Time travel - A peep into the gap

Wow....the last post was just 6 days after the new year that was 2011. And now here we are in mid June 2013.


I have been putting off restarting the blog as I did not know where to begin, what to update, what to omit, the sequence to follow etc. Finally I have decide to just do it...no updates, no formats nothing..I start from today, now!!!

But just a brief outline of what happend in the past 30 months or so.  Mid Jan 2011, I called it quits at my work... the same place I have been working for 13 years. Of course....I was very sentimental about bidding adieu to the place that I really grew up in, that saw my transition from a mere school girl to a crazy, rebellious teenager to grown up woman with her head well set on her shoulders. Career wise there was a growth from Insurance Assistant to Operations Manager. In personal life, I became a wife, mother of 2 kids and 25 kgs heavier!! But not surprsingly, once I set my foot outside the office as an employee for the last time, I was feeling much lighter and have not missed the workplace a single day..why not even a minute after that. I have settled into the role of a SAHM and am very comfortable with it now.  My life now revloves around my favorite place, my home, and my favourite people, my kids!!!  Life is happy, peaceful and very rewarding.  I am truly happy!!  Appu has grown a lot...and at 9.5 yrs is very close to puberty.  She is in grade V at DPS Shj.  A very good student and is one of the Prefects of Nile House this year.   Aarush baby is now almost 4.  He too started school this April and is in KG1 at DPS Shj.  He is an absolute charmer and has wrapped me around his little fingers!  He is my little pet monkey!!

Im seriously into wt loss now and have been successful at putting off a few kilos. The endeavour continues and I am confident that I will see success this time!! 

I am still not a great cook.....but I have improved leaps and bounds.  From a person who could not make a decent omelette, I can now confidently manage the kitchen and can cook up a lot of tasty dishes in no time.  I can proudly call myself a good housewife now!! I love making typical kerala vegetarian dishes for lunch. 

Thats just a brief outine.  Now back to NOW!! :)

A dangerous animal

Conversation yesterday between Appu and me while deciding on which animal to speak about at her show and tell on “Endangered Animals”. Appu’s choice was the Komodo Dragon whereas I suggested the more closer to heart White Tigers.

Appu – Hmmm… I think I could talk about you also!
Me – Wha!! I am not endangered!
Appu – Ya, but you are dangerous!
Me – Huh…so u are calling me an animal?
Appu – Know why, b’cos animals can harm me and you can also harm me!

My daughter sure has a high opinion about me!

Painting Competition

We had taken Appu and a friend of hers to participate in the On the Spot Painting Competition this year organized by the Indian Association and held at IHS, Dubai last Friday.

What could have been a thoroughly enjoyable and fun filled event turned out to be such a disaster due to absolute lack of planning on the part of the organizers. Seeing the huge turnout, I gave the benefit of doubt initially to the organizers who might not have been prepared for such huge numbers. Later I came to know if some of the parents that this is the scenario every year. Obviously, the turn out would be huge for a free competition open to all the schools and that too on a Friday!

The kids were divided into 4 disctinct age groups and understandably the rush was the maximum for the Grade 1 -3 group to which Appu belonged! The competition was open from 9am - 3 pm. And when we reached the venue at 9, the queue was almost a km long. Luckily, though, it as fast moving. We were able to send Appu and her friend inside at 9.30.

And the misery started from the exit from which these kids were to come out. The kids were coming out in a line with their names being called out by one lady and the gate manned by just one guy. None at all to control the parents who were crowding and pushing at the door inspite of the ladies requests. It was such a mess with the kids crowding inside the building and the parents worrying and shouting and pushing from outside. Some of the most impatient parents opended the windows and started pulling out their kids from inside. Someone called the police even (they did not turn up!!). Some of the parents (yours truly included!) made efforts to get the parents to organise themselves, moving them away gently from the exits and forming barricades. Finally, Appu and her friend came out at 1.30!

Apparently, all that they had to do was to colour (pencils and crayons) on a printed sheet which they finished pretty fast. And the highlight, Appu submitted a beautifuly coloured picture back to the teacher sans her name or any other identification details about herself!!!

Happy 7th Birthday!

