Trin Trin - the cycles are here!

The last 3 weeks have been exciting for us while the kids scaled a new peak in terms of how much they wait to get something. Every morning when they wake up, the first words they speak are"there are only x days remaining now to get the cycle". Both have been extra nice to me the last few weeks and I have been showered with above average number of hugs & kisses from them. Usually when there is a discussion in the house, the kids typically side Veena since I'm the only boy in the house. That has changed in the last 3 weeks as well.

While the diligent Neha waited by counting the pending days in a sheet & ticking them (and even signing against them :-)) for the last few days, the dreamer nidhi chose to put her vision on a piece of paper. Check out the snaps below.

After their long wait, they got their cycles last Saturday. Nidhi chose a pink one while Neha picked a red one. Over the weekend, they probably have clocked about 7 or 8 hours riding them. Nidhi, as promised, gave rides to her friends and even shared with them. Neha too shared the cycle with their best friend Kruthi. Kruthi was the proud owner of a small cycle all these days that neha & nidhi would beg her for a ride unsuccessfully. She swelled with sorrow on seeing that everyone has a cycle that is bigger than hers. She wept and convinced her parents to get her a new one next week. Now a similar story will unfold in the neighbors' house

Road to Cycle

Two months back, after growing taller consistently for a while, kids got tired of their three wheel cycles. They were embarrassed as well to take it down and pedal in front of their friends. The desire for a regular cycle grew in them. The desire turned into a need when most of their friends in the apartment bought cycles. They started demanding for one each. They were very clear about not sharing a single cycle between them since the outset.

For a year now, I had been collecting coins in a mud "hundi" (bought in kadlekayi parshe). The idea was to help kids learn the value of saving. I had been putting coins in there mostly myself till this time. I thought this was a good time to teach them again, to save. I told that it'll cost about 6000 rupees for two cycles and so if both start putting coins into the hundi, it'll be full by their next birthday (April) and I'll buy them then. They argued and bargained on an earlier date and so December holidays was fixed as the time.

The last two months, they have been scrounging for coins everywhere. My bag pockets after I return home, dakshina given with kosambari in ganesha and dasara festivals... They would pocket the coins I leave as tips in a restaurant and tell me to put a note instead. They managed to fill the pot about 3/4ths till last Saturday. Then their patience ran out and they were pretty desperate to know how much has been collected so far. I was empathetic to their situation and we together broke the hundi and counted all the coins. It added upto 1700. I told kids that I'll put the remaining money and buy them the cycles in December. They bargained with me again and pulled in the date to 1st December. Now the count down has started 29 days, 28 days...

They have new found energy about the cycles now. Neha wants me to get the cycle over the night and surprise her on 1st when she wakes up. Nidhi, being the DVS Karna* that she is, is already promising free rides on her cycle to her friends.

* DVS Karna = Dhana Veera Shura Karna

gems

I'll try to recollect some incidents in my life as a parent that have stood out for being hilarious or innocent or thought provoking. I'll build this post in the next few days as and when I remember the incidents:

incident #1

This happened about 3 years back. Veena loves the song from "amrutha varshini" and used to play this often:

"ತುಂತುರು ಅಲ್ಲಿ ನೀರ ಹಾಡು ಕಂಪನ ಇಲ್ಲಿ ಪ್ರೀತಿ ಹಾಡು

ಹಗಲಿರಲಿ ಇರುಳಿರಲಿ ನೀನರದೆ ಹೇಗಿರಲಿ

Couple of days of hearing and nidhi was humming the mukda well till the second line.

Cute gunda nidhi would say "ಹಗಲಿರಲಿ, ಈರುಳ್ಳಿ ಈರುಳ್ಳಿ..."

incident #2

we had to send something by post. Neha showed the letter box for our flat in the apartment and said why don't you put it here. The postman who comes to drop letters there can pick those as well. I wonder why that cant happen.

incident #3

This one is more for record keeping. This year in school, focus is on building the vocabulary. Teacher gives them a dictation test every Monday. Kids were doing pretty well till this week. They had their first failure scoring 1/8 and 2/8. I just found it cute that both did badly in the same week.

incident #4

This one happened yesterday. kids are learning tables at school. I'm not sure if they understand the concept of multiplication but are enthusiastically mugging up and know till "five one za".

