Swim tales..

I didn't get to finish my previous post.  About the swimming struggles we are going through.  I guess it is not fair on my part to call it "struggles" for KB's swimming but to me it feels that way.  I took him for swim lessons when he turned four.  He was scared but did OK.  But that year was more of an introduction to being in water.  The next summer (last year), I took him for two sessions or more I can't remember.  He got to a level 3 and could swim and back float across the width of the pool.  But around mid-July he fell sick with bronchitis and that kind of unbearable coughing really scared me.  I stopped going to the pool for a while but by then it was colder - even though it is an indoor pool where they charge an arm and a leg for swim lessons, it gets cold once he is out of the water - and I just stopped going until this July.  But the sad part is his favorite teacher had left by then.  This new teacher is supposed to be one of the best but the chemistry just did not work out between her and KB.  She took him to the deep end of the pool before he felt ready for it mentally.  He coped OK but it left him feeling stiff and nervous.  My thought is this - she may be a great teacher but I don't want him to feel terrified getting into the water when he didn't start out that way.  There are situations where there is no copping out - like say the first day of school etc - but this, he can learn swimming from a teacher who will smile a little and pat him on the back when he feels terrified.  He is not training to be in a competition, he is just here to learn swimming! So anyway, I decided to move him to a private teacher for private lessons rather than semi-private (2 kids) in a swim school.  Only problem with this is that it is an outdoor pool and he can only learn with this teacher until the end of summer when it is warm enough.  Last week I took him to class every day.  He seems to be very comfortable with the new teacher and is making good progress now.  First couple of classes, I felt like I would be in tears.  All that effort to be at the beginning stage again! I cursed myself for stopping his swim lessons for a whole year.  I am hoping that by the end of summer he will be able to swim the length of the pool.  We are going on a holiday for a week, so it leaves me with three weeks to somehow get him there.  I am going to try to take him every day so he can make as much progress as possible! Let's see!  He is also working very hard towards it and wants to go to swimming class every day.

On another note, we went to a circus today.  We had fabulous booth seats from B's work and the kids really enjoyed the show.  But I am not much of a circus fan.  Acrobats are fun to watch but I hate it when the animals perform.  I just don't see the fun in seeing ten tigers sitting on stools in a circle and responding to their name being called and finally all of them lifting their paws and sitting like puppies.  It is so unnatural and sad to see them be that way.  And the poor elephants balancing their weight on tiny little stools.  I don't find any of the animal performances in these shows entertaining.  At least I was glad to see them all look very healthy and not scrawny and malnourished.

Next post - on KB turning six this week.  Hope to write that post before he turns seven!

Hiking, tooth out, swimming etc

Let me start on a positive note.  We went for a weekend trip to the mountains about two hours away.  Rented a cabin (a two bed place with a kitchen) and stayed there on Sat night and drove back on Sunday eve.  The trip was absolutely wonderful - just being around nature all the time.  We had lunch and went to the animal park before checking into the hotel.  Saw black bears, bald eagles, bisons, mountain lions, mule deers, bob cats...all up close.  The sad part was a lot of these animals were there only because they had no way to fend for themselves.  It was an animal park where they were brought in for recovery and for enabling them to live on despite the issues they had.  The bald eagle had a cataract, the mountain lions were all cubs that were left in the den when their mother had been shot dead by a hunter and were raised by the park people and so on.   Thankfully it was not blazing hot and so we were able to walk around looking at all these animals.  Kids loved being around these birds and animals and reading about them.

Later we went to the cabin and checked in.  We turned on the TV for a short while when the kids drank their afternoon milk.  They were watching Toy story 1 when suddenly KB exclaimed with nervous excitement "Mamma, my tooth fell out!".  We were all so thrilled for him and shouted "Yayyy"!  And he just could not contain his excitement, he kept looking at the gap and at the fallen tooth.  B said he should bury it like we did as kids.  But some of his friends have saved theirs, so he was more used to that idea.  Plus he just wanted to examine it up close.  So I wrapped it in a paper towel and kept it safely.  After having tea, we went to the huge lake area and went for a walk and stood on the bobbing wooden platform on the lake.  Kids loved standing there watching all the motor boat riders.  Close to dinner time we got back to the cabin, made a quick pasta meal and ate it sitting outside surrounded by tall pine trees.

Next morning we got ready pretty early (for a holiday!) by 9.30 a.m. and checked out of the hotel.  We went to the discovery center for a nature walk with a bunch of guided volunteers some of whom were in training.  KB was totally into what they were explaining about the local trees and animals and asked them some good questions.  KG was very annoyed with me for not giving her one more strawberry wafer (this after she had two chocolate chip cookies and three wafers that morning before we got to the nature walk) right away.  I was very irritated at having to deal with that rather than listen to what they were saying.  Oh god, some times you just wish someone would take care of your child for just five minutes.  B was trying to get her to leave me alone and go to him but she wouldn't leave my side.  Later we had lunch on a picnic table very close to the water on the lake.  It was wonderful to be surrounded by huge mountains and very tall trees and be next to a huge body of water and have lunch there.  I wish I could do that every day! Later we went to a hiking trail close by.  My plan was to just step into the trail and hike up a couple of trail points and return.  But KB wanted to go deeper.  I was feeling nervous though I felt going all the way as well.  They said there is a very low probability of mountain lions coming to the trail area but the probability wasn't zero.  I never used to be scared of such things but with kids I feel very nervous.  We went on anyway and ended up doing the round and completing all the sixteen trail points.  It was awesome though - walking with our two kids and seeing them enjoy nature.  KB was thrilled to see a tall pine tree filled with holes made by the woodpecker.  Fallen logs filled with ants, squirrels nibbling on acorns, pine cones all over the place, humming birds, orioles, woodpeckers...it is just swell walking around with just bird songs to keep us company.  I wish I hadn't been so scared of a mountain lion jumping on us.  Didn't help that B and KB kept joking that there is a cheetah behind me or a rattle snake crawling close by.  After our hike, we went to a nice big coffee shop and kids had their milk and we had coffee and started on our drive home.

I was going to write about our swimming tales but it is kind of late and I need to get KB ready for his swim class.  So I shall do that in the next post.

Guilt Tag from Ro

Ro, one my favorite bloggers wrote two things she feels guilty about.  Or not.  As a mom. Mommy guilt is something that is born in our systems the moment the fetus is formed I think.  I should be eating better, but man, I am lazy to cook now, let me just eat noodles.  Oh dear, I am so terrible, giving my system Atta noodles when I have a baby growing inside of me.  Terrible terrible me.  I have not gained enough weight for it being the second trimester.  It must be because of not eating well.  Just starts there and never ends.  But of course we all do things every now and then where we go with our needs or desires ahead of the children.  And feel guilty about it.  And sometimes not even feel guilty about it.  I read Ro's interesting post on this and I really can write down her number one thing as is here because I do the same and I just don't feel guilty about it.  Kids bedtime routine has moved on to dad because enough is enough I have woken up hours on end with KB until he was about two years old and with KG when she was an infant when I woke up to nurse her.  I honestly also feel they need quiet time with daddy, so let him enjoy the bed time routine. No guilt there.  So let me write something I do feel guilty about.

I grew up seeing my parents fight with each other all the time.  They had their own connection, used to go to weddings and functions together, discuss people, friends, incidents, help people and never question each other about it - but bicker they did - what to me seemed non stop.  I hated it.  That horrible temper they would be in when they were in the thick of the fight.  I told myself I should not do that to my kids.  I don't do it to my kids that same way.  But I don't even want to do it to the extent I do now.  I fight with B in front of them.  Not just argue.  We shout and yell and spill our guts out for those thirty seconds.  Words like "ridiculous" and "Goddamn it" are used.  I slam cabinet doors as I cook when I am in the middle of a fight.  There have been times when KB has broken down crying because he always takes my side and he feels very bad that I am upset.  We play the blame game and I find it embarrassing.  Fighting like second graders.  I feel horribly guilty about it.  But I console myself that a) they need to know people fight, it happens, we move on, we are still friends b) mom is surely not a saint c) I do show to them that B and I also care for each other because I always tell them even on a day that we may have fought that their dad is an amazing dad and they are lucky to have such a wonderful dad and that it is not OK to talk back to daddy in anger.  You can argue with mom or dad but no rudeness allowed.  And I go through the guilt all over again because I am not showing it in my actions, I should not be shouting at their dad. 

