Vivid colors!

Sid (washing his hands in the bathroom, calls and asks me): Mamma, what is champagne?
Me (surprised): It's an alcoholic drink, white in color, something like soda.
Sid: Then is there pink champagne?
Me (SURPRISED and a tad confused): Maybe there is, like flavored drinks.
Sid (obviously not done with the questioning and STILL washing his hands): Is it kept in ice?
Me (Running to the bathroom now and asking him pointedly!!): Where did you see all this?
Sid (not at all perturbed by my tone, casually SINGS): Pink champagne on ice. It is there in 'Hotel California' lyrics!!
Me (makes a mental note to talk to Josh): Ok, usually champagne or wine is kept in a bucket of ice to keep it cold. Now come out!

With a kid, surprises are at every corner! This was all thanks to his keyboard classes!

That time of the year again

It is that time of the year again! New 'fresh' books, buying binding sheets and labels, dusting bags and boxes to see if it is reusable and so on..

You guessed it right. School starts soon and I can't tell who's more excited - my son or I?!

Every year, I take up the responsibility of binding and labelling the school books. Measuring and cutting the sheets, carefully covering the books, cello-taping the flaps - so therapeutic! It is also nostalgic. I look into the pensieve scattered with my childhood memories, observing my parents bind my books, to assisting them and then covering the books on my own. The visit to the friendly neighborhood stationery store, gaping at the laminated binding sheets (damn, they were costly!!), settling on the normal brown paper, having a lot of fun choosing what labels to pick - the cartoon ones, the plain ones, the car ones, so many choices to make!

I always loved this chore and needless to say, I was so excited to repeat the cycle with my child!
This year, I let him observe for a while, and also got him to choose and peel the labels out (slyly added Dora stickers too - to make sure he doesn't get into the boys/girls arguments in school, he is still unsure about it though, let's see how that pans out).

Starting of the school year also means an end to the vacation - not only his but mine as well. Will have to sharpen my skills, make plans and be ready to make the journey as easy and fun as possible.
Here's to a great new year - full of exciting possibilities, new learnings, happiness and disappointments, and everything in between! 

Places

I have these cushion covers from Chumbak that have 'my happy place' printed on them. The cushions with those covers are on the ledge beneath the window in my room, where I sit and read or watch videos. (So that is my happy place indeed!)

One lazy Saturday morning, when I woke Sid up, he didn't want to get up. He looked at me, pointed to the bed and said 'my happy place'. We laughed about it, and later on he suddenly hugged me and said 'Actually you are my happy place!'

So now I am his happy place and also his favorite color (which he stated in an obviously matter of fact way the other day!)

The pressure of being a mom I tell you!! ;-)

Clay and stones

It has been quite a long time since I posted travelogues. Although, there are quite a few to add, thanks to our wonderful vacation in Australia, this post is not about it, but a quick trip planned with the family.

Since the kiddo and his cousins did not have any good outing together, this summer, we decided to go to 'Our Native Village', near Hesaraghatta for a day.

Well, it was terribly hot, but the place had shade, thanks to the trees, and was full of engaging activities to keep us occupied, for the most part of the day. The highlight of the place was all the rustic games - Kite flying, Laggori, Gilli-danda, catapult, tyre-racing, spinning tops. There were added attractions too, in the form of pottery making, garland making, rangoli making, cow-milking (yeah, you heard that right!) and a bullock-cart ride! A few indoor games, like carrom, chess, snake and ladder were also present.

Through the bullock-cart ride, I was trying to recollect the bullock cart ride songs in Hindi/Kannada movies that I had come across! Some of the ones I remembered were 'Oh re taal mile' and 'Janumada jodi' songs.

It was a return to our childhood seeing the games, and the village ambience and the other activities made our parents nostalgic! Needless to say, the kids enjoyed thoroughly, making the most of the time we spent there.
The adults had fun too, although, there were pockets of time, when we did nothing, but just slept/sat on the mats/benches and talked. Well, doing nothing was fun too, I guess, if you could excuse the heat!

Food was very good, and the buttermilk was just what the doctor ordered for a hot summer day!!!
We even got to buy some organic vegetables, that were grown in the resort.

All in all, a good place to spend a day, esp. with kids and if you enjoy playing outdoors.

View greeting us on the way to the resort.

Inside the resort. The fruit ladden mango, sapota, lemon trees were a beautiful sight!

And so were the flowers!

Decorative door

Fun with Sid!

"Mamma, you are so lucky to have me as your son!!!"

