Thursday, December 4, 2008

I'm Thankful for....

It was a week before thanksgiving and I was attending thanksgiving lunch at Apple’s school. All the kids and their parents were sitting together around the small kiddie tables eating lunch. The tables were decorated with place mats which the kids had made. Each kid had made one place mat on which they had written what they were thankful for. When I reached there, the kids had already started eating and had placed their plates on the place mat so my observant eye failed to notice the artwork. Sometime during the middle of lunch, a mom sitting next to me picked up her son’s place mat and proudly showed it to other moms. He had written ‘I am thankful for my mom’ …how sweet! Another mom showed her son’s place mat and said with a mock sad face that she wasn’t so lucky; apparently pet turtles were higher on the appreciation list than mommy. I was about to console her when it struck me that I hadn’t seen what my little angel had written. I glanced at her place mat. Her plate was covering the writing on it. My attempts to move her plate were met with loud ‘mommy, don’t pull my plate’ type responses. So I waited patiently until she was done eating. After we picked up her plate, there it was, her own words, “I am thankful for my ROOM”! Suddenly turtles, dogs, cats were sounding better. Did I raise a materialistic brat! I told myself that may be there was a deeper meaning to this....having just returned from India where we all bunked in one small room in my parent’s 2 bedroom apartment , my daughter may have gained a greater sense of appreciation of what she has. Yeah right! Who am I kidding here?
Well at least she was thankful for something! I should be thankful about that.

Now this is what happens when you take your little one shopping with you and respond with ‘but I don’t have that color’ when she asks you ‘Mommy why do you need more clothes?’. First I needed to stop and appreciate the good things in my life. I was dwelling on this thought when the mumbai attacks occurred and brought on a whole new perspective on things. So this thanksgiving, I made a note of things that I am thankful for:
First and foremost, I am thankful that my family and friends in Mumbai are safe.
Thankful for my beautiful, smart and loving daughter who brightens my days
… for my loving family and friends
… for my good health
… for having received a good education
… for my home
… for having a chance to see and live in different parts of the world
… for a good life in general
last but not the least: the Internet and the blogosphere.

What are you thankful for ?

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Of Old Friends and New

She was the best friend one could ever have. She could teach you engineering drawing and nurse a broken heart with equal intensity. Beautiful, smart and charming, she left a great impression on anyone who met her. She was fiercely loyal to her friends and would always stand up for them. I was fortunate enough to call her my best friend. We spend endless nights together watching silly soaps, discussing crushes, college gossip and other topics of great importance like shopping, under the pretext of studying for exams. My family adored her and hers adored me. When she got married a moved a couple of blocks away, I felt like I had lost a family member. But we met frequently. Then I got married and moved to a different country. We kept in touch for a while until she also moved to the same country and got extremely busy. Emails got a one liner response, voicemails left unanswered. The physical distance between us was reduced and replaced with a emotional one. She may be very busy or may have other reasons that prevent her from getting in touch but in my mind I still consider her a good friend. So today, like every year, I'll call her to wish her a Happy Birthday. Chances are I'll end up leaving a voicemail.
In case you don't hear my voicemail M, I'm sending my wishes on the blogosphere. Happy Birthday M.


She's beautiful, smart, witty and the queen of words. I wish I could borrow her writing skills for moment to aptly describe her. A loving mother and a extremely caring human being, she can easily laugh at herself and put you at ease. She took time off her busy schedule and dragged herself all the way across town to meet a virtual stranger.....a fellow blogger(more of a fan than a fellow blogger). She did not complain even though the said blogger ended up giving her wrong information about the meeting place. In fact she even apologized for being late. From the time she walked in, it was as if I already knew her, as if I was talking to my long lost friend. That's the kind of person Kiran (Of Karmickids) is. As beautiful on the inside as she's on the outside. Thanks Kiran. It was great meeting you.

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Who's the mommy here?

You will wonder that too when you read this..

Scene 1:
Apple and mommy at the mall. Mommy digging through the clearance racks while Apple hides and plays in the racks. In between bargain hunting mommy entertains Apple by finding her when she hides. The mommy suddenly discovers some great bargains and like a kid in a candy store gets excited and forgets to play with Apple for a few minutes. Apple calls out a couple of times from her hiding place. Mommy is busy digging
through the racks. Finally Apple comes out,gives mommy anexasperated look and says "What is wrong with you?"
Needless to say it provided great entertainment to our fellow shoppers.


Scene 2:
Apple, mommy and daddy in a queue for a ride at the Stone Mountain Park.
Apple keeps climbing on the metal bars that divide the queue. Repeated requests from mommy and daddy to get down are being ignored. Finally mommy says "If you don't get down right now, we'll leave you here and go". Apple looks at her straight in the eye, raises her eyebrows and says with all pretend seriousness she could muster, "What do you mean you'll leave me here?"

