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.

Daycare

While the blog hasn't had much activity, things aren't so quiet at home. Summy and I spent a week looking at preschools, and we agreed on one that we both liked (and Kiran approved after visiting). It has large classrooms, many windows, a nice playground, good teachers, a flexible structure, and they were willing to accommodate Summy's vegetarianism (without insisting that I bring in fake chicken if the rest of the kids are having chicken). Most important of all, the kids were friendly and looked happy.

It's called "Tutor Time", but Summy is under the impression that it's "Cuter Time". "Cuter Time" is actually a much better-suited name to the school.

After that, due to my car needing repairs, Summy's attendance at preschool has been only sporadic. But she has adjusted well there.

Life of an "SAHM"

While I was working, I thought that it was a much easier job to be at a full-time job than it was to be a stay-at-home parent. A worker gets a break from work at home, and a break from home at work (a work-at-home parent gets neither). Ofcourse the worker also carries the stress from home to work and vice versa.

Now that I'm temporarily an SAHM, I'm amazed that I used to do most of what I do now, and go to the office. I guess the grass always appears greener on my side of the fence to me. But I can still see why SAHMhood is harder - I'm guessing that we get a lot less appreciation for what we do at home.

Most people realize that you are working hard if you are doing something "important" (meaning it pays real money). Well, taking care of a home and a child is hard work. There is no evidence of the results of the work at the end of the day - the meals are eaten and gone, the cleaned dirty dishes are dirty again, the cleaned up living room is sprinkled with crayons and crumbs and scraps of paper again. All the moments that had been spent making a child happy - the visits to park, the coloring done together, the dressing of the dolls - are gone (hopefully deposited into a happy memories piggy bank somewhere), and all that is left is a cranky sleepy child.

There are no reviews on paper to tell you what a good job you've done. Everybody needs appreciation and acknowledgement of what they do, even if they already know that they are working hard. If you are a stay-at-home mom or dad and are reading this, here is my review. You are doing great at an amazing, demanding, challenging job, and the adorable evidence to this is growing in front of your eyes.

The Apartment

We were lucky enough to have a temporary furnished apartment waiting for us, so we didn't have to unpack anything except clothes so far. It is a nice little place, close to everywhere, and as different as could be from our old house.

What I don't miss:

The space - From 2100 sq ft to 1000 sq ft. And we still don't even step into the second bedroom unless guests are here, and we haven't stored anything there. So effectively, we are in about 700 sq ft and I can't tell the difference.

Wait, I can. Now, I can cook and still watch what Summy is doing on the computer, and talk to her. I can laugh with her while she watches cartoons on TV, and she can draw at the dining table right next to me. I thought I'd miss the huge kitchen we had, but I don't.

It is a very positive difference to not have so many rooms and so much distance between things and people.

How do we manage? It makes it very easy that we don't have all our stuff yet. Once we move to another apartment, receive our things and unpack them, I wouldn't know where to put all of them.

I use as few things as possible, just one set of dishes for each person. Now that I think about it, why would anyone need any more for every day use? To fill up the dishwasher with? Because that's exactly why I used more dishes - to fill up the dishwasher and start a wash cycle. Now I don't even use the dishwasher.

Summy's toys and books - We brought some dolls with us, and here I got her some construction paper, a pair of scissors, crayons, and glue. She has been making projects and that's been keeping her very busy. We got a local library card, and Summy hasn't even opened any of the books that I brought from home. We just read the library books. Now she watches a lot more TV than she used to, but I'm fine with that. This is a holiday for her, after all, and she'll soon be back to a school routine.

What I do miss:

People - Family, friends, all the people we knew we had around even if we didn't see them every day or week.

New England - the trees, the landscape, the hills. There were woods everywhere, shade everywhere. Here, there is no shade, no escaping from the sun (even though it doesn't get very hot). Most of the trees are palms, fashionably tall and slim with carefully arranged leaves on their tops (come to think of it, many of the people here are like that too). This open landscape makes me feel vulnerable, me being allergic to sunlight.

Things - And materialistically, I miss some of our things - I don't miss the house much, but I miss our sheets, towels, my own kitchen knives, things like that. I didn't bring anything personal along except for a few of Summy's toys and books, to make the transition easier for her. Now I think familiar things would have made the transition easier for me, too.

All in all:

Still, we are getting on fine. I don't have a toaster, or a blender, and I just have the basics to cook with, and fresh vegetables and fruit from a wonderful farmer's market a block away. And I cook lunches and dinners, though simple ones, almost every day. Before, I had a large kitchen full of choppers, blenders, toasters, woks, pantry full of groceries and fancy pastes and masalas, and we ate out all the time. Ofcourse then I also had a full-time job!

Yesterday, I asked Summy if she wanted to eat lunch at home or outside, and she picked pasta with broccoli and cheese sauce made by me. I quote her - "Nobody else knows how to make it, not restaurants, not anybody else. Just Mommy makes it." Home is where home-cooked meals are made - so yes, this apartment has become home.

How are we holding up?

Okay, as you can see.

Nothing much has changed in the last two weeks. It's just the opposite coast, a new home, strange weather, a different culture, and an altered lifestyle. That's all :-)

The beach is half a mile away. It's a nice sandy colorful beach with surfers, swimmers, and kites. We've done several things on the beach including building sand structures, getting wet, flying a kite, exploring the pier, walking on the quaint old main street eating ice cream and watching people. Summy, ofcourse, loves the beach.

Everything we do here has been turning into an adventure. For example, yesterday I chose to drive by the coastline instead of driving straight back home from Torrance. The result was that we ended up driving by cliffs on the edge of the ocean. We even found a park on the edge of a cliff, which included breathtaking views of the ocean, a playground for kids, and a small icecream cart pushed along by a man who spoke nothing but Spanish (at which I blanked out on any Spanish I know). Summy looked from the top of the cliffs at the water for a long long time.

Then further on the way back home, guided by a car GPS (without which we would have been completely lost), we passed right through Long Beach harbor without expecting it. I mean on a bridge right through the middle of the harbor, cranes, ships, ocean, and all. Out of blue, into the blue, you could say.

And ofcourse, I don't have pictures of any of this, because I thought it was going to be a long boring drive on the freeway, and didn't bring the camera along.

