Good luck, girlie

A friend remarked to me recently that "Baby sisters have to be tough". She speaks from experience because, like me, her first-born is a boy and her second is a girl. Every day, I pray for Y's well-being as she spares space with her rambunctious and hyper older brother. She crawls underfoot as he dashes from one corner of the house to another with no regard for any tiny hands and feet that he might encounter. If he finds her examining any of his toys, he lets out a high-pitched shriek, catches her around the tummy and bodily flings her into another corner of the room. This happens atleast twice a day. For that one terrible instant when she is up in the air and I am transfixed and powerless to save her, I find myself holding my breath and praying for a relatively smooth landing. She falls with a thud, a mildly puzzled expression on her face -- and I exhale.

At that moment, what I would really like to do is shake Ads really hard and give him a good spanking. It takes every ounce of control not to do so and I vent by yelling at him. We have explained to him that hitting or shoving his sister is not warranted under any circumstances but he does it anyway. So we don't leave the two of them alone without one of us being close at hand to supervise.

It's easy to forget that Y is only 7 months old, given how enthusiastically she wants to join in with any horseplay that's happening around her. Last night, S and I and the 2 kids were in bed. Ads was in ice-cream-induced high spirits, jumping and kicking. S and I ducked every few seconds, trying to avoid major organ damage and shielding Y from the worst of the blows. She was unfazed, laughing, standing up and raring to be a part of the crazy game her brother was playing.

Yes indeed, baby sisters have to be very very tough.

Cast-aways

A few months ago, we were approached by a 'talent scout' at the mall who asked us whether we would be prepared for Ads to model. This was actually the second time that someone had asked us (the first time, Ads was only 2 and I promptly declined). This time, the lady first approached S who, as is his wont, promptly passed the baton to me. Thus ambushed, I didn't have a readymade reason to say No; and I thought, why not go and see what all the fuss is about? Psstt.....no mother can resist the tiniest chance that her cherub could appear on TV or in a billboard.

So anyway, Ads was asked to appear for an audition in San Jose yesterday afternoon at a well-known and reputed modeling agency. There were more than 30 people auditioning - mostly kids of various age-groups but also teenagers and grown-ups. We were asked to watch a short video touting the benefits of this agency and the stellar representation they could offer a wannabe model/actor, followed by an "interview" where we (the parents) were asked a few questions. Ads was plonked in front of the camera where he had to say his name, age and sing a song (the cameraman requested that he sing the ABC song which he did in a barely audible voice, while tightly holding onto my hand). We were pleasantly surprised at how quickly they shepherded everyone through the whole process and Ads' performance was in line with our expectations. He is a shy child and freezes in front of strange and new people. As we were going out of the building, we heard an Indian man say to his wife in Hindi: "Abhi iski awaaz nikal rahi hai" (Obviously he was sorely disappointed by his son's on-camera persona :))

During the interview, Y was sitting on S's lap. The lady asked us whether we had applied for both our kids and when I said we had applied just for Ads, she looked surprised and disappointed. She told me I had two beautiful kids (I bet she says that to everyone!) and that Y had a lot of "personality" and would we be interested in getting her to audition as well? Y had cooed, laughed and gurgled all through the video session and the interview and basically upstaged her brother while hogging all the attention :)

We got back home and they called us an hour later asking us to come back. Apparently Ads has a "lot of potential" and they would like to represent him. When I said that the financial commitment was too much for us (which was just a different way of saying that we had just attended the audition for a lark and were not serious about Ads modeling or acting), they offered us a scholarship which would cover two-thirds of the cost. It's nice to know my child is considered handsome enough to be a model but sorry Y and Ads - your modeling careers are stillborn!

Ads changes his name

Ads now goes by the name of Dindigul Sarathy Rumplestiltskin. It's his own concoction. It had to happen sometime - he asked me recently why I named him Advaith - apparently he doesn't like the name, instead preferring Jimmy or DSR as above.

And to think we took all that trouble trying to select the perfect name for our first-born.

Ads' brings home a gift for Dad

An inverted wooden flower-pot becomes a bell, and an aluminum bolt becomes the gong. A very clever idea and so cute. Ad's Father's Day offering has pride of place on top of our television set.

