Extreme Measures

When we lived in Shrewsbury, we measured Summy's increasing height against a wall with pencil markings. We didn't disassemble that piece of wall to bring with us when we moved, though we would have liked to. So now there is no wall to measure against.

But Summy's found her own way - she stands against me or Kiran to see how much taller she's grown.

The other day, I was walking behind her on a path. In front of Summy was another little girl, carrying a skateboard under her arm. Summy quietly walked closer behind the girl, while measuring herself against the girl with her hand on top of her head. After deciding that the girl was probably about "the same tall as me", and hence, the same age, she caught up with her and made small talk.

Not that she would have not talked with an older kid. She loves older kids. And little toddlers. And babies. But especially kids who are the same size as her.

Miss Calculator

Every once in a while, Summy does something that seems amazing to me. What things our kids do aren't amazing, no matter how trivial?

She adds small numbers, but that's not what's amazing. She does it inside her head, no fingers or dots on paper. She does not remember that six and five make eleven. So that's not what I mean when I say she does it in her head.

She closes her eyes and as far as I can understand, she visualizes six things and five more things. And then counts them to get the total. It might sound simple enough, but I've tried it and it's hard for me.

Miss Calculator does miscalculate now and then, but still, it's impressive to me.

Illiterate Parents

This happened a while ago, but I forgot to blog about it until Kiran reminded me. Summy had learned how to write, even though she didn't know how to spell.

She wrote pages and pages of stuff and brought it to us to read. "What did you write, Summy?", I asked, looking at what seemed like gibberish.

"I don't know?" she said. "I can't read it. You're the one who knows to read! What does it say?"

What logic!

Shhhh.... It's a secret

The other day I asked Summy what she did at school, and she replied, "We were making special jewellery boxes for Mommies."

Then, smiling sheepishly, she said, "Oops. I was not supposed to tell you that."

By this time, the Mothers Day secret was out, but I promised her that I would forget she ever told me.

Kiran was in Japan, and while talking to him on the phone night, he asked Summy what she had done that day. This time she was more careful. She whispered into the phone, "I made a jewellery box for Mama." He couldn't hear her at all and kept saying "What?", but I could very well.

Nothing is as precious, even a jewellery box, as a five-year old trying to keep a secret.

Mashpotams

Summy was eating strawberries and asking me if they were good for her. "Yes", I said, "They have antioxidants and are very good for you."

"Bananas are good for you too", she said. "They have lots of mashpotams."

"You're right", I agreed, smiling. "They do have lots of potassium."

Something smells fishy

Oh yeah, that's Summy's fish.

Summy picked them, Dad brought them home. Summy wrote fish to-do lists. Dad set up their tank. But who spends the whole day with them? Mommy.

We asked for sturdy fish that could survive a family who didn't know anything about fish. The guy at the store pointed at some fish that were kept individually in cups, and recommended that we bring home one male and two females to put in the tank.

At home, we put them all in the tank and went to sleep. The next morning, Kiran left for work, Summy went to school. I was working on the computer but all I could see was the fish chasing each other out of the corner of my eye.

It just so happened that these tough fish were Betta Splendens, also called the Siamese Fighting Fish for a good reason. And there could have been no worse advice than to put a male and females in one tank. The male Bettas are very very aggressive and don't tolerate others of their kind in close proximity, be they male or female. This is why (duh!), unlike the rest of the fish in the store, the Bettas were kept in individual cups. Ofcourse now I know that, after having watched Blackfish (the boy) terrorize Coffee and Angelina (the girls) and nip their tails.

Finally, I couldn't stand it anymore. I went back to the store for advice, and this time the advice was no better. They said I could return Coffee and Angelina for a refund.

How could I return fish that Summy had named? How could I put the fish back into the little tiny cups after they had the whole tank to swim in? How would I know that after I returned them, they wouldn't just be flushed down a big toilet that was specially built for the fish? The truth was that I hadn't "bonded" with the fish (that must be the zaniest sentence I ever wrote). But for better or for worse, we had got them and we had to care for them, even if they were just fish.

