20 | December | 2017 | Between my littles and me

Today was a day I hardly got time to breathe. Let’s see how it unfolded

4:40 am – Wake up
5:00 am – Gym time
6:00 am – Back to home
6:20 am – Enter kitchen
7:50 am – Go to drop LHB at school
8:20 am – Visit dollar store to get gift bags and other supplies
9:00 am – Back to home, start with breakfast preparation (Made karandi omelette as both were working from home)
9:15 am – Quick cleaning of living room and kitchen
9:30 am – Login to work
12:00 pm – Take lunch break and start with lunch preparation (chicken roast)
1:00 pm – Load dishwasher
1:15pm – Login back to work
3:00 pm – Take a break from work and start wrapping all gifts to be distributed today/tomorrow
3:25 pm – Adi comes home
4:15 pm – Sign off from work
4:30 pm – Arrive Kids doctor office for their flu shot. M picks up LHB while we wait at doctor office and I blog hop during the wait.
5:30 pm – Go to LHB’s school and share gifts with his aftercare teachers.
6:00 pm – Arrive Adi’s piano class, share the gift with her teacher.
6:30 pm – Arrive my doctor office for my annual physical checkup.
7:10 pm – M goes back to Adi’s piano class to pick her
7:30 pm – M and kids are back. I blog hop during the wait.
7:45 pm – Leave from my doctor office
8:00 pm – Back to home
8:30 pm – Kids finish their dinner
9:20 pm – LHB and I go to sleep
10:00 pm – I come back to continue with my work
10:20 pm – Adi finishes her homework/assignments. Packs the gifts for her school teachers and friends. Goes to bed.
11:00 pm – I start drafting this post in-between my work
11:50 pm – Publish this post and hope to go to bed in another 10 minutes.

Tomorrow is another equally hectic day but no complaints!!!! The poor girl has to be in school by 7:30am and the poor momma has to pack her dabba before that!!!!

Highlights of the day:

Made it to Gym and I was the only person at team training today 🙂
Bought some lovely reusable bags from dollar store for gifting.
Arrival of all gifts I ordered in Amazon (every 2 hours we had a package delivery today) 🙂
Karandi omelette and chicken roast (food is very important).
Gift wrapping of all gifts.
Adi received her Nike shoe.
LHB asking his Akka to take deep breath when the doctor was about to give her a shot.
LHB braving the shot with no fuss and a big man attitude.
Fun family time at Kid’s doctor office while waiting in the room.
Gift sharing with some of the teachers. Adi’s piano teacher and his wife loved the gift (porcelain decorative vase)
My doctor impressed with my numbers from blood work (all under control) and gave some tips for dieting. I have gained 5 pounds from last year’s visit 😦 She didn’t like that beeg fat tummy.
Read bedtime story and put LHB to sleep. I have to start doing this every day even if my chores are unfinished. Its tough but I must try. Those few minutes of one to one time with him makes lot of difference. That is when he shares all his school stories.

And this is my loot from Amazon. It includes the Christmas presents for Adi and LHB too.Some of the gifts I ordered in multiple like the travel mug, ceramic bowls and jewelry travel pouch to gift for school teachers. I absolutely love my choice of gifts this year and was very happy wrapping them today. They all will be shared by this week 🙂

Screen Shot 2017-12-20 at 11.37.54 PM

Fun time at Kid’s doctor office while waiting:

Screen Shot 2017-12-20 at 11.39.25 PM

Adi’s Nike shoe. Santa is being very generous to the girl this year 🙂

Screen Shot 2017-12-20 at 11.32.01 PM.png

This year the tradition was followed last Sunday. Those who have been reading my blog for few years would know about our tradition by now. We visit our ex-neighbors in old neighborhood to wish them for Christmas and New year. And stroll through the neighborhood to re-live Adi’s childhood memories.

I prepared fish kuzhambu on Saturday evening and it was packed for Sunday lunch. Surprisingly the kuzhambu (curry) was ~~liked~~ licked by everyone including LHB. Every time he got into the car, he was like Amma get me my fish rice and was relishing it while on the go. Adi who always complains that I never get the flavors right its always either more or less and never the perfect also liked it.

Patti’s are doing good. The elder of the 3 is using walker and she was complaining about how the snow is keeping her inside. She wants to go out for a walk and is climbing stairs every day to access her bedroom. The youngest (our favorite of the 3) patti is busy helping her cousin who is fighting cancer and visiting extended family who needs assistance. Her energy at this age is commendable.

Then, we also visited another elderly couple in neighborhood. The aunty who has a full time job during weekdays was out to a local temple to help with food preparation. Here I am just a little above half of her age, cribbing about not getting time to rest on weekends and this Aunty is out to help on weekends too. These woman are my true inspirations to keep up my energy level.

Of course, we visited our favorite bakery and gorged on mango cake, cashew brownies, double chocolate cake, plain brownies and chicken empanadas. I loved how LHB, the strict officer allowed us to take one bite from his piece, just one bite though. When Adi reached out for the second bite, he said “no Akka no” you already had your bite. Its Amma’s turn now. Amma take it, take it and he was blocking Adi with his cute little hands while I proudly digged in and claimed my one bite. I didn’t get my masala chai from the Indian street though 😦