Jumping off into the deep end

I've started studying again. A distance learning course in Development Studies from the London School of Economics and Political Science. The diploma is supposed to be completed in 1 year as long as I manage to put in a minimum of 6 hours of study per week per unit. I have to take 4 units which translates into atleast 24 hours of study per week. Obviously, this is not do-able as long as my kids don't go to daycare, so I estimated that it would take 2 years for me to earn my credentials (a timeline that began to look wildly laughably optimistic as I started reading the subject guides and looked at the examination questions). And some masochistic streak in me also prompted me to write to a social venture fund called Benetech, volunteering my time with them. I've had a couple of initial meetings with them and they want me to act as a consultant, working on developing a CSR and volunteer engagement strategy.

I enjoy having a finger in several pies at once (even though this particular pie-and-finger scenario is guaranteed to raise my stress-levels big-time), so the next few months promise to be interesting as I try to balance the demands of being a mother and household-in-charge with studying and working.

Pottermania?

Ads has been requesting us for stories every afternoon, night, at mealtimes and milk-times. That's nothing new. He loves books and listening to stories. But now he demands a "new" and "dangerous" (don't ask me what that means - something with chills and thrills I suppose!) story at every sitting, it's much more difficult to come up with something that satisfies him. He has said a firm no to "Ummachi" (God- and lord- related) stories. I have exhausted my repertoire of Arabian nights, Panchatantra and Jataka tales (he wasn't very taken with those), fairy tales and stories from my own childhood - some real and some contrived. I read up on stories from the Ramayana and Mahabharata but apparently they come under the head of Ummachi stories and were summarily rejected.

So a few nights ago, in complete desperation, I started on Harry Potter, quite sure that he would not understand even my highly simplified version and would quickly lose interest. But as he listened, clearly mesmerised and wanting the narrative to continue long after his bedtime, I started spinning out the story, adding the details that I thought he could digest. We have been at it for 4 days now and I glossed over all the scary bits and ended it this afternoon.

Clearly a ringing endorsement of the gripping nature of JK Rowling's tale. This evening he wants to see the movie on Youtube!

Bereft of my beloved

Bereft of my beloved brand-new HP laptop for the past few days!

It was the lone casualty of a heated argument and scuffle involving me, Ads and a cup of Ovaltine. You get the picture.

S was livid. Especially since he had repeatedly warned me against this exact scenario, knowing my penchant of dawdling over the computer with a cup of tea on the table in front of me, surfacing now and then to brawl with my son. (Yeah Ads and I fight a LOT!)

The poor milk-soaked laptop has gone to be patched up and I should get it back in a few days. The $$$ damage is something like a third of the cost of the laptop.

Takeways:

1. Liquids and costly electronic equipment don't mix (well I should have known that already)

2. Kids and liquids should stay together (away from aforesaid equipment) and in an enclosed area covered in easy-to-wipe-down plastic.

3. Maturity and a cool temper are critical attributes for 30-something mom. Work on it.

An early birthday celebration

Ads' class held a joint birthday celebration for all the kids whose birthdays fell in the summer months (July and August). There are 13 kids all born in July/August of 2003/4/5/6. Parents could volunteer to prepare a dish and bring it to class to be served as part of the birthday celebration. I brought a fruit salad. M-i-l and Y and I landed up to observe the proceedings. Ads didn't seem too thrilled to see us, as I had suspected. Everytime I smiled at him, he would put a finger to his lips and mouth "Stop". After a few instances of this, I got thoroughly irritated with him and stopped looking in his direction. Notably, he was asked to "do the calendar" - read out the date, day, month and year and before he went up to do this, he looked at me and said "You don't look".
Our resident bully was quiet as a mouse in the classroom. I barely heard his voice. What a transformation!

Y starts talking + Ads and I stop talking

I hate to have to admit that I am fighting - yes, fighting as in dispute, quarrel, disagree vehemently - with my almost-4 year old. But I am doing it. I have reached an unpleasant place in Mommyland where I am simply fed up with Ads' multiple daily tantrums. Somebody should have warned me about the terribly terrifying threes. I feel qualified to sit for an exam in Tantrum Management 101. I had a talk with his teacher a couple of days ago and it appears that I am doing the right thing when he throws a fit. I simply ignore him and do not relent until he apologizes and starts acting reasonable. It's difficult to be consistent with this discipline strategy when there are three other people in the house unwilling to play along. But someone has to do it and I have willingly taken on the role of EVIL WITCH.

