What are we up to?

* Visited friend’s home for Golu. The girls had a gala time and sang couple of mesmerising carnatic devotional songs.

* Watched Garba at the festival happened at India street near our home. The whole street was blocked and people were dancing in a big circle oval around God’s idol. Girls were all decked up in pretty pretty heavily worked gagra and boys in Sherwani. Adi got hyped and bought the dandiya sticks but did not join the gang for dancing. Now, I am playing the audience for her dance with sticks at home every evening.

* Made a simple Jack-o-lantern with the pumpkin Adi got home from her field trip.

* Had family movie watching time at home on a Friday night. Watched “Ice age 4” with speakers on and Adi loved the experience. We have decided to have a family movie watching Friday night once in a month. You know that type where you setup everything like chips, popcorn, water, juice and watch the movie by settling down on the bed twisting/turning, fighting for pillow/blanket, switch places, cuddle as something bad happens in the movie and go to sleep as the movie ends.

* Visited Adi’s classmate’s home for Kanya Puja. This is Adi’s first time attending Kanya puja and I was her chauffeur.

* Celebrated Saraswathi Pooja with simplest prasadam of semiya payasam and sundal. The girl duly arranged her books, pencil, ruler, eraser and religiously studied in front of God for few minutes on the next day. She is getting more responsible these days but the mommy in me is still treating her as a baby much to her annoyance. **Self alert – Time to grow up mommy**

*  Honoured her music teacher with guru dhakshanai on Vijayadasami. Her teacher has requested the students to visit her for few minutes on this auspicious day to learn a new song. The swaram’s this girl sings transports me to a different world. That’s my biggest solace anytime. I only hope she continues to learn music and cherish it all her life. Something I was not able to pursue but still exists on my to-do list.

* The girl started talking about “prohibited” words in her dictionary that’s crush, sexy, kiss, butt, bikini and so on… She caught a dialogue from Ice age 4 and kept whispering it to me for more than a week. She giggles every time she sings it. “Diego and Shira, sitting in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g”. She pretends to close her eyes when two people kiss each other on the screen. I am listening to all those talks. The talks that starts like this “You know amma K said something really bad today and she whispers what K said after taking a pinky promise from me to not to tell it to anyone else”. It will be mostly around one of those prohibited words. I initially got scared when she said “something really bad” but now I understand the meaning of “something really bad” in her dictionary. Another sign of the girl growing.. A big Sigh !!!!. But, I am kind of liking it 🙂 Talk about motherhood. A mother wants her girl to grow up as well as stay as a kid at the same time. Motherhood can never never be satisfied.  Hope she doesn’t curse me in future for writing all this in public. Oh she now has a private diary which we are not allowed to see. She writes something on it most of the night before going to bed. We have pinky promised to her that we will not touch that diary without her permission.

* I am personally going through a very tough phase. Remember those uncertain things I was talking about in earlier posts. They still exist and haunting me every second. The more I try to come out of it the more I am falling prey for it and getting into depression mode. Its been a long time I experienced depression at this level and thought I have completely outgrown it. Thought I have become so matured and practical, the type that can apply brain to situations and handle them with mind.  But, isn’t life all about proving us wrong?  While in depression, heart manifolds and stands so big in front of mind that any amount of convincing or reasoning is not helping. I am hating these tears that has become my shadow off late always ready to show up any second no matter whether you read a book, walk on the road, take shower or cook they just flow through the cheeks. Hoping to sail through this difficult time sooner. I will write more details once I gather more strength and get some clarity.

* Trying my best to keep up with reading. Read Indu Sundaresan’s “Twentieth Wife” and now buried my nose into the sequel of that book “The feast of roses”.

* For all those tamil cine song lovers, I found couple of youtube links that has hour long collection of best songs (Only audio. Though it has Illayaraja’s picture the list has a mix of songs from all music directors). I am hooked on to them. Hope someone likes it.

 

* Signing off with Adi’s classic

Adi: Amma, why are you such a small mommy?
Mommy: You know there are people who are smaller than me.
Adi: Oh you mean dwarfs?

Aarrrgghhhhh !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hope all is well at your end. Keep smiling…

Advertisement

Stay this way my sweetie

ETA: I just thought of adding this line after reading all your comments. Its not just us who are trying to inculcate the good values on her. The major part is played by her school and teachers especially this year her school’s theme is around Manners and they focus on this.

