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 :)

Driving without (or with?) a purpose

Yesterday H aunty, a cousin of my mother-in-law, spent a few hours with us. During the course of the afternoon, she said she had to buy a few things and could I take her to the shops? So we bundled Y in her carseat and off we went. By the time we finished shopping and set off for home, Y was distinctly antsy due to a lack of sleep. As we entered our parking lot, I glanced back at the rear seat to see her starting glassily out of the window, a sure sign that she was about to drop off very soon. Rather than yanking her out of the carseat at that time and running the 100% risk of a meltdown, I told H aunty I was going to drive around a bit more to make sure she fell asleep. So out of the parking lot we went.

I drove around quiet residential streets in Santa Clara for 15 minutes, maintaining an even 25-30 mph and taking care to keep the sun on my left (Y keeps tearing off her carseat canopy with the result that the sun hits her directly on her face). H aunty was dozing. The silent houses seemed to be slumbering in the afternoon heat, just like Y at the back. The only sounds keeping me company were the purr of the car engine, the gentle hum of the air conditioner and the barely audible squawks from FM 106.9.

It occured to me what a large proportion of my time as a mother I have spent in activities like these. Driving aimlessly through city streets in an effort to calm a fussing child. Parked in a quiet street, the windows down and an afternoon breeze blowing through the car as both child and mother dozed. Swinging Ads with both arms, back and forth, back and forth while belting out garbled version of 60's Hindi film songs. Rocking Y, up-down up-down, on the Lazy-boy. All in a bid to grab that grand prize - SLEEP baby sleep so that I can get some rest.

As much as parenting involves to such a large extent performance of such repetitive, mind-numbing and monotonous tasks, I have to admit that my most serene and reflective moments have occurred while engaged in such tasks. If God lies in the details, then surely peace lies in a sleeping child cradled in your arms.

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.

Thank God the 3s are finally over

We missed the terrible twos. Endured the terrible threes with great difficulty and hope the fours aren't Formidable, Frightening or Fearsome! I took Ads to Costco and bought him a police costume which he was very thrilled with. He wangled a post-lunch ice-cream sandwich from me saying that "How can this be my birthday if there is no cake?!!"

In the evening, we rounded off a quiet 4th birthday with dinner at his favourite restaurant, Sweet Tomatoes, a soup-and-salad bar.

A fun party is over

S and I had to pop a Tylenol before bed last night. What a day it was! Very tiring, very hectic but, in the end, a LOT of fun. I've always had some reservations about my ability to throw and manage a successful party. But all it took is some (ok, a lot!) of hard work and some intense organization over the last couple of weeks. Takeaway: Fun dos are not the perogative of the highly imaginative or the extremely creative (neither of which I am!); plodders like me can do just as well by adopting some party best practices and weaving them all together in an elegant manner (with a little help from Google of course). For example, although we hosted the party in a park (which might seem to preclude the need for organizing any party games and the like), we also sensed the need to keep 15+ kids occupied for 3 hours. Enter juice and fruit to snack on to stave off hunger pangs before lunch and cake; colouring pages to keep the quieter ones happy; individual bubblemakers (always a big hit); a tent for them to wander in and out of (though I would have done better to stock it with some toys); and two organized games which occupied almost half an hour.

The killer app, so to speak, was the venue itself. Agnew is a little-known park tucked away in the heart of Santa Clara, large enough not to feel crowded, but small enough to give the effect of a private space. The 5 picnic tables which we commandeered were in a very shady spot - an oasis of coolness on a hot summer day. The lunch arrived piping hot and delicious. The cake was suitably sickeningly sweet and thickly frosted and therefore a hit with the kids.

We had a ton of help in the form of willing volunteers who shepherded the kids to the games (and kept them there!), cut the cake, picked up and served lunch, clicked the pictures and generally allowed S and me to circulate and speak atleast a few sentences with each guest (quite a challenge considering the large number of people we had invited).

S and I got up bright and early and were at the park at 7.45 am. Santa Clara park tables are not reservable. They are available only on a first-come first-served basis which means that you need to land up early and make sure no one else is there before you. It took us about an hour to do the initial set-up - cleaning the tables, spreading the tablecloths, unpacking the snacks, cutlery, plates etc, and getting started on the decorations. At 8.45, S left to pick up the balloons and also his dad who would stand guard while we rushed back home to get ready and pick up my m-i-l and the kids. The party start time was 10 am and we were about 10 mins late in reaching the park, more than confident that our first guests would not arrive until 10.30 am but we were wrong! Bhavana (a school friend) and her husband and daughter were already there and were instantly at work putting finishing touches to the decorations. By 10.30 as expected, the crowd started to wander in and Ads was running all over the place in a frenzy of excitement. As people greeted him, I found him going straight for the gifts without even saying hello-thank you and I was trying to keep up with him and ensure he displayed some basic manners.

At 11.15 or so we started on the games. I played a bit role mostly on the sidelines while some friends and cousins took the leading roles and managed the unenviable task of keeping a bunch of excited 3-5 year olds in line and organized. The first game was a variation of pinning the tail on the donkey. In keeping with the party's firefighter theme, we tried pinning the badge on the fireman's helmet. Some of the kids were enthused enough to want multiple shots at sticking the badge in the correct place.

The next game was a simple one - we arranged a lot of small goodies on the ground and each kid had to throw a hoop over the goody that they wanted. Each kid was allowed 3 tries. It was hard because the hoop kept bouncing off the ground and anyway most the kiddos obviously had lousy aims. So we ended up asking each kid which gift they wanted, moving that item close to them so that it would be easy for them to throw the hoop over that item. It was hilarious watching my son, Mr. Easy-Way-Out, stand right over the toy car that he wanted, bend down and carefully place the hoop over it!