Some days, like today, it is tough to say when one tantrum ends and another begins. I heaved a sigh of relief when I dropped him in school. When I picked him up at noon, he started in on another tantrum and I quickly handed him over to his grandmother as soon as I got home, locking myself in the bedroom with my sweet pumpkin daughter who is much much easier to manage! I kept my interaction with him to the bare minimum all afternoon until he apologized (at S's prompting).

This too shall pass. Or so I hope.

But the really notable thing that happened today was that Y said her first words! Thatha and Appa. Too exciting!! We are simply thrilled. It looks like we are shortly going to welcome another chatterbox into the family.

Ads' new mantra

Ads' grandma has been teaching him some slokas. In particular, the mantra of Lord Vishnu (Shaantakaaram bhujaga-shayanam) is something he can recite perfectly. He was suffering from night terrors a few months ago and started asking me every night "Will I get bad dreams?" and I always used to respond with a simple "No, you won't". His grandma told him that he would never get bad dreams if he recited the sloka before he went to bed. He obediently went about doing this and obviously (and coincidentally), the night terrors stopped. So he attributes his peaceful sleep to the sloka. He has started saying it diligently at all times of the day and night. For the last week, he has been starting every sentence with "Bhava bhaya haram" and often interrupts himself in the middle of a sentence to say the same phrase. It appears that it has become an emotional crutch for him.

I don't know whether to be (slightly) irritated or (highly) amused by this new idiosyncrasy. I think a strategy of placid indifference might just do the trick.

New acquisition

After weeks of lurking on Craigslist and some false starts, I finally managed to buy Ads a bike. It's a 12 inch Huffy bike with training wheels and he rides it very well. It's second-hand of course (I was determined not to buy a new one -- they are exorbitantly priced for something that will only be used for a year at the most) but in near-perfect condition. And I paid only 20 $$ for it!! That's the part that thrills me the most :)

He already has knee and elbow pads that came with a pair of skates (which, incidentally, he refuses to use) but I still have to get him a helmet. He's very pleased with his new "toy" and has thus totally ignored the scooter that is also a recent acquisition. The fact that the scooter is much harder to maneuver may largely account for his indifference. Ads likes things easy.

Of family and friends

Yesterday, we were at home the whole day. Quite rare considering it was a Saturday and we try very hard not to stay home on the weekend! It was just as well that we did because it was a blistering hot day (90 degrees though it felt like more to me). We had one of my father-in-law's cousins and his wife visiting from Toronto. They stayed for several hours - over lunch, dessert and tea-time - and in the evening another cousin came to pick them up and take them to his house.

Ads didn't want to nap because he was afraid he would miss all the excitement and talk. He brought many of his toys to the living room and was playing/drawing there in the midst of all the noise. Someone commented on the fact that both my kids seemed to like having people around and were participating in the conversation every now and then (Y's contribution was to listen with rapt concentration to the talk, as though she understood every word). It had been the same on Friday when S had a friend from India visiting.

So anyway, when people started reminescing about how life was so different when they were kids, and how summer holidays were nothing but tons of idle fun, and how children nowadays get bored inspite of all the toys and gadgets and entertainment options that they have, I began to think (not for the first time) how nice it is for Ads to have lots of people around to talk with and play with. I guess that was the biggest advantage of the joint-family system. The multitude of people (complele lack of privacy nonwithstanding), the abundance of playmates, the excellent support system, and the rapport one developed with every member of the extended family, is unbeatable.

I know that because I live so far away from my family, I tend to crave the old familial bonds just like a lot of desis do. Not all the time, not even most of the time, but ocassionally yes I do feel it would be nice for my kids to live in a place where there were a lot of cousins and family around. It would drive me crazy after a point, but then you can't have everything :)

I'll settle for our old apartment complex in Bangalore where twenty-four kids were born in 2005, the same year that Ads was born. No more agonizing over organizing playdates and coordinating the calendars of several kids. Any time the grandparents want to see my kids (or vice versa), they are just a short train ride away. At this point, when my kids are so young, this would be my biggest motivation for going back to India.

Not so fast, please

Y has been practicing standing up for the last couple of days and today, she has been catching hold of a proffered hand and getting up on her own. She has been refusing to sit down, instead preferring to practice the standing pose. If she keeps up this blistering pace, she might very well be walking in a month or two - a prospect which might have filled me with pride and delight had it happened with my first-born - but with the weight of experience behind me, only fills me with dread. Sigh -- I was looking forward to a few more months of a not-so-mobile baby.

