And the Moral of the Story is...?

Moral of the story is...Well I can't decide really. It can be one of the following -

1. Routines are for a reason - don't disrupt mine. I need amma in the mornings and appa in the evenings.
   Mommy drops me off, daddy picks me up. Could I be any more clear?


2. I think I may be making a switch to becoming mama's girl (dreaming on).

So which one is it?

Here's the "Story"...
Story within quotes because I'm quoting T2.
When I ask her about her day, she tells me something like this -
"In the first story, I ate pancakes for lunch".
"In the other story, Megan pushed Emma." (making up names).

Or, when I ask her if she slept well, She says -
"In the first story, I saw dinosaurs and it was so bloodishy..."
(Esply if we happened to read the Dinosaurs book at bedtime).

This girl here has taken the famous Shakespearen wisdom from "As you like it" that All the World's a Stage, a bit too literally.
But, she never ceases to crack me up everytime she does that!

Ok, back to the Story...It's a short one...

Our regular weekday routine is for daddy to leave in the wee hours of morning while the rest of the house is still sleeping.
Mommy then wakes up reluctantly, gets ready and then gets the girls ready for school by 7.20
After throwing some anti-jinx charms here, I boldly say that T2's morning tantrums are getting SO much better.
I am able to reason with her and prevent her from crying out loud almost all the time...
Other than my constant reminders to the girls to "GET MOVING", mornings are not much of a deal anymore.
After I manage to wake up, that is.

Unless, mommy and daddy switch roles. Then it's a completely different morning for all of us.
Daddy can't enjoy his quiet mornings,
mommy loves the extra hands and the extra sleep,
T1 loves it that Daddy is dropping her off,
but T2?
T2 behaves differently. She is thrilled to see daddy in the morning, but she gives daddy a hard time with everything!
The clothes, the bath, the brushing, the breakfast...(not in that order, of course)!!
And she wants daddy to do all of that, but not really!?

It's not easy for daddy either, who's completely spoilt with the peaceful mornings.

So what is it?
Do you think T2 is such a stickler to routine that as much as she loves having daddy in the mornings, she can't handle the change?
Or Is it true that my little shim-shim (one of my popular no-meaning endearments for the girls) is finally becoming a true mommy's girl?

I don't care what the truth is! I'm sticking with the second!

Milk, Cows and an Address

In an attempt to make the girls think laterally, T1 mostly, I've been throwing random questions at them...
Mostly math questions for T1. She can do addition and multiplication quite well, but I don't know if she knows why or when to use them...Hence this exercise.
My most common application involves apples - adding them and dividing them for a said number of people.

Yesterday, I was following a book to ask questions and I tried to see if they remember something they had seen about a year or two ago in an episode of Little Einsteins.

So I asked, "What's Milky way?"
T1 said, "It's part of an address!!"
T2 Promptly answered, "What comes from cows, amma!!!"

Need I say more??

Quick Quips...

A short and sweet note with a couple of laughs -

T1's first PJ - The poor girl has been trying hard for a while now to devise her own joke...and we, laugh along just to humor her...if not for the joke, surely for her question at the end - "Get it??"
But she finally made one up.

Why does a duck quack?


Because it can't Moo! That's why!!

I was doing a MathWizard worksheet with T2. The problem was to circle what's odd.
There was a cat, a dog, a bear, an elephant and an airplane.
T2 took a good look at it, thought for a second and confidently said, "The Animals!"
Who can argue with that?

More of T2's Chronicles...

Looks like that’s pretty much it from the “Bad” series, so off to the Good times –
And, as promised (to self), I am FINALLY wrapping up the recap series on T2's fourth year.