My dearest Appu,


Its 3 days after your 7th birthday. Amma’s note for you is delayed by3 whole days, but I am sure you would understand that this is due to the mad rush that was amma’s life for the past few weeks.

Unlike the earlier years, my eyes well up with tears at the thought of my pretty princess entering a new phase of life…7th Birthday is considered as a new phase of development little girls. Like any other child, you were looking forward to turning 7 as you felt that it would mark a certain level of maturation for you. I loved the way that you insisted and corrected all until October 15th that you were only 6 and not 7. The novelty of turning 7 was exclusively and rightly reserved by you for October 16th 2010.

The last year has seen a lot of developments in you.

a) You have established your role as a loving caring big sister and are absolutely adored by your little brother. The two of you have even started playing games such as hide and seek regularly.
b) You have become much more confident and respond to people well. Your teacher also has commented that you have become much more interactive in class and now have a bigger circle of friends.
c) You have improved vastly in your studies. You are now showing a keen interest in your school work.
d) You have become much ore expressive, though at times very difficult and rebellious too and can back answer like there is no tomorrow!! You have even received quite a number of well deserved spankings from me for this.
e) Your dance and swimming classes are going well and you have improved drastically in both.
f) You have started abacus classes and this too you seem to have grasped very well.
g) You have started cycling around without support wheels and you have received a brand new cycle from your grand aunt as birthday gift.
h) Your reading skills have improved and you have started developing an affinity for books giving me hopes that all my efforts are bearing fruit finally.

Now onto the party details.

The preparation for the birthday this time was definitely not well planned and cooked up at the last minute as I was extremely busy at work and generally in very low spirits because of never ending fire fighting and unexpected hurdles at work place. But I am glad that Appu thoroughly enjoyed the party at SFC. It was a typical kids’ party at any other fast food outlets and almost 17 kids from the building, school, friends etc and 21 adults. The theme of the cake was “ Garden Fairy” in vanilla chocolate flavour, from Mr. Baker again . It looked much better than it tasted this time tough. Next birthday, I will definitely be looking out for better options.

I was a touched when Appu said that the best thing she liked about the party was that she cut the cake with Aarush and that she shared the knick knacks on her cake with her friends. I was also touched when she said that what she did not like was that only I put the cake in her mouth. Mom and Biju were caught up in the frenzy of cake cutting, managing the kids etc.

Appu was dressed in a pretty off white full length frock with gold leaves and loads of ribbons. She insisted on having her hair done in curls. At the beauty parlour, she put across her requirements so clearly much to the surprise of the beautician (Very unlike me who had no idea how to get my hair done and settled for a simple blow dry). I was not too happy with the result and would have liked her hair left untouched as straight and silky as it was naturally. But then, this was her day!

All in all, everything went ahead pretty well. Aarsuh was at his best getting along with one and all and generally being easy! I love him for this!

My dearest Appu, hope you have a great year ahead and may god bless you with all that you deserve!!

Tantrums and vacations!

As if to mark the graduation from babyhood to toddler hood, my now-not-so-little-one threw his first tantrum yesterday. The cause for the meltdown – being forbidden the pleasure of heaving himself up the stairs at a clinic where we had taken Appu. No way was he going to allow mamma’s able hands to help in accomplishing this feat.

I allowed him the fun for a couple of steps and would put him back on the lowest one. This set him off and he started screaming and hitting me and just squatted stubbornly on the floor! There were almost 20 pairs of eyes staring at me with contempt and judging me as a highly irresponsible mother who allows her one year old to climb the stairs without any support and worse still, not being able to pacify him when he threw a fit. I was so relieved when our token number blinked on the screen that I threw the crying, screaming bundle into mom’s arms and rushed to the doctor’s room with Appu. While with the doctor, I could hear the loud wails and my mom’s unsuccessful attempts at calming him!

Appu’s school has reopened today. She was fresh as a lark in the morning all set to go to school and show off the two new gaps in her mouth where once her teeth had been! The past 77 days, she used to get up at 5.00 in the morning and accompany mom on her morning walks religiously. As a token of appreciation, the grandma gifted a pretty orange colored watch which she proudly wore to school today. She has completed the first level at Brainobrain with flying colours. She has brushed up on the swimming strokes and mastered the breathing technique. She has also made a lot of new friends and developed a lot of social skills which is so good. I don’t know if I am imagining this, but she is now more confident and outgoing than she was at the start of the vacation. A vacation well spent, I should say!!

