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

smart bites

nidhi: where does sushma atthe stay?
veena: london, with viky mama.
nidhi: why?
veena: cos they are married and stay together. Like I'm married to your dad and stay with him.

------------
neha wet the bed yesterday night. She had grown over that almost 2 years back. So yesterday was an odd event. I asked her - why did you do it? she said "neenu kelali antha" (so that you can ask me that). tharle gunda!

------------
veena and Nidhi are watching TV. There is an ad on conserving water. A school boy sees a running tap. He tries to close it, its doesn't stop; he thrusts the head of the tap down, its doesn't stop. Finally he removes his school tie and binds the tap to stem the flow and walks away happily. Veena is pleased that nidhi saw such a noble message on TV. She turns to Nidhi waiting for an ack on the lesson learnt. Nidhi comments " hey, avange aa tie bedva?"

the way you see it

skipping rope + two rupee coin + ingenuity of a child (nidhi in this case) = POLAR BEAR

kalpana

Kalpana was a famed Kannada actress of yesteryear.
I don't know why she was a hit though. She looked horrible and overacted in every scene. Every emotion was stretched by her like a rubber till you nauseate.

Anyway, the take away from her to this post is that Neha has been overacting for the last two days. Watch the video below and you'd think she is recovering from a knee cap surgery. All she had was an injection of DPT Polio vaccine on her left thigh.

New Skills

Last one month has been hectic learning period for kids.

First was an attempt to learn swimming. The pool finally opened in our apartment complex and kids were over the moon when they learnt that there'll be a trainer to help them learn. the curve was usual. kids were excited the first couple of days and happy beating their legs in the water holding onto the railing. Third day, the fear set in when the trainer took them to the deeper end and later asked them to jump into the water and he'd hold them. Kids started crying and begged for freedom from this torture. Neha & Nidhi weren't unique cos kids of all ages were in similar mode then. I could re-visit my own fears when learning swimming at 32. The fear doesn't change, the expression of it does. Neha & Nidhi got fed up with us coaxing them to learn and they not able to deal with the fear of deep end of the pool. I had promised them to buy "island princess barbie" dolls if they learnt swimming. They decided it is easier to forgo that desire.

The second more successful venture is drawing. There is a very good artiste who is our neighbour. She is a pleasing lady who loves teaching kids and had been an art teacher earlier. Check her oil paintings exhibited last year. kids have started off well and seem to like drawing and the teacher.

The third exercise was picked up pretty fast. It was to use touch pad on the laptop and learn to color a picture. It is their new hobby to go and color at this link.

The fourth skill is brewing in school. They have enrolled for a group dance for their school day celebrations. A teacher with an unusual name - Harret is their dance teacher. Kids are shy to show me what they have learnt so far. I'll have to wait for the school day which is 2 weeks away.

Switching topics, I've been living in the comfy zone since August and been in the trap of nice food and no exercise. I was a regular to the gym in the first half of the year and the practice snapped around the time the festivals started in August. I needed a kick on the backside to start again and Nidhi provided me exactly that. She saw my growing paunch and asked "appa, ninna hotte yaake doddadhaagtha idhe, magu beli tha idhiya?"

Trip to the Forests

October is the time for the annual 'cousins club trip' as we call it. It has been an annual routine for the last 15 years now for my brothers, cousins to gang up with families and travel. We prefer some destination within Karnataka (there is so much to see) and a remote one at that. So forests are usually our destination. This time, we visited nagarahole & bandipur forests for 4 days and the crowd was 9 adults and 7 kids. Here is an account of the trip:

A few 'firsts' for kids:

• Kids did their first trekking in life - we trekked for about 4 kms in bandipur forest to view a beautiful lake. kids walked about half that distance. Our shoulders ached for two days because of carrying them for the remaining distance. We trekked in a thick forest with a local tribal man as a guide. Forget being armed for a risky trek like this, we were carrying kids and at nature's mercy for an hour or so. As I commented later, the only thing we could have done on sighting a leopard or tiger was to sing the popular Kannada folk song to the beast - "chanda vyaagrane, neenu idellava undu santhasadhindhiru". We watched a splendid sunset at the fag end of our trek. Kids felt very proud on doing the trek and posed.
  

• Kids had the first taste of a waterfall and a beautiful one at that - irruppu falls. The kids screamed in frenzy for 40 mins in the van on the way to irruppu falls in excitement. They trekked up the path in zeal as well. The imposing waterfall and freezing water almost killed all the enthusiasm in them. They did enjoy the dip in the water for a while and their jaws rattled for 10 mins after getting out of water.