2) This one is just like the one Ro wrote about.  There are days when I am running around from place to place and getting things done in the house, I just forget to eat breakfast or there is not enough time for a snack in the evening.  I used to get the multi colored fennel candy (if I happened to go to the Indian store) which I used to love as a child and still do.  If I get that, in my hunger, I used to gobble up half the packet during the drive.  This while restricting my sweet toothed daughter to eat 2 or 3 max of Bourbon cookies.  I have since stopped buying that candy.  My son, the saint of the house without ever scolding me has made me stop buying it by being such a role model for me.  How? I once told him about how he should not eat dum dum lollipops too much (he does not eat ANY candy or chocolate but he used to eat this) because it has food dyes that are not good for children.  He asked me more about it and then said "Then why do those companies make it for children?".  I said, they do, because they know kids will like it and they will also get money.  But since then he has pretty much stopped eating those lollipops.  Sometimes I am the one telling him to have one and that it is OK once in a while but he still won't eat it.  He will only eat the naturally flavored/colored with fruit juice pops from Trader Joes.  I was shamed into having half his self control when it comes to my fennel candy. 

Well, that's my guilt story. 

I tag "Neera" and "Ranjani" on this one!

Questions from KB

I have to pause and think before I answer KB's questions or pass it on to the dad when he gets home in the evening if I don't have time to google it.  I am partly writing this because it is interesting for me to read these sort of posts a couple of years later.  I plan to look up some old posts to see what KB used to be like at age four.

Anyway - some of the questions from the last two days:

1) Mamma, if I put an Apple in water and freeze it, will it get preserved for ever? (He has a piece of apple frozen in a cup of water in the freezer - he plans to keep it that way until he goes to college apparently!).

2) If gravity is such a powerful force, how am I even able to jump on my trampoline?

3) Mamma, suppose I am floating in water and gravity is everywhere, how come I am able to float?

4) What makes water turn into ice?

5) If fire comes out of the rocket when it takes off, how does the metal tube at the base of the rocket not get burnt?

6) Why do we need tissues?

7) How does the food know to go into the food pipe and not into the wind pipe all the time?

8) Will the sun also die and have a new sun be born later after billions of years?

9) Mamma, sometimes when I brush, there is a bubble on my lips, how come it doesn't burst when I touch it with the brush?

10) How is sand formed on earth?

11) Why does the earth spin around the sun?

12) Mamma, if the doctor cuts open the mom's tummy to take the baby out (I have not told him how natural delivery happens because he will then think too much about all that - I felt it can wait), then what do animals in the wild do? They don't have any vets to take their babies out right?

13) Why does old paper turn yellow?

14) Today's question when we were driving back from Target shop while listening to his favorite CD: "Mamma, how do they put the music on the CD if people are not singing in front of it?"

The power of the individual

We went to the beach Friday night around 7.45 p.m.  The weather was balmy, warm and gorgeous.  I had the kids eat an early dinner and kept dinner ready for us.  As soon as B came home, we took off.  It was a full moon day and the waves were crashing on the big rocks behind the shore.  There were fire pits in the beach and on full moon days, the local drum group comes to play there to drum in the full moon.  It was absolutely lively to have the beat of the drums, the warm air, camp fire, embers flying through the air, jugglers doing fire tricks and people dancing around the drummers.  KB was so excited that he was dancing random crazy dances.  KG was delighted to dance along more slowly and gracefully but was very nervous when she saw a juggler throw a fire ball into her mouth.  That looked pretty scary even for me.  I have no idea how they even do that and not wince in pain.

There was a young girl with thick blond hair which was dyed a bright blue in the front.  She wore a sports bra and a pair of sports capris thus exposing her midriff.  She looked very sensual but not vulgar.  She seemed to be in her early twenties.  She was in the side lines watching one of the older men juggle with some bars with fire balls on the ends.  I never expected this young woman to come and do some fire tricks herself.  Every time I watch something of this sort, I find it very interesting.  What motivates this young girl to learn these difficult and somewhat dangerous fire tricks and do it for free?  Who are her parents? Do they encourage her or discourage her?  I just wonder about these things when I see someone like her.  It is in its own way a very nice feeling for me when I see such quirky individuals because it is telling of the power of the individual.  That fire within.  To do something that sparks your interest and do it no matter the reward.  To have a sense of self and have the discipline it takes to follow up and nurture an interest from within.

The other day I was typing something on the computer when the TV was on in the background late at night.  I saw some program on women body builders.  This young girl who was in high school was working towards becoming one.  What impressed me about her was how at that young age she had chosen something not so popular yet put in enormous amounts of effort and time and had the discipline to follow a strict diet and grueling exercise schedule from her trainer.  Similarly when I read about this man,  I feel that same fascination I feel for the power of the individual.  Though he is famous now, it must have been a lonely journey in the start of his running endeavors and also most of the running times must be a kind of lonely experience.  In this context I also have to write about this person who I have come to admire even though I only know her as the mother of my blog pal (who also is incredibly talented).  No one expects these people to accomplish these goals.  The end point is exciting and joyous but the journey is long and requires immense perseverance.  Yet that drive from within to set that goal and accomplish it is so remarkable.  Be it in small ways or big ways, it is nice to see someone have their own ways of doing things and be their own unique individual adding so much color to the world.  The beauty of creation and the uniqueness of each creation is just mind boggling.  In that sense too, parenting is such a moving journey because you see the uniqueness of the individual taking shape day by day in small and big ways.  I guess this is what makes people watching also so interesting because you can sit and marvel at variety there is out there despite us all belonging to one species.

Small gestures of kindness...

I read this post by Ranjani - a typical Ranjani style post - simple, straight from the heart kind of post.  I too often think of the people who have done small things which meant a lot or in some cases - what might have been small to them but really turned out to be a huge favor for me.  I am sure if I pause to think about it I will have a lot of people in this list.  But for starters I will write down a few.  (And Neera - see I posted!).

- When I was a graduate student, I had to stay till late night one day,  but then I had an abscess that was really hurting me by the evening.  I had no choice but to go to ER alone.  I just walked over to the medical building/hospital ER and waited for a couple of hours since there were much worse cases ahead of me.  When finally my turn came, they said an intern would come soon and take care of me.  I was in a lot of pain and there was a black woman, tall and strong who stayed with me through out the procedure and held my palms tight.  It was cold outside when I walked out but I was feeling so warm inside at the thought of this kind woman who realized that I was alone and in a lot of pain.  I don't remember her face or name but I remember what she did for me that day.

- When I was working in a research lab, I had to do a procedure on a newborn mouse.  I hated touching those tender beings and I was really scared as to how I would get through it.  But a medical student who later became a good friend of mine (with whom I have sadly lost all contact, he is now a big shot director of a neurosurgery center) came to my rescue and stood by me while I did it even though he didn't really know me well at that time.  We have shared so many light moments and I have learned so much from him.  It was truly good, simple friendship.  He was such an inspiring person, so full of life, so talented and brilliant.  I completely lost touch with him over the years but one day when I looked up his name I felt so proud to see where he was in life at this point.  I always thank him in my mind for being a good/kind friend then when he was just a student.

- When my father was in the hospital and we knew the time had come, I had to book tickets and leave immediately to take a long flight to the other coast with a 17m old KB, while being pregnant with KG.  I was so sad and was crying and miserable.  My friend happened to call and I told her the news and that I was leaving in a couple of hours to the airport.  She drove half an hour on a week day morning and brought me the essentials I would need for KB for the flight.  And just stayed with me through the next hour just being there for me.  Another friend who I had gotten to know only recently brought over long pants that would fit my pregnant belly (I only had capris that fit me since it was warm where I lived) since I was going to a cold place.  I didn't even think to ask any one to come to me for moral support but they just showed up and I late realized how good it was to have that moral support.

- When I was returning from Bangalore after KB's ayushomam, I was traveling alone.  KB fell asleep in the van as my FIL dropped me at the airport and came up to the point he could with me.  I paid a good amount to the guy in some khaki uniform - some airport staff - to help me through the check in process since I had my luggage, carry on diaper bag and sleeping child on my shoulders and I was pregnant with KG (it all happened the same year).  As soon as we entered and I was in line, the guy just took the money but did nothing to help.  He just vanished.  I had no idea where the line even began because it was a ridiculous mob of people pushing towards the ticket counter.  I was literally in tears when KB woke up and cried looking at the huge crowds.  Suddenly I came to know that I had to pick up some form upstairs and then fill it out and then come downstairs with it.  I can't remember the details but I remember it was all extremely stressful.  I spotted some uniformed person and ran to him and said "You have to help me.  The person whom I paid money to has vanished.  I don't know who to ask for help.  My child is crying and I have all this luggage.  I have no idea where the line begins or ends".  The guy told me that he was actually not an airport official but the chief person for the catering department for that flight.  But him and the person who worked for him both just stayed with me the whole time - picked up the form for me, filled it out (I handed my passport to a complete stranger!) while a crying KB would not let go of me and had to be fed at that moment! They went downstairs and handed the form and got everything sorted out and chatted with me until I went into the boarding area.  I don't know if I would have even made it on that flight if they had not helped me.  Till date, I am so grateful for their help.