Money matters

While coaching Appu on the importance of taking care of her things and not wasting stuff, I tried the classic “money does not grow on trees” line. Have’nt we all grown up hearing this line? I vividly remember  conjuring up images of trees with money leaves. And it did drive home the message that money does not come easy (though only for the moment).


But Appu had a totally different view of it. Calmly, with composure that belies her age and put me to shame she quipped “ Amma, I know money does not grow on trees. There is no tree called money tree. There is a plant called money plant but even on this plant money does not grow!”

Sigh...why do they have to get so practical!!  But all I could do was to blurt out laughing and hug her!

Overnight to Singapore

Just another lazy evening at home. An eons old episode of Mr. Bean was being telecast for the 123456789th time on Pogo. Appu is totally drawn into it and beats Bean in enacting his gross/senseless/exaggerated antics.

B was glancing thro’ the newspapers. And humble me was with the laptop, lurking and delurking on blogs when I cam across an article on Singapore. Suggested casually to B that we should consider a trip soon. This got us talking about the places to visit, the best time to visit etc. Appu, mind u, was still engrossed in Mr. Bean’s world.
The question popped by the young madam today:- So, are we going to Singapore today?
Me (puzzled) – Huh, today? Who told u?
Appu – U and Acha were talking about it yesterday.
Me – We were only discussing. Were’nt you watching TV then?
Appu – Oh oh … I already told Ammoomma that we are going today!!

And she pushes off to mom shouting,” Ammoomma…we are not going today…..!!!”

Musings of a mushy mom

Aarush is soon going to turn a year old! My boy seems to be the topic that I blog about most. Can’t help it as I am enjoying motherhood so much more with him that with Appu. As I mentioned in an earlier post, with Appu I was a mom with bare minimum involvement. Though I must add, I am enjoying Appu more these days. Even though she does give me real hard times, I am discovering more and more about her each day. I am amazed at how matured and grown up she can be at times, how utterly irritating and nosy a pest she can be at times and much to my disdain how rebellious and totally defiant she can be at times.

Aarush is fast becoming a very delicious cherry pie topped with a generous scoop of the yummiest cream. Its unbelievable that this is the very same baby who was so peaceful just a few months back, charming all with his ready smiles, open arms and constant drools. Overnight he has turned into a little rascal whose mission each day is to be up on his oh-so-tiny twos, stuffing himself into anything that he can barely get his body into, conquering new heights, demolishing anything stacked up neatly in any corner of the house, ripping pages of any old magazines or books within his reach, practicing and improving his biting skills mostly on his sister, openly proclaim his dislike for the way ammoomma has arranged the kitchen and implement changes at his own will.

He does very little crawling nowadays and prefers to go around his business with on his feet. In cases of major emergencies, such as his rightful place of honour on ammoomma’s or amma’s lap being usurped by his sis, he can even manage to change gear at short notice and race around with his arms raised hollering tiny mouthfuls at her. He loves pushing and lugging things around and I encourage him. (Yeah.. ulterior motives here..I am hopefully raising a lad who in the future can be at my beck and call for rearranging the furniture around the house. He loves music and can actually dance. (Yes, I consider the wiggling and jiggling and the bum shaking accompanied by the flaying hands as dance!) He likes to chew on everything he comes across and now we have remotes drenched in his sugary drools, half-swallowed-but-pulled-out-by-the-rescue-team curtain tiebacks, chewed-and-curled-up sofa edges what not. The other day I discovered a threadbare patch on a blanket of his. No points for guessing.

I feel so blessed when at the end of a day made so tiresome by the above antics, the little one curls up beside me, warm tiny body of his snuggled against me, a little head in the crook of my arm, breathing deeply, smiling at times and sleeps contently through out the night. My little baby, aint Amma lucky to be your mom!

Uff..those hows and whys

Appu’s abacus classes at BrainObrain starts today. The classes will be held twice a week for 2 hours.

The bus driver was on line with me while I was at work informing that he would be reaching below our building in 5 minutes. I was frantically trying to call home so that they would be able to get ready and come down before the bus arrives. Appu answers the phone.

