Ads and r2i

There is a sense of relief now the the r2i decision has been made and we are moving to Delhi in a month or so. The uncertainity of the last few months has come to an end and I am even looking forward to experiencing a new city. As we make humungous to-do lists, sort and dispose of our stuff, call up Delhi brokers and schools, and explore shipping options, there is at the back of my mind an unease and anxiety which I know is only going to intensify over the next couple of months. You know that uncomfortable and nasty feeling that wells up from the pit of your stomach before an important exam or interview that you haven't prepared for, a feeling that makes you almost nauseous? There is only one person who can make me feel that way nowadays, and that is Ads. I am deeply anxious about how he will adjust in India, to a new school, friends and lifestyle. He knows we are moving but I'm not sure it has sunk in yet.

Maybe I'm over-protective about him because he is my first-born. Maybe I got so used to being anxious about him and his well-being, right from the time I saw those two dark-blue lines on the home pregnancy test, all through those not-so-pleasant months of my pregnancy where I prayed incessantly that my baby should be full-term and healthy. Maybe because he hates change, and disruption to routine. Maybe because he is so gentle and I fear he can't handle a big school and a strange environment.

So even though I am a logical reasonable person and I know that children are far more resilient that we give them credit for, I worry about him. I worry about this conscious decision of ours to uproot him from the loved and the familiar. I hate the thought of his first day in the new school, when he will cling to me and cry and beg me not to leave.

As a mother, I know that is a burden you have to carry all your life. A few years ago, I would scold my mother for worrying about me and my brother; but now all I feel is empathy.

As we move to yet another stage in our lives, I have my fingers crossed that it will be an easy journey for Ads.

Naughtiness thy name is Yukta

Highlights from a typical day of dealing with Y's naughtiness -

8 am: Y methodically plucks sundry keys from S's laptop keyboard. Rare yelling session by S occurs.

9.30 am: Y drops S's cellphone into a mug of hot tea, which I was holding in my hand. Another yelling session by S.

11.30 am: Ads is watching TV and she keeps fiddling with the DVD player. Manages to pull open DVD tray and Ads is in tears when the cartoon stops playing.

3.00 pm: Bites Ads in his stomach, leaving behind red puncture marks. Poor Ads reels and cries from the unexpected pain.

5.00 pm: I find the trash can in the bathroom emptied all over the floor (WHICH FOOL LEFT THE LOO DOOR OPEN??? Oops it was me!)

Every 5-10 minutes: Climb onto dining table chair and bang on my laptop keyboard randomly. I'm surprised it's still working.

She needs a contructive outlet for all that energy. Oh for the rains to stop and sunny park-weather days to be here again!

Of brothers and sisters

The three of us, kids and I are alone in the apartment. I'm in the bedroom folding and sorting laundry, making the bed or some other random and mundane chore. From the living room, I hear giggles and snatches of conversation. My mommy antenna pops up. I sneak to the door and slowly extend my head to peek into the living room. Two dark heads are bent over a book. One with black, straight, closely-cropped hair; the other with dark brown curls tumbling in an unruly mass over forehead and neck. Unasked by me, of his own volition, he is reading to his sister. He points out objects and calls out their name. Car. Bus. Apple. Baby. She repeats the words after him. He puts down one book and picks up another. And then another. She is engaged and amused. Every now and then he says something that both find acutely funny.

The sheer beauty of the bond between brother and sister is second only to the bond tethering parent and child.

Lessons learnt when flying solo

S is away in India and I am handling the kids by myself for the last several days, with another week to go. I was terrified of this scenario. Countless questions spun around in my mind. How will I shower? How will I entertain the two? What do I do on weekends? What do I do for adult conversation? And so on.

It has been far easier than I envisaged. I realized that the fear of the unknown, untried and untested is so much more fearsome than the reality of the unknown. My fears turned out to be tissue-paper thin and after a few days, I found myself ridiculing the old me who made a mountain out of a molehill.

Yes it is hard to take a shower. Yes I long for a break, even one just long enough to eat one square meal in peace. Yes they both jump on me and whine and vie for attention at the same time. Yes it is incredibly hard to devote time to both, fulfil their different physical and emotional needs, keep the house clean(ish), do the laundry and the dishes and drive them around to school, library, park......the list goes on.