Am sure there are lots more people I can write about in this list.  But I will stop here for now. 

This n that...

Saturday was a relaxing day doing stuff at home.  Usually summer weekends I have this feeling that I have to utilize it by taking the kids out some place - usually some place outdoors.  Hiking, zoo, botanical garden etc.  Last Saturday I decided I had to clean out stuff from the garage and so I stopped myself from planning some outing with the kids.  Instead they went with B to the skating arena and roller skated for a couple of hours.  I had to make a couple of calls and then got to work cleaning out at least a part of the garage.  I got rid of a ton of awesome carnatic music cassette tapes.  I had kept them with me not having the heart to throw them out.  But it didn't make sense to keep them for ever since I don't even have a cassette player anymore.  Gosh how times change.  To think that my children would never have even seen a cassette!   After the kids got back, we had lunch and tea and just lazed around doing stuff around the house.  KB wanted to buy basket ball shoes for himself since he has now joined a basket ball class.  So we went to buy him shoes and then on the way decided to eat at a local south Indian restaurant.  We usually don't eat out that often partly because most of the time my mother or my FIL are with us and they can't really eat out.  Plus KB is such a fussy eater that I am always afraid that he will go hungry.  But he agreed to eat dosa and he did OK - at least had half of the kids cone dosa.

Next morning, Sunday, we got an early start to the day and went to the zoo.  KB and KG's good friends came along and we had a great time.  By the time we got back it was close to 9.45 p.m. and the kids were exhausted and fast asleep.  Today, I decided to check out a Montessori school for KG that I had been meaning to check out.  She seemed really comfortable in the pre-K classroom.  I am not happy with the stand offishness of the teacher. There are two teachers and an assistant in the classroom.  The second teacher was friendly and showed KG around the classroom.  KG was in there for about an hour and half.  The director of the school took KB to the KG/first grade classroom and gave him this game to play on his own.  After sometime KB and I peeked through the window to see how KG was doing and she was totally fine.  The director of the school was talking to me while we waited in the playground.  KB was bored but did not want to go inside again to play on the computer.  He stood around following some cotton seeds that were flying around.  We had been talking for about fifteen minutes when suddenly KB came to me and said, "Excuse me, Mamma" and mumbled a whole bunch of numbers in my ears.  I had no idea what he was talking about and told him so.  He repeated it to me a little louder and said, "Mamma, eighteen thousand eight hundred and sixty three plus eighteen thousand eight hundred and sixty three is thirty seven thousand seven hundred and twenty six".  I was totally confused as to why he was suddenly telling me this and I had to quickly add it up mentally to see if he was right.  And he was.  I said, yes, KB, you are right.  He then asked me for a piece of paper.  The director told him to go to the KG classroom and get it from the teacher.  He ran in and wrote it down and brought it to me.  I guess boredom helps! He just randomly picked his huge number and did a mental addition while chasing cotton seeds to kill time!

Tomorrow morning KG's classmate has a birthday party, so KB will also come along.  Summer is just the best! Nearly one month since KB's school ended for the summer and it has been so relaxing.  I thought being home all day with both kids at home would probably drive me nuts.  They do drive me crazy at times with their fighting but overall it has been so awesome.  Just having the time to go places with them without much planning and knowing that we don't have to rush them to school the next morning - it has been so lovely.  Knock on wood!

Nightmares...

KB has always been a light sleeper.  Even as an infant I have had to deal with sleepless nights with him.  Even when he was just born he looked so alert and so deep in thought.  He continues to be that way.  But the last few months have not been just those random wake up for a few minutes, talking in his sleep or whining a little and going back to sleep. KB wakes up around 10.45 p.m. (he goes to sleep around 9.00 p.m.) crying in his sleep.  He gets up half asleep and kneels down and keeps bending down and putting his head on the pillow as if he was doing a namaz prayer and cries out "Mamma! Daddy"...and says "Help me" or just keeps calling out for us while crying "Mamma...Mamma..."  The first time he had this kind of petrified look, I traced it back to the combination of medications he took for his Bronchitis.  But the last couple of months, he did not take any medications. I made him sleep in our bed (and later move him to his bed) - that worked for about three weeks.  So I thought something about his bed made him get nightmares.  But I jinxed it.  He got nightmares on random days.

I am very sensitive to the temperature in the room.  If it gets too hot, especially on those days in winter when we turn on the heater and  if it is a little too much, I end up getting nightmares.  Even if feel sleepy and lazy I would wake up and turn down the heat.  KB seems exactly the same way.  But the temperature is not the only thing.  It is a combination of his age, the stage of development when they understand more, imagine more and hence get these nightmares.  But it is also his particular nature.  Intense, compulsive, particular about how things are done, thinks very deeply about things.  I will write more about his nature in his birthday post next month. He is totally into "Calvin and Hobbes" comics these days.  He reads them on his own but we read it to him before bedtime.  Even though it is not scary, it has some food for thought in its content.  So KB ends up thinking about things like "Why did his racoon die?" etc while going to bed (I think!).  Anyway - one thing that helps to calm him down and get him back to sleep is getting a cold towel and rubbing his back and forehead with it.  The whole process takes about fifteen minutes.  It wasn't this bad until the last couple of months.  Of late it has been about three times a week that this happens.  May be the heat of the summer also contributes to it.  But it is very stressful for me sometimes - the anticipation that he might wake up crying, then trying to calm him down and getting him back to sleep.  I just hope he gets through this phase and gets back to sleeping peacefully through the night. 

KG turned four...

KG turned four couple of weeks back.  It is so unbelievable for me because it sometimes feels like she grew up completely on her own.  Well, not literally.  But she just grew up before I could even imprint it in my head.  Always rushing to catch up with her brother who is twenty two months older than her.  She is a mix of daring and shy that sometimes surprises me.  She sometimes acts like she has no clue what fear means, that such an emotion even exists.  But sometimes she exhibits shyness that I just cannot understand.  I drop her in preschool for the first time when she is three years and two months old.  She waves goodbye and acts like she has been going there for ever, doesn't even turn to look for me.  Her teacher, who is also into photography sends me pictures of her every day.  I can actually see how long she took to let go of herself at the new environment.  She barely gave a smile in the initial days.  Then a suppressed smile.  A slight curve.  A couple of teeth showing.  A few more.  Then a full smile. Raging laughter chasing after her teacher in the playground by the end of the year.  She had such a good time at her preschool.  The learning part of it was too abstract that I really don't know if academically she learned much there.  But her teacher just loves children and dotes on them.  That sense of warmth made me feel so much at ease when she was away at school.

The summer before KB turned four, he started reading simple Bob books.  The first time he read a book fully to me was so exciting that I even remember that moment well now.  But with KG things just happen and we take it in stride.  I do feel happy but it is not a novel experience.  Considering how little time I spend reading to her alone, or teaching her things (since there is not much academic learning at her school), I am often surprised by how she picks up things.  When one day I found these Brain quest cards on our book shelf and sat down with her and asked her those questions, I was pleasantly surprised by the ease with which she could answer most questions.  The poor little sister, she ends up listening to us reading Magic tree house books or books about mammals meant for older kids that we read to KB.  He is such a talker and such a prankster that I often have to physically shut his mouth so he would let KG talk or answer questions.  He delights in annoying her by answering any question I ask her quickly before she can answer it.  So she does not get much individual attention where I sit down to teach her things.  KB was a very focused and attentive listener when I read books to him.  He could read books back to me verbatim from memory from the time he was two and half.  It still amazes me that we took that for granted because KG absolutely cannot do it.  She just does not pay attention to the exact words.  But on the other hand she gets the story and often surprises me with her understanding of subtle nuances in the story.

Thanks to her brother who is now totally into basketball and reads books about greatest basketball players, she too knows about players like Kareem Abdul Jabbar and Bill Russell.  She loves to sing and makes up gibberish songs and sings on and on even when she is in the bathroom.  We baby her a lot at home and she thrives and enjoys the attention.  She wakes up in the morning and always insists on "Mamma" coming to get her from the bed.  Some days if she decides to get out of her bed on her own she will come looking for me in the living room and sit next to me and say "Good morning Mamma".  She does not have the clarity of communication that KB had at her age.  KB always was verbally way ahead of his age and so we sometimes get nervous if she is on track or not for her age.  KB's teacher and now KG's teacher both remind me that KB was naturally very verbal and was ahead of his age and I should not be comparing her to him.  And that she is totally fine.  KG talks a lot but sometimes gives totally random stories or answers which I am not used to at all with KB.  She has cute ways of saying things the wrong way that we love so much and go out of our way to not correct her.  Like if I tell her "KG, I know you will break it". She would say to me, "No, I will'nt".  She still says "Sun scream" lotion for "Sun screen" lotion.  KB has always been so precise and correct and clear in the way he talked that KG's lingering mazhalai (baby language) is such a delight for us.