neha observed the tables for 11 in the book and saw that it is an easy pattern to remember and mugged it up silently. She went to veena to showcase her learning. She recited the entire table correctly and closed it with "Eleven ten za Eleventy".

pic

An artist's impression of neha & nidhi, on our visit to that amazing place - chitra kala parishat

anagram and word game

When I came back from work last Tuesday, nidhi was super excited to tell me about the discovery she had made that afternoon. She shouted "appa" and then said "wait", ran to her room and got her hindi words book, showed the cover and said "look, there is a nidhi in hindi". Till that time, I or Veena hadn't thought of this anagram. After she showed, it seemed to be sitting there fairly obviously, always.

This left neha morose and needing attention. So we started looking for words that contain letters to make a neha. We stopped at elephant and were able to spin out the following words - neha, ant, pant, hat, at, an, plant, pet, net...

last few days kids are on a reading spree, looking at boards, newspapers, magazines, plastic covers, bags for words that would contain their names, either jumbled up or within.

conversation on death

Two days back, we visited kids' doddajji at mysore. (great granny) She is recovering from a heart attack. we had told the kids that she had high fever and since she was weak, had been admitted to the hospital. When the nurse got doddajji out for her stroll on the wheel chair, nidhi burst out crying. She was shocked to see her condition - weak and on a wheel chair and wearing a hospital gown. She asked "appa, doddavarge jwara bandhre ee thara aagthara?" After granny was taken back to the ICU, kids had a conversation with me that was tough and hilarious at the end:

nidhi: appa, why hasn't her husband come to see her?

me: kandha, dodda thatha died 3 years back.

nidhi: why did he die?

me: cos he was 100 years old and weak and he died. everyone has to die when they are old

(he died when was around 80, 100 is the age that kids have in picture when they think of death. so I didn't want to change that image; there isn't much now use in changing either. the sense of time they have now is that they can make out what day after tomorrow is; not beyond that; weeks, months, years are terms they use without understanding much)

nidhi: what happened to him after dying? did he become a star?

me: yes, god takes his life from his body and converts that to a star

(effect of watching mythological movies that they think people become stars after dying)

nidhi: which star is he now? show me?

me: god doesn't tell us which star is who, so we cant make out.

neha: how does god pull out the life from body? he would be wearing a shirt right?

me: god has powers to do that kandha

They seemed satisfied and remained silent for a while. I was feeling relieved. After a couple of minutes, Neha tried to start some other conversation, "appa, when I'm in tenth standard.."

Before she completed her query, Nidhi stopped her

"hey bide, appa aavaga star aagirthaare"

Uh, umm...

That has been the expression on our locked up mouths of late. The kids have shocked us with their responses in conversations on varied topics. Here are some:

veena: neha, hogi toys yethidu, room clean maadu

neha: thumba rough aagi maatadhtheeyamma neenu

veena: uh, umm..

Kids insisted that veena feed them their lunch

veena: nimge istu vayasaithu neeve thinko beku

neha: ahaha neenu mathra thinniskolalva?

veena: naan yelli thinnuskotheene? yaara hathra?

neha: appa ninge maduveli thinnislilva?

veena: uh, umm..

One of the assignements given by their teacher was to paste a picture of the family in their books. Veena was searching around for two suitable snaps for each one of them. Neha commented

" yellaru iro photo idhre kodu, illadidre nannna hane baraha"

videos

neha has learnt by heart, the colgate tooth paste ad beaming on TV - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vp4sqmki9EA

nidhi learnt a rhyme at school recently and was super excited to record it in the handy cam - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Vfvr2Ad5hI&feature=related

Comparisons

During my early years, we as children were being compared among ourselves by the elders in the family. Words such as "Oh my! he's just like his brother " or " Why dont you learn some of your brother's good habits" would be commonly heard in the household. This , directly or not , sometimes even led to sibling rivalry.

We never understood the purpose of that exercise by elders. It would inadvertently lead to unpleasant situations, like say during our annual results time.  Veena has seen a fair share of these things as well, in her growing years. 

When we had twins, we realised that this is one of the main things that we will have to guard ourselves against doing. Actually there isn't anything the kids would have to do. They just have to be themselves and we should let them be that. These girls arent even six and we are already seeing many issues. 

