neha learns a new word

Neha: appa, anusha was doing ship leader yesterday at school and asked me to wear the collar button
Me: She was doing what?
Neha: [gathers thoughts for a while and says] she was doing leadership appa, she was checking shoes, nails and uniform

Few Firsts

Firstly, the kids are in first standard now :-)

Notice the label on this post, kids are into their seventh year now. You would have noticed the new clothes to this blog for that reason.

Kids now have longer school hours and so more grind. They have new uniforms - blue pinafore and white shirt for 4 days a week and all whites on Wednesday

Nidhi had her first tooth fall. She was mighty thrilled about this event. Couple of her friends at apartment and several at school had started shedding their milk teeth a while back so there was enough peer pressure built up for this.

Last Sunday was the first fathers' day that I got wished by daughters. They made cute greeting cards and kept them by my bed before I woke up. That was cute.

Neha & Nidhi have their first pets now. A full blown aquarium with 3 mighty gold fishes and several gourami fishes to tag along. Thanks a ton sham & geetha for giving this.

Nursery Ends

Kids graduated to "standard" class yesterday when they got promoted to first std.
Photos of kids in their nursery uniform. First one taken on the last day of school .
Second one taken 3 years back.

Can I turn back the clock?

musings

it feels odd to listen to a 6 year old singing "give me some sunshine, give me some rain, give me another chance to grow up once again". Especially when you are her parent.

I & my brother's 5 year old daughter usually tease each other like this, "me: neenu tomato" "she: neenu carrot" "me: neenu potato" "she: neenu kumbal kaayi"
On Ugadi day, she had prepared greeting cards for neha & nidhi but not for me. I asked her where my greeting is. She said "ai, ninge avathe anniversaryge kot idhe". I replied you could have done one more today and said "neenu conjuice", she retorted "neenu lemon juice!"

veena was resting on the swing and neha & nidhi started circling around. Veena said you shouldn't circle people around. kids wanted to know why. she said when people die, we need to circle them and not when they are alive.
nidhi : so why do we circle the chairs in musical chair game?
veena : chairs are not living things, so its okay.
neha : why do we circle god in temples, isn't god living thing then?

kids are studying for their exams and one of the questions they practice is "name any two animals that give milk" nidhi says goat & cow. We felt odd that she thought of goat first, for this question. Then she asks 'why cant I write giraffe or donkey as well'? Technically she is correct, the question should have been "name two animals that give milk that humans dare to drink".

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".