Every time LHB gets a snack, if he thinks Adi will like it, he will save a portion for her. So, we thought of putting together a snack basket for Akka. Akka is home for spring break and the air I breathe suddenly become lighter 🙂
All of us went to pick her up form Airport and LHB was a surprise package hiding in back seat with the snack basket 🙂
I may have mentioned in this blog before, M and I are poles apart like north and south, east and west! Our perception is very different on same matter and it took me many years to appreciate the different perspective!
In recent times, I notice something common between us. Its the way we offer suggestion to Adi. She has this habit of calling us when she has to make some every day decision and 90% of the time we both offer the same suggestion with no influence. She would call one of us first, take the suggestion, then call other person to hear the same suggestion that makes her decision making easier! For everyday decisions like “should I order out for dinner tonight?”, “should I take a uber at later time or take the college shuttle scheduled for an earlier time”, “should I skip my afternoon class tomorrow?”, “should I go for this event or stay back to finish the assignment?” et all..
I am glad to realize that we speak same language when it comes to kids!!
Thank you all for your recos. I offered to LHB to read out HP or some other english story books at home library but he said “tell me tamil stories”. He meant Indian story types with masala and twist and turn so I ordered ACK book set and 101 panchatantra tales in Amazon. They should arrive in 1 or 2 days. Meanwhile, today I narrated Suppandi story and as usual the boy slept before I could even get to the main plot!!
Guess, all that matters is just settling down with him during bedtime and pretend to narrate the story. The boy will doze off even before I am done introducing the main character!
I am glad to restart this routine and sincerely hope to stick on to it!
Today was snow day holiday. LHB and I prayed together last night and God answered our prayers by declaring school holiday. So I got to sleep extra in the morning and he got more game time. Its win/win. LHB asked if we should pray again tonight 😁 😁
LHB loves to listen to bedtime story. I have tenali raman and akbar birbal stories and now short of ideas.
I have been procrastinating this for a while for the lack of unable to find a good story to narrate. Every night he would ask “Amma kadhai” and I would say “Amma is tired. Tomorrow chellam”
I feel guilty of this and want to restart the story time. I know very soon he will stop asking so I want to enjoy this little joy as long as it lasts
Can you please help me with some stories or share a source where I can find them? I want the story to be interesting with some twists and turns to narrate with some drama so we can have a lively time before going to sleep!
Will you help ya?
Dear Chellam,
Happy happy birthday da. I read your last year letter and most of it still holds true. The changes this year are you got into the travel soccer team. You practiced very hard and the effort was finally paid off. This takes a lot of your time with 2 practice sessions and 1 game every week. Appa is your official chauffer. One of the summer weekend, I drove you to the game and loved watching the game. Ever since, I try to come for some of the games. You have improved a lot in the skills. More way to go chellam! You are super proud to be part of the travel team!
We still do home chart and now you do most of your homework all by yourself right after coming back from school. You have a very tight schedule and prefer to be informed ahead about the schedule. You check with me every night about your schedule for next day and accordingly plan your play time!
You are way better at Tamil now. After the first term test, your teacher almost had happy tears 🙂 Appa is helping you with Tamil and now you declared that he is a better teacher than me! We speak more Tamil at home now and its cute to hear you speak Tamil
All your traits are still the same, you are a happy boy, you know how to annoy us and how to make us smile, you are a kind soul, its not easy to make you cry, you are very good at pushing my button and you enjoy music like Amma
You still hold the record of taking “apple” for school snack and being the “apple king”. Last week, you couldn’t bite the apple slice due to dental fillings and we decided to keep 1 slice in the snack box to keep up the record 🙂
You are a completely different person when Akka is home! You love to spend quality time with her like building lego or painting! She has sent a perfect gift for you and you will be getting it as part of our birthday treasure hunt surprise first thing in the morning.
You are admired by our neighbors and friends for your smile! You swiftly move on to plan B if plan A is messed up. You are not the types to cry over spilled milk!
G is still your best buddy and you are nice to all your friends!