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Of classes and masses

Contrary to what the title suggests, this post is not about the class differences between masses. Rather, it is a story of how a mom who got swept up the mass hysteria of ‘sign up your kids for as many classes as possible’, learnt a valuable lesson.
Now I’m not for pushing your kids too much. Never been a competitive person myself, will not be a pushy mom either. But I’d like to introduce my daughter to different types of fun activities like sports, music etc, in order to see what interests her and then let her pursue those interests. Also, I’d like to her to learn some basic stuff like swimming and cycling. That’s it. I have no grand designs or expectations beyond that. Then how did I get caught up in the ‘pack their schedules with classes/camps’ syndrome, you ask? Well, it all began a few months ago, when Apple turned three......
Apple has a lot of energy and loves jumping around, so when she turned three, we enrolled her in a gymnastics class. She loves it so we plan to keep her in the class for as long as she enjoys it. They also teach ballet at the place where she goes for gymnastics. One day after class Apple saw some girls dressed in ballet outfits and asked me why they were wearing those. I tried to explain to her that they were taking a ballet class. She asked me what ballet was and I explained. The last few days she’s been pestering me to enroll her in “the ballerina class". Luckily they were offering a class this summer at her school during school hours so I signed her up for that.
Now, last summer Apple loved playing in the pool . The pool in our new subdivision is not yet ready and Apple keeps asking when it will be ready. So for this summer I signed her up for a swim class.
So here we were, juggling the schedules for these classes when one day we discovered that the tennis courts in our new subdivision had opened. Apple saw some kids trying to play tennis and told me that she wanted to play.
“You are too young. You don’t know how to play that yet” I told her.
“You teach me how to play, mommy”
“Mommy does not know how to play”.
“Why?”
“Because mommy never learnt how to play”
“I want to learn”
“OK . When you are a little older, you could take a class”.
“OK”.

The conversation was easily forgotten especially by me who had no intention of enrolling her in any more classes at the moment. The next evening Apple was riding her bicycle when some older kids zoomed past us on their bigger bicycles. Apple noticed that they were riding their bikes without the training wheels on. She asked me why she’s not able to ride her bike without the training wheels.
“You are younger, you’ll learn to ride like them when you get a little older”
“Mommy, I want to go to that class”
“What class honey?”
“The class where they teach you to ride without training wheels!”

I was both amused and ashamed at the same time. Ashamed that I was teaching my daughter that she cannot learn anything without a class, that her schedule needs to be filled with classes. May be I need a parenting class!

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

The gravity of the matter..

One fine evening, a dad, having picked up his 3 year old from school, happens to glance at her daily activity report. Under things they did during the day, it says “We talked about gravity”.
“Vow! They are teaching them about gravity!” he exclaims!
Mom rolls her eyes and wonders what they are going to teach them next…rocket science?
Excited at the quality of advanced education his little one is getting, dad asks her,
“So, did they teach you about gravity today?”
Blank stare..
“Apple honey, did your teacher tell you what gravity is?”
“No”
“But it says in here. Your teacher must have talked about it”
“OK. Yeah”
“So do you remember what gravity is?”
Yet another confused blank stare.
“OK let me explain it to you”
“OK”
“You know how when we drop things, they always come down they never go up…..yada yada yada..”
Apple listens to the entire explanation and then asks “But Daddy, birdies are in the sky, they never fall down. Why doesn’t gravity pull them down?”

Friday, March 28, 2008

Am back.... well sort off!

We are settled in the new house, the parties are done with, the in laws have left so I now have some time to breathe.... and blog and comment.

For personal reasons though, I'm limiting this blog to chronicling Apple's activities only. As for all the other thoughts, may be I'll start another blog or may be not. I'm not sure yet. Will see how things shape up.

Any way here is how Apple tugs at my heart...
My office is couple of miles down the road from our new house. With the trees being bare for the winter, we can almost see the buildings on our way to and from Apple's day care. Most of the days on our way to or from her school, Apple insists that she wants to see my office. So one day on our way home, I drove into the office parking lot and showed her the building.
A very satisfied Apple smiled.
Apple: When I grow up I want to work in mommy's office!
Me: Why honey?
Apple: Because mommy will be there! I can see her all the time!

She melted my heart! Any chance she would feel like this 15 years from now?
Wish I could freeze time!
************************************

Last weekend, I cut my finger a little while chopping vegetables.
After lunch, I was lying down next to Apple trying to get her to nap. All my attempts to get her to sleep were proving futile , so I just closed my eyes and pretended to sleep, while Apple played on the bed. Once in a while she would poke my eyes , pull my ears etc so I was scolding her & threatening her (No birthday parties, no park etc)off and on. Then when I had closed my eyes, she suddenly noticed my cut finger, took it in her hands, started blowing air on it and kissing it.

Me: What are you doing honey?
Apple: Your finger is hurt mommy, I'm making it better!
Me: Thanks honey. I feel better already.
Apple: We need to get you a band aid. Would you like a Dora band aid?

The finger may have still hurt but the heart never felt so warm!
Needless to say, she got out of having to take a nap that afternoon.

Tuesday, December 4, 2007

On a break...

The last month or so has been real crazy both at home and at work.
New projects, new house closing, sicknesses, guests .....etc just have been showing up one after the other or simultaneously at times. Consequently there have been blogs unread, tags undone(I haven't forgotten your tags), posts unwritten and ideas lost.
I'm really touched by all those who wondered if everything was ok.

The coming month promises to be equally(if not more) crazy. The in-laws are arriving, we are moving to the new house..... holiday parties as well as guests will keep me occupied among other things. I doubt I'll be able to post anything amidst all the mayhem but I'll try to visit your blogs.

May be the new year will see a rejuvenated, re-energized or even a new blog!
Happy Holidays Everyone!