KG loves to play outdoors.  She has always been daring when it comes to activities at the park.  At age two and half or three, KB used to be slightly scared of going in those tall curvy slides.  KG on the other hand could do it without any fear since age two.  Even now if I am busy and the bedroom light needs to be turned on, KG is the one who rushes in and turns it on for KB just so he won't be scared!  I sent her with B and KB couple of weeks back to the park and told B to get her started on riding the bike w/out training wheels.  KB learned to ride a bike without training wheels only at age five.  But for her we decided to start earlier because I knew she was ready for it.  But I assumed it would take a few tries and that I would go with  her the next time and I would get to see her bike on her own (without training wheels).  B came back home that day and told me that within forty minutes of trying, she was happily biking on her own without any training wheels.  Even turns and slowing down for it etc.  We took the kids for roller skating lessons a few times.  KG just pushes me off to go to the side lines and not help her out.  She learned to do a pretty good job of it quite fast.  One Afghani mom who was on the sides was observing her the second class and told me "Your daughter, she is so strong willed".  Indeed she is.  Extremely so.  B and I wonder how we will cope with her strong will when she is a teenager.  She has very good grip when it comes to holding her pencil and she loves to paint.  I took her to an art class couple of weeks back.  The instructor said that he normally does not take four year olds but when he saw her paint the flowers (he drew the outlines for her), he said he would take her in once a month because she was able to hold the brush and paint really well for her age (in his words).  She has started swim lessons since last week.  Her teacher told me that she was completely comfortable in the water.  After class KB and KG and two of their friends were playing in the smaller shallow pool.  KG kept asking me if she could go to the big pool where she had the class.  I said no and that she could only play in the little pool.  The kind of "kurutu dhairyam" (blind courage) she has, she suddenly got out of the play pool and very coolly walked to the big pool and was about to jump in.  I had to make a dash and grab her before she fell in.  She scares me with her recklessness sometimes.  She is always skipping and running like a typical happy go lucky four year old.  On the day of her birthday, she banged her head on the edge of the wall and I had to rush her to the doctor and have the skin on her forehead pulled together with derma bond! The next day again she hurt herself on the other side of her forehead while fighting with KB for the basketball in the yard outside.  She gets bruises all the time but usually does not fuss like KB would for these little cuts and scrapes.  She writes her name and numbers up to 10 but still feels upset that she cannot write in cursive like KB does.  KB is her super hero!

Any child is a blessing really.  But I can't help thank God for giving me a daughter even though I did not mind either way when I was pregnant with her.  She hugs tight, laughs with joy and skips around with delight, all of which fills me with joy.  Especially her tight hugs.  Her calmness in some situations makes me wish I could be like her in some ways.  I just hope she continues that way.  She is sometimes a paradox - calm yet full of energy, daring yet shy, grasps things well but talks like a baby sometimes, is so strong willed yet melts if I so much as say "Aww" if she steps on my toes and immediately bends down to rub my toes.  I continue to say my thanks to God for all the ways in which she has helped me in raising two kids who are so close in age by being easy going in so many ways.  I thank God so often for giving me a daughter since I am enjoying her so much.  Thank you God, thank you!

The caretaker's dilemma

I have been thinking a lot about the issue of taking care of aging parents and the complexities of the situation.  We are the generation with one foot in the U.S (or any place else abroad) and one foot back home in India.  Some of us came here for our undergraduate studies, some for graduate school and some others for work.  Many decided to stay on after marriage, had children and established roots here.  I am writing from the perspective of someone who is going through the confusion of what is right when it comes to being the caretaker for an aging parent or parent-in-law.

MM wrote this post recently on how it is for her parents to come to the U.S. and being away from their home, their normal routines.  I also read this post by hiphopgrandma on the same topic.  Very interesting perspectives.  I am sure there are plenty of others with stories of their own regarding this issue.  I have written about this topic earlier as well.  I wrote that post nearly three years back.  By divine grace so far we have managed OK both with my mother and with my father-in-law.  My FIL got his green card and shunts between the two countries.  He spends some time with his daughter and then comes to stay with us and then heads back to India.

I feel very guilty when I see my FIL alone without my mother-in-law and having to stay with us for part of the year.  If she had been alive, they would have both coped with life here quite well.  They enjoyed their trips to the U.S. in the past.  So in that sense, they did not feel too displaced and were quite happy to be with their children.  My MIL was a very talented, sharp woman and she had tremendous inner strength as I saw it and from what I heard from all her relatives.  She could be put in any situation and she would adapt and cope and always had a calm temperament.  I might have had some issues with her had she also been living with us - like it would happen in any normal situation when people co exist - but I consider it a tremendous loss for me that she passed away.  At the same time, I am still glad that she did not suffer nor become a burden for my FIL to take care of her, even if her children were to be there for them.

I sometimes see my father-in-law turn off the TV and just sit quietly, thinking, and staring up at the wall.  It really breaks my heart.  He is a voracious reader - he reads plenty of books and reads the newspaper cover to cover.  He does plenty of Sudoku puzzles every day and he reads horoscopes that people email to me and I write back his comments to them.  But there are 24 hours in a day and there still are so many moments in a day when there is nothing to do.  How do you keep the same set of routines day after day without much social company? Unlike my father who could make friends with any one pretty much and have conversations for hours, my FIL is a quiet person and he talks a lot only if there is a common interest or if the person initiates the conversation.  He is a friendly person but not overly chatty.  He is not the kind to play with the children either.  An occasional ball catch, that's about it.

My FIL's situation of having to live here has cropped up only in the last three years since my FIL got his green card and ends up spending about 6 or 7 months in the U.S.  It is a very long stretch for him.  The situation so far has been manageable.  Ideally he would have been happy had we lived in Bangalore as well and he could have just continued on with his life.  But both his son (my husband) and daughter came to the U.S many years back when they were both healthy and active.  My husband came here for his graduate studies and then started working and then he got married to me.  For me, there is no "home" as such in India because my parents moved to the U.S many years back when I came here for college.  All my siblings are settled in the U.S.  My father is no more and my mom shunts between all her children.  She too is tired of visiting each one of us and feels the need to settle in one place.

I think about this situation and I wonder what the right thing to do would be.  My FIL has never once asked us to move back to India.  I am grateful to him for not sending us on guilt trips and for giving us the freedom to make that choice.  He is a traditional Indian parent and so the primary responsibility rests with the son.  Son yes, but the real care taking falls on the daughter-in-law.  More on that later.  When my husband was finishing high school and got admission into IIT, it was a matter of pride and joy for my in-laws.  They had never once even told him to apply to IIT nor put him in any classes for the entrance exams.  In some sense, I think the lack of pressure really helped.  He went on to finish his B.tech.  He got job offers from Indian firms and admission into a couple of IIM's.  But with the blissfulness of youth, he just applied to some universities here for graduate studies and decided that if he got a full scholarship, he would come.  And he did.  At that time too it was a matter of joy for my in-laws.  At that point no one in his immediate family had come to the U.S and so it was all very exciting.  Later when he got a job after his graduate studies, that too was greeted with joy.  He was putting off marriage and would not even look at the photos of girls that his mother would show to him (that's a side plot some of my blog pals already know about).  So suddenly one day when he announced to his parents that he had decided to marry me they were very happy about it.  His father was so thrilled giving out wedding invitations to even his old school teacher when he bumped into him on the way to some place.  At those different stages, no one thought about what all that would mean in their old age.  May be they did somewhere as a distant thought, but nothing immediate.  Things seemed right at that time when every one was happy in their little worlds.

Now things are different.  My mother-in-law passed away.  My father-in-law has had no choice but to get adapted to life without a companion.  But the reality is he has also had to deal with living alone in a world that is not his home.  And that is the hard part for him, for us.  What do we do in this situation? We have young children who are used to life here.  My whole family lives in the U.S. and I have no home base in India now.  Without my mother-in-law around, even my FIL's house does not feel like a home.  I did not grow up in that  city and I don't even relate to that place.  My husband is happy in his job here and has never worked in India and so there is that fear of adjusting to that work culture at this stage of life, especially when the prime projects happen here for his job and not in India.  KB is a very sensitive child and I am happy he is comfortable in his environment here.  He is prone to respiratory infections and I honestly dread the pollution both in Bangalore and in Chennai were to live there.  A windy day dust storm here triggers bronchitis for him.  KG is most likely to adjust to life easily there since she is pretty easy going and will eat anything.  Unlike KB who probably would have a very hard time adjusting to all the changes.  Neither me nor my husband have any siblings in India now.  Considering everything, at what point do you decide that you uproot yourself even if you feel a sense of belonging (even if it is not complete like it would have been had I never left India) in the place you are in?  When my father-in-law left couple of days back after staying here for some months, he told me that he enjoyed his stay here and he was very appreciative of my cooking for him etc.  I was grateful for those kind words from him.

