But salads - always welcome, never boring. Hit the shopping center of Rome and shopped aroudn for a few souveniors. Went to McD to be totally disappointed with their Vege burger. Their was no cutlet thing inside the burger, just 2 leaves of lettuce, a slice of cheese, tomato and cucumber. Climbed up the Vittorio to get a panaromic view of Rome. Learnt that its better to carry more cash than cards. More than we think it might be necessary.
Day 4:
We debated quite a bit on our leaving time. I wanted to catch the 6:50AM train and reach Venice by 11:20, but Prashanth was nto sure if we'd be up and ready, The next one was at 8:50AM, which would go into Venice by 13:20 - well past lunch time for Aditi, which I wanted to avoid. I knew we'd be able to leave on time, so we booked the 6:50AM train. Left our self catering apartment early that morning and reached the train station - had a quick coffee and boarded the train. Nothing spectacular about the train itself, we reached Venice before noon. And the sight that struck us was so beautiful. right outside the station is the Grand Canal and it was buzzing with activity at that time. Lots of people getting in and out of the boats/gondolas and the stretch of water that seemed never ending - it was fantastic. We were in love with this place. We did not want to let go the water out of our sight, but we had to check into our hotel. We walked through the narrow lanes and watched the shops dotted all along our route and our hotel was in another narrow lane. The room was on the second floorr and after having lived in a spacious self catering apartment, this felt rather tiny. A quick shower and lunch later(I had prepared curd rice that morning and packed it for our lunch), we hit the boat stop closest to our hotel. Aditi was as excited as we were and kept saying boat - We go boating. She loved the waters. We went to the San Marco area which is the typical tourist spot - went around all the touristy places - more churches, clock tower, the narrow lanes and bridges - we loved it all. Venice is famous for its glassware and although I was tempted to buy so many lovely articles- Prashanth was successful in preventing me from doing so. He convinced me that it may not be possible to carry them back in a good state, and I'd be terrribly upset if they broke during transit, so we bought none of the glassware. We went on the boats for a while, enjoyed taking different routes, shopped at a supermarket and headed back to the hotel. After another shower, we went out to dine in an authentic Italian restaurant. I had already fed Aditi her dinner and thankfully they had a high chair, which was very useful. We ordered pizzas, but they allowed no sharing. So we had to eat a whole pizza all by ourselves. The base itself was very thin and it tasted authentic, but one whole 10 inch pizza was a bit too much for me. And worse - we were not allowed to take away the leftovers - because they had nothing to pack them in. The bill came as a shock - what with 12% service charge added to it, but the pizza tasted great - so no whining there.
Day 5:
We had no itenary in place, just decided to visit the islands around Venice and the first one we went to was Lido. Lido is a smaller version of Blackpool considering that there are lots of casinos. This is a very well formed island. the roads are neat, the pavements are wide -it was like suddenly stepping into an English town - it was too organized after the lovely chaos that was Venice. We walked down the main road to reach the other end of town - to a beach - hardly populated beach. There were in all about 10 people on the beach and we had fun. Its been a relaly long time since I went to a beach, cant really recall when I went last time, so it was total fun. It was the first time Aditi was taken to a beach, so she had fun playing on the sands, collecting shells and being a little girl. The water was not too cold and perfect for her to dip her feet. We posed for some photographs and had tea at the beach restaurant. I had fed Aditi her sandwich at the beach before we treaded on the waters, so I wasnt expecting her to be hungry. We gave her a glass of hot chocolate when we had tea. But when we were walking back after about 2 hours on the beach in the morning sun, she wanted lunch. Aditi was sitting on her child carrier and when she spotted a bench on the pavement, she asked me to put her down. We thought she probably wanted to stretch her legs and brought her down. She hopped over to the bench, asked us to sit down and said - Let's have sandwich. We were surprised - the way she declared she was hungry - it was so cute. So we sat down, fed her and went back to board the ferry to Venice. We left Lido after spending the morning on the beach - the real fun part of our trip and went to yet another bridge in Venice - this time taking a completely different route. I was stunned to see a university in the middle of the waters. We had covered various routes by now and had almost taken all possible means of transport in Venice.We went to the trains station and bookedo ur tickets to Pisa, shopped for a bit at the supermarket and went back to the hotel. Unlike the previous day, we opted for a simple dinner. I was unable to eat a lasagne in Italy, but none of the restaurants had a veggie option - really none of them - and we checked atleast a dozen restaurants. since the lasagnes are layered in advance, there was no option to remove the meat portions.
Day 6:
We left shortly after breakfast at the hotel, bid goodbye to Venice and were off to Pisa. This was the last item on our itenary - to visit the Leaning Tower of Pisa and we were waiting to get back home. But Pisa did not disappoint us. We had to change trains enroute and just about managed to catch our connecting local train to Pisa. We had to activate tickets when travelling on a local train, but the lady ticket inspector was extremely friendly and waived our fine. We took a bus from the train station and were in front of the leaning tower in less than 10 minutes.And there are a couple of monuments to admire before you get to the Leaning Tower. Wikipedia gives the details about the history of this tower. Children below 8 years old are not allowed to enter the tower. So me and Prashanth had to take turns to sit with Aditi while the other went up. There were about 300 spiral steps leading to the top and the feeling on top was wonderful. The weather was perfect as well for early October - we had enough sunshine to get tanned. We booked our return flights from Pisa, so stopped over at McD, before taking the same bus to the airport. One thing new to this trip was I had atleast half a dozen people ask me how I managed to bring a toddler along on a sight seeing trip. I met a couple in the Tower of Pisa - from Scotland, who had left their toddler daughter back home.another one at the airport who also got someone to babysit their toddler. I also had quite a few strangers ask me about the child carrier and why the child would not walk around everywhere(!!). How do they expect a two and a half year old to walk all day along in crowded touristy places? We spent a while window shopping at the airport and finally sensed a huge sigh of relief as we landed in Britain. An hour later we were home. Aditi slept on the rturn flight as well and gave us no trouble putting on the seat belts. A lovely trip indeed.
Aditi has learnt the concept of time. She has learnt that we leave if its 20 past 8 in the morning and we come home in the evening by 6'o' clock. That shes allowed to play with her friends(the girls as she calls them), until 7'o' clock. Dinner is at 7:30pm and so on...Every few minutes, she comes and asks me - What time is it? And then repeats whatever I say. Its so cute to see her do that.

Creating the Golu

2009-09-29T14:53:00.000-07:00

Golu is traditionally celebrated for nine days, but for many like me the world over, preparations begin many weeks in advance. My trip to Leicester to find more Golu bommai did not end too well and we returned almost as soon as we reached there. So the hunt began locally and after gathering quite a few new dolls for this year, we went about buying other little gifts that made the Golu very special. I started off with a small list of invitees for my Golu, but its grown over 4 times and there were over a dozen families over the Navarathri period. Aditi enjoyed the most I think, decked up in Indian dress and lots of bangles. The little girl is hooked on to fancy bangles now.

I spent the weekends looking for return gifts, found some lovely paper bags to put them in, bought some dry fruits to be put in the tamboolam bag instead of sundal(sundal was to be eaten at home). My neighbour and friend D volunteered to help me arrange the Golu as Prashanth was working nights that weekend. We had a great time - typical girly chats, late night teas and plenty of snacks, giggling away and once managing to wake Aditi up in the process. We started at about 9:30 and finished by 11:45 at night. I had sort of arranged the steps with cardboard boxes and books and D provided feedback, rearranged some of them until both of us were fully satified with the result. Two heads were definitely better than one. Earlier in the week, I had washed and ironed 2 of Prashanth's white veshtis to spread over the golu padis. The steps were just long enough that the border of the veshtis formed a red and green border on either side of the padis. Then began the fun part of actually arranging the dolls on the steps. D & I again rearranged them until we were extremely happy, discarding some away. We had another round of snacks and some photo sessions later and D left. I proceeded to clean up the place, stack the boxes that contained the dolls away, put some lights on and finally went to bed by 2 am.

Last year, I kept the Golu in the study, because I was scared Aditi would pull all the toys down. This year I took a bit of risk and set it up downstairs in our kitchen diner which overlooked the garden and was much bigger than the study. I had told Aditi that night I would be keeping the Golu with D aunty and that she should not touch it, but can see the Golu. I least expected her to remember it. The next morning my little girl wakes up, gives a big smile when she sees that I'm still in bed lying next to her and then tells me - "Amma, u keep Golu, I not touch it, I see it". I was surprised to say the least. The little girl has been so sweet with looking after the Golu, wearing Indian clothes, matching bindis and bangles and being a girly girl really. She does ask for a toy from the Golu, mostly from the park or from the zoo , plays with it for a bit and returns it back to its original position. She's also been extremely happy to hand out the tamboolam bags and take one for herself each time. Thankfully she only wants empty bags, so thats fine by me.

Sunday was Saraswati Pooja, we placed some of our books including Aditi's in front of the Golu and then went over to do the Ayudha pooja. Aditi was super excited to put chandan/kumkum on her bicycle and mine, we then did a little pooja for the car and soon left for an Indian Dasara meet - lunch and fun at a huge community hall. Aditi had total fun playing with balloons and we returned around 7PM exhausted, but happy. On monday morning after a little Vijayadasami pooja and making Aditi read a few lines from her books, we have officially completed the Navarathri. One doll was put to rest at night and I packed off the dolls and sent them to the attic until next year.

Golu 2009

2009-09-20T14:38:00.000-07:00

Its been a busy weekend with visitors flowing in and out. Here are some pictures from this year's Golu. Write up will follow shortly.

Aditi's first reaction when she saw the Golu on Saturday morning.

All decked up here to invite guests...

For last year's Golu go here and here.

The bicycle

2009-09-10T03:57:00.001-07:00

Remember the times when you would rent a bicycle for an hour for a rupee and beg your parents to help you out on the road?I have had many of them when I was about nine years old. We then moved to Chennai, where my cousin and I would still rent bicycles from the local shop and have fun on the roads. All this stopped when my cousin was gifted a BSA champ bicycle with stabilizers. This became our pride and joy and a ride on this bike was almost always the first thing we did every morning before leaving for school. When I was 12 and my cosuin was 11, we had our own bicycles - a Hercules and a Hero to take to school regularly. For Aditi, the bicycle interest started early on. Every evening over the last month or so, she would be seen sitting on a little bicycle with stabilizers when I went to pick her up in the nursery. There are about half a dozen kids in our estate, who own bikes and go for joy-rides in the evenings. Aditi would normally ask for lollipop, but whenever she saw one of these bicycles, she would stop and stare at them and ask for one. It would go something like - 'Amma, Where is my bicycle?' Thoughts of my own childhood flashed from time to time and we decided to get her one. Two weeks back on the sunday, when Prashanth was at work, I took her to the local bike shop. she was excited to say the least. She got onto a little pink bicycle with stabilizers - a test one and started riding it all over the shop floor. We tried another little yellow and pink one. I explained to her that we could not take one home that day as we did not bring the car. The next evening when Prashanth came to pick us up, we went straight to the bike shop. Aditi rode the little bicycyle again to impress her dad and we brought home a yellow and pink one, fitted with stabilizers. She's got a little red helmet and wears it proudly before every biking session. Her two friends aged six and nine come knocking on our door, if we do not take her out for her bike rides every evening. Overall it has been fun so far, to watch my little princess ride carefully on the road outside our house. It helps that we live in a cul-de-sac inside an estate, for there's hardly any traffic in the evenings. Yesterday, I met a lady with her little daughter, who's moved recently into Sheffield and lives in our estate. Aditi was on her bike riding spree and the lady asked me if I had skipped the tricycle stage. I was astonished - it made me question myself - Should I have bought Aditi a tricycle before moving her onto a bicycle? I know she's ridden or tried to ride a tricycle in her nursery. I ahve seen her on it when she was younger. But what I have seen and learnt is children never RIDE a tricycle. They just move it with their legs on the floor for a long time and by the time they learn to pedal, have almost outgrown the tricycle. The bicyle makes it easier to pedal and the stabilizers do provide the support. The only drawback I can think of is that it can only be used outdoors. Given that we live in an estate that's closed to public traffic, it was easier for me to make the choice. I hope Aditi does not demand pictures of her on a tricycle when she grows up!

Bindis and the litle lady

2009-09-08T11:52:00.000-07:00

I love bindis. I wear them everyday - mostly the marron coloured shingar stick bindi, sometimes the small round sticker ones and occasionally fancy bindis. I love them so much that my mother never fails to pack a set of fancy sticker ones each time I leave from Chennai. I am not so fond of earrings or bangles, but bindis - they are a must for me. It seems when I was around 2 years old, I'd allow my dad to leave for work, only if he took me to the shop nearby and bought me a packet of the sticker ones everyday, and then I would proceed to stick them all over my face.
My not so little girl loves them - much more than I do. And one day she ransacked my precious belongings. She wants to wear a new one from a newer packet every day.
Every morning, after her shower, she would wait patiently for me to dress her up and then open my dressing drawer, pick a new bindi and stick it on her face. And when it did not settle in right, she would ask me to put it 'properly' for her. By the time I picked her up from the nursery in the evening, they would no longer be on her face and she would have binned them during the day. I watched with agony as my lovely collection of the red stickers diminished. I was thinking of probably hiding my collection and only leaving a few for her, but I knew that would not work. She would 'demand' for the new packets.
Thankfully, as with all things at her age, the interest only lasted a short while and now, she no longer wants them. Occassionally, she wants the one on my face, but since mine is usually done with the shingar stick, it cant be removed and stuck on hers! One another reason to have(or not have) a daughter..

Ganesh Chathurthi

2009-08-28T03:09:00.000-07:00

A trip to Birmingham:
On Saturday the 3 of us readied ourselves for our first ever long journey in the new BMW - a visit to the famous Balaji temple in Dudley. It is the biggest hindu temple in the UK. We had arranged for an abhishekam that morning around 10AM. So we left home around 7:45. The drive took us around 2 hours - we would have reached faster had itn ot been for the road works and the slow speed zone for quite a distance. Fifteen minutes on the road and Aditi wanted to get down or go to her nursery and be deposited with her keyworker. She did not like being tied down to the carseat and we sang many nursery rhymes to keep her busy. She insisted on sitting on my lap, which was forbidden anyway by lay in this country. She tried to sleep but the morning sun kept disturbing her! We reached exactly two hours after we left, made our way to the reception,completed formalities and payments and went upstairs to the actual sannidhi. The curtain was drawn, so we had a quick darshan of the other dieties and sat down for the curtain to rise. Aditi was extrememly excited with the darshan of monkey-god. She's been watching Ramayan on NDTV Imagine and is very fond of Hanuman. The abhishekam started around 10am and Aditi kept asking various questions while each liquid was being poured. She looked at the idol who was well oiled and said - 'Swami crying' - The oil appeared so to her and she wanted to know why Swami was crying. She wanted to have milk when the paal abhishekam was performed. She patiently waited until all the abhishekams were performed. And enjoyed placing flowers near the kumbham. While we waited for the Lord to be decorated, we went around the other dieties - Ganesha, Muruga and Navagraha temples. We were fortunate to also take part in the Vishwa Santhi homam and perform Deepa pooja for world peace. Aditi and I made a quick trip to the car for a snack and we all went back to the main temple for the Managala arthi. The place was extremely crowded, being a saturday and after the arthi, we got special abhishekam prasadam and more laddus for friends and neighbours.There's a little tent behind the main temple where lunch is served on saturdays. Here we met one of my college mates, who volunteers at the temple every week. He recognized me and we quickly exchanged contact details. Aditi enjoyed the lunch - rice, sambar, moong curry and kesari. We posed for a few pictures near the ranganathar temple, where a fountain has been set up. Had a quick tea at the famous Dosa stall and started our drive backhome. Aditi slept throughout the journey, which meant I enjoyed the ride back, listening to old time classics on the iPod.
Ganesh Chathurthi:We went shopping for groceries late on saturday night and returned with three bags of goodies. After sorting them all out and cutting veggies for the next morning, I quickly decided on the menu. We had invited a couple of people over for lunch on sunday. I got started on the lunch preprations after sorting out breakfast and before nine am was done with most part of the cooking. Then came the cleaning. Prashanth joined in and we made the house look presentable. After a quick shower, I proceeded to arrange the pooja with all my Ganesh murthis. Prashanth gave Aditi her shower and they chose a pink and purple dress to wear for the occassion. We also celebrate Gowri puja, a practise I started only five years ago and Aditi happily helped me pick flowers from the garden and place it(Well, she played with the rose petals dipping them in water). We then tied the sacred yellow thread and I recited a few slokas. Then comes Ganesh pooja. We took a little break, I started making the modaks(which unfortunately did not turn out as nice as they did last year!) and we offered the same to Ganesha. All done and ready by 1, we waited for our guests to arrive. They made us wait longer than expected and arrived fianlly by 2:30pm.I gave Aditi her lunch and we finally had ours around 3pm. Too late by our standards... Anyway we had a nice time until about 5 pm and they left home. Aditi was excited to have people around her and wanted to know why the aunty could not stay with us for ever. She went off to play on her bicycle later with her two older friends who live in the same estate.

Krishna Janmashtami

2009-08-14T12:45:00.000-07:00

Janmashtami this year did not have any of the funfare it held in the last few years in our household. The year Aditi was born, we dressed her up as Krishna and last year as Radha, but this year I made no such effort. I could blame partly on the Swiss trip that had left me completely exhausted and we arrived just a day earlier. Or I could use another excuse that the internet told me it was on friday and I thought I had a day to 'prepare' for the festival, and found out on the previous night that it was on thursday and not on friday. But they are lame excuses I know very well. I had no plans to make any kind of sweet preparation this year, because we are both on a low calorie diet and Aditi does not like sweets. I had planned it to be a simple affair right from the start. No sweets or savories, just milk, curd, butter and aval I thought to myself.
But the Lord had other plans. I got up early that morning and Aditi woke up with me, so we finished all our morning chores well in time and had lots more time on our hand. Rather than settling with her book on the couch, I decided to do the padams with the freshly prepared dosa batter from the previous night. Drew a simple kolam outside and little padams all the way upto the pooja shelf. Aditi helped me by walking carefully around the little padams.She was fascinated by them to say the least. More time left, so I decided to do up the pooja shelf. A freshly blossomed tulip was plucked and offered to the little krishna statues. A little prayer was said and a bhajan sung and we left for our repsective locations to spend the day. On our way back, I picked some fruits and more flowers. The best part of this celebrations is that we can delay the festival until midnight, so I was in no hurry. After sorting out our dinners, I arranged the neivadyam plate with little cups of butter, milk and curd. We made a simple mixture of aval, vellam(jaggery) and pottu kadalai and offered it all to the lord along with some fruits. The daddy was back and he joined us in our celebration. And thus ended janmastami this year. Aditi still walks carefully around the padams, and instructs us not to stamp on them.
A part of me still thinks I should have made something sweet for little Krishna, but I think i'll make up for it by making something nice for Ganesh Chathurthi, especially since it falls on a weekend.