Need the Blue
The Blue Blanky, that is. It was love at first sight (or touch). The Blue Blanky (BB) disappears every now and then for a wash. It’s a very tough separation period. And, it’s the cutest thing to see how she hugs and kisses it every time BB re-surfaces from stealth mode. Our BB is not allowed in the bathroom anymore (ya, it used to follow her everywhere)! So at times before entering the bathroom for brushing her teeth, she first spends a few minutes hugging and kissing and talking to BB. She would tell it to stay there, and that she’d be “Right Back”! If BB could talk, it’d tell that it has received the most love on earth. Ever!
BB and thumb sucking go hand in hand. T2 uses BB to hide her face and thinks we don’t know what’s going on behind the screen! Nice plan!
A couple of times over the past couple of weeks, she told me that she’s a big girl now and won’t take BB to school. But a minute later, she would be walking down the stairs holding BB snugly, conveniently forgetting or ignoring her words.
Honey, that’s ok! It’s yours. It’s cute. Keep it. Let's start with getting over the thumb sucking first.

Big sis, the first Teacher
Akka has been T2’s silent Music Guru. From what little we practice every week, T2 picks up the music so easily and effortlessly. I think it must be true with most younger siblings.
Actually, Akka has taught her most everything she knows.
T1 is learning her multiplication tables, and we usually practice on our way to school (or summer camp now). To make it interesting for her, we made up a tune - something like how the Army folks sing songs during their arduous training.
So the other day I sang the question, "Six times Seven Is...?", and Pat came the reply from T2, "42"!!
I was naturally stunned. 6X7 has been one of the most difficult for T1 and we've been working hard to memorize it and I guess added with the tune, it easily settled in T2's mind :)

And, just to amuse myself more, I asked her what is 1 + 1. She said 2. Must be a fluke. Then I asked her What's 2 + 1? She answered back with another question -
"Amma, If you have 16 apples in your hand, and One Hundred Ants on your back..." trying to imitate our Word Problems. But she has a point there, doesn't she?

Not to mention a lot of other things that she learns - comes with the territory of having a big sis (sigh)! As long as it's not categorized as blaspheme, I try to ignore or laugh it off.

Like the other day I wrapped her in a towel after a bath. She looked at herself in the mirror with content and said,
"Thanks for putting the towel around me amma, now nobody can see my boobs!"

I couldn't but laugh at that unexpected statement.
As shocking as it is to hear her use such lingo, I'm thankful it's not the F word or the like!

Being a little sister
It comes naturally to T2. We just saw how well she learns from her akka. She completely reveres T1's words. She prolly thinks, "If T1 says so, it must be right. So I'll repeat it"! That must be why she parrots most everything that T1 says! Sure she fights with T1 and has trouble sharing stuff, but that's with anyone, not just T1. She really adores her big sis.

The music in her
In addition to easily learning music by proxy, she has an innate aptitude for music. She catches on to the rhythm of songs before the end of a stanza and starts humming the tune. From complicated SUN TV ad-songs, to Carnatic Music to Movie songs…It’s really cute to watch her enjoy the tunes humming along.
She has a few favorite tunes that she runs to if she hears them on TV. The new “Ramayana” Title song that goes…Jai Shri Raaaaam, Jai Jai Shri Ram. She stops whatever she’s doing to run to it.
That Sun TV Ad, “Sun Direct”. She’s crazy about it.
Most Sun TV Dramas' Title songs…
Most Disney songs, including soundtracks from movies, Hannah Montana, and Jonas Brothers’ numbers to name a few…

Daddy's girl
An update on T2 would be remiss without mentioning how much of a Daddy's girl she is! Totally! It is quite depressing to me at times, but a relief most times. If I leave the kids with him for a weekend, I know I don't have to call every hour to tell him what he must do next. Which I have had to do once, actually! When T2 was 2, I had to fly to Indiana for a weekend for my cousin's graduation. And the trio did so well! Good job daddy!
Both Pup and I want to have an equal role in their lives, at least we try. So now, T2 shows a fair share of affection to yours truly :)
(I humor myself with that thought).
Cos there is no doubt that she's still a big Daddy's girl.

Etcetera...
She loves water! Splashing, that is. In fact, all summer my Wednesday mornings were smooth in anticipation of Splash Day at her pre-school, and of course getting to wear her 2-piece swimwear :)

She also loves raw veggies and fruits! I think I owe a Big thanks to Dottie's Chip for this. Chip's very big on fruits and could eat a bowl full of grapes as a toddler. When Chip and T2shared a nanny for about 10 months, T2 picked it up from Chip, I'm sure! Her mouth waters when I cut fresh vegetables. She can eat a whole cup of Cilantro! No kidding. It's not like she never eats junk, but at least some good stuff to balance it out!

