Baby Animals

Today during bedtime, kids were still a bit too active. To calm them down, I decided to play a game of baby animals with them. Rules are simple : I give each kid an animal and they tell me what the little one for that animal is called. I went through the usual set and thought hard about what the kids may not know. Sanju who had that "I know everything" look was an easy target when I thought of something. "What is a baby swan called ? ", I asked her knowing very well she wouldn't know the answer. "Ugly duckling" came a very confident reply.

Powerful Lesson

The 20 minute ride I have with the kids from home to school never lacks in entertainment and sometimes ( as was the case Yesterday) in education too...
S always keep a stash of her books in both cars (actually in bathrooms, under her pillow, under our bed etc.etc.) to prepare for the contingency that she may actually be cornered somewhere for a few minutes with no access to books. Yesterday on our way to school, little s promptly took one of those books and scribbled on it.
S : "Sanju...!! " (horrified expression), "I can't believe you did that, This is one of my favorite books, how dare you do that"...
s: "See Sahana...that is why I made it pretty : by coloring on it", in a very calm voice.
S: "How would you like it if I colored on one of your favorite things ?"
s : "Let's see...the kitchen set is my favorite toy"
S: "See what I do this evening, I am going to color all over it" (With absolute vengence)
s: "Okay Sahana, How about after school today we both get our paint brushes out and color on my kitchen set"
S: Clearly very dispappointed at her attempt..."Actually I am going to color on your book"
s: "But I don't really own any ...How about I buy one and then you can color on it" (Still very calm)
S bursts into tears...

Very often we ( at least I ) forget that we really do have the option to control how we feel and react to a situation. Arrows can come our way but we have the power to deflect almost all of them....

Giving Thanks

It was the day before Thanks Giving. Kids had come home early after their TG feast at school. Little s was wearing a chain they made at school with three leaflets, each one listing something they were thankful for (The teachers fill it out after asking the child to list the three things). The chain was basically left unattended on the counter top until I came back home. P casually mentioned about the chain, S and I grabbed it and settled down on the couch to read it.
First one said, " I am thankful for my mom". A good start...
Second one said, "I am thankful for my dad". A natural progression...
S eagerly turned over to the third one somewhat knowing what is coming...
Third one read, "I am thankful for the STAPLER"... What?, we read it again in disbelief.
I could see it coming... S is very sensitive about these things. She was clearly disappointed and her eyes were swelling with tears. "s loves the stapler more than she loves me..." she burst out between sobs. I was consoling her, wondering what to say and feeling somewhat helpless.

In little s's defense ( Not a strong one) here is the story about the stapler...Rewinding to Sunday afternoon...
Little s had the doll project which was due the next day (For folks on twitter this is the one I was complaining about). School had sent out an outline cutout of a kid which we were supposed to dress up as our child in traditional clothes, in celebration of the multicultural mix in their class. I had done some prep work like shopping for the doll eyes, hair and of course an Indian material before my trip, but the hard part of putting it all together still remained. I had picked up a small sewing machine for the dress. I was visibly struggling with the sewing machine and with a lot of difficulty managed to complete the skirt. The blouse was a whole lot harder and I didn't think the sewing machine with my limited dexterity was going to get the job done. S then came up with a brilliant idea, "Amma how about we just cut out a square for the blouse and cut out some rectangles for the sleeves and be done...". "Yes, that would work..." I thought. "Okay S...that sounds good, I can even get a stapler and just staple it all in place ", I said aloud. So I sent the kids to get the stapler. They went and they looked & looked but they just couldn't find the stapler. I was losing my patience, family room was a mess with glue sticks, threads , needles, glitter glue, scraps of cloth all scattered around...s was just hurrying behind S, bossing her around, looking all busy and feeling very important that it was her project that was due. Finally, I asked S to call Arke's residence in desperation. Luckily they were home and M said she had a stapler we could borrow. s ordered P to go on this emergency mission and there were loud cheers when he pulled it out of his pocket. Next few minutes were spent stapling away the blouse. The pins were covered with glitter glue and the doll was taking shape quite well.

So I could totally see why s felt thankful for the stapler and may be she could really sense the tension in the air that day to be able to report it like that to her teacher. Sahana's sobs brought me to reality and I was still looking for some damage control. I decided to take a chance called for s and just laid it out..."s, do you like the stapler more than S ? ", I was holding my breath hoping she wouldn't do further damage. "No...Of course I like S more", came back the response and she has somewhat of a disgusted look in her face wondering why I would ask such a stupid question. Clearly she had no idea what the teacher wrote in that chain, probably didn't even remember the teacher asking about those things and her answers. "I love you soooooo much S", she added, giving S a big hug and a squeeze. S was smiling ear to ear, clearly it takes so little to please this child.

I was just thankful that there was peace again...at least for now !!

"But, there is more..."

It was Sunday and the kids had a play date with B and P. All was well and everyone had a great time. It was not until bed time that I stepped into their room. The room was a bit of a mess, nothing too unusual after a play date, so we started cleaning. I started putting away a bunch of stuff from underneath what seemed to be a pile of pillows. At the bottom of it all was my check book - the one that is currently in use at our household. "What were you doing with my checkbook?", I asked S. "It's not me, little s got it", came a prompt reply. Little s who was around the whole time gave me a sheepish smile and said "Sorry amma, I won't do it again". "s, this is not a toy and you shouldn't play with it, this is an important book", I said. I quickly picked up the checkbook and stashed it away where it belongs and continued cleaning. Little s continued to follow me with what seemed like non-stop sorry-s. I felt bad,it is not at all like little s to show that much remorse over something like this. I stopped, knelt down to her level and told her it was okay. With her big eyes going even bigger, she said,"Actually amma I even drawed in it".

