Thursday ritual – Day 27

This is a ritual followed by Adi every Thursday evening. To fill out LHB’s lunch order form for the following week as we have to return it to school by Friday. It is a sight to watch the both discussing and circling the options for every day. The boy clearly has some priorities about his lunch selections. He orders his Akka, get me hot dogs, can you circle a dessert? and Akka obeys!

There are weeks when we have missed to do it on Thursday evening and Adi rushing to circle them on Friday morning before running to catch her bus. It is her responsibility and only hers 🙂

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Club slogan and Questioning – Day 26

I had to think hard to write something today. Nothing unusual if I don’t count the study time with LHB. We spent around 45 minutes together and inspired by that Adi also wanted me to ask questions from two lessons. Both are very unusual events. LHB sitting in one place for 45 minutes can be considered close to a dead person coming alive. Ok that is a bad analogy.

Questioning Adi happens like countable times in a year. I know she really doesn’t need this but we just do it for some time pass. I remember troubling Amma with this during school days. Make her ask questions in random order and check my answers. That too when she is busy with some errands like grinding idli batter with her hands filled with batter. I will make her wash her hand and ask questions. I will create a scene as if I will fail the exam if she doesn’t ask the questions right away. That memory is so vivid. Yes, I was an atrocious kid who troubled her mother with so many silly demands.

Ok coming to the actual content of this post, Adi recently learned this slogan related to her club and kept saying it at home. It was catchy and little tough to memorize so I tried and memorized too with a strict warning from her. I am not supposed to say this loud either in front of her friends or in the club competition. I should not even show the sign of knowing this slogan. She has so much confidence in this crazy mother that she will surely sing it loud just to embarrass her girl. So, here is the slogan

it dit little dit
oat doat little doat
ishh kili otto
bodaski di ta
oda two

The great meaning of this slogan is yet to be deciphered even by its unknown creator.

P.S: I m getting more popular for jinxing day by day. Just when I was telling Adi that there is nothing interesting that happened today, I got a call from neighbor that there are 3 fire trucks and 1 ambulance outside our garage. I went out to check and it was due to a smoke from neighbor’s dryer unit. The fire men got it under control. All is well now.

It has been 5 days since I went to gym and today I ate two idlis with molaga podi and coconut chutney. So much for the no carb diet 😦

Have any of tried mixing coconut chutney with molaga podi, make it like a orangish mix and eat with idli or dosa? If not, try it soon. Heaven is the word!

P.P.S: Thank you all for your ideas for the party games. I am reading all comments. Keep them coming. Will reply to them and do blog hop over the weekend. Thank you all again. I also thought of this other game where the person has to answer for previous question and survive for one minute.

 

Holiday shopping, learning – Day 25

LHB had yearly holiday shopping at school today and he bought me green earrings as green is my favorite color. A thoughtful little boy made his mommy super happy. I was grinning ear to ear all evening wearing the earring 🙂

Today and next two days are going to be all day learning session at work and I am loving it to learn something new. Today was a productive day. Hoping to try something new in next two days that can impress my management.

We have a potluck coming weekend. Can you guys suggest some game ideas for the bharatha vilas group (I mean its a mix of many states from India – tamil, telugu, malayalam, hindi) so it can’t be like a language specific game like dumb charades or movie name guessing.

Sunday craft – Day 24

This Sunday, the girls had their weekly club meet  at our home. As usual I sat by the dining table at the corner of living room and watched the girls multi tasking as in chit chat, practice, make props but mostly chit chat 🙂

It was an afternoon well spent but it got dragged as they had to complete some giant props. M jumped in to help and it went on beyond 8pm. That means its the boy and me again left alone at home. I kept him engaged with interactive learning websites and made a craft with him. No TV 🙂

It was a walking robot. Our first official completed craft. He has matured in following instructions so making this craft was not as painful as earlier when we always gave up in the middle as he messes up craft work area. This time we were able to complete the craft though it was alive for only few minutes.

I am happy for 2 reasons. 1. We completed the craft. 2. I took the pic in that 1.5 minutes it lasted after completion 🙂

It reminded me of all those craft sessions with Adi when she was of same age as LHB now. We have done so many crafts. Looking forward to more craft sessions with my little honey bun.

For those interested, here is the video we followed for this craft.

Note: Not ending today with great spirits but its okay. I will overcome this as well. Thanking God for all the strength I have been blessed with and helping me to move in constructive direction. It is a thin line and I am glad to be on the constructive side. Just a small slip and I will fall deep down that even I cannot help myself. But, I am not going to slip. I am not. I have my principles and values rooted very deep and strong that will hold me high and away from negative forces. I am glad to have found my way out and all I have to do is just hold on to it real tight. I will.

Chicken roast – Day 23

Thanks to Jo for sharing this recipe video.

I made shrimp roast for Thanksgiving lunch. It was polished off by friend’s kids in no time.

And now second day in a row, I made chicken roast following same recipe and it came out very well that even M gave thumbs up. The best part is its with less ingredients and easy to make (if you ignore the roasting part). Even that is not very hard. You have to let it boil stirring occasionally and then stir for around 5 minutes when most of the water is evaporated and its ready to be roasted with little more oil.

