Faultless Logic?

One thing motherhood has taught me is to deal with logic, faultless or otherwise. And persist arguing even though they seem baseless or unconnected

Mamma says to Tejas- Go and ask Dadda, he has got you cartoon CD's
Tejas- you ask Dadda
Mamma- you ask- he is your Dadda naa
Tejas- then why are you there in my home (To tum kyon mere ghar mein aaya.)
Mamma- But he is YOUR Dadda
Tejas- Tab Mera Mamma kaun hai (Then who is my Mamma- who should ultimately ask for the CDs)

Tejas- What are we buying?
Mamma- shirt for Dadda
Tejas- lekin abhi hum pant buy kiyaa naa Dadda ke liye. Fir kyon aur le raha hai.
(I just bought a pant for dadda, why is he buying more)

Help..My Blog is Becoming a Toilet Humour Blog

When I commited myself to write about the kids a little more than 3 years ago, I never imagined that I would be writing toilet humour after every few posts...
Boyzzz ....
So sample this
Since Ojas was having the loosies we did not send him to school the day they were going for a park visit.
Ojas throws a tantrum at home when he heard Tejas saw a crocodile at the park.
Ojas- Humko crocodile dekhna thaa (I wanted to see a croc)
Mamma- you were having loosies naa? and there is no toilet in the park. You would have to do potty in the coroc's mouth then. Just imagine.

Ojas lets the matter pass.
Half an hour later.....

Tejas was jumping all over me as I was lying down apparently taking a rest.
I catch hold of Tejas feet in a crocodile grip and say I am a croc, I have caught you.
Tejas struggles.
Ojas- tum crococodile hai? (are you a crocodile/)
Enthu Mamma- yes arrrrrrrr I will eat you
Ojas- tries to reconfirm- tum crocodile hai
Enthu Mamma hasn't cottoned on- yes...aaaaarrrrr
Ojas- does the undescribable before positioning his bum over my open mouth- as you said where I should do "it" if I wanted to go in the park.......

So Where Have I Been?

-Hosting dinner parties - pics of which are unfortunately in the camera and not reached my laptop yet- don't ask- long story
-Generally being tired, busy, cannot-be-arsed-to-post types
-Battling illness in the home
-Buying new plants for the empty pots after some plants suffered from the excess rain
-Trying hard to declutter
-Busy at work

Speaking of illness, here's an update
The kids have been suffering from chronic cold & cough and the doc has adviced them to take a 3 month course of Lasma-4. A tablet a day keeps the sniffles at bay or atleast at a lower intensity. But if this is low, I wonder what high would be.
Ojas was down with fever yesterday and I was most annoyed because which means he will miss out on the Guindy national park outing that the school had planned. Now I was worried that they will miss out on the concept. Ahem, correction- they will miss out on the fun. Anyway Tejas went and Ojas was most annoyed after he woke up. Since I was in the vicinity at that time, I toyed with the idea of dropping Ojas at the park in the car. But then he said he just wants to pick up Tejas from school. So matter solved.

And offcourse I have my own doctor story-
Since Ojas was having 102 degrees the entire night and the fever refused to come down inspite of paracetamol, I spoke to the doctor and he said come and I will see you first.
I told the receptionist that since Ojas is having high fever, please allow us to go in first. But the paracetamol had taken effect this time and he was his bright and cheerful self commenting on ther kids, discussing who is baby and who is big, looking at the fish. All this while I tried to make him look morose and sick.
Well, the receptionist said 12 patients before you.
I played my ace- But he is having a motion accident everytime he coughs.
Receptionist says- ok 3 patients before you!

Notes from Yesterday

A Long Girls' Day Out
It is so much more fun because a working day was duly bunked and one of us came down specifically from Bangalore- we don't let work or distance get in the way of fun.
The agenda was eat, gossip and have fun
Which called for
1. XL buffet at Residency Towers Main Street- 5 trips each to the buffet atleast! We ate enough to last till today's breakfast but even then we feel we did not do enough justice. We didn't even touch the vegetarian, ate only half the desserts and half the salads and 2 varieties of juice. I strongly feel God should have given the option of external stomach. It's the stomach that is the culprit-the mouth and brain is always ready to take it on.

2. 2012 at Sathyam- can you believe it without popcorns?
The movie seriously freaked me out. But WTF? Africa becomes the safest place to rehabilitate? Someone was predicting India is going to become the most powerful nation? Get your basics right man! Anyway Phoenix I want to join you in the quest for someone to lend that few crores you were talking about. And oh, I do not have a billion dollars, I am a poor swimmer and a poor driver. I do not know how to fly a plane and I run really slowly. What are my chances?