I divided the tank into two with a net, and isolated Blackfish on one side. Within two minutes, the two girls figured out that Blackfish couldn't get at them, and they seemed to enjoy staying right on the other side of the net and staring coolly at Blackfish as he went nuts trying to get at them.

So we took him out of the tank altogether, and put him in his own bowl. For now, everyfish seems happy, even though the two girls have little fish fights.

Now that there is less conflict, it's happier to watch them everyday. They are tiny little creatures one inch long, and I expected they'll just swim around aimlessly, all the same way. But each has its quirks. When I turn off the filter in their tank, they know food is coming. They seem to have good memories. Angelina prefers small pieces of fish food, while Coffee will eat anything. Blackfish is kind of picky, but he loves peas (I found out from Mother Internet that some fish can eat some vegetables).

And yes, now we've bonded with the fish.

TV and Junk Food

I am not a great mother - I try to be good, but I know that I make many many mistakes.

Summy wasn't much interested in either TV or junk food before we moved to California. Once we came here, her school was very laidback in every way, including food.

For every holiday she brings home goodie bags filled with candy, and one of her teachers actually rewards good behavior with candy. Still, we threw out most of it because she didn't eat it. I kept a jar of candy out in the open at home and it rarely got touched. No restrictions, she could have it anytime she wanted - even before mealtimes. Because, she just wasn't interested.

But slowly, as I started giving her quick convenient "snacks" and she got the same at school, she developed a taste for Starburst, chocolate, Oreos, and Cheetos (all unheard of six months ago).

Also, back home in Massachusetts, the only TV we watched was PBS - for half an hour in the morning on some days, no ads. After an hour or so, she would usually get bored and switch off the TV herself. So again, there were no restrictions on TV. She could watch it anytime she wanted. Because, she just wasn't into it that much.

We move to California, and new cable, and here there's a kid channel that keeps going 24/7. Besides that, there's several on-demand kids shows. Whenever I had to study or cook dinner, I would just turn the TV on. Slowly, especially in the last few weeks, she turned into a zombie, lying down on the couch and just staring at the TV for an hour or two every day (and wanting more).

So I put away the candy jar inside the closet, out of reach, and tried not to turn the TV on so much. Didn't work very well. She still asked for candy at the store, and TV at home.

I panicked - here I had a good thing; a great thing - a kid who loved her vegetables and fruit and didn't even like candy and chips, and liked to get around and play instead of sit down and watch TV - and I went and ruined it. I took it so much for granted and thought she would always be that way.

Luckily, the damage seems to be reversible. I've started to show her strawberries or oranges instead when she asks for junk food. She still has a choice, but she mostly chooses the fruit. Ofcourse she chose the junk before, because I wasn't giving her another good option - I would ask her if she would like fruit instead, but that isn't as good as a visual of a bowl of juicy red strawberries.

And the past few evenings, when she asks for TV, I've been saying "Let's play.". I've never seen her choose TV over companionship once. And it still hasn't changed. Her bored expression goes away and her face lights up at the sugggestion of doing something together. It makes me sad to think of all the times she sat on the couch and said "Can I have some TV now?" because she knew the answer if she asked me to play with her - "I'm too busy right now, Summy.".

I remember one day, she drew a sad face instead of the happy faces she usually draws. I asked her why the little boy was sad, and she said, "The little boy was sad because when they were going to school his mommy said they could go to the park in the evening but in the evening they had to go to Ralphs for groceries and they couldn't go the park because his mommy said they runned out of time." in one breath. A not-at-all subtle dig at me. Broken promises have happened to us several times in the past few months.

In all the bad things I've done as a mom, I think getting my priorities wrong and letting her down this way, was one of the worst. I am lucky that Summy is small enough to not even realize that I've done wrong, and even when she realizes it she forgives so easily. At the end of the day, she always hugs me and says "You are the bestest mom in the whole world.". And I feel like a fraud.