Dreaming of BIG cars

2009-07-18T15:42:00.001-07:00

When I was young, I was fascinated by the big cars that were parked outside my house when my uncle visited. He held one of the top ranking jobs and was provided with brand new huge cars every few years - and it had all the gadgets that would make our jaws drop. Twenty years ago they were still a novelty - to have a radio, a casette player which mostly played bhajans or carnatic music, perfumed air freshner, electric window buttons controlled centrally etc... and my cousin and I would examine each car in great detail, play for a bit with the gadgets if the driver let us to and secretly desire to possess such cars when we grew up. When we were about 13, my uncle arrived in a new CEILO car, and we took an instant liking to this one. It was a cream coloured one, a much better replacement of the old grey estate vehicle which could comfortably carry 8 heads. And the cousin, a year younger to me, came up with this idea to buy a black CEILO car and take my grandparents around in it. So we started saving money - honestly - we put away all the money we got for Pongal, Diwali and such like for over four years, not spending a penny more than what we needed and earning more money doing odd jobs. That was nowhere near the cost of the car, but we learnt our lessons on financial management which came in handy when we had to leave home many years later. And slowly the CEILO fever faded away. I think we used the money to buy clothes and jewels for a cousins wedding. By then our parents had newer cars and dreaming of big cars did become a reality. When I started driving one myself, I realized that the car was just another means of transport to get from Point A to Point B. Fast forward to life after marriage and settling down in the UK, we bought a little Skoda silver grey car, which remained our loyal companion for the last 3+ years. I started driving this vehicle only recently(thanks to an accident during college that shattered my confidence for a long time) and soon decided that it was time for a change. My eyes were set on a BMW or a Merc and I begged and pleaded with the husband to go for a change. It was agreed that if he cleared his fellowship exams, we would buy a new car. Thankfully, he's now a Fellow(of the Royal College) and the hunt for a car began almost immediately. After looking around and researching, we realized that the best vehicle for our kind of use would be a BMW. Few more doubts on whether to go for a manual or an automatic transmission were cleared after a couple of test drives. And we brought home a sparkling graphite coloured BMW, much to my joy. I can't thank the husband enough for fulfilling my desire to ride a BMW. It had been a long time dream to own and drive one .Here I present to you all our newest member...

Nursery Rhymes

2009-06-10T13:32:00.000-07:00

For a very long time, Aditi was uninterested with the telly. I was not too disappointed, for I am not a fan myself, although the daddy loves the black box. I was glad that the addiction to TV was limited to one member of the family. We bought a nursery rhymes DVD on our previous India trip and I have tried to get Aditi's attention once in a while. But she would never respond and all my efforts were in vain. Her interest remained in the two dozen books that form her mini library at home.A couple of weeks back, I picked up a nursery rhymes book from the library. Our library allows us to pick 15 books on the child's card, with no penalty for non-renewals, and we make full use of it. We usually have atleast ten to twelve books from the library all the time at home. And the rhymes book became her favourite - at breakfast, dinner and sleep time. She'll usually pick an object to take with her to bed - usually a book or a doll or even a pen or her watch. And for a while now, it’s been this nursery rhymes book. So the other day, I tried my luck again with the DVD and suddenly her eyes were glued onto the TV. she was watching every action, trying to imitate them and sing along to every rhyme - half of which she's never heard before. She was so absorbed that she did not notice me leave the room and that’s something for she ALWAYS follows me wherever I go. And I'm extremely glad that this has finally caught her interest.Advantages: I don’t have a little lamb following me around the house. Milk and dinner are done at a superfast pace when watching this DVD. Usually getting her to finish her milk is a very BIG problem. The freedom of not having to sit with her and entertain her all the time is making me happy. And she's learning to sing the rhymes properly(with the tune and the words) and is excited about it.Disadvantages: The only thing so far is dad cannot watch his favourite programmes and the nursery rhymes is the only thing that gets played repeatedly on the telly when the little girl is around. May be I should move the DVD player upstairs and get Aditi to use the smaller TV.

The Domestic Horrors Tag

2009-06-04T14:24:00.000-07:00

I love my home and love to cook and serve my family even more. I have lived for most part of my life with my grandparents and there were huge family gatherings all the time, so I am used to the hosting business and continuous flow of guests at home. Except for the occasional lack of salt in a dish or sugar in the tea, I cant really think of kitchen experiences.
And just as I finished typing the last line, I remembered this incident. Aditi was about 8 months old and I had kept dal in the pressure cooker. It was the small 3 litre Hawkins one, so we just put the dal or rice straight into the cooker and add water. Not in a separate vessel as is usally the case with a bigger cooker. And I washed the dal, closed the lid, placed it on the stove and carried on with whatever I was doing - domestic chores. After about 20 minutes, I smelt plastic burning. Thats when I reliazed that I had not added any water to the dal! And the safety valve got burnt i n the process. Since this was an aluminium one, it was not so difficult to clean....
Another one was with the washing machine five years ago. We had just moved into Belfast and ours was a washer only WM. There was no dryer and we had to dry the clothes in the balcony on a line, fasten it with pegs. I switched on the machine at night and since it takes a while, I went off to sleep. Usually the next morning, I would pull the clothes out and take them to the balcony. That day was no different or so I thought and opened the washing machine. Out came buckets and buckets of water. Soemthing went wrong - I dont remember the details, but I spent a good one hour trying to clean my water-logged kitchen. Thankfully the kitchen was not carpetted and had vinyl floors, so I could easily clean it up.

Feeel free to take up this tag and let us know of your domestic horros.

It is called 'Aditi' talk

2009-06-04T13:55:00.000-07:00

It feels great when your little one starts talking - properly in sentences - in a language not just understood by the mom and dad, but by everyone. Until about 18 months Aditi was happy to 'point and talk', and I almost always seemed to understand what she said. That was a huge relief compared to the initial months when crying was the norm always. Thanks to her nursery, she started speaking in sentences pretty soon. And for a while now, she can have a complete conversation and be pretty much understood by everyone around her. She learns new words everyday. And is extremely happy to use them in her sentences.
Rather than just saying the word aloud, she usually likes to say "It is called xxxx". And she can understand every word of what we speak in my mother tongue. She still finds it difficult to make sentences and use them in my language, which is not what I wanted, but I think as long as she can understand and respond to what we speak, it should be okay for now. I'll gradually build up her confidence and slowly get her to speak in my language.
Continued after 2 weeks....
I'm usually greeted with a 'I dont like this Amms' or a 'I dont want this Amma' especially when I go near her with a cup of milk. What is it that happens to kids when the transition from bottle cup takes place? My child loved her bottle. That would actually be an understatement. She loved the bottle so much that it took me almost five months to make her give up her bottle completely. I managed to completely wean her away from the bootle only when she was about two years old.
And back to the point of talking, books are her favorite. They have always been so. And she now reads sentence(more so recites them from memory) from every single book around the house. Its good that we can borrow upto 15 books from our local library on her card. We make full use of it. Evenings are spent reading every page of all the books. And books give her company during breakfast, lunch and dinner. Literally every meal that she has at home will be with the help of books.
And the pram has been bid goodbye. For almost two months, we have been walking to and from the bus stop. On rare occasions when its raining heavily, we use the pram. Otherwise its walk or carry. The 'carrying' bit is not so often, except when she sees a dog or cat too close to her for comfort or on days, when she's really tired. And I gladly oblige. We do the typical mother-daughter thing and chat on our way to and from the bus stop - about everything we see on the road - the cars, birds, other children playing in the compound/pavement, the occasional biker, just about everything. The only problem is that I can no longer do any shopping at lunch time and safely out the bags away in the pram basket. Since we already have enough bags to carry aka my office bag, her nursery bag and Aditi herself, shopping at lunch time has come to a standstill! But I do enjoy walking and chatting with my little girl. Reminds me of the time when I would drive my mom around.
I finally managed to change the header, since the summer has finally arrived in Sheffield.

India Trip - Part 2

2009-04-24T15:34:00.000-07:00

We had about 90 minutes transit time, comfortable enough to change terminals in Paris and get through the security checks. But as soon as we got off the flight, we were stranded on the escalator(thankfully it was stationary), because our doors into the airport, from the gate where we had landed were locked. A stressful 45 minutes later, the doors were unlocked and we landed at our terminal/gate bang on the flight departure time. I was not alone, about a dozen of us were to board the Chennai flight from Paris, so we had a good time while waiting on the escalator and at the shuttle bus stop.This delayed our flight, which finally took off an hour after the actual departure time. Aditi slept from time to time, played for a while, walked a lot, drank about 6 glasses of juice in 10 hours and was not as troublesome as I had imagined.
At Chennai airport, Aditi stayed put beside me, while I collected our baggage. My eyes searched for my parents as I wheeled the trolley out of the terminal and it was easy to spot them. The reunion was the best - it was the first time that I landed in Chennai in five years and it was a huge relief to have reached home.It took a couple of days for Aditi to get used to the many people in our house, but soon she was ordering people around - thatha, pati, big pati and ayyaamma(our maid). Aditi met her great grandmother - my mother's mother who happened to be staying with my parents. She took to my father like a fish to water, but gave her 'orakanna parvai' at her pati. As she kept calling 'papi', my mother taught her to say Ammamma. It was so cute to see her go Amm-amm-amm-amm-ma.
We have a huge old-style teak swing that adors the living room at home. Much like a fireplace in this country, which is usually the focal point of most living rooms.Aditi loved this swing and enjoyed the to and fro motion. We went shopping to T-Nagar, visited the 'must-go-to' shops on Usman Road, called on friends and relatives and ade a 5 day trip to Bangalore to meet Aditi's other set of grandparents. She was pampered everywhere we went and I should agree that she was well-behaved most of the tim. She would normally take baout 5 minutes to settle in a new place and then enjoy the comapny of those around her.
Unlike last time, when she suffered from various immune attacks, this time was much better. A mosquito bite, turned into an infection and spots appeared at various places. There are a few scars that are yet to go away. She loved the fact that she couldpick the receiver and talk anytime with whoever she desired, unlike here where the phone is placed 5 feet above the ground.
But the look on her face was priceless when she met her dad at Manchester airport. It was a wonderful reunion and I wish I had recorded the conversation for posterity. All-in-all an enjoyable two weeks and a well deserved break for me and my little one.

The pregnancy tag

2009-04-24T15:18:00.000-07:00

1. WAS YOUR PREGNANCY PLANNED?
Sort of.

2. WERE YOU MARRIED AT THE TIME?
Yes.

3. WHAT WERE YOUR REACTIONS?
Extremely excited and was thinking of how the father-to-be would react when I tell him the news.

4. WAS ABORTION AN OPTION FOR YOU?
No way.

5. HOW OLD WERE YOU?25

6. HOW DID YOU FIND OUT YOU WERE PREGNANT?
Home Pregnancy Test. Although I had the idea to buy one only on the way back home that day.

7. WHO DID YOU TELL FIRST?
Prashanth, followed by mum.

8. DUE DATE?
12 February 2007.

9. DID YOU HAVE MORNING SICKNESS?
Yes, until the 20th week.

10. WHAT DID YOU CRAVE?
Kanja manga, kanja narthanga.

11. WHO/WHAT IRRITATED YOU THE MOST?
Nothing really.

12. WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST CHILD'S SEX?
Girl.

13. DID YOU WISH YOU HAD THE OPPOSITE SEX OF WHAT YOU WERE GETTING?
Nope, but would have if the first one had been a boy!

14. HOW MANY POUNDS DID YOU GAIN THROUGHOUT THE PREGNANCY?
10 Kilos.

15. DID YOU HAVE A BABY SHOWER?
Yes, arranged by us with friends/cousins as guests

16. WAS IT A SURPRISE OR DID YOU KNOW?It was the traditional ceremoy and I had not seen one myself, so had to go about doing things by asking mom/in-laws.

17. DID YOU HAVE ANY COMPLICATIONS DURING YOUR PREGNANCY?
No.

18. WHERE DID YOU GIVE BIRTH?
Blackburn, UK

19. HOW MANY HOURS WERE YOU IN LABOR?
Approx. 7 hours

20. WHO DROVE YOU TO THE HOSPITAL/BIRTH CENTER?
Husband, with mom by my side.

21. WHO WATCHED YOU GIVE BIRTH?
Husband and mom.

22. WAS IT NATURAL OR C-SECTION?
Natural.

23. DID YOU TAKE MEDICINE TO EASE THE PAIN?
No.

24. HOW MUCH DID YOUR CHILD WEIGH?
2.8 kg (6.3 pounds)

25. WHEN WAS YOUR CHILD ACTUALLY BORN ?
8th Feb 2007.

26. WHAT WAS YOUR REACTION WHEN THE DOCTOR ANNOUNCED THE SEX OF THE BABY? We knew about the sex, so was eagerly waiting to see my little angel.

27. WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST REACTION ON SEEING THE BABY?
Relieved that the labour phase was finally over. Was thrilled to see the baby that grew within me.

28. DID YOU CRY?
No!

29. WHAT DID YOU NAME HIM/HER?
Aditi

30. HOW OLD IS YOUR FIRST BORN TODAY?
2years, 2months, 2weeks, 2days(Incidentally!)

Feel free to take up this tag. I'm not sure if ther's any blogging mom out there, who's not already completed this tag.

The Burn

2009-04-09T14:54:00.000-07:00

Aditi had an accidental burn last Saturday. It was close to her nap time on a cloudy Saturday afternoon. We were planning to go out and I had dressed her up in her coat and shoes. I had packed her milk cup in my handbag, which was unfortunately left on the dining table. And I was wearing my own socks and shoes. Suddenly I hear the sound of the cup falling down and turn around to se the little girl bathed in milk almost. Hot milk trickling down her chin. And the girl let out her loudest cry. I quickly splashed water on her face and neck, but her winter jacket was in the way and by the time I removed her jacket and two layers of clothing and rushed her to the bathroom for more spraying of water, the damage had been done. Her chest and neck were badly burnt. But we did not realize it, for she was tired and sleepy and in pain!
I put her to bed and when she woke up, found a few blisters on her skin. We rushed her to A&E, and they put a huge bandage around her chest and shoulders. The little girl was irritated with her bandage. But thankfully I had to gaurd her for only a couple of days, as we had another appointment on tuesday and the doctor asked for the bandage to be removed. The burnt skin is now drying up and we were told that there would be no permanent scars, although the healing process would take a while.
Praying that the little girl does not have to suffer much - as I have been informed about the itching during skin regrowth. Do you have any advice to keep the itching at bay? And to hasten the healing process? She has been prescribed E45 mositurizing solution to be applied four times daily. I have been asked to try coconut oil as well. If you know aof any other remedies, please advice.

India Trip - How it happened

2009-04-01T14:25:00.000-07:00

It was the middle of February when I was informed that I had to take all my holidays by the end of March. There were still 14 days left and only 3 days could be carried forward to April. I had booked a week's leave in March. It started after a casual conversation at lunch time with a colleague, who said that flight tickets to India were really cheap at this time of the year. That night the thoughts of making a short trip to India took shape in my mind. We discussed and argued over it and finally Prashanth gave me the green signal. There is something special about an India trip and more if its an unexpected trip. Your mind is flooded with happy thoughts and the current worries and troubles take a backseat. I decided to take 12 days off. The next couple of days were spent in convincing my manger to grant me the holidays. Tickets were booked and it was the lowest price I have ever flown in the last five years. If I had planned a month in advance, I would have only paid 10 percent for Aditi's ticket as opposed to the 75 percent that I had to shell out as she was over two years. But when its a holiday to India, these things hardly matter. I spoke to my mother to take a week off from work and strangely although it was March and annual year end, Amma was granted a week's holiday(Amma is a bank manager, so the leave was a true bonus). Slowly things fell into place and I concentrated on the shopping and packing.
Shopping for gifts is something I love doing. A bit of retail therapy is always welcome. So I spent shopping for everyone in the immediate family and three babies whom I'll be meeting for the first time. I have been away from home for longer than 2 weeks, but this time, I was torn between wanting to visit India and having to leave Prashanth alone here. I tried as much as possible to make his cooking/cleaning less difficult. Packing was a simple affair, all I did was pack some cotton sleeveless dresses for Aditi and a couple of salwar suits for me.I was going home and I could wear the ones at home - that remain unused for most part of the year.
At work it was a different affair. The week before I left was very hectic as it always is. I promised to respond to mails when necessary and kept up at it. We were to board an early morning flight on Thursday morning from Manchester. The flight and how Aditi enjoyed her stay at Chennai and Bangalore to follow.
(To be continued...)

The real birthday

2009-02-13T13:51:00.000-08:00

In my hurry to hit submit, I forgot to mention about the real birthday. We had been to a party the previous day and came back exhausted; so went to sleep early. By 3 am the next morning, both Prashanth and I were up and excited about Aditi's birthday. Prashanth had still not got back to normal sleeping patterns after a busy week of nights, so we had nothing much planned for the day except a special lunch at home and just being together. After all birthdays hardly come on sundays, especially when Prashanth is not working.

The little girl woke up by 7 am unaware of the excitement of her parents. We wished her and sang the birthday song for her. A short while later, wishes came pouring in from both sets of grandparents in India, from her aunt, cousin and uncle in Dubai and from some more relatives and friends. After breakfast, I gave her a shower and dressed her up in the pattu pavadai that she had worn for her first birthday. She was too happy to be decked up all bright and red; and kept calling otu to her dad to come and admire her. Dad came over, armed with camera in hand and she posed for some of her best pictures.

Soon our neighbour came over to wish her with a huge gift, an automatic cycle with a gear box, that moved by the press of a button. As with anything in this country, it had to be assembled and our neighbour and Prashanth sat down with the hammer and screwdrivers. Aditi was extremely co-operative, waited for the pieces to be put together and sat on it. Alas! it worked only backwards. It turned out to be faulty. So we trie changing batteries, but still no luck. We got it exchanged later in the week and Aditi now enjoys her cute geared cycle.

We spent the rest of the day at home and Aditi changed in all about 7 dresses that day and I gave in bcos I did not want to make the poor girl cry on her special day. We went out for our usual grocery shopping and enjoyed a cake roll. Simple, yet relaxing was how we celebrated her second birthday.

The second birthday

2009-02-09T13:15:00.000-08:00

The little girl celebrated her second birthday at her nursery two days before the actual day. The birthday itself was on a sunday, so we decided to throw a party on friday at her creche. I took half a day off and Prashanth had just finished his week of nights, so was free to join us around tea-time. I shopped for the cake and other nic-nacs to take to the nursery and reached about 5 minutes before 3PM. Aditi was having a nap, and her care-taker suggested we set the table up. I was hoping that Aditi'll be delighted to see us, but she was upset to be woken up and took over 10 minutes to settle down, get changed and finally shyed away when we had to cut the cake.