• Kids played cards! It helps to start early :-) Kids were feeling bored one late evening on the trip, men wanted to play cards and women folk wanted a break from taking care of kids. The genius stroke from me was to give kids a pack of old playing cards and that kept them busy for more than two hours. The eldest kid in the gang came up with a game and rules were conveniently designed by him on the fly so that he wins all those games. Anyway that kept the kids engaged & happy and served our needs.
  

Other notes:

• Nidhi touched the tusk of a tamed elephant and was super thrilled

• Neha & Nidhi saw enough of forest that they could distinguish dung of four animals - goat, cow, gaur & elephant (no snaps for this :-))
  

• Kids loved the van safari ride in nagarhole and we could sight peacock, deer, elephants, gaur, wild boar, malabar squirrel & monkeys. First snap is that of kids wearing monkey caps and gazing at the forest. Second snap is that of the marks scraped on the bark of a tree by a tiger to mark its territory
  

We visited a rather cute govt primary school in murkal forest where the tribal kids are taught. Some interesting snaps from this school. Notice how small the benches are and how big the stick is! One true believer of 'spare the rod & spoil the child'.

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)

My Trip to Sunnyvale

"appa neenu beku anstha idhe, nange alu barakke aagtha idhe"
(appa, i want you here and i feel like crying)

those were the words that shook me out of my slumber today morning. i woke up when veena called me and kids spoke to me. These cute, incorrectly formed, emotive sentences were spoken by nidhi and that surprised me. Nidhi normally doesn't express her feelings and tries to wriggle out such situations by masking them with humor or mischief. she has my genes there. I like to keep a clean cool GUI myself in spite of what runs in my brain.
she was playing with other kids in the sand pit in apartment when veena asked her to talk to me. she went far from others, spoke these words in a very soft tone, and headed back to her friends with her usual glee and playful mood. I wonder how she does that. the way she can change her expressions, mask her true feelings makes me think she can be a wonderful actor if she pursues that field. It is very evident that the kids are missing me badly by the 6th day of my trip to US. And there are 13 more days to go. I hope they keep themselves busy enough and don't miss me badly. I hope i don't start missing them badly either. I sheepishly admit that I've enjoyed my trip so far and have enjoyed the solitude. I have been able to work better and have had a few busy days here.

The last time i did a business trip to US was about 18 months back. That time they were smaller and my trip was shorter. probably 9 days. This time I started preparing them for this break a week before i started.

I told them I'll be gone for 3 weeks - they don't understand what a week means.

i told them I'll be gone for 20 days - school has taught them counting till 10. for them 10 is the biggest number they know and 10 means infinite.

i told them I'll be gone for 10 days - they understood it like I'm gone forever (10 = infinity). Nidhi didn't tell me not to go for 10 days. but she wetted the bed the next 3 days (which she had stopped more than a year back) to indicate that something is not going right within her.

i realised what i had caused and I told them I'll be gone for 4 days - that is a lie and i felt bad telling that. but they could understand somehow.

And if you thought my kids really know numbers upto 10 very well, in the morning, neha asked me , "innu 4 days agillva?" (aren't those 4 days over?). Innocence is such a wonderful thing. I hope my kids age freezes now and they remain like this forever.

My cousin's wife landed from US for her vacation and we went to meet her a week before my trip. she gave them M&Ms and they loved it. They love "cadbury gems" and eat them very often. These new gems (in new colors) were interesting to them. I told I'll get them from US. Neha has been telling everyone since then that her dad is going to US to get gems. I wish i could add that in the invite letter of my business trip :-)

promptly, she asked me that as well in the morning conversation. she was very objective in this discussion:

neha - "appa, innu 4 days agillva?"
me - "innu 4 days beku kandha, kelsa idhe"
neha - "gems thogondya?"
me - "yes"
neha - "ammange phone kodthini"

Pun Fun

Phew, it has been quite a while since putting a post here. it is the lull after storm feeling at home.
last one month was brewing with excitement & activity around my brother-in-law's wedding. Shopping, inviting people, more shopping, then the wonderful wedding itself. All this occupied us till yesterday. Now the four of us back at home again trying to re-arrange our lives and run it at normal pace.

