LHB’s new beginning

LHB has started Kindergarten today. Beginning of a new chapter in his life. I hope he copes up with this journey, makes loads of friends and grows as a well rounded human being. After home it is the school where he spends most of his time. Hope it stays as an enjoyable journey for him.

We woke up early in the morning (thanks to Akka’s early morning routine), did all morning routine with no big fuss, prayed God, did our jingu chika dance ritual and reached school ahead of time.

He said no hair styling and pictures but agreed to do them after reaching school. I acted quick pulling out the styling gel kept hidden in my bag, brushed his hair and we took loads of pictures. Happy mommy 🙂

That is his school head teacher and they made it so smooth for the kids to adapt this change of routine.

Good luck kutty!!

For posterity 🙂

 

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Adi’s day – 06-14-2018

I want to record Adi’s schedule today for posterity as today was one of the busiest day for her! Like I tell her, once she starts high school, its only going to get tougher. She can’t expect to have free days often. She should accept the fact that not every day will be the same. There can be days when she has to stretch and days when she can just curl up on the couch!!

6:45am – Wake up
7:15am – Leave to school
7:30am – Piano practice along with band to play on Graduation day
8:30am to 3:30pm – School
3:30-4:45pm – Music practice and catch up on some homework
5pm – Carnatic vocal music class
7:30pm – Piano class (To practice for the upcoming exam)
9:00pm – Arrive home, start preparation for social studies test scheduled for tomorrow, wrap up homework
10:30pm – Retire to bed

On the other hand, LHB went to backup care (of course with whining and loads and loads of promises that he can stay home for next 3 days), celebrated Father’s day at the centre, played, ate, slept, played, came back home, went for bike ride with Amma, walked around a bit and now watching Peppa pig. Whatttayy life!!!

Of Pinata, Work

Sunday evening:

Scene 1: The family is driving back from Adi’s piano concert.
LHB (out of the blue): Amma, can you buy pinata for my 6th birthday? Please Amma, Please!!
Dotting Amma: Ok sure da!!

Sunday night:

Scene 2 – LHB crying buckets that he doesn’t want to go to the backup care on Monday. I put him in backup care for next 3 weeks as his school is closed for the year.

Self: You know what! I want to tell you a secret baby. Can you come here and sit next to me? (I was sitting in stairs)
LHB: (reluctantly came and sat next to me still crying).
Self: You know what is the secret? even I don’t want to go to office tomorrow baby! what do we do?
LHB: (stops crying instantly, wipes his tears and whispers to me) You stay home Amma, then I will also stay with you!
Self: But, I have to tell my office baby!
LHB: Don’t tell them Amma. Just stay home. Don’t tell anybody!
Self: But, but if I don’t tell them, then they will not give me money. And if I don’t get money, how can I buy the Pinata for your 6th birthday??
LHB: Speechless but didn’t cry anymore.
Self: I made a deal  to keep him home on Friday’s, I will tell my office that I have to work from home on Friday to take care of my baby!

Poor chap! Though I felt like a winner handling the situation, my heart melted seeing the poor boy speechless!

Special Saturday

Today, M went to Pennsylvania to play Volleyball. Did I mention? The man has restarted his passion after school years and is going crazy about it! I am saying passion as I have never, never seen him this interested in anything! He goes for practices at 11pms and 6ams. He works around and makes adjustments to his schedules and duties to make time for this practice. I am happy and glad to see him involved in something like this.

So, yeah he was out the door by 6am and I played dual role of mommy and daddy today 🙂 But, told Adi that I will not play as cool daddy buying them junk snacks!

8am – Made sweet and karam version of paniyaaram for breakfast with leftover dosa batter and fed the kids.

9:45am – Took kids to their respective classes at the local club. After the classes,  all three of us played ping pong for a while. Another father/son duo joined us and it was an impromptu fun time. LHB tried to trick me to get snack from vending machine but I did not budge *proud look*

12pm – Took kids out for lunch to Taco bell. Another impromptu trip! This was a surprise to LHB as he started complaining at recent times that only Akka always gets to choose everything.
The complaining happened when we decided to dine out at Olive garden last weekend based on Adi’s choice. When asked, what is his choice assuming he would not be able to pick any, he surprised us all by yelling Taco bell! So, TB it was for today’s lunch!

1pm – Tamil homework time and parallel kitchen work (Idli batter prep)!

1:45pm – Give a shower to LHB allowing him to play in the shower with his toys for a while!

2:30pm – Quick clean of home, get ready to go to Tamil school.

3pm – Tamil school, today I volunteered as substitute at LHB’s class as his teacher was out sick. OMG! the kids kept us on toes, trips to bathroom and answering all their curious questions took more time than actual learning! This was my first time volunteering and it was a fun experience. I am happy to have chosen this in spite of the splitting head ache! Otherwise, my plan was to take some rest while waiting outside!