The rest of the children went over to wash their hands, and then quitely sat on the little table and chairs arranged for them. And there was no quarelling/fighting over seats, no shouting and all eyes eagerly set on the cake. One of her carers offered to take pictures, so Prashanth joined us for the cake cutting ceremony. I was busy cutting the rest of the cake and placing them on the paper plates, almost forgot that I had to give Aditi a plate as well, until she asked for it herself. We had some mini-bites, cornpuffs and McVites mini biscuits apart fro mthe birthday cake. The kids enjoyed themselves and asked for more helpings, the popular choice of one and all being cornpuffs. After some milk/juice, the kids looked happy and content.

The staff then escorted the children to the wash room and cleaned up the tables. We then picked up all the bits and pieces, and headed home. The best part of this simple party was Aditi enjoyed being among her folks and I enjoyed the party rather then running around attending guests. Now for some pictures.....

Christmas and New Year

2009-01-28T13:38:00.000-08:00

Last year Christmas fell on a Thursday and we got 4 days off. The nice thing about this year was Prashanth was not working, except on Christmas day, so we enjoyed the long weekend. When I asked my colleagues at work, what Christmas meant to them, they said it was the time to meet friends and family. It really seemed so this year for us. On Christmas day, me and Aditi went over to the famous Balaji temple at Birmingham, along with a friend, chatting happily on our 2-hour journey. Prashanth was working that day, so he could not join us. At the temple, we met Prashanth's cousin and family, who were travelling to Scotland and stopped on their way for a quick darshan(and free lunch). It was a surprise, for neither of us knew about each other's plans to visit the temple. We had wanted to meet them for a while, but on our recent trip to London, they were away in India. And all plans to go to London would be scrapped off even before we could think about it. We caught up on all the latest happenings in the family and after lunch, headed back home. I had packed Aditi's rice and dal, but she surprised me by eating the sambar sadam that was distributed for lunch at the temple. We headed back home and Aditi slept throughout the journey. Our friends dropped us at our place and I served them dosa and chutney with the previous day's sambar - as a thank you for the trip. So typically as on Christmas day, we met family and had friends home for dinner.
On Boxing Day, we went over to Kettering to visit a couple of my school friends. We wanted to take Aditi to meet more children of her age and she enjoyed that evening with the friends's children. The four kids had fun playing train, reading books, and basically playing with every possible toy that they could lay their hands on. Aditi tried the kids' goggles and was very happy. She was excited to find people as small as her and not having to pull mummy and daddy into her games. I was delighted to find her enjoying the company of her new friends - in contrast to what I had imagined - she wasn't shy at all. We left the next day and were supposed to visit Leicester, a typical Indian(gujarati) city, but the traffic out on the motorway made us change our plans and we drove straight home. As usual Aditi slept during the return journey, only to wake up when we pulled into our driveway.
And we shopped on sunday looking for deals to buy a flat screen 42 inch plasma TV, making maximum use of the winter deals.(A 40 inch Sony LCD TV is now the focal point of our living room!)

PS: This was started long ago , and was left midway. Managed to complete and hit Submit today.

Nursery update

2009-01-25T07:16:00.000-08:00

2008 wasn't a great year for us, and a bitter disappointment in December, made it worse. We tried to cheer up by visiting friends and meeting family over the Christmas weekend. And Prashanth was working on New Year's eve, so me and Aditi rested at home. There's been lots of things happening with the little girl at home. She's been talking in small sentences and imitating what we say and do. She's trying to string a few words together and is aiming to make proper sentences.
At the nursery, she's moving from the baby room to the toddler room where she'll meet many two to five year olds, and to make the transition easy, the staff have been taking her to the toddler room every now and then to make her familiar with the surroundings. She's been enjoying herself there and is learning to sing new rhymes everyday. Action rhymes are still her favorite and new dance moves are always tried out. Every evening we are treated to a little performance by the little girl, dancing and singing all by herself, sometimes just dancing to the music on the telly.
Aditi loves shopping and picks up anything that she sets her eyes on and expects to be bought. Her love for new shoes and dresses, even at this age is really alarming. She would happily wear the new dress and shoes even before we deposit the shopping bags on the floor. Her present craze is a new knee high boot, which is being worn even at sleep-time!! At supermarkets, she walks nad randomly picks up toys and quitely places it in the shopping trolley. Of course, we scan for her items and promptly remove them before we hit the cash counter. And one day while we were shopping, I noticed a new toy while we were waiting in the queue. I assumed Prashanth might have picked it up, but turned out that Aditi had herself chosen the toy.
This one loves her books. Her favorite is the farm book - My first farm, where she points out and indicates the various animals and her babies, fruits and vegetables. This also lists the various dairy farm products and different types of tractors and so on. Counting has taken on a new turn. Previously she would count up and down the steps randomly from one to ten, starting at four and finishing at eight. She's improved now and counts in an orderly fashion.
While on the bus, she loves to point to other buses and cars on the road and draw my attention to it. A few weeks to go for her second birthday and we plan to have a prty at her nursery and spend the day at Weston Park .
Will try to be more regular this year with updating my blog.

Happy Xmas

2008-12-24T14:31:00.001-08:00

Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy and Healthy New Year.

Snow outside and inside

2008-12-03T07:52:00.000-08:00

Its winter and that time of the year when a white layer on the road greets us every morning. A couple of days back, I was showing Aditi the thin layer of snow that appeared outside our home. I was busy getting breakfast ready in the kitchen, when the child decided to create her own snow inside. Here's what she did:

She picked up the salt shaker from the dining table and went across to the living room sofa to create her own patterns with the white salt. I was shocked to see the damage done to my sofa, but took some pictures to post it here. Aditi is not usually very naughty, but is in that stage when she wants to explore everything and this uppu kolam(rangoli with salt) was one of her experiments.

Have you had any such experiences? How do you handle it? Do you get frustrated especially because it happened during the early morning rush, when time is a constraint always? Take a moment and leave me a comment.

The car driving test

2008-11-26T12:51:00.000-08:00

I have been learning to drive in this country for over a year(Does that sound too long? Not much if you consider that we are on our own here, and Prashanth works on weekends, so I only get to go when he's at home to take care of the child. Minus the 6 week long vacation to India and a total of 8 weeks off from my instructor on various holidays). I managed to take about 32 lessons when my intructor declared that I was ready to give the test. So I booked the test and awaited the grand day eagerly. We were to have an hours practise before the test and I wasn't too bad during this session. We then went to the test centre, waited for the examiners to arrive.
An elderly examiner came and called out my name. I had requested my instructor to come along with me during the test(this is optional). After the usual eye-check tests, we walked out to the car. I checked with the examiner if my instructor could accompany us. In the car, I was asked a few safety questions about the car(which I had memorized from the book) and then we started. The test itself lasted longer than usual for about 55 minutes. I was told it would be around 35-40 minutes. The test was really difficult going by normal standards as we hit around a dozen or more major roundabouts, hit the motorway twice and drove at around 70mph, went through the dual carriageways(@60 mph) and I thought I would almost fail the test, when I had to turn right at the roundabout, and a long queue of cars were coming from the right. I simply could not move to the right lane, but at the last moment, I somehow managed to squeeze in. Another one that I thought was a major mistake, which turned out to be a minor one was stalling. We were on a slope waiting at a pedestrain signal and when the lights turned green, the car in front of me stalled. It took me a while to realize and I stalled right behind him. I chose the test just after lunch around 2:30 when I thought the roads would be reatively quiet, but that day seemed quite the opposite. I also had to stop twice for school patrols, and wait for children to cross the road. We finally returned to the test centre and I waited for the examiner to reveal the result. I was shocked and surprised when he remarked that "I am pleased to tell you that you have passed the test". I wasn't sure if I had heard it right, but was grinning from ear to ear. After completing a few more formalities/paper-work, I got out of the car and my driving instructor congradulated me. I still could not believe my ears, but kept questioning my instructor, who remarked that all my blunders were minor and although I was not satisfied with the test myself - it was definitely not one of my best trips - I have passed the driving test. Yaaay!!!

Pa's birthday

2008-11-26T12:48:00.000-08:00

This year Pa's birthday fell on a sunday. And the best part was he was not working - long day or night and was very much at home. So we got to enjoy the day. It fell on the day after our trip to London, so we were pretty tired. Me and amma woke up as usual and went about with our breakfast. Then amma asked me to wake up Pa - as is usually the norm on weekend mornings. She also brought this lovely musical birthday card and gave it to me to gift it to Pa. I opened the card to see what the huge smile on amma's face meant and was pleasantly surprised to hear the 'Happy birthday' song. Amma had been preparing me for over a week about Pa's birthday, but I was only interested in singing the birthday song to myself. Pa as expected was all smiles when he heard the song , jumped out of bed and called everyone at home and told them about my special gift. The cute thing about the card was that 'Zappy' sings the song. And the third line goes Happy Birthday from ....Zappy, which sounded so much like my name that Paa thought that we had somehow added my name into the card. So there goes my gift to Paa this year - sponsored by mom of course. Amma made the usual payasam and a typical sunday meal. Then we went out to get some chocolate and strawberry cake rolls for Paa and his friend who had come home that day. I thoroughly enjoyed the choco cake, but did not like the strawberry one. Plans to dine out at restaurants have been banned by mom until I am a little older cos I give her such a hard time that she cannot enjoy her meal!! I spent a lot of time playing with Paa and generally having fun which was nice.

Party time in London

2008-11-20T11:48:00.000-08:00

Lets blame it on work that this blog has not seen any updates for many weeks. About a month ago, one of my cousin called me to say that his daughter's birthday party was planned for the second weekend in november . Although London is only about 200 miles from Sheffield, we hardly go out to London, unless our presence is mandatory. We had not met them for over a year and so decided to make this trip and enjoy the party. This post is about an interesting day spent at London partying and lots of eating and generally having fun.
Me and Aditi left on Friday night for the capital city(Why Prashanth did not join us is another story).I was expecting Aditi to sleep after a long day, but I was terribly wrong for she was extremely excited. She was manageable for most part of the journey and spent the first 2 hours, chatting away to other passengers. We walked a bit and a trip to the cafe on the train was the best as she walked abt 4 compartments, stopped to talk to babies/children and others on the way. We landed in the newly built international rail station arnd 10:15pm. My cousin A, accompained by their family friend had come to pick us up. Aditi slept during the 45 minute ride on the BMW, where my cousin's wife B and her friends were waiting for us. It was past midnight when we all finally slept, tired after a long day and the journey to London.
Early next morning, around 5:30 am, I was woken up by giggles from the next room. Turned out that my cousin's child V was excited about the party and was giggling away with her friend, who had quietly slipped into bed beside her the previous night. I tried to help B in the kitchen the next morning, but Aditi kept me busy. B is a great cook, wonderful and yummy are her dishes always - one of the prime reasons why I decided to take the trip. We had rava idlis for breakfast, followed by spring rolls, aloo tikkis, rotis, palak panner, aloo matar sabzi, vegetable rice and peanut salad. I can sense mouths watering, but hold on - I had enough of them even on behalf of you.
Prashanth joined us just in time for lunch. He was not supposed to be working the previous night, but had swapped with a colleague many weeks earlier and had forgotten about it, until Monday. Hence he came over arnd noon on Saturday to London just in time for lunch. There were about 20 of us in all. Aditi enjoyed for a little while with the children, but was stuck to me like glue most of the time.
V was lovely as usual dressed in a cute Ballerina costume and playing and entertaining the others. After lunch ,there were lots of games, for children and the parents, and we had an enjoyable day. V cut the blackforest birthday cake and Aditi enjoyed the cake, eating every little piece that was on her plate. Some families left after the cake cutting and we enjoyed another round of games and had fun. This was followed by a round of tea and feeding Aditi her dinner and we left home arnd 7pm. Again A and his friend dropped us at the St.Pancreas international station, which was a good one hour drive from their home and we had a comfortable journey to Sheffield. The trip was a good change and all of us had a wonderful time at my cousin's place. Here are some pics to prove that.

Golu 2008

2008-10-25T11:59:00.000-07:00

Finished and posted it at last............
The festival of Navrathri or Dusshera is celebrated in most parts of India. This festival is unique in that its a 9 day long celebration for the Goddessess - Durga, Lakshmi and Saraswati. In TamilNadu, Navrathri is never complete without the 'Golu' or the dolls arrangment on steps. In West Bengal, its Durga Pooja when huge mud idols of the Goddessess are placed in specially erected 'pandals' and special poojas performed on the nine days.
When we were young, we would eagerly await 'Golu' for its when young and old get together and a multitude of talent is displayed.People invite friends and family for tamboolam and to visit the 'golu' in each other's homes. Most of the famous temples thesedays have grand display of Golu bommais(dolls). This festival would usually fall during the September holidays, just after the quarterly exams, so it would be a perfect way to unwind. I lived for most part of my life with my grandparents in Chennai and memories of the huge Golu linger fresh in my memory.
The previous day, our milkman(we had a cow and a calf until 1997 and drank cow's milk until then)would bring down the golu baskets from the loft and the metal steps would be brought down from the terrace room. They would be assembled using screws, nuts and bolts and the huge bales of white cloth would be used to cover the seven green painted steps. We had a huge mud idol of Durga seated on a fierce looking tiger which would always occupy the centre position on the top most step. On either side would be seated Goddess Saraswati and Goddess Lakshmi and few other tall idols. The first 3 steps would be filled with idols of Gods and Goddesses. The fourth step would usually be an Asthalakshmi set. Fifth would hold the dasavatharam. Sixth would usually be some Krishan leelas and Seventh would adorn the huge talai-attum chettair and his wife along with soem Tanjore bommais. Of the sets that would adorn the remaining part of the hall on the top floor would be a village with lots of thatched roof houses, farmers, a well and many women doing different daily chores like washing, cleaning etc. Then there would be the customary park, a temple atop a hill, a garuda sevai set, a zoo, a white cricket set, a marriage conducted in a hall, another marriage procession with the bride and groom sitting on a decorated swan shaped car, a school with a computer lab and few others that have faded from my memory. It would take us a whole day to set everything up and be satisfied at the end of it. Then would begin the trips to the local mamis to invite them for golu and get innumerable sundal packets from them.
My grandmother would usually serve lunch and give clothes away to young girls on one day and to older women on another day. We would also visit aunts and other relatives' during this season.
Fast forward to now, when I had to juggle between work, home, caring for a 20 month old toddler and looking for Golu items. A month earlier I started the preparations. I decided on what would go in each step and had arough idea of where to find them. Most of the items were charity shop finds. I contmeplated making the steps with wooden planks, but then decided to use the furniture and cardboard boxes. They were arranged and it took about a couple of hours to get everything arranged and set up the lights. Aditi was terribly sweet and really never troubled the dolls or the steps, but partly it was because I had set the Golu up in the study, rather than in the living room where she usually spends most of her time.
We had about a dozen people for tamboolam over the weekend and Aditi has totally fun. We had a wonderful time and it was soon time to pack up the dolls. So they were packed in newspapers and safely placed in cardboard boxes and carefully moved to the attic, where they will remain until the next year.

For pictures, please go to Golu in pictures

One year as a mommy blogger

2008-10-15T23:43:00.000-07:00

On the first anniversary of my blog, just as I complete fifty posts and just as many comments, I have thoroughly enjoyed the experience. There have been weeks when the blog remained neglected, but I have tried to capture most of the important instances and events in the last year. It indeed surprises me to note that I have survived a year as a blogger and not dumped this within a few months of creation. Whether I'll continue this journey,I'm not too sure. But many women across the globe have become a part of my life. I love reading other mommy blogs and have my favorties too. I think blog-hopping is a kind of relaxation. Every evening after I have completed all the chores and duties around the house, I start visiting blogs. Soemtimes they go on for more than an hour, sometimes very short, but its a part of the daily routine to read other bloggers. I wish to note down here that Mamma-Mia, who regularly comments on this blog has been a great inspiration to keep the blog going. I think tis now time to introduce a proper header and spice up this blog a bit, rather than leave it at its current simple state. Off to work on the header now.

Wagamama

2008-10-15T23:42:00.000-07:00

Its a traditonal custom at work that when any girl joins the development/testing team, we organize a girl's lunch and fire hundreds of questions at the new person(s) - by way of getting to know them. A toned down version of raging you could say. Last time we headed out to All Bar One on Leopald Street which was really nice except that they had very few vegetarian options. This time I took the initiative to organize the lunch and we headed out to Wagamama - a japanese fusion style restaurant. The super-fast service at this restaurant deserves special mention. We were a group of ten girls seated in two rows and as the waitress was taking orders on an electronic hand-held system, they were being relayed to the central system that services the orders. We had our drinks on the table within 30 seconds of placing the order. This is the fastest service I have ever had. I have plenty of slow poor service experiences, but this one takes the cake.
We placed orders for the food, but they were on our table within minutes. Not wanting to try the usual noodles, I had vegetable dumplings with sauce - five of them which was actually a side-dish, but quite filling by itself. Others ordered noodles or salad - which looked quite impressive too. One difference though was they served warm salad, which was a striking contrast to the very cold salads the locals normally prefer. They had wooden chopsticks on the table, which remained untouched by most of us. Those who chose nooddles, preferred to use the fork and spoon and not embarass themselves by trying to eat with the chopsticks. Most plates were clean which meant their food was really exceptional. I would love to go there again, but when, only time will tell.

Smart or what?

2008-10-15T23:41:00.001-07:00

Then:
When my little girl drops something on the floor accidentally or intentionally, she would remark an 'Oh-ho' which would make me go 'Not again' look - especially in the mornings when time is at stake. Probably the little girl is learning how to impress mamma when you make a mistake....
Now:
She remarks an Oh-Ho, looks straight at me and blowes kisses with a very sweet smile, that would melt rocks. All I do is smile back and request her not to do it again.(Well I know she's not going to follow, but whats the harm in saying so)Kids these days are really much smarter than the previous generation!!

Double rainbow

2008-10-14T13:47:00.000-07:00

It was one of the early autumn days. It was raining heavily during the day. One ofm y colleagues refused to go home as it was raining outside(That's quite something for me - as people usuall love to go home soon) As I was returning home, I saw a rainbow in the sky. As usual I clicked a few pictures on my phone camera. A few minutes later, I saw another rainbow in the sky, just above the first one. Leaving you with the pictures of the double rainbow that appeared in the city of Sheffield last week.

Golu '08 in pictures

2008-10-14T12:43:00.000-07:00

Here are the pictures of this year's Golu.

Write up coming soon.

My first craft project - at home

2008-09-30T11:46:00.000-07:00

Amma thinks she's smart, can keep me occupied for a while with her craft project and get her job done. We make quite a few crafts at the nursery every week and I bring them home, so amma tries to imitate them. I had other plans though. So on a sunday afternoon, after my nap, amma brings out a few chart papers, some pistachio shells, marker pens, glue, scissors and newspaper all laid out in front of me.