Me: Appu, the bus will be coming down in 5 minutes. Please ask Ammoomma to take you down.
Appu : How do you know he will come in 5 minutes?
Me (hoping its not one of those sessions) : He told me.
Appu : How he told you?
Me : I called him on his mobile.
Appu : How "you" got his number?
Me : I got it from BrainObrain
Appu : How "they" got his number?
Me (Oh no, just what I feared!) : He is working with them. They asked him and got his number.
Appu : Okie, how "he" got his number?
Me (grinding my teeth) : What??
Appu – See, when he was a baby and a child , he did not have a number, right? So now from where did he get the number?
Me (rolling my eyes – tell me, can u expect such questions even at 61/2? I thought we were long past that) – Can you now just get ready and go down. The bus will be coming in a moment! (Thank Gawd!!)

The young fans...

Been to Madras Light Vegetarian Restaurant in Abu Shagara. A small not so fancy place. But excellent food. The Madras filter coffee was just right..strong, sweet and hot….They serve excellent fried idlis as well but since we were early we did not get to enjoy it.

Watched the super duper hit, Shobana / Mohanlal starrer Manichitrathazhu for the nth time last evening. It was telecast for the nth time again on Asianet in honour of Late M G Radhakrishnan who passed away last week. Shobana never fails to impress me with her grace and expressive gestures. It’s a movie that will never bore you and deals with the relatively lesser ventured subject of dual personality. One of the few female-oriented films in recent times and Shobana has done complete justice to the role. The movie also has excellent music with my and B’s favourite being Palavattom Pookalam.

Appu enjoyed it thoroughly especially Shobana’s dance. It warmed my heart to see the little girl concentrating on the mudras and trying to identify them. Think it gave her a sense of pride to realize how the relatively simple steps and mudras she is currently learning gets interwoven to create beautiful a dance sequence. I was bombarded with questions about Shobana after the movie…who was her dance guru, how many years she learnt, did she learn the steps as well, when she did her arangetram etc etc. Shobana…u have got a die hard fan!

Talking of fans..Aarush is besotted by Waka Waka and more so by Shakira. He loved the score since he heard it the first time and invariably shakes his little bums back and forth. But ever since he watched the video, he is not willing to settle for anything less than the compete audio visual experience. Shakira’s energy and charm seems to have bowled him over!

Appu / Aarush updates

It was just yesterday that I did a post about Aarush’s first steps. We had started counting the no of steps that he could make at a do. I was stunned to see that by the time I reached home in the evening he could manage to walk across the hall! Oh my little one…amma is so proud of my fast learner. After a long time, got to click some snaps of the two. Shall post them soon.

Appu’s looong vacations have started and yet a dilemma as to how to get her to spend her time fruitfully. Though I am averse to the summer camps that are available in every nook and corner I might eventually have to settle for one. Have seen a place near our hosue which offers Keyboard, hip hop, art and craft and English speaking and writing skills. She will be resuming her swimming classes. I also have plans to put her in for iceskating which is available at Sharjah Women’s Club provide we can get a time that can fit into our schedule. Appu has started taking Bharatnatyam training since 3 months from a guru of mine. I had trained under Mohan sir for a short duration only though. We started off the classes on twice a week basis at out house. But the uncooperative people (L) below our apartment was having problems with the noise. We decided to shift the classes to the house of another girl who is in the group. Appu is the youngest in the group of 3, the others are both 10. She has a keen interest and has improved vastly over the past weeks.

Cute Appuness!

Last Wednesday Appu decided to sleep on our bed. Aarush was thrilled to have his favorite star on bed with him and expressed his extreme pleasure by pulling at Appu's hair, nose atc and cooing and giggling at her. Appu,being the doting big sis that she is, kept cooing back and tolerating the little guys torment of her face and hair. This went on for a long time and Appu's patience began to wane at around 11.30. Then a sleepy big sister comments thus to the little one "You can sleep all day tomorrow. But not me. Chechi (Big sis) has to get up at 5'O clock to go to school!" And off she marched to her bed!

We saw Santa

Appu had a nice time at the Kids' Christmas celebrations at Millenium Hotel. A group of children sang lovely Christmas carols. Santa gave gift hampers to the kids. Here is a photo of Appu at the event!