The excitement over Y standing up has been such that we almost didn't notice that she has also started crawling well, ditching her seal-like close-to-the-floor movement in favour of the traditional baby crawl.

Exciting times now and ahead!!!

Teacher's report

Earlier, I had posted about our first parent-teacher conference at school. This afternoon, we had the second conference with Ads' teachers (they have 2 every school year, one 6 weeks after the child starts school and one in May a few weeks before school breaks up). We were handed a booklet which had a very detailed breakup of the various activities done by the children and the rating assigned to the child at these activities. A rating of 1 is a "New Presentation" which means the child has just been introducted to the activity; 2 means "Making progress"; 3 means "Age-appropriate" and so on. Ads has made significant progress in motor skills, language skills and social skills. The feedback given by the teachers is much the same as last time. He is friendly, polite, gets along with everyone, is eager to learn and has adjusted well to school. His school persona is completely at variance with his personality at home which is that of screaming banshee and temper tantrum expert.

Nowadays he screams so much, often very close to Y's ear and never for any justifiable reason, that I find myself shouting to make myself heard over the din. I have to repeatedly tell him to keep the noise level down; not that my entreaties have any effect. He quietens down for a few minutes and then starts shrieking again. Sometimes the apartment sounds like a madhouse. I'm dreading the day when Y stops being a passive observer and adds her contribution to the decibel level.

In any case, we were pleased with the good report he got from his teachers. They asked us to work on boosting his independence by allowing him to dress himself and eat by himself. Apparently I must give him more "choices" everyday, like allowing him to choose what he will wear to school etc. Yeah that's gonna lessen my stress - waiting in the wings while Ads stands in front of his closet deciding what to wear - when we have to be out of the door in 5 minutes.

Y's movin' n groovin'

Y is all over the place, crawling, sitting up independently and for the last 2 days, trying to stand up! She holds on to whatever is available -the couch, someone's lap, a chair - and tries to haul herself up. Her pudgy legs aren't strong enough yet but she is making enormous progress. I can see incremental improvements on a day-by-day basis, sometimes even within a 24-hour span. She is on the move throughout the day. She falls on her back dozens of times (hurray for wall-to-wall carpet!), nonchalantly gets up, dusts herself off and gets back to work.

Observing her at these times reminds me of Ads' babyhood all over again. She is so much like him, and yet completely unlike him. I get a lot of pleasure in watching her grow day by day. This is my favourite phase in babies - I think they are cutest between 4 and 12 months.

I made a quick trip to Target and installed electrical outlet protectors throughout the apartment. But there is still a lot of baby-proofing to be done around the house.

My first Mother's day gift

I'm not sure Ads knows what Mother's Day is, but he made a "gift" for me at school. It's an extremely pretty glass jar with a candle inside, the jar decorated with transparent squares of paper dipped in paint. Adorning the neck of the jar is a bead bracelet that he made. A card with a butterfly motif proclaims - "Happy Mother's Day! Love, Advaith". The whole thing comes custom gift-wrapped in a white paper bag decorated with his crayoned scribblings. Obviously I am thrilled to bits :)

Tough cookie in the baking

Ah I should have begun to blog three years ago. Try as I might, I simply can't remember whether Ads was hitting his milestones in the same manner as lady Y is. She is spunky and adventurous. He was (and still is) extremely cautious. She can't resist putting everything she handles, into her mouth. Ads was (and is) so finicky that he will examine every new food item several times before he condescends to taste it. As a baby, I never had to worry about inappropriate items finding their way into his stomach. She is quicker to anger and harder to pacify than he was. To sum up, she is developing into one tough cookie.
Y, although not crawling yet, is managing to find her away about the house quite well. She slithers and slides across the floor in a manner reminiscent of a seal/sea lion. She attacks Ads' stack of books and artwork which he has stored in a corner of the living room. RIIIPPPP - a crayoned drawing is torn in half. Before she starts working on his favourite book, he yells in dismay and yanks everything out of her reach in panicked haste. She has managed to make him clear his mess out of the living room and into the guest bedroom, where it belongs - a feat that I never managed to accomplish in the last couple of years.
Early this morning, I found her crawling with her eyes still shut, all over her sleeping brother -- in a vain quest for her morning cuppa milk. A case of mistaken identity, indeed! The day is not too far away when she will start harassing Ads in earnest. For all his bluff and bluster, my son is an innocent (we would call him saadhu in Tamil).