Amma plans to:

write something on the chart paper
spread some glue
stick the pista shells on them and
make a nameboard.

I try to:

sit on top of the chart paper. Amma shoes me away.
spread the pista shells all over the room. Amma tries to ignore me.
taste the shells. Amma pulls them away from my mouth.
spread glue on my hands, knees and face. Amma stops me just in time.
walk on the pista shells. Amma tells me to be careful. Otherwise I'd trip and fall. As if I did not know that!

So finally this is what we achieved.... If you are wondering why amma was making these pista shelled nameboards, they are to be part of the forthcoming Golu...

Bless You

2008-09-30T11:43:00.000-07:00

This morning, the little girl walked up to me and asked for 'pal'(milk). Just as she finished her milk, she stretched out her palms wide open with a grin on her face. First thing on my mind was her palm was dirty, let me grab a tissue and clean it, but no the palm was as clean as it could be. So I waited for a second, not knowing what the smile meant, then held her palm, bent down and kissed it. Turns out that was what she wanted. But the game was not over yet. She stretched the other palm. I bent down again, kissed it again and then the other palm was stretched out for a kissie. So we played this for over half a dozen times,when she lifted her head high up and sneezed. So me being me, mechanically said 'Bless you baby' and placed my hands on her head. Then the little head goes up and down again waiting to hear the 'Bless you' and would be repeated many times, until I said' Bless you baby'. I felt truly blessed to experience such joy this morning. Oh such sweetness, wish they retained it forever.

Festive Days - Part 3 - Ganesh Chaturthi

2008-09-19T14:13:00.000-07:00

This is the most eagerly awaited festival of the year - mostly to eat the lovely modaks - but also to participate in the grand preparations that precede this important festival in the Hindu calendar.When we were young, dad and I would go shopping the previous night to get the Clay Ganesha idol. My mom would instruct us time and again to bring the pure clay idol and none of the fancy colourful idols that would also adorn the market place and would wait to be picked by some happy customer. The accessories were many including the 'kodai' or paper umbrella for the Lord, the eyes(the black and red beads)the malai(garland) which was made from small purple flowers. The idol would be placed on a palagai(wooden seat) and carefully brought home. Many varieties of fruits would be offered and the shopping is completed after picking some blades of grass(arugumbil). This is used exclusively for the pooja the next day.
The next morning we would quickly bathe and start the decorations in the pooja room. We would place a small table, place the Ganehsa idol over it and decorate the Lord and His seat with all buntings. Then my mother would start the pooja, by which time we would get impatient, and wait for the pooja to end, for the prasad to be offered to the Lord. Then we would happily start our modak eating spree.
Fast forward to now, when we have to rush to work and still try and fit in whatever we can. We also celebrate Gowri Habba the day before Ganesh Chathurthi - a practise that is followed by the MIL, and hence new to me. In August we celebrated Varalakshmi pooja and now it was time to welcome Goddess Gowri. I prepared a very simple sundal for prasadam and invited a few of my neighbours for tamboolam. It was past 9:30 in the night when they left and as I went about my usual chores that night, I wondered if I'd have any energy to wake up early and prepare modaks the next morning.
I was too tired and hence got up at the usual time, got ready for work, but Aditi was still asleep. So I decided to make prasadam that evening. As I quickly refreshed my memory, by reading through Meenakshi Ammal's 'Samiathu Par' for the recipe, realization dawned on me - that the recipe was actually very simple and could be managed within 30 minutes. I quickly prepared the dough, made the filling and started making the modaks. They came in all odd shapes and I made just 11 of them. Left them in the pressure cooker, while I tended to Aditi's morning needs. It was steaming hot, when I presented it to Ganeshji for neivadyam and said a quick prayer. We left for work, leaving the modaks to cool and to be tasted later.
We returned home, and Aditi saw the plate full of white balls in front of the pooja area. I was sure she'd not like it one bit, so I happily gave her one modak in a plate and a spoon to use. The little girl carefully cut piece by piece and relished them. She finished one and wanted more. And you can imgine my joy, for this girl hated any sweets that were offered just a few weeks back(during Janmasthami) and now was enjoying my hurriedly made modaks. I was truly happy for that momentous decision to make it that morning. In all, she had about 2 and a half modaks. They came out prefect in taste, though not in shape. We then visited our neighbour, who had invited us for tea.
And we retired our Lord until next year.

Festive Days - Part 2

2008-09-07T11:02:00.000-07:00

For Part 1, please read this.

A week later it was time again, but to invite little Lord Krishna. Again memories of last year lingered - we had dressed a 6 month old Diti as little Krishna. This year too, Prashanth wanted her to be dressed as Krishna, but we settled for Radha. Preparations started even earlier this time. On Monday night, I made uppu seedai, Tuesday night - some thathais and on thursday night - vella seedais. We have grand celebrations at home for Janmashtami and one of the highlights would be the drawing of little padams(footprints) like the shape of the number '8' followed by small vertical lines on top for the fingers. We usually make the rice flour kolam maavu by adding water to rice flour and make the footprints from it.

As Lord Krishna was born at midnight, it is customary to celebrate and perform the pooja inthe evening. So the kolam is done in the evenings just before the pooja. But considering the tot at home would create a mess of the kolam before it dried off, I drew the padams during her morning nap. Surprisingly the child did not mess around, instead considerd it as 'Lakshman Rekha'. She was scared of going over it and would ask us to lift her and safely deposit her on the other side. Before the pooja, I got some aval(poha) and butter for neivadya along with the goodies prepared earlier that week.

After the pooja at home, we went to the local temple and Diti was dressed as Radha in the Rajasthani suit gifted by her grandparents.(I am hurriedly feeding her some curd before we leave for the temple).We put on her a yellow bindi to match her dress and the hairclip was removed before it could even be put on her.

What does 'Ka' mean in boddler language?

2008-09-07T10:48:00.001-07:00

Of late, the little girl has been talking quite a bit, learning new words and trying to speak in words rather than actions. But she likes to also abbreviate and get me thinking on what she exactly means.Here's an example
Ka could mean
Cat
Car
Corn
Kodu(give in Tamil)
Kaal(leg in Tamil)

Given the situation, I'm supposed to interpret the 'Ka'.Have you been in a similar situation?

Festive Days - Part 1

2008-09-05T07:36:00.000-07:00

The last few weeks have seen lots of festive celebrations and our home was no exception. It was special this year cos I could deck the little one up and get her involved(read help) in the preparations. The festive season as usual kicked off with Varalakshmi Vritham. Its not performed at my parents house and I have only started doing it after marriage. Last year, my in-laws were here and hence every pooja was performed as religiously as possible(within limitations of this country). And this year, I wanted to do at least half as much. Also we've a few friendly neighbours who are Indians and whose parents are here. So I could easily spot people for tamboolam.
Var Pooja fell on a friday and we started preparations on Thursday. We went home, cleaned and cleared on top of the chest of drawers(so it could not be reached by my little tot)and proceeded to decorate it with a kalasam and coconut. We subsititued local flowers/leaves which added a bit more colour. Then comes decorating Goddess Lakshmi which is my favorite part. We put a few necklaces and stuck them to the photo frame with turmeric and decorated the mandir area with more flowers. Food and prasdam form a very important part of any Hindu festival. Once I was done with the altar decoration, I went on to make carrot halwa that night. Woke up early next morning to make the actual prasam of kadala sundal and sarkarai pongal.
We wanted even number of dishes, so made a quick cucumber kosambri for prasadam. We then assembled for pooja and performed aarthi and neviedyam. Daddy them rushed off to work and I tried giving Diti some of the prasadam - halwa and pongal. The little girl prompty turned her head away and refused to eat anything sweet. So I fed her usual breakfast, sulked about her dislike for sweets to my mother and left for work that morning. In the evening, we had invited our neighbours(Indians from the friendly state of Karnataka) for tamboolam. The aunty was a classical singer who sang a beautiful song on Varalakshmi and we had a good time chatting for a while. The little girl was dressed in pattu pavadai and she looked so adorable.

The next day was raksha bandan or avani avittam as we call it. Basically men change their sacred thread and recite the 'Gayatri mantram'. The function itself was very simple with Prashanth doing the pooja and we simply sat around. The little girl enjoyed herself and learnt to do the namaskaram just as we do it and enjoys doing it ever so often at various places as desired.
Part 2 - Janmashtami celebrations & pics coming up soon

Oh-ho

2008-09-05T07:32:00.000-07:00

Thats a new word Diti has learnt and has been using most often. When something accidentally falls on the floor, she's quick to respond with a oh-hoh. And its so cute when a 19 month old says them. And the accent is sooo different from what I've ever heard before.There's been a lot of new words from her in the last few weeks. And she demands more independence with eating/drinking and basically every activity.
On a completely different note, she plays often with her little laptop that aims to teach her the letters of the alphabet. It has a little quiz like 'Point to the letter ... or shape ...' The quizzer tells her the the same 'Oh-ho.Try again'., when she presses the incorrect button. I'd like to think she learnt to say the Oh-ho from there although she's definitely learnt it at the nursery.

A year and a half

2008-08-19T13:05:00.000-07:00

My little one turned 18 months about 10 days ago and I decided to put up a post before it was too late. As it is I am not a regular with the monthly updates, but this is considered to be an important milestone and I do not want it to go unnoticed.
There has been a sudden growth spurt in her and she's grown so tall that her dresses no longer can keep up with her height. So we happily went shopping and ended up bringing lots of nice dresses for her. She loves climbing stairs and coming down.Only change being climbing stairs is done in adult like fashion, holding my hands and walking up like adults. And she loves it when she manages two at a time. No more crawling up the steps, its proper climbing.
She sings quite a lot of action rhymes in the nursery and her favorite is to do the 'turn around'. When we say Teddy Bear Teddy Bear turn around, she starts circling herself and it almost never stops. And then she tries to steady herself, loses her balance sometimes, only to start turning all over again.
She's getting really competitive and its always only with dad. By nature I decided that she does not like sweets for when I offered her carrot halwa prepared for 'Varalakshmi Nombu' last Friday, she rejected it. Then I tried gulab jamuns - they were refused again. But on Sunday when I gave her daddy the leftover halwa, she wanted some from his bowl and more and more. On this not again ,there's a new bean bag in the living room and dad loves to sit on it and stretch his feet. Only when the little one is not around. For even if we mention that dad is going to sit on it, she runs and jumps on to the bean bag and refuses to let daddy sit on it. If he's found sitting on it, she pushes him off and occupies her seat. On the other hand, amma can sit for as long as she wants and Aditi will sit on my lap without complain.
She loves her bus rides and gives a huge grin to the people in the bus. Only that the elderly respond is a totally different story.The rest are too worried and do not care to smile back - what will they lose I am yet to understand. Th child makes such an effort to smile at them, yet they turn their face to the window and pretend to not see her. But the oldies love her smile and respond back. They are waved good-byes and the bus driver will definitely get a happy wave and bye-bye when I wheel her pram out from the bus.Of late, amma has also been the recipient of lots of huggie and kissie - most unusual given that she never wanted to be hugged or kissed until recently. Dad gets his usual dose of flying kisses every morning and he so eagerly looks forward to it.
The little cleaner loves to use the broom, the cloth or anything - just plain tissue and act as if she's cleaning the rooms. Every thing that amma uses for cleaning - she must use them too. Sometimes gibes a clean after I'm don with it - just to make sure i have done a good job of it. She also helps me in the kitchen, by carefully picking up left over(by dad) glasses from the living room to the kitchen and depositing them in the sink. Also if appa is lazy and amma is stubborn, she happily helps amma by bringing the breakfast plate to appa in the living room and removes his plate once done.
TV does not interest her - she loves to play with the kitchen items or her own toys/ books. She's happy to read new books and loves to read Appa's medical books- top to bottom fro mend to end.I've tried to start potty training, but she shows absolutely no interest and refuses to use the potty seat. She's still happy with her nappy, so #I've given up on trying to train her now.So many things in such little time that I am sure - with my memory like a sieve - I shall forget it within a few days time and worry about not writing it down here.Wishing my little one a happy month and looking forward to celebrating all those nice festival colours.

The Engagement - II

2008-08-13T14:57:00.000-07:00

For part I please click here.

By popular demand, I am forced to write this post much earlier than my lazy self would have normally done. For those of you coming here to read some more 'masala', I am sorry folks, this is a typical girl meets boy - boy likes girl, girl says 'yes' and they unite in wedlock. But something that simple and a few words does not make a post. So shall go into further details...

So dad and I wait outside the 'boy's' house, wondering if he was living upstairs in that bungalow. But dad clearly remembered that he had mentioned no such info and so we look for a calling bell. Its quite dark and we cant really trace one, but sensing some commotion outside, the boy comes over to open the door. And I forgot to mention that prior to this actual meet, photos of the boy and girl were exchanged. I had the priviledge of opening up the envelope containing his photo(bcos mom and dad were out of town that day). I vaguely remember telling my parents that the boy is too fair and I would be no match, so we shall delay this meet. The actual reason being I was least interested in marriage, when something as nice as an onsite proposal was beckoning me with open arms. But stubborn that my parents were, they convinced me to 'atleast' meet the guy before I fled from the country.
Back to the Thursday night that we waited outside his home in Chennai, the boy dressed up in formal attire opened the door. At first sight my jaws dropped. My thoughts raced and I realized that the photo did no justice to the actual person. I saw in front of us a fair, smart guy - politely welcoming us into his living room. After intial pleasantries were exchanged, and I was less carried away by his 'looks', we discussed abt our families, his future plans, his education and much more. No we did not have a one-to-one girl-boy session as is the norm. There was no kesari, vada, mixture as is again usually the norm when the boy & his family visits the girl. But we had enough of banana chips, biscuits and juice for company. Mostly dad did the talking/questioning and he patiently answered them all. We left after probably an hour and called mom(who was away on training in Manipal) to discuss about the boy.
When we reached home, grandparents were already fast asleep, but who would not like some gossip, especially because we went to meet the boy. Grandmom got up and settled herself into a chair and my cousin S sat on the floor waiting to hear about the boy. I had literally no negatives to talk about the boy given that we never spoke to each other much, but still had to say something wrong. So here was my conversation at 10 PM with my Pati and cousin.
Me: Pati, the boy is too fair.
Pati: So what, atleast your child will be as fair as he is. And this my grandmom believed so sincerely that even when I was pregnant, she would always remark that the child will be as fair as her father.
Me: Pati, He never spoke a word in Tamil(my mother tongue). How could I marry someone who never spoke my language.
Pati: I never spoke Tamil until I was 12. Yes, my grandmom was born and brought up in Andhra Pradesh and had no knowledge of her mother tongue until she was 12. She was later sent to her aunt's place in a village in TamilNadu to learn Tamil so she could be married off.
Cousin: My bro lived all his life in Mumbai. When you listen to his Tamil, will you call him a Tamilian? We call him a mumbai wala. Language is no bar.
Me: The boy will definitely not say 'yes' to me. He's too good for me.
Pati: Thats not for you to decide. Wait until he comes back. Go and change and sleep now.We'll discuss the rest tomorrow morning.
So saying grandmom goes back to sleep and cousin goes back to her books. Its already late and I have to leave early the next day, so I dash off to catch some sleep.
The next day dawned bright and clear. Dad tells me that he's too good a boy for us to loose, so I better agree. To be honest, I found nothing wrong with the boy, so simply agreed. Just one meeting and one simple decision. Dad spoke to my in-laws and told them of 'our' decision. They very sweetly requested for some more time for their boy to give an answer.
On Saturday, mom is back from her training and we are off to finish some last-minute shopping. We are still waiting for an answer, but travelling onsite is top priority for me. That evening my mom-in-law calls home, speaks to my grandmom for a long time and finally revelas her son's decision - that he has actually agreed. My pati is excited - she tells Thatha and my cousin. Pati calls us and we are busy gliding our way through crowded Pondy Bazar. We can hardle hear Pati what with all the buzz around us, but Pati conveys the happy news to my mom, congradulates her and tells us to buy some sweets on our way back for thatha.
I can hardly digest this fact. Thousands of thoughts run through my mind. I can barely speak to my mom. We just hold hands tightly,smiling at each other and return home. The next morning I receive a call from the now familiar number and then happens our first actual conversation. I left for Germany the next day, but thanks to email and occasional chats, we 'learnt' a little more of each other.
After my return, and although we lived in the same city, we were always busy with work that we hardly actually met during courtship. And was finally united 8 months after I first met him. Incidentally August is when I first 'saw' the boy and we shall celebrate the 5th anniversary in a couple of weeks time.

PS: This is supposed to be my child's blog, so her 18 month update is WIP. Will be coming soon. So watch this space.

The engagement

2008-08-08T06:02:00.000-07:00

I have been reading quite a few of the engagement stories of late(I am reading all the old posts...) and decided to recall mine here.
I could very well be a member of Tharini's Green Sulk Club for I had the typically old-fashioned arranged South Indian marriage. It was almost a year since I finished college and joined one of the Indian software giants through the much-hyped campus placements. Like any other budding, normal software professional, I was dreaming of a trip abroad at the company's expense. Normal working hours were between 8:30 AM and 10 PM. I was working for an extremely busy project with tight deadlines that life outside work was almost nil.
In the midst of this, my aunt started the 'horoscope-matching' and look out for eliglible boys for my cousin, who was 2 years younger to me. My parents were level-headed, not too much bothered by the process. But people dont leave you alone if you are happy where you are and other relatives started pestering my parents to start looking out for matches for me. I was least bothered, given that I hardly spent much time at home. So some time in July '03, mom declared that she had placed an advertisement in the newspaper's matrimonial columns.
As an aside, we know that these ads would yield nothing, given that we had placed ads atleast half a dozen times for my older cousin in 2 years, who had her own set of demands which were never fulfilled by the so called eligible batchelors.Anyway, the ad appeared and the horoscopes poured in at my parents place. My parents selected a few that they felt were most eligible, passed them to me for 'approval' and then went on to 'talk' further with the boy's parents. Horoscopes were matched and the ones that did not were discarded. The funny things about ads/profiles which my cousin and I would laugh over -

All boys were invariably from Bay area, CF
They were always school/university toppers - yes all of them!!
Photos would always be in front of the poshest car in the car park that they never owned.
They would always be very fair(brown) and very tall(5'6") according to the parents.