Steps:
1. Grind below items to a smooth paste
pearl onion, tomato, green chillies, ginger, garlic, red chilli powder, turmeric powder, curry leaves, salt. (onion, tomato and garlic are optional)
2. Heat kadai, add a spoon of coconut oil, add ground paste, add meat (shrimp/chicken), add water as required to cover the meat and cook in medium flame for around 15 minutes until the water evaporates.
3. Add more oil curry leaves and keep stirring until it comes out as a nice fry. The color will change while roasting.

My improvisations were to add pearl onions, tomatoes and garlic to the grinding mix. Today I even skipped green chillies as I was out of stock.

I highly recommend all non-veg eaters to try this out. I am not sure if this can be tried with veggies. Let me know if anyone tries with veggie.

Mommies group – Day 22

Few months ago, a whatsapp group was started for all mommies of Adi’s grade to stay connected. In no time, it was taken to the next level to have a potluck to put a face to the names. Surprisingly, there was good response from fellow mom’s and one of the mom agreed to host the potluck in her closed garage. Plans were made, menus were decided, spreadsheet was shared and with no big confusion or drop outs we all met on a weekend for lunch as planned. I took salad and carrots, cucumbers. This happened few weeks ago.

It was a great meet where most of us just let it go with the flow and had good chit chat. Had ice breaker games and I even won it 🙂 Thanks to one of the mom who took up most of the initiative and we all followed her. Now, she is creating Fitbit groups to focus on fitness in coming months. Sounds fun.

I like it how though kids were our common point to connect initially but we have moved towards discussing about out own self. Like the other day a fellow mom posted about how the pharmacy messed up with her orders and many of us jumped in to support her virtually. Another one came up to discuss about her thyroid issues.

With most of us nearing late 30s, focusing on fitness and discussing about our own health issues with no judgements definitely makes one feel good.

Hope this too doesn’t vanish like all other groups in few months and we all stay connected.

Dosa chit chat – Day 21

Today was mostly LHB and me at home while the father and girl were out. We did some reading, played interactive learning games online and he took a good nap. Such a good nap that he even pee-ed on the bed 😉 I caught up on some of gilmore girls while he was napping.

The highlight was the chit chat we had when he was eating dosa for dinner. He sat on the table enjoying ghee roast with red spicy chutney while I was serving them hot off the tawa. A moment I will cherish forever as a mother. He complimented the chutney and demanded to make dosa more crispier. Where did my baby go that was fed until yesterday while being engaged with TV?

He has grown up so much in last one week. Seriously, hearing all big man talks for past few days like cutting deals with me in a serious tone, asking me for my choices, using new words, giving uninvited suggestions to his Akka and Appa while they are seriously discussing something. Some of his frequently used sentences/words are

you are making me nervous
its annoying ma
actually, I…
wait a second, when did…
YESSSS!!! I knew it! I knew it!
enjoyyyyy!!! (we were in splits when he said this when I was about to go to the bathroom)
guys, do this guys, do this
listen to me! listen to me! (with hands stretched out)
I am not good at this. I told you!!

He is the sunshine of my life making me feel light and help me shake it off quickly on days I wake up from wrong side of the bed. Be it anytime of the day or no matter of the situation I am surrounded with, when I think of this little blessing of mine an instant smile and warmth wraps around me and I say a quick prayer and thank God for this precious gift.

Thankful for FFF – Day 20

As first thing today morning we spoke about what are we thankful for.

Adi in no time said she is thankful for FFF – Food, Family and Friends. I couldn’t agree more. I am thankful for the same too.

Today’s happiness:

Craft activity with LHB. We made some puppets.

LHB’s afternoon nap. A long and satisfied one after many days. Adi read books to him and we both stayed in bed until he dozed off.

Movie watching in the afternoon.

Dance performance by a friend’s daughter at a local temple.

 

 

 

 

Thanksgiving – Day 19

I am thankful for too many things life has offered me so far. Counting all my blessings on this happy day.

Had a great time with friends family who came over for lunch and stayed back till late evening playing and chatting. The air was filled with laughter and happiness.

Thanksgiving spread:

Mutton biriyani (am I becoming a specialist in this or what. It came out good two times in a row) 🙂
Mutton cabbage masala (made by the friend)
Chemmeen roast (Thank you Jo for the recipe)
Prawn masala
Grilled Promphet (full fish – made by the friend)
Egg masala
Onion raitha
White rice
Rasam (made by the friend)
Semiya payasam

 

Dance, Chocolate, quote and lunch – Day 18

# 1 – Yesterday night just before bedtime, Adi was playing her piano and I started dancing for the tune with LHB. We were making few ballet and salsa type moves and I told Adi that the choreography came out well.

She replied “Amma I don’t know for which one should I laugh. should it be for your pathetic dance or that you thought it was good? I brushed it off and continued to dance. Then, LHB requested me to dance to his tunes and I obliged. It was just 10 minutes but all three of us had great fun

# 2

# 3 – The quote I see at my gym. Isn’t it so true? I decided to take a picture of it today

#4 – Today, I went to gym in the morning and packed Adi’s favorite lunch for her (vegetable fried rice special version and potato fry just the way she likes it)

Tomorrow is a big day. Friends family is coming over for lunch. Hoping to have loads of fun. Hope I am not jinxing it.