Swimming like a fish? Not yet!

Ads has had 3 swimming lessons so far. He bawled his heart out the first time, cried a little bit at the beginning of the second lesson but settled down soon; and got third time lucky and managed a tear-free lesson. Whew. The class has a maximum of 4 kids at any given time. The coach gives roughly 7 minutes of individual attention to each kid in a 30-minute class (more if one of the kids doesn't show up). They get carried around the pool on a dumbbell-like apparatus, get held face up in the water by the coach to practice floatation, are asked to jump into the pool from the sides and into the coach's arms and do some kicking exercises to strengthen their leg muscles. S and I stay well away from Ads' line of sight in case he starts bawling again. In a couple more classes, he will be okay with us observing from a better vantage point I think. At the end of the class, the kids form a choo-choo train behind the coach and do a few laps around their portion of the pool. Ads is hungry as a hunter by the time he is done. I am looking forward to the summer when I can take him to the many recreational pools dotted around the Bay Area and enjoy the sight of him having fun in the water.
Here are 2 photos clicked before he left for swim class this week. We got him a new pair of swim trunks+swim shirt and goggles. They give him the flippers in class.

Y starts solids

Y is now five and a half months old and I started her on solids a few days ago. She has been ready and willing for solid food for atleast a month now, but I kept putting it off. It is so convenient to nurse. No sterilizing utensils and spoons, wiping spills, mixing and measuring, dish-washing....Plus a part of me is unwilling to let go of that precious mother-baby bond. But anyway, she started on rice cereal a few days ago and I am planning to introduce apples next week; so in a couple of months I will be lugging around baby food on top of everything else. My heart isn't in it :)

I remember how I slaved over Ads' first feed. Family and friends strongly recommended 'ragi' as the first food. So my mother and I procured fresh ragi flour, cleaned it by seiving through a thin cotton cloth, stored enough for a few feeds then carefully cooked it with milk and a little jaggery. All in the quest of being the perfect mom feeding her perfect cherub the perfect first food. What a waste of time and effort. I must have been the typical paranoid first-time mother, inexperienced and bowed down by the weighty and often unsolicited advice of others.

For Y, I condescended to go to Target and pick out my choice of cereal (instead of leaving that job to S!) and that's all the effort I was willing to take. I am sure she will grow up to be as healthy as Ads even with store-bought food products :)

A quest for wildflowers

An active fun-filled outdoorsy weekend. Just the kind I like. Some days ago, I planned a weekend excursion to see wildflowers. I see them everywhere now in the city, noddling their colourful heads in the breeze. They look so pretty and alluring that I started getting visions of flower-strewn wilds a la the Yash Chopra flicks. I researched online and asked around some, and found out that the best place to see spring wildflowers, was the Russian Ridge Open Space Preserve near Palo Alto. So I asked S's second cousin and his wife if they would like to come, got everyone excited about seeing thousands and thousands of flowers, and off we went on Saturday morning.

45 minutes and a long winding drive later, we were there. And ahem. Not a hint of flowers anywhere. Plus it was windy and cold. Brrr. I was getting dagger-like looks from everybody including S for having dragged them to this god-forsaken place. But we gamely started hiking the Ridge Trail, which was a moderate 1.5 mile hike designed to show us the best views of errr.....wildflowers. The trail was pretty typical, lots of greenery all around and the trees forming a thick canopy over our heads. Less than half a mile of this and abruptly the scenery changed. The trees fell away, disclosing verdant green slopes falling away steeply into a valley, and blue hills in the distance. Breathtaking. The wildflowers were there and they were very pretty but we probably jumped the gun and came early in the season so we didn't see as many as we could have. But the sun came out, the exercise kept us warm and the beauty of the countryside warmed us some more. Ads was very good about walking all that way uphill and I felt proud of myself for doing the same with a 16-lb baby strapped to my front. We had a picnic lunch half-way up the trail. We could have hiked the entire trail at the end of which we were supposed to be able to see the SF Bay and the Pacific ocean, but Ads was getting tired so we never made it that far.

On Sunday, we had a date at Shoreline park in Mountain View with some more relatives. They have a large lake and Ads had fun putting on a life vest and paddling in the boat. A relaxed ending to a very nice weekend.