Thus, second important lesson learnt. Their behaviour mirrors mine. If I remain calm and in control, they stay calm and in control. I don't have the luxury of flying off the handle and losing it, because if I get mad at them, whom can they run to for support? At this point, I am the only parent they have. So I have to be good as gold. And you know what? They are being good as gold too. (Well, mostly....).

Playing Supermom has done wonders for my momfidence!

Of food and other things

An important lesson I learnt after moving to the States and observing American moms at work was that the sooner you teach your toddler to be independent, the better (for you mostly, but also for your child). I still have a big problem with the western habit of plonking a 6-week old child in her own crib and room, far away from her parents; but other than that, there's a lot of be learnt from the super-efficient way in which American moms teach their children to feed and dress themselves from a very early age. It was a little too late for me to implement these ideas with Ads, but I am trying to remedy that defect now that I have Y to practise upon. She has been a most willing and eager student.

The first thing to know about Y is that, she loves to eat. Period. I've been lucky that Ads is a good eater too, though his menu of choices has gone down but it's still large enough for me not to worry about what he's going to eat when we are on the road. (So why are both my kids so skinny????). With her good motor skills, she is able to grasp a plastic tumbler filled with milk and gulp it down with a minimum of liquid tricking down her clothes. She has been snacking on an assortment of finger foods - paneer and cheese bits, cheese puffs (her favourite), cookies and crackers, slices of apple and banana, and frosted cereal. Not content with what is offered to her on the highchair tray, she insists on snacking from my plate. In the last few days, she has gobbled down a quarter of a roti, bits of bread with nutella and sunflower seed butter, a couple of grapes, and some pulao. With such a cooperative ward, I would be incompetent indeed if I didn't teach her to feed herself by the time she is 18 months old.

She has picked up a few more words like Yeah (she uses it all the time, mostly in context!), Bye, Hi. There's a lot of babbling going on all the time all of which means something I am sure but which is all quite incomprehensible. She is still pretty clingy but doesn't have as much stranger anxiety as earlier. She is constantly trying to find out how things work. Having noticed how we point the remote at the TV screen, she walks around pointing my cellphone at the TV, willing it to spring to life. She points the car keys at the car and my house keys at the elevator button!

Here is a snapshot of Y working hard at some munchies.

Blogging after a break

Posting has been slow after we got back from our vacation in Hawaii. The lazy holiday mood carried over even after we landed in 40 degree chilly San Francisco after enjoying the 85 degree sunny and gorgeous Maui climate. It was our best vacation ever (I seem to say that after every trip but this time I think it's really true!) and there were a lot of memorable sights and activities but two things really stand out. One sounds really rather silly when put down in black and white but it's just that, with kids, life becomes so hectic and one of the things my post-baby self has always wanted to do is relax in a cozy armchair with a cup of steaming hot coffee or tea and gaze at the ocean waves lapping on the beach; and I got to do that in Maui. I would wake up by 7 am or so, too late to catch the sunrise, but early enough to beat the morning traffic of S, Y and A; make myself a cup of coffee and sink gratefully into the rattan armchair in the balcony of our condo. Coconut trees everywhere, a mountain with windmills lined up near the summit, and the restless sea. Bliss.

The second thing that I remember with great clarity was the random walk Ads and I took one morning, to the beach near our condo. We wandered through knee-high unkempt grass with no particular purpose, stopping every now and then to (literally) smell the flowers. We plucked some wildflowers, examined the bark of some coconut trees, and even tried to climb one (horribly difficult!). Ads ran ahead of me calling back to me "Honey, come here!" He was a tiny figure in his blue shorts and white T-shirt. He looked so young and vulnerable and I felt a sudden pang of regret that just because he has a younger sibling, maybe we treat him as older than he is and expect a standard of behaviour that is simply not possible for a kid his age? I see parents with just one child who still treat that child, whether they are 5, 7 or 10 years old, like a baby. Maybe we would also treat Ads like the not-long-out-of-babyhood kid that he is, if Y hadn't been around. I decided to be more patient with him, a noble resolution that lasted only as long as his next tantrum that same day :(