I am not even considering a full time job because I know I cannot cope with handling two kids and taking care of my FIL.  Even my FIL himself remarks to me that he feels sad that with all this education in hand, I am pretty much doing domestic work all day long.  But I don't want the stress of work to transfer on to the kids.  At least not when they are this young.  Last time he was here, because of some health issues I had to take him to different doctor appointments about a dozen times in a matter of three months.  This trip, it was mostly dental issues. But still it had to be dealt with.  When he is here, I feel better in fact because I am on top of it when it comes to his health.  I try to give him the right kind of food even if it means cooking separately for us, for the kids and for him at times.  And here making appointments, contacting the pharmacy etc all involve phone time which I have very little of in the day since those sort of calls cannot be done casually when I am cooking or cleaning. I have to plan his doctor visits in the time I have between drop off and pick up for the kids and find time to cook the meals and buy groceries.  There is absolutely no family locally for me and so unless it is an emergency I don't ask my friends (who also have two kids) to help me out.  When he is here, I feel very guilty to take the kids out for full day trips because he doesn't enjoy being out the whole day and it is practically difficult because then I would have to plan and pack food for him for all his meals.  Because of his diet restrictions, I don't feel comfortable letting him eat salty/greasy food from outside.  Much as I hate having the TV on at most times during the day, because the children are around, I subscribed to all the tamil channels available and I try and keep the kids in the family room so they are not also glancing at the angry or sobbing faces in these TV serials.  I never make any plans to go out of town when he is with us because I don't feel comfortable adding that responsibility on who ever we visit...if it is just us, we can always order take out if the host is busy.  And the travel is tiring for him as well.  All this is to say that the adjustment is not just for the aging parent but very much so for the rest of the family as well.  Nine months in a year, I am taking care either of my mother or my FIL both of whom are of similar age and similar situations.  This is when it irks me when some people casually remark with a tone of one sided pity that he has to put up with life here because both his children are in the U.S.  No one thought about all this when things were hunky dory.  Now every one is deeply entrenched in their lives so it is difficult to up and go.  Be it daughter or son.  This is not to say that we won't do it if it really comes down to it.   Since B is at work and comes home past the kids dinner time, I pretty much have to keep both kids and FIL fed, happy, engaged.  Every one needs my attention.  When I am trying to have a conversation with my FIL, both kids have a hundred things to say to me.  B comes home from work and spends time with the kids until their bed time.  When finally at the end of the day we sit down on the couch, both of us are too tired to talk to each other.  B is fast asleep ten minutes after we sit down some days and it does lead to us fighting more than we need to for trivial things because the pressure builds up.  I am writing this in detail because people who are not faced with this situation don't often realize that the situation is complex and there are no ideal solutions.  You just learn to cope and make the best of it.  I feel happy for my FIL when he is packing to go back to India because I know how free and at home he must feel when he is in the home he has been in for the last twenty five years.  I really wish he didn't have to come here and live this boring life, filled with monotonous routines of meals, walks, TV and so on.  We all mean well for each other but it is not easy on any of us.  I try to do my best to make life comfortable for him when he is here.  I am sure I do fail in many ways especially from his perspective.  But we all learn to live with it.  I am not sure how much of my perspective about all this will change in my old age.  I just hope we retain good health at the very least so we can be on our own.  In the meanwhile, we all carry on with this balancing act.

When your child falls sick...

It is only after you become a mother you understand what they mean when they say - motherhood is a piece of your heart walking outside your body.  Sometimes I feel as if my heart and soul are entirely outside of me especially when they fall sick.  KB is prone to bronchitis and he had been sick the last four days.  He had to miss school for three days in a row.  He was sick in October of last year when he had to miss five days of school.  It is not a big deal - it is just Kindergarten.  But it feels so terrible when you know that the child is sick and you cannot send them to school day after day until they get better.

It is almost a high when suddenly after a few days of sickness, your child gets better and gets back to routine activities.  Only as you grow older these cliched statements like, "Health is wealth" and "No news is good news" make so much sense.  KB is finally better now after three days and just doing regular things like going to school, eating lunch etc.  I feel so relieved.  Parents who have children who are asthmatic or are prone to respiratory illness just know when it has begun.  That horrible painful cough.  I used to hate giving him Albuterol but I have learned my lesson the hard way - if I don't nip it in the bud, it escalates to an ER visit.  So now I grit my teeth and just give that blessed (and yet damned) medication.  I am thankful that we have these good medications to relieve them of pain but I am still so bothered that we even have reason to use them. 

Three nights back, of course it all happens smack in the middle of the night, KB woke up in his sleep crying loudly holding his hand over the left side of his head.  He had had very low grade fever all day that day.  B was in the room with him and I was in the living room with my laptop reading something.  Suddenly I heard B call out to me to come to the room and attend to KB.  I ran in and I saw KB holding the side of his head, half asleep, crying loudly saying it hurt really badly.  Somehow that scene just sent me into momentary panic - this child with fever crying in pain holding the side of his head.  I instantly felt so light headed and I had to sit down on the bed for a second myself.  B got mad at me for this was the second time this was happening - once before when KB woke up in the middle of the night with severe coughing, I had that same feeling - that it was bad and finally we ended up taking him to ER.  I don't know which is worse - his suffering or me seeing him suffer.  And this is just bronchial cough.  Even this is makes me so sad.  Anyway - within a few seconds, KB woke up some more and said it was his left ear that was hurting.  I ran to the kitchen and got him some warm compress cloth and pressed it against his ear.  I then added a few drops of olive oil  and then called the nurse.  I knew what she would say but just had to call anyway.  B went in the middle of the night to get some Ibuprofen.  The rest of the night KB slept fine.  The following day, the two kids had a great time playing and jumping and getting on each other's nerves until I took KB to the doctor.  She gave him an antibiotic for his ear infection.

KB had not eaten much that day - cereal, half an apple and two bread slices for the whole day.  And lots of gatorade.  But without much food intake, that night he took Albuterol, Ibuprofen and the antibiotic.  He was tossing and turning all night complaining that he was feeling too hot.  I kept giving him cold towel rubs on his back and forehead every now and then.  All those medications in that little frame that too with so little food.  God knows what it was doing to his system.  I have been giving him honey with ginger for the last 10 days or so.  For KB who is such a picky eater, this is such a big deal.  But he mentally trained himself literally on this one because I told him it would help him with his cough issues.  And yet this happened that very same week.  It is very disappointing.  Although may be because of it, I ended up giving him Albuterol only twice a day and not every four hours.  I feel so desperate to somehow prevent these sort of cough episodes.  The ear infection came out of the blue - he has hardly had any ear infections.  This is the reason why when I read blogs about kids traveling in trains in India etc it seems so adventurous to me.  That kind of heat and dust coming in, if the coughing starts, I don't know what I would do in the middle of some random place. 

I was talking to a friend today and she told me that one of her family friends had something terrible happen to them.  Their only child, a lovely four year old boy suddenly developed high fever.  A couple of days later, when he was coming down the stairs, he cried because his head was hurting unbearably.  They rushed him to ER and found a tumor in his brain.  It is in a place that they cannot even operate on.  He has been in the hospital ever since and has not come back home.  How can life change so rapidly for people?! It seems so grossly unfair especially when it happens to children.  Even imagining their pain, I feel like my knees are becoming weak.  If there is a hell, this must be it.  Seeing a child suffer through pain, tests, treatment, confinement.  Big or small, honestly, it is so hard to see children go through anything more than a mild cold.  I don't know how the parents of that child (the one with the tumor) ever come to terms with it.  How do they even carry on with every day duties, work etc? I don't know, I don't ever want to know.  I have been feeling so sad all evening thinking about them even though I don't know them at all.

How do you feel when your child falls sick? I have become better at coping with all this but I still feel that wrenching feeling when I get that feeling that the sickness has begun, it will last 2 or 3 days, the coughing, lack of food, sleep etc and it still makes me feel bad.  I cannot stop taking the kids to the park.  I can only make sure they wash their hands well after they get back . I try to give them good healthy food, natural preventatives like ginger and honey.  KB is just prone to it and there is only so much I am able to do to really prevent it.  Has any magic potion worked for you? Do share!

And let's make a wish for that family - to give them strength to get through this terrible time.  

Was daddy king?