What do I love the most is you prefer home lunch. Amma try my best to pack something healthy and good for your school lunch! You love molaga podi, your breakfast is egg dosa sprinkled with generous amount of molaga podi!
Very recently you have started expressing your craving for food and ask me to cook them for you. You claim that its only your demands that makes me explore to cook new cuisines at home 🙂
You are funny and annoying. One moment you talk like a Zen and next moment you talk senseless!
Fortnite is your weakness now and you talk business only in vbucks dollars! Any reward earned is strictly paid in vbucks!
//Copying from last year letter, I might add this in all your letters
You are my reflection chellam. The family always make fun of us when you display some of my not so cool traits. They go like “we wonder where he got this from”, and I brim with pride 🙂 I often say in a proud tone “en inam ada nee” (rough translation – you are my blood) even if your act is mischievous!
Happy happy birthday chellam. Stay happy, stay healthy and be the same always!
This is a pose he gave when I wanted to take a picture of him before heading to a birthday party!
Love,
Amma
I am going to restart the blog journey just to be a fair mom to LHB. Adi read most of the posts few days back and appreciated it so its not fair if I don’t have a journal for LHB. After all, I started this blog journey as a mommy blogger so let me restart 🙂
Its very interesting to realize that until last year there will be a huge sigh of relief once blogathon is over but this year many of us are choosing to stay back and write more.
I do not want to commit to “100 happy days” but will write about anything that calls to be recorded in this space. Deal?
What did I do more in January?
Who made me smile more?
Thank you Seema, Tharani, MTW, FV, Prachee, Paatiamma and RS for being part of it and this is like a good workout. You will never regret doing it but hard to keep up 🙂
Loved the reunion and connecting with all of you. I somehow enjoyed this year more than previous years. There was no tension about keeping up and the post just happened. Maybe because I was looking forward to reading all your posts in the night and that motivated me enough to write my own post!
2024 is going to be tough. I can already see it but I promise myself to enjoy the small moments and find my balance. Balance will be my word of the year!
Wishing you all a wonderful, healthy, happy new year 2024.
I will be back in few days with my birthday letter to LHB, hopefully if I manage to write one. My little man/big boy is turning 11 in few days 🙂
Today’s tidbit:
Adi called today morning and we had a long chat. That was a good start of the day. She doesn’t speak for long every day. She called to confirm an online order for LHB’s birthday gift and she had the right gift shortlisted. I was pleasantly surprised! Few days back I happened to read LHB’s old birthday letters and today shared those links with Adi. She responded with a “wow” later so I guess she enjoyed reading them!
I was preparing LHB for an upcoming math test. He instructed me to write 1 problem from each chapter. I wrote 6 problems from 1 chapter and my plan was to go chapter by chapter to help him strengthen the concept of each chapter. The boy threw tantrum because I didn’t obey his orders. He ripped the page, crushed it and almost threw in trash! I didn’t react! He grabbed the paper and came back to me with another demand. I simply told him that he has become a big boy now that he decides to disrespect me, throw my work in trash so he can manage everything by himself. That he doesn’t need my help or support anymore. He was quiet for sometime, walked around the rooms few times and then worked with me to solve the remaining math problems. We had a happy ending by chatting and fixing his school binder before he said good night! Oh, he had a binder explosion situation in school today because his binder couldn’t handle it anymore 🙂
I think, I should continue to write about LHB’s antics. I wrote more when Adi was 11 so its fair to do the same for him and RS’s 100 day challenge is tempting! Let’s see
I have an early start tomorrow and its 11:45pm but I cannot go to sleep without completing my favorite task of the day 🙂 What do you say?
Can someone help me stop writing? I am unable to stop, maybe I can continue to write till it strikes 11:59 and then hit publish! I am sure going to pay for this tomorrow. Hope I don’t doze off in any meeting!!