Speaking of which, it has been an uphill task dealing with Ads' multiple daily tantrums. For the last 1.5 years, we have been having a hard time dealing with his emotional ups and downs and somehow I thought that after he turned 4, the problem would sort itself out. He would be more mature, we are giving him lots of attention despite (or indeed, because of) Y being around, he would be more settled at school etc etc. None of our predictions have come true and while we are managing this frustrating phase in his childhood, we are far from knowing what triggers these outbursts or whether, as his teacher claims, it's just a stage many kids go through and we don't need to fret about it. Neither the carrot nor the stick approach seems to work. Withdrawing certain privileges as a punishment for bad behaviour is my formula; but what do you do with a kid who calmly accepts a temporary ban on TV and reading books and drawing (his 3 favourite activities) and doesn't seem to learn anything from it? S is amused, I am sheepish and frustrated and the whole incident has no impact on his Majestic Tantrumness.

Y has been engaging us in a different manner; but that is fodder for another post.

Jingle bells and reindeers

Yesterday afternoon, we attended the holiday performance in Ads' school. Ads had not given me any dope on what he was doing in the play, other than that he was a reindeer. The school had asked us to outfit him in a white turtleneck, brown pants and black shoes so that's what he wore. As it turned out, he wasn't doing anything much at all other than looking cute with reindeer horns upon his head!! Some 15 kids, all reindeers, marched in and jingled hand-held bells and that was it. Ads was nervous, we could tell, and jingled and jangled with no particular enthusiasm. Then they were sent off-stage to sit on the floor and that was it. I was taken aback because the rest of the 45-odd kids from the Primary classroom remained on the stage the whole time i.e. for almost 45 minutes. There didn't seem to be any good reason why the other 15 weren't on stage too, and allowed to do their thing. It seemed so unfair and I really wish Ads had got a chance to be in on the chorus or something. Even if he didn't sing, I did want him to get that exposure of being up there in front of a large group of people.

I would talk to his teacher about my reservations if I didn't know that we would not be around next year, so it seems rather pointless to argue. The teachers had told me a couple of weeks back that they don't "force" the kids to do anything, and the child has to "show" interest in performing. Well I think that a 4-year old might not necessarily evince enthusiasm at first. He may however, start getting interested in the whole exercise after a few days when he sees his friends practicing. Or, he could be a shy type (all the more reason why he should be brought out of his shell!) and might not volunteer to sing and dance. I used to be a painfully shy child but when I was 6, a teacher decided that I should dance on stage, and so I did. When I was 7 or 8, another teacher in another school decided that I would be perfect to play Red Riding Hood's mother in the class play, and so I did. These small beginnings led to a zeal for dramatics which continued to college-level and increased my self-confidence no end. The point is, sometimes you can bring a child out of his shell, or get him interested in performing, by giving him a little push - just a little push, not a shove. Why not?

That apart, the kids did a fabulous job, rendering Xmas favourites such as Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer, Jingle Bells, the 12 days of Xmas and so on. It was a treat to watch how self-assured some of them were, and how cute all of them were!

Snapshot - 30 minutes in the life of Ms Y

Climb on dining room chair, and from chair onto dining table. Methodically throw down on floor all of Anna's crayons and assorted drawing tools, also his precious artwork. Climb down to carpet, start chewing crayons, markers and bits of paper until Amma stops her.

Toddle over to bookshelf and bring back a book for Amma to read. Amma tells her it is Anna's book. Throw down that book in disgust. Toddle back to bookshelf and bring back more age-appropriate book.

Sit down on Amma's lap. Read book. Go get another. Read that one.

Amma says " Please play with your toys for a few minutes, Y, while I finish cooking". Toys = paper cups, paper plates and plastic cutlery in a cupboard right under Amma's feet. Start throwing plates and cups all over kitchen floor. Amma silently cursing Appa for not installing child locks on kitchen cupboards inspite of being reminded 10,000 times. When alumninum foil starts being chewed on, Amma picks up Y and deposits her near the toy basket.

Looks at 122 toys the basket and decides that none of them are worth playing with. A couple are worth chewing though. Mmmmm.

Horribly bored. Stands next to amma and whines until Amma picks her up.

Kiss amma. Practice saying "amma, appa, anna, bow bow, quack quack."