It's like a new country. When we got here, I didn't even know how to operate the gas pumps, or use my credit cards. Now I'm much better. Kiran, he has the way to the office and back down pat. He has been working non-stop since we got here and hasn't had mucht time to look around.

And Summy? She has adjusted well now, to the time change, to the weather, to being with me all the time in a (relatively) small space, to the idea of going to a new school even.

In the beginning, she did have trouble adjusting to the idea of moving away from "home". She constantly thought of her friends back in Massachusetts. Once, two days into the move, I was driving and she was talking to me. I could hear something that sounded like babble ("boodle boodle"), and kept up a steady "uh huh, uh huh" while concentrating on the traffic. She got my attention only when she wistfully said, "Andrea (her best friend at school) always laughs when I say that."

Now I realize that she has passed the stage where she can be entertained by a grown-up all day. This is why she is always craving the company of kids her age. I don't play her games, I don't get her jokes. Well, some of the time I do both. But other times, I have more "grown-up", "important" stuff to do.

But soon, she'll have a new school (pre-K), and new friends, and I can already see her looking forward to it, even though she is being a little uncharacteristically shy when we go around looking at new schools.

What can we complain of? I am getting time off from work, precious time to spend with Summy, lovely weather all the time, beaches, great restaurants (Indian and otherwise). There is always something to complain of! Lately, I've been complaining to Kiran that my days are too busy :-)

California

Little Hands, Big Ideas

I thought it was just a doodle, until the artist explained it to me.

It's a kitty, sleeping with her tail curled all around her (as kitties do). She is dreaming about eating bread, which she loves (and which you can see in the dream balloon over her head). But instead of bread, the kitty tried to take a bite out of her bed, which is why she has that funny squiggle on her face.

Whew!

Change

We have enjoyed our home in suburban Massachusetts so much (and lived here long enough to learn to spell Massachusetts). Even though we complain about the cold, and how we can have summer and winter weather in the same day, it is so nice to always have a new season to look forward to.

Here is a picture of Summy digging herself out of our driveway in Winter after a snowstorm.

And here she is in Spring, picking out what we grown-ups called weeds.




Here it's Summer, and she's mixed up with the roses.











And here she is in the Fall.











We'll miss all the surprises we see here - the deer that crossed the street, the turkeys that visit occasionally, the baby turtles that take a shortcut across the grass in Spring, even the coyote that we could hear howling last year, and the fox that scurried through the snow in the backyard while we watched amazed. Not to mention the birds, rabbits, and squirrels, all of whose adorable babies frolic in the backyard.

Last Sunday, two weeks before we are to leave, another surprise floated right over our house and toward the horizon.




We will miss our home and all that comes with it, and look forward to the new surprises that a new home will bring.

Finding Home

As we prepare to move and sell our house, I've seen different views of what makes a good home. More bedrooms than the number of people in your household, more living space than you can clean, and hardwoods and granites and stainless steel appliances and tile and sunrooms and fireplaces and vaulted ceilings and decks and jacuzzis and master suites and swimming pools that you didn't even know you wanted until you found out that everybody else wants them (or until you started watching HGTV). More house = more happiness.

Until you meet Sara of livelightlytour. I came across one of her blogs for the first time last October, when she, her husband, and her little daughter had sold their house in Iowa and moved to a little apartment. I was amazed at how she had made such an inviting lovely home out of such a small space.

Since then, they have moved out of Iowa and moved into another small apartment in Bozeman, Montana. Sara (aided by her husband) used her magic to transform the place into a finalist entry in the 2007 Apartment Therapy contest. Now, her family moved out of the apartment, bought an RV, converted its engine to use veggie oil, redid the RV in sustainable materials, and yes - made it into a beautiful home that you would want to move right into. They mean to travel around the country for a year, educating people about sustainable living.

All this time, I never read a word of regret in her blogs about the places they have left behind. Fond memories, yes, but not regret. She has found her home, and it's not in a fixed location or structure. Her home, her place of happiness, seems to be in in being with her husband and daughter, in getting together with friends and family, in making new friends, in doing the things she loves and believes in, and in doing them well.

Here's to Sara!

Surf's Up!

We are moving to South Bay, California. From the Northeast corner of the country to the Southwest. From the Atlantic coast to the Pacific. From a large (for us) house to a small apartment. If that is a big change for us, it's huge for little Summy.

She has lived in this house since she was born, played in the yard, grew tomatoes there, picked flowers, colored on the walls, spilled juice on the carpet :) She has known her friends in daycare since they were babies.

So far, she is thrilled about living close to the beach, about the new apartment, about not having to go to school for a while. She tends to develop strong bonds with people, so she is naturally sad about leaving behind friends and family. She even suggested that it would be a better idea to go there for "just three days" on "bacation" to California and then come back to the old familiar. But now, she has come to terms with this move and has even sorted out her toys and books into ones that will go to California and ones that will be given away.

I know and hope that she will adapt quickly and be happy.

The Note

One afternoon this week, I went to pick up Summy and found the entire class watching Cinderella on TV. They were on the floor, snuggled up with their blankies and teddy bears and friends in their darkened classroom. I thought it was going to be hard to get Summy out of that cozy setting, but she jumped up as soon as she saw me.

When it was time to say Bye to her teacher, she frowned. I found out why when her teacher gave a small piece of paper and asked me to sign it. It was a note! A note is sent home to parents when a child has been naughty. I read it over, signed a copy for the teacher, and brought Summy out to the car.

I hadn't said a word to her about the note, but on the way, Summy broke down and started to cry. "I got a note, Mama!" Apparently she prides herself on being a "good girl" and she could not bear the thought of a note being sent home with her. I told her that one note didn't mean that she was naughty, and that it was okay. But she was not happy. She sat in the back of the car, holding her note and staring sadly at it.

We picked up Kiran from his office. When Kiran asked to see what she was holding, she wouldn't give it to him. She crumpled it into a ball and tossed it to the farthest corner in the back seat.

She reminded me of Becky Thatcher in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, when she rips a teacher's book and almost gets caught. I felt like Tom Sawyer because I was frequently forgetting things and getting reprimanded by teachers in school, and here was this sensitive little Becky upset because of one note.

Summy's crime: She had used the class crayons to color on a toy and a book.

We reminded Summy that coloring was for paper only, but we didn't push it. We just know that she's never going to do it again.