Wee as in Wictory

Inspite of being misunderstood countless times since I came to the USA, I still used to think I talk English okay. Until now.

Summy realized that I just didn't know how to say some things. Hey, I realized that I don't know how to say many things.

For example, today I was talking to her about her friend Owen. She said "What?". I repeated myself. She said, "Who?". After saying it three or four times, she says, "Oh, you mean Ohwen!". It seems that I had been calling her friend an oven.

The other day, I was telling her how to spell van, when she stopped me. "Amma, say vee. Not wee."

I say, "That's what I said: Wee!"

"Not wee. Say vee."

"Wee!"

"Vvvvv... Vvvvv.... Vvvveeee!"

"Www... Www... Wheeee!"

At this she doubled over laughing. Then she realized I wasn't just kidding around, I really couldn't tell the difference between "V" and "W".

In school, an English teacher taught us how to say "W" - always start a w by rounding your mouth - and pressed on us to say "water" not "vater". So that's how I say "w", only apparently now I don't know how to say "v" anymore.

Summy was even more persistent than my English teacher and wouldn't let me go until I said it the right way. So now I know: to say "V", one has to touch the inside of the lower lip with the upper teeth.

Ve both emerged wictorious.

But I still can't really tell the difference between v and w unless I try really hard. Sometimes, while driving by myself, I find myself going "Vee. Wee. Vee. Whee." People stopped next to me at red traffic lights think either that I'm crazy, or that I'm having a lot of fun.

Actually, it's both.

It's "afishll" - we are now five

Summy turned five last month (and ofcourse, we turned five as mother and father).

The celebration was quiet and peaceful, unlike the last two years where she had birthday parties with all her class invited.

This time we brought the party to the class, with pizza and cake. Her teachers made a special birthday crown for her. When the cake was put in front of her, her friends and teachers gathered around, and every one sang Happy Birthday, the look on her face was unforgettable. It was one of pure happiness. The same look was on her face at the same moment last year, and the year before that.

This may sound like a greeting card, but Summy: May you always be surrounded by lots of friends and loved ones, and have many many more happy times.

Kiran brought Summy a small aquarium and three fish as she is now five and considered responsible enough to care for pets. She is responsible all right, in a managerial sort of way - she wrote me down a list of things to do to care for the fish.

I quote her list, numbers and all:

1 FEED THE FISH
2 THE FIISH WANT AA HIDINGPLACE (I had to go buy decorations to put in their tank to hide in when they are shy)
3 UYOWWWTOGIVE

She signed her name on the bottom, drew pictures of three fish on it, and to show me how official the list is, she wrote "A FISHLL" on top (she had already asked me how to spell "fish", and she figured that official must probably be spelled with a "fish" in it). The list is still taped to the aquarium stand.

The list seemed to have worked because the fish are still swimming around.

Family Fun

Until six months ago, the most adventurous ride I'd been on would have been a giant wheel (in the Hyderabad Exhibition).

But now things are different. It's hard to go to Disneyland every Sunday (as we do now) and get away with saying, "I won't do that ride, or that one, or that one. I'll do the little kiddie carousel though."

Summy was taking Kiran on all the little roller coaster rides that she is allowed to ride on, and she always wants the biggest ones. I stayed on the sidelines, "watching the stroller", until one day the two of them persuaded me to go on a tame little coaster. ("It's okay, Mama. I'll be right next to you and hold your hand.")

Slowly she worked us up to "Space Mountain", which is a relatively small roller coaster, except it's in total darkness, only lit up by "stars". It is very fun once you do get used to it!