It happened couple of weeks ago. M called me after dropping Adi at school and complained that this girl is acting weird. On that day they reached school few minutes later than the usual time at a time when her class has already gone upstairs and the next class was climbing the stairs. M had asked her to join the line so that she can catch up with her classmates as they reach their classroom. But, this girl refused. She said as her class has already climbed a flight of stairs and she is behind it means she is late and she will go to class only after getting a tardy slip from the office room. She did not budge to any of his cajoling and went to class only after getting a late slip from the school office. The icing on the cake is her teacher did not mark that day as tardy for Adi as the teacher herself had witnessed the unusual traffic on that morning. Thanks to the road work at our neighborhood.  When M narrated the whole incident claiming she was acting weird I snapped back at him that, had I been there I would have asked her to do the exact same thing as what she did. I was brimming with pride on my daughter’s action. Please stay this way my sweetheart no matter how much ever you get exposed to the corrupted side of this world as you grow. I sincerely hope one day when you have to make a decision you will choose the right path if you happen to read or get reminded of this post.

Oh about going to school on time finally something has dawned upon M that he wakes up early (not really early but the time I expect him to wake up to be on time to school)  from the beginning of this academic year. That means, Adi wakes up ahead of time and they reach school at least ten minutes before the prayer starts. The family that had struggled so hard to attend school assembly for the past two years is now reaching school ten minutes ahead of the prayer time. All credit goes to M who at last realized the importance of every second minute in the morning rush hour and made up his mind to sacrifice those 15 minutes of extra time at bed. It is an incredible achievement for us and I am super duper happy about this.

Another incident that touched my heart – Two weeks ago, Adi had Math test at school and as usual we were reviewing the lessons. Some of the concepts were new to her and she found it hard to understand thm. Especially, with rounding the number to nearest thousands, hundreds and tens. Ex: 6678. She rounded it as 7000, 7700, 7780 instead of 7000, 6700 and 6680. So, we were practicing with different numbers as a game while eating, reading, brushing hair, putting shoes you get the drift na, so that she understands it better. I kept my cool though she was repeatedly saying it wrong. After all this is completely new to her and I cannot expect her to learn it so quick.  But, I was explaining the details and correcting her whenever she was wrong. How much of it really reached her was questionable as you all might already know about kids listening ability.

Much to my surprise, she scored full marks in that test. When I enquired about the test this is what she told me with a big grin on her face “I finished the test fast, scored 100 and my teacher asked me to help others with the rounding amma”. I couldn’t avoid that wide ear to ear grin myself and asked her if she wants a reward. At first, the girl jumped in joy and when I agreed to buy her something on our way back home she said this “Actually amma its you who had to get the reward. Its you who helped me with the test and you worked harder than me”. I was dumbstruck for a moment, hugged my darling and had tears in my eyes. I never expected her to say this. Seriously, I doubt if I have rewarded or even appreciated my amma for anything that she had done to me during my school/college years. Being kind to our parents after we grow up is different but at the age of seven I would have never ever said that to my amma. I would have only only demanded for my reward. When M treated her with a dinner at Pizza hut that night she told her father “Appa give the menu card to this lady (pointing to me), this treat is for her”.

I am blessed pattumma, blessed boundlessly to have you as my daughter.  Please stay this way, unadulterated for the rest of your life.

May God bless you with long and happy life.

Princess cake

Smitha and Lifesong – I dedicate this post to both of you. I would not have known about this cake at all if I had not read about it in your blogs.  Thank you ladies.

This was a long weekend for Adi so I decided to bake the princess cake with her. We bought the ingredients on Saturday, baked cakes (double the required quantity) on Sunday and arranged/decorated the cake on Monday. It is a tedious process if you plan to do it all on same day. As Smitha suggested baking the cake earlier and refrigerating helps a lot. That gives us the patience needed for decoration.

We followed the steps from this video and the video recommended by Smitha.

It was worth the effort and this time I also invested on some baking supplies like a good decorating kit, cooling wire rack, turntable and a leveler from Michaels 🙂 You see our confidence level has gone up on baking.

I used butter cream frosting (store bought) mixed with pink color for the dress,  pink/white frosting and sprinklers for doll’s body (followed bodice # 2 in first video above) and the blue color fondant for those blue color decorations..