Among them eligible boys were those of doctors, engineers, lawyers(!), architects, teachers, professors and what not.
Among the few that my parents finally shortlisted was a doc, working/living in Chennai(oh, what a relief. I can continue to work in the same place without having to move cities and jobs). After a few converastions with my future in-laws, it was decided that the girl-boy seeing had to be done almost immediately, for I was supposedto be leaving abroad for work within 2 weeks. So the in-laws, who are living in Bangalore decide to come to Chennai - to live with their son for a week and also finalize the match making during their trip.
Man proposes, but fate disposes, for my mother, who's a bank manager, was off for a training to Manipal in Karnataka for a week. And so the in-laws who had planned their trip to Chennai decided to postpone until mom returned. At the end of the same week, I was leaving the country not to return for a minimum of 6 months. This was an opportunity not to be lost according to the elders in the house. They declared that we finish this girl-boy viewing within the same week. But how could we do it. The boy's parents were not around, the girl's mom was away. So the only involved parties around were the girl's father, the girl and the boy.
My in-laws graciously permitted us to visit the boy - given that the boy was living alone, he could not come alone to see me at my place. But allowed us to visit him. Remember the girl is not supposed to talk to the boy before this event. So that thursday evening taking special permission to leave by 5 PM at work, I left - all dressed up for the occassion to meet the boy. Dad and I caught got in the famous Kathipara junction traffic and the 20 minute ride turned into an hour and a half. Not nice if you are getting the man to wait this long. Neway reached his house by 8 PM finally.

This is proving to be a very long one. So to be cont.....d

Walking with the pram

2008-08-04T15:53:00.000-07:00

I am a huge fan of public transport and this country has some very good links. Anyway the extremely high parking rates makes it impossible to drive to the city centre where I work. So we take the bus, I drop off the little one at her nursery, walk to my workplace and the same routine follows in the evening. Today as we were walking back from the bus stop towards home in the evening, the child got a bit upset and started humming, I think she was probably hungry.

The summer vacation has begun and the school going kids go bored.The sun outside is shining and they hang out on the pavement most of the time. Today a group of kids, about 6-8 years old were standing by the road. And they tried to imitate Aditi. Going aaaaaaa, eeeeee and all kind of sounds to be followed by Early in the morning - As if I did not understand what they really meant. I usually turn a deaf ear and a blind eye to those on the road, but today they were having fun at my child's expense and I was rather disturbed. One kid started and the rest followed and continued doing it until we were far far away. As usual, I walked off without battling an eyelid.

Why do these kids still practise racism so strongly? Its as if its in their blood and wont go away at all. On the other hand, I know of prefectly nice people, who give up their seats in the bus when they see a mother struggling with a child or baby. Anyway I was mightily upset and this kept ringing in my ears. So I decided to vent out through this outlet and get it out and done with. Children in my opinion should be taught against colour and creed, but its not to be expected in this country - who gave us our independence many years ago, but there's still a small population that thinks of us as their slaves. Some day in the future, I hope they realize their mistake and turn a new leaf...

Nursery update

2008-07-18T11:03:00.001-07:00

Its been about 4.5 months since Aditi started nursery. Full day at the nursery. And its been almost the same time since I started work at the new place. Usually I speak once or twice a week to her carer in detail about her activites during the day. This week I had updates about my little one from other carers who are usually not part of the baby room.
A couple of days ago, one of the staff told me that she's extremely friendly and a happy child. She smiles at people,says hello every morning and bids them good bye every evening as we leave the place. The mother in me was excited to learn about this. Today evening as I wheeled her pram away, I was met by her key-worker. She remarked 'You know, your little one has become so chatty. She is no longer the child who joined us in March. She's so sociable. She sings with us and loves action-rhymes'. Needless to say I was thrilled.
The baby room that Aditi goes to has a few other newer smaller babies and Aditi is happy to play along with them without harming them. This week, a new child joined the baby room and was crying so loudly. The worst was the parent did not want to leave the child alone and kept asking the staff, if he should stay longer. I instantly recalled Aditi's earliest days in the nursery. She would cry for over ten minutes and I would wait outside until she stopped. There's a small glass panel in the door and if she saw me outside, she'd point to the door and cry louder. So I'd wait near the office room for her to stop and the minutes gradually decreased. In about 3 weeks, she stopped completely. She still has favourties among the carers. She'll peep through the glass panel to see who's around every morning and will happily walk in if one of her favorite carers is on duty. Otherwise there'll be displeasure writ large on her face, but she doesn't cry these days. Her key-worker today recalled of how she liked only one particular carer in her early days and how she now plays and sings with everybody.
To give credit to the nursery, she's definitely becoming more independent and learning to play with her toys or work with her books on her own and I can peacefully do some cooking or blog-hopping. Her passion for books deserve a separate post in itself and I shall relate it another day. She dances with us or by herself and does a cute turn around. And expects me to sing every nursery rhyme exactly as her carers do. We now enjoy every moment with her and weekends are filled with fun activites - be it gardening or shopping. The mornings for some reason are lessbusy these days and we get to play quite a bit before we leave for work every morning. It's such a pleasure to see her smile and run towards me and hold my legs as I walk into the nursery every evening. Looking forward to the bank holiday weekend when we can spend a lot of time together.

Free heart surgery - Do pass this message on.

2008-07-12T13:38:00.000-07:00

The card that was never gifted

2008-07-09T13:26:00.001-07:00

It was one of those snap at each other moments and then thinking of the innumerable ways to make up by means of nice gestures or little gifts. I had the easy way out most of the time, 'cos I would dish up something really nice and would win most of the time. For him, its a bit difficult- but he would offer to do little jobs for me in the kitchen - helping pack Aditi's bag for the next day or sterilize her bottles. And we would have happily forgotten about the crazy argument. Thankfully such occasions are rare in this household.
Last week, we had one such instance and we made up, smiled at each other and got down to completing some paper-work. He was busy filling up an application form and looking for some documents. Suddenly he looked up at me and said 'Shall I show you something?'. What kind of thing could be pulled out from midst of college certificates and mark sheets. My mind raced and the immediate thoughts were it would be a photo - 10 years or so younger and proudly displaying it. But then the question was repeated and this time my heart was beating fast. Before I could collect my thoughts and ask for it , out he pulled a little piece of white envelope and showed it to me. A card it was. But my birthday is still months away and the wedding anniversary when one would usually expect gifts was over 2 months ago. So still trying to guess hard why my name would be scribbled on the envelope, I peeped into the card. Out came the most wonderful words I had read in a long time. It was apt and it was at the right time. He had won over me this time and in the most unexpected manner. Full marks to this wonderful man who timed it even superbly. This is what the card read....

FOR THE PERSON WHO SHARES MY LIFE
I want to take a little time
To tell you how I feel
We all live such busy lives these days
That it's easy to get so wrapped up in everyday tasks
That we forget the things that really matter in life.

I've given it a lot of thought lately
And I've come to realize
That what really matters in my life is you
I take for granted your many qualities
Like your affectionate ways and your tenderness
Your ability to lift me when I'm feeling down
Or simply your willingness to listen when I need to talk

I know it may sometime seem as though
I don't appreciate all these wonderful things about you
BUT I DO
And although I dont always find the time to say it
I want you to know that I love you, I need you
And I feel very lucky to have you in my life.

I was filled with emotions and tears of joy ran through my cheeks. That was the nicest thing said about me in a while. Most of the words echoed what what running in my own mind. And to know thta the person who 'shared' your life felt the same way - was really awesome.

Was this card bought the same day that it was gifted to me. Apparently not. Otherwise why would it find its place in the midst of degree certificates. To know more on the story of the card read on. About 30 months ago, yes its thirty and not three, he was on night duty and my mother wished me on a thursday - 5 days before my actual birthday - saying it was my star birthday. I passed on the message to the husband, who enthusiastically went and bought a cuddly teddy for his wife and presented it the same evening. The card was supposed to be gifted on the actual birthday. 3 birthdays passed and the gift remained hidden. Approximately a year later, the teddy found its way into the baby crib. And one evening in early July, more than 2 and a half years later, the card finally reached its recipient. And that my dear friends is when the card was destined to find its rightful place.
If you have such similar or unusual experiences, why not share it with us. Go on and leave me a comment.

My first tamil movie

2008-06-21T11:48:00.000-07:00

That title is to say my first tamil movie in a theatre after my marriage which is more than 4 years old. The much-hyped 'Universal Hero' starrer Dasavatharam was released recently and we decided rather unexpectedly to go around &watch it last night. Usually its a Saturday thta we'd go out to watch a movie(ie pre Aditi days) and this time the husband suggested that we go out on the Friday. After feeding and putting Aditi to sleep and packing her night time essentials, we ventured out with high hopes to watch the said movie. Aditi was really too sweet. She slept through out the 3.5 hours or so that we were away. Our neighbour in the movie theatre questioned us on how she slept so peacefully unmindful of the sounds...
The movie started off very well and somewhere half an hour into the movie, it seemed like all too familiar, typical tamil movie.The hero could have chosen to play say 4 roles instead of 10. It seemed all too much and the make-up wasn't up to the mark. Anybody who has watched Indian would have said that the make up was the highlight of the movie, but here it was terrible. Certain make-ups of the hero looked like an improvised fancy dress makeover. I was disappointed to say the least, after all the hype in the media, what with 10 years of research and 2 years of making, the movie definitely did not stand up to its mark or my mark.
There are 2 more posts in draft waiting for some attention from me, but I direct all the time towards the emails/responses in the SBS group, which of course has very intersting stuff happening all the time.

16 months into motherhood

2008-06-16T13:07:00.000-07:00

This is my first attempt to recall all that I have learnt from my little child in the last 16 months. You brought so much joy to daddy and me on the day I knew I was carrying you. It was a Thursday and the famous WorldCup football match between England and Trinidad and Tobago. We were sent off early from work to watch the match. Your father usually picks me up from the bus stop near the Tesco superstore, and though I reached early, I went into Tesco to do the weekly shopping. As I went past the medicine counter, somehow my eyes rested on the HPT kit and without a second thought, I bought it. We returned home, dad made some tea and I went off to wash and change. I wasn't nervous or anxious, but I was too overjoyed to say anything when I saw the pink lines on the test stick. I came downstairs, had my tea and watched the match. I was nervous about telling your father - I do not know why. I decided that if England won the match, I'll tell your father otherwise, I'll wait till the weekend. As luck would have it, England won the match and I sheepishly told your dad. He was happy and excited - which I tell you I did not expect, and went off to get some multivitamin and Santogen -that I used throughout and even after you were born. I could not wait to tell your maternal grandmom the next morning.

When you were born, I did not even know to hold you. You taught me persistence when I was struggling to feed you. You taught me to be patient as I moaned away at the long hours you were stuck to me all the time. Night times for the first 2 months were typically a nightmare - You taught me to accept the good and the bad. When we were in desperate situations, you were the ray of hope. One look at your sweet face and any problem would melt away. You taught me to smile with your sleepy-dreamy smile - when I would be all worried about your input and output. I still cannot believe you were the little baby - who looked exactly like my grandmom -with a round face and brows full of furrows - that came into my life 16 months ago.

You showed me how to hold a book upside down, vertically, horizontally and at every angle other than 'normal' and how to enjoy a book in every direction. Each of your milestone has amazed me no less and now you are onto the climbing phase - sofa/chair/tea table/bed. We were surprised to see you climb a flight of stairs on our holiday in Paris - you were 10 months old then. But now you can climb up and down - oh you are growing up so fast!

You taught me not to be lazy on a weekend - you wake up at the crack of dawn - always on time and my repeated requests to you to sleep a little longer only end up in me getting out of bed and playing with you.

When you act naughty, I try to be clam. I try not to yell at your name and many times these days, I find myself just shutting up and completely ignoring your act. I tell you that its not right to do so , but just in a normal voice. The other day, your daddy raised his voice a bit and you started weeping. You still do not like anybody - especially your daddy or me yell at you. You don't mind if we tell it in a normal voice. I have definitely learnt to be calm.

You've taught me the importance of time and to work in little batches and still play or continue my conversation with you. To be honest, I'm still working on this. I can multitask, but not with you. But I have changed from being always bound by time to work as little or much as need be. Sometimes I tell myself, I am lucky to have you bring this other side of me. These days I am a little more relaxed about everything I do.

You are choosy and picky about your food. You tell me that its okay if you ate a little less someday and that you would be alright. But me being your mommy will worry unnecessarily over the quantity that you've had. You like cheese and yogurt and would have that for breakfast,lunch and dinner. Your fascination towards cornflakes and then cheerios was very short-lived. You still love anything green - so I am happy about your food colour sense(if that's a term at all)

Recently, you taught me to dance. Oh and that scene comes to mind instantly. I remember how I was sitting on the floor trying to read a book with you and you pointed to my hands. Immediately I took them away from my lap so that you could sit. But you kept smiling and bent down to hold my hand. You lifted your left leg first and then your right and kept nodding your head at the same time. This is popularly called the 'dancey-dancey' at home and we are ever-ready to 'dance' with you dear child. But not to dance to your tunes all the time.

Your love for the mobile phone or hand-held hasn't diminished at all .You still love the phone to bits. Only now you have learnt to hold it and speak to it. You started off one day saying 'Aditi, Aditi speaking' and now you have imaginary conversations and talk a lot, most of which we are yet to comprehend. You love to go and stand near the patio doors and watch your shadow. You try to catch the shadow only not knowing that its really you. You've started walking backwards and sometimes fall over objects/toys/books.

Every morning before I can even dress you up completely, you run to the mirror and love to look at yourself and smile. But can you please wait until I've finished dressing you up. Its a struggle these days to dress you up for you do not want to wear certain clothes and want to make your own choice of clothes.Your recent love for mommy's bag drives me nuts because you want to hang the bag around your neck and you do not know how to remove it. You cry for attention and if I remove the bag from your neck, its back on your neck in less than 5 seconds and you are crying again. You love your books - now you are fascinated towards the ones that make noise. The Duck book that goes' Quack,Quack' and you shout 'Buk,Buk,Buk' with it. The Car book that makes 3 different sounds and you love it to bits. But I guess I'll do a separate post on all your toys and books. now let me add some pictures and hit Publish on this post sitting in the Drafts folder for a long time.

Father's Day

2008-06-15T13:15:00.000-07:00

Father's Day this year dawned bright and sunny. Aditi and I were busy that morning chatting away on Yahoo! with my parents. The little girl has learnt to dance in her nursery and one day sometime last week held my hands and moved her legs and head from side to side. This dance has become an oft repeated game in our household with amma and appa taking turns to dance with the little girl. What we enjoy most is her wide grin as she moves her head from side to side - expressing her happiness and joy. We eagerly await each other's turn to dance with our little child.
My mom wanted to witness her grandchild's dance and so I mentioned 'Dance' to Aditi who was busy playing on the floor beside me. She got up at once, extended her hands and started waving her torso from side to side. A couple of minutes later, she wanted her dad to join and proceeded to wake him up. What a unique way to start Father's Day - for daddy by dancing with his darling girl.
The gift: On Friday, I went during lunch to buy an electric shaver as a gift for Father's Day. We had requested for a shaver socket in the family bath in the new house and I had wanted to put it to good use. I wasn't sure which one to choose given the 40 different varieties housed by Argos. After reading many reviews and doing a bit of research on the shaver head, I decided on a piece - and safely stored the bill in case it needed to be exchanged or returned. On my way back, I was thinking of storing it away until Sunday morning and surprising daddy with the gift, but Prashanth returned early that day and hence came over to pick us up.
It was no longer the surprise I wanted, but Prashanth was excited at his gift. He's the tech-savvy one at home. He read up the instructions, used it the next morning and declared that it was indeed a good choice. I was happy to see that the shaver was put to use and wasn't returned. So the formal gifting process did not happen on Sunday, but Aditi was lovely as ever when we visited a friend's place for lunch that day. She enjoyed herself and the hosts loved having her around. We had a heavy lunch and headed home while Aditi slept on our way back. Enjoyable day for daddy and happy day for mummy with hardly any cooking.

Four fabulous fantastic fun-filled years

2008-06-07T13:05:00.000-07:00

I am a month late on doing this post, but was determined to do it this weekend. Thanks to my dear friend Nithu who had her blog updated on the date of her wedding anniversary that reminded me time and again to do the much delayed post. This one is especially meant to relive the last 4 years that I spent with the man of my dreams.

The first anniversary was meant to be very special, but I spent the day in a flight from Chennai and hence we ended up celebrating the following week. We had a week-long celebration as we were meeting each other after a long time and went around the Kent countryside, enjoying every day. Year 2 saw us both in Paris - we did not go there on a holiday - we were stopping over there on transit. Atleast we were together, but still flying from Bangalore after a trip to India for his cousin's wedding. The third year was prefect. It fell on a Sunday, we went to the temple, we were new parents, we took blessings from my dad who was at home with us. The only thing that was missing was that we spent the evening at home rather than dine at a restaurant.

This year it fell soon after the Spring Bank holiday weekend. Worse Prashanth was working the previous night and the next, so I would only meet him for a couple of hours that day. Those hours are typically the times when my little girl gets cranky. Its her snack/dinner time and I'm all in a rush to cook dinner for the kid and my man who is off to work through the night. It wouldn't be wrong if I said we did pretty much nothing on that day. But the boss had different plans. I had casually mentioned to him that my watch was as old as our marriage and needed a replacement. People who wear a watch day in and out, will know what I mean when I say 'The world seems dead, if my watch drops dead.' So after the night shift, Prashanth went shopping for a watch and as soon as I returned home gave it in Aditi's hands to be given to me. Curious girl she is, she decided to open the pack and see what was inside. She probably assumed it must be a game. But just in time, Prashanth managed to grab it from her and presented it to me. Of course I was overjoyed and happy. More so becasue of the effort and pains he had taken to shop for it and gift me something special and useful on this memorable day. Every time , my mom sees it on the webcam and says it looks pretty, I'm reminded of the scene when he gave it to me.

Did I bother to reciprocate? Not really. Well I'm kind of late. I have decided to club it with Father's Day gifts. We did manage to enjoy the weekend with what I call a house-party. I cook some of his favorite foods, put Aditi to bed, dim the lights, light up some aromatic candles, have a candle-light dinner and enjoy ourselves with a movie later. Its not just at anniverary time, but whenever I feel like it that we have this house-party.

Leaving you with a picture of the wonderful gift I received for my wedding anniversary this year.

From mamma's lamb to daddy's darling daughter

2008-05-31T15:02:00.000-07:00

I am extremely happy to announce that over the last couple of weeks, Aditi has been spending more time with her daddy and getting much closer to him. This may be the case in many households, but my child was always stuck to me and refused to stay with daddy for more than a couple of minutes. When we sit down for breakfast or dinner at the table, the little one who would usually sit on my lap runs to her father and asks to be picked up. Of course, daddy is only way too happy to oblige.
It started one evening when I was busy fixing up some dinner for daddy who was about to leave on night duty. Aditi wanted to be picked up by me, but I was cutting vege and could not manage it single-handedly(and carry Aditi with the other hand). In my hurry to cook something before daddy left, I decided to let her cry. Prashanth who was sitting on the dining table was trying to comfort Aditi. For a couple of miutes, Aditi cried out loud. Then realization dawned on her. She ran to her daddy and asked to be picked up. He in turn bribed her with some Cheerios. Now Prashanth has never and NEVER had this request from his baby and was pleasantly surprised. From then it was no stopping her.
Nowadays, she smiles wide - showing all her 16 teeth, as soon as she sees daddy in the morning. If she hears his voice, she looks in that direction to spot him. During weekends, she has her lunch sitting on his lap on the dining table. She uses a spoon & fork at the nursery and insists on using a spoon/fork at home and refuses to touch any food with bare hands. Even finger food has to be eaten using a fork. And she turns the fork upside down as she puts the food into her mouth.