She's a big teaser! Loves to fool around with thatha and paati, esply paati! She truly brightens up and brings on a glow to their otherwise monotonous days.
The best that paati enjoys about her is how T2 climbs on to Paati's spot the moment paati leaves the room! It's like she has this spider-sense that sends in an alert when Paati steps off :)

She needs a bit of Law and Order.
Order where she thinks is necessary.
And the Laws in her own terms!

If there is lack of symmetry in the folded comforter, she won't rest till she gets it right. Yet, when her toys are scattered all over the house, she promptly uses her law, "T2Delegate" and makes sure either T1 or mom or dad does it. She'll happily sing "Clean Up, Clean Up" for us in the background, and start the work off, but drifts away cleverly. She'll be a good Manager, I say!

If she used the "Green" pencil to write one day, that's the one she wants until it's ready to be thrown away! It's hers now with her name invisibly embossed on it. She won't rest till she finds it (or has one of us find it)!

She has to brush her teeth by herself first, before I can finish it off for her. Never mind if we're running late for work/school, or if its too late for bed! It has to be in that order. She is happy to skip brushing her teeth at night altogether, but if it's done, it has to be her way!

We're doing these pre-school worksheets with her. It starts out writing Letters and Numbers 5 times each. But she won't stop at 5. She goes on writing till the end of the line to complete the SYMMETRY. Or maybe she's being Green by not wasting paper, you think?

She loves or used to love her Gymnastics Lessons. And being so slim (Ahem!), it came easily to her too. She TERRIBLY misses the Saturday morning routine of going to the Gymnastics lessons (we took a break for summer). We're planning to try out ice-skating this fall, so it's gonna be a while before she can get back to the Gymnastics lessons :(

The 4th Birthday Celebration
A recent decision she made was to have a Mermaid Birthday. I asked her in different ways to see how much she meant it -
"How about a Gymnastics Party"?
"No! I want a Little Mermaid Party!"

"How about Chuckee-Cheese?"
A slight hesitation, but..."No! I want a Little Mermaid Party!"

"How about Sleeping Beauty or Cinderella or Snow White...?"
"No, No, and No! I want a Little Mermaid Party!"

I think after all that it's safe to say she really wanted that! So that's what she got! A whole hour of fun with Ariel (a family-friendly Ariel, I made sure of that!!).
Cuz-P and I have been thinking for the last 3 years that we shd have one party for T2 and my neice, D. They are both almost exactly a year apart (D is a year younger).
T2 will pretty soon have her own friends-list, so we decided it has to be this year.
We started off wanting to keep it simple. It ended up being anything but!!
But, it was worth it! Kids - Little and big had fun. Mommies being mommies had a great time seeing the happy little faces, and dads being dads found ways to amuse themselves.
Here's one more variation of the famous MasterCard Slogan -
$ for the rented community center,
$$ for the special order cakes,
$$$ for the little mermaid,
$$$$ for the catered food

T2's gratified look saying, "Amma, Thanks for bringing Ariel", Followed by the biggest HUG - PRICELESS.
So, with that, we enter her Fifth year.

You did not think to ask ME first?

Pup decided to remove his goatie and mustache. The girls woke up early this morning and T1 (the great compliment-er) said without any hesitation, "Appa, you look good!"

T2 noticed the change right away, of course, but kept staring at him trying to find the right words to tell him. Then she did it with "Appa, you look weird!"

Poor T2! Poor daddy! They were both disappointed for different reasons vis-à-vis the new look!

But then she seemed to take it in. This was around 5.15 in the morning when the girls sneaked into our room and bed and Pup was ready to wake up (ya, his long commute added with a workout day means up and about at 5.00).

A couple of hours later, when I was helping T2 brush her teeth, all was going well, when all of a sudden she just burst into tears (needless to add that she was screaming). And not surprisingly, kept asking for "Appa".