A New Friend

An imaginary one called Foofoo! It's a baby girl rabbit that Summy "found" in the fridge yesterday morning. She said she didn't want Foofoo to freeze, so she cupped her hands and brought her into the car and to school.

She talked and sang to Foofoo all through the car ride. When she got out of the car at school, she "carried" "her" in. In her classroom, she walked to her cubby, opened it, put "Foofoo" inside, and closed it again.

In the evening, when I picked her up and was about to drive back home, she remembered that Foofoo was still in the cubby. I expected a tantrum to go back to pick up Foofoo. It's bad enough that I go back into the classroom almost everyday to get one forgotten thing or the other. Her teachers probably already think I'm a little funny, without me taking Summy in just to get an imaginary bunny out of the cubby.

But luckily, it turned out that imaginary friends are easier than that. All she had to do was sing, "Little Foofoo, little Foofoo, come out from the cubby into the car" and Foofoo "magicked" herself into the car.

Here's to imaginary magic baby girl bunny friends! :)

Bike to Work Week

It's National Bike to Work Week, as I found out from this post of Sara's.

Now that I've finally learned the joy of riding a bike, I wish I could ride it somewhere, instead of going around in circles in our neighborhood. I've been reading about people who bike to work, and this seems to work well in a city.

Even in my own suburban office, right down my aisle are two people who ride their bicycles to work. But I don't think I could ride eleven miles each way to work. I do hope to see a lot of people on their bicycles though.

I love driving my car. But riding a bicycle really is something else!

It's fun, gliding down slopes, cruising around curves, puffing up hills.

It's slow, and you can look at the flowers in the yards and wave to people as you pass by (Theoretically. As a beginner, if I let go of my handlebar to wave, I'd be landing on my face.)

It's cheap, and all you have to feed it is some air. The only power source of the bike that needs to be refueled is yourself.

It's exercise, but it doesn't feel like punishment.

It's green. Whether you are pro-environment, or for some reason, against it, it feels good to have so much fun with so little guilt.

Now if only I could take my bike somewhere, and make it useful. I am still working on riding it well, before taking it out on missions. But if you have a bike, and if you live close to work, or close to somewhere you'd like to go, maybe you can take this chance to ride your bike there. It would be nice to put a lot of bikes on the road this week. It might remind people that bikes are fun, that they are everywhere and sharing the road with cars (watch out, and drive carefully!).

Here are some bicycle riding and safety tips.

Allergies

Summy is a vegetarian, like Kiran and me. She knows that she is not supposed to eat meat at school, where they give her something meatless when everybody else is having meat or chicken.

She doesn't seem to mind it, though she probably gets curious sometimes. I had a lot of trouble explaining this vegetarianism to her.

First, I just told her we don't like to eat meat. By that, she must have assumed that it doesn't taste good. So when the topic of what others had for lunch came up, she would scrunch up her nose is say, "Yuck! Meat is icky, right?". I can't have her telling her friends their lunch is yucky while they're eating it.

So I expanded a little bit, carefully, and told her meat comes from animals. And we don't like to eat animals, even though there are others who do eat them. But it's still tough. And she'll probably still get in trouble if she tells her friends she doesn't like to eat animals. The kids might not be offended, but the parents might be.

It's actually the same dilemma that we grown-ups have, having to tell that we prefer to be vegetarian for "animal" reasons. From experience, it is hard to explain this without sounding uppity, without offending people, or without having them go defensive.

Luckily we have religion to the rescue. People will argue if we did it because we thought it was the right thing, but they'll let it pass if they think it's got anything to do with religion.

Summy has found an even better way. She came home one day and said "We are allergic to eat meat" as if she had it all figured out.

But this isn't just for meat - it's for everything that she doesn't like. For example, she now says she is "allergic to eat" bananas and chocolate (which, strangely, she doesn't like). The other day, her baby doll in her school cubby had to be replaced with another one, because the old baby doll was "allergic to being in a cubby".

How much before Summy becomes "allergic" to baths, to bedtimes and so on? I don't give it very long.

Expansion of Vocabulary

Ours, that is. We learn so many words from her, and we say them the way she says them.

When she was a year old, she used to say "booy booy" at the sight of any creature that moved. Ants were booy booys, birds were booy booys, dogs were booy booys. So we called everything booy booy too.

Then for a year or two, she said "lullow" instead of "yellow". That was so cute, how could we correct her? Instead, we started saying lullow ourselves (until she grew out of it and started correcting us "Yellow, not lullow.")

We still do this: "automakit"; "mostiquo"; "obvisly"; and so on. We get a little sad when she starts to say the cute words right.

No Worries

She learns all these things that her teachers say to the kids in school, and repeats them.

I guess when one of the kids in the class does something - say, puts paint in his hair - and the other kids complain to the teacher about it, the teacher says back - "Is he putting the paint in your hair?". When they answer "No", I guess the teacher says "Then don't worry about it."

Now she keeps saying this to me. Being bad with memory, I've already forgotten about a couple of instances, but this morning, I said that it looked like it was going to rain. She said, "Are you the raincloud? Then don't worry about it."

The way I put it, it seems flat now. But this morning when she said it, I laughed my head off.

Happy Mothers Day

To all moms who are reading this.

Special wishes to my own mother. We have always been friends, sung songs together, shopped, and laughed a lot. Love you so much, Amma.

For Mothers Day, Summy woke me up grinning, and gave me two beautifully hand-signed cards, and a large frame and an album full of pictures of her and us. Thank you so much, Summy bunch.

Kiran spent long nights picking out digital pictures (we haven't printed out any in two years), and snuck out to print them, frame them and album them, in order to give me a real surprise. Thank you so much, Kirru.

We went to IHOP and had a big brunch. They played together and let me go on a long bicycle ride by myself. Dinner was brought home. I was sent out to a movie with a fellow-mom to enjoy myself.

I feel pampered and happy.

Spiderman 3

I have so many usernames and passwords at work and otherwise, and the inevitable finally happened. I forgot a login.

Last week the username was in my head, this week it's been replaced by a new byte of information, probably the name of a minor character in Spiderman 3. So I don't have access to Kings and Cabbages, my other blog, any more. I can't post to it. People could put in cheeky or spam comments on it and I couldn't delete them. So I disown that blog for now.