What triggered this sudden change in my baby - An argument between me and Prashanth. Me pointing out(he said 'nee kutthi kamikara') that he hardly spends any time with the kiddo and me and always spends time with the internet browsing 'ning' and other useless stuff which can wait until the baby goes to sleep. So he made an effort and I appreciate him for this act - to spend more time with us rather than rushing to his laptop in the evening. The evenings are now more lively and Aditi enjoys the attention she gets from daddy.

Little naughty things that the babe has been upto these days:
* Pretends to sit on my lap and then runs and sits on daddy's lap
* Insists on sitting on daddy's lap while she has lunch and while we have ours.
* Plays more with dad, but returns to mommy when hungry.
* Plays this game every evening and makes us laugh, she joins in too - asks daddy to pick her up, then jumps ove to mummy stays with mummy for a minute , then goes back to daddy. This passing back and forth game goes on for a while until she's bored and tired of it.
* Threw her shoes(new pair that she did not like) into the dustbin when amma was not looking.

Earlier daddy used to called Aditi - a little lamb as in Mary had a little lamb - cos she would follow me wherever I went - this includes the loo and shower room- or cry out loud if I did not let her in and shut the door. I am so happy that she's bonding with daddy so well. I have waited long enough for this and I am overjoyed now. This leaves me with some time for myself and daddy is soooo happy when his little girl comes walking up to him.

"I am 15 months young"

2008-05-13T06:26:00.000-07:00

When I was a teenager, I visited a well known doctor at his clinic in Chennai. After the routine examinations, as he was about to write the prescription, he asked me how young I was. I must admit that it struck me only after a little while that he was asking my age(how old I was). We are used to hearing the common phrase - 'how old' that the reverse doesn't strike us immediately. Thats the story of the title of this post. Now some updates on the little one.

I need not hire a cleaner to help me with the dreaded cleaning chores. My little girl goes around with a broom and imitates us in a typical fashion of her own. Be it the dining area or the patio, she roams with the broom and pretends to clean the entire place. She is upset if I dont hand over the broom to her when I'm trying to clean the place. That said, she's still a bit scared of the vacuum cleaner and prefers to stay away when it's in use.

She does two very sweet things that i'm yet to capture on video. Whenever I sit on the floor, she does an above turn with her back facing me, walks backwards towards me and sits on my lap. This is something both of us look forward too, and the very manner in which she turns around and sits down is fascinating.Talking of sitting, when she has to sit down, she puts the palm of her arms on the floor to support her, then bends one of her knees and then slowly brings the other to the floor.Until then the arms are still on the floor supporting her. It reminds me of the way my grandmom would sit on the floor using hands to support herself.

She loves outdoors. The front of our house has been blockpaved recently and we can safely let her do some walking around in that area. She loves to go around in circles outside until she's bored or tired of the walking. Walking has actually been replaced by running these days.

At 15 months, she's turning into a picky and fussy eater. The baby who gulped down anything that was offered to her now refuses food most of the time. This started about 3 weeks back and is getting worse by the day. Initially I could distract her with her favorite food, but now that seems very difficult too. For now, the husband is very supportive and helps me deal with her patiently, otherwise its a struggle when it comes to feeding. My MIL wisely told me last year that the child will eat everything when young and tantrums start around 18 months. This is turning true in Aditi's case. Any suggestions/comments/help on this one welcome.

Also I am becoming adept at doing one handed jobs for she wants to be carried all the time. People tell me its just a phase and it should go away in a while. We wish and pray that it goes away soon. Sometimes its difficult to believe thats she's completed 15 months. Her personality is changing every day and her face is loosing its babiness and getting more mature. She can speak a dozen words clearly and babbles a lot more. She can sing the tune of nursery rhymes with us. Her favorite song still remains the one she's been hearing for the last 12 months - a Ganesha composition, which still puts her to sleep.

She's a happy little child who's excited to go to nursery each day and comes home with the same enthusiasm and bringing more joy into our lives each day. How I wish time stays still and she remains like this forever.

Tagged!

2008-05-12T12:57:00.000-07:00

Mynanhipari has tagged me with this general questionnaire tag.

Last Movie You Saw In A Theater: Welcome

What Book Are You Reading: My first farm, 5 Little Ducks and about half a dozen touch and feel baby books

Favorite Board Game: Monopoly

Favorite Magazine: Women's era(always), more recently Practical Parenting

Favorite Smells: Incense Sticks - especially sandal ones

Favorite Sound: Early morning Suprabatham from the nearby temple

Worst Feeling In The World: Guilt

What Is The First Thing You Think Of When You Wake? Will my baby wake up before I finish my shower????

Favorite Fast Food Place: The one outside Foodcourt(after my recent trip to India)

Future Child's Name: Not sure if i'll have another one.

Finish This Statement. "If I Had A Lot Of Money I'd...” Donate half of it to charity and let the rest earn some interest in the bank.

Do You Drive Fast? No.

Do You Sleep With A Stuffed Animal? No

Storms-Cool Or Scary? Scary

What Was Your First Car? Skoda Felicia

Favorite Drink:Ginger elaichi tea

Finish This Statement, "If I Had The Time I Would .....” Spend with my baby and hubby.

Do You Eat The Stems On Broccoli? Of course

If You Could Dye Your Hair Any Color, What Would Be Your Choice? None (I am not a fan of hair dyes)

Name All The Different Cities/Towns You Have Lived In.
Chennai, Pondicherry, London, Belfast, Sheffield

Favorite Sports To Watch: Formula1

Nice Thing About The Person(s) Who Sent This To You: A mom who enjoys motherhood.

What's Under Your Bed? Nothing(Prefer to keep it clean)

Would You Like To Be Born As Yourself Again? Yes.

Morning Person Or Night Owl? Morning Person.

Over Easy Or Sunny Side Up? Over Easy

Favorite Place To Relax: Any uncrowded temple (with my eyes closed).

Favorite Pie: Lemon

Favorite Ice Cream Flavor: Vanilla

You pass this tag to - Nithya and Mona

Of All The People You Tagged This To, Who's Most Likely To Respond First? Nithya I guess.

Long weekend

2008-05-07T13:37:00.000-07:00

May is one month that has 2 long weekends and we look forward to this because the first and last Monday in May are usually bank holidays. Our plans to visit Rome during the first week of May pretty much got scrapped after we realized that Prashanth was working the nights on Monday. I was particularly enthusiastic on Friday as one of my school friends, whom I had met through Orkut, was visiting us on Saturday. She was visiting with her husband and two boys aged 5 and 2. We were up early on Saturday and polished every nook and corner of the house until it shone bright and clear.
The plan was for my friend to visit us that evening, so I prepared gajar halwa, aloo tikki and bhel puri. They had visited the shopping mall before they arrived, so the elder one was exhausted due to the walking and slept off on the couch after gobbling down his milk. The younger one refused his milk, but started looking into each of Aditi's toys from her red toy box. What surprised us was Aditi happily shared her toys and played with the little boy. Thanks to the nursery, she did not cry for the same toy that my friend's son picked. She picked another toy and decided to play with it until he was finished. The little ones ran from the kitchen to the living area and were 2 happy bunnies. While the kids enjoyed their new found company, the dads discussed current affairs and other miscellaneous topics - like which service provider's was the best broaband in the country. The moms caught up on all the school girls' gossip. We chatted on who went with whom and what happened later. My friend gave me useful tips on parenting and choosing schools. Three hours flew up in a jiffy and it was time to bid good bye.
We cleared up and awaited our next set of friends who arrived on Sunday and stayed with us for the night. They travelled from London, stopped enroute at the Balaji temple at Birmingham and came on Sunday evening. The South Indian tiffin varieties sold at the Balaji temple deserve special mention. They are prepared by volunteers and are simply so tasty that they are sold out in no time. Our friends got a big laddu prasadam and medu vadais neatly packed with 3 varieties of chutneys from the temple. There was a sale of mangoes at the temple and we received a huge crate of mangoes as well. We decided to go for a simple dinner, but by the time I laid the dishes, there was hardly any space left on my dining table. The simple menu was Chappati, Mutter Panner, Baingan Bartha, rice, murunga sambar, rasam, gobi-aloo fry, left over mangeout curry from lunch, mint thogayal and vadam. We chatted till midnight and the men stayed awake much longer.
The next morning was a bright sunny day and after a breakfast of semiya upma, we went out to the Botanical gardens, which is in the heart of Sheffield.

Aditi enjoyed walking on the lush green grass there. She was running all over the place and we had a tough time trying to run behind her. It was the first time she was walking around in an external environment other than the garden and the little paved area in front of our house. After some pictures and a few nic-nacs there, we returned home hungry and tired. Aditi slept off on our way home after all the running , the poor kid was too drowsy.We had a leisurely lunch and our friends left later that evening. Aditi enjoyed the company of the 2 new comers in the house and our friends had fun time with the kid. Back to work on tuesday, but surprise-surprise awaited me that evening. More about that coming up in the next post.

New home in pictures

2008-05-07T13:15:00.000-07:00

A few other bloggers have been posting pictures of their newly done homes. I follow suit and here are some pictures of our new home.

When mom fell ill..

2008-05-01T10:53:00.000-07:00

..dad took charge of the household.

In the last 15 months I have never seen mom fall ill, so this was new and surprising to me.Come Monday and amma was sick at work. Thankfully appa had finished his weekend of nights and was off for a couple of days, which came in handy and helped us prefectly. Dad came to pick me up from the nursery and mom joined us too. One look at her face and we could see that she was not keeping well. As she dragged herself home, Dad made it clear that he would take care and ordered mom to take rest. Dad made some great chai for mom and decided to cook dinner for us. Mom fed me my milk and took me upstairs to get some sleep. I was playing beside her on the bed while she tried to sleep. After an hour of lying down and not being able to really sleep, mom decided to feed me dinner. Dad meanwhile had prepared excellent pepper rasam and vegetable fry. The rasam was so good and made with so much love and care that mom could not resist letting me taste some. Yummy yummy rasam along with my usual paruppu sadam and boiled vegetables.
Dad was quick to do the dishes, pack my bag ready for the next day, clean the table and kitchen worktop - much to the delightment of my mom. Dad would usually not bother to be around in the kitchen and when he replicated dinner exactly like mommy style, mommy was pretty amused. Dad tried to feed me dinner so that mom could rest, but I stubbornly refused to let daddy take over. Mom then fed me and off we were to sleep again. This time the good girl I am when it comes to sleep - I slept beside mommy and off we were to dreamland in a couple of minutes.
When mom went to have dinner, dad had laid the table so neatly and arranged the items that it brought tears to her eyes. After dinner, mom returned to catch some sleep. Through the night, dad was so nice to mom, who was in a pretty bad state. Dad brought her water when needed, he prepared my night time horlicks, covered mom with extra blankets when she suddenly started shivering at midnight, fed her tablets, brought her Iodex when the cramps troubled her (oh yes, mommy has pretty bad cramps - not just during pregnancy - but they are eternal cramps which never seem to go away. The only way to keep them at bay is to take calcium tablets everyday) and took great care of her throughout the night.
The next morning mom decided to take the day off and since dad was at home anyway, she had company too. Mom could not open her eyes until 7AM. I woke up at about 6:30, but was quietly playing beside her and waited for mom to get up and brush my teeth. Dad woke up too inspite of hardly having slept for a few hours and took me downstairs as mom was too weak to even carry me down the stairs. I drank my milk and was playing happily. After a short discussion, it was decided to send me to nursery that day - a little later than usual and dad helped mom to get me ready. He dropped me at the nursery, took mom to the doctors, shopped for groceries and mom got some much needed rest.I must metion that mom was pretty impressed with how dad managed the whole situation so well.
When dad came to pick me up at the nursery, I wondered why mom had not joined us as was the regular routine. I was delighted to see mom waiting for me at home and we had a great evening together. The next day things were back to normal - except for mom's health, but we went back to nursery and office. Dad was really the highlight of this post for he managed everything so well that it was almost as smooth as mom always does. Mom plans ahead, but dad jumped in as the situation demanded and surprised us.
This is Aditi updating my blog until amma recovers completely from her fever, cold and cough.

Shower-Baby-Shower

2008-04-29T12:33:00.000-07:00

I think April would be incomplete if I did not blog about the online baby shower hosted by a group of bloggers - a student, many moms, aunts all in the gang. The organisers have mentioned about all the happenings over the last 4 weeks that led to the creation of a lovely blog - which now has a treasure trove of information for all mums alike. You can read them here:
Notes from behind the scenes
Oh!! What a Ride It Has Been
Since you were wondering what I was up to...
So we had a party
Explaining the Previous Post
Spilling the beans
The mystery is solved

The opening mail that read 'Mega Baby Shower' from Tharini arrived in my Inbox on April Fool's Day. As I was busy with other mundane chores and only managed to open my Inbox a week later, I missed out on joining the riddles team. That is each blog hosted a riddle and gave a clue - just a letter or a blank and the all important riddle to the next blog. My Inbox was flooding with over 100 emails everyday and to read and reply to them was so much fun. I was overjoyed to be part of this shower and it made me feel important as a mother. But before I could start posting my wishes, I found many other early birds had provided all of the essential tips and advice. So I ransacked my brain and added a couple of my own experiences. Those few weeks seemed longer than usual to me as I waited for the baby shower Friday but it would not have been the same for the organisers - what with riddles to create, blog to be readied, collecting and collating wishes, sending reminders to those who were a bit lazy and keeping the group informed of the current work in progress. And I should mention that I came to know many more bloggers from all over the world. My Blog Friends list rose from a meagre 8 four-fold to 32 and will continue to rise over the next few weeks. Some very personal experiences were added as part of the wishes and that was what made interesting reading.
We thought the fun would begin on Friday. But B o o smelt something too soon and started cracking the userid and password to the shower blog. That Thursday was a lot of fun -what with all the MTB's working enthusiastically to break the code. At the end of the day they proved it only too well - that their single minded determination worked well and Boo again broke the code around 2AM on Friday morning. Well, all good things come to an end and so this fun game ended well too. The best part for me was to know about many more bloggers. As someone rightly mentioned, blog hopping helps unwind after a long day.
Wishing all you preggies a safe and speedy delivery.

The Golden Words

2008-04-24T10:48:00.000-07:00

Most moms would agree that the one real reason that they go through nine months of labour and childbirth is to hear the baby - be it the first cries, the cooing during the early weeks, the 'tha-tha-tha' or 'ba-ba-ba' during the initial months and await to hear the baby call out 'amma' or 'ma' or 'mom'. From time to time, my little girl would cry out Amm-mmm-ma and it gave me much pleasureto listen to what I term 'the golden word'. Whenever she called out Amma, Prashanth would pop in and teach her to say 'Appa'. Obviously he wanted her to address him as well and not just make me happy.
Last week, when Aditi was down with a bit of cough and cold, she had disturbed sleep during the nights. The tickly cough irritated her throat, leading to more coughs during the night. Eventually she would get up, all upset and demand to sleep with us on the bed. **Sigh**. On one such night, when she started coughing, I picked her up from the crib and put her on my lap to rub some Vicks Vaporub on her chest. The vaporub usually acted like a miracle and the cough always subsided. That night, Prashanth woke up and was examining her chest for any signs of infection. Aditi who was half sleep uttered clearly 'Amma' followed by a quick 'Ma'. Then she looked up at her dad who was still busy with the steth and said 'Aitipa' (short for 'Aditi appa') and pointing in his direction again said 'Aitipa'.
Both of us had huge grins and were overjoyed that our little one called out to us even in the midst of night. Its not too often that we get addressed as Amma or Appa and it certainly made us so happy that we spent the next couple of days telling the grandparents about it. Aditi hasn't learnt to say 'Appa' as yet. She would often address her father as 'Aitipa' or 'Yebbbbba' when shes too tired after lots of physical activity. The father is trying to get her to say just 'Appa' and the lessons still continue.

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I believe the purpose of blogging is to jot down incidents and happenings for posterity. Another small incident to indicate the the little girl does everything with a purpose. Last evening, after we returned from work/nursery, I gave her a bottle of milk. Then I gave her a biscuit as a snack and switched on the cooker. Aditi finished half of the biscuit and when I turned around, she was pointing at the dining table. I could hardly make out what she was trying to say and did not give much attention. Then she started putting both her hands under the table cloth. Atleast at this stage, I must have understood something. Yet, I proceeded to give her dinner and put her to bed. When we sat for dinner, I straightened the table cloth, when I found a biscuit piece on the table. That's when it all came together. The poor girl had left her biscuit under the table cloth and was desperately trying to look for it and I was so ignorant not to make sense of it. I have definitely learnt my lesson and shall try to comprehend what my baby says/shows in the future.

Snow in Spring

2008-04-20T13:02:00.001-07:00

The shops have huge banners outside that say 'Mid-season Sale'. Going by the seasons, snow falls during winter. March was the season of hope as the days grew warmer and longer - more daylight during the day. Over the last few years, we've seen snow in March. And so, end of March was the end of snow. Little did we know that the British weather would be so unpredictable in April too. There was a little bit of snow in the first week of April. But the first thing that greeted me last Wednesday morning was the white layers on every roof top. We live atop a hill and the view outside extends to all the homes in the slopes below us. I came down to find the garden covered in a white layer of snow. Although we've got used to the snowfall now, I still feel excited to see snow in my garden. It was terrbily cold that morning, but the snow melted by midday and things seemed normal when we returned home that evening.

DIY and its (dis)advantages

2008-04-16T13:15:00.000-07:00

Most pieces of furniture bought in this country come flat-packed and needs to be self- assembled. Honestly, I am not a particular fan of DIY. The first few pieces of items we had to assemble on our own were Aditi's travel system and her crib. By the end of it, we were not so happy. Prashanth would crib over the lack of instructions on the single sheet of paper provided and it would be a mess by the time we finished it. Imagine doing DIY with a naughty baby around, trying to grab every tool and screw she could place and preventing us from completing the challenging task of assembling the furniture. Over the years, although our DIY skills have improved and we have a bigger tool box - electric drill, different types of hammers, various sizes of alan keys, screw driver set, spanner set and what not, yet I am not fond of self-assembly. So when it came to buying furniture for the new home, I desperately tried to avoid DIY stuf. Unfortunately for me, I could not avoid it completely.

We managed to find living room and dining room furniture and wardrobes that came ready assembled. But the bedroom and study ones came flat-packed. We decided to assemble the bed frame after Aditi slept. It took well over 2 hours to put up the frame and we were exhausted at the end of it. Little did we realize that we would have so many pieces to put together. I particularly hate screwing up the pieces together.