This is LHB at the Tamil school parking lot. He demands a click whenever he sees a different looking/colored car. And, the shirt he is wearing is special. Will write about it soon!

5pm – Back home, made dinner (Poha) and continued with cleaning home (never ending task *rolls eyes*)!

6:30pm – Took Adi to piano class while LHB stayed back with the just returned Appa!

8:30pm – Returned home! Loaded dishwasher, cleaned kitchen and finally finally stretched my legs in the couch!

11:30pm – Watched a Tamil comedy movie with kids, laughed out loud at couple of scenes, applied oil on Adi’s hair and wrote this post!

Oh, and yesterday Adi made a Chinese veggie dish for us. It was made of yellow peppers, carrot and all types of condiments and sauces. It was yumm! This is how she presented it to me 🙂

Good night!

 

 

 

 

 

Lunch note

On a not so busy afternoon, when I had some time to think, I had an Eureka moment!!

I decided to write lunch note to Adi. I have no idea how I suddenly got this idea 🙂 To keep it interesting, my colleague and I came up with some categories like unscrambler, vocabulary, math puzzle, fun fact etc.

First day, she was not appreciating it much and said she is not a kindergartner and lunch note is too childish! But me being me continued to write the note.

On fourth day, I missed to keep the note and in the evening she promptly asked, why didn’t you keep the note today!! I was jumping in joy (ofcourse in my mind) but just shrugged my shoulder in response saying I forgot.

Following weekend she hosted sleepover and one of her friend told me how much they all like the lunch note! I was again jumping in joy of course in my mind only!!!

So, now it has become a daily routine. She even checks if I kept the note in lunch bag before packing it!!

Adi and her friends in her lunch table read my note and unscramble/learn/solve it every day 🙂 🙂

Some notes:
The one on left is the note from Day 1. I choose an appropriate word to start the series 🙂

Love this new routine!

For LHB, I gave this one day and looks like he told M during evening ride that someone has scribbled on an orange peel and kept it in his snack box 🙂 I had to read and explain it to him later **face palm**

May be I can write to him after few years!

P.S: I have a google sheet for this and spend around 10 to 15 minutes every Friday to come up with the list for next week so I don’t have to squeeze my already little brain in the morning mad rush!!

Priorities people

Yesterday, while I was wrapping up work to leave, got a call from Adi. She asked “When are you coming home?” I couldn’t give a definite answer and put the phone down by saying “Soon”.

After the call, I couldn’t focus on work so texted her as it is unusual to get a call from her while I am at work!

Read the text for yourself!!!

Yeah, that is all my family needs from me and we have become dosa monsters in recent times especially those crispy ones with gingly oil drizzled over it.. Sluuurrppp!!!

Concert that I will remember

Adi’s choir concert on last Thursday will be etched on my memory for longer than the other one’s because this is her first concert rather first school show that I missed due to office work. She is pretty upset about it. Me too!!

There was a hackathon event organized by a different company in my office building and I signed up for it at the very last minute just to understand how these events operate and its a good opportunity to step out of my comfort zone. Also it was in same building so all the more reasons to participate.

At the hackathon, we were split into teams in the morning, each team had about 3-4 members and there was total of around 8 teams. Then, each team was asked to pick an idea. One of the guy in my team had this awesome idea and rest of the day was spent in prototyping our idea with zilch break. It was an one day event and the results were announced on same day evening.

My initial plan was to be part of the team, skip the final presentation and go to Adi’s concert. But, I was so hooked to different ideas that I stayed back to see the presentation of all teams. Then, it was judging time. After seeing all the presentation I had a strong feeling that my team could make it to at least the 3rd position so couldn’t leave though my heart was all at the concert. The judges took forever to come up with the results and I was calculating and recalculating the train schedules to see if I can still make it to the concert. I was sitting at the tip of my seat with bags packed and ready to scoot right after the announcement.

The announcement was made finally and all I could say is it was worth waiting 🙂 We won the first prize. Each of the team member were gifted an iPad and I was glad to receive it in person. Judges were impressed with the amount of work we got done in 6 hours and liked our demo. I scooted away right after receiving the prize still holding on to my hope to make it to the last part of the concert. I ran all the way to catch the earlier train and trust me that day commute was the longest I ever had! I just couldn’t stay put in the seat and felt so restless.

Hope Adi reads this post some day and understands why I had to skip her concert. I tried my best to make it to the concert till the very last minute but this is the same day I chose to forget the phone at home. So, took a taxi to her school and by the time we reached her school crossing, concert was over and all the cars were driving out so the taxi driver denied to get into that traffic. Instead, he dropped me home!!

Next day, I collected the videos from fellow moms and watched her perform.