I couldn't get it!

If it's from me accidentally brushing her gums, she usually tells me that and then cries…

I thought that she was prolly hungry since she went to bed early last night and did not really sleep well after the 5.15 migration to our room!

I left her alone for a couple of minutes, and then she was back to normal and then we had a smooth sailing rest of the morning!

And then, hours later it occurred to me that maybe she was crying because of Pup's new look. He has kept his goatie for years now, and T2, I'm sure doesn't remember him without one! Being such a daddy's girl, this huge change must have made a heavy impact on her.

Just my guess!

Gone are the days when kids request parents' approval for a new look!
Gone are also the days when he wanted to change his looks to impress me and me him!
Gotta remember to talk to the girls first before making big changes.
:)

T2 before 4

T2 just turned 4 and I am making a desperate attempt to recapture her past year(s) before they fade away. "Desperate attempt" because I am realizing how much I've forgotten already! And, due to lack of time (Excuses! Excuses!!) am spreading them out in multiple posts over this month.

So here goes -

I’ll start with the Ugly first and then move on to the Bad and then the Good…Save the best for last, right?

T2, The Screamer
Expect it when you least expect it! The screams come with little warning and stay for a good while. Sometimes they are triggered by the slightest change, and often times the “real” triggers are the classic ones – hunger, sleep, and tiredness. She goes into an irrational fit of crying. She pretty much freezes, unable to stop the flowing tears.
She doesn’t get violent or fall on the floor kicking all around. Only relentless tears…
As they say kids do not have the same inhibitions or control as adults. But we’re getting bigger and better at using words and not screams to convey our thoughts and feelings. Even a few months ago we used to have more frequent and long-lasting episodes .
Our favorite way to deal with our crying episodes of late is to shoo away the monster-king. Because only monsters scream and we do not want to become a monster, we want to remain as T2…so we shoo the monster-king away.
It’s a work in progress and I sure have to admit that we have come long ways since the same time last year.
This is pretty much the only thing that qualifies as Ugly. (I know I’m gonna be lashed at for using “ugly”, but hey the truth is the truth no matter which way you say it).

We have a couple of Bads worth mentioning.

T2, The addict
Her Thumb-Sucking started at about 4 months of age. We had to start her in a daycare, a home-based daycare that T1 used to go to when she was little. With all the things that come out of being away from home, sucking her thumb started right after. At that point, we did not do much to stop the comforting habit that she discovered. Can’t really call it “discovered”, we witnessed her sucking her thumb when she was a 5-month old fetus. That’s right! Her sonogram revealed her already developing habit!
We couldn’t do much about it anyways, she caught on strong and fast and being away from her for such long hours during the day did not help much. (Insert Terrible Guilt). If there was one good thing that came out of it, it is the fact that she lulled herself to sleep with the rigorous thumb-sucking.
As always the notorious distraction is the only thing that works.
She became 1, 2, then 3 years old and this habit only got more and more intense. What began as a self-lullaby developed into an involuntary action when she is bored or tired. After a visit to a dentist when she turned 3, she kept saying “Doctor saiiiiiid, No Sucking your thumb” and would take her thumb out. Pretty soon, she started repeating her statement and would promptly start sucking her thumb again. The effect wore off!
We once tried to wrap her thumb with a piece of cloth. She was so distressed at the sight of it, that we could not see her face like that for more than 15 LONG minutes. Nothing should be this hard!
We also tried using nail-polish as a means. I refused to apply nail polish on her thumb to prevent her eating any of it! She could not stand to see the asymmetry of the lone unpainted finger! She was “Monk”-ing about it (after the USA Network show called Monk) so much that we gave in and painted her finger. Soon she wanted it off as she figured that her obsession with symmetry ranked way, way below her addiction to suck her thumb!
So there you go! Both Painted and unpainted nails did not work for us.

Our big worries in addition to her jutting palate is what they say about thumb-suckers and low-confidence!

If you have any miracle tricks that have worked for you, do let us know!!

Until then, we’re gonna need all our resolve to work on diversion and distraction and hope that it does not affect her personality.