Take care you all 💕💕
Stealing the title from MTW’s post
6:20am – Wake up
7:15pm – Pack lunch and send LHB to school
7:20pm – I leave home to take 7:30am bus to office
9am – Arrive office, go straight to cafe and get my black coffee
9:30am – First meeting starts
12pm – Lunch time with colleagues (they all were discussing Valentine’s day plan. I told them, right M and I are in a stage where we are happy if we are left alone :))
1pm – Work, work, work
5:15pm – Leave office
7pm – Arrive home and start tiding up kitchen
8:30pm – LHB arrives from his scout meeting
9:30pm – Refuse to doze off even though eyes are literally begging because I have a commitment to post!
9:50pm – Publish the post
10pm – Snooze land (la la laaaa)
Highlights of today:
– Lunch with colleagues, its been a while I shared lunch table with colleagues
– Meet up with my ex-boss
– Nap in the bus
– An evening call that came with some good news and made me smile
Can’t believe we are wrapping up tomorrow! Its a bittersweet feeling! One part of me wants to continue the blogging and the other part is staring hard at my choice 🙂 I loved reading all your posts and commenting more than writing my own post, will miss you guys! Ok, let me stop ranting now and go to sleep…
God bless the soul who came up with this title as they saved me from plucking out the four strands of hair in my head at 11:30pm on a work weekday after a long tiring day! Please bless this soul in abundance and that too the soul picked my favorite topic!
Music is my soul soother. I mostly listen to Tamil movie songs (unplugged version) and devotional songs. They have been my company through good and bad times. Earlier today, I recommended my friend to listen to below song. Kannadasan’s lyrics brought tears to my eyes. I have shared the English translation for lyrics at the end of this post!
The deal while driving with kids is we alternate the playlist, a Tamil song of my choice and an English of their choice. By now, LHB knows the Tamil songs I prefer and he plays them on his own 🙂 When Vikram movie songs released and I played Vikram theme song saying I love the beat, LHB shook his head and said “Omg, now this lady is going to play this on loop for next 3 months” he hee. He liked all of PS songs especially the “Chola chola” song! I take immense pride in introducing my favorite songs to LHB!
For LHB and I, we pick the song to play even before we secure the seat belt in car. If M is driving, LHB will promptly say “Appa, Songuu”. M is not the types to listen to songs and we (LHB and I) drive him crazy with songs during drive. I mean have you met anyone who doesn’t like to listen to music? If not, meet my man!
My go to devotional songs are “Bhagyadha lakshmi baramma”, “Kurai ondrum illa”, “Aigiri nandini”, Yesudas’s “Arivarasanam” and all chalisas and sarasaranamams! They play on loop during auspicious days!
I cannot think of a day that went past without listening to music! The only TV reality show I watch is “Super Singer” listening to the songs minus all drama. In last weekend show, Radha was cute though and the tribute was to the Tamil actor Vijayakanth who died recently.
Gosh, there is only 2 minutes left for the clock to strike 12am and I have an early start tomorrow. I better go to bed now, if not I cannot even dream to catch the last bus to work tomorrow!
P.S: LHB has English test tomorrow. He asked me to test him with some vocabulary questions. So, I asked “What does comeback mean?”, He replied “Its the act of coming back”!! I rest my case your honor!!
The Youtube shared song lyrics go like this:
A human can become god.
When he gives ( unconditionally and without any selfishness ( in scoops and heaps) ), he becomes a king (philanthropist),
Just like a banana tree ( whose every part is useful – signifying ultimate sacrifice) , one could sacrifice for the good of people and be remembered as a great human,
he could spread light ( all goodness and positive energy), like the wax in the candle that melts itself to spread light.
If you have the heart then even in a bird’s nest you can accommodate a deer ( emphasizing that you are never too small to help, its all in the mindset),
if you have the vision/can see the path, then even in a grain of mustard ( something so small) you can envision a mountain ( something big) ( means that even in/with small thing , you can achieve great heights)
Note – I fixed the video link in previous video. Please go and watch it. Thank you Seema!
Here I am picking on a thread that is going around. What are our family traditions? I love following traditions but with my family it doesn’t go that well and still I try. Here are some I can recollect!
Between my littles and me 