So I'm writing about my movie experience here. Yesterday a friend and I went to the 8:30 show of Spiderman 3.

We were ten minutes late, and my friend really likes movie experiences to be whole, from the start of the trivia quiz to the very end of the movie. But I like my movie experiences to be wholesome too, which means I had to stop to get popcorn and soda. Anyway, we sneaked into the door that had the Spiderman poster next to it.

I have to say the movie had taken off to a fast and interesting start. Usually other multiplexes would still be running trailers at that time, but here we were deep into a plot already. We were a little lost about the story, but how much could we have missed in ten minutes?

My friend and I were quick to figure things out. Less than an hour into the movie, as the end credits were running up the screen, we smartly put things together and realized that we were probably in the wrong show.

It was the 7:00 show. We solved our whole movie problem by sneaking into the 9:45 showing of Spiderman, watching the trailers, and the movie right upto where we had seen it before, and left.

On the surface, it might seem that we were too incompetent to figure out the right theater. The tickets said room 9 - we read them upside down and went into 6. Actually, that isn't true. Room 6 was playing a different movie. But room 7 was playing Spiderman, and we figured that 7 was close enough and went into 7.

Thinking back, we were lucky we ever made it to the Multiplex, instead of driving to DSW Shoe Warehouse (which was right next door) and watching the shoes.

But the important thing is, we accidentally discovered the perfect way to watch Spiderman. The last hour. We knew enough from the Spiderman trailer to figure out what was going on, and it was short enough so we were not bored. Re-watching the first half of Spiderman added nothing to the entertainment, and it wasn't because we knew how it ended.

If we had to do it again, I would skip the first part of the movie, and see the last parts of one or two other movies instead, and make the most of it.

This has little to do with Chinuku and everything to do with my junk drawer "Kings and Cabbages", but here it goes temporarily.

Ready to Read

Sameera read her first book, her long time favorite "Biscuit".

Recently she has been sitting with her books for more than 15 minutes at a time and "reading" them very intensely. Finally, yesterday, something in her head must have gone "click" and she realized she could read. Yesterday morning, she read the word "Apple" and said "Look, it's says 'APPLIE'! It has an e in the end!"

Last night, I started to read "Biscuit", but she put her little finger under the words and started to read them herself. She went on to the very last page with a little prompting from me, a little knowledge of phonics, and a little bit of guessing. (she can recite that book by rote anyway).

What a great feeling it must be, to be able to make sense of the words by herself. She read three more beginner reader books this morning, with prompting from me.

First Bicycle Ride

I've looked forward to this for a long time, even dreamt about it. Finally, we got a new bicycle, and went off to the local school parking lot to practice. Kiran looked forward to teaching his girl how to ride a bicycle.

After an afternoon of practising, she took off onto the sidewalk and went for a ride in the neighborhood, all by herself.

And by she, I mean me :), because it wasn't Summy who was learning to ride this last Sunday, it was me.

I wasn't exactly learning to ride, because my father taught me this years ago, running behind me as I sped on a sloping road. But I never did get the confidence to go for rides by myself when I was smaller.

Kiran recently got himself a motorbike, and he's even riding it to work. He was having so much fun that I wanted to ride my own bicycle. This Sunday, after a quick refresher course by Kiran, I did go for a ride by myself around the local roads. It was great!

Summy, ofcourse, has her own bicycle with training wheels which she's been riding for a year. She's the athletic kind of girl (I've never been) and is good at this kind of thing.

So this week, in the national bike month, we became a family of bikers.

I Spy A Cutie-Pie

After a cousin of mine told me about her daughter who played I Spy in the funniest ways, I tried it on Summy last night. I went first.

"I spy with my little eye, someone whose name starts with S"

"Me!!!!!" Summy said with pleasure.

"Your turn, Summy".

"I spy a clock!"

"No, no Summy. You can't tell me what it is, I have to guess. Like you can say I spy something round and white, and I guess the clock. If I can't guess, then you can give me a clue. Okay?"

"Okay."

"My turn again. I spy with my little eye something, that starts with the letter B".

"I don't know."

"Here's a clue: we sleep on it."

"Bed!!!"

"You are right, Summy! Now your turn."

"I spy a door with my little round eye."

"........."

"That was a funny glue (clue). Ha ha ha ha"

The Mystery of The Male Woman

Was solved when Kiran told me what Summy was talking about, was the "MailWoman". :)

An Angel and a Two-headed Monster

This story starts about three months ago - when I told Summy to stop something naughty that she was doing (right now!). She was sitting on the floor and I was standing up tall next to her, and she rolled her eyes up to look at me. Only she rolled one eye way higher than the other and looked defiant.

Then she started to do this more often, mostly when she was defiant, and Kiran noticed it too. We kept telling her to stop it. Then one day, she gave me this look when I asked her to do something she really really didn't want to do - and then she warned, "Mama, I'll turn you into a two-head monster!"

So this is what she had been doing all this time! Making herself see double and turning us into two-headed monsters when she was not pleased with us.

But then we started to worry a little after we realized that she could not roll her left eye all the way up. (Note to any worried grandparents reading this :) It turned out later that there was nothing to worry about).

At her four-year checkup, we brought this worry up, and the doctor referred us to an eye doctor.

The eye doctor took a look at it yesterday, and said it happens when an oblique eye muscle is a little restricted so it doesn't let the eye move all the way up while looking up inwards. It's called Brown's Syndrome, and is virtually harmless. Summy simply compensates for it by lifting her head up instead of moving her eyes up.

Her vision was good in all ways though, and she did things exactly as she was asked to do. The doctor and the assistants praised her so much that she was walked out on air (and loaded with stickers and a lollipop).

These little physical anamolies are things that make us individuals just a little different from others. The little "quirks" also make me wonder at how many things have to come together perfectly to make our bodies work as they do.

I had a friend who could wiggle her ears, another who could wiggle her nose. I myself (ahem) have the "ability" to wiggle my little toe all by itself. Just so, Summy has the ability to make people two-headed.

Pictures at Four

Here she is on her birthday.

A month before she turned four

Spring 2007

Before she got dressed this morning, Summy said, "But Mama, first we have check the diggery. We don't even know what diggery it is."

What was this "diggery"? The mystery was solved when she went to the computer. Oh, she wanted me to check today's temperature forecast, so she could decide whether she should dress warm or light.

