Following Suit

He managed to rescue this from going down the drain.


Sent from BlackBerry® on Airtel

3rd down

And this one I managed to preserve.

The Paris and Holzminden Trip Update

September I was in Paris for a global conference and being the first time to Europe in my conscious senses, I took a very nice camera (not). My N8 camera was the only one that served me well during this trip.

This is the dear little place I stayed for a couple of days. My husband's family and this is where I saw my first apple tree and a sprawling garden full of flowers and fruits.

 I traveled Emirates and landed on Saturday night. After spending a very restless night we finally took off to see Paris. For the first time in my life, shopping was not on my agenda. I was more interested in walking the very streets and seeing the very sights that I have so far only read about.

We did the famous Avenue - Champs Elysees 

And took the metro to Charles de Gaulle

Yes Street musicians do exist in Europe..I always thought they were a little fancy but nothing  really fancy about them, they really are possibly homeless and singing or playing for alms. 

The Sacre Cour Church. We were too lazy to take the steps so took the elevator. 

 The Invalides church. Like an army cantonment.

 With Napolean's tomb. I could feel the sense of history flowing through me.

 And finally the Eiffel Tower. The highlight of my trip. We stood in the queue for the tickets however they closed the summit.

 So we and that's the husband's cousin and me went to sit by the Siene and wait for the lights and sparkling lights to come on and just took in the sight.

 Driving past the Louvre

The Notre dame church by which we had dinner next evening with our office colleagues.

 An interesting display with a flower behind a bulb. the rotation of the bulb created an enchanting pattern.

 The last day of my trip. We went back to Eiffel Tower and climbed the 600 plus steps to make it to the top. While it was exhausting and sometimes scary to look down, the breathtaking view from the top made it worthwhile. If I were to do it again, I would certainly do it on foot.

 Homesick in Paris? No problem? You can just walk straight and you will reach India.

 The Louvre. Another must visit...

 If only it was to just meet Monalisa

 In Holzminden, we stayed at a lovely hotel with rooms built to German size. Quite a contrast from the matchbox size rooms in Paris.
This is one of the patterns that I found were repeated quite often in the houses there.

 The scenic drive between hotel and office.

And final destination for shopping was the Dubai airport for me!!! 

And the Birthday Party

Was total madness. In cold blooded fashion I decided to do a painting party because 7 is all about colours.

And not just any ordinary painting. T shirt painting.

The return gifts were these very same masterpieces however the kids expected a concrete return gift which cheapo aunty me did not provide.

The preparation involved buying various sizes t shifts , 2 dozens of them including infant sized ones where their sailings could paint for them.

Buying paints, brushes and assembling other items for painting like ear buds, plastic knife, toothbrush, toys with shapes to stamp the design in a pattern.

T shirts came with their cardboards but we also inserted newspapers so that colours did not stick to the backside.

My original plan was to create ink lot designs, sprinkle paint drops and fold the t shirt lengthwise and open to get a random design.

However the kids would have none of that. They insisted they paint themselves and it was heartening to see the kids go all crazy with their own concepts. For once mine did not stick with each other but were on different tables with their friends.

The cake was great tasting with a disastrous rukando design which looked like a cross between Hanuman's langot and a devils horn, and so it is best forgotten and unphotographed. 

The food was street food concept Chole bhature, dahi vada, samosa, chicken 65, gulab jamun, ice
cream, juice.

I am not sure whether the kids will end up wearing their masterpieces but I think it was worth the experience.

What I could have done better was,
A) done the party in the afternoon so that they could play afterwards and once the t shirt would dry they could wear that for the cake cutting which was my original plan anyway however since they did not dry and it would add to the logistics it would be crazy.

B) added a piñata or a small return gift as the kids like that the best and I couldn't because I was too tired to even think of what gift to buy and manage the logistics of changing numbers of guests.

C) I wish I could have done he ink lot design as that would give it a neat finish however then the kids wouldn't have had the experience of painting the same.





The adults were around to help them with ideas and they put their names and some even put their phone numbers on the t shirt apart from a thumb or palm print.

Happy 7th

A friend says this is one anniversary (motherhood anniversary) that will not give the 7 year itch!

So a quick one to say that my babies, even though I scream at you like all the time, I still love you as much as I did 7 years ago.

Even though I cannot stand you guys for more than a few hours, I still miss you when I am travelling or at work.

My heart gives a pang everytime you walk away to the class and I think, wish I could have been a silent and far off observer while you did your own thing at school.

A few milestones that we achieved this year...
 Two lower incisors fell off for both at the same time and the upper incisors are loose for both. Tejas' one incisor has dropped off and is currently safe in my car!

I did a 10 day official trip, a first in terms of being away from my babies.

Ojas today assembled a scientific toy rocket on his own just seeing the manual. 

The kids prefer to stay home and play rather than go out with us.