3. Coffee Day at Ispahani- a huge brownie sizzler with ice cream and coffees. The servers did not disturb us- wonder how they guessed we are not the drink eat and rush types?

The only minus point was that I broke my yet another sandal (I am seriously worried- why do I break so many sandals- but AD directed me to a small shop and I got a really stylish jeans material slipper for 100 bucks. Made me seriously rethink this buying of expensive sandals in Metros & Kobblers that break at a single twist of the foot or stumble at the uneven roads.

Sumo Troll

The Sumo honked crazily when the Swift was trying to cross the signal. It honked yet again when the Swift was taking a left turn on the busy road.
"Ah well- let him pass"- thought the Swift.
And then the Swift honked the Sumo's ears off for about a km.
It so happened that the Swift found itself in front of the Sumo who was yet again honking.
The Swift decided to trick the Sumo.
Hovered and zigzagged on the busy road till it reached the signal that soon turned yellow from green.
The Swift short across and the Sumo was left angrily rotting behind the red signal.

*Evil Cackle*

Shanghai

Long long ago we had worked on Shanghai as a concept for one of our creatives. Little did I know that one day I would find myself walking the same streets of Shanghai (not)!
Because we were mostly driving! Sadly I did not feel the real spirit of Shanghai- no walks, not much haggling & shopping, no sightseeing.

We stayed in Shanghai Sheraton - a hotel with yummy breakfast spreads- I freaked on chocolate based baked stuff and midnight chicken sandwiches that came with a huge not-finish-able bowl of the most sinful potato wedges / french fries

So here's what little we did there...
A little shopping at Pearl market- a closed market with shoes/ garments/ bags in the ground floor, pearl in the 1st floor and electronics & others in the 2nd floor- a huge-ish fake market with lots of bargaining potential. I picked up some sovenier magnets, a coat necessiated by the sudden orange alert- a drop of 10 degree in a day, and a pair of kalaiedoscopes for the kids which they simply love peering into.

This are pics of flower baskets that are mounted on the road sides- I simply loved them.

The next day we were taken to Shanghai Huahai Quanjude Roast Duck - a dynasty style restaurant. Note the traditional attire and the uncomfortable looking shoes with the heels in the centre We had peking duck, fish, caramel apple, and various other meats and non meats. The next day we were taken to xibei- a modern chinese restaurant. This time I was more particular about clicking snaps.
Blueberry Tofu
Cabbage Salad Fish that was so well marinated that the bones were also softened
Tofu again - it came with a sauce made of shallot + soya sauce + vinegar that was majorly yummy
sort of pizza with spinach-ish greens
lamb, beef, pork
dimsum with that yummy mustard plus soya sauce
very very gamey lamb strips Gala finale at Karaoke Bar

The last day was spent airport hopping- Shanghai to Changi. I was down with fever so spent most of the time sleeping, and the balance time shopping aided with paracetamol.

I had to pick up a couple of whiskeys for a colleague and Absolutes for the husband.

They had this roll in the good times promo and I got to roll a coin in the slot machine. To my surprize I got a 50 Sing Dollar voucher which was well spent on a Vogue Sunglasses worth 146 Sing- the cheapest I could find!

Tejas is very J- why didn't you buy a pair for me?

Then I got another go at the roll and got a 5 Sing dollar voucher which I handed over to the lady in Security as I had no time to spend them... Lucky lady.

And offcourse the presentation in the conference was well appreciated!

Fresh Pepper Pickle

Fresh, Astringent, Biting, Sour, errr Peppery...I am addicted to them.

Bought them in the most unlikely of places- push cart vendor.

Just 8-10 sticks of them washed, dried and put in a glass bottle.

Pour vinegar, add salt and maybe turmeric & lime - but you could do without them too.

Vinegar & salt are enough.

Leave the bottle in the sun for a day

I love to put them in sandwiches also. Love the bite they give....

Mamma Dadda's Presents

Even though Dadda paid for it but who cares. The kids believe that Mamma gave them the study table- they must have noticed how Mamma trekked the streets in her high heels, poking her head into every shop large & small and haggling for a better price, looking for style, designs, colours, checking the height of chair, table etc etc. Notice the different designs- selected by Ojas & Tejas.