After 10 seconds, get bored of being held. Push pudgy knees against Amma's chest while simultaneously propelling herself backward by pressing toes against Amma's stomach. Treatment is successful (as usual) - Amma lets go.

Run to couch, leap casually onto it, then climb to the very top, near headrest. Rock back and forth on the recliner, all the while shouting and laughing gleefully.

Climb down from couch, toddle to kitchen, rummage through drawer where extra groceries are stored. Decide that maggi masala packet beongs to the trash can. Throw it in trash can. Decide that popcorn packet should ideally be in laundry basket. Hurtles to laundry basket, open it and throw popcorn packet in. Laundry basket lid falls on top of hand. Wail in distress until Amma retreives hand and soothes ouchie.

Drama queen continues to shed crocodile tears until appropriate amount of fuss has been made, and kisses bestowed.

Kicks amma in belly, demands to be let down.

Amma tries to engage her in some constructive activity, like beading. Beads are examined, licked, (almost) swallowed and finally chucked at various things around the house. Some roll under couch/bed where they will lie in oblivion for several days.

Helps amma unload dryer, carry a few clothes to the bed.

As amma folds the clothes, finger anna's socks. Walk with socks to bathroom, throw socks into the toilet.

Amma is furious, so some tears are shed (again!)

Plonked into the highchair. Lunch time. Blow raspberries at Amma and spatter food all over the high chair tray and Amma.

And so it goes on....

Ad-lib #3

Conversations with Ads are becoming more interesting by the day.

Ads: Is Hanuman real?

Me: He is real if you believe that he is real. Do you think he's real?

Ads: NOOOO

Pause.

Ads: Actually yes. He's right next to me with his gadai (mace). He protects me.

I stay mum because I don't want to have this conversation just then :(

Ads (whining when we drag him through downtown Santa Barbara): I don't want to walk. I'm tired.

Me: Just a little more okay?

Ads: Mommy I want to tell you something. I don't like such trips where you make me walk so much.

Me: Ok baby, this is the last such trip ok? (Yeah right!)

Ads: But I should keep an open mind right?

Me: What?

Ads: I should keep an open mind. The Berenstain Bears Mama bear said so. (in the episode where the bear cubs were complaining just like Ads and their mom tells them to keep an open mind and look for interesting things while travelling - I was surprised how he could correlate the two situations)

Me: Yay for the Berenstain Bears Mama Bear!

Ads: Amma, when I grow up, I want to be a Appa.

Me: You mean you want to have kids?

Ads: Yes. But I need to find a mommy too right?

Me: Yup. You can marry someone.

Ads: I will marry some aunty (Nooooo!)

Me: Yes...some girl that you like. How many kids will you have?

Ads: Two. One boy and one girl. No, actually, I will have two boys. I don't like girls.

Me: (No answer to that one :))

Ads: I don't like this soup amma.

I try to coax him into drinking it up.

Ads: I want to have a hole in my neck. Then I can pour food that I don't like, into that hole.

What a terrific idea! We could all have two mouths, and all the yummy stuff could go into one, and all the healthy and yucky-tasting stuff could be poured into the other hole so that we wouldn't have to taste it!

The buzz in our house is...

Yes he is holding his underwear in his hand! He wraps it around his face to simulate Buzz Lightyear's mask. I only stipulate that it must be clean underwear :)

Board games ahoy

One of the fondest and clearest memories of my childhood is the board games that my parents, my brother and I used to play, very frequently in the late evenings after dinner, starting from the time I was 8 or 9 to maybe around 14 years. Ludo was the universal favourite but we also played Snakes and Ladders and Parchisi. In later years, Pictionary and Scrabble ruled the roost, and I remember my brief flirtation with Chess and Carrom. Playing these games involved a lot of laughter, teasing and fun and the bonus was, that in my case atleast, it created enduring and precious memories. We had Family Game Night in my family before Hasbro decided to make it a National occasion.