This, when I caught him playing with toothpaste and water and chided him for wasting water!
"Why do you say that?", I asked.
"Because I love experimenting. You will be happy right, when I experiment."

Scientist or not, he sure will be a smooth talker! 

An Experiment named Parenting

Here are some of my honest, albeit randomly ordered, thoughts and opinions about parenting, some personally experienced and some observations. Some simple, some complex!
Over the coming years, am sure, I will learn new things and be exposed to different situations and will have to rack my brain as to how to deal with those, but that is a worry for another time! :)

Parenting is an extremely personal and unique journey. It cannot be duplicated, cannot be modelled on other's journey, and it should be done on your own (with your spouse, if you have one).

Difference of opinion with your spouse is extremely common. Having a stand is good, but negotiating and coming to a common ground is beneficial to the child, in the long run. Constant difference of opinion will tire not only you, but your child as well!

Some mistakes in judgement happen. This, even when people willingly correct it, sometimes, even before the mistake becomes visible. But if you don't go through it, how will you be sure? It might even turn out to be right.
You never know, unless you try.

Talk to your child, a lot! Keep the communication open. I like to give my child the benefit of doubt. I like hearing his views, thoughts and provide my views and theories to him. I assure him that it's ok to feel or behave a certain way, even if everyone else is against it. It just reinforces that it is ok to be different, to have an opinion and be vocal about it!

Love your child. Respect your child. Don't humiliate or chid him in public, unless, you are very sure he was wrong, if so, then do educate him gently. But do not be tolerant of consistent bad behavior though.

Actively use 'Please', 'thank you', 'sorry' and encourage the child to do so too.

Try to avoid the social/school pressure of the child excelling academically, if you can. Constantly encourage your child to do his best, and then forget about the results. This is true for all endeavors, not academic alone.

Let your child watch cartoons/songs/nature,animal and cosmos videos etc, under your guidance, for maybe half an hr a day. It won't harm them too much, but will help them expand their knowledge as well.

Invest in a hobby or class (music/karate etc), but not too many, the child should be able to get some playing time. Make exercise (physical - playing/cycling etc and/or mental - board games, painting etc) a daily habit. But its also ok to take a break and relax on Sundays.

Be creative and explore fun ways of spending time together with the child.

Love and Respect your spouse, be vocal about it, your child will be immensely benefitted by it.

Never tag your happiness to your child/('s). Rather, never make your child as your only source of happiness. The burden that they will subconsciously carry through their life, might/will affect them negatively.

Be happy in your own space, don't tie it with your child's. Eat chocolates when your child can't. Go out and explore when your child won't. It is as important as, say, giving away your last piece of cake to your child without a moment's hesitation or playing hide-n-seek by hiding and seeking at the same place, multiple times, without making it look like a chore, enjoy these moments when you can.

Don't let guilt (internal and external) mar your perspective and stability. Be brave, be your own person. Your child might sulk or not like it now, but gradually and surely, your child will respect that and when time comes, would definitely be his/her own person easily, probably without the internal struggle you have had to endure.

At the end of it all, there will still be imperfections, I-could-have-done-better feelings, but take a deep breath, relax and remind yourself that it's ok, really ok!

Stuff kids think and say!

On one lazy weekend, Sid and I were reading in the balcony and I happened to see a Kite (mostly) and showed the same to Sid. He asked me which bird that was, and I said "Mostly Kite, don't know for sure". He, excitedly, quips: "Mamma, do you have any bird-scanner like QR-scanner? (I had introduced it to him, because of some kiddy game app) You know, we could point the phone camera to the bird, and the app can scan the bird and tell us what bird it is."

I was dumbstruck! What a brilliant idea. There might be something similar wrt image-search, but live scanning and searching sounds interesting!

Waiting to see such an app now! Remember, you heard it first here!!

In Dino..

After a terrible 2016, a new year has started. There might be many things that will go wrong and many that might just be perfect, but its another chance to change for the good! As usual, there are some goals and resolutions, but who knows how much can be accomplished. Give it your best though, will ya?

Some thoughts and happenings, that individually were too small for a post and too long for a tweet, had been housed in the back of my mind for some time, and now, I have listed it out here, as a collective, so that it doesn't slip away from the already cluttered, confused mind.

• Had high hopes on Prof.Bharadwaj's tryst with the present, but was throughly disappointed. I am speaking, of course, of 'Immortal' by Krishna Udayashankar. After the brilliant, excellent, amazing (and other such superlative adjectives) 'The Aryavarta Chronicles', I expected too much perhaps. It ends up like 'Indiana Jones', which in the Professor's word, was actually not supposed to be! I was reminded of 'The Emperor's Riddles', which I did not like either. Although, both gave a lot of materials, history, mythology, places to learn about, so can't complain much!?