It was 38 degrees (F), so she decided to put on a sweatshirt.

Her diggery of awareness of the seasons and the weather has increased a lot.

Still Counting His Blessings

This titbit is from Kiran:

Summy and Kiran were sitting next to each other on the couch. Summy was munching on a snack, and Kiran was working on his laptop. She sneezed a super-duper giant sneeze that sprayed the chewed food in her mouth on Kiran and his computer.

And then she said "Daddy, I blessed all over you."

Super Duper Cool

I think, she got this from her grandparents. Everything is either super-duper big, or super-duper cold, or super-duper yummy for this super-duper girl.

K for konfused

A confession: I've been trying to get Summy to learn to read for the past two years, even though I would never have admitted it. I'm for education with no pressure. I mean, what difference is it going to make in a couple of years whether she reads now or not?

But somehow, I expected her to be an early reader. I bought her leappads, workbooks, beginning reader books and so on.

It reminds me of the time when I was little and tried to teach my cat to sing: Sa re ga ma..... (sadly, this is not a joke. I even thought my cat was learning to sing, slowly but surely.)

Summy takes special pleasure in watching me trying to explain the rules of phonics to her. I'm a terrible teacher, though I didn't know that before.

So she says, "E says A? No, A says A."

I say "A says Ah."

"Oh."

"No, O says Oh."


There are a lot of sounds that I can't explain to her, but C and K are the best.

She says, "K for kat!"

I say, "No, C for cat!"

"K says kh! too."

"But C is for cat."

"Why?"

"......."

"C for ckitchen!"

And so on. She gets C and K wrong (or maybe, right) with a naughty smile everytime. "K for Kake", "C for Ckite", "K for Kandy" (Note to @: You involved in this?).

At this point, I give up. Her teachers will teach her when they teach her, and they'll teach her the right way. No big deal - if she doesn't learn to read in preskool, she will learn it in Ckindergarten.

The Best Ears of our Lives

Sometimes I regret it that Summy is growing up too fast, but that's rare.
I see baby videos of her and want that innocence again, but then there is always something wonderful about the age she's at right at that moment.

I can't get enough of whatever adorable stage she is in at any time. She's young enough to have that cute little voice, and say innocent things and ask innocent questions in it.

She walks around with a cell phone to her ear and whispers"Shh! Don't interrupt. I'm talking to somebody and it's 'portant!"

When I ask her to move over to check my email at the computer, she says, "I'm very very very busy doing 'portant work. You can do the computer later, okay?"

When her Barlin' says she doesn't need three q-tips because she doesn't have three ears, she says, "Yes, I have three ears. In March I will have four ears." (She'll be four years, not four ears old in March, and is being a smart aleck).

I need to get a recorder and record some of the things she says, so I don't forget them thirty minutes later.

Summy Bunch

A few days ago, I stood in the middle of the house and yelled "Banana!" Summy answered, "Yes, Mama." Only when Kiran pointed it out did I realize that that was a little strange.

I call her so many different names that she answers to any name I call her. She instinctively knows when I'm talking about food, when I'm just talking to myself, and when I'm calling her.

I've called her "Banana Bunch", "Sweet Tomato", "Hunny Pie", "Potato Muffin", and lots of other things besides, and she just takes it sweetly.

But some names make her indignant. "Puppy" or "Kitten" offend her, and she says "I'm not a puppy. I'm Sameera!" Who knows why she doesn't mind being a pumpkin potato or a blueberry muffin, but considers Bunny or Kitten a slur?

Yesterday an uncle called her "Sammy". Not Summy (to rhyme with tummy), but Sammy (to rhyme with clammy). She said very seriously, "No, I'm not Sammy. Call me Sameera."

To her, adding "bunch" to anything makes it loving. She even asked me sometimes to call her "Honey Bunch" when she wants to feel reassured. She's called us "Mommy Bunch" and "Daddy Bunch" too.

Which reminds me of when she affectionately told me with a hug "You are my Darlin'." And then "Daddy is my Barlin' because he's a boy."

Another Winter Activity

Little helper cuts up beans

I changed my tune...

There used to be a time when I used to sing grown-up songs when I felt like singing. Happy songs. Sad songs. Fast songs. Sentimental songs.

Yesterday I was singing "C'mon let's crawl - let's crawl - let's crawl" when Kiran walked by.

"Let's crawl???" He said.

"To the ugly bug ball - to the ball - to the ball" I answered.

This is what I sing now - "The Ugly Bug Ball". But this is one of the cute ones. It could be sillier, and know what, it is.

Some of the most ridiculous songs (I mean no offense - they're fine for Summy to sing, but very odd if I'm found singing them when I'm alone) I found myself singing:

"We are string beans, green and fine,
Green and fine, green and fine.
We are green beans, green and fine.
Growing on a leafy vine."

or this one:

"Today is Monday - today is Monday
All day long - all day long
Yesterday was Sunday - tomorrow is Tuesday
Oh what fun - oh what fun"

(What fun, indeed)

But the silliest (and cheesiest) one ever was a jingle that I particularly disliked, heard years and years ago, and couldn't get out of my head. I heard it way before Summy was born. I accidentally sang a line of it one day, and Summy loved and wanted me to sing it again and again and again. Here it is:

"Alouette - tasty Alouette
Alouette - ready-to-serve cheese
If you have a party night
Choose the cheese that must delight
Party Night
Must Delight
Tum-tum-tum-tum
Alouette - tasty Alouette
Alouette - ready-to-serve cheese"

The Challenger

Last night, as Summy prepared to brush her teeth, she threw me what she apparently thought was a challenge. She said she wanted to use the grown-up toothpaste.

Possibly, she envisioned me saying "No", her insisting, me putting my foot down, and her defying me.

But I said "Okay."

Now that I think back about it, she seemed let down ("How is this fun if I'm allowed to do it?"). She prodded me.

"But you said it was too karam (spicy) for me."

"It's a little stronger than your kid toothpaste, but you can use it if you want. Only a little tiny bit. Mama has to put it on your toothbrush though."

Here was a chance to challenge again. She took it.

"No! I want to do it!"

My answer was very unsatisfying: "Okay."

She looked dully at the adult toothpaste. It had lost all its charm. "Where is the sport in life?", she must have been thinking.