KG was eating her breakfast when my FIL was watching the royal wedding on TV.  I told KG, "Hey look KG, the prince and the princess are getting married".  She turned and saw Kate (yes, we are on first name basis) down the aisle in her wedding gown. 

Today as I was driving the kids back from the doctor's office, a carnatic music CD was playing in the car.  KB knew that that vocal artist had sung at our wedding.  He asked me suddenly "Mamma, when did you and Daddy get married?".  I told him.  "Mamma, I was not born then right? I came only three years after you and Daddy got married".  (Yes dear you were not born when I got married or your grandma would have killed me outright).  KG who was quiet until then said, "But Mamma, you were a princess when you got married".  Not wanting to elaborate on how I was not a princess and to not disappoint/confuse her, I said, "Yes, KG, I was a princess when I got married".  Very innocently she asked me, "Daddy was the king right Mamma?".  Hmm. You bet he was! Why do you think I married him?!  

Stop with one child or not?

KB was in the yard riding his scooter.  KG had mild fever and chest congestion and I made her go to bed and take an afternoon nap.  She has nearly stopped afternoon naps but I find that if she does nap for a short while then the evenings are easier for me.  I spent some time trying to get her to sleep and came to the family room thinking she was asleep.  Five minutes later she was out of the room declaring that she was done with her nap.  Naturally because she could hear KB in the yard riding his scooter in the concrete area.  She too joined him.  Five minutes into it, I could hear the screeching from KG.  As always it was a case of "He did that...she did this".  Apparently KB had rammed into her when she was riding her scooter.  I asked KB - why did you do that? Of course, the expected answer.  "But mamma, she is trying to make smaller circles and act like this is a race".  KG retorts, "But Mamma, KB is not being nice to me".  Phew.  Never ends, this fighting and arguing and me playing mediator.  I yelled at the two fighting monsters, "Are you guys ever going to be friends?".  I threatened KB that I would e-mail his teacher and tell her to teach the kids in the class as to how to be nice to each other and not bicker all the time.  To which KB replied with a sullen face, "F..i..n..e.  I won't trouble KG.  But that's not fun anymore. It's so boring".

I read this post by MM and I remembered that I had written something along these lines a while back.  I remembered Ro too wrote about it.  So I went back in archives and found my old post on the topic.  So how do I feel about it now? Now that my second one is going to be four years old.  Now that I have seen how they can fight incessantly.  One day when KB was sick, I had to drop KG at school and after I got back home I asked KB, "Are you missing your sister?".  He said, "I can be peaceful for sometime now"!.  "What? I labored through pregnancy and gave up the admission to a program for which I had a fellowship as well, just so you could have a sibling...and you feel peaceful when she is at school and you can be home alone?", I thought to myself for a fleeting second.  That thought was more in jest.  Because deep down, despite everything I knew that an hour later, I would notice that "peaceful" look waning and questions of "Mamma, is it time yet to pick up KG?" would emerge.  And as expected it did.  "I thought you found it more peaceful when she is at school?".  "No Mamma, but now I am ready to go pick her up!".  So then I take KB along three hours later to pick her up.  She is busy playing in the fabulous playground at her preschool when I walk in to pick her up.  The moment she sees us and she spots KB, she runs to him and the delight is obvious.  She tells her friend, "This is my brother!".  In those few words, I feel the bonding they share and the joy they feel in just having each other. 

On the face of it, when I see them constantly getting on each others nerves, it is hard not to wonder if this whole sibling thing is over valued.  But in the laughter and sheer delight I see in their faces when they are playing with each other is my answer.  When I see how easily they can switch between being annoyed with each other to laughing with complete abandon, I see how strong their bond is.  I suppose this relationship between siblings will have some of the uncertainties that any adult relationship will have in later years.  But when one child is at school or is asleep, there is so much silence and peace and quiet - after a short while, it starts to get to you.  You realize how lively it is and how rich all our lives are because they are together.  It is so hard for me to imagine one without the other because KB was only twenty two months old when KG was born.  Practically speaking, yes, life would have been so much easier with just one child.  But when it is a labor of love, it is the only way you want it.  It is so hard not to convince people who are on the fence to just go for the second.  I feel so happy when some of my friends who were afraid or doubtful about having a second call me and tell me that they are pregnant with their second child.  I feel so happy for their first child more than for the parents.  When I see KB and KG together, I just pray that they will be there for each other long after even I am gone.  That they will be there for each others children as well.  So yes, now that my second one is going to be four, I am more than sure that we did the right thing.  Of course, I do think single children do grow up happy and have a great life as well.  My two nephews and one niece are all single children and they are absolutely wonderful human beings.  I am not saying being a single child is worse off, but having a sibling is just wonderful nevertheless and it just feels right for me as a parent.  If any one asks me, I don't have to think for a second to say, yes, go for it, you will not regret it. 

Mother's day begins with a 6.00 a.m. argument!

Of all the hallmark days, I have to say I actually don't mind mother's day.  Commercial as it is, it is one day when mother's are thought about...and kids are made to just pause for a second to think about their moms and express something to acknowledge mom.  And honestly when I think of how my mom and her mom have slogged throughout their lives in the context of their own lives, for their family and extended family and how it was all mostly taken for granted, I actually feel like mother's day is not a bad idea.  If Hallmark benefits along with the way, so be it!

Last year, KB dragged his dad to a store and bought me ear rings and a tee shirt.  No such luck this time around.  May be because he had done such adorable mother's day craft at his school.  A tiny heart pillow, a bracelet made of painted stones and a totally adorable card saying why he loves mom! KG's school was no less - they had a mother's day luncheon and KG, with her teacher's help I am sure,  had painted the rim of a adorable paper hat (the kind you saw the royal wedding!) with her finger prints and gave it to me.  And had made really lovely paper flower out of thin tissue paper painted with water colors.  She answered questions about mom to her teacher - like "what does mom do for fun?" - she takes us to the park.  What is mom's favorite movie? "Boring things"! She didn't know what my favorite movie was - so she said - boring things!  KG's preschool had the luncheon on Friday itself since mother's day falls on a Sunday.  She gave me her mother's day craft/gift that day itself. 

KB on the other hand remembered to hide the mom's day gifts he made at his school.  This morning he was so excited about Mother's day, he woke up bright and early at 6.00 a.m.  No chance of sleeping in once he wakes up.  I was in bed but of course answering his questions non stop. He woke up and immediately ran to his hiding spot and got out the stuff and brought it to my bed.  KG woke up too and this is how it went.  KB gave me the stuff and I looked at the gifts and read his card and sounded very happy and excited.  KG said to him, "But we celebrated mother's day yesterday".  For KG anything that is not today is yesterday even if it is a month back.  KB, the logic boy, said to her "But KG, that was a pretend celebration, today is actually Mother's day".  KG immediately raises her voice and said, "NO KB! Mother's day was yesterday".  "NO, TODAY!".  While poor mom is lying in bed with the two kids sitting on either side, fighting over mother's day and it is just ten minutes past 6.00 a.m.! Well, shouldn't complain.  Waking up to two beings who make me feel like I am alive because of how much I feel for them unconditionally is a true blessing.  Thank you God for giving me this blessing - to really feel what it is to love someone truly unconditionally.  I really don't know if it is possible to feel this for any one other than for your own children (by own I mean, the kids who you consider your own children because you raise them).  May be things change when they become adults, I don't know, but when they are children, it is truly a powerful and pure feeling.  Wanting the absolute best for them without any doubt what so ever.  Praying most earnestly to that power up there to keep them safe and healthy.  That untarnished feeling of genuine love - it does feel good to be a mother and feel that.  I hope all of you had a wonderful mother's day!

31 x 3

KB had a homework assignment couple of days back.  He had to buy something for under a dollar and give exact change to buy what he wanted.  And he had to write about it.  I was planning to just take him to Target and find something for under a dollar. 

My sister called me from the bay area and told me that her teenage daughter, my niece, had informed her that Baskin Robbins was having a 31C per scoop special.  And she had gone out for ice-cream.  I usually never go specifically to buy ice cream.  KB does not eat ice-cream and somehow because of it we don't go just to get ice-cream.  But this time around, I thought it would be fun for KB to buy something for under a dollar and buy ice-cream for his sister.  KG likes ice cream and  she had asked me for some that day. 