• One more book that I read and was not impressed by was ' One Indian Girl' by Chethan Bhagat. There are some parts, that do portray a lady's plight, but there is nothing new that the book offers, and looks to be mostly a script ready to get some or the other Bollywood studio's nod!

• I did catch up on short stories though. Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot. Ah! What plots and twists. What words, what sentence formations. Brilliant!  Loved them to bits! I did try to read some aloud for Sid though, and he refused to listen. He is happy reading the books he likes. 

• Speaking of Sid, well, he has progressed to reading on his own now, and the bedtime and weekend afternoon readings has become a breeze! I have, sneakily, made a deal that I will read 1 story and he gets to pick and read whatever he wants. Those are the most peaceful minutes of the day! :-D Moreover, I get to read in that gap as well! 

• I did not watch as many movies as I wanted to in 2016! I flare up when I see the nominations, that have started for the Annual award ceremonies. Not because of the choices, but I must have watched probably only a couple of them, that's all! Oh, the horror!! I don't think I can get myself to watch any of the award ceremonies this year! 

• 2016 has also been a year of great highs and lows. I, who has claimed, never to have caught a fever, as far as I remember, finally caught one! The family too kept falling sick. Hope we fare better this year.

• Arijit Singh sounds constipated now-a-days - 'Channa mere ya' and a couple of more recent ones!  'Ae dil hain mushkil' title track sounds fine though. Compare some of the recent ones to a 'Phir le aaya Dil' or a 'Laal ishq' and you can notice the difference. Or is it deliberate, to sound sad, perhaps? 

• Speaking of Phir le aaya dil, it still sounds magical! I am not sure if I loved the song instantly (kiddo wanted the Barfi songs on loop) or loved it after I saw the video. I sometimes think it is, indeed, the latter. The silent emotions that are expressed in the eyes of the leads are just so beautiful! Well-directed and emoted!  

          Check it out here:

The age old conflict!

Saturday was Sid's Sports Day. He was in some 2 races and 1 dance. Overall, it was a very nice event, although it started an hr late! We enjoyed looking at the kids in colorful costumes, running around, dancing, shouting, crying and generally behaving like, well, kids!

But one thing that I observed and which I was vocally against was the sexist nature of some of the events and people!

There was a running race, in which 2 kids had to hold hands and run together. Partner race, it was called. Sid and 1 other guy were partners. They won, by a good margin, but the MC (a lady, mostly one of the teachers, and that scares me!) says this was expected, they are boys or something similar.
I was annoyed! In one other race, the girl who came second was equally good, but no one mentioned how close the race was.

One more incident was a race for girls alone, which was called 'going to the market'! There you go! And to top it, the aforementioned MC, states that, 'girls, now you can help your mommies shop for groceries'!

I was affected by these statements, and I did talk about how this was wrong with Josh and the other parents around. The other parents did not seem to care much though.
I wanted to walk to her and tell her that she just cannot talk like this, typecasting boys, girls, attributing certain characters to each of them. They are growing kids, easily influenced. What will they end up teaching the kids!? I didn't tell her this, but did voice my disappointment to Josh.
Hopefully, the entire school isn't like that, if so, then I have issues with letting my kid continue in such an environment.

Maybe it was harmless and I am over-reacting, but it just didn't feel right. I know my son will be exposed to all kinds of philosophies, all kinds of people, and I cannot control it, but will definitely try to make him and my sphere of influence understand that there shouldn't be any chores, any activity which should be attributed to the sex of the person. Yes, I agree there are differences between a boy and a girl, but we should concentrate on the true potential and passion of the kid, rather than stick to stereotypes, like a boy should train to play cricket or run, a girl should learn to cook! Sometimes, and quite often, it does happen that a boy is not interested in running and a girl in not interested in cooking!
For god's (or whatever it is you believe in) sake, let them be!


A side note:
  I am reading an excellent book, the last of the trilogy - The Aryavarta Chronicles, which deserves a post of its own, but there is an exchange between Uttara and Abhimanyu in that, which talked about the so called equality between men and women.
 Abhimanyu tells Uttara, that seeing her, he thinks that women are no less than men (complimenting her), but Uttara tells him that the very fact that he is thinking about her being equal negates the statement. Truly equal means not even thinking about it! (I am summarizing it and not using the exact words)