When it came to putting up the stair gates, we decided to do it when Aditi was around. She in turn banged the gate and happily scratched the walls. She still keeps testing the gate on the top of the stairs to see if its really sturdy. It was extremely difficult to keep a baby at bay and help Prashanth with putting up the gate.

In India, we would not even dream of trying to assemble furniture on our own. It was left to the carpenters. I understand that it is due to the availability of cheap labour. But in the western world, I am surprised to find that people even build houses on their own without much professional help, something that is unheard of in our country. With all its disad(in my opinion), DIY is still a passion amongst people here. But I'm sure we'll never be fond of the 'assembling' art and will seek professional help as much as possible. Feel free to express your views on DIY.

Sleep - How it all happened

2008-04-08T13:38:00.000-07:00

The popular saying 'sleeping like babies' is extremely misleading as not many babies that I know of sleep for 20 hours a day. At least, Aditi was not so. She slept for probably 10 hours out of 24 and the rest was spent either feeding or crying. During the first 4 weeks, my mom and I had many sleepless nights not knowing what would put this baby to sleep. And she would not sleep until midnight which made us even more tired. We would be terrified when the clock struck 9pm.The drama - as we called it would begin by 9pm and go on until midnight, when she would finally be rocked to sleep. In those early days, moving her from my lap after a feed to the bed would result in lots of crying and I would have to feed her in lying positions for as long as 40 minutes to put her to sleep. In short, it was tiring and not so much fun.
Sometime around the sixth week, I was introduced to mommy blogging. I was happy for 2 reasons - to take my mind off feeding Aditi and learning that most mommies had similar problems that I faced. The solution to the sleep issue came in the form of Tharini's 'A Tale of two sleepers'. As I read the entire post, I was thrilled to find that sleep training was possible even when the baby was as young as 2 months old. We started playing a classic CD on Ganesha hymns. We had to break the 'rocking to sleep' habit and to get Aditi to sleep in her crib. She was co-sleeping until about 2 months. I was told of CIO, but was not in favor of letting my little baby cry so long and tire herself although I knew that it worked well for a few other friends.
The musical mobile fascinated her and it was constantly played during the day. Wished we had a remote controlled one so we did not have to wind it up every 6 minutes. Thanks to my father who would play the mobile on and on endless number of times until Aditi fell asleep. At night, the musical mobile proved a distraction, so had to be removed before Aditi could sleep. I would leave Aditi in her crib, play the CD, sleep beside her on the bed and keep patting her until she fell asleep. It wasn't easy in the beginning, but I am thankful to many bloggers who guided me to teach Aditi to sleep.
When she was about 2 weeks old, amidst lots of protests, we bought a pacifier. My mom wasn't particularly inclined to give Aditi the paci as she found it terribly difficult to break my habit. It seemed that I would never give it up and would ask for the 'va-va' all the time until about a year. Aditi used the va-va to sleep until about 5 months and then stopped using it on her own. When I gave her the va-va, all she did was play with it and throw it after a little while. Instead she took another approach to sleep.
Come month 4 and Aditi started sleeping on her side. She chose her right side and placed her leg on the pillow beside her. As soon as the CD played, she would be asleep is less than 5 minutes. Oh and what a change was that to the endless rocking that happenend a few months ago. I was happy mother and started enjoying mommyhood. She would nap about 5 times a day - 30 minute sessions, and I chose to work around her nap times.
Around month 6, there were more changes to the sleep patterns. She started sucking her thumb! If she was sleepy, she would suck her thumb and all I had to do was put her in the bed and play the CD. She would sleep off in a few minutes. She had 2 well defined naps of about an hour in the morning and an hour and half in the afternoon.
The sleep technique came in handy on our trip to India. She would sleep off in a jiffy, but the trouble was the sound of two wheelers and constant honking on the road outside. India trip brought its own sleep problems. As she did not sleep in her crib for 6 weeks, she insisted on co-sleeping after we returned. And we would wake up all cramped every morning. Yet another habit to break....I strated to put her on our bed to sleep and place her in the crib as soon as she was asleep. This worked well and sometimes she wakes up at 4am demanding to sleep with us. And we sleep happily not having to share the bed with our baby.
Mommyhood does teach us lots of patience, but I also learnt to persevere and be steadfast in whatever I chose to teach my little girl.

My first haircut

2008-04-01T14:30:00.000-07:00

Mommy calls it my album but I have never had a chance to voice my views. For a while now mummy had been contemplating cutting my hair that kept falling on my eyes and on my back. For those of you wondering why we did not have my head tonsured during the recent trip to India, I learnt that there is no such custom on my dad's side and girl babies are not allowed to have their head tonsured in the temple. So my parents decided to cut my hair unceremoniously here at home. Last weekend when the sun was shining in all its glory, mummy embarked on the project. Dad was away at work. So it was just us at home. First she wrapped a towel around my neck and held it secure with a big nappy pin in the front. With a comb in one hand and a pair of scissors in the other, mommy carefully started cutting my hair on the back . All i saw when I turned around were some strands of black stuff and I dint know what to do. As it did not hurt me, I stayed put munching my biscuit. Mummy then started combing my hair in the front and using the scissors started removing some of the hair from the front. It was all over in less than 5 minutes and mummy swiftly removed the towel and cleared up the place around. She showed me a mirror and I was only too happy to see my reflection (as I always am). Check out my new haircut!

From baby to toddler

2008-03-22T15:01:00.000-07:00

My little girl is growing up fast. She's masterd the art of walking and refuses to hold my hands for support. She wants to walk all over the house and has almost forgotten crawling. When she loses balance and falls to the floor, she gets up immediately and resumes walking. She keeps us entertained for hours by her act of walking. She can get on and off the bed and sofa with ease. However she analyses very carefully the depth or height from the top to the floor and then comes down quite slowly and carefully.
Food habits have changed recently. She wants a bite from our plates almost always. Wants to feed herself and many times refuses to let me feed her . Obviously this behavior is way too annoying for me cos the area around her highchair gets very messy and the time taken to feed her increases multifold. This is one new habit that she's probably picked up at her nursery. She is happy to share her food with the parents and tries to feed her daddy or me before she puts it in her mouth.
Talking is another new acheivement these days. Her favorite rhyme is 'Twinkle twinkle Little Star' and she likes to sing the 3rd and 4th lines of the rhyme. She goes 'Aaaaaaaaaa' in a typical tune of 'Up above the world so high' and looks up at me or her daddy giving us a minute to sing the line. Then continues to sing the tune of the 4th line and expects us to sing the same. Probably she's heard the rhyme on her musical mobile almost from birth and likes this particular one very much. She tries to talk different words other than the usual 'Thatha', mostly imitating what we speak.
Aditi can now understand whatever we speak and can instantly recognize her toys. If we ask her to get the ball, she scans the room to look for the ball and brings it to us. She can also open and close lids of plastic boxes and gets excited when she's done it. However I can never get her to wear her gloves for more than half a minute and have already lost 2 of them . She tactfully uses her mouth to take off the glove from one hand and uses this hand to remove the other one and throws them away. Most often I keep an eye for her gloves and take them away from her just in time. And she loves to kick her shoes off. Its difficult to find her shoes that she will never be able to kick off.
There have been a few other changes at home. Its been 3 weeks since I took up a new job and its going alright at the moment. We have moved home to our own peice of land and have been busy doing it up.The easter weekend came in handy and we've spent most of our time sprucing the house up. Aditi loves the new place especially the stairs and loves to climb up the stairs. She's yet to learn to come down the stairs on her own, still enjoys climbing them up. Prashanth pciks her up from the nursery whenever he's at home or gets in early and its a joy to see her face all happy and smiling. She comes running into our arms and quickly puts on her coat, hat and gloves and jumps into the pram to be wheeled away.
Its been snowing all day here and we've been watching the spring snow. There's a white layer on our well lawned small rear garden. Its Aditi's first snow and I've been pointing to the white bed on our garden (other than her birthday when it was snowing really bad and her daddy had to scrap the ice off his windscreen at 4AM in the morning) We have 2 more days to enjoy nature's beauty before we get back to work on Tuesday.

New life in the nursery

2008-03-14T15:45:00.001-07:00

Aditi was first sent to a nursery once a week for a couple of hours when she was about 8 months old. That continued for about 3 months until we left on a vacation to India. On our return we knew that she had to be sent to a full time nursery for I was to start work soon. The nursery hunt began and I had shortlisted 3 nurseries close to my workplace. I booked an appointment with each nursery the following week. It was close to Christamas and the first one I visited was being painted and brightened up for the new year. There were no kids in the baby room and all the furniture/toys had been moved around. The lady who showed me around definitely did not know the 'Sales' tactics and I was not impressed. I rejected it straightaway and looked forward to visiting the other two. Nursery 2 was a big hit. The lady was overly courteous, took me into a separate meeting room, gave a nice tour of the place and handed me a big booklet including a balloon for Aditi and I was quite happy with the place. The only issue was the food provided was made by the school kitchen and there was no separate cook for the nursery. Nursery 3 was really wonderful from every point of view except that it would take slightly longer for me to get there and back. There wasn't much open space for the kids to play, but the weather is so unpredictable here that I wasn't bothered too much. I decided to go with the last one and invited Prashanth for a viewing. He was happy too , but somehow I had this feeling at the back of my mind that I should visit Nursery 1 when it's all completed and done. But before I could book an appointment , I left for India and left it at that. On my return we discussed and wanted to visit Nursery 1. This time I was more than impressed and decided to put my daughter here straightaway. On hindsight I do not regret my decision and firmly believe first impressions could sometimes be misleading and incorrect.
Aditi has been there for about 4 weeks and the staff there are absolutely wonderful. She's adjusted pretty well and although my first week at work was a bit of tension, I now eagerly await to see her happy face every evening. She does crafts, painting and made a mobile yesterday with the help of the staff. The nursery itself is on the way to my office and its extremely comfortable for me to drop/pick her up. They have an in house cook and cater to all types of meals. All said and done, I'm happy I reconsiderd my initial decision and decided to go with my instincts.

Little Walker

2008-02-29T14:27:00.000-08:00

My little girl has made an effort to take a few steps of her own. For the past week, Aditi has been trying to stand on her own without support and with a little encouragement from us would put a step forward, only to loose balance and fall down. She's been trying to stand from a crawling/sitting position. She would clap her hands in joy on acheiving it. This evening she managed to put a few steps forward and eventually lost balance. We tried to take pictures and cooaxed her to perform the feat again, but she stubbornly refused. Will post some pictures later if we manage to capture some.

Aditi's first trip to India

2008-02-25T14:27:00.000-08:00

Admist all the buzz and excitement of the new year, Aditi and I left for India on New Year's night this year. We had prebooked a bassinet for the flight and Aditi slept happily on it for most part of the trip. I had helpful co-passengers during each leg and helpers at the airport too. We reached Bangalore the next evening tired and hungry. I managed to put Aditi to sleep that night and enjoyed an excellent meal.
We were to celebrate my neice's first birthday in a couple of days. But Aditi was disturbed by the new faces and refused to leave me. She was probably feeling insecure in a new environment. And she sure was missing her dad. After crawling on the carpetted floors here, she developed a unique style of crawling on one knee on the mosiac floors. She was happy to crawl on smooth surfaces like the tiled or marbled floors.We expected a bit of trouble during her cousin's birthday celebrations, but she was terrible and became the talk of the day. She would cry whenever anybody came near her and wanted to just be alone with me. It was almost impossible to distract her. We somehow managed to click a picture of her during her cousin's birthday dressed in a pavadai gifted by her athai(father's sister). We left for Chennai with my parents later.
The incessant crying led to fever the next day when we landed in Chennai and there started a series of trips to the pediatrician's clinic. Fever was followed by vomiting and diarrohea and milk allergy. I had packed many tins of formula food and packets of her porridge and cereal, but she refused to eat anything mixed with milk. Even her regular formula milk would come out straight away. The only thing we could give her to drink was water. The ped gave us a kanji mixture which could be used without adding milk and that was a savior during the rest of the trip. Within a week or so, she settled comfortably with my parents, aunts/uncles. Her favorite people though were the cook, maid, security gaurd and anyone on the road. She would wave good bye to everybody on the street.
Feeding times became even more difficult. We had to show her the dog on the street, the birds on the trees, the car/auto/two-wheeler on the street to get a few mouthfuls in. Mosquitoes feasted on her liberally. Yes, I did use the mosquito repellent cream, but they would bite her just below the eyes or on her nose or fingers or chin, where I had not applied the repellent cream.
Aditi loved a joy ride on Indian cars for she was not strapped to the seat. She would wave good bye to the passing two-wheelers at the traffic lights.She enjoyed our daily visits to the temple and the park. The merry-go-round and slide were the only ones she liked.
Soon it was time for Prashanth to join us and we returned to Bangalore. She was used toseeing people other than her parents. But her face was brimming with joy when she saw her father. She started jumping and wanted to be carried by him. Throughout the evening and the next day, she refused to let go off his legs. She enjoyed her ayush homam function and posed for photographs happily. She hated wearing jewels (I love jewels!) and cried when we tried to put a flower garland around her neck. Otherwise, she co-operated very well during the function and enjoyed herself. This was then followed by Prashanth's cousin's marriage and Aditi was dressed up in more pavadais. We later visited the family diety temple and Aditi had her first dip in the Cauvery river. Time flew quickly as ever and we had to bid good bye to our relatives. My parents visited us again on the day before we left. We stopped enroute at Dubai to spend a few days with Prashanth's sister. And landed home on a cold wintry night back to freezing windy conditions.

Reflections 2007

2007-12-31T13:25:00.000-08:00

As every new year dawns, we tend to reflect on the year gone by. The year 2007 was filled with both happy moments to share and lonely/stressful times too. This year started with lots of anticipation and excitement of becoming a new parent. We waited day after day for the arrival of our little bundle of joy and she made her grand appearance on a snowy,windy day in the first week of February. The early days after her birth being particularly troublesome, the constant debates on bottle-feeding before 6 months, the sleepless nights seemed for ever. But things changed for the better after 3 months and the little princess slept blissfully through the night. Fast forward 32x to now and we have a hyperactive kid learning to explore the world around her, surprising us by a new activity each day.
As she approaches her first birthday, I cannot but wonder how days flew by and she grew up so fast. Her favorite game is to play rolling the ball. Well ,she does not know to roll the ball ,but can throw it towards me and I have to roll it back to her. Sometimes papa joins us and we play on and on until she's has had enough.
When we are busy with other jobs, she keeps herself occupied by pushing the dining chairs from one end to the other. At first, it is trying to get under the dining table to displace the chair from its position. then she carefully stands up holding on to the chair for support and walks by pushing the chair to the other end of the room. She then crawls back to bring the other chair.
We keep certain bedrooms closed in order to prevent her little hands from getting onto something that's not baby safe. But Aditi is so determined to get into that room. She pushes the door and gets into the room, while the door shuts behind her. After looking around in the room for a little while, she calls out for help to open the door and walks out of the room with pride. During these happy and proud moments for her, she claps vigorously to let us know of a job well done. Clapping usually happens when shes very happy - after a meal or when papa returns home, for he can give her undivided attention.
She tends to put her head to one side and smile at us when shes been naughty. Especially when she pulls the blinds or does something that she knows she should not be doing, she pulls her head to one side and gives a naughty smile.

She can now reach and press the buttons on the washing machine, try to turn the knob on the oven and tries to play with the buttons on the CD player.Its been a wonderful journey the past 10 odd months with her and wish that the new year brings many more joyous moments for her and us. I am excited about our trip to India in the first week of January to celebrate Aditi's first birthday and hence this blog may remain inactive for 6 weeks until we return.

Wishing you all a happy and funfilled New Year 2008.

A trip to Paris

2007-12-21T13:43:00.000-08:00

Last week, we went on a 4 day holiday to Paris. There were many firsts for Aditi in this trip- her first trip abroad, her first journey on an airplane, her first visa and immigration stamp, her first actual holiday...For a baby, she did adapt pretty well to the new surrounding and enjoyed the sight seeing bits.
Now for a peep into the past, I had been dreaming of visiting Paris since 2003 and for some reason or the other, it never materialized until November 2007. The decision this time was made in an instant and things fell in place very soon. We packed our bags and retired early the previous night as we were on an early morning flight. Aditi slept during the flight though there were 3 other babies giving enough trouble to their parents that morning. We had booked a self- catering apartment as opposed to the traditional Bread & Breakfast, so it would give us some additional space and Aditi enjoyed crawling all over the apartment - being extremely active during her meal times.
Day 1 - We took the Open Top Bus Tour and went on a sight seeing spree from atop the bus. Alighted at the Eiffel Tower and spent the rest of the evening there going up to the top of the tower and enjoying the classic views over the city. The tower is especially beautiful in the night with the golden and silver lights twinkling up to the top. I had prepared some quick meal for lunch and our tummies were growling by then. We trusted the Lonely Planet guide to take us to an Indian restaurant near the apartment we were renting. Unfortunately, there stood a Brazilian restaurant in its place, but we found another restaurant nearby, which was packed and hence we settled for a takeaway. Aditi's meals were served on time wherever we were, so she slept as usual.
Day 2 - After a much needed rest, we visited the Notre Dame, the Louvre museum and Monalisa, Champs-Elysses and a few other monuments. We were directed to the 'Eastham' of Paris bya friendly gentleman and were happy to taste South Indian food near Gare-du-Nord station.
Day 3 - We were advised against visiting Disney Land on a weekend, but could fit in at no other time and left early only to be disappointed by the endless queues. However we did manage some rides and watched the Diney Bus Parade and 'Once upon a Time' Dreams parade. DisneyLand was very very crowded and Aditi grew grumpy by the end of the day. The endless waiting in the queues made her restless and we decided to head home early. After a quick bite at another Indian restaurant follwed by shopping we headed home.
Day 4 - It was Sunday ad we lazed around althoug the original plan was to visit an icerink nearby. We packed our bags and checked twice before we left the apartment. We were happy to be back home and get back into our own beds. On the whole, the trip was enjoyable.
However, there were a few incidents that I record here so we might learn from them in the future.
Eiffel Tower is full of people trying to sell you goods at more than double the price and you can bag a bargain especially if it is evening/closing time.
Prashanth who is usually very careful about everything kept the mobile phone in his bag. I usually keep Aditis water flask with me, but had asked him to pour water into her bottle that evening. The cap had not been fully locked and the flask was in his bag. The phone got soaked in the water and has become unuseable. It has now been sent for repair, but will take a good 4 weeks to get back.
At the museum, he left the Debit card on the Chip and Pin device after paying for the tickets and realized that the card was not in his purse at the restaurant 6 hours later . Thankfully the musuem was open until 10 that night and we found it there to our relief.
At DisneyLand, he accidentally spilt coffee on the camera !
And to top it all, this is my favorite, as I played my part too. We stayed on the top floor and the owner had kindly given us the store room keys on the ground floor to leave Aditi's pushchair there. When we were to vacate the apartment, we checked many times that we had packed all our stuff, except that we forgot about the pushchair. The door was a self locking one and the owner had asked us to leave the keys inside when we vacated the premises. As I shut the door, we remembered that we had not taken the pushchair and the keys were already locked inside.
I should say that the French are extremely friendly and helpful. We knocked many doors in the complex, but none of them had the keys. One young gentleman suggested that we ask the bakery next door and agreed to come down and explain to them in French about our position. When we were turned down by them, we rang our owner who agreed to get there in an hour's time. In a despearate attempt,we decided to knock on more doors and luckily one of them did have the keys to the store room. We finally got the pram out. But the pram was not to be with us that night. Air France had forgotten to load it in our flight. We waited until all baggage arrived and yet there was no sight of the pushchair. Reluctantly we filled in the 'Lost Baggage' form and it was delivered to us the next evening.
Aditi enjoyed most part of the visit and my 4-year long dream was finally fulfilled.
(Please note that I have been unable to load pictures from the camera into this laptop as our new laptop broke down recently and the old one has a broken battery.We cant use the power adaptor and the memory card reader in the old one at the same time.Will load some pictures later when we've downloaded some)

Tagged

2007-12-10T07:22:00.000-08:00

Timepass has tagged me to write 7 quirks about myself

And here are the rules
1.Link to the person that tagged you, and post the rules on your blog.
2.Share 7 random and/or weird facts about yourself.
3.Tag 7 random people at the end of your post, and include links to their blogs.
4.Let each person know that they’ve been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog

* I like watching re-runs of Friends. It used to be our way of de-stressing and relaxing, especially after a long 3.5 hour journey to and from work everyday.