After KB and KG had their dinner, I went to the ice-cream place and stood in line.  When I got closer to the entrance, I called B and he brought the kids over.  KB had a lot of fun ordering for his little sister and he made sure he gave the exact change to the clerk.  He bought three scoops of which some were of course eaten by the parent! They climbed on the low wall along with other imps who were running around.  Overall they had so much fun.  For a change I thought it was worth having waited in line for 45 minutes.  KB gave exact change for 93 C and mentioned KG's favorite ice-cream flavors.  It was delightful because it made KB feel important and more because unexpectedly on a week day evening, we went as a family just to buy a few scoops of ice-cream.  The whole thing felt so simple and nice.  It was a truly jolly evening with kids playing all over the place while parents stood in line and at the end of it you get a sweet treat!  And of course I thought this made his home work also more interesting rather than buying some useless item at Target.  KB asked for a cone - just the cone, no ice-cream - for himself.  Thank God he at least had that - if not I would have felt guilty eating my "Tax-crunch, nutty coconut, Cherry jubilee" triple scoop! Well, we went for a 31C special and ended up having so much fun. Am sure this summer we will go there a few more times, of course at 3.99 per scoop probably!

Questions galore

We had gone to the park this evening with KB and KG and two boys who are their friends.  My friend is moving houses, so she left her boys with me at the park.  It had rained this morning so the sand was perfect for building sand castles because it had been sunny the whole afternoon but the sand underneath was still damp.  We made so many sand castles.  And volcanoes and mountains and roads for KG's dump truck to pass through and the tourist vehicles to come and see the erupted volcano.  We dug a hole deep enough for four kids and two moms to sit in after she came to pick the boys up.  Of course it is a lot of fun when we are at the park.  But once we start getting into the car, the tension builds up in my system.  They are filled with dirt, completely tired and hungry.  But they have to have a shower as soon as we get home and I have to rush and get dinner ready and settle them before they start getting cranky from hunger.  And in the meanwhile get dinner ready for my father-in-law also.  Dinner times are such a scramble and it is exactly the time the kids also pick their fights and irritate each other to the maximum. 

On the plus side though, both kids were so hungry that they ate their dinner really fast.  I usually read to them as they eat their dinner.  Today's book was "A trip to the moon" with pictures of astronauts and the different components of a rocket/space ship etc.  KB was reeling of so many questions some of which I have to look up the answers to.  1) Mamma, if the sun is in outer space, why does it look as if it is inside the earth?  2) If outer space does not have gravity and earth has gravity, then where does gravity even come from?  3) If earth has gravity, then how come clouds don't get pulled down by that force? 4) How far do we have to dig to get to the earth's core? 5) How are rocks formed? How can soil turn into hard rock? 6) Where do they get the oxygen from inside the space ship?  7) How do they get into the space ship when the rocket is so tall? 8) How come the rocket can only take 5 or 6 people in it but so many more people fly in the plane? I thought the rocket was more powerful than the plane!

Goodness - I needed some physics expert next to me to answer all his questions clearly.  Thankfully B came home in the middle of these questions and I told him to take over and answer all these clearly. 

Is god alive?

Normally a question like that comes loaded with the anxiety and anguish of the person saying it.  But coming from a child the question "Is God alive?" is just that - a question of pure curiosity.  KB was talking to me about something - I can't remember the context of the conversation - but I said something like - "That's why God gave us a mind to think!".  I knew the moment I said it that the conversation will turn to God. 

KB immediately asked me, "Mamma, is God alive?".  I was in the middle of what I was doing and I didn't want the conversation to turn in this direction.  So I just made light of his question and said, "Well, KB, hard to say.  Anyway - I was just saying that we can think".  He pondered still about his own question and said, "Mamma, I think God is something someone made up.  It is just a word, it is not a real person.  It is like how you say Leprechaun". 

Oh dear! How did it come to this! I did not continue the conversation about this at that point in time.  He still has his favorites when it comes to Gods.  Hanuman is his most favorite God.  But on the other hand this idea has somehow gotten into his head.  I guess the ambivalence I feel about God is something he feels too.  He has to develop his own personal God as he grows up and comes to understand his world more and more.  Nevertheless, it was funny in its own way!

The ipad generation

I just read this article in the NYT from a concerned parent worried about her 6 year old's addiction to ipad.  As parents in this high tech world, honestly, I feel combating distractions and playing the authority figure who decides how much is too much when it comes to screen time of sorts is getting to be a little challenging.  And this when my kids are just 5.5 and 3.5 years old.  I have not felt the challenge yet.  But I know it has started.

When KB was 3 years old, my friend used to often ask me how I managed to never turn the TV on for him.  I never found it difficult because somehow he didn't ask for it, I had not exposed him to it much and I knew that when he is five or so and he gets into it, he will anyway get plenty of it.  If I had to cook, I would for example set out two little jars of water and some smaller cups and spoons and he would pour/transfer/spill etc but it would keep him occupied for a long time.  He was a calmer child then.  He turned four, became this hyper energetic child, moved to a different preschool where his closest buddy was a star wars fan and would bring his toy light saber.  KB got into it.  At that time I had also introduced him to a couple of PBS TV shows - Dinosaur train and Sid the science kid - because KB was crazy about dinosaurs (still is to some extent) and he loved Sid the science kid which came on just before Dinosaur train.  We only have basic cable in our house so the kids anyway didn't have nick jr or Disney channel etc to watch.  Aside from these shows KB got into Star wars and Scooby doo.  Being the obsessive kid that he is, he totally got into "Star wars".  I didn't think too much about letting him watch it since he read Star wars books and his close friend also watched it without getting affected by it.  My niece gifted him this big Star wars dictionary or encylopedia, I can't remember - but KB would make us read all that useless information to him but would just sound like a star wars groupie remembering all kinds of details of Sith lords and who has what kind of light saber and what not.  But some good came of it.  He learned a lot of new words.  And Yoda became a good role model for him.  He still considers himself like Yoda when it comes to mind control.  That controlling one's mind can be a very powerful tool.  When he got frustrated say while trying to do a little math problem or a puzzle - he is that way - too hard on himself - tearing up if he can't do it on his own without help - he would try and control his tears saying he is like Yoda.  When he felt anxious about new situations, I would remind him how he is like Yoda and he can control his fears.  And many a time he did work on himself as if he was Yoda.  And then suddenly one day he outgrew the star wars madness.  Moved on to Scooby doo.  My sister, the indulgent aunt that she is, immediately mailed him a scooby-doo DVD set.  From then on, he was crazy about Scooby-doo.  He got a mystery machine along with the characters as a gift.  He played with it every morning after his shower even on school days.  Just a quick hello and time with the characters.  He got a whole bunch of books and it motivated him to read on his own as well since he enjoyed those books.  He moved on from that phase to the Super hero phase - dressed up as Iron man for Halloween and would draw those characters etc etc.  And then moved on from that phase to Ben 10 addiction.  He is totally into it now and as soon as he gets back from school he "slaps on" (as he puts it) his "Omnitrix" and wears it until he goes to bed.  He transforms into different aliens for different situations.  He turns into grey matter when he does his math work or XLR8 when he needs to play outside.  He made an "An I can read book" "Ben 10 guide" on his own - drawing about 17 characters and writing about each of them one the other side of the page.  He was so proud his first book that he created of his own free will.  He is still in the Ben 10 phase - frankly I am getting so tired of it - am waiting for him to outgrow this phase.  All this happens on the side apart from his school work etc - without my ever having to tell him - he will never ask to take his Omnitrix to school.  He constantly asks me about words he learned from Ben 10 - armor, enhanced, admire, priority, astounding, demise - and he points it out to me when I refer to Ben 10 as "Ottandi Ben 10" (useless Ben 10) - Mamma, I do learn things from Ben 10 too! :)

KG who is all of 3.5 now and started preschool only in September has watched all the shows that KB has watched and has listened to me read all kinds of books that I read to KB - Magic tree house series, Flat Stanley series, Magic school bus, and of course all the star wars and scooby books along with all the other non fiction books he reads.  And now if I tell her I am going to eat her up because she is so delicious, she says, Mamma, I am going to become Humongosaur (a Ben 10 alien form) and defeat you!  Which ever phase KB is in, she is in.  And goes with the flow.  Her preschool teacher is this awesome teacher who is a complete natural with kids.  She is also a very wealthy woman whose children are all grown up and is generally in a very happy place in life now.  She is also a huge fan of the ipad.  She has bought several apps for her class kids to use.  KG's teacher emailed me a few weeks back with photos of her playing with the i-pad and said "She is just amazing with it".  She does this snake puzzle by setting it at the highest difficulty level and memory match games etc with great ease.  As I walked in one day to pick her up from school, her teacher Ms.G said to me "Just watch.  She is totally in charge here.  She lets each kid finish their turn, takes the i-pad back from them, goes back to the main page, picks the game, sets the difficulty level for that child and gives each one their turn".  And that is exactly what she was doing.  One of the kids got stuck because he pressed the wrong button and he called out to his teacher to help him.  KG just took the i-pad gently from him and pressed a few buttons and went back to the main page and brought it back to where he was before his teacher could even get to it.  Ms.G turned to me and said, "See, I told you, she is totally in charge here.  She is just amazing with it".  May be it is being the second child or it is her nature.  But I don't know if KB would have done all that with that much ease.  He is more careful with it - he would not pull a puzzle piece into a slot that fast - he would pause to make sure it was the right piece.  Even when he plays chess he thinks so much before making his move.  Their inherent nature plays out even in such small things.