To be continued...

T2 @ 4

The past few weeks have been a bit too hard on me. It started off when it hit me out of the blue that T2 starts Kindergarten next year. What? Really? OMG!! It IS true! Maybe its because T1 missed a school year being born almost 2 months past the state cut-off date. T1 just finished Kindergarten and T2's up for it already? Hmmm...
I've been telling everyone about how difficult it is for me to take that...
I mean this is T2 we are talking about for goodness' sake!

T2, an amazing fetus, hardly gave me anything to worry about. The way she came out to the world - literally painless. I noticed the first contraction around 1700hrs, we were at the hospital at 2000 hrs, and she hurried out at 0010 hours, an easy 7 hour labor (Folks at work would be proud to see me use the N-hundred hours terminology)!
Anyways, the only strange (good strange too) thing that day 4 years ago was that Pup went to work a little later than usual, drove about 10 miles, then had a weird feeling, came back home and took the day off. Who'dda thunk that we'd be driving to the hospital a mere few hours later??

That day still feels like it was yesterday...
Yet, here we are now celebrating her 4th day with The Little Mermaid, a handful of family and friends, loads of laughs, not to forget the look on her face for having granted her wish for a Mermaid Party. That glimpse of happiness on her face that spoke a million words, photographed only in my memory, that said it was all worth it!

Happy birthday sweetie pie.

...to be continued with more milestones, mumbles and memories before they fade away...

Karma Chameleon

Nothing to do with Boy George, here's a glimpse of how T2 can change her colors in a split second!
This happened yesterday...I woke up after snoozing the alarm a few times like I always do. Soon T1 woke up, her usual joyous self. I brought T2 to our room and let her lie down for a few minutes - she needs some transition time to wake up (like mommy, like daughter)!
She asked if she could sleep for 5 more minutes, I glanced at the clock...and said yes. It was only 7.30 and we had some cushion!
Soon T1 and I were almost ready and T2 still did not want to wake up...
She complained that she was sleepy and wanted 5 more minutes (Was she snoozing me??)

It was 8.00 already, aka time for PlanB! So, I got all silly and whooshed her to the bathroom like I do often times. She usually loves it. But not today, No siree!
And then it started - just out of the blue came her high-pitched crying.
It started off so high that there was no sense in trying to reason.

I reluctantly left her in the bathroom crying.
I heated up milk for all of us and threw a couple of our favorite Fig and Flax waffles in the toaster oven.
I thought I'd give her some time to calm down, and she did...if only for a minute!

So I braved it back to the bathroom and she wanted her blue blanky. That's a good sign, I thought. The sight of Blue-blanky usually mellows her down.
I asked her what letter she wanted her paste as...
This is another brush-time routine - it's usually "C" for Caterpillar, after her favorite book, "A Very Hungry Caterpillar".
She really wanted to trouble me today, cos she decided she did not want a letter, she asks for me to draw Piglet if not Pooh!
Draw Piglet or Pooh on her brush with her paste?
No kidding! I could almost see a smirk in her 3-year old face. I find it hilarious on hindsight...

It was about 8.20 by then, and I somehow managed to convince her that I'll write a "P" instead. She agreed!! WOW! That was easy!
I thought too soon that her tantrum ended.

Next, she simply refused to get off of the potty to brush her teeth. Gimme a break now, sweetheart! I had to whisk her again and brush her teeth through her screaming.
It was actually a bit easy cos her mouth was open all the time :)

Through her crying, she gargled and then I bathed her, again more crying.

And suddenly the crying stopped. That's it! Just the way it started - no warning!
Like the aftermath of a storm, she was completely calm and gave me a bright smile.
She changed her colors faster than a Chameleon...

She loved the dress I had picked for her (more because she got to wear stockings, I think). She wanted a big huggie. She got 10.

In the next ten minutes, we were out of the garage after getting dressed, drinking milk, taking Vitamins, and having a spoonful of Pankaja Kasthuri, all buckled up and ready for the day!
Slowly I broached the reasoning pep talk...and she nodded her promises to me briskly...