So obviously I couldn't wait to introduce Ads to some of these board games. I picked up a nice Sesame-Street themed version of Chutes and Ladders very cheap at a second-hand kids' store that I frequent. My cousin bought him the Dr. Seuss ABC game and he got the I never forget a face memory game as a birthday gift. Then I researched the best board games for preschoolers and being the sort of person who goes overboard when it comes to shopping, just HAD to buy him Candyland and Hi-ho Cherry-O! So now we have 5 games, all of which he likes thankfully and I try to spend some time with him everyday playing these. The only drawback is that we can only play when S is at home to watch Y, because she grabs all the pieces, sits on the board and generally makes a perfect nuisance of herself.

I had a vague idea that board games are both fun and educational. But I didn't really appreciate how educative they could be, until I started playing with Ads. Mastery of colours, letter & number recognition, counting, grouping & pattern recognition, are some of the concepts they teach, not to mention the improvement in small motor skills that inevitably results. The social skills they teach are even more important - courtesy, waiting and taking turns, not intruding on someone else's space, and so on. An interesting observation I made was how difficult it was for Ads to lose a game. In the beginning, he would tell me that "I will be very upset if I lose". For a child, the joy of winning is as intense as the despondency of losing. Given their very limited ability to manage frustration and cope with loss, it is a tough balancing act to incorporate the teaching element into the game; i.e. it is okay to lose, there are ups and downs in life and we have to take the good with the bad. Since he (like all children) takes game-playing so seriously, it is very important to him that he win; he does not yet understand that these are games of chance and not skill. I have been told by other moms that it is okay at this age to "let" the child win most of the time since the concept of rules and fair play is not something that they easily understand.

I think Ads gets it now, somewhat. He seems to understand that he could win a game, and lose the next one. He could ascend a ladder to the top of the board, and the next moment his luck could change and he would be sliding down a chute to the bottom of the board. Learning moments aside, I am enjoying every bit of the few minutes we spend poring over a dice, some cards and a game board.

2 trips in 7 days

S went off to Mexico 2 weekends ago, leaving me to have my first brush with the single-parenting gig. I was feeling quite resentful I tell you, visualizing all the uninterrupted meal-eating, shower-taking, newspaper-reading and computer time S was going to have while I would be walking around unwashed exhausted and hungry for 4 days. My imagination was overheated thinking of how difficult it would be to have no backup. However, thankfully my kids like to prove me wrong and they were ANGELS for the 4 days that S was away. In fact, I got more rest/sleep than when S is around which led me to believe that he is the principal work-creator in our household.

In fact, the only really difficult thing to do without another adult in the house is to take a bath. S had suggested that I strap Y in her high-chair and keep her in the bathroom while I showered but I knew she would scream her head off if I did that. I left the bathroom door open and she was pottering around in there, pulling aside the shower curtain every now and then. I kept pulling it closed and she thought I was playing peekaboo with her. We did this for a couple of minutes and then she started chucking things into the bathtub - a plastic pail (which, with deadly accuracy, landed on my little toe), a few toys, a board book, and some baby wash (of course the bottle had to be partially open; in a few seconds the assorted items and I were standing in soapy slippery water). That was when I decided to stop my feeble attempt to take a decent shower.

S got back on Wednesday and on Thursday morning we were off as scheduled for our annual Thanksgiving weekend trip; this time to California's central coast, a couple of hours north of Los Angeles. We were supposed to spend a day cruising the Channel Islands, something I was looking forward to very very much; unfortunately due to large swells and high winds our trip to the islands got cancelled not once, but twice. That was a disappointment. But the rest of the holiday, to Santa Barbara and Solvang, was just wonderful.

Is there any part of California that is not gorgeous? Nature has definitely blessed this state with remarkable beauty. In the last 3 years, we have covered all the must-see regions of this state, all except two that is; we have not been to the far north of the state, where the redwood forests are; and we have not been to Death Valley, which is desert. As our R2I plans get crystallized, it seems unlikely that we will manage to see these places before we leave, so they shall be added to my MUST-SEE list which is getting longer by the day!

Ads' update (1 of ?)

