The Apple of my eye!

“My name is Apple”. Sweetie pie announced the other day.
“Hi Apple. Do you want to play with your ball?”
“Apple wants to play with the ball.”
I played along thinking that this was a whim of hers that she would forget the next day. Boy was I wrong! My two year old has now officially shunned the name that we carefully chose for her and has taken up the name “Apple”. For the last week or so she has been referring to herself as “Apple”.
“Apple wants to go outside”, “Apple is sleepy sleepy “ etc.

Now, I do have memories of wanting names other than mine when I was a kid. As a kid, there were times when someone else’s name sounded more appealing than my own.Of course my favorite names kept changing depending upon the either the characters of my favorite show or someone I admired at a particular point in time. But I was at least old enough to be in elementary or middle school during those times.How a two year old comes up with a name and consistently sticks to it, is beyond me.

May be she is being secretly paid by Apple Computers. Hmm... I need to check her 'Piggy' bank account! Or May be she just picked it up from the song that she currently likes which goes: “I like to eat, eat , eat apples and bananas. I like to eat, eat , eat apples and bananas.” Now if she’d only really eat them!

I’m not sure if she insists that everyone at day care call her “Apple” but in our household she’s currently referred to as “Apple”. So I even started thinking of having her wear this shirt on father’s day. But I din’t get around to ordering it on time. Ah well, Dad will appreciate the fact that no money was spent!

Anyway, in accordance with my little lady’s wishes, she’ll be referred to as “Apple “ on this blog until she comes up with another name.

Home Sweet Home

When we bought our house 7 years ago, it was our dream house. We were convinced that it had everything we would ever need. After all, 5 bedrooms, 3 baths and the usual kitchen, family room etc should be enough for two or three people right? With that much space, why would we ever need a basement? So we were not interested in a basement. More so, our bank account was not interested in the extra $$s that the builder wanted for a basement. So we got a decent house, a decent yard in a fairly decent school district and lived happily ever after! Right, except for the last part. Seven years and one toddler later, we seemed to be running out of space, closets full to the maximum extent, garage being used to keep junk rather than cars, mess all over and no time to clean it! That’s when we got the bright idea that we needed to buy a house with a basement. That way, we could dump all our junk into the basement and live relatively mess free on the upper floors. Supporting our idea was the fact the neighbors whose kids were in school were complaining about the schools. Yes, we definitely needed to move in a better school district!
And so the search began. In the so-called ‘better school districts’. The houses we have seen so far are either very expensive, crappy or both. In the meantime, we decided to put our current house on the market. Based on the realtor’s suggestion, we got the carpet replaced, some paint work done, landscaping improved and so on. As a final step we organized all our stuff, cleaned out all our closets, garage and threw away a whole bunch of stuff. After we were done with the ‘make over’, hubby and I looked at each other and said ‘vow! This looks great! If I was a buyer, I’d like this house…hmm….why are we selling it again?’ The school district is a lame excuse! After all Georgia ranks 46th in the United States when it comes to education. Does the school district really matter?
Anyway we went ahead and listed it. Now since it is on the market, we have miraculously managed to keep it spotless in spite of having a two-year-old. The two year old used to be our excuse for all the mess (I’m sure we had other excuses before her). Of course I know that if we take it off the market, it will go back to its original messy state and we’ll go back to losing our appreciation for it.
Anyway, a funny thing happened in the midst of all this. As we were finishing up the final touches to our house, a relative from India visited with his family. They were in the United States on a vacation and were visiting relatives in the vicinity so they dropped by for dinner. Since the house was already mess free and just cleaned by our cleaning lady, their timing could not have been more perfect. Since houses in India are different, they wanted to take a tour of the house and we were only happy to oblige. After looking at the house, the lady said, “How do you manage to keep your house so neat and tidy with a two year old in the house? Look at the carpet, it is so clean! It is amazing!”. My husband and I just looked at each other and smiled. Should we tell them that it took a handy man, a couple of carpet replacement guys, a cleaning lady and the three of us (my brother who’s temporarily staying with us helped out too) slogging for a couple of weeks to get it to this stage? Nah! We just let them be awed by our tidiness!

Sensitive, she is !

I was very emotional as a kid, so I always assumed that my daughter would be the same. My husband is not very emotional and he does not want her to be emotional either. He thinks it will be better for her well being if she is not emotional. Now, I don’t want her to be a cry baby like I was but I think a little sensitivity does not harm anyone. So I look at her in dismay when she giggles when I tell her that she’s hurting me when she pulls my hair or jumps on me. Of course I know that all kids enjoy this kind of game, so I play along but hubby sometimes uses this kind of stuff to say “ See, she’s not overtly sensitive!” A couple of recent incidents have us convinced otherwise, so much so, that even I have begun to worry about her.

On memorial day weekend, we went to stone mountain park (shown in the picture above)which is a park in Atlanta which has a huge mountain made of a single stone. There they have a skylift that takes you to the top of the mountain. Since we were visiting other park attractions first, it was almost closing time by the time we took the skylift up there. So we had to head back within 15 minutes. Sweetie pie did not want to head back so soon so we explained to her that the last sky lift would leave and then we would be stuck on the mountain. She quietly agreed. As we were waiting for the skylift, it was announced that they were closing the door to the building which housed the skylift and that anyone that was outside at that point would have to walk down. There were quite a few people outside so I said to my husband "oh oh, they are still outside". Sweetie pie heard that and started crying loudly. When we asked her what was wrong, she pointed to the people outside and said “they are stuck, they are stuck”. She finally calmed down when we told her that someone will help those people.
The second incident happened a couple of days ago. I was setting the table for dinner and sweetie pie and my husband were already seated at the table. Sweetie pie usually eats in her unbreakable colorful plate with a picture of pooh on it, but most of the times, she’ll point to our china plates and go " I want to eat in that plate", "I want to eat in that plate". That day, as I placed her pooh plate in front of her, my husband decided to play around with her. He looked at her plate and said "I want that plate…I want to eat in that pooh plate" in a whinny tone. Immediately the pooh plate became precious! She picked it up and said "no mine" . This was followed by some more whining and "mine" series. Then my husband pretended to cry saying "Sweetie pie is not giving me that plate". I looked at her and said " Honey, Daddy’s crying, shall we give the plate to him?" She shook her head to indicate "no". As the crying continued.. the grip on the plate became stronger but her face started to get sadder and sadder. Then tear drops appeared in her eyes. I immediately held her closer and said "honey what’s the matter?". That opened the flood gates and my sweetie pie started bawling! She did not want to give him the plate but she could not bear to see her dad crying either! That’s my girl! She cares! I don’t know if I should feel proud about her or worry about her. Well, for now, I will just enjoy these moments and treasure these stories.