The school has started 4 days back and kids had no clue of it till today morning. They'll attend the school from next Monday. Neha sheepishly remembered that her teacher might ask her why she did not attend the first week and checked with me whether I've informed the teacher or not. Nidhi feels no guilt in this space and was too happy that her vacation got extended by a few more days.

An unique dish for breakfast in the morning threw up a bunch of PJs. The kids were not part of it but then I never wrote in blood that this blog will not have anything else other than about kids.

Veena prepared uppittu with aralu (i know it is not puffed rice and I dont know what the hell it is called. the one that you use to make sandige (now if that rings a bell)). there were some grains with the husk. she had not dehusked them cleanly before preparing it. dehusking is called kheru (sounds like care) in Kannada.

So here is the pun fun:

I: (on seeing some husk in my plate), veena you did not care enough

veena: I was in a hurry and could not care more. watch when you are eating

I: you could have cared more. you are careless. no one cares for me.

then my mind goes wild with this pun:

what does car care mean?
or even scarier, what does customer care mean - dehusk a customer?

what do you call a bunch of villagers dehusking paddy/wheat?
Intensive Care Unit?

birthday

Note the label on this post. Neha & Nidhi are in their fifth year now!

They celebrated their 4th year birthday last week and as expected the event threw up a few things that I can blog about. The kids have been talking and planning about their birthday since last Nov or so. They have not only bugged parents about their birthday but even their teachers. When Veena went to school last Monday to pick books for next year, the teachers asked her "isn't their birthday tomorrow? every time some kid celebrates birthday in school, these two shout out saying ours is on Apr 2". It is a pity that their birthday falls in the summer vacation. They would have had so much more fun celebrating at school as well.

Since Apr 2 was a working day and given my telecon schedules on weekdays, we decided to celebrate the birthday on Apr 5 (Saturday). They had been wanting to have one complete barbie doll set each as their birthday gift for sometime now. My mother gifted them that. Within minutes, nidhi's barbie doll looked like the most handicapped person in the world - no legs, no arms. She meddled with barbie's hair and made her look even uglier. the accessories in the doll set were scattered. But she kept playing with that barbie and she likes it. Neha's barbie ain't much better. We wished them on Apr 2 and they were puzzled and asked "so will we have the party today? will the cake be there today? will my friends gift me today?"

On Apr 5, they got into party mood only late in the afternoon after I brought home the cake. It was a vanilla flavored cake in the form of a duck pond. By 6:30 their friends in the apartment complex started pouring in. Nidhi was watching the door and as soon as somebody enters the house, she would go towards the person, extend her arms (to receive the gift) and welcome her. She did this with most of the guests. After a while she became even more shameless & effective with her method. Till then she would receive the gift (or snatch is a better word) and go & put in the cupboard. Later, one boy entered the house and she directed him to go put the gift in the cupboard himself. The boy was perplexed. So she held his hand, took him to the cupboard & asked him to put it there. Afterwards she commented to her friend "avanige put alli andre gothe agolla" (if i tell him to put it in the cupboard, he doesn't understand at all)

the kids circled the cake as soon as it was kept on the table. I & Veena had to make sure nobody touches it or falls over it. After blowing off the candle & singing, the kids cut the cake & ate a piece each. me & veena were hoping they would feed us as well but they were relishing the cake and the other kids seemed ready for the cake like hounds. We took the cake inside & served it with other snacks. All the kids left within 2 minutes of receiving the return gifts.

some things that I pondered over, after the party:

# In their last birthday, it was only a couple of months since we had moved to the apartment and hence did not know many people. There were only a couple of kids that we had called. This time, it was about 30 kids. Veena had a couple of friends last year and she knows about 15 or 20 ladies in the complex now. I had only one friend in the complex last year, I have only one friend this year. And he has been my friend for 17 years now. speaks so much about my networking skills! In spite of knowing very little english, neha & nidhi have made friends with kids who speak other languages at home with ease. they even talk quite a bit with an old day who is our neighbour & who knows only oriya & little hindi. why do we grow up? what is our problem?

# after showing so much enthu to receive the gifts & rather shamelessly at that, nidhi spent about only two or three minutes to look at all of them. the only thing that interested her & neha is the small tent house that I bought them. that has been their home inside home for the last 3 days. It now houses them, their favourite dolls, the severely handicapped barbie, their kitchen set... All that they needed & enjoyed that day was the small token of attention they received from their friends and us. For this they waited for months. The gifts aren't a great deal & they don't bother who gifted them what. do we adults look at gifts & gifting this way always? why do we grow up? what is our problem?