Back to my main point.  How much of all this is too much? KB is now getting into nickjr.com games.  KG is getting addicted to morestarfall.com.  And when we buy the i-pad this year, am sure there will more of that to deal with - both in good and bad ways.  Moderation is key.  But even deciding what is moderation is hard when you know they are learning something, enjoying themselves too.  And at least so far when the weather is good and we have time we are always at the park.  I make sure they meet with their friends and play rather than sit and watch videos.  But one fall out from all this is the time to play board games.  Between doing school work, piano practice, chess every now and then, and now these computer games and reading books to them, it is so hard to find time to play board games.  When KB was 3 plus we used to play board games almost every night.  I do feel bad about that.  It is not an easy thing I feel - allocating time for the million things.  While the noise drives me crazy at times, I am still most happy when I see KB and KG playing their pretend games for a long time jumping on our bed and hiding under blankets and what not.  No amount of puzzle solving or learning games on the computer matches the joy I feel when I see them do that.  I had my first computer when I was in graduate school.  From that to seeing these kids playing with i-pads at age three, it is taking some adjustment in deciding what's OK and what's not.  Hopefully the kids will turn out OK! What do you think?

Do you think about death?

It is quite amazing always to me how the body and mind adapt to changes how ever grudgingly in the beginning.  You can get used to more work or less work just as easily.  The inertia that sets in when you get used to a certain routine and feel so reluctant when you have to change it.  My father-in-law alternates between living in the US and back home.  He came a few days back and it means a lot of changes in my life. Mainly the cooking of full meals every morning and tiffin at night all with less oil and salt.  Going from just cooking for the kids in the morning to planning a full meal every night and rush and cook it in the morning takes some getting used to.  Sometimes it irks me how nothing changes for the "son" pretty much when he "takes care" of the parent/s but so much changes for the DIL and yet the way it is talked about is "Oh, yeah, he is with his son".  Well, I am talking about the average Indian family here, am sure there are many families where this is not the case.

I am very conscious of our duty as a couple towards my father-in-law (as well as to my mother).  I feel sad that he has lost his wife.  My mother-in-law was a very courageous woman in the real sense of the word.  She did not get fazed by difficulties in life.  She could handle most things smartly and without getting too stressed about it.   I miss her myself.  But sometimes when I see my FIL I feel like asking him if he thinks of her, does he miss her or has he gotten used to it?  He very rarely he talks about her except may be in some anecdotal way talking about some event.  I feel bad when I think of how even me and my siblings talk less and less about my father - we do remember him and talk about him - but that intensity with which we used to talk about him the first year he passed away has gone down.  May be because he lived a full life unlike some others I know like my cousin who died of cancer a month after my dad and her son was still in high school.  It doesn't feel so bad when you know someone lived a complete life and passed away before it got to a point of suffering and living on with bad health.  My cousin's death still does not feel real to me - somehow I never shed a tear over it because honestly I could not feel it being so far away.  But I do feel this strange feeling of disbelief, of wanting to talk to her and feeling that pain when I know I cannot talk to her.  Tears, no.  Sometimes my own reactions to loss surprises me.

So back to my FIL.  When I see him go on in the sunset of his life without his life companion and just doing mundane every day tasks from one day to the next, I just wonder what goes on through his mind.  And I can't also help but wonder how will it be for us when we grow old?  Who will go first and how the other will handle it.  I joke to B saying, "Hey, if you dare to go before me, I will kill you!".  And I feel worried almost that B too in his characteristic "head on his shoulders" way of dealing with things will just move on and focus on the future but I will be forgotten.  OK, don't kill me.  I am morbid that way - think a lot about death.  In reality though, how can a living human being mourn all the time? Impossible.  You just have to move on.  Some situations like the death of a child, of course, I can imagine one never ever recovers from that.  Especially if it is an only child and they are left alone after that.  It happened to B's close friend's parents.

The other day my FIL went to his room after his dinner as he always does to read a book for some time and then go to sleep.  I went in to get the kids in bed and when I came out I just peeked in my FIL's room.  He had turned the other way and was sound asleep but with the lights on and no book in hand either.  I got nervous for a second and tapped him and woke him up just to make sure he was OK.  He said he just fell asleep and didn't bother to turn off the lights.  Somehow that image of him alone there with the lights on made me feel sad.  If we had gone to bed may be he would have noticed only in the middle of the night.  It is really not a big deal - yet some images make you feel sad.  One of my friends who used to work out furiously said to me "I am just spending my youth preparing for old age".  And he wasn't fully joking.  And it is true.  In some sense if you don't take care of yourself and end up with bad health in old age, it is a very tough life for both yourself and the care takers.  Which of course in my old age will be some nurse I am sure!

It is as usual late at night, the only time I can write peacefully.  I am a little hungry, tired from a long day and it is late.  May be I shouldn't be posting this one and revealing my morbid thoughts to every one.  Do any of you ever wonder about these sorts of things?

May I be excused? Not.

KB had his surgical procedure done the day before yesterday early in the morning.  The two moles (atypical neuvi) were scraped off and stitches were put in by the dermatologist surgeon.  I had bought KB an Omnitrix
as a reward for cooperating with us to get this done.  I figured I might as well give it to him before the surgery rather than after it.  It sure came in handy because KB was completely distracted by it and talking about it the morning of the surgery.  He talked about it and explained the whole concept of Ben 10 and the different alien forms to the nurses.  When the anesthesiologist walked in and was talking to him, he challenged her saying, "I am sure I wont fall asleep no matter how much anesthesia you give me.  I have too much energy".  She was this tall, supremely confident sounding woman who turned to me and said, "He sure is a talker. I could talk to him for the next four hours!".  When it was time for him to be wheeled into the OR, I told KB I would see him in a few minutes.  I felt bad conning him like that but I had no choice.  I didn't want him to feel the anxiety.  I knew a minute after going in, they would give him the general anesthesia.

We took KG along with us to the hospital.  Both kids woke up by 5.45 a.m. that day.  B got her ready for school at 8.30 a.m. while I was inside with KB.  He dropped her at school and came back by 9.30 a.m. I was so sleepy because I had not slept much at all and I had not had anything to drink since the previous night - I just could not get myself to that morning because we were not allowed to give KB anything to drink until after the surgery.  B saw me slouched on the waiting room chair and went downstairs to get coffee and Biscotti. Of course, Murphy's law - exactly at that point the surgeon came out to tell me, "KB is up.  But he is mad because he is in a new place and he is a little disoriented because the anesthesia is wearing out".  I ran in and saw him crying loudly, with IV needles and electrodes for monitoring still stuck on him.  He hates to even have band-aid on himself longer than needed.  He was hungry, disoriented and angry with the doctors for "troubling him so much".  Somehow we managed to sign all the discharge papers and got him into the car seat and started driving when he instantly fell asleep.  He slept for a couple of hours after we got home.  He had some milk after he woke up though it was lunch time.  He had some cereal and then asked to shower.  He normally likes to shower first thing in the morning.  He was again very upset that he could not shower for a day.  I toweled him down with a warm towel and changed his clothes after which he felt OK.

He is recovering slowly now.  Walking slowly because there are two sets of stitches in his lower abdomen.  He is scared when I touch the bandaged area to apply antibacterial ointment.  I sent him to school today.  Normally after they have a quick snack during their lunch break (KB has his real lunch at home), they ask the lunch teacher, "May I be excused?" and then they go off to play.  Today KB told me, "I won't ask Mrs.X may I be excused, Mamma...I will just sit with a friend and talk because I cannot run".  Later in the afternoon when I picked him up I asked him how it went.  He said, "Mamma, twice I asked my friend E to sit with me.  But he didn't!".  I then asked KB, "Were you OK with it?". He said, "Yeah Mamma, I was OK.  I just watched the other kids play.  And I watched all the ravens".  Thank God for a boy who delights in nature and in little children.  KB loves to see little children waddling and talking baby language.  He loves to see bees trying to get nectar from flowers and watch the gulls fly up in the air and count how many of them are flying.  I felt a tug in my heart at the image of my child sitting there alone but I made myself stronger and grow just a little more as a parent.  I told him, "KB, I am so happy that you were OK.  You don't always  need a friend sitting next to you right".  He said, "Yeah, I don't always need a friend sitting next to me.  I had fun looking at the ravens".

Suture removal in two weeks.  Thanks to all of you for your good wishes.  Will keep you posted on the progress in two weeks.