We tried to instill the display of affection by designating an official bedtime huggy time between the brothers.

The birds and the bees are being observed with observations like girls like boys!!

 This time they sat up till 00 hours because they new that with the turn of the clock their birthday arrives.

Culture Curry Teaches Hindi

If you are at a loss to finding a fun wy to teach hndi to your children above 2 years, culture curry is the apt place for you.www.culturecurry.net has launched a new application available in iTunes stre. It is an interactive Hindi learning application which introduces early learners to all the Hindi alphabets in a fun manner. The flash cards are interactive, touch a clock and the alarm rings. 

Each flash card further introduces more words and concepts like the six sides of a hexagon is further used to teach colours. Or the basket of fruits is used to teach the various fruits therefore the app does not rely n a straightforward method of just teaching a word at a time but also acts exactly as a parent or teacher would. Explode the picture into parts and patterns and further build on the same. 

There is also a section on tracing the letters in four different chalk colours and even erasing them. 

 A fun and catchy tune gives the background thus adding a music to the sound dimension of the learning.

 The app is priced at $1.99 in the US and accordingly in other regions.

About Culture Curry

Culture Curry was conceived to help children and parents connect with their Indian heritage. Taking advantage of new technologies like tablets and smart phones, it aims to provide healthy, fun and supportive tools, which will bring you and your child closer to your culture. 

If you would like further information on Let's Learn Hindi!, or you would like to schedule an interview, please contact :

Website: www.culturecurry.net

Email: suggestions@culturecurry.net

Facebook: www.facebook.com/CultureCurryApps

Twitter: @culturecurryapp

Violence Against Women Awareness Month: October 2012

It's October and once again, we're talking about Violence Against Women.

Please join our Violence Against Women Awareness Month 2012. You can

'Like', share and join our discussions on Facebook
Tweet, retweet and share our conversations on Twitter
Join the blogathon and follow all VAWM news on our blog

As always, you are welcome to share your stories, insights or any other information by emailing us at vawawareness@gmail.com -- requests for confidentiality or anonymity will be respected.

If you have problems with the badge code from the blog, download and then post the badge image and link it to the blog. It takes a minute more but it's just as effective.

Nosey Boy

Tejas-are you making prawn

Mamma- how do you know?

Tejas- I got the smell

Maa ka beta hai! 

Response to Mum's the Word

Post the article got published in Hindustan Times-  http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/Print/926789.aspx#

Both Sunayana and Kiran did their take on their blogs and I really thought that was a good idea and hence here we are.

Manjula had sent us some very pertinent questions to be answered and some of them touched upon my favourite result of blogging, the community of mommy bloggers and their support system. Yes we never met in the real world at the time we started blogging but over time, we conducted blog meets in our cities, mobilised people and began to find commonalities in attitudes and therefore we became friends beyond the blog world.

 I started my blog primarily to record memories of my children and soon it graduated to become an extension of me. Food, shopping, weight mangement, books, my home, my office, my career, my garden, my extended family

Will I ever stop blogging about my kids?  I am not sure a Mom can ever stop talking about her kids. But I am not sure how long I will continue to blog about them. It all depends on them if they object from a privacy point of view. If not the blog, I will find some other medium. Like FB. It is not just recording the life of my kids, it is also about sharing their antics with the family, their grandparents, aunts, uncles who don't get to see them on a regular basis. 

2006 was a great place to be in the blog world. We were a large community of Mommy bloggers. Those same names are still active. Either blogging about the kids or other things of interest. I aspire to continue as long as possible. As a medium it gives me more creative width than a social networking site.

May the Mommy blogger tribe live on!!

Rivo Kids

I recently came across this lovely site called www.rivokids.com which covers fun stuff to do with kids like science experiments, art and craft and also has a section called meethi memories which can help one make an online scrap book.

I loved the experiment - see water walk. ( http://rivokids.com/walking-water). A simple experiment which will help children understand science concepts.

The website is easy to operate.

Go on, check it out. 

Creating MeethiMemories or ParentPicks : It's as Easy as 1..2..3.. Let us show you how...

Step 0 : Sign up for an Account at RivoKids. It takes only a minute.

For MeethiMemories...

Login to your Account. Set up your kids (name/birthdate/gender)

Create a Meethi Memory. You can send us your MeethiMemories (Text and/or Pics) via website, email or SMS. Watch your beautiful Memory Book take shape.

View your child's Memory Book. You can select a template for your Memory Book from our beautiful professionally designed Template Gallery.

That's it!! Enjoy!. You can Share or Print your MeethiMemory Books. No downloading 
of bulky software or waiting for hours for the photo book editing tool to load.

For ParentPicks...

Once you've signed up, Log Into your account.

If there is a game, activity, or website that you and your child love, Click here to create a ParentPick.

Choose a category for your ParentPick. Type in the name of your ParentPick and why you like it and then Click to Submit