Raising two girls of the same age who are very different in nature has been a challenge in many ways but the biggest challenge has been to treat them differently but yet equally. Veena has taken this responsibility upon herself almost fully and that is fantastic. This particular aspect has given us many sleepless nights, has been the topic of  humour, has forced tears down our cheeks..

It is humorous when 

people talk about Neha being shorter than Nidhi and she sees this ad on TV and insists that her mom should buy her Complan. We were using Boost as the energy drink for kids. Now Neha actually drinks Complan and thinks she is growing faster. She goes grocery shopping with Veena, carries back home the Complan pack herself and proudly announces "appa, it has 23 vitamins!"

It is amusing to

watch Veena tell them their bedtime stories. She has to sleep between them, her hands spread like eagle wings to act as pillow for their heads and her own head has to face the ceiling. (equi distant from either of them). She turns it one side and the kid on the other side gets upset.

It hurts when

people chide nidhi for being more mischievous. She being very sensitive, equates that to her being a "bad girl" and comes and asks her mom "amma, why did you ask god for two papus?"

Faces

You'd remember that Neha is the kalpana of our house. She is usually mild mannered but goes bonkers sometimes & in those moods, becomes a treat to watch.
The collage shows various expressions that her face wore, on a recent trip.

Gifts of Life

One of the earliest photos I have of myself, is the class photo when I was in "preparatory" class. Then the nursery classes were called lkg, ukg & preparatory. So that was my 6th year of life. I remember my friends from that class, remember my teacher and had in fact met her later in my student life. So for me, anything before my 6th year is a blur and after that I remember several things. When I realise that my kids are now in their 6th year, three thoughts come to my mind - "you are getting old, but great memory, wow, kids are already there!"

The last comment is amazing to me because I still remember very vividly the moment they were born on Apr 2nd evening, 2004. That defintely has to be the moment of my life. I remember my brain jammed. There were so much excitement and so many thoughts going through it that I felt I was carrying a numb muscle in my head. I was trying to recollect what all I felt then or if somebody has written on a similar experience felt. 

Recently I read up this rather interesting essay by Atul Chaturvedi called "Gift of Life" in "Chicken Soup for Indian Soul" and I felt he has described most of what I felt when I became a dad. I have reproduced a good portion of that essay here (thanks to Atul) :

"she leaned towards me and handed my daughter over to me. I felt her warmth. She was small, delicate, she was simply beautiful, wrapped in this soft white linen that still seemed too rough for her. Till that moment, I used to think she was mine... but now I realized it is just the opposite. I was hers. I held her close. The true motive of my life stared at me through those half-opened eyes. I was responsible for her now. I had to protect her, nurture her, love her; not because, she was mine but because I was her slave. I knew I wouldn't , even in my dreams, be able to repay her for what she had given me; happiness, contentment, courage.

My heart now beat within this little being.

I had never held a baby before in my life. I felt awkward. And then I remembered she had never been held by anyone in her life. And yet there was no fear in her. If she was not scared to live her first moment then why should I be fearful? She was teaching me things already!

She stopped crying, perhaps because she was in my arms. I thought "Will I be able to protect and comfort her always?" The answer was no. She wasnt going to be with me forever. I was taken aback by the thought. A tiny tear rolled down my cheek. I held onto her, promising myself that I wouldn't waste a moment of our time together. I would teach her everything she would want to know.I would prepare her to face the world. I would be there with her forever. I'm her father.

I'm scared - will I make a good father or a bad one? But I do know this - that I will do my best to make sure that she has a fulfilled life, a happy one. I will make sure that this tiny bundle in my arms will live a better life than I did"

And I felt like this twice in two minutes!

Two kids & Their Three Birthdays

Last Saturday, all the three formats of the kids fifth year birthday got over. The birthday at school happened on Mar 20th (on the last day of the term) where they distributed "cadburys munch" chocolates to their friends and basked in the attention they got. Apr 2nd was the actual birthday which was a rather quiet day. A visit to the temple nearby and many of the relatives calling & wishing them happened through the day. By evening they got frustrated and were refusing to take the calls. The frustration was more about the party not being there that day rather than anything else. I or rather my work was the major culprit for moving the party to weekend & Apr 4th.