Everyone has an opinion

I was driving the kids to school this morning. With the ipod left behind at home and kids being a little tired of what I had to offer from the same 6 CDs in my car which I hadn't changed in several years, they resorted to their next best form of entertainment a.k.a squabbling with each other. Traffic wasn't great and on top of it it was raining too, so I felt the overwhelming need to interfere. "Hey guys, do you know tommorrow is election day", I started.

"You are voting for Obama, right Amma? ", cheerfully enquired by 7-year old.

"No, amma is going to vote for John McCaine", came a sharp response from the almost 3-year old, whose primary mission in life is to disagree with her big sister.

"NO Sanju...Do you want the Iraqi war to continue? ", charged my older one.

Sanju who had no idea what either one of those words meant, could however detect the accusational tone in her sister's voice and realized that it must be something bad.

"Nooooooooo", came a defensive response from her.

"Then amma should vote for Obama, he is the only one who would stop the war", said big S clearly pleased that her point has been made.

Not to be outdone, "No, he won't" came another confident response from Sanju. It was all downhill from that point onwards with angry "Yes, he will" and "No he won't" exchanged...

I quietly admitted defeat and decided to focus on the traffic again.

Lesson Learnt : It doesn't matter what the topic is, regardless of age, experience or familiarity on the subject (or lack there of) , everyone has an opinion...

"Trick or Treat for UNICEF"

It was finally Halloween. Lot of fuss and hype over it this year in our household with this being Sanju's first trick or treating experience. Sahana had portrayed it to Sanju as being the next best thing since sliced bread (okay, make it a piece of chocolate). Actually I don't even think she actually cares for it that much, she was just happy to have some company in my view. Malini and I had decided to take the kids together around the neighborhood. For some reason it was decided that I will pick up the kids from school and needless to say I got delayed and by the time I came home battling traffic it was close to 6PM. I told the kids to make a dash for it, which they seemed to eager to do. Sahana quickly got into her special Hogwarts robe with matching cap & the wand to be one of the Gryffindor girls, think it was Hermione yesterday. Sanju was running around in her underwear unable to make up her mind between a Mickey mouse and an Elmo costume. Finally with some fuss, tears and drama Elmo won. Prem decided to join the group and we all set off to the Kumar residence.

We were greeted by a clown ( Abhi complete with his red nose) and a NASCAR driver ( Arjun) who didn't seem all that keen to follow the Halloween tradition. ARKE decided to stay back under the pretext of giving candy to the visiting kids (True intention of course was an hour of uninterruped time). Prem was tempted to stay back and tried to wiggle out, but it was too late for that. Finally the parade set off with all four kids and three adults. This year Sahana and Arjun had gotten a small box each from school to "trick or treat for UNICEF" i.e collect some coins for UNICEF as part of their trick or treating. We started off with a haunted house near the Kumar residence. Sahana refused to step in , while the rest of us braved our way through it. Clearly, we were the first ones there and a lot of the apparatus in there was being tried out for the first time. A small guy threw something at me from one of the tomb stones but before I could react, came and fetched that from me saying he broke something in that process. After this, We finished up with the rest of the cul-de-sac constantly reminding the kids : Say "Trick or Treat" or "Thank You", Little ones were particularly confused when someone held out a whole bag and said "Take 2". Abhi insisted he couldn't do what they were saying as he only wanted one, Sanju was wondering why they would offer only one basket of candy and say "take 2".

Meanwhile, "Trick or treat for UNICEF" wasn't going all that well and ran into a lot of technical glitches. First Sahana started off by saying it too softly and no one could hear it. We told her to fix that but then, she started off by saying "Trick or Treat for UNICEF" but most people didn't hear the second part and offered her candy and wondered why she still lingered around. Finally the winning strategy was that she would wait until all the kids got candy and then hold our her little box and say "Trick or Treat for UNICEF". This worked quite well in the next few houses though we did catch all of them a bit off-guard. Most of them went "Oh, you need money, I need to get some change" and told us to wait a bit while they dug out their money. By the time we hit PV road, the kids were on a roll. Ofcourse there were people who had no idea was UNICEF was , "Oh, you want candy for yunicef, could he not come along? " and others that had a perplexed look and pretended to not hear the second trick or treating. Then ofcourse there was Sanjay, " Oh, you guys are collecting for UNICEF ? That is great!!" and no movement. We were waiting & waiting...until Geetha gently nudged him and said, "Sanjay, can you get them some money? " and then the realization struck and he said, "Oh, yes, sure".

After a few houses on PV, little ones were getting a bit tired. Abhi wanted to take a pumpkin from someone's front yard intsead of the candy they had to offer. Abhi & Sanju fought over a door bell and greeted the lady of the house with some massive tears...They also started saying "Trick or Treat for UNICEF" and insisted people had to give them coins in their bucket. After a few houses in Celata we decided to turn back. Soon we were back at the Kumar residence, Mr.Kumar in the meanwhile had done a good job of emptying the candy jar. We decied to make a quick exit before Sanju fell apart as it was getting to be well past her bed time.
It was a fun experience, thanks mostly to "trick or treat for UNICEf" and the litle ones of course. Sahana did have an almost full UNICEF box, after all.

Sanju came home, spread out all her candy, picked one to try, didn't like it and threw that away. This exercise went on and after about 4 or 5 unsuccessful attempts went back to good ol' M&Ms.
Anyway it is Saturday now, the candies are all still spread out on our family room floor with strict orders from Sanju not to disturb them. I think she is really proud of that collection and anyway collection is more fun than actually eating it for these kids...