And now, Kiran and I have started to take turns to go on rides that Summy is too short to go on. Yesterday we tried the Maliboomer, which is a kind of ride called a Space Shot. They put you in a chair with your feet dangling, with a plexiglass shield that goes around your head so that the nice residential city of Anaheim is not disturbed by your screams as you are shot up 180 ft in 4 seconds and then dropped down into a free fall. Despite sounding and looking scary, this is fun as well. Summy lived vicariously through our rides, unable to meet the 52 inch height requirement even while trying her best to stand on the tippiest tips of her tippy toes. But she did go on the kid version of the same ride, called Jumping Jellyfish.

You'd think having children would make you feel older, but the opposite is also true. Children give you a second chance at being a kid.

As George Bernard Shaw said, "We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.".

A Guide to Making Friends

Very useful for shy people like me:

1) Keep an eye out for a person who seems interesting.

2) Once you spot an interesting person, walk up to them. Step right in front of them and make eye contact.

3) If they don't say anything, continue to stare closely at whatever it is they are doing, and comment on it.

4) If they do not respond to this, bounce up and down while saying "Look what I can do!". If you can do cartwheels, do a cartwheel or two now.

5) If they still haven't said anything, it's time to stop being so very subtle. Say "Will you be my friend?".

It always works for Summy, so it should work for any of us. Right?

Cabbages and Edamame

I'm still at home while I'm working on learning new things and writing new exams. Life is pretty laid-back and the only things I have to do are cook and study. Still these things somehow stretch out to take the whole day and I find less time to do things like updating this blog.

One thing that I've learned to love in the last six months is to cook.

Maybe it's the fresh veggies from the farmers market: I take pleasure in buying veggies every Saturday and making sure they are eaten up before the next Saturday rolls around.

Maybe it's the extra time I have to think about what to make: While I'm driving around I'm making up dishes in my head like cabbage with potatoes and soybeans or edamame (which doesn't taste so bad, by the way!).

Maybe it's the computer that's right next to the kitchen, so I can put bokchoy, broccoli, and potatoes on the counter, wipe my hands on the towel, google for the unlikely "bok choy dal" and "broccoli alu curry", and amazingly have recipes turn up.

Whatever it is, it's a good thing I like to cook because now I have to turn out lunches for the little lady every day.

It's much harder than I thought it would be, considering that at home she eats anything that I cook (and when I ask, she almost always tells me that it's good). But I used to send lunches that came back uneaten no matter what they were, and I finally understood the moms who agonize about what to pack for lunch.

For now, things are all right, as I figured out that lunches need to be a little more gourmet than jelly sandwiches or pasta and tomato sauce. Current menu items are carrot or tomato fried rice, garnished with cilantro, pasta with cheese sauce and broccoli, chickpeas with seasoning, chapatis and yogurt with soybeans on the side, cherry tomatoes, vegetable pulihora (!!!) and occasionally Maggi. She's eating these now, but next week might be a new challenge.

At home though, she is a pleasure to cook for, as is Kiran. They'll both eat anything I cook and relish it, no matter how strange it might sound. Thank you, you two!

Monthly Journals

I am terrible at keeping up Summy's blog these days. But Summy has been helping out with a different kind of journal at school.

The teacher sits the kids down at the table, one at a time, and has them draw a picture from their life, anything that they like, in their own special monthly journal. Then the kid talks about their picture, and the teacher writes it down verbatim. At the end of the month, the teacher sends the journal home. It's up to the kids to decide whether they want to do the journal that day or not, so they are not forced to sit down and do this even when they have "writer's" block (just like I frequently get blogger's blogck).

I'll post excerpts and pictures from the journals once Kiran comes back from the South Pole next week and brings the camera back with him. Not the South Pole, really, that's just Summy's slip-up for Sao Paolo. ("When are you coming back from South Pole, Daddy? - I'm making fun of what she said, but she's pretty savvy: She can pin-point the Brazilian city on the world map.)

P.S.: Thanks to all those who had visited and left kind comments about Summy and her art on my last few infrequent posts. It made me happy and proud of her.

Fireworks

It was all a few splotches and googly eyes on black paper until she told us what it was. The night sky with fireworks in it, and the eyes at the bottom are Kiran, Summy and I watching the fireworks. Then suddenly it was a masterpiece.