A Sunday morning is apt to assemble the table. Especially if you have a handy Engineer uncle to help you with it. You first separate the parts into chair & table and then look at the haphazard looking drawing on the pack to assemble. Not an easy cake- what helped us was that we had taken the picture of the display model in the shop at the shopowner's recommendation

Not by design, it turns out that the table Ojas so patiently helped assemble was actually Tejas' so they have been asked to share while Dadda apparently goes out to get some more parts for the table.
They do their pending homework still sharing the single tableUntil Dadda comes back home and we assemble the second one together.

This is Our New House

That Sunshine gave us.

A cool thing to have isn't it?

We take our toys inside and play there and also do lots of secret stuff like coloring with sketch pens which is otherwise heavily monitored.

If we want, we can even watch TV from the window

Best part is Mamma & Dadda cannot get into it.

Hum bhi Laptop Waale Ho Gaye

Thank You Mausa & Mausi for the Lapitops that you sent all the way from CS (US they mean).
We simply love it and work very hard on it.

We have even learnt to place the batteries correctly and have our own method of identifying which is whose based on the difference in the battery holder in the otherwise identical laptops.

We even have our own lapitop bags!

No Petrol

Ok so i have also experienced the sinking, dragging, pulling feeling that the engine exudes when the tank dries up. Last week had been extremely hectic with the birthday planning and Shanghai visit. And the fact that both had to be planned and executed simultaneously left me with little time to even think of other things.
Which meant I never noticed the steadily diminishing fuel tank.
And at a point, in the middle of the traffic, to my utter horror, the car started dragging, the engine spluttered and groaned and as my brain began registering that the fuel could have dried, my eyes flashed towards the fuel meter conforming my fears - I gave a cry of despair and tried in vain to steer the car to the side.
Hindered by a parked car I could not achieve that on time and the car stopped blocking traffic behind me.
Just the kind of mistake a woman would make. Cliched but true - as I did it and I am a woman. Roar Roar by the way.
Anyway, when crisis happens call mom or hubby is my rule. Here hubby seemed the most useful person to call with a potential to come as a knight in shining armour and easily because this happened just 3 km away from home.
Then I walked out of the car and gestured for people to come and help me push the car to a corner.
No body came.
People cursed and gestured at me instead.
A gentleman in his 60 s came over and took the matter in his hands. Told me you steer I push. I hesitated seeing his age but he insisted and helped me steer the car to the side.
Shame on you those auto drivers, bike riders and sundry other passerbys who did not raise even a finger to help but just watched as an elderly gentleman struggled to help a damsel in distress.

So the Party was a Mega Success

The theme was candies and I spent days planning the candy based games for the bunch of 45 kids & 35 adults I had managed to invite.

So first things first-

The decor- Balloons and Happy Birthday Streamers and candies stuck on the walls- coutsey Dadda

A giant lollypop fashioned out of a ball placed in a Stax pack- of -3 net bag secured with rubberbands and a red ribbon on a stick and covered with coloured paper.

This was pushed into the mud right at the door of the party hall. That's another matter than someone thought it is a mop covered with paper! grrr....

No I am not advertising- this is the pinata bag- a paper bag filled with lollypops and jelly toffees and decorated with candy wrappers and candy packet cutouts. The bag was sellotaped in the top.

The games-

The kids assembled at 5.30 pm and since most kids were from the complex it was easier to start on time.

We had the balance the jelly cup on your head race first. Offcourse all kids were winners as they got to keep their jelly cups.

Next was the spoon and coin chocolate race (chocolate instead of lemon on the spoon)- I named the race "can you save your money"

For the kids upto 5 age group I had an easy set of games like-

Search for money- chocolate coins inside a tub full of thermocol bits and 'fill your bag with chocolate race"- gave them plastic bags and asked them to fill it up with candies and run. Ojas & Tejas did exactly what their mausi did 28 years ago- just kept on collecting the toffees and never ran.

Then there was the candy marathon- The kids were divided into 5 groups and made to stand in a line.

The finish line was scattered with toffees and at the blow of the whistle, they were supposed to run one by one, collect 2 candies and come back and the next one in the group would run to collect candies. The whistle blew to end the race at the end of a minute (correction- when the toffees started getting over)!

We had the grand breaking the pinata attempt- a shoehorn served as the pinata bat. The younger kids were picked up to hit and the older ones blind folded.

We then went inside the hall to have the "guess the number of candies in the jar". A paper was passed on for the kids to fill in their guesses and the closest guessers shared the candies.

The grand finale was the Candola- the tambola with candy names instead of numbers. I used this site to generate the tambola numbers , and this sheet to get a precalled set of numbers.