S was insistent that we get all the kids together with Ads on one side of the table as we cut the cake. He said it "looks very cute". I agreed, but it's a nightmare squeezing 15 or so kids all together on one side of a picnic table. I was actually planning to stay out of the cake-cutting and let my in-laws do the honours. Somehow in the chaotic moments leading up to the grand finale, I found myself right next to Ads and poor S was left out of the picture. He has been a little miffed with me for losing it and leaving him looking like a bystander. I wonder why the cake-cutting ceremony always becomes a little crazy. It's like people get into a sugar-deficient frenzy and start singing "Happy Birthday to you" before the birthday boy or girl is even ready to do their bit.

Anyway, these kind of parties are always a blast. But infinitely exhausting for the parents. Yesterday I thought -" Never again, it's too much work". But I can't deny that I enjoyed myself thoroughly. During one of the games, my camera suddenly died on me. Try as I might, I kept getting all sorts of error messages. Rather than fiddle futilely with it, I decided that I would look at the short cute excited people in front of me and no matter if we don't have pictures - I will imprint the happy memories of that sunny afternoon in my mind. Hopefully Ads will look back fondly at the memories we created yesterday.

And she finally looks like a girl!

Or so we hope. I am getting a little sick of everyone asking me "how old is he?" when talking about Y. We got her ears pierced today and she cried quite a bit, but cheered up pretty quickly once the ordeal was over. She is now wearing a pair of pink daisy-shaped 18k gold earrings.

Party planning

The food has been ordered - rotis, mutter paneer, chole, raita and veg pulao. The cake too, a massive concoction from Costco that is supposed to feed 48 people (white cake with chocolate mousse filling and white buttercream icing) has been ordered (at 18 bucks, it's the cheapest by a long shot and it actually tastes as yummy as anything ordered from another bakery/store). Balloons too have been organized (all we have to do is pick up a dozen or so inflated balloons on the morning of the party). Yesterday S picked up a large carton of water bottles from Costco, as also large bottles of juice and chips to feed the hungry hordes. I have a large suitcase packed with party favors, decorations, cutlery, utensils, party hats and the like. Two simple party games have been planned. Bubblemakers have been purchased. I spent most of Saturday morning wrapping the return gifts and affixing thank-you notes to each gift. I had bought a large carton of paper collage scraps from Michaels and used the beautiful printed sheets of paper to make the Thank you notes.

Now I can just kick back my heels and relax until Saturday - if I could just shake off that feeling that I have forgotten something major!

My movie buff

It's almost a relief when I am left alone in the house with Y. It turns out that those are the only times when I can truly DO NOTHING. Not that I have a choice. I would love to accomplish a few things on my mile-long to-do list but Y ensures that she monopolizes my attention. She has the knack of getting into trouble. Pieces of plastic, scraps of paper, bits of food dropped by Ads which have escaped my notice -- all of these find her way into her mouth. I need to keep an eagle eye on her to ensure that she doesn't choke or strangle herself. Multi-tasker that I am, I tried (and was foiled) at these activities that I tried to do with her around:

1. Reading. She starts clutching at, and tearing the pages of the book/magazine. She is really quick and really good at this. I seldom react quickly enough to prevent the page from being torn, though I have become adept at flicking the papers out of her hand before she swallows it.

2. Working on the laptop. If I sit down at the table, she pulls herself up to a standing position using my leg and wails inconsolably until I pick her up. Once she is within strking distance of the keyboard, all hell breaks loose.

3. Talking on the phone. She doesn't like this. Period.

4. Cooking. What a joke!

5. Laundry. This is actually no problemo, since it takes just a few minutes for an expert like me to throw stuff into the washer. I can definitely distract her for that length of time.

6. Folding clothes. And have her unfold them as rapidly as I fold? No way.

7. Eating. Do-able, as long as I am holding my plate or bowl over my head. No fun for me, as you can imagine.

Funnily enough, the one thing that my cinema-aficionado doesn't mind me doing, is watching a movie. Because she can then watch it with me (yeah yeah I know children under 2 shouldn't watch any TV --which jerk made that one up?). So, when we are alone together, we watch movies! What kind of a mother have I become?

Updates

It has been a crazy busy last couple of months. Between studying (or trying to), starting to hunt for a part-time nanny (no success there), working@ Benetech, managing home and the two kids and now getting started on the planning for Ads 4th birthday party, it appears that I have been running along on some buried reserves of adrenalin.

We celebrate Ads' birthday on the 22nd of August at a park in Santa Clara. We have invited 38 adults and 18 kids. 56 people in all! Since my in-laws leave the country on the 28th, this party is more of a social get-together where they bid goodbye to all the relatives living in the Bay Area. Then there are Ads' school friends, and our friends, all of whom have similarly-aged children whom Ads knows and likes. Two and a quarter years after moving to the Bay Area, we are building up quite a network.

Today Y had her 9-month checkup. The doctor has proclaimed her healthy and possessing very advanced motor skills for her age. But she is still tiny. She is way down the scale in terms of weight but the doctor didn't seem concerned. He claims it's a mix of various factors - racial (South Asians are leaner than Caucasians/Blacks), genetic (he says both parents and sibling are so slim, he doesn't expect Y to be chubby), and the fact that she is super-duper active. Always on the go and burns her calories at a blistering pace. I know I shouldn't be too concerned given that she is a healthy baby but she is in the 2nd percentile in terms of weight. That's ridiculous!!! She started off as a heavier-than average baby so I can't help beating myself over this aspect -- I'm sure that somehow it's all my fault. Mommy-guilt strikes again!!!

Y at 9 mos

Y turned the 3/4th of a year landmark a couple of days ago. She has two teeth and a third one coming in, and today she took her first independent steps -- two of them! It is as thrilling this time around as it was with Ads.