"Here, I don't want it.", she said, and put the toothpaste back on the counter.

Who knows how many other times she'd been picking little tiffs with me on purpose, and I fell for it?

Score: 1 for Mama. 253 for Summy.

Then and Now

Sick Day

Some of my best memories of childhood are of getting pampered on sick days.


Here is Summy on a sick day two weeks ago - watching Blue's Clues and chilling out in her igloo. She even got me to join her in the tent later!

(Yes, Mommyof2, it's the same tent.)

Dora Vs. Dora

Summy put on her new Dora slippers on our way home from the store today. The Dora slippers were having a conversation in voices that resembled Summy's.

Left Slipper (I presume): Oh, look, you have the same hair as me!

Right Slipper: Yeah, and the same eyes too!

LS: And the same pink shirt!

RS: And the same skirt!

LS: We match!

RS: We are both Doras!

~Silence~

LS: How bout you can be Boots!

RS: No, you be Boots!

LS: No, you!

RS: No, you!

I now have a new idea for a pair of slippers that has Dora on the one foot and Boots on the other one. Or how about Tom on one foot and Jerry on the other? The feet would have so much fun chasing around the house.

Finding Nemo

Yesterday all three of us watched this movie again together. All of us love it. Summy asked me for explanations, especially when the whale swallowed Nemo's dad and Dory (who are trying to find Nemo) in order to take them to Sydney, where Nemo was (and if you haven't seen this movie, you're all at sea here).

I always wanted to see Australia, so after the movie was done I asked Summy rhetorically, "Would you like to go to Sydney?"

She thought about this before saying yes. That was not expected because usually she is eager to see new places. Then we found the reason for her hesitation when she added,

"But not in a whale."

Playtime - Toys optional

It was not any of the toys she received for Christmas that kept Summy occupied for a whole hour the other day. It was stale mini-muffins from the fridge.

It was her baby doll's birthday. The mini-muffin was the cake. We put her last year's birthday candle on it, lit it, blew it out, made a wish. Sang Happy Birthday (dear baby).

Then she helped "baby" cut the cake, got out her tea set, and served Kiran and me (and the rest of the doll family) cake and "juice" (water, which spilled on the floor, causing her to spend ten minutes wiping up her spill, the table, the chairs, and the doll, just in case).

Then, she put some magazine cutouts in a little box, wrapped it up with old magazine pages, put a bow on it and made baby a present. Then the baby got to open the present.

After it was all done, we got another stale muffin and started all over again. The next day, we had a party again.

Though there are some toys that Summy enjoys, most games don't involve big toys. Some things that keep her occupied for a long long time:

1. Cleaning. A wet rag with which to wipe the fridge, the floor, anything. Then a dry rag to dry everything up.
2. Scissors. The thing most used by Summy in the last two years is her little blue pair of scissors. Just have to watch and make sure she doesn't cut up Time before we've read it.
3. Dishes. It can be her play dishes or real ones that are unbreakable - but she puts her stepstool at the sink and washes the dishes over and over until they sparkle.
4. Washing. In the tub, Summy likes to wash her clothes in a bucket sometimes (the way we did in India). Next Summer I can imagine her washing doll clothes outside and hanging them up.
5. Pretend People. Usually with little finger sized dolls, but as I mentioned before, these are not necessary. The people can be anything from pens to real fingers. These people take baths and put out fires and save each other and eat pizza and go on forever.

If you're reading this and have a tot, what entertains yours the most on a cold winter day?

Tears

The previous post reminded me - When Summy's eyes water, she says "My eyes are melting." I find that cute, but apt in a way. When her eyes fill with tears, they sure melt my heart.

Water Scarcity

The other night she stubbed her toe against something, but not hard. Out of habit, she started to cry. After about a minute of loud wails and dry eyes, she stopped crying and said in a normal cheerful voice:

"Mama, are my tears all gone?"

I guess she can usually bring out tears on demand, so when she couldn't, she was surprised. Now I'm onto you, Summy :)

Parenting Advice from the Expert

Yesterday, I was trying to get Summy to take a bath, and she was stalling ("No, But I don't want to take a bath right now.").

"You said you'd take a bath after you played with the computer. Take a bath and I'll play downstairs with you. If you don't, I can't play with you because you'll be stinky. So come on."

She watched me with an amused smile through this speech, and after I was done she said:

"You have to say 'It's not a choice.', Mama". (!!!!!!!)

I said, "Okay, It's not a choice, Summy. You have to take a bath", and then Kiran and Summy and I all laughed.

I've never said this to her before, she must have heard it in school.

Advice straight from the horse's mouth - and it worked too. She did listen that time.

She has her cake, I eat it too

The other day as Summy and I were picking out jammies for her, I saw the cutest blue pair with duckies on it. But when I showed it to Summy, she said, "Mommy, those are baby jammies."

I see.

And then she showed me her pick - Disney princess nightgown. I said, "But Summy, that looks too grown-up."

And this is where we are now. I'm trying to hang on to her babyhood, and she's ready to drive a car ("Mommy, next year can I drive the car?").

So who won?

She got the princess nightie, and twirled and danced in it for a long time before she slept. She got her wish.

When she fell asleep, she snuggled up to me just like when she was a baby. I got my wish too.

Love at first sight

With a doll! And I'm not talking about Summy.

It was more than twenty years ago (Groan! An oldie's story!). I saw this doll in a store that I wanted for my eighth birthday. The night before my birthday, I was running a fever and it was raining, but my father took me to the store in a rickshaw and bought it for me. The condition: I wasn't to open it till my actual birthday.

That night I slept with the doll box next to me. I even remember staring at the ties around its legs and wanting so much to open up the box. When I opened it, it was named Neelima/Jane and turned into a "she" instead of "it". She was a chubby little girl with a gentle smily face.

Years later, when I was in college, my mother quietly discarded her from storage (I think rats had gotten to Neelima/Jane, and even before that, her hair and face were in a pretty bad state with all the love and baths and makeup I'd given her), I found I was still attached to her. I couldn't sleep for a week, with the image of the doll in the trash.

I never saw a doll like that again. The dolls in the stores these days (groan! "these days"? Another sign of an oldie) are so out of proportion and ghastly. The few toddler dolls that really look like little girls are a little pouty.