She bites!!

I've been quiet for a really long time, after we have moved to our new apartment. But I have to write this down somewhere.

Last night, Summy had crept next to Kiran in the middle of the night and was sleeping on his shoulder. At one point, I was woken up, and Kiran told me "She bit me!!!". It didn't even register, I just went back to sleep.

This morning, I heard the whole story. It seems that she had chomped down on his shoulder, he woke up startled, and found her eyes were still closed and she was still asleep. But she had an apology for him later.

"I'm sorry, Daddy, I thought you were a sandwich." Ofcourse! Why didn't he think of that obvious explanation? According to her, she was just dreaming that she was going to bite into a sandwich, and his shoulder happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Could that be true? I don't know if that's what really happened, but it seems hilarious (to me, anyway).

Self Portrait

Land of the Friendly

We all miss Massachusetts very much. But, the weather makes it a little easier for us to bear, considering it's topping off in the lower 50s and nighttime temperatures are freezing in Shrewsbury, while here it's going to be 80 degrees tomorrow. Ha ha ha.

Goodbye, Fall jackets, goodbye, "crisp" autumn days. Even though, the beauty of Autumn there makes up for the negatives.

There are a lot more things that are nice here: people are nicer: even drivers. People are very nice in Boston too. But drivers there aren't technically people, they are a different species. Decent people there get behind their wheels and transform into ugly selfish honking monsters. I realize that I am a Mr.Hyde in the car too, only after I drove here for a while.

People wave thank you at me for letting them in front of me every time. They give way to me all the time. They actually act the same way they do when they are not driving! There is much talk about rush hour road rage on the freeways here, but Man, they haven't been to Boston. Ofcourse there are exceptions, but mostly, the drivers seem friendlier to me, even though the driving conditions are very stressful.

And at the Farmers Market, people talk to each other. The shopkeepers call me Amiga and offer good deals. Shoppers next to me trying new vegetables ask me if I like them (the vegetables, not the shoppers).

Last Sunday, I tasted a purple grape before picking them out at the Market. An old man shopping next to me said, "Taste one of the green ones too." I don't like green grapes and I hesitated. "Have one." he ordered. Normally if it were Kiran or my parents telling me to try something new, I would put my foot down. But not to be rude, I tasted a green grape. It was deliciously sweet, and the man smiled with satisfaction. "See?" He said. "The green grapes are the sweet ones today." So I had to buy the green grapes.

Not having been to a real Farmer's Market before, this place is really something else. Musicians playing guitars and singing songs. Juicy peaches, plums, apples, pears, pomegrenate are cut up and put outside the stalls, so you can taste before you buy. And the fruit is usually so sweet it's unnatural. The vegetables, I can't wait to go home and cook. And if all this makes one too hungry to wait until they go home and cook lunch, there are delicious-smelling kettlecorn and freshly-cooked food stalls right there.

Does life get any better? Sometimes it does for Summy, when the face-painting lady sets up a small station with a sign that says "Donations lovingly accepted".

Goodbye, chain grocery stores. Hello, Music and the scent of fruit and flowers in the air, Hello good food, Hello friendly fellow people. The humble-sounding Farmers Market, to me, is an example of what life should be like everywhere.

This and That

Long time no post, but it doesn't mean that there is nothing to write about. Summy is still cute and funny and gives me a lot of things to write about. Just yesterday, while we were watching a movie, someone in the movie had Chicken pox, and she said "Chicken Pops".

She also said something at bedtime that made us laugh a lot, but I can't remember what it is.

She also seems grown up and eager to grow up more (why? why? why?).

I know I wrote a long time ago that she had read her first book, but she didn't read that much for a long time after that. Only now, she is very much into reading small beginner books again.

