I was late, made my entry into Kitchen to cook for Ammavasya. Took out the veggies from refrigerator, lined them up in counter and in next few minutes I find myself cleaning the refrigerator. Spent a good 20 minutes in cleaning the inside of refrigerator while veggies are waiting in the counter, time is ticking and I am running late!!!
I was just done with an afternoon meeting, there was a 30 minute break before next meeting. I come to the kitchen to make a cup of coffee and in next few minutes I find myself cleaning the stove top as I noticed some spill over while waiting for the coffee to heat up in microwave!!!
In both these incidents, the mind observed the action only minutes after the action has started!!!
My sweetheart, my lifeline, my chella kutty, I love the way you are growing up da! The way you care for others and being empathetic melts my heart kutty! I sincerely hope you stay the same even after having your own first hand experience of various types of crazy people!
Other day, you were in school session, I was on a work call in next room and my laptop charger fell down with banging sound. You instantly muted your laptop and asked “Amma, are you okay?”. You check on me at random times. It so happens, you ask “How is your day ma?, How are you doing today?” just on the day I yearn for someone to check on me! You are the same to everyone! When friends visit us, you make sure they are rightly engaged. J aunty was saying how you engaged her in Kitchen when we all went out to run an errand leaving her alone at our home with 4 kids! You showed her where the onion and garlic are and gave her company while she was doing prep work for dinner!
You are a bundle of positive energy da. If you cry then we all know something is terribly wrong. None of us can bear to see even a tiny drop in your eyes. But hey, very recently you learned to fake cry! You cry for a minute and when we take a closer look at you, you start laugh cry 🙂
Your logical sense has improved a lot in past year and now you make an attempt to do less guess work with Math. You have taken a step forward with academics very recently and let’s work together to see where that takes us! Effort is all that matters kanna! One step at a time!
You are a true believer of Santa and tooth fairy. Your proud Amma very recently added birthday God to this list! We do cheeky cheek, kiss and hug generously. The rule for hug is to hug tight and count to 50. Every time we hug, I tell you that I am not getting enough of you even after counting to 50 but you count as fast as you can and flee away. Let me enjoy these as long as they last. There is no hurry. Take your own time to outgrow kutty!
Each one of us call you with different name and you care less. Appa calls you Aovli, Akka calls you Aaaavi and I call you baby or kutty or silly! We also call each other dude, bro, master depending on our mood and situation!
You say “15 million years” for every other sentence. Like you have been following covid protocols for “15 million years”, you have been doing Math for “15 million years”. This is your tag line now!
Rules are rules and they are meant to be broken. You are a strict officer when it comes to rules. You will not let others break it but that sheepish smile when you break it is priceless!
You have learned and unlearned three tamil songs this year – “paalum theli thenum”, “tamil thai vazhthu” and “a aa padikkan vanthen”
You are smarter at tackling situations than Akka. There is a story about 7 eleven shop and pizza. Will make a separate post about it.
You are my company for temple visits. You are worried we can’t go to temple this year on your birthday. Amma promised to take you on a drive around the temple, only if the snow is cleared by then!!
You play Roblox and Minecraft in laptop. You watched a youtube video to self learn how to change avatar in Roblox and changed it yourself. You are a big youtube channel watcher and want to be a youtuber when you grow up!
We don’t have any gaming console at home yet. While you and Akka were talking about some game, you mentioned to her “We need playstation or Xbox for that Akka and we don’t have it. I know Amma will not let us buy it in a very very sad tone”! It sounded as if I denied your fundamental right!
You and me often say “We are nice people” and we do chores for Akka and Appa even when they are mean to us! When I raise my voice to Akka, you remind me promptly, Amma remember “We are nice people, just let her go Amma”!! or you say “She is paavaa ma, just let her do it!” (paavaa -> paavam -> poor girl)
Akka still is your ring master and she is too good at making you dance to all her tunes! She uses you as guinea pig to test all her AP psychology course learnings and its a pleasure to see you two bond over it.
Our recent favorite family online game is Skribbl. It took you two days to get us into the game and we are hooked on to it now that even a ten minute common break time is spent by playing Skribblo.
You have adapted very very well to online school system. You are a pro in handling laptop, switch between browser tabs, go on mute when needed, go on airplane mode when class is boring (rolls eyes) et all. Our homework sessions have got better. I measure your progress only with your own past.
You are a God sent gift to me. My life would have gone topsy curvy during this pandemic if you were not around. You make me look at life through different lens. If I make a list of “with whom did I talk the most during pandemic time?”, you will top my list hands down.
We went for birthday shopping last weekend and you behaved so mature in choosing clothes. You said “Amma, how does this shirt look? buy it only if you want to okay?” and I had to buy it! You and me teamed up to pack almost half of the store and Appa had to remind us that this is not the last time we are shopping for you 😁
You want a dog so badly and have already named it as “Treasure”. What a beautiful name!
I have to remember to kiss you 8 times while tucking you in from tonight!
Stay happy! Stay healthy and remember that we love you to bits kanna 💕 💕
This picture sums you up. One day when I was all worked up and walking around kitchen furiously you asked me do this to keep calm 😎
I would have refreshed reader like 15 million times (LHB’s slang these days) today in the hope to see some new posts.
Then thought, what if others are also doing the same? So, decided to write a post 🙂 Its my lame reason to connect with you all and justify this post 🙂
Let’s just continue to write as long as the heart wants. who is game? You don’t have to write every day. Just write when you feel like it! ok?
I forgot to mention few more things in my previous post
I want to thank Tharani for introducing me to many things on the internet that stayed with me.
Intermittent fasting – I have been doing this for more than a year now. I do 14 hours on most days and go beyond on some days! This has helped me to maintain my weight! Added bonus is wrapping up Kitchen early!
OPOS cooking – Attalysis is the best technique. Now, I make roti’s at home and very happy with the results.
Luke Coutinho’s youtube channel – I love his videos and how he ends every video with a perfect message “Eat smart, move more, sleep right and breathe deep”. If only we follow this consistently!
Headspace Guide to Meditation Netflix show – In my watch list but I am pretty sure it will be good as its recommended by T.
On the last day of blogathon, I learned how to add emojis when you comment/write a blog post from laptop.
There are two ways:
Keyboard shortcut – For Mac it’s control + command + space, for Windows it’s window logo key + . (Thanks to Visha for sharing this shortcut 💕)
Right click inside the comment box and you will see an option as “Emoji & Symbols” 😎 😎
Between my littles and me 