Yesterday I found the doll that was just right - with a happy face, the right proportions, and wearing shoes and socks that can be taken off (yes, that's a bombshell feature). Moreover, it has a couple of changes of dresses and shoes and little clippies for her hair. I just know Summy is going to love the doll when she sees it (on Christmas day, since it's so close).

I can't wait to play with her doll.

Er, I mean I can't wait for Summy to play with her doll.

A compliment (?)

One day Summy was watching me going about doing things, and said (very appreciatively) - "Mama, you are getting really big and heavy." What I say to her when I carry her came right back at me!

Then, that night, she cuddled up to us and said, "My, what a big nose you have!" (Her daddy also received the same praise).

Why, thank you, Summy!

Tropical Girl

On the class survey report of each child's "Favorite Taste" posted on Summy's classroom door today, among the "popsicle"s, "lollipop"s, "chocolate chip cookie"s and other stuff, "mango" stood out prominently. Guess who liked mango best? But that was one of Summy's more mainstream favorites.

Her strangest favorite is (gag) - tofu served in an icecream cone.

Live Green

For the sake of my child, and your child.

"Future generations may well have occasion to ask themselves, 'What were our parents thinking? Why didn't they wake up when they had the chance?' We have to hear that question from them now."

- From the documentary film "The Inconvenient Truth"

Grandparents

For three months, Summy had a wonderful time getting pampered by her Ammamma and Thatha. I was also busy those three months, so I missed a lot of things that I should have put down.

She stayed at home whenever she got a chance, and played many games with them. They patiently played little people with her, and played patients when she was a doctor.

She learned to draw, color within lines, and write letters while they were here.

She made both of them crawl into her tiny playtent (her house) and take "naps", climbed all over them, and they were as patient as only grandparents can be.

Dear Grandma and Grandpa, now that you are in India, she can't wait to see you and play with you again!

Drama Queen

Last year she was voted the one with the "Best Imagination" by her teachers, and now we're seeing why.

Her favorite toy is her little dollhouse people (and there are many). She makes them talk to each other, play, fight over taking turns (and then the mother or the teacher comes in to restore peace), and sometimes even fly to California (why California?) in a magic car. She keeps this up for hours, but that's not what makes her a dramatic expert.

She makes characters out of everything - spoons and forks, markers, socks. She has a toolset and she even makes the screwdrivers and wrenches talk to each other. I once heard a screw comment to another one "What a pretty skirt!" (the other screw was "wearing" a washer).

Goodbye, Old Mother

I was ready to become "Mom" or "Amma" from "Mommy", but this is what I heard recently when I waved bye to her.

"Goodbye, old mother."

I laughed a lot, so now she says this all the time. Where could she have heard that?

Zzzzzzzz

This morning she said, "I snored about you yesterday, Mama."

"You mean you dreamed about me?"

"Yes, I dreamed about you"

Hee hee hee. Good night, Sweet snores.

A Link to Bliss

I was so impressed I'm putting this link on both my blogs. Be sure to look at the pictures she points to.

Happiness is a small home.

Cosleeping

I just visited noon's blog for the first time (and enjoyed it). I came across this entry about co-sleeping, which immediately made me want to write this before I forget.

Summy had always slept in our bed as a baby. Then this year, she started to go to sleep in her crib. Sometimes she joined us when she woke at night, sometimes she didn't. Now, she insists on going to sleep on her sleeping bag on the floor of our bedroom, but almost always wakes up in the middle of the night to join us.

I love to sleep next to her, but sometimes I think about Summy sleeping in her own room. The first step, ofcourse, would be to have her sleep the night in her own bed.

So I told her about her friends who (presumably) sleep in their own beds. Then I told her about how she too could sleep on her own all night, because she was all grown up now.

She said, "But I'm not grown up - I'm just a little kid! I want to sleep in Mommy Daddy's bed. When I'm bigger, then I can sleep in my own bed."

Old enough to present her argument persuasively, but young enough to be Mommy and Daddy's baby.

You think you know somebody....

One evening recently, I was exhausted and I told her, "I'm tired today, Summy. I'm sorry I can't give you a bath. We can take one tomorrow."

Her expressions changed. First she looked puzzled. Then incredulous. Then a huge smile came onto her face and she said, "Oh Mommy, that's okay."

Then she explained, "I don't like baths."

Oh, so she doesn't like baths :) That explains a lot.

To be honest, she's been trouble at bathtime lately, but I still thought she loved baths. Sometimes you don't realize things about somebody until they come right out and tell you. Even things about your child.

So what now? You still have to take baths everyday, Summy, but we'll try to make it a little more fun.

Car Talk: The A-List

We were discussing her fourth birthday party (after all, it's only six months away).

I asked who was going to be at the party.

Counting them off on her fingers, one by one, Summy says
"Alicia, and Brad, and Cathy, and Dylan (names changed to protect identity :))..."

Me: And who else?

Summy: And Elizabeth, and Freddie, and Gena, and Harini, and...

Me: Who else?

Summy: And Ian, and Julie.

Me: (waiting for her to list all her classmates' names) And?

Summy:......

Me: And Kristin?

Summy: No, not Kristin.

I was shocked at the exclusion.
"But Kristin was at your last birthday party, and you had so much fun."

Summy: Not Kristin.

Me: But Summy, that will make Kristin sad!

Summy: But Mommy, I have no more fingers!

So that's why :) She had already counted off her ten fingers.

9 Weird Things about me

Tagged by mommyof2.

1) I can turn off the alarm only in my sleep (can't figure which button's the right one after I'm awake). Apparently, I'm not the only one who does this, as I have weird friends.

2) If I step on a line between tiles on the floor with my left foot while walking, then I step on another line with my right foot, and vice versa. If I accidentally knock my right fist against the treadmill while running, then I knock my left fist against the treadmill on purpose. Have to have symmetry. If I goodnight kiss Summy's left cheek, I have to kiss her right one too, or I can't sleep.

3) I don't wear my running shoes anywhere, not even to the gym. I go to the gym in running pants, workout shirt, and dress shoes. Only just before I get on the treadmill do I put on my running shoes.

4) I like to crumple the edges of bedsheets. It needs to be a very specific kind of edge, unhemmed and of a certain thickness, but once I find it, I can spend hours just crumpling it between my fingers. Even Summy sometimes tells me - Mommy, stop playing with that sheet! Sometimes when I get bored in meetings, I get a high just by imagining that I'm crumpling a sheet edge, and my fingers twitch.