We had a parent-teacher conference at school some days ago. Teacher H started off by saying "When I think of Advaith, colouring and drawing are what come to mind." I had posted earlier about their concern that he spent too much time on artwork, at the expense of learning new stuff in school. He had stopped drawing after I had my little chat with him, but only for a few days; apparently he now does his other work/lessons quite half-heartedly and it is obvious that he is in a tearing hurry to get back to his drawing. Teacher H even mentioned that he is very "far away" from starting to read because he simply has no interest in it. Any other school would pretty much force him to start reading whether he liked it or not, but not a Montessori school. As much as I love the overall concept, I have to admit that probably Ads is not the best candidate for it. A child who is naturally self-directed and self-motivated will flourish and learn beyond measure in this system. A child like Ads, at the age of 4, will know that crabs walk sideways and snakes are invertebrates and that a circle has an infinite number of sides, but cannot (because he will not) read even the simplest of words.

Coming back to the conference with his teachers, overall they are happy with him. He gets along well with kids and adults alike and is polite and considerate. We still have to work on getting him to display more interest in subjects other than art.

And the Buzz Lightyear obsession continues. I saw an ad for a Buzz costume on craigslist for $3 and promptly snapped it up. He has been thrilled with it and parades around in the costume every afternoon. I haven't been able to upload a photo of him as Buzz since Blogger has been acting funny. Maybe I will have better luck tomorrow.

Happy birthday Yukta

Our little pumpkin is 1 today. It has been a year of family, travel and learning the ropes as the mother of two children. My learning curve has never been this steep. We largely ignored Y in the initial months, preoccupied as we were in tending to Ads’ issues and tantrums, supposedly common for a 3-year old. I might have given her more attention if my parents and in-laws weren’t around; as it was, she thrived without me doing much more than nursing her every couple of hours. As she grew older and more demanding, she began getting her share of attention, and well-deserved it was too.

My beautiful, feisty, vibrant and adventurous baby. What a pleasure she is, every moment of every day. We call her “little princess” and indeed it’s almost impossible to imagine that our family was complete without her. She seems to have overcome her stranger anxiety and is much more comfortable with people she doesn’t know, unabashedly staring at them (I love how un-self-conscious kids are!) and waving her little hands at them. She is unafraid – we frequently find her sitting on the floor in a room with the lights off, quite happily playing with a toy in the dark. She is incredibly affectionate – when S or I enter the house, she drops whatever she is doing and runs, nay hurtles, towards us on her little chubby legs, a large toothy grin fixed on her face. At that moment, the heart turns over. Always up for a game, a big laugh or some giggles, some dancing or some rough-housing, she is going to be a confident, gregarious girl. I can already tell that she shows every sign of maturing into a typical Scorpio; and it’s a foregone conclusion that she will be able to wrap her father and me easily around her little finger, something her much-too-innocent brother has never figured out!

When I was pregnant with Y, I used to (naively) wonder whether I would love my second child just as much as I loved Ads. Could anything match the fierce protectiveness and heart-stopping love I felt for Ads? How could it be possible that I feel the exact same thing for another child? I knew it would happen; after all, don’t our parents love us and our siblings equally? Maybe in different ways, but equally nonetheless.

The strange thing was, I fell in love with Y immediately. There was none of that waiting period which I experienced with Ads. It was unadulterated, unconditional love at first sight. As intense a feeling as I felt for my first-born. I think I enjoy my time with her a lot more than I did with Ads. Perhaps that is the magic of the second child. You are less paranoid and less focused on being the perfect parent, and more on just being there and savouring every moment.

And yes, we take as many pictures of her as we did of her brother!

Happy birthday, munchkin. It makes my heart break just a little bit to know that you are entering the strange new world of toddlerhood. Soon you will not be a baby any more. That heavenly baby smell, that velvet baby hair and that sweet baby taste will vanish much too soon. When will science allow us to bottle touch? 

I hate letting you go (don’t all mothers?) but the coming year will be filled with new joys and adventures. Here’s to a long healthy and happy life, Yukta.

Y loves her milk

Y started drinking regular milk 2 days ago. I picked up a half-gallon of whole vitamin-D supplemented organic milk from Trader Joe's and she has been having a quarter glass twice a day, which she enjoys.

Here is a picture of her reading. She is developing an interest in books and has a couple of favourite books already. Incidentally this book is a very well-thumbed one which was also Advaith's favourite!

