A favourite festival

The title of this post reminds me of the essays we had to write in school. My favourite things. My hobbies. And yes, my favourite festival, too! Navarathri has in recent years attained the status of my favourite festival, although as I was growing up, it didn't hold a special place in my heart. My mother didn't keep a "Golu" (probably she would have if I had shown the slightest interest!) and the whole pattu-pavadai, paattu and socialization business simply left me cold. When I was married and living in Bangalore, I suddenly developed an interest in Golu (a spanking new apartment and a spare room contributed to this new-found interest!) and for 2 years I did keep a Golu. Here's a picture from the first year (2004).

Sadly, I had to give away my beautiful dolls when we relocated. This last week, I have been decking myself up in sarees and Y in her one-and-only paattu paavadai and we have been attending Golus. It has been a lot of fun. I have promised myself to reestablish a Navarathri celebration, complete with sundal and Golu, from next year.

Newbie walker with hiccups

Drunken weaving in and out at home.

Mini-pizzas at 6 am

I decided to make mini-pizzas for Ads' lunch today, and I took a picture of them before I popped them into the oven because they looked so colourful.

Drat -- still can't get perfectly round rotis or pizzas!!!

A tomato

What is she thinking - the tomato is almost as big as her face!

I was waiting for this

The Superhero obsession, that is.

It started with Spiderman, moved briefly to Superman and Batman, hovered enthusiastically over Mr. Incredible, and has now fixated on Buzz Lightyear (from "Toy Story"). I have to admit I am a little relieved to get some respite from the firefighting and policing squad. Yesterday Ads was most offended when I told him to please please stop talking non-stop about police and fires and fire trucks and all that otherwise my head was going to explode with the massive headache I was having. I wasn't exaggerating - two years of non-stop natter about the same topic has me craving for other subjects. It's time to move on, little fella.

Shots, tears and 3 Ferraris

I really should have double-checked before we left. I smugly promised Ads that he wouldn't be getting any shots at his 4-5 year well-child check up yesterday. Turned out he needed not one, or two pricks - but FIVE!!!! Yikes - that was enough to freak even me out. It doesn't help much to tell a very apprehensive 4-year old to relax his muscles while getting the shot in order to minimise the pain. The waiting room in Pediatric Injections was bursting to capacity and we had to wait for almost an hour before we were called.

Ads sat on my lap for most of that time (hmm....you ever see a 4-year old boy sitting in one place for that long....not that I'm complaining!!), talking non-stop and bestowing nervousness-fuelled kisses on me every 5 seconds. Like I said, I'm not complaining :)

He yelled and cried for each of the injections. The funny thing is he used to endure vaccinations with just a minor whimper when he was a baby. It used to be such a breeze. I panicked and promised him a gift when we got home if he stopped crying (yeah I bribe my kids even when I don't need to; I belatedly realized that the nurse was going to give him some Batman and Shrek stickers and the fella would have been happy just with those). So I had to uncover some loot from his birthday stash (which he doesn't know about and which I have locked away in the store-room). He got a set of 3 Ferraris which he happily played with in the evening.

Another 2 months before I have to endure vaccination-related trauma again, this time with Y who I know will not calm down so easily :(

A new school year

School has started from Wednesday and this year, Ads stays in school for an hour longer i.e. until 1 pm which means he has lunch at school. There were a couple of reasons I needed him to be out of the house for an extra hour.

a) It gives me an additional dose of one-on-one time with Y.

b) He has lunch at school, which crosses off one major task on my to-do list. Hopefully he will learn better table manners as well by observing other kids.

c) He doesn't come back home starved and half-crazy at Y's lunchtime. Managing two hungry and cranky kids was a nightmare.

Thanks to this new arrangement, he has been coming back home full of beans (the result of a satisfying meal ). The only struggle we have now is to get him to nap. He is clearly transitioning to a no-nap schedule, a fact we exploited to the hilt during our recent vacation.

Now that I have to pack lunch for the little fella, I have been looking for recipes suited to packed lunches and nifty presentation ideas for the same. I stumbled upon the Bento lunch and have been completely sold on the concept. I'm going to try it one of these days.