Appu, however, was not too conviced by Santa. Whiel returning form the event she asks:

Appu : Amma, do u think that was real Santa?
Me : Yes,that was real Santa.
Appu : No, he was speaking Arabic. Santa cant speak Arabic! And his moustache and beard was not real.
Me : Is that so? I didnt notice.
Appu : And Amma, I will tell you one more thing, Santa is not a real person. Big people tell stories to children about Santa bringing gifts so that they will be good children.

Well, I decided to keep my mouth shut about some gifts I had planned to leave under the Christmas tree with the same explanation. She is way ahead of me!

Day 5 & 6 - 02.12.2009 / 03.12.2009 - Nuwara Eliya / Colombo/Sharjah

The highlight of this day had nothing to do with our tour. Appu woke up with a vveeeerry wobbly tooth and she barely had to touch it before it was out in her hands!!! The tooth fairy has visited us finally and that too here in Sri Lanka!!! Appu was super excited about it and was thrilled that she managed to wringe out the tooth without any assistance. She was more happier about the fact that it was so painless unlike her expectation. The new tooth had already started to peek out!

Nuwara Eliya was quite boring. It could possibly be due to the fact that by this time we were extremely tired. But we did not do much there except buying some tea, visiting a tea factory (unfortunately since it was the day after full moon day, there was no production).

The drive back from Nuwara Eliya was via a very scenic road with lots of beautiful waterfalls. We spent the night at Cinnamon Grand in Colombo once again. The next afternoon we boarded the flight back toSharjah from Colombo winding up our first overseas trip!

Appu visits the dentist

I have always been so particular about Appu’s dental hygiene that I was in for a surprise when the doctor detected small cavities in her 2nd molars during a routine check. The doctor recommended filling immediately inorder to prevent any further damage.

Now, a visit to the dentist is not something that any of us really enjoy. Who likes other prodding and drilling and grinding in their mouth? Appu has always been quiet resilient as far as injections etc are concerned. But I was not too sure about how she would react to this as it was new for her. I could have taken solace from the fact that she had sat through a suturing on her tongue with minimal fuss at the age of 3 and that too without any anesthesia. I thought it would be best to prepare her and take for the procedure at a later date. We took an appointment for a week later.

I started preparing herself telling her about the 2 worms that had made holes in her teeth and are residing there. Made a story about how the worms got inside and started eating the leftovers lodged in her teeth since she wasn’t brushing her teeth properly and how they became so fat that they could not come out of the hole. The doctor would now have to make the holes bigger so that the worms could come out (Yyyyyuuuuuucccckkkkk!!!). The tooth fairy who would be visiting her shortly (One of her milk tooth has become loose) also would not be too happy to see the worms and might leave without any gifts. I am not too sure that Appu believed any of these but she atleast pretended to and kept telling all about the worms that are going to be pulled out from her mouth (Double yyyuuuuuuccccckkkkk!!!). She was infact looking forward to it. It also helped that her doctor was rather beautiful and “stylish”.

So on D-day, that was last Thursday, mom and daughter set out armed with a lot of guts to the dentist. I admit I was a bit nervous but she was cooollll! She sat through the whole procedure with a lovely enchanting smile on her face. The doctor also was a real darling and made sure she got her involved in the process as well. Each procedure was explained to her in a cute way and she was bowled over by the doctor. So all in all it was a great success but I still hope that we do not have the requirement of such visits apart from the routine checks!

Toothy tales

Appu’s milk tooth sprouted at 5 months and I always thought that she would loose the teeth also at an early age. Appu was deeply disheartened when her teeth were not falling off as many of her classmates were.

Now, to my little daughter’s great delight, both her lower incisors have become loose. Guess tooth fairy will have to pay us a visit soon!

A young lady already..

The other day we were dressing up for a small outing while the little girl was watching TV. When we were out, she started a conversation that went like this:

Appu : Amma, have you heard of Pantene?
Me : Yes.
Appu : Can you buy Pantene Shampoo for me?
Me : Where did you hear about it?
Appu : On TV. They said it will make our hair straight and soft.

Whoa..I was taken aback. To hear this from a girl who is not yet six.