It was not a perfect one but we were happy with our first attempt 🙂

 

Third grade updates

Yep you read the title correct. Adi has skipped a grade and moved on to third grade this year. It all happened before I could wink my eyes. We have plans to R2I soon. Soon could be anywhere from six months to one and a half year. So, when I was enquiring about age vs grade terms at India I heard from multiple sources that Adi has a possibility to do third grade for her age so we thought why not give it a try if she can handle it.

The preparations started during early summer holidays. I spoke with some of her school parents to collect the syllabus for second grade, taught them to Adi, made her do the Brain quest second grade workbook,evaluated her confidence with second grade stuffs, convinced myself that she is comfortable with second grade syllabus and then decided to go ahead with third grade. We didn’t tell her anything until her school principal agreed for the move. When I approached them, her principal agreed with no issues as Adi was a consistent first honor roll student in first grade. Thanks to them.

It has been more than a month in third grade now and the girl is doing just great. Her daily work for home gets posted in school site in the morning every day. That helps me to plan ahead and we spend from 30 mins to one hour in the evening (Monday to Thursday) together to do and review those work. As per her school’s policy parents have to sign the homework. Her evening routine goes like this. After reaching home, get refreshed, watch 30 mins of TV with snacks/milk, do homework, eat dinner, play with appa (only if she is lucky and there is more time), brush, read and go to sleep. She understands the importance of academics and doesn’t expect me to be at the back of her for the homework time as it was till last year. Once, TV time is over, she comes to me with her book bag and laptop. I have added a bookmark for her homework site in our laptop. We sit together, she opens the browser, navigates to the site, reads the work one by one and does them. I just sit next to her with my own work to assist her in case of any doubts. Once she is done, I will review the work and sign it. At least I am happy she understands that amma is not against her playing and that she gets lot of free time if she finishes her work on time. I have rewarded her enough to make her realize this. Sometimes I let her plan the evening. Like, if she really wants to play then I let her play, she fixes the time and gets back to her work on time. Sometimes when I ask her to take it easy she replies with a serious look “Ammaaa are you kidding me? I had to make up for one whole year”..  I am not worrying much as long as she is aware of her responsibilities.  She has to deal with her teacher if she has not done her work and she understands this quite well. Her maturity amazes me at times. So, over all its going fine so far. Touch wood…

She has got four big text books this year for Reading, Math, Science and Social studies. Her teacher sent them home to cover and this girl understood it as “cover”. That she has to finish reading the whole book and drove us crazy over the weekend. She took a bottle of water, went into her room, closed the door, asked us not to disturb and read all the stories in English text book at one stretch. No one was ready to listen to me that by “cover” her teacher would have meant “wrapping”. This girl created such a ruckus that Amma was in tears to see her grand kid like this and gave me ear full. She was repeatedly telling Amma like “Ammachi I have to finish all these four books in this weekend”. You should have seen the drama between the two. My god. I right away emailed her teacher, confirmed that she meant wrapping and restored peace at home. Again, I spoke with her teacher in front of her as first thing on Monday morning and sorted it out. This girl I say…

Regarding after care classes we have registered her in art/dance/music along with chess this year. So, she gets to attend one class every day during the three hours (3-6pm) spent at after care. She is happy about this setup as she gets to meet her second grade friends at these classes and also gets time to play with them during after care.

We attended “back to school” night last month and her class teacher is very friendly. She explained to parents as what to expect this year and we got a glimpse of the class.

Leaving you all with some pictures and Adi’s classic

A day before school reopened I told Adi “Pappa you have to do good this year. I know its going to be tough but we will deal with it together. You should give your best. See only because you did good last year the principal had agreed to move you to third grade”. talk about positive vibes and all that. Little did I realize that I will burn myself. She thought for a while and said “Okay amma I will do my best but just because I am doing well you should not make me skip fourth grade and put me to fifth grade okay?”. Now, who would have thought like this? I promised her that this was only to keep her in par with Indian standards and we will never go through this again. My heart sinked and I was in total dilemma all though September but not anymore. She has got settled and doing quiet good as I expected.. Hope she will be soon ready to handle the Indian syllabus which I heard is quiet high in standards compared to the syllabus here.. Touchwood touchwood…

This slideshow requires JavaScript.