5) I can't enjoy a meal if I don't have material to read. I have to read while I eat, even if it's just a little snack, even if it's just the grocery store flyer. (Most of the time I eat the snack and read the flyer, not vice versa).

That's all that I can think of. I suppose I'm not as weird as I thought I was. I tag Tara and Gauri.

Doctor DoMuch

Summy's pediatrician been her doctor since her birth. He has always been very gentle. He has always listened and paid attention to her, even before she started to talk. He has always talked directly to her instead of through us. It is sad (for us), but he is retiring. He told us so a few months ago, and now we got the final goodbye letter from him, prompting us to look for a new doctor.

The good news is that we already have one. The one whose four year old daughter is getting nominated for the Academy Awards (Summy is the other finalist). How could I do better than the doctor whose kid is going through the same things that Summy is? As soon as Summy asked for a sticker, she went straight for a couple of huge Dora stickers - because she had noticed the Dora sandals that Summy was wearing. Her old doctor, the best in all other ways, would pick out something like Snoopy or Spongebob.

Hope doctor visits continue to be pleasant outings for Summy.

Tagged

by Boo.

I am thirty one today.
I said nothing much - I usually don't, I'm shy.
I want to not seem shallow, but can't help it - what I really really really want is samosa chat for dinner.
I wish that today were Friday.
I miss being in India.
I hear Summy's chatter as long as she's awake.
I wonder where I would've been today if I'd got that coveted seat in my dream college.
I regret having yelled at Summy yesterday.
I am glad I'm sneaking my way out of the second "I am". I waited until it was my birthday so that I could do the first "I am".
I dance clumsily, but happily.
I sing the teletubbies title song at work.
I am not going to let myself walk into a modified "I am" trap.
I cry at the drop of a hat.
I'm not always straightforward.
I make with my hands shadow animals by the light of Summy's flashlight.
I write a lot of non-technical stuff and I enjoy it.
I confuse everybody at work when I try to write a technical document.
I need nothing more than what I have.
I should be a better role model for Summy.
I tag mommyof2.

From the Mouths of Babes

This morning, Summy looked at the wedding picture on the mantel. It's been sitting there ever since we lived here. And she said, "Mommy and Daddy were married yesterday."

It seems like only yesterday, but next week is our tenth anniversary!

Doctor or Miracle Worker?

This was a few months ago, Summy had a cough and I took her to the doctor. I explained that the doctor will help make her feel better.

She was as good as can be throughout the checkup, the weighing, the temperature-taking, the ear-probing, the poking, the prodding, and the awarding-of-the-stickers.

After he left, she coughed a small cough. Then she complained "Mom, I'm still coughing!" She expects fast results!

I didn't necessarily want to tell her that the medicine was would make her better, because I don't want her to associate doctor visits with medicine. She loves doctor visits, and she doesn't love medicine, so why make the visits harder in anticipation of medicine?

Yesterday, I took her to the doctor again to get a cough checked out. She had also complained of her ear hurting on Sunday, and yesterday she added a stomach ache to her list of ailments (she really really wanted to go see the doctor).

Her regular doctor was out, so we saw another doctor. "So she has a stomach ache?" the doctor asked. I waved my hand and said "I don't know ..." thinking about how to put it without hurting Summy's feelings.

"You mean to say that she would be good in Hollywood?" the doctor said diplomatically.

"Exactly!"

"Got it. We have a four year old daughter we're thinking of sending to Hollywood", she said.

She understood, no explanations needed. It is so nice to see a doctor who knows exactly what's going on.

The good news was that there was nothing the matter with Summy. She was fit as a fiddle, just wanted an outing to the doctor.

All's well that ends well.

Forgetful Mom

Twice or thrice a day, Summy does something which makes me think "There's some new material for her journal." But once I find the time to log onto this blog to write about it, I forget what it is.

Today it's the same as usual. I forgot what it was.

Good thing I'm writing down atleast what I'm writing down, or with my memory, there would be no stories that I could tell Summy about "When you were little..."

A New Friend

We have been visiting the swimming pool for the last two weeks.

She enjoys splashing around, ofcourse (need to put her in classes), but the best part of swimming (or going to the park, or out for a walk, or anything else) is the socializing.

Usually the pool crowd consists of five or six year olds who consider it beneath them to get familiar with a three year old "baby". :) There are some very friendly older kids too - there are all kinds. But usually nobody pays much attention to Summy.

On Sunday, she found a baby who was hugging his Daddy's neck and crying in the pool. He wanted no part of all that rowdy splashing around (every two seconds one kid or the other would do a cannonball). She swum around close, watching the baby with delight. When the baby stopped crying to smile at her, she was overjoyed - then the baby bent down to touch Summy's hand, then she held his hand and put it in the water. Then the baby's Dad said "Look how well she swims - isn't she good?". He didn't know it, but he and his son now became friends for life :) The rest of her time in the pool, she hung around with that baby.

When she came home, she told Kiran very proudly that she had made a friend and his name was Alex.

Good to meet you, Alex!

Rubberback and More

The other day, Summy pretended to be the mommy while I was forced to be the baby being put to sleep. When she was tired of the game, she said "Now I'll be the baby and you be the rubberback."

Rubberback (noun): one who rubs somebody's back or tummy, in order to put them to sleep.

I do add those "ie"s to the end of words to make them sound cute - doggie, fishie, froggie, etc. When a car next to us honked last week, Summy said "Did you see that car-rie?" When I said yes, she said "Did you hear that car-rie make the sound-ie?"

Jujubes

This happened a few months ago - how did I forget to put it in Summy's journal?

We were reading a small board book about fruit at bedtime, when we first saw the now legendary Jujube.

She found the name "Jujube" very funny, and it started to seem funny to me too.

After the lights were out, we were singing the alphabet song, and when we came to J, she said "J for Jujube" and started to laugh again. I laughed too. It was one of those things, hard to explain why it was that funny.

We laughed helplessly with tears down our faces, and until our jaws hurt. Then we looked away from each other because even looking at each other would have triggered another bout of laughter. We slept with an occasional suppressed rumble from one of us, setting off the other one to rumble too.

Now we try not to talk about explosive topics like Jujubes at bedtime.