And it was a great party & the kids and their friends enjoyed thoroughly. There were about 25 kids who turned out. Many others were away on their summer breaks. Here are a few snippets of the day & events leading up to it:

# we took the kids to a toy store last week to buy them some gifts and told them that they can choose. I was ready for the pocket to get lighter by 2k or so. The kids went around the alleys of saphire toy store in Jayanagar, gleefully, knowing they had a free license to buy. After the initial excitement of "I want this, I want this too...", they settled down on two things. Nidhi picked a soft toy of her favorite character - tom (his friend is jerry :-) & a pack having barbie headband & magic wand. Neha picked up just the headband & wand and insisted that she doesn't want anything else. I was not satisfied for a while cos that costed much lesser than I thought. The soft toy was like 200 and the head band & wand set was 55 each. Better sense prevailed in my head after a few minutes saying cost doesn't matter, their happiness at getting the toys they wanted matters. As I write it now, it seems so very obvious but money (the less of it in this case) can malign your ability to determine the real worth of a material sometimes.

# Back home, Neha wore the head band and went around wishing for things by holding the wand in hand. She came back to me and asked " appa idharalli yaake magic agalla?" That moment was worth tons of gold for innocence shown. Again the dumb guy in me thought "aha that is why you didn't want anything expensive in the toy store; you thought you could get everything through this wand". I was wrong again. Though Neha appeared a trifle disappointed, she went around wishing with the wand with the same enthusiasm and now she knew there is no magic as well. I wanted to kill that guy in me who told me twice that day that money can buy happiness.

# Last year, the kids would rush to the door to welcome their friends and snatch the gifts from them. They did that this year too. And they did something better. They went to one of their friends house, snatched the gifts from her at her doorstep and got her to the party.

# I was playing the "2007 bollywood hits" CD on the music system and was enjoying humming "in dino, dil mera ..." when one of the kids came and said "uncle can you play something new?". That was shocking. Wow. 2007 is old to you I thought. To me 1970s or 80s songs are old. Then I realised that if you are 5 or 6 years old, 2007 songs were hot & happening when you were almost half your age compared to now. So that must be a while back. So I switched to slumdog songs without putting up much of an argument.

# The birthday cake had tom & jerry on it. The favorite characters on TV for neha & nidhi and in many ways, characters they ape. These two girls cannot stop fighting when together and cannot live in peace when away.

# Note the label on this post. Their sixth year has started.

Heights!

remember the post about two birthdays approaching fast (school birthday this month & actual birthday next month)? I mentioned how the kids are eager and preparing for these events.
Yesterday Neha bettered herself and probably hit the heights of birthday preparation.
She was practicing how to give the chocolates to her friends on the D-day!
she was holding a pen holder as the chocolate box and telling me and veena "take one more"

More on the plus sign on a doctor shop

Thanks to my cousin Shylu, I was able to find the answer to neha's question :-)

The plus sign on the doctor shop or a "red cross" is in fact one of the emblems of the Red Cross Society. Their other symbols are - a red crescent and a red crystal. According to the Geneva conventions, any of these emblems can be used by the following:

• facilities for the care of injured and sick armed forces members;
• armed forces medical personnel and equipment;
• military chaplains;
• International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement organizations such as the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), and the 185 national Red Cross and Red Crescent societies.

In India, the red cross emblem is misused by doctor shops and pharmacists on their name boards. (you'll even see it on a first aid box or on a doctor's car) There is a recent movement to do away with misusing the emblem and you may notice that many doctor shops now don't carry a red cross. Some doctors have created their own emblems cleverly using the red cross in some form. I saw one dentist in our neighborhood using red cross in the background and the staff with two snakes in the foreground as his unique symbol.

The pharmacists in India are switching over to using a green cross. This is the symbol of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain and they allow usage on a pharma shop. Notice the green cross on a Lifeken shop when you visit it next time.

A blue cross is used to indicate an endeavor in animal care. So you might see that on a vet shop.

Phew, feel learned and relieved now!