R2I Part I - Schools

So the R2I (Return to India, for the uninitiated) decision has been taken. The hunt for schools and, incidentally, a job, has begun. Predictably, the state of affairs in Bangalore (and I am sure, in most other Indian metros) with respect to school admissions is so bad that the problem of LKG admissions assumes a strange sort of fake importance which overshadows the wee fact that the father of the LKG applicant doesn’t yet have a job which will take us back to India.

The not-so-exhaustive hunt for suitable schools led us to short listing the 2 schools that we will be applying to. The National Public School (NPS) and the Delhi Public School (DPS). The international schools are too pricey, some of the well-known ones are too distant, and (to my mind) elitist. The well-known Bangalore schools (like Bishop Cotton, FAPS etc) are too hard to get into, oversubscribed as they are by alumni’s kids and grandkids. There seem to be a lot of new schools which don’t fall into either of these categories and about which I read mixed reviews. Not being in a position to tour the schools and make up our own minds, we have fallen back on friend’s recommendations. Which have the drawback of being biased because absolutely everyone has jumped onto the NPS/DPS bandwagon. The one school that I was really interested in, a Montessori one called Sishugriha in Indiranagar, has closed admissions.

In any case, we had asked a friend to pick up the forms for NPS and they only managed to pick up one form, that of the Koramangala branch. Apparently the queues for picking up the forms were a km long! The whole experience seems to have been an unpleasant one, and what I don't understand is why all this hype and exclusivity just to apply. Stanford and Wharton are highly exclusive too, but even they don't make it so hard for a candidate to apply to them! Why not just put the forms online and make it easy for everybody? More people will be able to download and apply and the school will make more money out of this unholy racket!

So, we'll apply and hope Ads gets in, simply because the school is so close to our apartment in Bangalore. It will be a breeze of a commute for the little fella.

Thoughts from a crazy day

S has had such a crazy work schedule for the last few weeks (conference calls at 4 am - can you beat that!), that I have begun to feel like a single parent. It’s a hard 12-hour shift everyday and the only “me-time” I get is a long hot shower after S gets home in the evening. Yes, a simple bath has begun to seem like a luxury!

I have to admit that it has gotten easier with time. Managing 2 small kids all by myself and playing the multiple roles of chauffeur, maid, cook and nanny no longer appears to be that scary. Part of the reason for this is that I have started working smarter and managing my time much better than I used to.

So we were plodding along and just when I started patting myself on a job reasonably well-done, Y brought me back to earth by sponsoring the “Day from Hell Part 1 (to be continued)”. She whined and clung and cried and was so cranky that she dragged me down along with her into her pit of misery. What compounded it was the fact that I could just not understand what it was that was so upsetting her, a fact that gave instant rise to feelings of being a bad mother because I could not diagnose the source of my daughter’s crankiness.

By noon, I was faint with hunger because she didn’t allow me to cook and decided I didn’t have the right to even fix myself a simple sandwich for lunch. By 3 pm, I was ready to climb to the top of the Golden Gate Bridge and thrown myself down into the Bay, thankful that I didn’t know how to swim. I did what I usually do in these situations – packed all three of us in the car and head to the nearest part – convinced all we needed was some fresh air. It always works. And it did this time as well.

A bad day in the life of a stay-at-home mother is bad not simply because it’s - well, bad. Not simply because you want to throttle your kids and then throttle yourself – I know that all mothers want to do that at some point in their life, not that most of them would admit to such unmaternal feelings!

It’s bad because you are forced to confront the hard fact that your entire life has come down to this. Soiled diapers. The smell of milk and vomit (when your kid cries so hard she throws up on you). A frazzled you who looks worse than a Chennai ragpicker. And worst of all, a baby who is unhappy inspite of your best efforts to the contrary.

And when all of these things happen, it’s almost impossible to maintain perspective, a bird’s eye view so to speak, and not think about how your life would have been without kids. A glittering career (HA!!). A social life not involving playdates. Unencumbered travel. Sleep. Fine dining. The list goes on and on. I *almost almost* envy my friends who decided not to have children.

And then the moment passes. Y laughs as we watch a train pass by on the tracks near our apartment (I don’t know why that is so funny, but then she’s a baby) and looking at that dimpled smile, that snub nose and those big brown eyes that look at me with love and trust even though I am the lousiest mother in the world, I remember that there was a good reason why I had children in the first place.