I pasted the generated numbers to an excel sheet, then assigned candy names to numbers from 1 to 59 in a separate sheet and sorted them alphabetically. Then I did a find replace command and replaced numbers on the bingo sheet with candy names. Instead of 15 numbers on a ticket, I had a cap of 12 numbers with 4 in each row since the numbers were not upto 99.

The next task was deletion of columns containing numbers from 60 to 99 in the sheet.

Finally the candy names were assigned to the precalled number sheet in similar manner and the tickets cut painstakingly the night before.

Kids & the parents of younger kids participated in the game and the prize was - yes- chocolate coins!

The cake was Tom & Jerry- their current favourite cartoon and not a hansel and gretel candy house as I originally planned as that would have not been understood by the kids.

Earlier I used to have lotus/ firecracker candles that did not require blowing. But I noticed that the kids wanted to blow candles and were embarassing me by blowing candles at other's birthday parties!

So I went overboard this time. We had the number 4 candles, the Happy Birthday Letter candle and a magic candle for luck that would relight even after blowing- the kids were maha thrilled at this one!

Notice that the table used for the cake cutting is their 2 study tables joined together and covered with a duppatta- I forgot to scatter the candies I wanted to before cake cutting as things got a bit rushed.

The cake was duly cut - Tom for Ojas - a choco scotch flavour and Jerry for Tejas- strawberry flavour- keeping in mind the candy and chocolate theme! (force fitting eh!)

The return gifts were either plastic binoculars (everybody across age group wanted them even though they would have broken after reaching home!), or rubik cube (nobody wanted them) or brainvita for the older kids and bubble maker & color book for the younger kids.

The snacks were a pre packed box of samosa, chips, macaroon & an appy tetrapack- less for adults but ok for kids - but that was not the key- the fun the kids had was the key!

I have been attempting to make parties for the kids more experiential than just cake and snacks and I think I did fairly ok.

A word on logistics-

1. Lists lists and lists- of invitees, return gifts, games and items needed to be arranged

2. the night before the party I packed separate game bags- each bag had the stuff needed for the game- like spoon & precounted candies packed together, thermocol and a pack of chocolates packed together, candola chits, toothpicks packed in a box etc. and the game list was placed in the game bag for easy access.

3. There was a separate bag for cake items- candles, knife, matchbox, candies to be scattered- which was kept in the shelf of the table that was to be used for the cake cutting so that there would be no searching at the time of cake cutting. Also on the size of cake- 1 kg gives about 15 good size pieces, so we did a 5kg cake for 80 pax

4. Dividing responsibility- for photography, videography, hall decor, lollypop making (Dadda's), helping me with the game (neighbour),

5. Volunteers- helping in snack distribution & cake cutting, neighbour ladies and AD

6. The one who would remind me of my responsibilities towards the end of the party when I got dazed and zombied and would take care of organising the gifts neatly- neighbour

Thank you all those who made the party fun.

Special thanks to R- the neighbour who was like a rock- she is a mother of twins too so she knows!

The dear friends & the enthu kids who came over t make my planning a success

The "blogger" friends - AD, Sunshine & Don, Art-Navy with Anush & yay- Aditi- (her first party?), IBH with kaju & camera!- the only problem being I could hardly interact with them and they missed all the games except candola- grrrrr

Happy Birthday Darling Sons

Mamma & Dadda wish you both a very Happy Birthday!
My babies are growing too fast. Is it already time for the talk?
The proof is herewith.....

Moment after the stroke of 12 your first discussion with each other has been on body parts especially the private variety.
So says Ojas- no, Mamma ka lengu nahin hota hai. Mamma ka legs hota hai (err yes that's the story I gave them that Mamma & aunties and other venerable ladies have legs.
Tejas- Nahin, hota hai, toh Mamma susu kaise karega? (No, they do have else how will Mamma pee?)
Err with legs is what I said if you ask but ahem don't tell me its time already?

Don't grow so fast on me babies...

They are grown enough to know that Saturday 5.30 pm is the party
They are grown enough to ask me whose gift is this before tearing the wrapper open
They are doing homeworks on their own. No hand holding, no constant supervision.
They are playing on their own- they don't even need me to be with them
They eat on their own unless I want a quick job done
They color on their own
They know how to negotiate with each other and convince each other
They can argue out their case like their Dad

After 4 years of motherhood, have I grown?
1. Less of losing control
2. More of benign neglect- I am not obsessively keeping them in sight- but I still call out to check from time to time
3. More of the need to be with them- so very less of leaving them home and going out.
4. More comfortable taking them out with me- we did a solo park visit one day
5. More chilled out about missed meals and junk food

Cheers!