I have refrained from getting an iPad all these years as I didn’t want to add more screens to home. This one hopefully will be predominantly used for LHB’s study purpose **rolls eyes** The last thing I want to see happen is LHB glued on to iPad playing random games and watching videos **rolls eyes heavily**

March 2018

I didn’t intend to stay away from blog after the 100 happy days challenge but it just happened.

Highlights of March:

Pot luck with colleagues and their family (yeah we finally executed it after 4 months of planning and postponing). This was supposed to be a “Welcome to US and Happy married life” party for the newly married couple but it was this close to turn out to be a baby shower function. Glad we pulled it off sooner. They are in the family way!!!

3 consecutive days of all day workshop at workplace. It was in same building but different floor with classroom setup. We had out own desk and chair and it felt good to be a student again. The highlight was breakfast and lunch was served and I was sitting in last row right next to food 🙂 So, you know where was my attention all day. I was literally binge eating all day!

Couple of snow day with school closings and all that, all in just one month!

Started styling LHB’s hair 🙂 We now apply styling gel and part the hair on one side and comb neatly. I can’t love this little guy more because my love is already over overflowing. Seriously!!! He still melts my heart at the drop of a hat!

Weather getting better on some evenings that means our bike ride routine around the community has started. I huff and puff and run along with him while he rides his bike happily! He starts pedaling faster just when I catch up with him. Evil boy!!

Birthday parties! Of course!

Mommy and son outing to the mall. We behaved like adults, ordered kebabs, mango lassi and shared it 🙂 He is a charm to take along for shopping. He made me try few tops, pants and helped me chose the right one!

4 day work trip to the west. Met a college friend and his family living closer to my office campus after almost 17 years!! Again I ate like a pig in this trip!

Took kids to an easter egg hunt at a farm. Saturday afternoon well spent!

Took kids to Planetarium and Lindt store. Another Saturday afternoon well spent!

March was a pathetic month in terms of being healthy. I skipped gym and ate with no control that I gained back all the pounds lost in Feb 😦

April is so far promising in terms of fitness. Looking forwards to shed down the weight gained in March and little extra **fingers crossed** I will do a separate post about this if I succeed in my effort. Too early to speak.

From all other aspects, April and May already looks busier than March! Hope to get some rest day!

 

 

 

One of those days

Not a happy post

when you have a moment to introspect and realize what you miss, what you want, what you are, what do you mean to others (specifically those who take you for granted and judge you constantly in spite of controlling you). Its a very ugly feeling is all I can say and ended with a sobbing session.

This is the reason I keep myself busy and never allow my mind to wander around thoughts. It is better to keep my mind pre-occupied and busy so that it doesn’t travel into my pain points and make me feel weak.

I feel helpless and weak today but will definitely get back to my feet soon.

 

Today – Day 95

Saturday’s are usually busy day and today couple of more items were thrown in to it. No complaints though. Enjoyed all the tasks and happy that I got them all under control.

7:30am – Wake up
8:20am – Gym time (forgot to wear my Fitbit so lost recoding almost 3000 steps)
10:00am – Arrive home, have quick breakfast and tea
10:30am – Start with lunch prep (cauliflower biryani, veg briyani and onion raita)
12:15pm – Take shower
12:30pm – Sit with LHB to finish Tamil homework
1:15pm – Visit post office for LHB’s passport renewal
2:45pm – Drop LHB at Tamil school. Today he was supposed to dress up as what he wants to become when he grows up. He chose to be a police. Luckily, I was able to borrow police costume from a neighbor and the guy rocked it. Thanks to M for training him to say “Vanakkam, En peyar LHB. Naan kaavalar aaga pogiren, Nandri” (Eng: Good afternoon, My name is LHB, I am going to become a police officer. Thank you!)
3:15pm – Pickup a princess doll cake I ordered for a friend’s daughter’s birthday party. It was done by a baker from neighborhood.
3:30pm – Visit Adi at her friend’s place to drop some stuff that he forgot to take for the club meet.
3:50pm – Drop the cake at friend’s place surprising their daughters.
4:25pm – Arrive LHB’s Tamil school and discuss about annual day prep details
5:20pm – Indian grocery shopping
5:50pm – Meet neighbor and return the police costume
6:00pm – Arrive home, make Tea and relax for a while
7:00pm – Start cleaning home, brief visit of colleague and then neighbor
8:00pm – Continue with cleaning!
9:00pm – Friend and family visit to share cake and goodie bags from birthday party as we couldn’t go due to other commitments.
10:30pm – Load dish washer, clean kitchen.
11:00pm – Notice that Fitbit shows 9k. So, call Amma, walk and chat about Sridevi’s demise. Done with 10k in spite of missing Fitbit for morning gym 🙂
11:30pm – Sit down to draft this post!!

Publishing it at 12:00am 🙂