So, my prescription (to myself) when a bad day gets worse: Get some fresh air. Take several deep breaths. Live in the moment. Remember that kids grow up.

(And leave you. And ignore you. And make you miserable all over again!)

To draw or not to draw

I've been somewhat concerned for many weeks now that all Ads seems to do in school is draw. He spends 3 hours every day, from 9 am to 12 noon, drawing. Which wouldn't bother me all that much except that for 850 bucks a month, it would be nice if he actually learnt something once in a while. I was about to talk to one of his teachers about this but fortunately Teacher M herself brought up the topic.

First she asked me whether he watches any TV.

Can you wilt in guilt? Cos that's what I did. I'm sure she noticed. Ads watches much more TV now than he did before Y was born, but I wasn't admitting that to Teacher M's beady disapproving eye. I admitted that he watches a little bit of TV (HA!!), mainly real-life action videos like firefighters, police officers etc and yes he has watched some of the DISNEY movies as well. The school has a strong distaste for cartoon characters. You are not supposed to send your kids with cartoon-or superhero-themed clothes or shoes. No lunch boxes or bags with such motifs. And definitely no Halloween costumes. It has always seemed a little extreme to me, but that's the rule.

Teacher M says that Ads needs to stop watching movies or videos because he gets so involved with the characters and the stories that he wants to spend all his time translating his imaginative thoughts onto paper. They have asked him several times to learn a new lesson or do some other work and apparently he always says "I'm not done with my drawing yet". Teacher M says I need to "stop the flow of information" to him so that he concentrates on other work also, in school. I was happy to concur.

So Ads and I had a little chat later that day and he has agreed to a) confine his drawing to when he is at home b) take a new lesson or practice existing lessons everyday at school. I used the opportunity to sneak in another bit of legislation that I wanted. They get about 15 minutes of outdoor playtime everyday which Ads spends inside the classroom when I would much rather he stay outside and run around. I negotiated that he could keep his existing TV privileges as long as he played outdoors every morning.

So far, it has been working well. The good thing about all that drawing of course was that it improved his fine motor skills to the extent that he has started writing alphabets and numbers by himself, with little or no intervention either by his teachers or by us.

First few concrete words and actions

Yukta has started saying 2 more words.

Anna - she stretches the N out so that it sounds like this: A-nnnn-aa.

And Appa too - A-pp-aa.

Train is The-the.

But still no Amma :)

We ask her Thala engae, and she touches the back of her head. Thoppai engae, and she pats her stomach/chest area. Yukta clap-clap, ta-ta, bye-bye and high-five all elicit the appropriate responses.

I really can't remember how verbal Ads was at the age of 11 months. Probably around the same. He has always been very advanced in verbal skills, especially more so compared to other boys. It is wonderful to experience the same stage again with Y.

Friday morning artwork

Ads had an unexpected holiday on Friday and I used the opportunity to engage him in some artwork. We have a string of birthdays coming up in the family (Sanjay's dad, brother and niece), and Ads made cards for each person. I try to recycle his artwork as much as I can, so the base for each of the cards is a drawing that Ads had already done, at school or home.

The first photo for example is the inside of the card he made for his 3-year old cousin. It had paper cuttings of the 3 little pigs and their houses (made in school) and I got him to redecorate it and convert it into a greeting card (frontage in the 3rd photo, the brown card with a "3" stuck on top)

The second photo is the inside of a card made for his grandfather. He has drawn the whole "CARS" series, since the CARS movie was something he and Thatha enjoyed watching together, multiple times. The exterior of the card already had a butterfly motif, all he did was stick some feathers and decals on it.

The third card is actually the nicest one. I used a nice drawing he had done, of Buzz Lightyear (from "Toy Story"), made him stick it on a foam board, and mounted the latter on another, larger foam board. It's the large pink card. Then he embellished it with paper cut-outs and stickers.

We wrote (or rather, I wrote and then read it out to him!) a personalised message for each recipient and bingo, the cards were ready.

I see a gradual and distinct improvement in his drawngs every month. Where there were weak squiggles (he calls them "scribble-scrabble"!), there are bold confident strokes. Where there was just a mess of paint and colour, there are decipherable images and coordinated colour schemes. It just warms the heart :)