She seems interested in Math right now, and wants to do Math activities frequently. I am so terrible at teaching it. Even though I always thought Kumon (a learning center for children of all ages) was unnecessary (unless really necessary), I am even starting to think it may be a good idea for her, even though their workbooks seem very dreary to me. Anything is better than me struggling to explain to her why 20 comes after 19.

Counting, adding small numbers, subtracting small numbers under ten, she does. But she has gotten hold of a grade 1 workbook that I bought by mistake, and wants to do coin math, fractions, and telling time. I still have to think for a minute before I can figure out if a dime is five cents or ten, or before I can tell time from an analog clock.

She is doing very well at school. Next month, we will be moving closer to her school, so she will finally be a more regular student. (We are now at least 20 crawling-at-snail's-pace freeway miles away. )

We will be moving to an apartment. For four months we have lived with the basics, and did well. Summy has very rarely remembered or asked for her things. She has made do with whatever was there. Still, it will be nice to see everything back from storage. I can't wait for her to have a room. Somehow, even when we lived in a three bedroom house, we never made up a room just for her.

It was actually more of a struggle for me not to buy her new toys. I love getting her things. I have to remember that she will be reunited with a lot of her old toys again, and that there will be so many that we will probably have to give some away. Especially now that I know she doesn't need them.

She hasn't forgotten her old friends though, and frequently asks when we will go back to see them, and if we can celebrate her next birthday with them.

She misses Shrewsbury when she thinks of it, at the same time, she realizes that we are in a nice place too. "Shrewsbury is very special" she said out of the blue on the drive to school this morning. Then after a minute of thinking - "California is very special too".

Fiery California

A quick update - we are not close to any of the many wildfires that are burning in South California.

Being new here, I didn't even realize that it was wildfire season. We went to SeaWorld in San Diego on Saturday. On the way there, we looked at the houses built into the hills, so close to the trees in the forest, and I wondered why they built them that way.

On Sunday morning, back home, we heard the wind howling through the fireplace, and guessed that it was the notorious Santa Ana winds, coming from the desert. The farmers market was not festive as usual, everybody seemed to be in a hurry to go home and get out of the dry, hot, wind.

Sunday afternoon, we started hearing about wildfires. That evening, we smelled smoke outside. I thought it must be a barbeque, because I couldn't believe that we would smell fires that were atleast forty miles away, even though that's what Kiran suspected.

Monday night, there was no mistaking that it was the smoke from the fires. There were fires burning east of us, and the winds were going west and blowing the smoke right over us.

So now we have wildfires to the north, wildfires to the east, and wildfires to the south. The sky is grey even though it's a sunny day. Summy's class has stopped going out for playground time to avoid the smoke, and is indoors watching movies instead.

The winds are gone now, and we hope the fires burn themselves out soon.

A Step Backwards

As mentioned before, my car has been in the shop, needing repairs, for a while. It is a step backwards in convenience.

But, it has been thousands of steps forward as we discovered that walking is nothing to be dreaded, even with a four-year-old. It might be cliched, but it is as they say: When God closes a door, He opens a window. For us, several windows were opened.

First, I bought a small stroller for Summy. Then we set out, and discovered that the library, which seems so far away driving, is actually only half a mile away. Almost every day we walk to the wonderful library, and stroll down the beautiful tree lined, shop lined small-town street that the library is on.

The grocery stores are less than a mile away too, and walking to them is a breeze, though ofcourse I cannot buy much (or I'd break my back carrying groceries). The movie theatres are right there, if we only chose to go see a movie.

The beach can be walked to too, though I don't walk there often because it's so hard to avoid sunshine there. But we did make it to the beach on the day of Japan America Kite Festival, and had fun looking at interesting kites (and kite dances), listening to music and making our own kite.

I'd never taken Summy to the swimming pool that's right in our apartment complex before the car broke down. But now we go almost everyday, and she loves to twist and turn in the water like a seal!

So when we need to get somewhere far, we rent a car, or use Kiran's. On other days, I hang my big red beach bag on my shoulders, and we go where the road takes us.