Plus Sign on a doctor shop

Neha played with bare feet in the sand pit in kids' play area and had a cut underneath the middle digit of her right leg. Not wanting to take a chance around contamination of the wound with tetanus bacteria, I took her to a doctor nearby and he gave her an anti-tetanus injection. I could see a glimpse of my grown-up & shy neha there. This was the first time we went to this doctor and so neha was shy to cry when he gave the injection. She tried her best to hold back the tears and remained silent when he asked did it hurt her too much. This is the same neha who acted like kalpana for a previous injection! I felt sad in a way cos she is already choosing dignity over her kiddish behavior. Maybe its a transition that I should get used to. My T-shirt slogan would not be "18 till I die" but "35 till I die cos then my daughters stay at 4"

On the way back, she was her inquisitive self and asked me - why do doctor shops have a symbol of "one standing line & one sleeping line". That took me off guard and I had never wondered what the plus sign on a doctor shop meant. I googled around for a while to look for meaning of the usual medical symbols. And found out about two of them:

Rx
The symbol "Rx" has two representations. It is meant to signify the eye of Horus (Egyptian god for light, sky & goodness) or it just means prescription (take this). So its either a god's symbol to wish good luck or a direction to take something to get well.

The symbol of staff with two snakes coiled to it:
It is the staff of Aesculapius (also called Asklepios), the ancient mythical god of medicine. His Greek name was Asklepios and his Roman name was Aesculapius. In reality, Asklepios may have once lived and been renowned for his gentle, humane remedies and his humane treatment of the mentally ill. His followers established temples called asclepions, temples of Asklepios, temples of healing. According to mythology, Asculapius had a number of children including Hygieia, the goddess of health (from whose name comes the word "hygiene") and Panaceia, the goddess of healing (from whose name comes por word "panacea" for a universal remedy). Today, the staff of Aesculapius is a commonly used symbol of medicine. It is the symbol of the American Medical Association (AMA) and many other medical societies.

+ sign
I could not find the meaning of the "plus" sign. I'm expecting it to be something very basic but cant find it. Do you know?

Just Cant Wait

The kids' birthday is approaching (in April) and they just cant wait. They have been pretty restless about this almost since after their last birthday! They are conjuring up such excitement & planning ; the kind that elders typically exhibit when there is a wedding in the house.

I turn the page on the "bangalore press" calendar in the kitchen and neha pops in and says "eevaga February, amele March, amele April and nanna birthdayyy"

Nidhi finishes the last page on her gulmohar home work book, closes the book gleefully and says "ee book aagi hoyithu, next nanna birthday, amele UKG"

Last friday night, after their bedtime story from veena, they reminded themselves " naale raja, amele sunday, amele one week, two week, march - school alli birthday, amele april - birthdayyyy". Since schools close by last week of March, they want to celebrate one precursor in the school.

They have mentioned the guest list for the birthday to veena probably thirty times now. The number is around a whopping 40+ kids. The choice of cake has changed between Barbie, Cinderella, Rapunzel, tom & jerry and colors options are white, pink, green..
They are thinking about what return gifts to give their friends for the school & home birthdays.

Regardless of what the menu for the party is, all kids in our block exhibit the same kind of enthusiasm and excitement. They join together, play all kinds of games sing along the birthday song..and then the cake is cut and the snacks distributed..
The moment return gifts are given, they all scurry away to hide their booty in their respective homes!!!!!
It's such fun to watch these kids immersed in their own world full of innocence and unbiased thoughts..It's almost impossible not to evade the infectious laughter that comes gliding onto you...They almost end up teaching us a thing or two , in the whole process...
A child is indeed , the father of the man!!

Collages

it occurred to me that it'll be fun to try collage of kids photos. i downloaded a trial version of a collage maker and the results are good. It looks a creative way of capturing kids' snaps & deeds. and my mind is teeming. Since I used a trial version of the software, it puts up an ugly banner in the middle of the collage. I'm attaching the few examples created . I'll update the blog once I cook up better ones and once I find a free software to use. It is very unlikely that I'll pay $30 for a collage maker now!

And more artwork

I dont know if Nidhi has hit a purple patch in creativity or I'm just a biased foolish parent who glorifies every small deed. Either way, I'm happy and so here are two more drawings that Nidhi did recently. The first one is a pic of krishna while the second is a pair of sisters (i guess) - one grumpy and one happy (has the face of calvin i thought). I guess the calvin faced person is a girl since she seems to be wearing a girlish dress. I need to check with Nidhi.

artwork

Nidhi built a human figure with a plastic container, pencils, crayons, hair clips & ribbons. Maybe it was a child's ingenuity

Or maybe thinking out "off" the box, helped her