Pics Time

First Pasta that kids tried out (at pizza hut, banashankari 2nd stage). nidhi didn't like it (and drank my ice tea instead & sucked out the remaining juice from the lemon piece). neha, as evident, loved it.

kids, tender coconut, mama, osi scoprio, mysore

both posing as goddess lakshmi - you have to imagine coins spilling off the plastic bowl in nidhi's case and in neha's case, you have to imagine the plastic bowl as well. neha is sitting on the plastic container we keep monthly provisions in.

how to describe khara

Nidhi & Ajji

In the last few days, there have been two instances involving nidhi and my mom that are worth noting.

Neha & Nidhi usually talk in Kannada between themselves except when it comes to playing with their army of barbies. They have watched a few barbie movies & tend to imitate the way she speaks in them and hence English makes it in as their communication tool. The other day, both were playing with their barbies and my mom entered the room. neha told my mom not to come in and nidhi wanted to say "mucchu baayi, namm ajji avaru".
she said "stop mouth, she is my grand ma"

yesterday, we had been to our parents house in the evening. Nidhi assumed that my mom will come to our house with us. When she didn't join us in the car, nidhi started crying inconsolably. My mom tried to cook up reasons as to why she cant come with us. She said I've not had my dinner yet and will eat and come later. between the 100 decibels of wailing, nidhi blabbered "namm manege ba, amma seege kaayi huli maadidhaare, alle thinnu".
seege kaayi huli? soap nut sambar? yuck.

Moral Lessons ke side effects

we teach the kids to be honest and speak truth always
Two weeks back one of my PUC friends visited me and I met him after long time. In fact veena and kids met him the first time. He had come along with his wife and sister & her family to check out an apartment to buy in our complex. Since birth, he has squint in one of his eyes & the eye ball is a little green. I guess it is called noonan syndrome but am not sure (I'm as smart as google search algorithm :-)). I and he were very close friends at one point of time but I had never asked him anything about this defect, thinking it is embarrassing to do so. Nidhi saw him and the first set of questions she asks him are : "ninge kannu kaanalva? kanna mele yaake sticker haakondu idheeya?" Thankfully he took it sportingly and brushed it aside as manufacturing defect.

This one happened a few years back but i still find it hilarious and is probably one of the most embarrassing moments I've been in:
i & veena had taken shreya (my brother's elder daughter) to a fruit stall near home. She was around 2.5 years then. While we were shopping, shreya noticed a very fat man standing next to us and buying fruits. she asked me " chikkappa, avanige dumma andhre baithaana?"
What am I supposed to respond back? if i say "yes, he'll scold you" that negates the moral lesson we teach the kids of speaking truth. If i say no, she would have told him that on the face. Either way that guys would be cheesed off. He already was but didn't know how to respond to the situation. Even i didn't know. I just carried her away from that stall as soon as I could without glancing at that person.

we teach kids to have ambitions in life
yesterday I gave neha examples of people in different professions (like teacher, engineer, doctor, bus driver, athlete...) and asked her what she'd like to be when she grows up. She responded "I'll become a mother". Now I was happy but thought it is a pretty modest goal to have in life (mind you it is the most challenging job once you get it but modest to aim for, i think). But then again, I was happy cos the job a mother does is what appealed to neha the most over others. This is recognition of some of the hard choices veena took after kids were born (to quit a good software career and become a home maker)