* I like to walk rather than take the bus/train or drive the car. Its refreshing and the uphill/downhill walking in this city along with pushing Aditi's pram acts as a workout too.

* I prefer a long journey by train to the bus. I would listen intently to every announcement made by the driver irrespective of them being repeated at every station. Some of the best decisions in life have been taken on the train.

* I try to keep fit by working out at home with the help of fitness DVD's. I am not against the Gym, but it is easier for me to work out from the comfort of my home.

* Sudoku is my favorite puzzle/passtime during travel or at home. That was the solution to my boredom during those lonely nights when Prashanth would be on night duties.

* I prefer to have a bath first thing in the morning before tea/cofee. With great difficulty, I had to change this after Aditi's birth to be during her nap times.

* I always want a clean kitchen sink, without any utensils/coffee mugs lying in it. I cant stand it in other's kitchens as well and will offer to clear their sink off any dirty items.

Now I'd like to get the following heads thinking: 2B's mommy,Mona and Geetha

Aditi's Birth Story

2007-12-06T16:08:00.000-08:00

Each birth story is unique just as we all are and has always fascinated me. I think I had done enough of reading and put many many questions to Prashanth, that I was pretty sure that I knew what the birth would be like(except that I never really imagined how painful it would be). It was the 15th of January and I was extremely excited that morning for 2 reasons. My maternity leave had finally begun and my dear mother would be with me to help me out for the next 3 months. It was a windy and stormy day and it was decided that I would not be going to the airport to receive mom.
I remember giving lots of instructions to Prashanth - to walk slowly, to buy her refreshments and not to lose mummy(Yes, he has lost himself in Jammu at the age of 2 and lost his sister in London last spring and lost me many times in 3.5 years). I was to prepare my moms favorite dish - bisibelabath after the plane lands in Manchester (We lived about 70 miles from Manchester airport and the journey lasted 1.5 hours). After the initial exchange of hugs, I laid the table for us, had a few helpings and mom went to sleep early. The next 3 weeks were the best part for mom and I had almost never spent 3 consecutive weeks at home together in a long time. It was also during this time that we attended Parent Craft classes which were really helpful and also the Hospital tour.

Mom and I would go regularly for long walks and enjoy talking about the past. Time quickly flew by until it was end of January.We were informed that one of Prashanth's colleagues had deliverd a baby, one of his friends' friend had a baby boy and another newborn in the neighbourhood - all their EDD's were same as mine around 13th Feb. The waiting stretch continued and it was Sunday 4th February. Mom predicted that I would deliver on the Monday, but something deep inside told me that it would be the Thursday.

(A quick note: Thursdays are special to me. I met Prashanth for the first time on a thursday, we got married on a thursday, we found out that I was carrying on a thursday and all these happened most unexpectedly)

Monday came and went and I only had some really strong BHC's - Braxton Hicks Contractions. They lasted for 30 seconds and came in regular intervals. Prashanth was working that night and the next. So we decided to go to the triage and get checked. The nurse told us that it was common for first time pregnancies and not to worry, but go home and sleep well. Tuesday came and went and all I had were some more BHc'sand I stopped keeping track of them.The next day I could wait no longer and made a 2 mile walk to the local grocers to buy some fresh pineapple. I wanted to speed things up and I started with the easiest way of eating fresh pineapple. Then I read that mopping helps and so cleaned the kitchen and bathroom floors.
Not sure if they had any effects, but we went to sleep by 10 that night. About 11:30PM, I went to use the bathroom and realized that my waters had broken. We called the hospital and they asked us to come in straight away. We took nothing with us although my hospital bag was carefully packed 4 weeks earlier. The midwife performed an internal examination and told us that I would be induced if labour did not start within 24 hours. It was about 2 AM when we reached home and mom gave all of us a much needed cup of Horlicks. We all slept until 8 AM the next morning. It was Thursday, the 8th of February and I was sure that my little girl would make her grand appearance on that day. I had a nice bath followed by breakfast and mom & I started preparing rotis. As I rolled out the first one, my actual contractions had begun. It was 10:30 AM and there was a thin white layer of snow outside. I was feeling refreshed after a warm soak and was not too keen to track the timing. By noon, they were getting stronger and I noted the timings. Prashanth called the hospital at 1 PM and we were told to come in by 2PM as it was shift changing time and we would have to wait if we came sooner. We made a silent prayer and left home to reach the hospital triage by 1:30PM. It was on the 3rd floor and I managed to climb the 3 floors. I was checked by the midwife who said that I was 3cm dilated. Phew! It was almost 2:30PM and I was hooked on to the monitor. They gave me paracetemol for pain relief and mom and I started discussing for the nth time about my birth, while Prashanth killed time by reading a magazine. The crazy thing about the monitor was that it would come off each time I had a contraction and tried to sit up or change position on my bed. I really wish they come up with some other way to monitor the baby's heartbeat.

I was finally moved to the Delivery suite on the 4th floor by 3:45 PM. I had 2 long contractions in the lift and my midwife was sure that I was more than 3cm dilated. Now the delivery wards are like 5 start hotel rooms - really fantastic with CD players, TVs and nice lake views through the window. We were really happy to be moved into this place. Prashanth also found that one of the senior anesthetic registrars on call was well known to him. My cousin is a singer and we had chosen to take her CD along to pep me up during those tough moments of pain. By now my contractions were coming every few minutes and lasted 70 - 90 seconds. Andthe pain in the small of my back was terrible. My mom rubbed IODEX overy my back every time the ocntractions came and Prashanth took care of asking me to relax and keep breathing. By nature, I am not too vocal, but this was getting really difficult ot keep quiet and I was loudly moaning 'I can't do it any more', while the midwife kept me encouraging with her constant chatter. I dont remember much what we talked, but I think it helped a bit to distract me away form the pain.
It was about 4:30PM and I was in bad shape. Prashanth was waiting for this moment and asked me if I wanted an epidural. I always wanted a natural birth and I was honestly scared of instrumental delivery. After a while he talked me into taking an epidural and informed the midwife. Meanwhile, an internal examination was conducted and the midwife told me that I was 9cm dialted. To be dilated from 3cm to 9cm in 2 hours was unbelievable. I was so happy that she teasingly asked me if I still wanted an epidural. She also asked me if I would allow a medical student to watch the delivery. I was already told about this in the prentcraft classes and also informed that I could refuse if I wanted to. But having another person to support me in this time of need was helpful and I waved her in. My midwife asked me to push when I was ready and frankly I did not know how to push. This was at 5:30PM

The gyne doctor on call was informed and he came over to say that I would deliver wihtin the next 15 minutes. I was so happy to hear this. And I kept pushing hard. Each time the contractions came I tried to push and my poor baby went in and out many times. She was a natural kicker and gave me many sleepless nights with her kicks and she continued it on her birthday. It was past 6PM and the midwife started telling that she could see the hair on the baby's head. Mom and Prashanth peeped in to have a look and started saying that just one more push and she would be out. This continued till 6:30PM and still she was reluctant to leave the warmth of my body and drop in to the world. The doctor would come in every 15 min to say that the baby would be out, but nothing eventually would happen. At the parentcraft classes, we were told that the pushing would happen within 30 minutes and for me 90 minutes later, I was totally exhausted. All I received was a third degree tear. My little girl was born at 7:32 PM on a Thursday, much to the relief of one and all. As one of the midwives later remarked, I was literally pampered on either side by mom and Prashanth.I could not have done it without their strong support.
All was not well after her birth. She cried and her inital assessments were good. She latched on straight away and had 2 helpings before I decided to take some rest. By this time our midwife brought us wonderful bread toast dipping with butter and hot tea for the 3 of us. Mom enjoyed it and it was one of the best toasts I had had. There was again the change of shifts and the midwife who had seen me the earlier night when my waters had broken was again on duty. She came to suture my tear, but found that it was a deep one and needed a surgeon's assistance. I quickly asked Prashanth to explain to me what would happen next as I was quite scared of going to the theathre. The anesthetist and surgeon came an explained the procedures and I was wheeled into the OT at 12:30AM. I was given spinal and I slept a good 40 minutes throughout the surgery. The medical student was around and so it was not all new faces at the theatre. Also the anesthetist was Prashanth's colleague and it helped a bit. The worst was the recovery room which was too cold and the 10 minutes there seemed like ages. My teeth were chattering and in the light cotton hospital gown, it was extremely cold.

I came into my room at the postnatal ward at about 2:45 AM after which Prashanth and mom left. As I had a spinal anesthesia, my legs were numb and I would have to feed Aditi in the lying position. There was an Indian midwife who was so very helpful the whole night and kept Aditi beside me so she could feed as oftne as she wanted. I think the anesthesia and exhaustion made me sleep well. In the morning, Aditi was given a nice hot bath and the miwife remarked that she nejoyed it completely. Right from the very beginning, Aditi loved her baths. She would enjoy them so much that even today, her eyes lit up when I lower her into her bath tub. We came home on the Sunday and were so relived to be back home. Mom cooked up some lovely dinner and we enjoyed her cooking for the next 2 months, unti lI had to take over the home and kitchen, albeit reluctantly. 10 months later, I can say that I enjoyed every minute in the last 10 months although there were some ups and downs in the initial months.

Daily Musings

2007-12-06T05:50:00.000-08:00

Picture perfect innocence:
Meadowhall is one of the biggest shopping centres here with all the high street shops under one roof. Termed 'The Land of Shoppertunity', it has cinema halls and boasts of a variety of entertainment and events all year through. It typically resembles the Trafford Centre in Manchester for its dome shaped structure and shops, but is within the city. What makes it a getaway for us is that the tram takes us from our doorstep to Meadowhall in less than half an hour.

I had done a bit of the usual shopping and was using the self-service tills at M & S when one of the staff peeped into the pushchair where Aditi was asleep and remarked 'Picture perfect innocence. She looks absolutely gorgeous'. I managed a meek Thank you and walked out.

Its true that they look like angels when asleep, but I like it when Aditi is awake, demanding that I give her all my time and energy. How they learn to do little things continues to amuse me for my little girl has graduated from walking to climbing. She tries to climb over the sofa, over the bedside table from the bed, does an above turn on her highchair and stands up if I forget to strap her as soon as I put her down and refuses her food if I strap her.

We recently had a leaking window and someone had come to fix it. Aditi who is usually sticky to me was found sitting near his toolbox with a look that said 'Can I play with these long and short, round and square metal stuff?'. Probably they seemed so much more interesting than her child-friendly plastic toys. Though she never touched the ites on the tool box, she stayed there for full 20 minutes watching the man at work and talking to him in her own baby language.

She has also taken a keen interest on books and can be found looking deeply into each picture. This one pictured on the left can make different noises like a buzzer, sipping through a staw, trumpet, dog barking and some musical tunes. She loves to press each one and listen to the music. This keeps her engaged for a good half an hour. The other books she loves to play with are the cloth books which make diferent sounds. Her favorite though is the ones with different textures on them that resemble animal skins. She can stroke the feathers of a bird, the velvety fur on a tiger, the smooth,shiny skin of a frog and the knobbly,scaly skin on a fish. I am not sure if these books were around when we were younger, but it does help to keep my little one occupied, while I can get done with the rest of the chores around the house.

Another thing she enjoys doing is cleaning the sofa of any item including cushions, remotes, mobile phones or anything found on the sofas. The other day I had piled all the clothes to be folded onthe sofa and within seconds, they were all on the floor. and this was in the 30 seconds that I had slipped into the kitchen to make a cup of tea.

We are off to a much awaited holiday next week and I am eagerly looking forward to it. There would be many firsts in it for Aditi and I welcome any tips on travel with infants from other experienced moms.

First Steps

2007-11-30T05:54:00.000-08:00

Aditi could stand up with support over the last few weeks. She would use anything for support - coffee table, dining chair, sofa, her highchair, bed frame, the handle on a chest of drawers or kitchen cabinet, bookshelf, dustbin and not to forget mama's or papa's pants. She would stand for a little while and call for help - to sit down. Initially, she would carefully place one hand on the floor,while the other held on to the support and lower herself carefully onto the carpet. But she quickly learnt it was easier to ask someone to lower her down than try and hurt her bottom - which she did quite often. Early mornings she would stand up and rock her cot to catch our attention.

Not being happy with just standing and watching the world, Aditi made an effort to start walking with support. Now thats her favorite passtime. She would strat from one end of the sofa and move to the other end, lower herself and start it all over again. But she does only in one direction onto her left - as she did with turning over and thumb sucking.She favors the left side for some reason whatsoever.

As for mobility sans support, she favors the tummy dragging/crawling technique. She starts to crawl about 3-4 steps and then goes back on her tummy, although shes been doing more of the crawling lately. Her speed has increased tremoundously. Now she gives us a 'Catch-me-if-you-can' look while she tries to find her way from one room to another.She loves to play peek-a-boo with her pappa.

As her nap times during the day gradually decreases, Its become ever more important for me to have a watchful eye over her actions all day.

Sunrise and Rainbow

2007-11-23T09:01:00.000-08:00

Inspired by Tharini of Winkie'sWays to capture the sunrise, I waited eagerly every morning only to be greeted by a gloomy day. The sun almost never came out in the last 10 days. It only rained and poured and our nights grew colder. However I managed to capture a rainbow and some snow. It was a nice afternoon and the rains had just stopped. A rainbow appeared in the sky and stretched from one end to the other. It is surprising how a simple rainbow can bring so much happiness and joy to our minds. Here are some pictures for you to enjoy.

Rainbow on a wintery afternoon

A trip To London

2007-11-06T12:59:00.000-08:00

This was Aditi's second trip to London, the first one was with her grandparents and parents in sunny July on a sight seeing visit. She was then 5 months old and totally enjoyed the Big Bus Tour, the tube journeys , the constant pampering by her aunts, uncles and cousins. This time though was a different story. She was now eight months old and always wanted to stick to me. Why would we make another trip to London so soon? This time it was to attend the housewarming ceremony of our cousin.
It was a lovely Sunday and we packed the typical puliyodarai and thayir sadam for our journey. Aditis brunch was slightly modified from the usual paruppu sadam to her favorite apple-banana-orange burst. We planned to leave Sheffield by 7am to reach London by 11am and hence avoid most of the traffic enroute. We did manage to leave at 5 minutes to 7 and were well on time. A short drive later fog and mist made the roads barley visible, but lasted only a few miles. After a short break and a quick change/feed routine for Aditi, we moved on only to be greeted by roadworks on the motorway. We manged to make it toour cousins place in West London by 11am. Aditi loved the new place for she could move and explore newer things around this house.
We had a nice lunch prepared by them and a quick nap before leaving for the ever vibrant Asian suburb of Wembley in NorthWest London.
The area where we live does not have too many South Asian shops and hence I always cherish trips to Wembley/Eastham(another Tamil/SriLankan region in East London). After some last minute shopping for the function, we decided to dine at one of the nicer restaurants there.The problem was there was a long queue of people waiting for a table and this restaurant would not take advance bookings.After about 30 minutes we settled down and Aditi sat on her high chair.
Usually Aditi is an early sleeper and goes to bed by 7pm. I hate to disturb her routine, but this day was different. She acted as our guest of honor and enthralled the audience nearby by her contant spoon/fork beating.It was almost 11 pm when we returned home, but sat chatting for another couple of hours sipping hot tea.
Their new home was just a 10 minute drive from where they lived, which made it easy for us to commute.Our plan was to leave from their new home, so we had to pack our baggage and leave once and for all. Surprisingly, the function began on time and was completed bang on time. Lunch was served, but Aditi who had been a very nice girl all morning decided that mummy would not eat. Our cousin had to distract her using all sort of tricks while we had a quick lunch. Soon it was time to bid good-bye to our cousins and to London and we were on our way back to home sweet home. Aditi liked the return journey and slept for most part of the trip.
I dont know what it is about London that makes it so special, but I have always wanted to live there. Except for a short span of 10 months in 2005, we have spent most of our times outside the great capital. Its probably because we are away from London, that makes it so much more nicer.

Golu in Sheffield

2007-10-16T14:14:00.000-07:00

Navrathri brings back all the wonderful memories of dolls arranged neatly in the pre-constructed steps, going from house to house inviting them for kolu, and the 'sundal' packets given away in every house. I remember shopping with my Pati every year around the Mylapore tank looking for the prefect and the latest set of dolls for display. The Marapachi bommais resplendent in silk will occupy centrestage.

Not at such a grand scale as that in my Patis house, but in my own small way I started working towards the Golu a week back. I well knew that the dolls will not stay in their steps even for a few hours as Aditi would pull them all down in a jiffy as soon as she sets eyes on them. As Formula1 is the latest craze at home, I decided to put up a F1 show and bought a few racing cars. Golu is never complete without a park and the fish tank. So made the swing, see-saw and slide for the park. The rest of the steps were adorned by Aditi's toys.

My Pati would invite 9 kanya girls and 9 ladies for lunch on a friday and give them clothes and other accessories. Unfortunately I could not find so many girls and hence invited our friends home for dinner and vettlai pakku.

And yes, Aditi loves to pull them down and pick her favorite toy and play with it.